Effective Environments
Creating and maintaining an effective learning environment is crucial in ensuring that students have the best chance to succeed. Not only do effective environments help classes run more efficiently, but they also encourage students to feel more comfortable in completing work and taking risks.
One way that I create and maintain an effective environment is through the use of a seating chart. I strategically seat students in areas of the room that will fulfill their learning needs. In addition, I carefully seat students in pairs that will work well together. My primary goal of seating students in pairs is to ensure that each is sitting with someone that they feel comfortable working with. This is especially important for English Learners and shy students, who might lack the confidence necessary to participate in discussion or classwork. A strong seating chart also offers students with physical disabilities (such as visual or auditory impairment) the necessary accommodations to be successful. Another way that I create and maintain effective environments is by creating a set of class guidelines at the beginning of the term. I ask the students three questions: “How can you respect each other?” “How can you respect me?” and “How can you respect yourself?” We use the answers they come up with to create our class guidelines. These guidelines include a consistent phone policy, bathroom policy, rules for talking publicly and privately, and much more. I’ve found that when the students create the policies and procedures themselves, they tend to “own” them more than when I do. This is useful for classroom management throughout the year, as I inform a student, “You’re breaking the rules/policies that you created yourself.” Once created, these guidelines go directly into the syllabus, which both students and parents sign at the beginning of the term. Finally, I also create effective environments through the use of extensive class discussion. Allowing students to discuss their thoughts and answers before presenting them to the entire class lowers the affective filter. Students are likelier to feel confident sharing an idea that they have had time to flesh out and check for correctness with a partner. This is frequently done in my classroom through think-pair-shares or quick group discussions. After a short discussion, students will either be cold called or volunteer themselves to share their opinion. Giving students the chance to share with each other also slowly erodes their fear of being wrong, thus creating a culture of error that encourages risk taking. Many of the most successful discussions I have experienced in the classroom have come when students feel confident enough to share their thoughts and ideas without fear of being wrong. I use pair shares to give students the chance to brainstorm ideas, then share out after first sharing with a partner in a lower-risk setting. ![]()
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