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Show page 16 leSSOIlS, Spring 2005 CTLE CORNER Classroom Management From Day One: Put Out Fires Before They Start BY KIM WELCH As a faculty developer, I am asked to observe classes all around campus. It's fun to watch people, and people watching in a classroom setting is particularly interesting. As I sit in these classrooms around mid-semester, I find that scrutinizing student behavior informs me a great deal about the instructor: student actions/reactions in a classroom setting usually have a direct connection to the teacher. The instructor's demeanor, enthusiasm, size, voice, objectives and more have a direct impact on how students act in the classroom. Unfortunately for us as instructors, many of these students make some of their most negative judgments on the very first day. If we can steer clear of some of the negative experiences that the students have at the beginning of the course, many of our classroom management fires will be squelched well before they fan into disasters. The following are examples of what might happen on the first day and what we can do to prevent our smoldering students from bursting into flame. Let's start with a possible scenario for the first day of class: The instructor rushes in, a little flustered on the first day after fight ing for copy machine time to print out the syllabus and realizing that the class starts at 8:35 a.m. instead of 8:45 a.m. (who came up with this odd schedule, anyway?). The instructor just returned from a conference trip to the Netherlands and hasn 't quite readjusted to the time zone: 8:35 came too early. The class starts to fill up. Whoa, wait a minute. Fill up and beyond! Students seem to be multiplying from the corners. Many of them are already waiting at the front of the class to talk to the teacher about adding the course. All the instructor can do is reflect on the nice, warm bed he left just to experience this chaos. Luckily, it's the first day, and none of the students expect to be kept long on the first day, right? The instructor quickly passes out his syllabus, realizing he doesn 't have enough. He tells the class his name, rank and a brief bio, and gives a 10-minute spiel on the Introduction to [Name of subject]. He then lets everyone know he'll work out the classroom capacity problems with the secretary, and he 'II bring more syllabi next time. And with that, everyone is excused. Well, the students came to learn, right? Some of you might think that the students didn't learn much on this first day of class, but learn they did. As James E. Zull suggests in his book The Art of Changing the Brain (2002): Just because your learner didn't understand what you hoped he would, does that mean he learned nothing? ... It happens in school all the time. A student may not learn history in our history class, but he may learn that his teacher thinks history is interesting. Or he may learn that his teacher dislikes students, or that he is just overwhelmed. The student has an experience of some sort. His brain processes that experience, and ultimately he acts on it in some way. His action may be to close the book and look out the window, but that is because his experience has taught him that he doesn't need to listen, or that he doesn't care to listen. So, let's read the minds of these students as they walk out of this particular class: Dan: Cool, I was hoping we 'd get out early. I was afraid he was going to drag on and on. Travis: Wait a minute. This syllabus doesn't even |