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This video is the other part of the story (part two of the video posted under engaging students of today) on using technology to engage our students when we teach. As teachers we need to be life long learners and implementing technology is part of that. Using technology in the classroom will engage our students and hopefully result in fewer classroom disruptions that require management strategies!

When you feel like you are loosing them, get them standing and doing a Brain Break. They take only a minute or two, need no real preparation or fancy supplies and they can contribute huge dividends to your classroom management by allowing students to re-engage after a mental shift. They can be done with students of any age, usually make you laugh and challenge your brain often by crossing your mid-line thus engaging both hemispheres. They have even been suggested for use during exams and standardized tests. They are backed up by some action research I found on http://abllab.com/ which even shows some cool brain scans illustrating the difference in mental activity when someone was active right before or not! Definite food for thought to do more than your DPA to keep them engage, learning and not creating mischief!

Consistency, consistency, consistency! This article outlines some great tips on how to create a classroom environment that is under control, but also equally engaged. There is an emphasis on the need for consistency in terms of addressing behaviour, right from the start of the school year. "If other students see that you are serious about enforcing your rules, they will be less likely to test your limits. And test they will." Consistency in this case does not only refer to when you address negative behaviour, but also HOW. Students should feel that you're targeting the behaviour and not them. The article also provides some insight into how classroom set-up can affect behaviour (and how changing things around can better it), how using a variety of teaching strategies can help in managing your class, and how it is okay to ask for help in dealing with students with recurring problematic behaviours.

As new teachers we spend lots of time worrying about practicing good classroom management strategies but if we focus more energy on teaching using what is important to students in this digital age we might not have as many classroom issues to deal with. This short video reminds us to be aware of how we are teaching our students not just what we are teaching them. If our first thought is always, "is this genuinely engaging for my students,or could I make it more relevant to them" I think we will all become better teachers.

The cofounder of this program claims that it is a "more advanced classroom management" system. For those interested in reform methods this seems like an interesting way to try and keep the class on task. When you need to gain student attention you say "Class" and the students say "Yes", however you are encouraged to mix it up and say it in different ways. The whole program is based on student engagement which I believe is one of the most important things when it comes to classroom management.

Some interesting ideas - some that I'd want to use all year round! Learning centres, co-operative learning, literature circles, outside learning, team challenges. Some great ideas to keep kids motivated with learning!

This site has a list of 41 links that are topics relating to classroom management. It is put together by The Teacher Development Network. The site is organized similar to our Diigo group but more concise. There are small descriptions of most of the links. Some examples of topics are: Classroom management plans; Bullying in school and what to do about it; Conflict Resolution; Managing classroom behaviour; Discipline techniques that backfire; Classroom leadership and Engaged learning. This would be a great site to check out for a wide range of classroom management ideas, as well as behaviour and discipline plans.

A fascinating experiment in which Sugata Mitra attempts to solve the conundrum that the best teachers and schools aren't present where they are needed most in the world. He installs a computer in highly impoverished areas and gives students unsupervised access to the web. What he found was that children the world over have an inherent desire to learn and will latch onto their interests and teach themselves with little to no need for supervision. Just goes to show that if students are engaged in the material, the teacher need not focus on discipline and can instead serve to stimulate students' inherent curiosity.

This site outlines eight points about what teachers can do to keep their students engaged and, therefore, quiet. While it doesn't target specific strategies, perse, it does hit upon some broader practices. There are also some great links such as "How do I Keep My Students Away from Me?" posted before the article's main text.

Ontario Certified Teacher, Elona Hartjes (winner of a Teacher of Distinction Award), talks in her blog about some of the research behind using music in the classroom to promote student productivity. She relates it towards personal audio devices (ie. ipods) but this information is easily translateable to playing a CD in your classroom as well. If you are curious, she also has many more music related blogs, and other useful insights for teachers.