Effective Teaching and Classroom Management

Classroom management is influenced by demeanor, voice, and delivery by faculty. This helps to encourage voluntary compliance and good educational exchange. It is important for faculty to consider audience, the classroom surroundings, and the goals, backgrounds, and development influences from past educational experiences.

Classrooms are not natural settings. They are placed together, and it is important to influence this artificial environment and foster a sense of connectivity between faculty and students. Students focus on faculty expectations and associated boundaries. Transparency by faculty along the lines of syllabi, rubrics, and expectations are critical. Expectations should be rigorous, yet realistic. Students learn at different paces and have different motivations. They tend to have both academic and non-academic needs. Faculty are challenged to balance cookie-cutter assessments and pedagogy versus modifications that are tailored to needs and environment of students. This where teacher is more of an art as opposed to to a science. The best laid plans can often malfunction from term to term due to variables that are difficult to identify and subsequently adjust. Professional presence and appearance, credibility, rule setting, clear expectations, and appropriate interactions are critical. Instructors should understand that in the classroom they are the face of the organization--especially because faculty have the greatest frequency of contact with students.

The learning environment should be structured, but it should be loose enough to allow for adjustments based on student feedback and need. Classroom Assessment Techniques (CAT's) can help to inform both. Instructional design should consider student typologies, achievement levels (high v. low), and student behavior manifestations on assessments and classroom behaviors. Faculty should consider lesson plans that will motivate students and incorporate their perspectives into the class. In design, faculty should think from the perspective of the student versus their perspective as the expert. Translation--how can I communicate rigorous material in laymen's terms that will facilitate deep understanding. Typical student typologies: high achievers, know it alls, johnny come lately, Zzzzzzz, chatty cathy, willy wonka (always carries food), text messaging accomplished, hygienically-challenged, the playboy, lady gaga (dresses provocatively), the perennial (show up on occasion), quiet, and quiet-confrontational.

Within this dynamic, faculty should maintain professionalism, manage self, diffuse and neutralize, and be respectful. Be aware that students are clients--treat them as such. Students want faculty to drop the book, stop being boring, be human/smile, be expressive, and use board/powerpoint sparingly. Grade papers efficiently and return in a timely fashion. When students are late, decenter self. Recognize motivation may be due to responsibilities or situations beyond their control. When students are withdrawn, recognize that the classroom environment may be intimidating to them.
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Effective classroom management and teaching strategies focus on students' strengths. All students want to succeed--but where they want to succeed varies. Major causes of disruptive behavior include anger, boredom, frustration. confusion/miscommunication, unrealistic expectations, and poor classroom management.

Faculty mindsets are important. They should view each semester as one of renewal, where they flush out the prior term and look forward to the possibilities rather than focus on the failures. Re-establish the goal that all students will learn and be retained. Faculty should view themselves as facilitators rather than teachers. This will shift the focus to learning rather than teaching. View students as allies, gems in the rough, and they are uninformed rather than malicious. In moments of challenge, use the available support structures that exist.

Faculty behavior is important. Be accessible and approachable. Learn the students' names and modify classroom setup to facilitate sharing. Avoid rows; use circles or group-based seating arrangements. Model the behaviors expected from students. Create a sense of community so students feel comfortable sharing. Consider distribution of Gardner's multiple intelligences. (See http://www.tecweb.org/styles/gardner.html) Try to structure class meetings with mini-lectures that take up a few moments. Emphasize class discussion and work to include all students. Try to provide personal anecdotes that relate to the lesson.

Faculty can build student self-confidence in various ways. Let them know they will likely earn the grade they are determined to achieve if they do the work (self-fulfilling prophecy). Provide the option for students to resubmit work. Use techniques that can help students visualize success. Preventative strategies include the communication of high, reasonable goals with due dates along with rationales. Commit essential information to writing. Define the consequences for violations.

Faculty can encourage student involvement through controlled shared ownership opportunities of class. For instance, allow students to deliver lessons, create and run instructional games, create assignment scoring rubrics, and create exams based on Bloom's Taxonomy.

Transitioning from Industry to the Classroom: Building Faculty to Become Better Teachers and Learners

There are a multitude of transitional challenges as faculty enter higher ed., especially a proprietary institution such as Bryant & Stratton College. These include assessment, ensuring pedagogy focuses on active versus passive, lecture-based classrooms, and acculturation into career education. Challenges also include the high-paced environment, the spectrum of student needs and academic preparedness, negotiating the generational gaps and associated differences in teaching and learning needs, and the ability to tie back learning to the real world career environment students aspire towards. Faculty members cite various motivations for this transition to higher education. Most cite a love of learning and an interest in teaching students who will contribute to the careers of tomorrow.

Strategies exist to help new faculty transition, though. These include enculturating the faculty into the college culture, its mission, and its values. Provide instruction on how faculty can develop habits of highly effective teachers, and offer guidance on effective strategies to use technology and other techniques that enhance teaching and learning. Industry experience is important, yet higher education requires teaching rather than presenting. Content expertise must be balanced with effective strategies that involve students actively in the class. Teaching methodologies and classroom management techniques that faculty learn must be research-based. There should be a balance between theoretical underpinnings of the technique as well as practical methodologies that faculty can use to incorporate these techniques.

Many colleges require faculty to attend new faculty orientations and faculty development workshops. New faculty must attend orientations within first few terms of employment. They must also attend continuing faculty development initiatives to continue calibrating them towards effective teaching strategies. Also, new faculty transition more efficiently when the college provides best practice syllabi, assessments, and lesson plans. Assessment should be summative and formative, and feedback opportunities through assessment should occur frequently and should begin early in the term. They should complete assessments throughout the term that vary in form and scope. New faculty feedback requests longer training sessions (three hours) and follow up opportunities that provide more granular faculty development workshops about teaching strategies and assessment.

Mentors are also critical to faculty development. Bozeman and Freely argue this is awesome an informal activity that transmits knowledge, social capital, and psychosocial support. Communication events are usually face-to-face and occur in sustained periods of time. The mentor has significant relevant knowledge, wisdom, or experience and a protege who is perceived to have less (2007, p.731). When mentors establish a good relationship, classroom observations by the mentor become a more comfortable experience.

It is important for faculty to view observations and performance reviews as an opportunity to learn--both by the faculty member and the observer. When feedback is grounded in theory, principles, and best practices, both parties learn and improve their teaching effectiveness. It is about helping faculty rather than catching faculty. During the feedback process, faculty should understand their effectiveness impacts the Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) and therefore the college's ability to meet the vision and strategic plan of the college.

Suggested Teaching Methodologies Workshop Topics

• Characteristics of highly effective teachers
• Building Connections with students
• Establishing a Culture for Learning in the First Weeks
• Techniques for Monitoring Understanding
• Increase Student Participation
• Means to Organize Effective Instruction