Learning objectives
After studying this chapter, you should be able to:
• Demonstrate an understanding that classroom management practices are historically, socially and culturally contextualised
• Display an elementary understanding of different theoretical approaches to classroom management
• Demonstrate a foundational understanding of managing the classroom for diverse learners
• Engage with frameworks and plans for organising and managing your particular learning environment
This and Chapter 9 are about classroom management. In this chapter, we lay the groundwork by introducing broad conceptual and theoretical understandings about classroom management. Chapter 9 then focuses on more specific strategies of engaging and motivating students in the classroom.
Introduction
Teachers work across a diverse range of learning environments in an array of different contexts, sectors and settings. Therefore, teachers need to organise and manage particular learning environments according to a number of factors, including the age range, learning needs and number of students they are teaching, the nature of the learning context, and the aims and purpose of the teaching and learning being undertaken. The first section of this chapter explores this theme, and provides insight into how classroom management practices are historically, socially and culturally contextualised.
In the second section of the chapter, we introduce some of the theoretical principles and practical issues associated with establishing and maintaining positive, supportive, safe and inclusive learning environments that encourage all students to participate fully in educational opportunities. Theories are of little use in classroom management if they rest at the level of abstract thought, and therefore we explore ways in which theory can be enacted in practice across learning contexts.
Managing the classroom environment, particularly in relation to addressing diverse student behaviours, has been shown to be an area of major concern – often the greatest concern – for many preservice and beginning teachers (Mayer et al., 2015), and this has been the case for many years (see, for example, Veenman, 1984). This concern of teachers is understandable, given the importance of the learning environment to the achievement of student learning outcomes. Where students are off-task, disruptive or in other ways disengaged, their learning, and often that of others, can be adversely affected.
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