If you’re teaching online, then you know that classroom management is now a lot easier.
Distance learning may not be good for academic progress, or mental and physical health, but it’s virtually eliminated misbehavior.
It’s kept students from disrupting, interrupting, or ruining your lessons.
But the light at the end of the Covid tunnel is getting brighter every day. Time is nigh to dust off your classroom management skills and shore them up for the coming storm.
Because, if you were struggling with behavior before the pandemic, then you’ll struggle when it’s over. You see, classroom management doesn’t get better on its own.
In fact, believing any of the following three myths will keep you from ever improving.
Myth #1 – You can’t.
If you believe there is something innate in you that precludes you from having the peaceful, well-behaved class you desire, then you’re destined for a difficult and stressful career.
But great classroom management isn’t just for the lucky few. You don’t have to look a certain way. You don’t have to talk a certain way or have a certain personality type.
You don’t have to be of a certain generation.
Anyone with the right skills can take any group of students, no matter how difficult, and transform them into their dream class.
The truth is, there are no excuses. As soon as you accept this reality, a world of possibility opens to you.
Myth #2 – You’ll get better with experience.
Many teachers comfort themselves with the notion that the longer they teach, the better they’ll get. The opposite is true. Yes, you may see some improvement over your first year or two based on experience alone.
But it’s downhill thereafter.
Experience can be a good teacher, but only if you continually tweak and adjust and work your way to solutions. Most teachers, however, don’t have the time or energy to think through the successes and failures of each day.
They don’t have time to take notes, form hypotheses, test, draw conclusions, modify, and repeat day after day.
That’s our job here at SCM. We’ve done, and continue to do, the legwork for you. You can trust our advice because we have found the solutions. You just have to put them into practice.
Myth #3 – You need to give more effort.
For many, this is the toughest myth to overcome. The idea that the harder you work, the better you’ll get at classroom management is baloney.
It’s far more likely that you’ll spin your wheels or even lose ground.
Classroom management is a specialized skill. Meaning, you need the right knowledge applied in a specific way to improve. Do this, however, and you’ll get a lot better in a short amount of time.
In fact, teachers who use SCM exclusively radically transform their class in less than two weeks.
You Can Do This
The myths above are entrenched in the teaching profession. They keep scores of teachers miserable, often for their entire career.
They keep them in a perpetual state of having to pretend in front of their colleagues that they’re doing okay when in reality they’re dying. Their students are bored and ill-behaved and they’re stuck believing they can’t do anything about it.
But they’re so wrong.
Classroom management is a skill anyone can learn with the right set of principles and strategies.
But you first must stop believing the lies and instead take the information you find on this website, and in our books and guides, and put it into practice.
Don’t dabble. Don’t pick and choose. Don’t overthink it.
Just dive in and follow it like a paint by numbers Degas. It will change your life. I promise. We have thousands of success stories from all over the world. Anyone can do this.
You can do this.
Myths be damned.
If you haven’t done so already, please join us. It’s free! Click here and begin receiving classroom management articles like this one in your email box every week.
Hi, Michael. I’m not really understanding how experience prevents you from becoming a better teacher. I have to respectfully disagree here. I was hot mess my first two years teaching. Now I’m the go-to guy for tips on classroom management at my school. Can you possibly elaborate further on this topic. A majority of experienced teachers I’ve worked with rarely struggle with classroom management issues. The ones who do, however, are the new and less experienced teachers.
I can relate to this. But I also wonder if one reason experienced teachers rarely struggle with classroom management is that teachers who aren’t able to find their way an effective CM approach within their first few years self-select out of the profession — that is, they never make it to being experienced teachers because they are miserable and they leave teaching. So experience helps, but only when it leads you to adjust what you’re doing and to become more intentional and effective.
I agree that most of us get better with experience because I was an excellent classroom manager for pre-k through second. I moved to 4-5 last year and now I am looking closer at retirement every week. I feel like I am failing my students, their future teachers, and myself. Your articles are the only thing giving me any hope that I’ll pull out of this slump.
Hi Dan,
All three myths are based on the universally accepted science of improvement, and are not exclusive to teaching alone. For more on this topic, the book Peak: Secrets From The New Science of Expertise is a good resource.
Hi Michael,
I guess since you put it like that now it makes more sense. Thanks for the resource. Yes, I agree that the improvement process is similar to learning other new skills.
Also, to clarify what I feel Michael was saying, I will quote what he said after he said that experience won’t fix the problems. Michael said, “Experience can be a good teacher, but only if you continually tweak and adjust and work your way to solutions.” So, I take it to mean that if you use your experience to improve the way you are doing things, then experience can help, but only if you make a conscience effort to correct mistakes, which some experienced teachers may not do.
I recall a quote that goes something like ‘have you got 21 years of experience or are you repeating 1 year of experience 20 times. I know exactly what this means. I spent 20 years repeating the same mistakes. It wasn’t until I applied most of SCMs principles I improve more in a year or 2 than the previous 20. It’s a version of the 80/20 rule.
Dan, thanks for asking about this!
From personal experience, there are several teachers who have been teaching for 10+ years who still struggle severely with classroom management. Its strange, but I’ve seen many 2nd or 3rd year teachers (and this year, a first year teacher, thanks to Smart Classroom Management) have excellent and well behaved students, but many of my peers who have been teaching almost as long as I have, still struggle with insane behavior issues. Honestly, I don’t even know why they are still teaching. If I was treated as disrespectfully as they are, I would have quit by now! It really is true, even first year teachers (using the right methods) can surpass the “experience” of veteran teachers.
Thanks for addressing this question, Dan!
And thanks again Smart Classroom Management for helping teachers prevent burn out so our schools and kids can actually have teachers that love their job and stick around longer!
I think he is saying that teachers get better over the years because they keep adding on to what they’ve learned. You can get more experience, but not attempt to learn more. By becoming content. That’s what I took from it.
The way I understand it is that just because someone IS an experienced teacher does not mean he/she is automatically better at classroom management because of having taught all of those years. It takes diligence over those years to create and maintain standards to effectively operate your own classroom.
When will you discuss classroom management for substitute teachers who walk in cold to different classrooms nearly every day?
This is a great question! Last year I had the unique experience of teaching my special-education classroom 4 days a week and substituting at a very different public school (TK-8th) on the other day. I consider myself to be skilled and experienced but there have been days substituting that were unexpectedly dysfunctional. I would love some ideas on substitute classroom management and how to integrate what knowledge you do have of the regular teacher and student demographics to prevent classroom chaos or unnecessary power struggles.
I would REALLY love tips on classroom management for substitute teaching jobs, as well. It’s one of the hardest parts of that role.
I’ve been using SCM as a substitute, slightly adapted, of course, as needed for each class, and I’ve seen it start to transform classrooms in just 2 or 3 days! But I too would love more tips geared specifically towards subs. Sometimes I just need a confirmation that I’m on the right track.
(Regarding adaptation, I’m usually slightly more lenient than I would with my own class that’s used to me, since the students have entrenched habits from another teacher’s management style. For example, if a class is chatty, I don’t insist on complete silence during individual work as I do with a class that’s used to it, since I’m only with them short-term.)
Some tips I have are:
1) Establish empathy by mentioning in your introduction that you understand it can be uncomfortable not to have their regular teacher with them,but your goal is to help them still have a good day.
2) Use and explain the SCM rules & consequences system, except give them a chance to redeem themselves. I tell them 1 warning remaining by their names on the board by the end of the day will be erased, 2 warnings by the end of the day = giving their name to the teacher with an explanation of their misbehavior–but throughout the day, you can erase your warnings if you’ve only reached 2 by fixing the original problem–and 3 warnings = timeout the rest of the day, meaning working alone and being in timeout inside or against the wall during recesses, plus of course their name is given to the teacher with an explanation of misbehavior. Explain that your goal is to help them avoid warnings and find as many opportunities to erase as many warnings as you can, usually about the end of each period.
3) Help speed up lining up time exponentially by timing them and telling them the fastest time you’ve seen so far–without anyone’s running or slamming chairs (the best I’ve seen is 10 seconds!). Have them do it again if not satisfied. If there’s just one student purposely slowing everything down, don’t count them in the final time and give them a warning.
3) Try to find a reward for some motivational leverage, like possible free time at the end of the day if they finish all the work by a certain time.
4) If you have a troublemaker, help him/her, as Michael says, by not labelling them as such and treating them just like any other student. I’ve had at least two of them transformed in the past week just by doing this! (But with one I also had to have a one-on-one chat to give him a chance to explain his misbehavior before taking him to the office, and we ended up not going and working together so I could help him–he was great after that!)
5) Do everything with genuine love, thank them when appropriate, and the students will notice it and be asking when you’ll be back.
Hope this helps!
I really relate to these myths! I’ve been reading your posts for at least a couple of years and trying to implement your strategies, but I’m just like the kids….I could use some visuals and modeling too!
Yes, I very much agree! I think that within the science on education, that Implementation science is missing so the is a research to practice gap. We know what works, but can we implement the concepts effectively?
So…experienced …with hits and misses over time currently pondering every day about what is working and what isn’t I make a concerted effort to make appropriate adjustments what do I do today to face Monday ?
I have to disagree with your saying there are no misbehaviors during virtual learning. My county is using Google Classroom so I’m not able to mute a child. It is very distracting when a child is seen onscreen playing with a toy or jumping up and down on their bed so I still have to address misbehavior. Then I’ve also had parents get bent out of shape b/c I spoke to their child even though I spoke the same way I would’ve in the classroom. They are only getting upset b/c they’re child is getting called out within earshot of other parents. One parent told me I need more patience to work with young children LOL. This is my 24th year of teaching soooo I think I’ve learned patience.
You should have control to mute if you are initiating the meeting through the meets link of your Google classroom. You may also remove students after stating your expectations for the meet. They may rejoin once more but if removed a 2nd time are prevened from returning until a new meet is created by you. I hope this helps.
On Google Meets students are capable of unmuting themselves after I mute them. I’m recording meets though so I have record of their interruptions.
Thank you for the article. May I respectfully add Myth #4 – You need to rely on extrinsic methods.
In my experience working with Pre-Service teacher candidates during their Practicum, they often emulate their Associate teacher’s ineffective strategies to have classroom management (e.g. rewards with candies, pay off with marks/grades, excessive clapping to control noise, employing – “I like the way… thus USING a student to get control of the class, flashing lights, etc.)
Poor pedagogy! Their response – “Yeah, but it works!”
I absolutely agree. I have observed new teachers do extremely well and it has everything to do with classroom management. It is everything to being a strong teacher. When you have strong classroom management, this allows you to spend more time being a dynamic, interesting, and fun teacher. You free up time to plan, relax, and be less stressed. Good teaching has nothing to do with age, it has everything to do with creating your dream class.
I like the comment about extrinsic stimuli. Pandering to student using things like among us is a desperate move. So many defend the choice but good management and good teacher are more effective anyway. You will probably shun me for saying because its student interest. Few even know what the game is really about.
Thanks so much. I’ve never thought about it this way, you opened my eyes. Your advice helps me every day. Sometimes I have doubts and your reflections make me stronger.
I’m so sorry to post this here. I have been scouring the archives to find the article you wrote about assigning reading to students and I can’t find it! Could someone point me in the right direction?
It was about simply having students track the reading but not being required to do ANY kind of report or summary, just that they are reading for the sake of reading.
Thank you so much!
Hi Nathan,
Is this the article you’re looking for?
https://smartclassroommanagement.com/2018/03/24/read-aloud-behavior/
I actually find classroom management more difficult online. I have students who leave when they want to, shut off their camera so I can’t see what they are doing (despite reminding them that the rule is to keep their camera on) and citing they are having “technology” problems. Students who make faces in the camera, or are visually talking to someone else. Sometimes they have a pet or sibling on their laps and that becomes a distraction (this is after asking them to please put away the toys, pets and siblings.) I have had some students present inappropriate material during break out rooms. They show up late for class giving the excuse that the computer was “lagging.” I have students who I know struggle with math and all of a sudden are getting great grades on test. I am sure they are using another tab to do the computation. Writing emails to parents is generally useless as they back up their kids even if they are nowhere near them. Give me back my in-person classroom! In-person class management was much easier for me. I could help my students stay on track and be less disruptive in class. Help for online management?
I agree with Susan!!! Virtual classroom management is very difficult! Many times things are happening in the home, which is totally out of my control, so the students are distracted or disengaged!!!!
I can’t wait to go back in person!
Kathy