The Adult Learner
Setting classroom norms at the very beginning of a class is one of the best methods of classroom management. Hang a flip chart or poster, or dedicate a section of white board if you have the space, and list expected classroom behaviors.
Oscar, great topic. What an instructor does within the first 90 minutes of meeting with a new group of students or beginning a new term is critical and can set the stage for success or failure. Even for those situations where you feel you do not have time to cover the basics of classroom policies need to be reconsidered as the time spent early saves lots of time throughout the entire term.
James Jackson
It is amazing how some instructors seem to automatically understand this, yet others don't establish the ground rules and wonder why they spend so much time on classroom management issues. I am a department chair and recently hired a new faculty member. She started two weeks into a term and was placed with another faculty member to co-teach and get comfortable with the curriculum of the course she would ultimately be assigned to teach. In a conversation I had with her a few weeks later, she remarked how the other instructor must have "failed to set the tone" in the class from the beginning because he spent so much time "correcting" the same issues multiple times with different students. I wonder how much time he would have needed to spend on this throughout the term had his expectations been communicated Day 1. As a chair, I value her comments immensely. Being so new, she didn't have an axe to grind, she was simply stating what she observed. The other instructor is a veteran employee who seemingly was doing a good job, but now as I do formal observations, I'll be sure to look for patterns and see if the classroom issues that arise may be related to a shaky foundation for the class. With a bit of coaching, we will find a way to improve our faculty and our program once again.
Oscar, I completely agree. I personally have felt that the first impression a student gets from meeting the instructor can determine how much effort and participation a student is willing to put into the class. If they feel that they do not need to attend the class all the time and they'll still pass, a lot of the time that can be attributed to their impression of the instructor upon first meeting them.
I like to go over what I expect from them before the beginning of each course. I have a power point presentation that outlines the rules and procedure for our course. It seems to work very well.
I think laying out the rules and expectations at the start of the course shows respect for the adult student. This gives them the direction that they need to follow the classroom protocol and feel secure.
Interestingly you stated this was a veteran Instructor who seemed to be successful in the classroom as I am sure he was, and still is, in some ways. However what I have observed as a Program Director, that still teaches herself, veteran teachers who have good Management skills forget to keep that reinforcement as classes go on and then wonder why the class doesn't function as it used to.
I view the classroom as a community, so one of our first activities is to make the list of classroom rules/norms. I find this extremely helpful.
