Classroom Management & Use of Questioning

After ending my 10th week of teaching, I definitely feel and can see to an extent that numerous areas
of my teaching skills are developing and improving, but obviously there are a certain aspect where I
will further try to improve. I feel my questioning skills have improved greatly and that I have begun to
use redirection, prompting, and mixing between higher and lower order questions more effectively.
Effective questioning is a key part of becoming an influential teacher as they are not only a good way
of engaging a class, along with preventing indiscipline but also of getting students to think for
themselves and to assess how much of the information is being retained by the students.

“Good questioning creates full student participation and checks and corrects everyone’s learning.
For these reasons and others, Ofsted are rightly very concerned to see questioning done well.”
(Geoff Petty 2009)

By trying to draw students into a conversation on certain topics (especially theory) it gives them a
chance express their views and further develop on each other ideas which engages the students by
making them all involved and keep their attention for longer. However, I’m aware that there is still a
need for improvement with my questioning skills. After my observation from a coordination teacher I
was informed that I need to give a little bit more time after posing the question and picking someone
to answer. This will allow students to adjust to the question that’s ask and allow them to develop a
better understanding of the question asked.

In terms of my classroom management, I felt was quite good up to this point, there was a mutual
respect between the students in each class group and I, bar one or two minor incidents, but this
week with my second-year groups, issues have begun to arise. Pupils who have been working and
engaging well in class have begun to become disruptive influences which as affected the flow and
congruency of my lesson having to constantly stop class to correct these students. Especially during
class discussions and demonstrations students can become boisterous and find it hard to settle. This
has begun to get to me and really is a source of frustration for me. I’ve tried dealing with these
disruptions and misbehaviours in class by using “preventative” approaches such as talking/reasoning
with individuals after class, questioning during discussions and demonstrations, eye contact,
proximity, but these measures haven’t always been successful. I feel like I will have to state my
authority next week and state that there will be repercussions if these misbehaviours continue. My
next step I feel, in an accordance with the school discipline code, would be to sign their student
journals with a note explaining the misbehaviours continuously carried out which they will have to
get both their Year Head and parents to sign. This route I’ve not had to, nor do I want to take but the
past few lessons I’ve been left no other choice.

With my co-operating teachers I’ve tried to discus and explore how or why this has just recently
become such an issue? I also spent quite an amount of time reflecting over these previous lessons,
questioning myself what I could be doing wrong. E.g.

 What did I change or do differently in the previous lessons?

 What caused these students to become so disruptive suddenly during lessons?

 Is the work allocated during class too easy or hard for the students?
Some of these arising problems I feel can be or may be attributed back to myself. Maybe after letting
certain minor student misbehaviours slip in previous lessons, some students have taken notice of
this and seen it has an invitation to mess in class without the fear of penalties or repercussions?
Possibly being too friendly with the students perhaps I have now become less of an authority figure
in the classroom and more of an equal in the class and students now feel they can push past the
rules of the classroom set by me and do as they now please.
Either or, in my next lesson I will have to clearly state again what isn’t acceptable behaviour during
class and clearly state that repercussions will follow from now on & no further misbehaviour will be
tolerated.
“The key to establishing good discipline in the classroom lies in pupils accepting your authority to
manage their behaviour and their progress in learning. Learning activities cannot take place
effectively in a classroom full of 30 pupils unless you are given authority to control, manage and
direct what is going on, as and when appropriate. All pupils recognise this from their earliest days
in school, but is important to note that this authority is given to you to act as a manager of their
learning rather than as a power relationship” (Kyriacou 1998, p.82)