Classroom Environment and Routines

Classroom Environment
Setting up a positive environment in your classroom is key for effective communication between the teacher and students, and even student to student communication. The environment in the classroom sets up how comfortable students will feel with expressing themselves. How you arrange desks, decorate walls, and even what materials you have in the classroom speak volumes to the type of environment you want to create. The way the teacher interacts with her/his students sets up much of the communication for the class. If the teacher takes the time to individually talk with each student and get to know them, then the students will more likely be comfortable in the classroom and excited about learning. Also, the way the teacher talks to the students sets a tone. If the teacher laughs and builds up the students, or if the teacher is serious, or heaven forbid, the teacher talks down to the students, this all shows the students what's acceptable, what's expected, and what the teacher feels about them. I directly correlate seating arrangements to my mood about classes I had in elementary school. Usually the teachers who I thought were mean and cold were the teachers who had us sitting in rows and columns and rarely changed seating arrangements. Now, anytime I see a classroom that is arranged that way, I immediately want to move all the desks together and create a friendlier environment.

Classroom Routines
It is so important to be flexible while also sticking to routines. Teachers cannot always remind each student about every little thing they should or should not be doing. That is why it is so important to teach expectations to your students and go over procedures thoroughly. This is a great way to get students to be self-starters and interested in their own learning by being responsible for it. There is so little time in the classroom and usually more students than you'd like to have, so it is hard not to want to just do things for them and get it done faster. Students do not learn that way, they need to do it for themselves and learn to become autonomous. When I was in the classroom teaching, I taught an assignment that the students had done something like it before, so I was not too worried about going over procedures. That was a mistake. It was a carousel activity of sorts, and I put the cards in a different order than they were used to and that caused chaos. Moral of the story: make sure your students are clear about expectations and that they know the procedures clearly.