“I do not believe classroom management has anything to do with the topic in
the classroom – I think that issues arise when there are “breaks” in the
momentum – ……….”
This (see all that I copied in the full version of this entry) was written by a very experienced teacher. Certainly the notion of momentum makes sense. OTOH, we might question the focus on grammatical form. On the whole, I [see below for continuation of my comments]
“any time you are transitioning from one task to the next and
you’re busy but the students are not. Learning how to master a smooth
momentum strategy can take a little time, and I think it does take a lot of
dedicated investment, because you have to go into class each day prepared
for every possible “break.”
If the students don’t know what to do, or what’s coming up next and they
have the chance to talk, they will. It’s usually not because they want to
be disruptive, but because they haven’t gotten clear enough direction &
guidance for the next activity/segment of class. I recommend putting 5-10
ideas in your “toolbox” that you can pull out anytime you know you’ve got
to transition – it can be as simple as “go find the first 5 verbs in the
text of the story and ID tense & number” or as complex as “work with a
neighbor and create a set of foolproof directions for how to conjugate a
Latin verb in the 3rd singular”. And if you’re not using an agenda daily,
you will find instant benefits from doing so. The rest is in my previous
post.”
What troubles me is exactly what the writer recommends: that there be no opportunity for off-task talking. Does anyone see a problem with this?