This article offers a technique that teachers can use in their classroom to create a good learning enviroment. This technique involves isolating habitually disruptive students so that other students can learn.
Need Some Help?
Do your students hang from the rafters? Do the other teachers on the hallway complain as you have the loudest classroom on the hallway? If your class appears to act more like a circus than students engaged in a learning environment, then you may want to change the way you go about bringing order to your classroom.
Personally, I do not think that learning can take place until your classroom is disciplined enough for that exchange of information to occur. I understand that sometimes teachers do activities in their classroom that encourage students to interact with other students, thus creating noise, etc. However, I am primarily referring to students who are out of control in a learning environment, one in which a teacher is attempting to instruct his or her students.
Every Class has that One Student
Every teacher loves to have that perfect class in which everything seems to be running smoothly until Mr. or Mrs. Troublemaker walks in. Now, you have that one student who will disrupt and disturb your class constantly and habitually. It is to the point in which the other students are politely asking the troublemaker to avoid interrupting their learning experience. If you have this situation, I have an effective measure that you can take to quiet the disturbance. Isolation or alienation is a practice that I use in my classroom to make that one habitually disruptive student behave.
Isolate "Problem" Students
I have two tables in the front corner of my classroom, and students who will not behave generally find themselves staring at a wall. The students end up sitting with their backs to their classmates, so if they are going to disrupt, they are going to work incredibly diligently at disrupting class. Anyhow, when a student is removed from the environment in which they feel comfortable, they are less likely to disrupt.
When I move students to the front of my room, there are no other students around, so all they can focus on is their work in front of them. When I am using my SmartBoard or my dry-erase board, I will let students move so that they can see the information that is being presented.
Students Get the Message
Now, after a couple of weeks of this, most students will get the message. I generally move my students back and allow them to sit with others as long as they can behave. However, the minute they cross the line, they return to the front table.
When students learn that they do not have anyone to act out for or to show off for, they will generally straighten up fairly quickly. Eventually the student learns self-discipline in the classroom.