Non-verbal (mostly!) Classroom
Management Strategies:
Tools for Teachers
Overview: Nonverbal Classroom
Management
Focus on methods within 5 major strategies:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Taking charge
Using SPACE communication
Setting procedures
Expanding attention span
Managing at-risk students
Goals:
• To learn and practice a few specific nonverbal
techniques
• Share in our group’s wealth of experience
D
Advantages of nonverbal
communication in the classroom:
• Saves teacher time,
breath, distress
• Gives the teacher more
flexibility
• Promotes “flow,” a
calmer mood
• Increases productivity
• Helps students feel safe
and secure (the base of
Maslow’s hierarchy)
• More trust between
students and teacher
• Students know what to
expect
• Increased teacherstudent rapport***
Good classroom management
provides the foundation for learning!
“You don’t learn until
you’re happy, safe, and
comfortable.”
Robert Marzano
Esteem
Belonging
in “Dimensions of Learning”
Safety
Physiological
Nonverbal messages—
what are some of yours?
• Opening
• Closing
•
B
Test #1: What are the instructions?
Silent Classroom Instructions:
the 3-min. Challenge
• Get in groups of three.
• Choose a sender, a receiver,
and an observer.
• When I say “GO”, the
sender will give a nonverbal
instruction.
• ASAP the receiver
verbalizes the instruction.
• Once agreed that the
receiver is correct (sender
nods head), the observer
writes down the instruction.
• Keep going as fast as you can,
for as many instructions as
possible in 3 minutes.
• Demonstration
• Ready, set, GO
• Observers share!
D
Strategy #1: Taking Charge
Taking charge:
the most important 20 seconds
• Each time you shift class activities, you take the stage
again.
• If the teachers STANDS STILL for 20 seconds after
releasing the class to do seatwork, more students
will go ON task independently.
• Auditory students (1-5 in every class) need that time
to replay the instructions in their heads need to learn
to do this silently. The 20 seconds gives them time to
do this. (An important skill to master for joining the
workforce someday!)
B
Strategy # 2—Space Communication:
Map Your Room
• Designate several locations for one action only
(an example follows)
• Spatial memory is powerful—very Pavlovian! (car
example)
• Teach kids what each location means—and then
use the system daily.
• Repeat, repeat, repeat!
D
Post homework assignments in the SAME PLACE
every day—ideally, in the upper left corner from the
student’s viewpoint—the “remembering” spot
B—mito-macarena, kinesthetic memory example
Strategy #3 Setting Procedures for
Conducting Class
• Teacher only
speaking
• Raise your hand
to speak
•Speak out in turn
*** Sharing:
What are some nonverbal ways YOU have used to
communicate which mode the class will be in?
Strategy #4 Expanding Attention
Span: Syllabic Breaks
…this is when we can
look at the ex---ponents
and take a shortcut by…
• A famously freaky syllabic break:
ANTICI-------PATION!!!!!!!!!!!!
D
#4 cont’d—
expanding student attention span
“Silent lessons”—several formats
possible:
Overhead projector
Charade
With or without narrator
Others?
• B
Strategy #4 cont’d—Expanding Attention
Span, Re-establishing Control
• Grounding
–
–
–
–
–
Examples:
Museums
Field trips
Outdoors
Cleanups
• Standing on chair
• Bells, lights, whistles
***Share: Favorite crowd
control methods?
Strategy #5:
Interventions for At-Risk Students
1. YOUR ATTITUDE You are the at-risk
student’s best and sometimes only hope.
TODAY IS THE DAY!!!
2. Always give choices: Stand in hall or go to
principal’s office? NON-CONFRONTATIONAL!
3. Pair them carefully LD and BD students
can’t work with more than one partner.
4. Planned ignoring: Only respond when they
behave appropriately
See handout for dozens more practical strategies:
“Interventions for At-Risk students”
This concludes our presentation
on non-verbal communication.