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HIGHER ED TEACHING STRATEGIES FROM MAGNA PUBLICATIONS

classroom management techniques

Managing In-Class Learning Experiences in Flipped Classrooms

In this ongoing series focused on flipped and active-learning classrooms, we’re taking a deeper look into how to create successful learning experiences for students. We’ve examined how to encourage students to complete pre-class work, how to hold students accountable for pre-class work, and how to connect pre-class work to in-class activities. Now let’s focus on the challenge of managing the in-person learning environment.

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Practical Tips for Minimizing Cheating During Exams

There is nothing more disheartening and stressful than having to formally accuse a student of cheating on an exam. Was the student looking at his neighbor’s exam or just glancing away from his test for a mental break? Did the student ask someone how to fill out the name portion of the instruction page, or did she obtain an answer to a test question? Did the two students with identical written answers prepare study notes together or cheat off one another while someone was asking the professor a question during the exam?

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Classroom Management Tips for Regaining Control of the Classroom

Losing control of the classroom can be one of the most frustrating and intimidating experiences for both new and experienced teachers. Losing control can happen in several different ways. The most common would be where the class is distracted. This could be from a situation outside the classroom such as noisy conversation in the hall, or from an event elsewhere that students find out about, such as a rumor of the football coach getting fired. Losing control can also happen within the classroom, such as when one student monopolizes the discussion, or where there is a general lack of interest in the lecture, and many students are obviously not paying attention. Here are nine possible ways to regain students’ attention.

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Tips for Restoring Classroom Civility

Most people, when they conceive of hell, conjure up an image of a subterranean inferno to which sinners are forever consigned to an afterlife of endless suffering and punishment. But according to Dr. Gerald Amada, author of Coping with the Disruptive College Student: A Practical Model, hell also can take many temporal forms, especially in the world of academia.

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Why Being a Student Made Me a Better Teacher

Congratulations! You’ve accepted a position as a professor, instructor, or lecturer. Now comes the hard part. Unless you have spent your professional career studying curriculum, instruction, assessment, online learning, classroom management, and the many other topics with which you now face, you have stepped into a whole new world. Your subject matter expertise or technical knowledge that got you the job is simply not enough.

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Three Simple Keys to Effective Classroom Management

Fall semester is well underway at my institution. Prior to classes starting I had the opportunity to have lunch with a couple of fellow faculty members. During our lunch, we discussed many topics related to the upcoming term, but classroom management emerged as a common point of contention.

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Five Techniques for Dealing with Problem Students and Other Classroom Challenges

James is a first-year student who is enjoying the freedoms of being out from underneath his parents’ rules. He’s an average student academically, but is often a distraction in class. He perpetually texting or surfing the web, and gentle reminders from the professor to pay attention fail to keep him on task for long. His behavior is having a negative effect on other students in the class and the professor is reaching his breaking point. The final straw came when the professor noticed James was wearing headphones while taking an exam.

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Building Student Engagement: First Classes

In yesterday’s post I provided tips on how to use the syllabus to build student engagement. In this article I offer some suggestions on how to get students involved in the first few classes to ensure a more engaging course throughout the semester.

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