Managerial Routines & Organization Time Savers
It is important to establish routines within the classroom so that students know what to expect on any given day and can arrive and begin to participate with no delay.
Classroom Management
- Always keep your back to the wall. By doing this you are insuring that you have all students in view and are not missing any dangerous behaviors.
- Use cross- court encouragement. By calling across the playing area and praising a well played shot or a great athletic stance, you are not only making this students feel good about their performance, but you are also creating the impression that you see everything and are everywhere. This encourages the students to stay on task.
- Although you want to praise students across the playing area, if you are providing feedback of suggestions to improve a students playing abilities you want to do it while you are near to that student to avoid making them feel singled out or embarrassed.
- If you working in a large area, a whistle is the easiest way to get the attention of every one at once. By teaching the students what each whistle means (one means stop what your doing, two means bring it in, etc), you are able to quickly and efficiently stop and start your lessons when needed.
- Proximity Control - If you are having difficult with an individual or group of students disrupting your lessons, simply separate the group, or have the individual stand near you.
- Students want to play - Keeping explanations and demonstrations to a minimum will help to keep the students focused and on task throughout your lesson.
Organization
- Before the students arrived to class you should have the equipment needed for the days lesson spread out and easily accessible. This allows students to arrive, set up a net and begin playing while they wait for the rest of the class to arrive.
- When placing students in groups always have a plan. If you allow students to make their own groups or pairs you could end up with uneven teams, or someone feeling left out. If you know the students well enough you can quickly place them in pairs or groups by numbering them off. Other ways of grouping students we used for wall ball was to randomly give each student a picture of a pickle on it that matched pickles on the wall (instead of spots), this way each student randomly ends up with a pair and is already positioned in their own area, ready to play wall ball.
- Students should be taught as part of your routines to place all equipment not currently in use back in their designated areas.
- Have students assist in the set up and take down of all equipment used in the lesson. This will save time and also teach students how to responsibly treat the equipment.
- If space allows, no more than four students to a court. This way you can play doubles, or have each pair only use have of the court and play two singles games using the same net.