4 valuable strategies for managing student behavior

Have you had a hard time managing the behavior of some of your students? You’re not alone! Many teachers in America and worldwide have faced a similar challenge for ages. A recent study found that disruptive behavior in the academic setting interferes with the teaching process and the student learning environment. This shows that teachers face the problem of bad behavior by students, which can affect teachers’ ability to teach effectively. The good news is that you can efficiently manage students' bad, disruptive behavior using simple yet highly effective strategies.

But why should you deal with students' bad behavior? 

The answer is simple: effective behavior management improves the learning experience for students. Beyond that, managing student behavior in the classroom is essential because it has many multiplier effects not just for the student but also for teachers, parents, the school, and society. 

As an educator, managing student behavior is essential to creating a positive and productive learning environment. Effective behavior management strategies can help you prevent disruptive behaviors, establish clear expectations, and promote positive behaviors. So whether you’re an online tutor or teach in a physical classroom, managing students' behavior should be of major concern to you.

This article explores practical tips and strategies to help you manage student behavior and record better learning outcomes in your classroom.

What do student behaviors mean?

Student behavior refers to students' actions, reactions, and conduct in various educational settings. This includes their interactions with teachers, peers, and their environment. Student behavior can be positive or negative. Also, multiple factors, namely student age, developmental stage, cultural background, and personal experiences, influence students’ conduct.

Effective behavior management strategies for students aim to promote positive behaviors and reduce negative behaviors in students. These strategies include setting clear expectations and boundaries, reinforcing positive behaviors, providing consequences for negative behaviors, and fostering a positive and supportive learning environment. Effective student behavior management can create a safe and productive learning environment that benefits both the students and you.

Why is it important to manage student behaviors?

Here are five reasons why you should effectively manage your students’ behavior:

• It promotes a positive and safe learning environment

Managing student behaviors is a crucial aspect of creating a positive learning environment. According to a study by the National Center for Education Statistics, During the 2015-2016 school year, a higher percentage of elementary public school teachers than of secondary public school teachers reported being threatened with injury (11 vs. 9 percent) or being physically attacked (9 vs. 2 percent) by a student from their school. Effective behavior management strategies help create a positive and safe learning environment where students can succeed academically. 

• It reduces disruptions

Disruptive student behavior can distract and disrupt other students, hindering their learning ability. Managing student behavior helps to reduce disruptions and promote a more focused learning environment.

• It prepares students for success in the future

By learning how to manage their behavior positively, students develop valuable life skills to help them succeed in their future academic and professional pursuits. Applying strategies that improve students’ behavior, like teacher praise, can reduce problematic behaviors among students.

• It fosters emotional development and social growth

Encouraging positive behaviors such as respect, responsibility, and cooperation helps students develop essential social and emotional skills for success in their future endeavors. Positive teacher-student interactions enhance learners’ motivation, learning achievement, and engagement (Henry and Thorsen, 2018).

• It enhances teacher-student relationships

By setting clear expectations and boundaries and providing positive reinforcement, teachers can build positive relationships with their students, leading to increased engagement and academic success.

Enhancing student behavior management strategies: Weighing pros and cons

Effectively managing students' behavior requires the application of tried-and-tested strategies. It's essential to understand the advantages and drawbacks of each approach, ensuring the most suitable method is utilized. In this article, we explore four strategies for managing student behavior.

1. Encourage parents to be involved in managing student behavior

Successful behavior management involves forging partnerships with parents. Rather than only contacting parents when problems occur, reach out to commend their child's positive behavior. This approach fosters rapport and creates a supportive connection between home and school, potentially decreasing unfavorable behavior among students

Tips for Success:

• Encourage parents to participate in their child's education and behavior management.

• Consistently communicate positive changes in children's behavior to parents.

• Educate parents on effective ways or techniques to reinforce their child's behavior at home.

Sharing valuable information with parents is a highly comprehensive and practical approach. It can produce good results within a shorter time, that is, help manage student behavior in the classroom faster.

Pros: 

• By fostering a supportive relationship between home and school, rapport with students can be strengthened, leading to improved behavior.

• Involving parents in their child's behavior management can result in more efficient and favorable outcomes.

Cons: 

• Certain parents may be unresponsive or lack the time or resources to participate in their child's behavior management process actively.

• Building positive relationships with parents with negative experiences with the school or teachers may be difficult.

Recommended:

Interacting with parents can be made easy and convenient with the help of automation. To simplify the process and avoid it being time-consuming, try using a user-friendly tool like Workee. It allows you to communicate with all your students' parents seamlessly through their preferred channels, like video calls or chat, keeping them updated on their child's academic progress and behavior in school. Doing so saves your time and gets the work done effectively.

2. Create engaging and interactive lessons

Creating engaging and stimulating lessons is an effective way to prevent disruptive behavior from students in the classroom. This technique involves structuring activities involving and engaging students throughout the class. Various teaching methods, such as interactive and practical exercises, can help keep students interested and focused. Teachers can promote a positive classroom culture and prevent disruptive behavior by creating an engaging learning environment. For younger students, it is advisable to incorporate games and plenty of activities in learning activities. Using current events or famous cultural examples for older students can help keep the lessons relatable.

Pros: 

• Engaging and stimulating lessons can prevent disruptive behavior among students because they remain interested and focused.

• Interactive and practical activities are effective in enhancing learning and memory retention.

• Teachers can create an engaging and relatable learning environment.

Cons: 

• Creating engaging lessons can be time-consuming and may require additional resources. 

• Some students may not respond to certain types of activities or may struggle with certain subjects regardless of how you present and dramatize them. 

3. Model and reinforce positive behaviors

As a teacher, you should model the behaviors you want to see in your students. Be sure to explain why the student is receiving recognition to reinforce the importance of the behavior. This can be a powerful motivator and encourages other students to follow suit.

To apply this technique to manage student behavior in the classroom, illustrate positive behaviors to your students. Some of the behaviors you can demonstrate are:

• adherence to instructions 

• active listening

• speaking skills

• respectful communication

• good behaviors

• other classroom activities.

Demonstrating positive behaviors gives students an example to follow and clarifies expectations.

Tip: You can offer immediate rewards or recognition to students who exhibit these behaviors to reinforce positive behaviors. 

Pros: 

• Modeling positive behaviors gives students an example to follow and helps clarify expectations. 

• By reinforcing positive behaviors with immediate rewards or recognition, you can motivate students to exhibit those behaviors. This can create a positive classroom culture and prevent disruptive behavior.

Cons: 

• Some students may not respond to rewards or recognition or may not be motivated. 

• Positive behavior models may have a lesser effect on adamant students.

Applying behavior strategies for students can significantly improve the behavior of students in the classroom, in school, at home, and in other places in society.

4. Implement technology that can track and assess student actions

Technology can be a valuable tool for tracking and analyzing student behavior. You can use various software to track your students’ behavior effectively. With these, you can identify your student’s strengths and weaknesses. You can use this information to identify the root cause of students’ problems and provide them with additional support. Also, you can place your students who frequently engage in disruptive behaviors or struggle to follow the rules.

You can use the tracked data to gain insights into specific times or activities that present challenges for individual students or the class. With a clear and accurate record of incidents, it can be easier to provide students with additional assistance to improve their attitudes and academic performance.

Also, if you’re an online tutor, you’ll need innovative tools that can help you maximize your productivity and focus on your students to enable you to deliver value. Managing a virtual classroom, including the operational aspect, can be time-consuming. Rather than spend so much time on operations, you can delegate the responsibility to smart tools and focus on managing your student. One such resourceful tool for tutors is Workee.

Workee is an all-in-one client management platform designed to help you work more efficiently and even scale your online tutoring job.

Let's examine how Workee can help you advance to your A-game as an online tutor.

• You can plan meetings with your students using its smart scheduling system. It also features an auto-detect time zone feature that schedules meetings according to your student’s time zone.

• Workee assists you with customer management. You can have your students' contact synced to a central database with a filtering feature based on several categories to help you easily find your clients.

• It spots a crisp-clear video conferencing tool and integrates with Google Meet and other conferencing software, enabling you to hold audio and video classes with your students.

• Workee software also handles accounting, tax, and other financial management tasks. It offers personalized invoice templates for your sessions and services. It also calculates tax rates and computes your total tax automatically.

Pros: 

• Tools can save time by automating routine tasks, like attendance and progress tracking, allowing them to focus on identifying and addressing behavior issues.

• Technology can help you personalize the learning experience for each student, reducing frustration and boredom that can lead to disruptive behavior.

• Technology can provide valuable data insights into student behavior, helping you identify patterns and make informed decisions about addressing student-specific issues.

• Using tech tools, you improve communication between you, students, and parents, allowing you to provide updates on behavior and progress. Also, it makes parents more connected to their child's education.

Cons: 

• Technology can be expensive to acquire and maintain. Not all schools or teachers can procure or maintain quality software and necessary tools for managing student behavior in the classroom. 

• Student behavior management using tracking technology may cause privacy and data security problems. 

Conclusion

Working with behavioral aspects of students in the classroom can be challenging and tiring. However, understanding the strategies for student behavior management can go a long way in improving students' attitudes, thereby improving their academic performance. However, carefully consider the pros and cons of each strategy to avoid doing it amiss. Also, you can enhance your teaching strategy and become more effective with careful implementation. Always consider using automation to reduce boredom and stress while implementing these strategies. If you’re looking for a quality tool for automation and effective communication, you may consider using Workee.