Non-verbal (mostly!) Classroom Management Strategies:

Tools for Teachers

Overview: Nonverbal Classroom Management

Focus on methods within 5 major strategies:1. Taking charge2. Using SPACE communication3. Setting procedures4. Expanding attention span5. 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 teacher-student rapport***

Good classroom management provides the foundation for learning!

“You don’t learn until you’re happy, safe, and comfortable.”

Robert Marzanoin “Dimensions of Learning”

Nonverbal messages—what are some of yours? B

• • Opening

• Closing

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

• Raise your hand to speak

*** Sharing: What are some nonverbal ways YOU have used to communicate which mode the class will be in?

•Speak out in turn• Teacher only speaking

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 projectorCharadeWith or without narratorOthers?

• 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.