Sometimes for teachers to manage a classroom is difficult. But it is more difficult for practitioners who are just beginners in this subject. There are seven classroom parameters that teacher should have into a consideration to make their lessons or classes more effective.

The first parameter is classroom management:To be sure, effective teaching requires considerable skill in managing the myriad of tasks and situations that occur in the classroom each day. Skills such as effective classroom management are central to teaching and require "common sense," consistency, a sense of fairness, and courage. These skills also require that teachers understand in more than one way the psychological and developmental levels of their students. The skills associated with effective classroom management are only acquired with practice, feedback, and a willingness to learn from mistakes. Sadly, this is often easier said than done. Certainly, a part of this problem is that there is no practical way for education students to "practice" their nascent skills outside of actually going into a classroom setting. The learning curve is steep, indeed.

Evertson and Weinstein characterize classroom management as the actions taken to create an environment that supports and facilitates academic and social–emotional learning. Toward this goal, teachers must (1) develop caring, supportive relationships with and among students; (2) organize and implement instruction in ways that optimize students’ access to learning; (3) use group management methods that encourage students’ engagement in academic tasks; (4) promote the development of students’ social skills and self–regulation; and (5) use appropriate interventions to assist students with behavior problems. According to specialists in the field of education, school and classroom management aims at encouraging and establishing student self-control through a process of promoting positive student achievement and behavior. Thus academic achievement, teacher efficacy, and teacher and student behavior are directly linked with the concept of school and classroom management.Classroom management focuses on three major components:content management, conduct management, and covenant management. Each of these concepts is defined and presented with details in a list of observable elements in effective teaching practices.

Related to content management, Kounin (as cited in Froyen & Iverson, 1999, p. 129) places a special emphasis on instructional management skills, sequencing and integrating additional instructional activities, and dealing with instruction-related discipline problems.Conduct management is centered on one’s beliefs about the nature of people. By integrating knowledge about human diversity (and individuality, at the same time) into a particular instructional philosophy, teachers could manage their classrooms in a better, more effective way.

Covenant management stresses the classroom group as a social system. Teacher and student roles and expectations shape the classroom into an environment conducive to learning. In other words, the culture of any given school is unique to that school. However, it is directly influenced by the culture of the larger community whose educational goals are

to be met. A strong connection between school and community must be constantly revised and modified according to the requirements of societal dynamism. As schools become very diverse, teachers and students should become aware of how to use diversity to strengthen the school/classroom social group.

The second parameter is attention:

Human attention tends to wander; students are human; therefore, students' attention will wander. Here are some strategies to prevent wandering and to increase student interest.Most teachers are well aware when student attention wanders, and they apply various strategies to maintain interest. Careful planning of each section or time "module" of a class will focus students on the task at hand. One of the primary causes of wandering attention and even boredom is density of material--too many major topics, too many complex PowerPoint slides and too many examples result in information overload. Students then tend to disengage; and even after they finish the crossword puzzle, they don't tune back in.

Human attention tends to wander; students are human; therefore, students' attention will wander. Here are some strategies to prevent wandering and to increase student interest.Most teachers are well aware when student attention wanders, and they apply various strategies to maintain interest. Careful planning of each section or time "module" of a class will focus students on the task at hand. One of the primary causes of wandering attention and even boredom is density of material--too many major topics, too many complex PowerPoint slides and too many examples result in information overload. Students then tend to disengage; and even after they finish the crossword puzzle, they don't tune back in.

Here there are some tips:Not all questions need to be answered immediately. A rhetorical question can stimulate thinking by causing students to formulate an answer and focusing them on a particular topic. However, teachers who ask too many rhetorical questions can create barriers to learning because students are prevented from answering. Turning a rhetorical question into an actual question is an effective way to test comprehension or to encourage interactive discussion.Effective questions of any variety encourage collaboration in the learning process. Confusing questions can, of course, demotivate. When asked the following double question--"What led to the stock market crash, and how can we prevent this from happening again?"--students could respond, "which question do you want us to answer?"

Taken one at a time, each of these questions can stimulate the critical thinking skills of analysis, synthesis and evaluation.Another way of engaging students is to facilitate a discussion that enables all students to participate. Discussion may not be the best strategy in a Statistics course, but in other courses a discussion on a general topic will call on students to demonstrate knowledge, while enabling them to achieve a sense of "personal discovery." Discussions might be stimulated by a question: "What should the priorities of the new president be?" or a

statement, "The war in . . . (fill in the blank) is just and moral." A danger of discussions, however, is that they often become lectures in disguise if teachers dominate by implying their own bias or giving too much information.

Discussions can also take the form of a debate. When students prepare to debate, they sharpen their own critical abilities and stimulate critical response from those who are only observers. Again, not all courses are appropriate for debate, but in the realm of academic discourse much is and should be debatable. Bringing the students into "the debate" enriches learning by causing them to test and defend their assertions.Student activity in general can make the journey through the shadow of the valley proceed more directly. Strategies such as dyads, small group discussion in class or short and well-prepared reports by students will create a context for learning that is student-centered. The teacher still retains the responsibility of determining the general learning outcome and of preventing student activities from being a waste of time, but strategies other than or in addition to lecturing can promote learning.

If a teacher determines that a "standard lecture" is still the best strategy, student interest can be stimulated in at least three ways. First, change your voice--emphasize verbs when you want to emphasizeaction; emphasize nouns when you want to emphasize the result of an action. Second, give a concrete example that everyone can understand--"let me explain what a 'dent-puller' is." Third, and most important, provide internal summaries. When you distill a discussion--"so we have covered the three main methods of controlling stage fright: preparation, eye contact, breathing"--students will pay close attention, often writing down the summary.

Both teaching and learning require strategies. For the teacher, building-in the concept of "practice" (encouraging students to verbalize and support their ideas) is a strategy for maintaining interest and attention. Students who develop the skills of personal discovery are more likely to retain their knowledge because they will gain a sense of intellectual ownership. When the process of learning becomes collaborative, students and teachers proceed together on a well-defined course through the "shadow of the valley."

The third parameter is momentum:The concept of Momentum pertains to the smooth, ongoing flow of events in the classoom. Teaching is full of pitfalls to momentum. When these pitfalls occur, students´s concentration is broken. They are distractive from or prevented from becoming involved in the learning activities. They experience "downtime," time spend waiting for things to ged ready, get started, or get organized. When momentum is not maintainded, students become bored or look for things to do, potentially filling their time by daydreaming or engaging in disruptive behavior. Here there is a website where you will find an interesting book

Categories of Momentum1. Provisioning: Provisioning means having thins ready to go - the space and the materials.

2. Overlapping: Overlapping is the ability to manage two or more parallel events simultaneously with evidence of attention to both.3. Fillers: It happens during the course of a day that teacher are caught with groups of students for short periods ( from one to ten or fifteen minutes) where nothing is planned.4. Instrusions: Sometimes a teacher´s day can seem like a series of instrusions punctuated by moments of instructions. These intrusions take many forms: pupils wanting work correctec, wanting help, wanting directions clarified, or wanting disputes arbitrated, adult visitors; public address announcements.5. Lesson flexibility: The teacher matches a new lesson format to the on-the-spot needs of the students.6. Notice: Teachers anticipate and soften the transitions by giving pupils advace Notice of when a transition is coming, so they can get ready for it.7. Subdividing: Subdiviging means predicting these times and acting to prevent the jamups by diving the groups into smaller units (individuals, pairs, tables, teams, children wearing sneakers) who move one at a time under the teacher´s direction.8. Anticipation: Skilled teachers perform this way every day. They anticipate trouble spots- incidents that will break momentum.

As you have seen, the Momentum parameter is clearly concerned with those teacher behaviors whose primary purpose is to keep things moving in the classroom. Within each of the eight subparameters, teachers perform a variety of moves specifically aimed at maintaining classroom momentum.

The fourth parameter is space:

To develop a class is very important the way in which the physical space is arranged. A good arrangement of the physical space helps people to function more efficiently and to feel more comfortable in the room. It makes a difference.There are two equally important but different ways of looking at teachers’ use of the space:1. One is look at the way arrangements of furniture, materials, and space support the kind of instruction going on.• Here we have four different patterns of classroom space associated by Jacob Getzels. - The empty learner: rectangular room arrangement where the teacher function is to fill the learners with knowledge.- The active learner: square room arrangement where the children become the center.- The social learner: circular classroom arrangement where students learn about their own feelings, the feelings of others, through interpersonal actions and reactions.- The stimulus-seeking learner: the open classroom where learning centers, communally owned furniture, private study spaces, and public areas replace classrooms, halls and traditional school furniture.

“Patterns of space support different forms of learning”2- the second one focuses on certain constant space-related issues of students life are handled: ownership and privacy. Here each students is owner of his/her furniture.RECOMMENDATIONS ON USING SPACE:• Things should be in a visible and an accessible storage. • Avoid dead space • No blind spots • Vertical space should be employed productively • Have a display area • Active areas separated from quiet ones • Have clear traffic paths • Avoid empty furnitureIn sum: We can make our instructional spaces more attractive, more efficient, and more flexible; we can control and change the physical space to make our classes better.

Fifth parameter is routine:"Routines are the backbone of daily classroom life. They facilitate teaching and learning…. Routines don’t just make your life easier, they save valuable classroom time. And what’s most important, efficient routines make it easier for students to learn and achieve more."

Establishing clear classroom routines and procedures is necessary for ensuring that your classroom runs smoothly. When they are carefully taught, modeled, and established in the classroom, children know what’s expected of them and how to do certain things on their own. Having these predictable patterns in place allows teachers to spend more time in meaningful instruction.

Good routines are clear and efficient and the bad are disorganized and generate discipline

problems. A well thought-out and systematic programme of classroom procedures is an essential part of a successful classroom management plan. Paying attention to effective routines not only makes for a smooth running classroom, making it a more pleasant experience for teachers and students alike, but, more importantly, makes it possible for students to learn more efficiently and more effectively.

In establishing procedures or routines, it is important to:

Ensure that students understand the reason for the routine. Clarify the procedure through modeling. Allow students opportunities to practice the routine through rehearsal. Try not to overwhelm students by teaching too many routines at once. The process of

establishing routines and procedures may take several days. Remember that it will probably be necessary to revisit this process as you see the need.

What should teachers focus on for their classroom routines?

Although each teacher and each classroom is different, classrooms are successful when teachers have effective routines for:

entering the classroom where students sit checking which students are present in class lateness to class giving out equipment and books how students can move around the classroom handing in of work permission to leave the room for valid reasons tidying up at the end of the lesson leaving the room at the end of the lesson what to do in case of emergencies