Classroom Management

It has been oft times said that I need to work on my classroom management skills... both by observers and by myself.  It is for this reason that I will hereby list the methods I have seen, tried, etc. and comment on them.

• HOT (Hands On Top) - While I have found that getting students to put their hands on their heads can be very effective, I just can't bring myself to shout out HOT! haha!
• Hand Clap - mighty effective for getting students' attention, so long as they're not being louder than your clap... otherwise you're doomed
• The Countdown - This one's good, especially when there is some kind of reward/consequence whenever peace is restored (or not) in the 5 (or whatever the number might be) seconds
• The Stare - I've found this one to be least effective, mainly because people tend to not be paying attention to you in the first place, so a silent and subtle hint tends to often not have any effect, but with the right individuals paying attention, this can prove quite successful and is also a very pacific way of calming a class

While I've found that no one works 100%, I've found that they can all be enhanced with a little patience and with some individual rebuking (as in naming the students that are still not paying attention by name)

Eureka

I've been trying to figure out how in the world I'm going to reflect on my lesson plans and show my growth and not scare myself out of my pants with the amount of work I want to get done.  It finally dawned on me that in those moments when I just can't seem to focus on my lesson plans, I could be doing something useful on my computer instead of wasting my time away with useless bubble games or whatever else I might distract my mind with.  That something is now blogging about my adventures as a teacher.