Classroom Management Features: Enhancing Collaboration and Communication Among Students
Education is undergoing a widespread transformation. The advent of digitalization has significantly changed learning practices, with e-learning and digital textbook platforms like KITABOO becoming increasingly commonplace.
While this digital revolution has many benefits, it presents a major challenge of capturing students’ attention when engrossed in their smart devices. Thus, managing the virtual classroom effectively becomes vital.
This raises the question: how can educators successfully manage both the virtual and physical classroom to maintain student engagement throughout their learning experience? In this blog, we will delve into the classroom management features that can help you facilitate greater student interactivity.
Table of Contents:
I. What are Classroom Management Features?
II. Salient Classroom Management Features
- Clear Classroom Rules
- Safe and Inclusive Environment
- Peer Tutoring
- Teamwork
- Gamification
- Active Listening
- Online Discussions and Assessments
- Feedback
III. The End Note
What are Classroom Management Features?
Classroom management features are tools that a teacher uses to create a conducive learning environment. Using these tools, teachers can keep students engaged and foster an environment that supports students’ social, emotional, and academic development.
Salient Classroom Management Features
A variety of classroom management features can enhance communication and collaboration among students and their quality of learning. These salient features of classroom management include:
Clear Classroom Rules
A classroom without rules in place can become chaotic. From the start of the academic year, setting up clear expectations is vital for the effective functioning of the class.
Instead of completely setting the rules yourself, involve your students in the process. In addition, allow your students to dictate the consequences of not following the rules. Formulating the guidelines in such a way will increase interactivity among students and improve their ideating and decision-making skills.
This guideline development process will also make them aware of the behavior expected from them in class and ensure their willful compliance with the rules instead of a forced one.
Safe and Inclusive Environment
Creating a classroom environment that’s not only safe but also inclusive goes a long way toward enhancing communication and collaboration among students.
Within an inclusive learning environment, students experience a heightened sense of security when expressing their opinions to educators and peers. Moreover, students exhibit greater receptivity toward individuals from diverse backgrounds, including those with disabilities, and demonstrate a heightened willingness to offer assistance and support to one another in their academic pursuits.
Thus, inclusivity fosters collaboration, makes students more open-minded, and expands students’ perspectives and critical thinking capabilities.
Peer Tutoring
Some students might struggle to grasp the more difficult concepts of the curriculum. Peer teaching, however, can eliminate this problem. Peer teaching involves students explaining a concept that they have understood clearly to each other. This collaborative learning process enables students to comprehend difficult concepts in a language they speak and understand.
According to research, peer teaching or tutoring can improve students’ academic performance and promote socially positive outcomes. In addition, it can expand collaboration among students and enable them to learn about new concepts in a friendly environment.
Teamwork
Assigning teamwork activities to students is essential for promoting communication and collaboration in the classroom. Digital learning platforms like KITABOO allow you to create team projects, assign students to different teams, and track their teamwork progress.
When students work in teams, it shifts their mindset from a competitive one to a collaborative one; learners focus more on getting the best results while working together. This positive learning environment, in turn, helps students enhance their interpersonal skills, helping them further in their academic pursuits and professional lives.
Gamification
According to research, gamification positively impacts students’ study engagement. Gamification makes students more driven to achieve their goals and makes the learning experience more enjoyable.
By incorporating elements of game-based learning, teachers can transform a monotonous learning experience into an engaging one. In a gamified learning environment, students can work together to achieve the same learning objectives and earn points, badges, or other rewards. Thus, gamification promotes active participation, cooperation, and collaboration among students.
Active Listening
Active listening involves being fully attentive and engaged when a person is speaking. Active listening fosters healthy conversations, making it vital for teachers to listen to their students attentively and also promote this kind of behavior among students.
Using interactive multimedia elements like videos and interactive quizzes from digital textbook platforms like KITABOO, teachers can engage students in active listening and learning.
According to research, multimedia learning has become an increasingly popular method in this digital world for educational purposes due to its ability to provide a rich and engaging learning experience.
Online Discussions and Assessments
Online discussion activities and assessments are a great way to enhance communication and collaboration among students.
Teachers can create discussion topics and interactive assessments with online student assessment tools. Using KITABOO Reader, students can make notes and highlight the important content for discussions in their textbooks. Students can then share their content and knowledge with each other.
Further, students can work together to solve quizzes, case studies, and other interactive assessments. Working in such a collaborative way allows students to give explanations and justifications for their choices and fosters intellectual discussions.
Feedback
Positive and constructive feedback from teachers and other students is essential to fostering effective student communication.
Effective and timely feedback from practitioners focuses on:
- The quality of work
- Motivating learners
- Avoiding praise or punishment
- Recognizing strengths and areas of misunderstanding
Learners can also provide valuable feedback to teachers through their responses and work. Additionally, peer feedback, when guided by specific criteria, can enhance the learning process, promoting self-assessment, collaboration, communication, and growth.
The End Note
Classroom management features are instrumental in providing quality education, promoting healthy communication and collaboration among students, and creating positive learning experiences.
If you want to develop a positive learning environment in your classroom, outsourcing collaborative learning solutions from KITABOO can help.
KITABOO offers custom learning solutions to meet the needs of your classroom. You can leverage the power of gamification elements, project-based work, online assessments, and more to foster a conducive and interactive learning environment in your classroom. As one of the top-level digital learning and publishing platforms in the world, KITABOO is trusted by Oxford University Press, Scholastic, McGraw Hill, and more educational companies.
Connect with our experts for further details!
To know more about custom collaborative learning solutions, write to us at contact@kitaboo.com.
Suggested Reads:
Discover how a mobile-first training platform can help your organization.
Kitaboo is a cloud-based platform to create, deliver & track mobile-first interactive training content.