Manage learners well

Move around the room during the class. There is no need to stand in the one place. Find out what students are discussing or working on, ask questions and give feedback.

In a survey of 183 teachers at RMIT University, the third biggest concern teachers had about teaching in new learning spaces related to managing learners or classroom management. Particular concerns were about having to talk to students backs during the class because of the seating arrangments. Some tips for dealing with classroom management are to:

• be well prepared and organised
  
  
• have well-designed, relevant and engaging lessons
  If a lesson is poorly planned, students can veer 'off-task'. Sometimes this can happen if there is too much talking and telling from the teacher and not enough hands-on learning and discovery by the students. 
  
  
• discuss class expectations with students
  This is a good discussion to have in the first class. What are your expectations? What do students think is fair or appropriate behaviour in class? ie:
• Should mobile phones should be set to silent?
• When one person is talking should the rest of the class be quiet?
• If there is a whole-class discussion, should students move their chairs or simply turn around to face the class?
• Are students expected to read articles/watch videos/lessons etc before class?  

Reviewing the Student Code of Conduct may also be a good way to discuss expectations.

• limit the amount that you talk to no more than 20 minutes at one time
  New learning spaces are designed to facilitate active learning so try to limit your talking to 10 minutes or you may find students will start to lose concentration. In a university study on lectorials, one teacher stated,  “I am pleased about the way [I] designed activities that tend to chunk up the time, a little bit of theory, and then activities to put the content into practice in pairs, individually and in large groups then back to let them share it on the Teamboard.” 

• use body language, hand signals, other non-verbal communication such as standing close to a particular student or group of students
  Making eye contact with students is a great way to get students attention. Ask students to stop what they are doing and then wait for them to be quiet before speaking.  You will find that other students will tell the noisy ones to be quiet.
  
  Walk around the room - don't stand in the one spot to talk and you will find students will become quiet the closer you are to them.

• know your students
  
  
• ask for feedback from students

Be clear about what you want students to learn and how it might be relevant to them in their future careers. You could ask students to talk to the person next to them and discuss why they think it is relevant to learn about x.

Having clear criteria about a task is essential. Criteria are overall goals which are set for the task and aligned to the leanring outcomes of the course and which students are measured against. When these criteria are fleshed out at each performance level eg. HD, D, C, P, N, this is called a rubric. A rubric is usually a matrix or grid and is used to interpret and grade students' work against criteria and standards. 

A rubric makes explicit a range of assessment criteria and expected performance standards. Assessors evaluate a student's performance against all of these, rather than assigning a single subjective score. A rubric:

• handed out to students during an assessment task briefing makes them aware of all expectations related to the assessment task, and helps them evaluate their own work as it progresses
• helps teachers apply consistent standards when assessing qualitative tasks, and promotes consistency in shared marking.

You can use rubrics to structure discussions with students about different levels of performance on an assessment task. They can employ the rubric during peer assessment and self-assessment, to generate and justify assessments. Once you've familiarised students with the idea of rubrics, you can have them assist in the rubric design process, thus taking more responsibility for their own learning.

Source: http://teaching.unsw.edu.au/assessment-rubrics

If students are being noisy but on task then they are still learning. If they are noisy and not on task, stand next to them. Ask students questions about the task: 'Are you finding the task too difficult?', 'What have you done so far?'  Remind them that they may need to present their materials to the rest of the class or submit their work.

If all the groups are struggling with the group task, it might be a good idea to bring them all together and explain what it is you want them to do and ask for questions. It may be that the task has ambiguities in it and needs to be clarified.

You could even use the muddiest point strategy or ask each group to come up with a question that they would like to have explained further.

If you have a very large class you can organise for a group of students (volunteers) to meet periodically and give you feedback. Let other students know how to contact them with concerns.

Periodically ask students for feedback on the course.