Creating a positive learning
environment
Learning from experiences
The biggest learning point for me came from a young man who I will call Steve.
Steve was a bit of a ringleader and would often walk into class in a very loud,
boisterous manner in an attempt to get a reaction from me – To be honest, he
usually did as I soon found that I would constantly be on his case. He became a
challenge for me and I decided I wasn’t going to let him win. I would watch him
carefully every minute of every lesson to make sure he was not mucking about.
Steve often got detentions from me and I would frequently have to take him out the
room during lessons for a quiet word (the quiet word would usually end up being not
so quiet).
There was one particular lesson that I saw Steve copy some work off the person
next to him. “Yes”, I thought. “I’ve caught the bugger again, he’s going to realise that
I’m not to be messed with and I’ll always beat him!”
I called him to the front of the class and asked to see his book. I then told him that I
had just seen him copy his work off someone else. Obviously, he denied this. I
thought I would make an example of him and started to raise my voice and lecture
him about the error of his ways. At this point, Steve erupted! He was shouting and
screaming at me and had a crazy look about him. My Head of department came to
see what the commotion was and took him out of the room. I could hear him outside,
still screaming at me at the top of his voice. She finally had to restrain him from re-
entering the room and by this point, he was foaming at the mouth and his shirt was
ripped. He was a scary sight and I would be lying if I said I didn’t find him
intimidating.
He was excluded for a few days and when he returned, he refused to be taught by
me anymore. He was eventually moved into another class where he was given a
fresh start and actually ended up settling down and doing quite well.
Turning point
I always remember this moment as it was a turning point for me as a teacher. I
decided that I needed to change my approach. I decided that the way I had been
trying to ‘run’ my classroom didn’t suit me. I’m not an angry type, in fact, I’m quite the
opposite. I’m happy and positive most of the time, and I smile, a lot. I don’t often get
stressed out and I genuinely enjoy teaching young people the joys of mathematics. I
decided to take an approach which suited my personality. I wanted to run my
classroom in a way that made me feel comfortable and would allow me to fulfil the
values I hold as a teacher: Learning should be an enjoyable and rewarding
experience full of challenge, positive engagement and enthusiasm.
Over the years, I have tried lots of strategies to create the classroom I want to teach
in. Some of these have worked while many haven’t. I still haven’t got things exactly
how I would want them but I am getting there.
Below are a few tips for creating this kind of positive learning environment. I have
omitted some that have been covered by Jo Morgan on her fantastic website here (I
can’t stress enough that communicating your expectations is the single most
important thing to do!) and have focused on those that form my own philosophy. I
should say that I am consistent with these and, well, they work for me and suit the
way that I want to ‘run’ my classroom. I obviously have ups and downs (we’re
working with teenagers after all!) but I feel a lot happier in the classroom now in
comparison to when I first started teaching. Some will disagree with a few of these
and I’m fine with that. If I manage to provoke some thought and get you to reflect on
your own practice, then this post has served its purpose. Oh, and these aren’t in any
particular order.
Strategies for encouraging positive behaviour
1. Don’t be disliked
In the post by Jo , she makes a point that it isn’t important to be the favourite teacher. I
completely agree. However, it is also important to not be the other extreme. If a
student dislikes you, it is very unlikely that they will perform to the best of their ability
in your lessons. Fact. Be firm, fair and always ridiculously polite!
2. Learn names. No excuses.
Knowing the names of your students not only shows them that you value them, but it
also gives you control in the classroom. Aim to learn their names ASAP. My party
trick is to know the names of all the students in my class within the first 30 minutes of
meeting them. I tell them that this is my party trick, and at the end of that first lesson,
I will dismiss them one at a time by using their name. If I’m feeling particularly flash,
I’ll jumble them around the room first. Other teachers often ask me how I manage
this. To be honest, I was rubbish at learning names and one day I just started telling
myself that I’m brilliant at it. It worked for me!
3.
Greet your students individually as they enter the room
Look like you are happy to see them (if you’re not, then fake it!). Make it part of your
routine. This not only makes students aware of your presence straight away, it also
sets a positive tone for the rest of the lesson. You can even build an instruction into
your greeting. E.g. “Good morning Chris, please have your homework out and ready
as soon as you’ve sat down.” If you are not ‘quite there yet’ with your class, then let
them in 4/5 at a time. Drip feed calmness into your room!
4. End your lessons on the same note every time
Decide what you want this to look like and then be consistent with it. For me, I get
them to stand by their chairs quietly and I have a quick scan for any clearing up or
uniform issues before I dismiss them a couple of tables at a time wishing them a
great rest of the day. All of my lessons end in this way.
5. Know your students
Get to know your students at the start of the year. What are their likes/dislikes. Do
they play sports? Which football team do they support? What is their favourite
subject? (By the end of the year, it will obviously be maths!)
6. Be decisive
Plan your classroom management carefully and completely so that you know how
you will deal with pretty much any situation that arises. This will allow you to be
decisive and not get caught in two minds.
7. Don’t shout
The only time you would need to shout in class is when there is a health and safety issue.
Other than that, it is never necessary. Stay cool – like the Fonz. I’m not saying I never shout,
but I am saying that it is rare. I can probably count how many times I have shouted in the past
10 years on one hand. It’s not big and it certainly isn’t clever. I understand that there are
times when this can be particularly difficult, and if you find yourself becoming overwhelmed
you need to remember that shouting will only be a temporary fix. In the long run it will lead
to students losing confidence in you as it weakens your influence. If you do ‘lose it’, don’t
beat yourself up about it – spend time reflecting on how else you could have dealt with the
situation (speak to a colleague if it helps) and do that next time.
8. Use your body language to get what you want
For example, I have a hand signal where I basically raise my hand in the air and look like I
want to say something. This lets my students know I want to speak and that they need to be
quiet. They need a little training on this but it doesn’t take long for them to get the hang of it.
On the rare occasion that this doesn’t work, I maintain the same stance but open and close my
hand rapidly which strangely seems to work. I also change the position I am standing in the
room based on different scenarios. For example, I may start asking a question and decide I
don’t have full attention, so I move to a different area of the room and ask it from there
instead. I do this consciously and I would encourage you to play around with this idea.
9. Play around with the tone and speed of your voice
If you want to inject some pace, talk a little faster. If you want to calm your students down,
talk a little slower. Experiment with putting pauses in your instructions to not only emphasise
points but to help students to process what you are saying. Above all, try to maintain a
confident voice at all times and be in control of it. Everything you say, say it on purpose.
Your voice and the way you use it is probably your most important tool as a teacher – if you
get it right, your students will hang on your every word. (I’m yet to get it right!)
10. Use positive language
Instead of telling students what you don’t want them to do, tell them what you do want them
to do. A simple idea that makes a massive difference. For example: “Stop getting out of your
seat” becomes “I’d appreciate it if you stayed in your seat and put your hand up if you need
me.”
11. Make your instructions clear
When you give an instruction, make it crystal clear. Reflect on the words you use and
experiment with what works. I discovered that when I ask for complete silence and I follow it
up with “if there is sound coming out of your mouth, then you’re not following my
instructions,” it works every time. So I use it a lot and it has become one of my many
catchphrases. The key is that I’m not leaving any grey areas for students to exploit.
12. Have a sense of humour
This doesn’t mean to tell jokes. Just know when to laugh at yourself and laugh along with
your st udents. A well-used
sense of humour can help diffuse any tense moments in the classroom. However, sarcasm
should always be avoided, particularly with younger students (I’m still working on
controlling myself on this one – especially with sixth formers!)
13. Never waver on a seating plan
If you have a seating plan, you will always get some students that will ask for a chance to sit
somewhere else. Don’t show any weakness here. Stick to your guns and students will very
quickly get over it. As soon as you break on this one, be prepared to spend the first 5 minutes
at the start of every lesson having to deal with seating issues. This will, in turn, turn your
room into a negative and ‘unfair’ environment. YOU can always decide later in the year to
change things about if YOU want to.
14. Have routines clear and consistent
Decide on what you want to happen in your room at different points in the lesson. How will
your lessons start/end? How are the books and other items of equipment going to get handed
out? Communicate these things clearly so that your lessons are always smooth, slick and
stress free. All your energy can then be focused on teaching.
15. Be passionate about your subject
I’m a maths teacher. I am super geeky about maths and I make sure my students know it.
How could I expect them to enjoy and engage with something I don’t? I also make sure they
know how much I love my job. How? I tell them at every opportunity that I have the best job
in the world!
16. Your teaching doesn’t stop in the classroom
Stop them in the corridor and ask them a question based on what they had been learning in
the previous lesson. “How do you work out the area of a circle?” This demonstrates to them
that you care and want them to be successful.
17. Be quirky!
I may be a little OCD about having routines and things in a particular way. I overplay this a
little with my students and it mean
s that it lightens the mood when it comes to tidying up at the end of the lesson.
18. Be consistent with your mood
Avoid displaying mood swings. If you are in a bad mood or feeling a little down or anxious
about a lesson, then psych yourself up. My trick is to tell myself before my class arrive “this
is going to be the best lesson I have ever taught!” If I see a colleague feeling a little anxious
before a lesson, I’ll psych them up in the same way. It seems to work.
19. Model good behaviour
Model the behaviour you expect at all times. I want my students to be happy, enthusiastic,
hard-working individuals who are passionate about mathematics. So I behave in that way.
20. Be polite
Always be kind and polite and expect the same back (have that as one of your expectations).
21. Look for positive behaviour
In contrast to what I did earlier in my career, I now look out for any positive behaviour and
praise these publicly. These may be small things, even expected things like getting started on
a task straight away, but it creates a positive climate in the room. I obviously will still
sanction any poor behaviour, but I find that there is less of this to worry about.
22. Be creative with your praise and rewards
Instead of just saying “well done”, find some creative ways to express when a student has
impressed you. Use the school reward system by all means, but sometimes it’s great to have
something a little different as a reward. I use these scratch cards or a fruit machineby class
tools to add a little fun to my rewards.
Long term plan
Managing your classroom, like everything else, requires careful planning. The difference is
that it is a long-term plan. You may not see the fruits of your labour straight away with many
classes, and that is something you will have to accept. There will be times, as with every
teacher, you will lose your cool with a student and your emotions will take over. It happens.
Take some time out, compose yourself and speak to the student again at the earliest
opportunity. Remember that you are the adult, and making the first move to repair and
rebuild your relationship is still giving the message that you are in charge and in control.
Above all, be confident in your subject knowledge and plan your lessons well. Avoid any
dead time in your classes and make sure the students are busy learning or practicing skills
Divisibility test
I had given him a book called First Steps for Problem Solvers (published by the UKMT)
to look at over the holidays and inside the book was a list of the divisibility tests, which
are used to quickly work out whether a number is exactly divisible by either 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
7, 8 or 9 before you actually start dividing. Except that there was no test listed for
checking divisibility by 7. The reason why it was missing is because there is no easy or
memorable test for dividing by 7, or so I thought!
In a bored moment, Chika had turned his mind to the problem and this is what he came
up with. He realised that if you take the last digitof any whole number, multiply it by
5 and then add this to the remaining part of the number, you will get a new number.
And it turns out that if this new number is divisible by 7, then the original number is
divisible by 7. What an easy test!
For example, take the number 532
53 + 2 x 5 = 63
63 is a multiple of 7, so 532 is a multiple of 7 (and therefore divisible by 7)
Or take the number 987
98 + 7 x 5 = 133
13 + 3 x 5 = 28
28 is a multiple of 7, so both 133 and 987 are multiples of 7
In fact if you actually keep going, you will always end up with either 7 or 49, if the original
number is divisible by 7.
For example, take the number 2996
299 + 6 x 5 = 329
32 + 9 x 5 = 77
7 + 7 x 5 = 42
4 + 2 x 5 = 14
1 + 4 x 5 = 21
2 + 1 x 5 = 7
7 is a multiple of 7 and so is 21, 14, 42, 77, 329 and the original number 2996.
The opposite is also true in that if you don’t end up with a multiple of 7, then the original
number is not divisible by 7.
For example, take the number 114
11 + 4 x 5 = 31
3 + 1 x 5 = 8
And since 8 is clearly not divisible by 7, neither is 31 nor our original number 114.
Chika demonstrated his test to 8E before lunch on Friday and no one could find a
counter-example to disprove it. But mathematically we needed to find a proof. Once a
theorem is proved mathematically it will always be true. Pythagoras proved his famous
theorem over 2500 years and when he died, he knew it would never be disproved. It is
important to realise that a result cannot be proved by finding thousands or even millions
of results which support it.
I woke up early on Saturday morning still thinking about Chika’s test and rang my
younger brother, Simon Ellis, who also happens to teach Maths, and asked him if he had
ever come across the test. He hadn’t and immediately set about trying to write a proof.
An hour later he sent me a watertight algebraic proof! He also discovered that the test
works if you start by multiplying the last digit by 12, 19, 26, 33 … and then add it to the
remaining part of the number. And furthermore, it works if you double the last digit and
then subtract it from the remaining part of the number, of if you multiply the last digit by
9, 16, 23, 30 … and subtract. And actually the doubling and subtracting test can be
easily found on the internet.
But we both agreed multiplying the last digit by 5 and adding it to the remaining part
of the number is much more appealing! Mr O’Donnell urged me to tell the school about
Chika’s discovery, so an impromptu demonstration followed in Monday’s assembly. We
are now trying to figure out how to make this test more widely known, as it is so simple
that it really should be taught alongside the other divisibility tests.
For all those interested, the proof can be currently found on my brother’s
website: [Link]/post/new-maths
Also, to be entirely accurate, the test for divisibility by 6 was also missing from the book
but this is because you only have to apply both the divisibility by 3 test and divisibility by
2 test (as 2 and 3 are coprime) to a number to determine if it is divisible by 6.
And finally thank you to Stephan for telling me on Tuesday about a Russian test, which
involves multiplying the truncated number (without its last digit) by 3 and then adding the
last digit. It does work but it is harder on the whole. So for example, take 154: 15 x 3
+ 4 = 49, so since 49 is a multiple of 7, so is 154.
