Managing a classroom full of students can be challenging for any teacher, and it can be particularly challenging when you're dealing with high school students. These classroom management tips might help you take back control and provide a better learning environment for your students.

Look for Resources to Help

There are a lot of resources out there for teachers that can help with classroom management. Reading other articles online and using classroom management textbooks and materials can help you get great ideas for keeping things under control in your classroom.

Use Assigned Seats

It's often not a good idea to let students choose their own seats in a high school classroom setting. Students who might be struggling to make friends might feel alienated if other students don't want to save them a seat, and students who choose to sit by their friends might spend more time talking to one another than they spend on paying attention to what you're teaching. Using assigned seats is usually a better system, and you can use what you know about your students to try to seat students beside other students who will not distract them.

Try to Understand Where Your Students are Coming From

You might often feel as if you don't have anything in common with your students at all. If you can try to see things from their perspective every now and then, though, it might help you manage your classroom more effectively and could help you provide your students with a better learning experience. For example, if the subject matter that you are covering is boring, then you have to understand why your students might be getting fidgety. By understanding this type of thing, you can then work on things like breaking up the subject matter over several days or teaching it in a more interesting way. This will help your students and might help you maintain better classroom control.

Ban Smartphones and Other Unnecessary Electronic Devices

If your students are all able to play with their smartphones and other devices while they're in class, then they are sure to be distracted. Phones go off and make noise, students show videos and pictures to one another and all sorts of other disruptions can happen. Requiring your students to turn their devices off and keep them put away while in your classroom can go a long way when it comes to classroom management.