When it comes to managing a classroom, most of what new teachers learn is trial by fire. It’s also smart to heed the advice of those who have walked — and stumbled — before you. If you are struggling with discipline, here are five tips that you can start using right away:

1.            Use a normal, natural voice

Are you teaching in your normal voice? Every teacher can remember this from the first year in the classroom: spending those first months talking at an above-normal range until one day, you lose your voice.

Raising our voice to get students’ attention is not the best approach, and the stress it causes and the vibe it puts in the room just isn’t worth it. The students will mirror your voice level, so avoid using that semi-shouting voice. If we want kids to talk at a normal, pleasant volume, we must do the same.

You want to also differentiate your tone. If you are asking students to put away their notebooks and get into their groups, be sure to use a declarative, matter-of-fact tone. If you are asking a question about a character in a short story, or about contributions made by the Roman Empire, use an inviting, conversational tone.

2.            Speak only when students are quiet and ready

A 20-year teaching veteran advises that you should just wait and then wait some more until all students were quiet.

So try it! Fight the temptation to talk. Sometimes you may have wait much longer than you think could hold out for. Slowly but surely, the students would cue each other: “Sshh, she’s trying to tell us something,” “Come on, stop talking,” and “Hey guys, be quiet.” (They’ll do all the work for you!)

Your patience will pay off. And you’ll get to keep your voice.

3.            Use hand signals and other non-verbal communication

Holding one hand in the air and making eye contact with students is a great way to quiet the class and get their attention on you. It takes awhile for students to get used to this as a routine, but it works wonderfully. Have them raise their hand along with you until all are up. Then lower yours and talk.

Flicking the lights off and on once to get the attention is an oldie but goodie. It could also be something you do routinely to let them know they have three minutes to finish an assignment or clean up, etc.

With younger students, try clapping your hands three times and teaching the children to quickly clap back twice. This is a fun and active way to get their attention and all eyes on you.

4.            Address behavior issues quickly and wisely

Be sure to address an issue between you and a student or between two students as quickly as possible. Bad feelings — on your part or the students — can so quickly grow from molehills into mountains.

Now, for handling those conflicts wisely, you and the student should step away from the other students, just in the doorway of the classroom perhaps. Wait until after instruction if possible, avoiding interruption of the lesson. Ask naive questions such as, “How might I help you?” Don’t accuse the child of anything. Act as if you do care, even if you have the opposite feeling at that moment. The student will usually become disarmed because she might be expecting you to be angry and confrontational.

And, if you must address bad behavior during your instruction, always take a positive approach. Say, “It looks like you have a question” rather than, “Why are you off task and talking?”

When students have conflicts with each other, arrange for the students to meet with you at lunch, after or before school. Use neutral language as you act as a mediator, helping them resolve the problem peacefully or at least reach an agreeable truce.

5.            Always have a well-designed, engaging lesson

This tip is most important of all. Perhaps you’ve heard the saying, if you don’t have a plan for them, they’ll have one for you. Always over plan. It’s better to run out of time than to run short on a lesson.

Bored students equal trouble! If the lesson is poorly planned, there is often way too much talking and telling from the teacher and not enough hands-on learning and discovery by the students. We all know engaging lessons take both serious mind and time to plan. And they are certainly worth it — for many reasons.

Share with us your classroom management experiences: What specific challenges are you having? What strategies have worked well for you and your students? Please share in the comment section.

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Five main categories of team building exercises exist. They consist of activities that build communication, promote problem solving and decision making, encourage adaptability and the ability to plan, work to build trust, and develop a cooperative spirit. The team building exercises that promote these various skills are meant to be enjoyable and instructional.

Depending on what you want to improve on your team, you can try some of the following activities:

1. Build communication. Activities that develop open lines of communication and listening increase communication. Try games like telephone, where you sit in a circle and one person whispers a scenario into the ear of the next person, such as how an important report was not delivered to the president in time. The “telephone” chain continues until the last person, who announces what he or she heard. Generally, by the end of the chain the story has been altered substantially. This gives employees a chance to discuss how the story changed along the way and methods they could use in the future to improve communication.

2. Promote problem solving and decision making. Used often in science fairs, the egg drop is a particularly effective activity for promoting problem solving. Split the employees into two groups and have them rig up a package that ensures a raw egg doesn’t break when dropped from a distance. Make it more challenging by timing them and limiting the types of materials they can use to protect the egg.

3. Encourage adaptability and planning. Survival scenarios work well to encourage planning and adaptability. Announce a survival situation, such as the fact that everyone will be deserted on an island indefinitely. Instruct the group to come up with a list of 15 items they must bring with them in order to ensure their survival. The process of choosing will require that they adapt and plan for the unexpected.

4. Build trust. One of the most efficient ways to test the trust between two individuals is to have them protect one another physically. This can be done by having one person close his or her eyes and fall backward into the arms of another. Or, you could have employees stand facing each other in pairs; with their elbows bent, they place their palms together, leaning toward each other and moving their feet back further and further until they’re supporting each other. Such exercises quickly highlight trust issues and help everyone learn to believe in one another.

5. Nurture a cooperative spirit. Assigning employee teams to volunteer with charitable causes is the best way to encourage cooperation. When people work on a cause that the team cares about, they will bond. The opportunity to give back to those less fortunate often creates a charitable, cooperative attitude among everyone involved.

Armed with these ideas for team building exercises, you can create the best working culture for your business.