James Cooper is professor emeritus at the University of Virginia and lead author of Those Who Can, Teach.

The everyday challenges of teaching and classroom management can be stressful. In fact, the ability to maintain a disciplined and ordered classroom has a direct effect on a teacher's ability to meet his or her instructional goals. Below are eleven tips that will help veteran and novice teachers alike to promote student learning, prevent disruptions, and keep students on task with lessons and assignments.

1. When students misbehave, check your instruction.
Many behavior problems result from problems with instruction. Students are bored or confused, and their response is to get off task and into trouble.

2. Take the time to ensure that students fully understand your classroom's rules and procedures.
As the old adage has it, "You have to keep school before you can teach school." At the beginning of the year, and again if and when things begin to break down, teachers need to fix in the minds of their students how the class is to be ordered.

3. Regularly monitor the entire class.
Successful classroom managers frequently scan the class, noticing what each student is doing. Although the teacher need not react to every sign of off-task behavior or deviation from the established procedure, it is important for students to know that what they are doing is being noted.

4. Move in on repeated or flagrant breaches of conduct quickly and directly.
Do not let things drift. Students will think you are afraid to confront them, and they may end up confronting you!

5. Correct in private.
As much as possible, deal with student misconduct in private. Don't disturb the rest of the students and get them off task simply to get one or two students back to work. Also, public reprimanding may backfire and get you involved in a game of escalating remarks with a student.

6. Don't make empty threats.
Do not say you are going to "do" something to a student or the class unless you have thought it over carefully and are really ready to do it. For instance, do not threaten to call the parents of every child in the room and tell them what rotten children they have unless you have a good deal of time—and alternative plans for next year.

7. Don't put a hand on a student in anger or even annoyance.
Do not even think of striking a student, no matter how much you are tempted. When a situation is emotionally charged, even your well-intended gesture can be misinterpreted. On the other hand, if students are fighting, you may need to restrain them physically for their own good.

8. Think through behavior problems.
When a class or an individual student is not behaving up to your expectations, treat the event as a problem-solving activity. Do not flail around or get panicky or discouraged. Coolly identify exactly what the problem is, consider possible causes, and test some possible solutions.

9. Get help.
If management problems persist and you cannot handle them on your own, get help from a colleague or an administrator. Do not let things fester. Do not be shy about asking for help, particularly about discipline problems, which are so common for many beginning teachers.

10. Be sure there is a back-up system.
If you need to remove a student from your room, you need to know there is a system in place that will back you up.

11. Be sure your rules accord with schoolwide expectations.
For example, if the school has decided that chewing gum is tolerable and you crack down on it, you can expect to have more trouble than the issue is probably worth.

Reprinted with permission from Those Who Can, Teach, Tenth Edition. Copyright © 2004 Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.