Reducing Classroom Noise to Increase Classroom Learning

June 2nd, 2010 By: Diane Trim in Articles, Classroom Management

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People don’t believe me when I tell them about my first classroom in the South almost 20 years ago. To be fair, my school district was in a poor part of the state and we hardly had money for textbooks and postage, let alone sound tiles and noise-reducing carpet.

My central noise problem didn’t come from my students, loud hallways, or sound bouncing off the classroom’s hard, bare walls and floors. My noise problem came from the enormous air conditioning unit that hung from my classroom’s ceiling. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I write that this unit had the dimensions of an office cubicle, but just half as tall.

I know many readers don’t have air-conditioned classrooms and can’t figure out why my jet-engine A/C made such an impact on me. In my part of the country, the heat was unbearable. We had 100 days of 100-degree weather and 100 percent humidity. In my area of the country, air conditioning wasn’t a luxury; it was a necessity.

Another necessity was delivering the curriculum to my students so they learned and met the state standards. Unfortunately, teaching while the air conditioning unit taxied the runway was nearly impossible. I could shout over the A/C, but not for long, and not for seven class periods a day. The positive outcome: fewer lectures from me and more hands-on work from the students.

A noisy A/C unit isn’t the only noise obstacle to overcome in the classroom. Here are three noise problems and five possible solutions. Your obstacles and solutions are welcome in the comments!

Loud work groups. Every time you ask the students to form groups, the teacher next door begins to pound on your wall to let you know how loud everyone is. Alright, maybe she’s not pounding on the wall, but the noise is bad.

I encouraged my students to make eye contact with their group members and then silently point to the place in the room where they’d meet. No one was to drag chairs along the floor, but rather pick them up. We’d practice this like a silent fire drill, especially when the class was squirrely. It’s a good way to encourage quiet as well as movement.

As for the loud work group, I’ve found that when groups are making plans for Saturday night instead of making their story map, the volume increases a lot. The key to decreasing noise is to walk among the groups, monitor their progress, and use a low-volume voice yourself.

Loud teacher talk. You know the science teacher down the hall who hollers at her students to get their attention? Sure, her yelling was effective in the beginning of the school year, but now her students just tune her out with all of the other noise in the room.

Talking over the students is never a good idea. Always wait for students to be quiet to start talking. Never raise your voice. Project to the back of the room, but let them strain just a little to hear you. In other words, model the voice your students should use.

Have activities ready to go right when your students enter the room so they’re quiet and at work when the bell rings. Never shout at a misbehaving student; in fact, approach the student, kneel down to her level, and talk to her in a quiet voice so you don’t disrupt the class further. If the student off-task behavior is minor, use a hand gesture instead to mime picking up a pencil or put a finger to your lips to indicate silence.

End-of year whooping. Those of you who are looking at the last days or weeks of school don’t need a noisy A/C in your rooms to tell you it’s nearly summer vacation. You can figure out the time of year based on the amount of noise and chatter your students produce. You think it’s bad now, wait until half way through your last final exam. Some kids have completed the exam and are fidgeting and whispering. It won’t be long until the whispering reaches a crescendo and no one can concentrate on the second essay question.

In an ideal world, your administration will have given you a hand with the final exam crowd and allowed you dismiss the test takers as they finish their exams. Students exit the building through the nearest set of doors and aren’t let back in.

If you don’t teach in the ideal world, my plan B isn’t going to be very helpful. Plan B is to rely on your classroom procedures. The best way shut down disruptive test takers is to lay down your testing expectations months ago and shut them down consistently. Students who have finished with the test should begin on the independent activity on the board. It’s a great scheme if you have another unit to teach, but if the clock’s ticking ever closer to the final bell, having another assignment isn’t going to work very well.

Your plan C can include high-interest reading materials such as old magazines from the school Library Materials Center, the day’s newspaper, and some supermarket tabloids. You can also give students the opportunity to work on one missing assignment for partial credit. You might offer a puzzle that’s relevant to your discipline and offer students one or two extra credit points for completing it. In other words, plan C is finding materials to keep them quiet and working while the other kids test.

These three suggestions to lower classroom noise are helpful, but none would have solved my A/C problem. Have you overcome a noisy problem in your classroom? Anyone have an echo? Have you had a good experience with the one-foot voice technique? Let’s start a discussion in the comments.

Tags: noise

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