The following guest post was written by Toby Rothstein Gruber, Eye On Education's Director of Professional Services and the moderator of Eye On Education's professional development webinars.

Have you ever felt like no matter what classroom management technique you try, there are some students you just can’t reach? Bryan Harris to the rescue!

During our February 9 webinar, Managing Disruptive Behaviors in the Classroom, he identified some strategies that actually work to improve student behavior. These strategies will help you solve the 5 most common classroom disruptions: students blurting out answers, side talk, rude or disrespectful behavior, students zoning out, and students refusing to try. Check out some of his strategies below. These received the strongest, most positive reactions from webinar participants.

Photographic evidence. Gather images and pictures that demonstrate expected classroom behavior. One webinar participant mentioned, "I do this on almost a daily basis on my iPad and then mirror it on a larger screen."  Another participant commented that if you don’t have time to do it yourself, make it a project for the kids. They can plan, create, and display the pictures.

Start statements. Instead of saying, "Stop doing that." Rephrase your directive to be positive. For example, say, "Start working on question #3."

Give students a head start. Provide students with some of the answers to an assignment. This will encourage them to start or finish their assignment. As one of our participants chatted, "This is an example of differentiation and works well with some students."

Check-in statements. Bryan suggests that you say something like this: "Complete the first 6 questions and I’ll be back to check on you in about five minutes." Or you can ask the student to come and get you in five minutes. It lets them know they will be held accountable.

Clicker technology. Participants commented that "We are moving to clicker technology, which is really excellent at preventing blurting out. Clickers are automated student response systems, sort of like a survey system where everyone has a pad with numbers and letters, so you can ask a question and they push a button in conjunction with a response. Students can input an answer and it appears in a graph.  It's a nice way to get a quick response from every student."

Closed fist. When a student raises a hand with a closed fist, it indicates that he or she does not want to answer the question but is participating by raising a hand just like other students in the class. The student will indicate his or her level of comfort in responding through the number of fingers raised.  This is a subtle yet powerful strategy and will encourage students to participate without embarrassing them. 

These strategies and more were discussed during our webinar. For those who missed it, you can view Managing Disruptive Behaviors in the Classroom on-demand.

Last but not least, take Bryan’s challenge of the day, and get feedback from your students about how you’re doing. We encourage our students to take risks every day, let’s model for them what it’s like to be a risk taker!