Classroom Management Prompt. Respond by 10-3-07
Thanks for the first round of postings. It's nice for all of us to learn about where you are and a little bit about the learners for whom you are responsible. As you are taking on more responsiblity for teaching, this is a good time to talk about issues of classroom management. What kind of a management system have you helped put in place? As you are making the transition to being in charge what are the challenges? What are you learning about yourself and your style when it comes to management and disipline?
Remember to post an answer and respond to at least one of your peers. Johannes and Brandon, send me your thoughts in an email and I will post for you (sorry for the inconvenience). This is supposed to be a chance to interact with each other so let's try to get a dialogue going around this topic.
Chris
posted by Chris @ 10:39 AM
12 comments
12 Comments:
This is from Johannes in Hanau.
I began teaching senior US Government on the first day of classes. I feel that this has helped me create my own classroom environment and expectations, instead of taking over the management system of another teacher (as I am currently doing for another class). I collaborated with my cooperating teacher to learn the school rules and how she structured her classes, and from that I wrote my own syllabus and set of class rules that I passed out on the first day and require the students to keep in their notebooks. My management system requires my students to be on task and participate; with eleven seniors at 8 a.m. that is sometimes a difficult task. I begin each day with the period's agenda outlined on the board and an entry task written on the board for the students to copy down and answer—I believe this lends structure to the class just by exemplifying that I am prepared for them. The questions range from simple list responses to critical thinking questions, and are a lead-in to the day's lesson as well as a review of what was covered the day before. My students know that their first activity every day is the entry task, and this gets the students on-task with relative ease. After that, I commence with the lesson and activities, managing the 90-minute period by switching activities about every half hour--this keeps the students engaged and addresses a mélange of varied learning styles each day through group activities, peer-to-peer teaching presentations, individual reading, discussions, short video clips, simulations, current events study and much more. I have found that diversifying the activities (while intertwining them into a web of relevance) is not only making a subject such as Government interesting for the students but limiting behavioral issues at the same time. My biggest challenge has been adjusting to the 90-minute period and keeping the students engaged, but planning creative and plentiful methods of teaching and re-teaching the content has proven successful. My bilateral approach to the US Government class focuses independently on current events/global politics and on US government development/structure; I then challenge the students to connect the two and relate them to their experiences, location, and future.
I have learned a lot about myself through this process. I am developing and employing creativity under the pressure of daily lesson planning to create interesting and relevant activities to go along with book work, current events study, and daily political discussions; showing the students that I will depart from humdrum read-and-respond lessons to engage them in varied ways has proven to be its own management system. I try daily to exude patience with the students, and stress that the students respect each other and treat their peers as adults, and this is how I treat the students as well. I am developing a patient, sincere, and firm management system that has thus far proven successful. I have also learned the value of humor at appropriate times, and to always keep my ears open to issues going on with the student body at the high school and on the military base.
I started teaching half of the day’s lessons from the first day of school. Being in a 2nd grade classroom that is three or so lessons a day depending on the daily schedule, what other activities are going on in the school and so forth. I taught Science, Social Studies, Health, and Writing (though there was little of it in the beginning). From the beginning of the year my cooperating teacher has included me in everything that went into setting up the classroom; physically, emotionally, and in the way of paperwork :) Due to the fact that I have been teaching from the beginning, I don’t think that I have had that much difficulty taking over control of the classroom. I have noticed what a big difference in energy required to teach half of the lessons to all of the lessons. I am definitely more tired when I get home this week than I have been in the past month or previous practicums. We decided from the first day of teacher work week that we were going to have the students choose the rules for the class, with some guidance and well placed suggestions, so that they felt a connection and responsibility for their decisions. We titled the rules "Our Decisions" because that is what they were. We set up the classroom so that everyone knew that it was all of our space, which needed to be cared for and respected. We sent the rules home for the parents to go over with the students, sign the bottom portion and return the sheet. In our class we have a management cue for the studnets to listen for to know when they have to look, listen and freeze. I say "1,2,3 Look at ME!" the students then respond "1,2 Eyes on YOU!" This works very well and the students have fun with it. I also work to teach the students how to control thier voice volumes in different areas of the school.
Delome and I both believe that it is vital to keep the lines of communication open with students’ parents. To do this and we asked all the parents to submit home phone numbers, email addresses, and also mailing addresses at the beginning of the year. While we do not always send out mass emails or individual emails daily let alone weekly, we makes sure to send out a weekly Newsletter in print that the students are responsible for the delivery.
My school has a school wide discipline policy, which I like to call "Make Your Day". It is a program in which the students all have multiple colored cards (each standing for a specific consequence) on a chart, their cards are identified by their name above it. The first card is green and the students are to try and stay on this card the whole day. The second card is yellow and means that they have lost their warning. Red is their third card and that means that they have to stay in for 5 extra minutes when everyone else goes to recess. The fourth card is orange and the consequence associated with that color is a 10 minute time out/or loss of privilege for the day. The final card is one that students dread getting; the blue card. This means that they are to the end of the road and there are no more chances. They are sent to the office and have to call a parent. While this is a school wide policy on discipline, I really do like it and utilize it in my classroom. It is good for the students to have a visual reminder of what their decisions have been for the day. Along with the schools discipline policy the classroom also has a rewards system. We instilled in the students that this is a reward for doing something good and out of the ordinary. We call it "catching them being good", and the kids really love it. The students receive certificates for doing things above and beyond what is expected of them and at a designated time they are able to use their certificates to "buy" trinkets at the class store. In the same respect as being a reward system, the certificates can also be taken away for the students who were caught doing something disrespectful, harmful, or unkind to others. This system works and it instills a sense of expenses and savings.
While I am having a blast teaching 2nd grade I feel that my style of classroom management and just my over all personality may be better suited for a 4th or 5th, even 6th grade classroom. I love my class and my students are rising to all of my expectations. I continuously have to raise my expectations so that they still have something to achieve. I am really glad though that I had the opportunity to realize that while I may feel more comfortable in the intermediate grades, I do know that I like the primary grades and feel comfortable enough to teach them.
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I have pretty much taken over the class at this point. I teach science and math to two different classes. Mr. McNamara has pretty high expectations of his class which I can respect. I am carrying this over into my teaching. We have bells set around the classroom and when we ring the bell the students have ten seconds to get back to there seats and look at the teacher. This seems to work for me because I can not get their attention with just my voice because my voice is not loud enough. I have been involved in the set up of the classroom and I’ve had some part in teaching since day one. I think that this has really helped in the transitioning from Mr. McNamara teaching to me teaching.
We have had issues with talking in our class this week. Yesterday they went to their guidance class and Mr. McNamara walked by and saw that the class was out of control. As a result of this they had to come back to the classroom for lunch and recess and sit in total silence for their lunch period. This did not seem to affect them because later in the day they would not stop talking for Mr. McNamara or myself. We discussed it and we are going to have to come down harder on the students about talking out starting tomorrow. This started to affect my confidence as a teacher, but Mr. McNamara reassured me that he has been teaching for 27 years and he has never had a class that liked to talk as much as this class so we’re going to experiment until we find something that works. Any suggestions?
This is from Brandon in Hanau.
A: Classroom management is a subject that I find entertaining, yet challenging. Since I didn't participate on the last blog let me you give you a quick look into my classroom, this will help your understanding.
My responsibilities of teaching consist of instructing the 6th graders for math and social studies. Both of these classes consist of the whole 6th grade class whose population is 27 students.This is important to understand, the whole school consists of 140+ students, I have the largest class out of all grades 6-12.
My management style does not vary far from my cooperating teachers view on this issue. I believe that the students should be able to manage themselves with a little guidance. I ask students to please manage themselves by asking them what they are supposed to be doing. Most times this means that if they finish an assignment in class then they are asked to read and not involve others around them. My voice does not raise which is important, but my tone is adjusted along with facial expressions to show my point. This allows for the student to recognize what they are doing is not being asked. If I have to continue this process because the student does not control themselves, then they eat lunch with me.
As for my transition it was pretty smooth to be honest. I was given the math class by the second week I believe and the social studies class by the end of the third week. This has allowed the students to understand my goals and style of teaching. I have had to make adjustments and this was noted by self reflection, comments by my cooperating teacher, and an observation by my principle. These factors have made me change certain aspects of my social studies class. I have realized mainly by students performance that the concepts and involvement were not meeting my expectations. To change this I have made the students begin taking notes either through graphic organizer style or cornel notes. This makes the important information stick deeper in the mind and help reinforce our discussions on the reading.
The aspect of learning about myself is that I am happy with who and how I handle my class. I'm not dictating, but allowing the students to help understand barriers. By our fifth week I can actually see the students respond to my requests and focus their abilities on these actions. I hope this answers your questions, if anyone has any please feel free to email me at my military site or I will just try to send the responses back to Chris.
Brandon 28 Sep 07
By this point now I pretty much have control of the
whole classroom. However, it is interesting working with teacher that has taught for 26 years and has never had a student teacher because I think she has a hard time giving it up to me. But like I said for the most part right now I have full control of the classroom. In the mornings we start out with reading and language arts. During this time the kids sit at their desks and will do daily jobs that put them in a routine, we have them start out with reading, then a skill page which we teach, the students will then go onto handwriting, journal writing, DOL, then have the oppurtunity for a snack, and then do a math page, AR test, and if everything else is done they can go to the library for up to 20 minutes. This seems to be very affective because it gives me the chance to
give responsibility to the students and walk around the classroom so I can help them with whatever they need. However, during reading groups I ask questions to the group and students are not allowed to disturb the group. The first two hours of the day is the most interesting cause I have never been in a classroom that did this before. For the rest of the day each lesson is taught individually.
Regarding to discipline my class is generally pretty
good. Just like Meg and Laura my class also uses the card policy (its used by every classroom in the
school). However, my class is a little different.
Green represents the student is have a great day,
yellow is a warning, red means that the student has quiet lunch in the lunchroom (either Mrs. Moss or I will be with the student, they have to eat by
themselves), blue means quiet lunch and no lunch
recess, and orange is quiet lunch, no lunch recess,
and dentention for the next day. So far there has
only been one student that has reached orange, a
couple who have hit blue, and generally every other day we'll have a student that has quiet lunch. The hardest thing for our class and I imagine this is for a lot of other classes is that our students love to talk. Mrs. Moss and I are both pretty strict and enforce the rules so we can have the classes
attention. Some days are really easy and the class is really good, but there are other days that it seems to be pretty crazy. Overall, we have a great classroom of students and I love working with all of them.
Through this experience I have learned who I really am as a teacher and continue to grow of who I will become. This experience doesn't even compare to the other practicums in the past. The joy and wonderful experience that I'm having at this time is absolutely amazing. It is a lot of work, but it has been the most rewarding experience so far. As for my teaching, I realize that not every lesson was a success, so I look over what I did, how I did it, and how I can make it better for the next time. That right there alone has built my confidence of what I am becomming as a teacher along with my skills.
In response to Eileen’s post I also had a lot of problems with my students shouting out in the beginning of the year, but now I don’t have such a problem with it. As with any 2nd grade classroom there will be a couple of students that shout out every now and then but that is to be expected. I am not sure what will work with your classroom Eileen, but I found that if I stop the class and require the students to share with the class what they were talking about they become embarrassed and that stops them from talking with each other as much as they did in the beginning. You might try individual discipline for the students that shout out because they may not see the whole class staying in from recess as a discipline because that way everyone is missing out not just them. Do you have to go out for recess duty? If so you may try making the students that shout out “sit on the wall” and watch as the other students play at recess. I have found that individual punishment is more successful than group.
Thanks for the suggestions Meg. We've actually been implementing a lot of those ideas and they have been working pretty well.
In response to Kevin, I feel the same way. This is definitley a very rewarding experience. I'm learning from all of my mistakes and I'm finding my own teaching style. I can really feel my confidence growing. I'm able to see what would work for me and what wouldn't. I'm able to watch other teachers and take what would work for me.
I began the year with Sandy as an aid in a way. I had more of a monitoring position than a teaching one. This is mostly because Sandy was testing the student to find out what kind of skills they had. This took a great deal of time, so we worked on art projects and whole class evaluations. As school went on I started taking over more, now I take care of most of the day but as we are still introducing curriculum to the class I do not have full control. I will however have full control this coming week.
At Bamberg Elementary there is a school wide disciplinary plan call Make Your Day. Basically it is the card system, Meg and Kevin have already explained how it works but a summary is that all students start on a green card and they have to make good decisions to stay there. In my room we try not to use the card system very much. Instead we give out a lot of warnings and each table can earn and lose table points. There are four tables in the room with four to five students. Students can earn table points by following directions or going above and beyond expectations. Students can lose table points by talking out of turn, not following directions or disrupting class in some other way. We try to use table points as positive reinforcement; such as if one table is doing a good job of reading silently we announce to the class that table number two is receiving a point because of how nicely and silently they are reading. This then gets the other table to calm down so that they too might get a table point.
To get the class to quiet down we use two techniques. First we have a little song, I would say “Everybody listen” and they would sing back “Right now”. The second is the clapping method. I clap and they respond by mimicking the clap. These methods work but they can take some time. They are not very good about responding the first time, it could take me three times of either the song or clapping to get everyone silent and participating. This does not mean they don’t settle down, I am just not sure they think it is important to clap or sing the end of the song. They react the same way to the song or the clapping no matter if it is Sandy or me who is initiating it, the only difference is that I will continue to clap or sing the first part of the song until every student is participating.
Most of the time we do not have any behavior problems. The only thing we are working on is how to work without talking. This is more of a struggle then I expected; this is a very talkative class. However, all we need to do is remind them to work quietly, or take/give a table point and they settle down. I am really lucky to have such a great class, a loud but a great class and I am excited to see what the rest of the semester will bring.
Brandon I think that I have some of the same qualities as you in discipline. I as well expect my students to know what they are doing, I try to hold the bar as high as I can for some students. Now there are a couple students I have that give me a lot of problems because they act like 1st graders in a 3rd graders body. However, I deal with this issue as best as I can by sitting down and talking to them during lunch or any other time we have time. I certainly believe that expecting your students to do certain things will affect the way they act in class.
From the beginning I have been a part of the classroom which I think has helped tremendously in the way the kids respond to me compared to other practicums in the past. I do not have complete control yet, but should this next coming week.
I could tell pretty early on that classroom management was going to be the most difficult part for me in my class. So far the kids haven't really given me any problems and are responsive if i ask them to do things. My teacher and I differ in that I am a lot more relaxed than she may be and part of that my have to do with the jobs that i've had with kids that have been in less structured environments (ie. day camps, club volleyball). So there are times that I will ok something for a student to do and she will say no, or I won't let a kid do something and she will. This has been a challenge and I feel that it is still her classroom and she will be here after I'm gone so at this point it is more important to go by her rules and regs.
But with that being said, I am learning a lot about myself and my style of management. I observed a fellow student teacher of mine when i was in her class helping out with a lab and it seemed like she was yelling the entire time, even when the class was silent. This made me more aware of my voice levels when i'm teaching because i know sometimes it is easy to be loud when it's not necessary.
Like Kevin said, this experience doesn't even compare to past practicum experiences. I am loving my school and my kids (most of the time :o) ) and am so happy to be here!
Eileen- We have one class that will not stop talking! And it is getting very frustruating. There are only 14 students in there but it feels like 50 most of the time. Being a science classroom we do a lot of lab work and NEVER let them pick lab groups, but at the same time, it doesn't seem to make much difference what their groups are or where they sit. They are constantly off task! My teacher threatened them with detention the other day but i swear, most of them are in lunch detentions every other day between their other 3 teachers- and lunch detention doesn't seem to be working cause they are in there everyday! So i'm not sure what we are going to end up doing....
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