Classroom Mangement Continued
Classroom mangement is often a struggle as you are finding yourself as a teacher. What are your challenges? What are your successes? What have you learned about yourself and then management style you are developing?
Remember to post and respond to each other. Have a great week with a break on Thursday :)
posted by Chris @ 5:33 PM
9 comments
9 Comments:
If I had to sum up everything I have learned so far about classroom management in one sentence, it would be “Be fair, be firm, and be consistent”. In my classroom, I teach my students to be independent, responsible learners who are accountable for their work. My students know that there is always a way to get themselves out of trouble if they have earned a consequence. We have a system of "checks and stars". When students demonstrate responsible behavior to me, I will give them stars. Stars are not given for behavior that is expected of them. When they act out or do something irresponsible, they get a check. Students will usually not get a check without a warning, unless it is a more serious behavior (i.e. hitting, pushing). Checks need to be worked off during recess time by doing a math or reading activity. If students still have checks on Friday, they will not be allowed to participate in our cooking activity or the afternoon auction. They are taught that while their actions do have consequences, they can always earn their checks off and start over with a clean slate. For example, if a student has a check on Friday morning, they know that they have to come in and start working off their check immediately. If they have worked hard and completed their consequence, they can erase their check off the whiteboard and join a cooking group. The Friday afternoon auction reinforces good behavior, because the more points/stars a student earns, the more likely it is that they can earn a prize. Students will save up their points so that they are able to bid on big ticket items, such as a package of gummi bears. Students with checks on the board are not able to bid on things, regardless of how many points they have.
I have also found that it is important to keep students accountable for their work in small or large group activities. As Chris saw when she came to visit, I make sure that students have jobs, such as being the group leader or the group spokesperson. These responsibilities are indicated on the board and my students know exactly what is expected of them if they are put in one of these positions. I have also found that a timer is one of the single most important items a teacher can have. I use my timer on a daily basis, so that I can keep lessons moving along and keep track of students. There are some students who I have to time when they ask to use the restroom or else they will be gone for 10 minutes. I will say something to them along the lines of “I’ve set the timer for four minutes. That is plenty of time. Be responsible, and if you take longer than four minutes that tells me you were playing around and you will get a check.” I will also use the timer when doing group activities. For example, when my students were brainstorming “snow words” on Monday, I set the timer for 5 minutes of individual brainstorming time so that I could keep the lesson moving along and start making our class list for the word wall.
Although I still have a lot to learn about classroom management, I have learned a lot from my experience and my mentor teacher. I now feel very confident running my classroom.
The biggest challenge I faced in my classroom was understanding every child behaves and responds in his or her own way. What may work with one student may not have any affect on another and vice-versa. As a class our classroom management is done through color cards. Every student is responsible for themselves and for obeying school and classroom rules. When a student displays inappropriate behave, breaking a rule, then they are required to change their card to the next color. This system works great for most of the kids. All they need is that warning color to be shown and they quickly get themselves back on track. However, for some of the students it doesn’t work as effectively and the students revert back to the inappropriate behavior. Noticing this one of my successes has been being able to look at these individual students and find an additional management strategy that will help reinforce good behavior. One way I was able to do this with some of my students was to have them work toward a goal/reward instead of having things always taken away from them. So far these past weeks have shown significant differences with these individual students.
From these experiences I am learning how to accommodate all my students with classroom management strategies instead of focusing on the class as a whole. I am also learning how much I value respect from student to student, students toward themselves, and teacher to students/students to teacher. I feel like when the classroom environment is full of respect for one another then classroom management isn’t really a struggle.
Response:
I love the way Cami summed everything up into one sentence, “Be fair, be firm, and be consistent”. I think this sentence speaks volumes and I totally agree with it. It is so easy to say one thing and then not follow through with it. Kids are extremely intelligent and pick up on things. Therefore, if you say you’re going to do something and then don’t they will call you out every time. Kids will easily pick up on this and realize that you’re flexible, not as firm as you say your are, and are not consistent and they will push those boundaries and/or contradict everything you say and do every time. However, I think if you are true to this one statement that Cami posted then classroom management won’t seem as challenging.
Being in the classroom has made me appreciate the strategies and the techniques learned in school and especially in my classroom observations. The challenges I have encountered in the classroom management are keeping the students on track and motivated. My students are hard workers but have short attention spans. So finding a balance and being authoritative is something of a challenge. My students in general are great students but are so hyper. So the challenge here is keeping them engaged.
However, I feel like the students do respect me and they generally listen to me. My teacher has made a very safe and comfortable environment that allows the students to be themselves and also be respectful. She has a very structured classroom and is very peculiar about routines. This foundation has made it an easy transition for me to become the main figure of the classroom. The students have respect for each other and adults. This is great because it allows me to can my own style to a very structured classroom. One of my successes is my attention getter. My student’s respond to this Simon says kind of game to get their attention. Also, I like to try to do interactive games and activities which help with behavior because the students are engaged. I also give them decisions for their consequences if they do misbehave.
The real life application of management is such a great learning experience because I am finding what kind of teacher I like to be. I really found that I like structure and the card system. I think the younger kids the card change works and for the majority of the time students rethink their behavior when their cards get pulled. I really like structure. I am more lacks with side talk because sometimes kids just want to talk. My students are very talkative and I give warnings before the cards get pulled but sometimes you have to be stern and pull their cards. I also love routines with the flexibilities of changing lessons. Routines help students understand what the expectations are. Also, I do enjoy a little chaos and allow my students time to explore and change up the schedule for variety. I found by doing this kids are more engaged and excited because it is something different. Overall, I feel like my management skills are developing with more experience and I am finding out that I am a teacher who likes structure, routine, discipline, and also flexibility.
I try to be real with the students and get down to their level to understand them. I want them to be comfortable and be able to rely on me. With this I think, and hope, the students find a sense of belonging and in return try to behave better to make me happy. It seems to work; the students want to be nice to me since I am nice to them. I really don't like being mean, unless I feel I have to. Sometimes the students do try to push my buttons and I have to lay down the law, but when they see I will do this they tend to shape up. I think sometimes they feel they have to test the boundaries just to make sure they are still there. I think that is where Cammie's approach of staying consistent comes to play. When the students try to mix things up, you need to keep your rules and consequences consistent. I admit, this can be really hard at times, but I just bite my lip and say to myself "it's for the better". Then I can be "mean" to my students to control the class when it gets out of hand.
The biggest challenge at first was the students trying to double team my mentor teacher, Mr. Bachert, and myself. They would try the "mom and dad" act between us. If one of us said no, they would go to the other. We had to not only learn to be consistent with ourselves but with each other. Luckily, we have found the niche and for the most part have that worked out (although the students still try).
I think I have successfully won the side of my students, or at least most of them. I have successfully helped create an atmoshphere where the students are having fun but when I say "be quiet" they typically do. Of course, every once in awhile, they don't listen. That's when I take away the music and start keeping students after class. After being late for lunch or not getting out of school on time, they tend to be a little more quiet the next day.
I can totally relate to what Laura said about students trying to "double team" my mentor teacher and I. My third graders still try this! However, Mrs. Heit and I know which students do it, and have learned to keep an eye on them. Also, we have started giving checks out for that behavior (because they know it is wrong), which has significantly slowed it down. My kids are so adorable and fun that sometimes it's really hard to say no, but that is where "be consistent" comes into play :).
As I wrote about in my last blog, classroom management and continuing to develop more effective methods is my goal for the remainder of this semester. Although college education courses can give you theories and hypothetical situations about classroom management, nothing compares to the real life situations, both positive and negative, that I find myself in daily in the classroom. The biggest challenge I face is keeping my students engaged and interested in all classroom activities. Like I wrote before, the students are at the point where they are more comfortable in the high school setting and have many other distractions to pull their attention away from school work. While the majority of the class is on task and participates the majority of the time, I do have some very talkative students who can occasionally distract the rest of the class from group work or class discussions, either by going off on tangents or by causing a disruption. My teacher and I have developed a very effective method for getting the whole class back on track; for every minute that they waste during group or class time, the whole class stays after. This cuts into their lunch and passing period time, which the students do not want to miss. While this is effective when the whole class is off-task and helps students keep each other accountable, many times there are individual students who are the cause of the disruption. Now that I know my students and their personalities, and now that we’re so far into the school year that they feel comfortable sharing those talkative and sometimes diversion-causing personalities, reprimanding students individually would be more effective. We are implementing a “pink slip” system; when a student is off task or distracting others, we will silently give the student a pink slip which asks him or her to stop and document his or her behavior at the time and basically offer them a chance to tell his or her side of the story. After class, either I or my mentor teacher will meet with the student personally to discuss the incident, document our side of the story, and then discuss solutions to future, potential issues. While we haven’t had to use this often, I did have one disciplinary incident with a student who was being extremely defiant. At our conference after class, I found out that he was going through quite a few issues at home and would soon be moving to an undetermined new location. Having these one-on-one conferences not only allows class to continue without causing even more of an interruption, but also does not punish the other, on-task students and gives me a chance to talk individually with students whose behavior may have a bigger root cause. I have come to learn that having mutually respectful relationships with my students and planning engaging activities are the best ways to keep classroom management under control, but I am still developing even more proactive, rather than reactive, methods of effective classroom management both as a whole group and individually.
Classroom management has been one of the biggest struggles for me throughout my student teaching experience. I believe it is one of those things no matter how much we have learned throughout our time at WSU it is one of those things where we need to be in a classroom setting where we can experience how to manage a classroom.
I feel that classroom management is something that comes with knowing your students and knowing what works and doesn’t with the students. Some of the biggest challenges have been being able to have the students’ attention for a longer period of time. First graders are very energetic and have little attention spans that most lessons need to last about 30 minutes at the most, for the students to get more out of the lesson. I need to remember this. Most of the times my lessons have been for the most about thirty minutes, but sometimes they take a little longer so the biggest challenge is keep them engaged in the learning activity. Another challenging part of managing the classroom was when I started to take more control over the classroom. My students would try to push my buttons more than with my coop teacher. I just needed to be more firm with them.
I feel that the less couple of weeks where I have completely taken over the classroom has been most useful where the students know what I need from them and know that they can’t get away with things. Something I feel I have done successfully is to manage the first graders with firm but loving actions. Especially with first graders you have to be firm, but they are still young and need to have that comfort knowing you are there to help them learn. I guess that is what I learned about myself that I need to be hard, but gentle with first graders. I have also learned that my management style is more of a tender type of management went where I don’t yell, but more show them what I need them to do. I guess that is why being in first grade has helped me with my own management style.
I believe that classroom management is something that I will always be working on ways to improve throughout my teaching career. Since I have recently transitioned to the elementary and high school, I instantly noticed that all the respect that I had earned at the middle school was gone. Having spent the first quarter at the MS starting the year off and jumping into teaching provided me with a great command of the class. Now that I am at two new schools, I feel like am starting all over again, still learning student names, personality types, and classroom structure. The elementary students have been excited to have me in the classroom and quick to respond to my presence. However, I feel at the high school you have to earn their respect.
Last week in the 9th grade health class I started a unit on nutrition which will later move into body management and eating disorders. The class is only 18 students, but I have been surprised as to how seriously they take the subject of health. One challenge that I will find myself running into is finding enough time during the 90min block to cover everything I had planned. Anything that we don't get through has to done the next period, thus pushing my planning further back. My success has been being able to keep the students engaged for those 90min. Since they do take the class and teacher seriously, I think I can get away with role playing and discussion activities. In HS PE, one challenge I have faced is having to share the facility with the other PE classes. The gym at the high school is small especially for a HS. While trying to teach volleyball with another class playing basketball on the other side of the gym makes it nearly impossible to be heard.
I feel that with my different levels of experience my management style is developing. I have been just recently learning the patience and consistency it requires to teach a simple warm up game to 1st graders. I have also been surprised as to how quickly I can adapt to a new classroom after having been at the middle school for a quarter.
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