BACK TO SCHOOL BOOTCAMP: Episode 2- Summer Prep- CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT & Student Behavior (:
Hi WELCOME back!!! I am so so happy you are here for episode #2. Today we will be chatting all things classroom management and managing student behavior, because you will deal with student behavior and having some strong tools in your tool box will help set you up for success.
WHO: Is this bootcamp for?
Now you may be asking, who is this bootcamp for? And the truth is EVERYBODY even vet teachers have to prep and prepare for the first weeks back to school. Yes this bootcamp will be targeted towards my LOVELY baby teachers who are in their first or second year of teaching, but I think the learning can be spread to all. So maybe you are going into your 5th year of teaching or you are changing grade levels, stay, hang out & hopefully learn a lot!!
WHAT: Are we focusing on?
This episode of summer prep will have one main focus and that will be classroom management! (:
WHEN: Should you prepapre?
This second episode is designed to be a summer prep, so to be thinking about your classroom and all the wonderful things that will happen there, this following school year, but I know a lot of teachers do not like to do any over the summer learning & to that I say HECK YES! This can totally be applied to your teacher inservice, when you go back but you have no students yet!! And for my summer babes, LET’S DO THIS!
WHY: Is classroom management important?
Establishing a positive and responsive classroom environment is the KEY to having a SLAY teaching year (: This prep will get you to lay the groundwork for classroom management that is efficient, responsive and FUN.
HOW: To make the most of this information?
Now the information presented in episode 2 is A LOT!!! So if I were you I would take a week to think about all these things below, so that you can avoid overwhelm & stay the course, because I promise it will be worth it.
First thing I want to be super clear on, is WHAT IS CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT? I think there are a lot of misconceptions out there about classroom management and so we are going to start with what is NOT classroom management.
NON EXAMPLES
Now I am not saying these aren’t tools that you can use to support your classroom management, but by themselves no these will not manage your classroom.
Classroom management is the techniques and strategies that teachers use to maintain an orderly, productive, and respectful learning environment. It encompasses a wide range of practices aimed at fostering student engagement, establishing clear expectations, and creating a positive classroom culture. Effective classroom management is LIFEEE for minimizing disruptions, promoting student responsibility, and maximizing instructional time.
So here are my tried and true classroom management strategies and techniques that I have used every year to help me manage my classroom. I want you to think about these things, so you can decide what is BEST for your classroom (:
TIP #1: ROUTINES AND PROCEDURES.
Routines and procedures, like I discussed in episode one will be your holy grail of classroom management. If you have one strong classroom practice please please please let it be this. If you want a more in depth understanding of routines and procedures visit episode 1 here! (:
Routines and procedures will be clearly defined practices that all students will do in your classroom. If students have not yet mastered a routine and procedure that has been explicitly taught, then you will practice and practice and practice until students get it. This is the important part, practice makes PERFECT baby!!!
EXAMPLE: You explicitly teach students that your pencil routine is that students have pencils in their pencil pouch, if they need a new pencil they will switch a dull pencil for a sharp one at the beginning of class. If their pencil breaks during instruction, they will hold their pencil up and you will shake your head to allow them to get another one. If students are missing a pencil and they have nothing to trade, they will need to use your pencil check out system.
Now you have multiple students getting up in the middle of the lesson, to sharpen their pencil. You will sit everyone down, repeat the procedure with effective modeling and then you will have everyone practice (:
TIP #2: HAVING CRYSTAL CLEAR EXPECTATIONS
I always say that everyone does better when the expectations are clearly defined and everyone agrees upon them. If students understand what you expect and the other key WHY you expect that, they will be so much more likely to comply with those demands.
Now this goes along with your routines and procedures . During _____ routine you expect that students will do this independently and with a level 0 voice, because it will allow the classroom to have efficient transitions and every member will be responsible.
Having clear expectations can also be a good place for you to have input from your students. As a class can we all agree that during direct instruction it is best for all learning that our voices are off, that during classroom games we will allow off task conversations as long as they don’t disrupt the game so on and so forth.
The last input piece into clear expectations is presuming competence, your students can meet the expectation you have set forth for them, may it be hard a first sure, but with scaffolding, support and encouragement your students are so so CAPABLE (:
TIP #3: MAKING YOUR CLASSROOM A POSITIVE PLACE
This is two fold, one you want your classroom community to be a place where students feel like they belong and the second is you, yourself as the leader and the teacher need to have positive discourse with students.
Building a positive classroom community.
I have two thoughts about this one:
First you want to give your students opportunities to connect with one another and with you. This could be accomplished with a quick fun question shared at the end of class or morning meeting! (more to come with the morning meeting in episode 3) This could also be sharing things that are going on in your life with your students. My students have always loved when I show them pictures of my family and talk about the things that are important to me.
The second is that if you are going to build a respectful community, you will have to hold students accountable to what respectful looks like to you. So you have students laughing at another student during a morning meeting game, you can’t ignore that and it needs to be addressed so that students can see your seriousness when it comes to upholding that classroom community. I also have ALWAYS asked students who can not respect our classroom community to step to the hall or the side, so that they are not part of the community if they can not follow the expectations. As soon as they can show respect with their words and body they are welcomed back (:
Positive teacher language:
There is so much I could say about this, but since my tip is less is more, I will keep it short. DO NOT ENGAGE in the power battles. If a student is not meeting expectations you will give them a short and concise redirect, if they choose to back talk you will IGNORE!!! I know that sounds crazy, but engaging in a non-effective conversation will just ruin your relationship with that student and make you feel more upset. After the student is calm or at the end of class you can address the back talk (:
When trying to get students to meet expectations, use positive narration to get your class to understand and comply. It would sound something like “I notice Jessica is sitting at her seat showing me she is ready with her body, because she is sitting up, eyes on the board, nice work Jessica..” Or whatever that would sound like for you, obviously keep it authentic to the way that you typically discuss with students.
TIP #4: ENGAGEMENT
Engagement and talking about engagement is one hundred percent my favorite classroom conversation. I LOVEEEEE getting to see students loving to learn and engaged in their learning. Also a wonderful side effect of having a super engaging class is that students are more likely to comply with the expectation and are less likely to have behaviors.
Here are my engagement tips to make your classroom a place students want to be:
RELEVANT learning, can you tie in pop culture or something your students love?
Collaborative sharing structures like mix pair share, think pair share or heads in tails out.
Gamifying your learning or adding a game into your teaching (see game board product)
Get students MOVING, chalk talks, gallery walks, collaborative sharing, jigsaw
Give students a second to chat, if you have a super chatty class the best thing is to let them chat, and then get them back on task.
Take things less seriously…
Have high academic demand, with appropriate scaffolds
HAVE FUN! (:
TIP #5: CONSISTENT CONSEQUENCES & MODELING
Finally we get to the modeling and the consequences!
Modeling is what you do as a teacher to show students how you want them to act in your classroom. I ALWAYS MODEL everything, I even raise my own hand when I want students to raise hands and not blurt out (: Modeling is perfect, for the first through 10th time you do something you will want to physically show them what you expect and then have them practice. If it is a procedure your students know well, but they keep messing up, pick a few students to show a NON example and your class will laugh and it will be great!!
Consequences, this is the tough part of being a teacher, but I have a few thoughts I will leave you with.
One, be consistent!! If you choose to have something be your consequence for one student, you should repeat that with all students.
I love logical consequences, you break it- you fix it, loss of privileges and take a break. These mean whatever the behavior was, the consequence is logical to the behavior. For example you scream during morning meetings, you lose the privilege to participate in morning meetings. You break pencils, I will not provide you with any more and you can tape the ones you broke back together.
The last thought with consequences is that they are ALWAYS a conversation. Please discuss with the student why these things are happening and always make a plan for the future. This is time consuming yes, but you will get the best results when you value them as a person (:
Conclusion of Episode 2:
Now you have some understanding of what you are going to do with your classroom management and are feeling EXCITED. (: I bet you are already 1 step closer to that SLAY classroom that you are envisioning!! Episode 3 will be all about summer prep round 3 where you think about MORNING MEETING as a classroom tool (:
