Tweet

() Comments

Report

In no better scenario is classroom and behavior management is the axiom "you
never get a second chance to make a first impression" more true. To begin with
your first year is supposed to suck. Second, you need to come out swinging at
the beginning of the school year. The two tools that are going to help you do
that are preparation and organization. My plan that I use for organization is four
fold.

First, get a clipboard.

Second, on your clipboard keep three lists. The first list on your clipboard keep a
running task list of all the work that has been assigned and the students that still
owe you work. On the first day of class explain your grading policy and what
happens with late work, then follow it, because some student in some class (or
more) will test your policy to see if your a pushover. If that means giving out a
handful of Fs and calling parents the second day of school, do it. Students will
learn to respect you in time but to start they need to fear you and know you
mean business. Use your task list to add and cross out names and assignments
as they are done. Collect each assignment individually, walk to each students
desk or seat. Establish eye contact, address them by name, show them you know
who they are.

The second list on your clipboard is your MUST DO list, not the things you can do
or should do, but the things you absolutely must do before calling it a day and
leaving, you will be surprised how few those things are,a s time goes by. NEVER
put off something on your must do list, must do, means you must do it. This will
hurt at first but you will get better at prioritizing very quickly. How will this effect
classroom management? Because you will be ready and focused when your
students are in class, you will not be attending to a dozen things in your head
and your classroom only being one of them.

The third list is your can do list. This is the list of tasks to do when your must do
list is over. If you get 30 minutes a day to do this list in a month you can have
really big projects done.

As for preparation, remember that you are the teacher they are the students,
they are not peers, they are not collaborators. You do not work together. That
may come later as they have demonstrated that they can at least act like scholars
if not actually becoming scholars. Establish procedures and processes before
school starts. Forget about putting posters on the wall, and perfecting lessons.
No lesson survives intact past the first period. Use the XSML model X is for
bridging activity, S is the short or small activity and is the warm up, M is the
medium moderate activity where you present, L or long is the independent or
group work the students do. Establish this routine over and over. Dont give in
when they plead for a change of pace, its your classroom not theirs (forget what
all the warm fuzzy researchers and professors have told you about learning
being a partnership). Lessons dont need to be creative and all technological and
address high order thinking, they need to work, and work is moving knowledge
from your brain to theirs. It may not be pretty but direct teach has been the
standard for a few millennia, because it works, painfully but it works.
Lastly, be rigid, children regardless of age need consistency, if theyre late theyre
late, if they are misbehaving they are misbehaving and use punishment (not
reinforcement) equally. Dont have favorites, call on everyone equally and
randomly. Dont ask for volunteers, choose someone. Assign tasks on the
holidays and weekends, when you return collect it, grade it and return it. I like
to assign a book over christmas and give a test on it worth double points when
we get back. Dont let students, teachers, parents or admins talk you out of it. Its
your classroom, your students, your scores, and your the teacher. Everyone
needs to understand its your way or the highway, because students will pick up
that if their parents or the AP can change the classroom, they will simply bypass
you and choose the favorable pathway.

Posts on this thread, including this one