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Classroom Management

 

Practice, practice, practice!

This involves explaining, rehearsing, repeating, and reinforcing.

 

Examples:

  • Morning routines

  • Where to place finished work

  • Where to collect corrected work

  • What to do if they have completed their work

  • How transition works during Daily 5 or center activities

  • How to line up and walk in the halls appropriately

  • How to leave class at recess, lunch, and at the end of the day

 

Once this has been established I strongly believe that when negative behaviour does occur it should be addressed discretely with the individual student.

 

“If you want your children to improve, let them overhear the nice things you say about them to others.” - Haim G. Ginott

 

If however the behaviour persists, I will have to analyze the situation and decide whether or not to apply specific measures to the individual student, discuss the issue with the class as a whole, or simply reflect upon my own class system.

 

In order to track student behaviour I will have numerous intervention tools to pull from if necessary.

  • Self-evaluating behaviour forms

  • Daily/weekly behaviour forms

  • Behaviour reflections

  • Behaviour contracts

 

In order to have a well managed classroom I will:

  • Build classroom expectations together with the students (periodically revisited)

  • Have rules and expectations that coincide with that of the Code of Conduct

  • Model what good behaviour looks like

  • Expect students to act appropriately inside and outside of my classroom

  • Maintain clear, positive and high expectations

  • Be fair (even when it’s difficult)

  • Be consistent (even when it’s really, really difficult)

  • Supervise students at all times (circulating and taking notes)

  • I will praise good behaviour

  • I will play Behaviour Bingo regularly in order to make being well-behaved fun

  • Always have an appropriate follow up activity to keep students busy

  • Always have the class schedule clearly written on the board

  • Have clear visual expectations of where they should be and what they should be doing during Daily 5, D.E.A.R, and center activities

  • Allow for movement breaks

  • Have roles established for each student when they are working in groups

  • Include a point/coupon system to encourage good behaviour

  • Get the students attention by either clapping a rhythm or saying a catchy phrase we practiced together (T:Macaroni & Cheese- S:Everybody Freeze, T:Hands on Top- S:That means stop)

 

“Rapport is the magical ingredient that changes a student’s reluctance to be controlled into a willingness to be guided.” – Ron Morrish

In my ESL class I offer students the oppertunity to come & 'buy' a special gift from me once they have accumulated 5 golden stars. Students are motivated to collect 5 stars because they can choose a prize, but also because they leave my office with a bright yellow certificate to show their peers and parents! 

 

Students would receive a golden star at the end of English class if they followed directions, participated actively, and put a lot of effort into their work. At the beginning of the year I would model what this looked like regularly to remind them of what I was looking for. 

 

 

With my Cycle 2 & 3 students I placed them in groups and they worked together to receive a reward activity. Again, students had to participate actively, follow directions, and put a lot of effort into their work/task. If everyone in the small group did this than they would receive a popcorn sticker on their board. Each group needed 5 popcorns to receive their popcorn & movie reward day! This was therefore a whole class effort as each group needed to have had 5 popcorns to receive the popcorn party!

 

The first term was slow for cycle 3 students but after having experienced their first popcorn reward they worked hard and collectively succeeded to have 5 good classes (per group) & we were able to have another popcorn party together quite quickly.

 

In the classes where I had permission, I displayed the class rules for the ESL class. 

 

Students decided what rules would be necessary for them to succeed in our class. I was glad to see that the students saw the importance in asking for help, helping others, following directions, always trying their best and being respectful of other throughout the classes.

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