Can You Start the Year Over?

-




Can you start the year over?


We have all seen it.  A teacher who starts the year with big dreams and good intentions.  Whether it is a first-year teacher or a veteran teacher, a traditionally trained teacher or a teacher who enters the profession through an alternative certification program, a core content area teacher, or a related arts teacher, we have all seen the teacher who starts the year with this perfect idea of what his/her class will look like and the things that their students will do.  And then somewhere between the first 3-4 days, it all goes wrong.


If you are disagreeing with me about the timeline.  Don’t.  It may happen later for some well-meaning teachers, but for most struggling teachers the students start misbehaving or seeing opportunities for misbehavior very early.  Usually, it’s right after the second day of going over rules and procedures and before the teacher starts teaching the content.  Although we have all seen the unfortunate misbehavior of students in a classroom setting, you might not have seen the teacher repair the damage that has been done to the classroom environment, the student-teacher relationships, and to the students themselves.  


Even if you haven’t seen it, it can be done.  With just a few easy steps.  Just kidding, starting over in the area of classroom management is extremely difficult.  It is a difficult process for all involved, the students, teachers, administrators, and parents.  


So, can you start the year over? 


Yes.


Well not literally, but you know what I mean.  If you or someone you know is experiencing classroom management issues and the issues are impacting the students’ learning, here are some steps that can be taken to start again:



  1. Create/Edit your classroom rules and procedures

    1. Rules: What do students need to know in order to be successful in your class? These should be short and there should only be 3-5 of them.  Students have to know and follow rules in sometimes 7 or 8 different classrooms, so teachers should keep the rules simple and easy to abide by. 

    2. Procedures:  What do students need to do in order to be successful in your classroom? How do they enter? What should they do when they enter? What do they do when they need a pencil or need to go to the restroom? Thinking through the logistics of the class and talking to the students about them will help the students know what is expected of them.

    3. POST and MODEL:  Place the rules and the procedures in a prominent area in the classroom.  This way they will be at the forefront of students’ minds (or at the very least it will give them something to look at while their minds are wondering).  The modeling will also provide students with an example, instruction, and feedback on your expectations.

  2. Classroom Reset

    1. Take one class period to ‘begin again’ with the students.  Talk to them about how a classroom reset is needed in order to solve some issues that are going on in the classroom.  Not only can classroom resets happen when there are classroom management issues, but it is good practice to remind students of the rules, complete with modeling, after breaks and/or at the start of a new semester.  

  3. Consistently Monitor and Address Student Behavior

    1. Remind students of the class expectations in various low-stakes and positive ways

      • Drawing their attention to the posted rules, modeling for them what the appropriate behavior is, and or using questioning (such as in the Capturing Kids’ Hearts Model) so that students can reflect (and hopefully correct) their own behavior.

    2. Keep a Log

      • Keep a log of behavior issues: whether this is an electronic system (such as Class Dojo or Class Craft) or a paper system (a printed roster on which you take brief notes of student behavior).

      • A log is helpful for giving consequences and talking with parents to discuss student behavior.

    3. Enforce Consequences

      • Work with your administration to create a list of reasonable and enforceable consequences.  Sample consequences are:

        • Relocating the student to another seat/area

        • Conferencing with the student outside of the classroom

        • Requiring an assignment in which the student reflects on their behavior and comes up with alternative actions

        • Calling the student’s parent/guardian

        • Removing the student and having them sit with another teacher on your team or hall

        • Having the student report to your class (or another teacher on the hall) during a social time, such as lunch, before school, or after school

        • Removing the student  from the class for that period to talk with guidance or an administrator

    4. Reward Positive Behavior

      • Implementing a positive behavior plan is an integral part of the classroom reset.  Making positive behavior the focus will allow students to get attention from positive behaviors instead of negative behaviors.

      • An example of a reward could be implementing a whole-class positive behavior plan, such as having students earn 5-7 minutes of free time at the end of class (this should be visually written out on the board, they could earn [or lose] letters of a content-related word).

      • Another example of a reward could be sending positive notes home or making positive phone calls to individual students’ parents/guardians.  



Can you start the year over? Yes!  


Putting rules and procedures in place and then consistently rewarding positive behavior and logging and consequencing negative behavior are definite steps toward starting over.  


If you have any questions about anything in this post, feel free to reach out!


Here’s to a new year at any time!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Questioning Techniques: Questions that Extend Responses

-
Image
  Posing the right questions to students is one of the most important techniques that can be used when teaching and assessing students.  Your questioning techniques can expose misconceptions, uncover gaps in learning, cause students to look deeper at a topic, encourage a higher depth of knowledge, and provide students with opportunities to make connections between many different topics.     Because questioning is a topic that has many different levels , I am going to HAVE to spread the techniques that I use over several different posts...Hopefully these posts will come quick and in successive order, however, due to my tremendously busy schedule and A.D.D. (undiagnosed and I which that I had even a slight case of hyperactivity as an adult) I am not sure if this will be the case... This first questioning techniques post will be about questions that require students to extend their responses .  As a math teacher, it is easy to fall into the habit of ...
Read more

Classroom Management Strategies

-
Image
picture credit Classroom management is an important aspect in teaching students.   For those who manage adults, being an effective people manager is important also.   Although the intended audience of this post is classroom teachers, many of these strategies can be used to manage adults, also. Here are some strategies that I have used in my classroom to manage student behavior: Stand at the classroom door greeting and talking to students as they enter into the classroom .   This can alert you to any student issues before the students enter your classroom.   If you notice that a student is having an issue, talk with them and try to get it resolved or diffuse it before it becomes a larger issue.   Constantly monitor and circulate around the room as a way to be proactive in your classroom management.   As mentioned earlier, becoming aware of an issue before it becomes an even bigger issue will cut down on management issues. Circulating aro...
Read more

Integer War

-
Image
                           Picture Source Here is a fun game that I have used in the past that is quick and gives students tons of practice adding integers.  This card game is an interactive way to reinforce the addition of integers .   It can also be modified to reinforce subtraction and multiplication.  The kids love it and I love watching them enjoy integers (for a change).  What I enjoy most of all is beating the student who has beaten all of the other students in the class and has an inflated ego.    Materials: Deck (or stack) of playing cards for each pair of students Rules: • Students should get into pairs. • Using a deck of playing cards, the students should divide the cards evenly among themselves. • The red cards are negative and the black cards are positive.   For example a red 10 is a negative ten. The face cards are all 10s.   • The play...
Read more