Classroom Management Being able to manage a classroom is something that I learned comes with practice.

It is important to set the tone you wish to have with your students on the first day. You have to let students know what you expect of them and you have to be able to keep that consistent. All of the rules and procedures need to be set the first week of school so students have time to practice them and already become in the routine of what is expected of them. Once this is established, you need to make sure that the rules and procedures and enforced every day. I was fortunate enough to walk into an environment where the tone had been set the first day and the rules and procedures had been consistent throughout. Classroom Management is something that needs to be in place in order to have a successful classroom climate. If there is no classroom management plan in place, little to nothing else will get done within the school day. The rules and procedures in my classroom were put into place so that the classroom would be a safe and orderly environment. As a school we followed the PAWS promise that states, I promise to be respectful, act responsibly and work to cooperate safely. All of the rules and procedures in place in the classroom went along with this promise. This promise was repeated every morning with the morning announcements so that students are aware of their expectations. In the classroom, students are expected to act respectful by not talking when the teacher is teaching or trying to give directions. It also means that we respect others and act politely to other students. Students also know that it is important to take responsibility for what they do by not lying to the teacher about their behavior. They also are expected to take responsibility for their work. Everything they turn in is their very best and they are proud of their work. Lastly, students are expected to work together nicely when working in partner or groups so that students are learning in cooperative groups. There is a routine that was

put into place so that students know how to pick a reading partner. They are not to pick their closest friend; they raise their hand, and walk up to someone and ask if they would please be their partner. The partner responds with yes, thank you; no other response is accepted. This keeps things going smoothly and also helps to teach students how to work nicely with each other. There needs to be a procedure for everything in the classroom so that a transition from one activity to the next activity goes smoothly. I always give clear directions before sending students off into partner or group work. I have an attention grabber that brings students back together after working in partners of groups. I say hocus pocus and students say now we focus. After they say now we focus they stop working and talking and wait for prompting to move back to their seats. There is a procedure for coming in the morning, lining up, washing hands, going to the bathroom, unpacking and packing their book bags, transitioning from one activity to another, and for picking a reading partner. Procedures such as these will be important to establish within the first week of school so that the rest of the year, students will know how to work to cooperate safely as stated in the PAWS promise. My school is a PBIS school which focuses on positive behavior. One thing I did throughout the day was recognize positive behavior in the classroom. When I notice a student who is doing what they are supposed to I compliment them on their behavior. This works to further motivate the student who is doing good, but also to motivate the students who may not be on task. This is a strategy to use in the classroom, in the hallway, or anywhere in the school setting. Students get rewarded for their positive behavior too through daily and weekly prizes. At one of the staff meetings we had in February, the topic came up about behavior and how we could work together to think of strategies to use to improve overall behavior in the school. The administrator gave an example of something that they used in their own classroom to

promote good behavior. They suggested the use of chance tickets. A chance ticket was something that a student would get when they were caught exemplifying good behavior. Students could get them for being on task, standing quietly in the hallway, or for participating nicely during partner or group work. This was something I wanted to try and implement in my classroom to see its effects. After consulting with my CT, we both thought that this would contribute to a better classroom environment with positive reinforcement. I started this at the beginning of the next week and the response I got was great. Students seemed to stay more on task and talk out less because they knew there was a possibility that they could get a chance ticket. I would collect chance tickets in a bucket all throughout the week and draw two names from it on Friday. Those two students would get a reward out of my chance tub. I continued to use this until the completion of my tenth week. It never lost its effectiveness. Each day the students wanted to see if they could get a chance ticket. It worked especially well when students seemed to start getting chatty or start getting off task. All I would have to do was mention the possibility of a chance ticket and they all settled down. Another important aspect of classroom management that I found to be a little difficult to begin with was my assertiveness. This was something that I worked into my PDP so that I could make a consciences effort to work on my assertiveness. I do believe that classroom management becomes better with practice. At first, I was a little uncomfortable because this was the first time I had taught in front of a classroom of twenty-two students. It was also my CTs room and not my room. Both of those were factors in me being a little less assertive in the classroom. As I become more comfortable in the classroom and more familiar with my CT I was able to become more assertive.

My Behavior Plan The student I choose for my behavior plan was a bright and peppy young girl who just could not seem to get her things together. You could tell from day one that she wanted to know what was going on all around her. This made her become forgetful with getting her things together. She would lose her pencils within the first hour of school, she would leave behind her reading journal when she went back to her seat, and she would leave things in her book bag needed for the day. Since she was not coming prepared for the lessons, she was missing out on instruction just trying to find the things she needed to participate. I knew that this was something we needed to get under control so that it would not affect her learning. I met with the student and talked a little bit about what she liked to do. I found out that she is really into cheerleading and really likes creating art. I could tell that she had a very outgoing personality that led her to always being very interested in what others were doing and saying. She also wanted to chat with several of her peers about what was going on around her. I felt that because of this she was becoming forgetful in making sure that she had materials ready for learning. I met with her and talked about this issue. I mentioned some of the things I was seeing in the classroom as well as some of the things that my CT was seeing in the classroom. At this point I informed her that we would be implementing a behavior plan to try and fix this behavior at the beginning of next week. I sat down with my CT and discussed several options about how to create and implement the plan. I also sat down with the students mother and talked about the problem we had been seeing in school and ways that she thought would be most successful in implementing the plan in school. Her mother told me that the student worked well with charts and having a visual representation of what was expected. This led be to the idea of creating a table and letting the student fill in stickers for appropriate behavior during that day.

The table I created was for each week and was divided into the different lessons taught each day. If she was prepared for each lesson then she would receive a sticker in that particular box. There were a total of five opportunities each day for a sticker. She needed to be prepared for word study, reading comprehension, shared reading, math, and writing. If she was prepared for the subject she would get a sticker in that box. There were a total of twenty-five sticker opportunities each week for her to get. I met with the student and explained how we were going to track her progress of the course of the next ten weeks. After I explained to her how we were going to help her become prepared for class, we sat down and created a contract of what our goals would be. Together we decided that at the end of two weeks she would have 18 stickers on her chart. At the end of 4 weeks she would have 20 stickers on her chart and at the end of 6 weeks she would have between 22-25 stickers on her chart. She would keep at least 22-25 stickers on her chart for the rest of the year. We also talked about importance of the behavior plan. We were doing this so that hopefully she would be more prepared for each lesson and that would make an impact on her learning. We both signed the contract, so that we could begin the next week. If she met each goal, there would be a reward for each milestone she reached. At the end of each day she would come back and track her progress. At the end of each week we would look at her overall progress and discuss areas that we still needed to work on. To begin with she was only getting only 13 stickers each week, which was a huge problem. This data showed that she was not coming prepared to lessons even half of the time. After she was able to see the visual of how her week looked, things started to gradually improve as she strived to reach each goal. She was able to meet each goal within the giving time period and even reach her last goal before the six weeks. I knew that my plan had made an impact in my students life because after she had successfully reached her goal and worked really hard to

maintain it, she started giving me some more things that she felt like she needed to improve. She said, I really feel like I can begin to start improving my behavior in other ways now. She saw that after focusing on one aspect of her behavior it was helping her in other ways as well. She was able to stay more focused during the lesson because she was not worried about gathering her materials. She was also able to bring up her reading and math grades. After she had made her goal, I let her choose some rewards she might want. We decided on some art supplies, since she really likes art, and being able to eat lunch in the classroom with me and my CT while watching a Magic School Bus video.
30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Number of Stickers

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Overall I was very pleased with how my classroom management piece went throughout my student teaching. I felt like I was able to learn a lot about how to manage a classroom full of different personalities all at one time as well as deal with specific behaviors one on one with a student.

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