Management Style and Philosophical Beliefs

As I reflect on my own thoughts of entering the teaching profession, as well as the thoughts of some of my fellow aspiring teachers, I know that classroom management represents a major concern. Dr. Hodgkinson even mentioned at the beginning of the year that in the results to his pre-class survey, it showed a solid majority of students listed classroom management as a concern and something that they want to learn more about. I suppose I should feel somewhat comforted by the fact that I am a bellwether instead of an exception in this instance. However, I know that that first difficult and confrontational student of my career is just up yonder, and our paths are bound to collide sooner rather than later. My Methods of Secondary Education class has given me a bag of tricks to handle this situation in theory, but I feel that it takes failingor at least not perfectly handlingat managing student behavior many times before this skill is perfected. Classroom management is so important because it plays a huge role in the success of 20-30 students in a classroom, and also the level of happiness that a teacher has with the teaching profession. A person can learn all that there is to know about a content area, and can master all the theories of instruction faster than academia can churn them out, but that educational knowledge is all for naught without the ability to keep students attentive and on task. Having to spend extra time focusing on certain studentsasking them to do or not do certain tasks, disciplining them, and all other activities related to getting desired behavioral outcomescuts into the time spent planning and instructing the rest of the students who come to class with the expected attitudes and behaviors in tow; therefore negatively impacting the quality of education these students get. Classroom management also impacts the desire of teachers to stay in the profession, as ineffective behavior management leads to stress, exhaustion, and negative attitudes about teaching. More than 25% of teachers cite student misbehavior as a reason for leaving the profession (Hodgkinson, Classroom Management PowerPoint 1, 2013). The What is Your Classroom Management Profile questionnaire distributed in c lass revealed that I am authoritative. After reading the description of authoritative teachers, I think that my beliefs definitively fit the profile. Authoritative teachers set limits and controls but

simultaneously encourage independence. They may give a firm reprimand, but are polite and offer the reasons behind their rules and decisions. This method of moderation is something I wholly subscribe to, because I think that being too democratic with students in the classroom decisions will diminish my role as the leader of the learning, but I definitely dont want to be seen as an inflexible dictator. I personally think teachers need to set clear boundaries and expectations for students, explain their rationale, but always be willing to listen to student feedback on the policies. Glassers Model best describes how I envision my future classes. The model maintains that in order to be able to learn, students need to have their basic needs of survival, belonging, power, fun, and freedom met. For this to happen, teachers must manage the classroom to create an environment that is fun, gives students some power and freedom, and must make students feel as a part of the learning community. Once these needs are met, teachers should lead students in activities that both parties view as worthwhile (Larson and Keiper, 2013, p. 35). I want to create a classroom environment that is fun and inviting for students, with opportunities for them to exert their own independence from all too typical once-size-fits-all, cookie cutter lesson plans; however, without basic parameters and rules set by me, I dont think that teenagers would be able to maintain this type of an environment on their own.

Developing Student-Teacher Relationships

I believe that gaining the trust, admiration, and respect for your students goes a long way in getting them willingand potentially even excitedto learn the material in your classroom. Standing at the front of the room and proving how smart you are about a subject by rambling on in a lecture doesnt give the learning experience a personable touch, and will likely cause many of the students to tune out. In order to get students to learn, you need to show them that their success or failure matters to you. When I become a teacher, I think it is essential to learn students names as soon as possiblepreferably before the first day of classto signify to each student that they matter to me and arent just one of 120 names I need to memorize every year. I will also pol itely greet students at the door with a smile and some small talk every day before class. This small talk should pertain to the students activities, hobbies, and interests. To know what those are, I will take the time to learn about each students extracurricular activities at school, weekend hobbies, and/or general areas of study they enjoy. However, I will also go beyond just asking students how football practices or musical auditions are going, I will make sure to be in the crowd with the rest of the spectators at these sports and arts events. After the kind greetings are given and the genuine interest in the students interests is displayed at the beginning of class, it is necessary for me maintain a classroom environment that continues to support students comfort and self-esteem. During class I will praise the students for their good work and behavior, and not embarrass them in front of their classmates for failing to meet my expectations.

Name:___________________

What extracurricular activities do you participate in at school?

What are your hobbies outside of school?

Which classes do you like taking at school? Why?

What made you choose to sign up for this class?

What educational and/or career paths are you considering after high school?

What other interests do you have?

Favorite movie and type of movies?

Favorite type of music and musicians?

Favorite sport(s) and sports team(s)?

Anything else interesting about yourself?

Establishing Classroom Rule and Procedures

When it comes to rules and expectations, it is essential to have a basic set of commonly understood parameters that are clearly communicated to the students from day 1. These rules should be enforceable, clear, have consequences that are enforced fairly and consistently, and be understood by students and parents (Hodgkinson, Classroom Management 1 PowerPoint, 2013). Ensuring that the students understand the teachers expectations will help to avoid any confusion about what constitutes acceptable academic and behavioral conduct, and the consequences for misconduct. I will establish the rules on my own, but since I am not the only person in the room entitled to good ideas, I will ask the students for their input. I will ask them if the rules and consequences are fair, and, if not, why? If they can make a compelling argument that my rules are flawed, I will gladly make alterations to better accommodate the learning environment. As an authoritative and progressivist teacher, I like to maintain and open and free environment that doesnt contain too much elementary-ish nitpicking. Most of my students will be juniors and seniors who are taking my classes by choice since they are all electives, most students will be adult age or close to it, many will be taking dual credit college courses, and most of them are only a year or two away from branching out on their own by either going to college or entering the workforce fulltime. Therefore, I believe they can be treated like college students and held responsible for the learning in the class that they electively decided to take. I will allow them to use the restroom or get a drink of water as necessary, without causing a disturbance to the rest of the class. I will allow food and covered drinks as long as they are cleaned up afterwards. Minor tardiness will be tolerated. Academic misconduct will not be tolerated. Cheating on tests will result in an automatic zero. Plagiarism will not be an automatic zero because I still want students to have to learn the material, so they will be given the chance to redo the assignment for up to 75% credit. I will be most flexible with homework deadlines because I have never been a fan of arbitrary deadlines getting in the way of good work. I also know the students have dueling responsibilities between other classes, jobs, deciding what to do with their future, ACTs, college applications and visits, extracurricular activities, and, just as important as any of them, being a teenager and

having a successful and fulfilling social life. With that said, the Real World is filled with having to meet an endless number of deadlines, and students do need to learn this. Since my top important concern is that the students do the work and learn the material instead of beating an arbitrary stopwatch, my policy will be to accept assignments up to three school days late for the potential to still receive 100% credit. However, with each passing day I will be a more critical graderexpecting absolute perfection by the third day. Whereas for students who turned their work in on time, they may receive corrections or suggestions that do not result in docked points, but I will not be as generous with late work. Students will have an additional five days to receive up to 50% credit, deducting 10% per day. I will also allow one late homework pass per semester.

Classroom Layout
I designed my classroom with tables that are facing the marker board in a semi-circular, theatre-style manner. This provides open walkways for students to move around without distracting others, and, most importantly, space for me to move about to do formative assessments or nip misbehavior in the bud by hovering around the students who are off task. The tables are also situated in a way so that all of the students should have pretty clear sightlines to the marker board, and none of the tables are facing each other directly because that could result in the students goofing around and distracting each other during lectures or quiet work times. However, facing the marker board and not interacting with other students will hopefully only compose a minority the time spent in my classes. The tables provide a great setup to do student-centered activities, in which the students can work in teams with their peers. My desk is off to the side, out of the way but still in a place where I can monitor the class in the few instances per hour that I plan to be sitting there. I will have a Wall of Excellence to display great work, which can be seen immediately as people enter the room. The other walls will contain some customized pictures that I find and/or create that are pertinent to the business department.

Wall of Excellence (Displays Good Work) My Desk Projector Screen Marker Board

Entry

Monitoring the Classroom & Responding to Misbehavior

Choosing a management style is a good opportunity to reflect on the type of teacher we want to be, and developing plans for student-teacher relationships, establishing classroom rules, and creating classroom layouts will help to prevent problems from happening. However, as teachers we need to be prepared to monitor the students agreed upon behavior, and fairly and consistently respond to the issues that will arise. To prevent individual or whole class behavior from escalating out of control, I plan to always be moving around the classroom in order to curb the amount of whispering, note passing, texting, and hand gestures students make at each other. I will have a signal to quiet the class down or bring them back together from group work. To get students back on track, my practicum teacher this semester would always just say the word focus loudly enough for it to be heard over the chatter, and it seemed to work very well. When responding to student misbehavior, I will go through the Response to Disruptions Hierarchy. My nonverbal interventions will include proximity, eye contact, and the look. My verbal interventions will include focus, saying the students name, giving a friendly reminder to get back on track, and As soon as everybody is ready, Ill begin. My demands will involve telling a specific student or group of students to cease and desist from a certain action and begin doing the correct action, pronto (e.g. Johnny, please stop talking and get to work on the assignment.). If the interventions and demands fail, I will incorporate consequences based on the severity of the misbehavior. Less serious infractions will result in a stern talking-to after class., moderate infractions a call home to the parents, and more serious or repeated infractions will be grounds for a detention.

Response to Disruptions Hierarchy

Parents as Partners
As teachers, we have a great responsibility to the parents of our students. From a cold, businessy, bottom-line perspective, they are the taxpayers who fund our salaries and depend on our outputeducated citizensto be able to sustain and grow the economy and provide them with better employment opportunities, higher incomes, and government services. But from a human perspective, our students are the parents children. All good and loving parents want to see their children succeed. They want to see them get a quality education that will open up doors for them to choose a careera livelihoodthat entails work that is personally and/or financially rewarding. And as teachers, we want to see that too. Teachers and parents are on the same page in terms of the desired end destination, so it is important to say on the same channel en route to that locale. The most important thing to do is to communicate; dont let optional parent-teacher conferences and voiceless report cards be the only mediums. As a teacher I will start every year off with a letter to the parents about the things that the students will be learning in the class, provide my contact information, encourage them to reach out to me at any time between the 7:00s, and provide some surprise phone calls when the students are doing exceptionally well, because phone calls to parents are not limited to being consequences for negative behavior. As a career and technical education teacher, I think it is very much my responsibility to be observing certain real world aptitudes and to discuss these with the students and parents. I would really like to provide students with advice on careers and help them choose a profession that is rewarding to them. I know from personal experience that seventeen year olds left to their own devices are not great at choosing what they want to do with their rest of their lives; they need assistance from people who have already gone through the same process they are going through. It is my hope that I can see things in traits in my business classes that the parents, other teachers, guidance counselors, and Myers-Briggs type tests dont see. I would like to be able to relay these observations to parents and say, Johnny shows real potential as a(n) [accountant/graphic designer/salesperson/copywriter/investor/teacher/supply chain manager/etc.].

Phone Script Mr. Reicks: Hi, could I speak to Mr. or Mrs. Public? Mr. Public: This is John Q. Mr. Reicks: Mr. Public, this is Seth Reicks, I am the business teacher at Uncle Sam High School, and I have your son Johnny and several of my classes. Mr. Public: What did he do this time? Mr. Reicks: Uhhh, beg your pardon? Mr. Public: Johnny has racked up quite a few of these phone calls home for bad behavior over the years. Mr. Reicks: Oh no, not this time. I just wanted to say what an awesome job Johnny has been doing in my website design and video production classes, and has even shown quite a business aptitude in my accounting class. Mr. Public: Oh, ya dont say? Mr. Reicks: Thats right, and I know that hes a senior and hasnt really made any decisions on his future yet. I just wanted to see if you had any sense of what hes thinking about in this regard? Mr. Public: No, I have been trying to prod him in any sort of direction, but he isnt sure. I think he will start at community college before deciding what to do. Mr. Reicks: Well nothing wrong with that at all, but I just wanted to let you know he really seems to enjoy working with computers and is extremely talented at it. And that is a great field to be able to find a job itand a good paying job at that. Hes got several years to think about what he really wants to do, but I just wanted to let you know this. And if you and your wife would like to come in and look at some of his work, Id be happy to set up an appointment. In the meantime would you mind if I make these suggestions to Johnny to see what he thinks, and maybe bring in the school guidance counselor to show him some different options if hes interested? Mr. Public: Yeah, that would be awesome. Mr. Reicks: Will do, have a nice evening Mr. Public.

Larson, Bruce, and Timothy A. Keiper. Instructional strategies for middle and high school. 2nd. New York City: Routledge, 2013.
Hodgkinson, Dr. Todd. Classroom management 1 PowerPoint. 2013. Hodgkinson, Dr. Todd. Classroom management 2 PowerPoint. 2013.