Classroom Management Plan

This sketch shows a collaborative classroom. The room is dominantly tables to facilitate collaboration. In the top right, there are a few individual desks for students who need to work privately and quietly for a few minutes to better focus. In the bottom right, there is a break space with a large bean bag, a coffee table and chairs, and open space for juggling to help students refocus themselves. The separate physical spaces allow a clear separation between focused group work, focused individual work, and breaks, and makes it easier for me to monitor how students like to work. Whiteboards line the walls for full-class mini-lectures and students to use with their teams.

Classroom Supplies and Decor

The students will frequently be solving problems and generating ideas. To facilitate this, there will be a mini whiteboard and marker available for every student to use. There will also be post-it notes and sharpies available for focused idea generation sessions. Along one of the walls, there will be a large set of mail slots for students to store their best work in the classroom, eventually forming it into a portfolio. On the walls, there will be a graphical representation of the class’s core values (see below), the syllabus for each course, and the set of skills that will be learned in each course. The rest will be covered with student posters from projects.

Digital Classroom

The class website, a wiki-based site, will keep handouts and assignments clearly organized. For shared team data, each team will use the software from Dropbox.com to sync their files within the team, with me, and between computers at school and home. For immediate requests and questions, students and parents will be able to email me. I will have a class email list for mass distribution.

Managing Student Work

Student work will consist of two major types: work quickly checked for completion in class and work that is handed in. For the first type, I will simply walk around the room to check that the student attempted the assignment. For work that is handed in, the student will upload the project to their personal Dropbox folder. All work will be held and backed up digitally here to track long-term progress and reduce logistical mistakes and lost assignments. Individual student grades will be kept on the student information system. Toolbox progress (explained below) will be held on a link off of the class website for each student to monitor the skills they have acquired.

Behavior Management

Classroom Honor Code

Instead of a long list of rules, the class will be expected to abide by an honor code based on common ideals that make a safe classroom. This Honor Code is based on the Olin College Honor Code and modified for K-12 classroom use.

• • Integrity: Each student will accept responsibility for and represent accurately and completely oneself, one's work, and one's actions.

  • Respect for Others: Each student will be considerate of fellow classmates and honor each individual's inherent dignity and worth.

  • Patience and Understanding: Each student will strive to foster harmonious relationships through empathy and mindfulness of others.

  • Openness to Change: Each student will be receptive to change and will strive for innovation and improvement within the class.

  • Do Something: When another person is violating the classroom honor code, they must take action in a timely manner to address the situation. Each situation is different, but this may involve informal resolution, peer mediation, or involvement of the teacher.

Taking Action

Based on a brief online survey, my management style is highly authoritative. This means that I place limits and controls on the students but simultaneously encourage independence. I quickly address inappropriate behavior when I see it and will always have a reason for my rules. When I tell a student they are doing something wrong, I am firm but polite. I avoid using discipline unless it seems necessary.

A common philosophy I intend to adopt is the “Love and Logic” style of classroom management. When I see something unacceptable, I will politely ask the student to stop. If it continues, I will give a second warning, again not being upset, but being clear and firm. If the behavior doesn’t stop after the student clearly knows that they should not being doing it, I will pull the student aside to discuss the issue. If it cannot be resolved, I will refer the student to the office. In most cases, I believe the issue will be resolved, or a larger issue will become apparent, before disciplinary action is required.

Procedures

An active classroom requires a lot of time in class for project work. It can also be loud and chaotic. In order to make sure that the students have the maximum time possible to do their work, I will teach the students a few simple classroom procedures.

Start of Class

• • When students walk in, they will sit down quietly at a table, pull out their notebook, and respond to the prompt or problem written on the whiteboard. This will be unprompted and occur every day.

  • After about 3-5 minutes when students finish, I will tell the students how to proceed. This may include discussing the prompt with their table or solving the problem as a large group.

  • After finishing with the prompt exercise, I will give the announcements for the day. This may include asking each team to give the class a brief project update and ask the large group any questions they have. After this, I will direct students to the day’s activity or open up for group work.

End of Class

When the class is nearly finished, I will tell the students to “pack-up”. This single command will represent a handful of instructions:

• • Gather belongings together and return any materials used

  • Return the room to its initial state

  • Sit down at a table

  • Sit quietly for the bell, closing announcements, or a brief game at the end of class

Attention

While students are busy running around and working, I may need to call the class to attention. To do this, I will simply raise my hand high in the air. I may quietly use comments such as “I have Josh, but I don’t have Alex”, or “I still need 3 people” to get the attention of stragglers.

Bathroom

Instead of wasting time signing bathroom passes, students will grab the wooden pass hanging by the door when they need to go. There will be one male and one female pass so multiple students don’t leave together. I can, from a quick glance, see that someone is out because the pass is missing and don’t need to mentally keep track of who is back before I let the next person go.

Assignments

When students are absent or simply forget what they have due, they can always check the class website. The most up-to-date version of things due will be listed there.

Teaching the Procedures

To teach the procedures, I will run use the major procedures within the first day of class. When students enter the room, after greeting them, I will ask them to take out a notebook and work on the prompt on the board. As part of the first day, the prompt will lead to a group discussion. At the end of it, I will raise my hand in the air and wait for students to quiet down by instinct. If this does not work, I will ask them to please be quiet and give me their attention, one table at a time. Once I have their attention, I will explicitly explain what I did and why it will be important. At the end of class, after the room was messed up, I will call for attention again. Once I have it, I will explain the pack-up procedure and write it out on the whiteboard. Students will practice this procedure to clean-up the room and quietly wait for the end of class.

The bathroom procedure will be taught when the first student asks to use the bathroom. I will call attention and explain to the full class how the procedure works.

On the second day, students will again see the same procedures in place. I will positively reinforce students that are using the correct behavior and call them out by name in the first few days of class so other students can model their behavior from them. When I see students confused or not following the procedure, I will ask them if they remember it. If not, I will calmly explain it to them.

These procedures are small and simple, but they will lead to a much more orderly classroom that saves me more time to teach and students more time to learn and work.

Motivation

Intrinsic Motivation, Project-Based Learning, and the Skills Toolbox

The real-world, project-based curriculum built in with lots of student choice and self-direction is intentionally designed to maximize intrinsic motivation and a love for math. In order to teach the required skills of the course, I will use a “toolbox” of skills that need to be learned sometime during the year. Given a set number of skills, an appropriate pace will be set so students know if they are on track to finish. Students will start with team-based projects from a selection of topics or their own idea. As a group, they will work to create and answer a core question around that topic. If the class was algebra and the topic was baseball, students may ask how player statistics can be mathematically updated each game with a limited set of data. In order to do this, the students need to setup equations from existing data. If they don’t know how to do this, they will request a mini-lecture from me. Since setting up equations of the form x(x+c) is part of the toolbox of required skills, I will broaden the mini-lecture to also teach that skill. They will practice the skill as a group and each learn how to use it. When they are ready to officially put the tool in the toolbox, they will take a short quiz on the topic. After they pass, they will be marked off and continue to finish their project.

Extrinsic

In a school where every class has grades, it will be necessary to put their math class on an equal playing field. Grades will be based on passing tool quizzes and presenting their project work. The project grades are based on the results of a rubric filled out by the teacher and each student on the team. The rubric will also include a score for contribution to team. Students on the team will evaluate their partners during each project. Projects last two weeks and teams change over with new projects.

First Days

The first days of school will be focused on immersively introducing students to the very different curriculum and classroom culture we will use. To do this, I will do a series of small group and large group activities, as well as explicit instruction, about how students learn. The students will be able to reflect on what worked well for them, discuss with peers, and share with the group how they learn best. I will highlight the common attributes people bring up as well as the vast diversity of learning styles and strategies in the class. I will give them tangible examples to understand more abstract concepts such as feedback:

I bring my Wii into class and ask a student to come up and ask an inexperienced player to play Mario cart (a car racing game). When they fall off the road, the car is reset and they keep playing. I ask the class “why didn’t s/he quit after dying”? I also ask how she knows when to turn and when to go straight. Then, I ask the student to put a blindfold on and continue to play. I will ask the class to be completely silent. Here, the student will quickly die and have no idea and keep driving. We will use this as a launching point to talk about driving blind in math class – how often you should check answers, how you should get assistance, and what helps you learn and react best in other subjects.

Once the students buy into the approach used to teach math for the year, they will be much more likely to be patient with problems that arise, will be more likely to be motivated by the content, and will rarely need to ask when math is used in the real world. By clearly explaining why the rules and procedures I put in place are necessary for this type of learning to occur, students will be more likely to follow them.

Sources

• • Video: Procedures and Routines from The Effective Educator series by Harry K. Wong.

  • Video: Inside a Motivated Classroom by ASCD

  • Interview and observation: Greg Schoenbeck, 8th grade math, Friedell Middle School

  • Website: Dave Wiggins – Classroom Management Plan: http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/~dwiggins/plan.html

  • Website/survey: What is Your Classroom Management Profile?: http://cbv.ns.ca/sstudies/gen3.html

  • Website: Love and Logic: http://www.loveandlogic.com/what-is-for-teachers.html

  • Website: Olin College Honor Code: http://www.olin.edu/student_life/honor_code.aspx