19 Big and Small Classroom Management Strategies

The year I started teaching seventh- to twelfth-grade English in Minneapolis, Prince launched his song about urban ruin, "Sign o' the Times." That song was an apt musical backdrop for the lives of my students, most of whom lived in poverty and challenged me daily. That year also afforded me the opportunity to be assaulted with a stone, two chairs, a Rambo knife, a seventh-grade girl's weak jab, and dozens of creative swear words. Fortunately, classroom order improved when I learned that successful classroom management depends on conscientiously executing a few big strategies and a lot of little ones. Big Strategies: Fundamental Principles of Classroom Management 1. A hypnotist's first induction technique often involves directing subjects to focus on something they're already doing. Teachers, like hypnotists, can string along a series of requests by asking students to do something most are already doing, then waiting for 100-percent compliance, and finally issuing another directive, etc.

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20 Tips to Help De-escalate Interactions With Anxious or Defiant Students Anxiety is a huge barrier to learning and very difficult for educators to identify. “When anxiety is fueling the behavior, it’s the most confusing and complicated to figure out,” Minahan said. That’s because a student isn’t always anxious; it tends to come and go based on events in their lives, so their difficulties aren’t consistent. When we are anxious our working memory tanks, making it very difficult to recall any salient information. Puzzled Teacher, Troubled Kid: Understanding Behaviors Guest author Noah Kempler is a child and family psychotherapist who also works with educators and schools. By Noah Kempler Liam was having a hard time sitting still in class. He’d seemed extra restless lately, and also sort of out of it or preoccupied, and his 5th grade teacher, Ms. Kercher, was wondering what was going on.

Teachers Use Compassion To Boost Attendance At Gwinnett School This story is part of WABE and American Graduate's Advancing Atlanta: Education series. For more stories, click here. Of all the problems facing public schools, one that has stumped educators for years is how to get kids to show up. Truancy, or chronic absenteeism, can be a particular problem in low-income areas. State research shows attendance is tied to achievement. Kids who miss more than six days of school during the year tend to see their academic performance slip.

5 Tips for Creating Real Rapport With Your Students As a special education teacher, I often have the opportunity to work with students who many of my colleagues find...let's say, difficult to work with. On my worst days I get frustrated by how it often seems that classroom teachers are at a loss when students don't fit their expectations. Building rapport is hard work. Setting Classroom Expectations Put 20 to 30 children in a room for six hours a day, and things will occasionally get a little rowdy. But if a classroom is consistently out of control, that will have a negative impact on student learning outcomes and the stress level of the teacher. There is a way for teachers to take control up front: by setting clear classroom expectations. According to ASCD, setting clearly defined parameters for classroom behaviors accounts for 25% of the factors that affect classroom discipline. Defining and communicating classroom expectations will help students develop mature social skills, learn more, and will create an overall classroom atmosphere that’s welcoming and safe for everyone.

Myth-Busting: "If I Just Had Better Students" I was at the attendance office one day towards the end of the school year, and the clerk asked me about one of the students who had been skipping class. Unbidden and almost automatically, the words came out of my mouth, “You know, the counselors for some reason decided to give me the worst class possible. How am I supposed to teach them when I have to spend so much time dealing with so many behavioral issues?” After I left the attendance office, I reflected on what I had said and realized that I had fallen into the trap of self-pity and justification that I have decried so much in my blog posts. I basically said: If the counselors had given me better students, I would be able to teach better.

10 Classroom Procedures that Will Save Your Sanity - Teach 4 the Heart The difference between a good procedure and a bad procedure is the difference between “everything is running fairly smoothly” and “this is driving me nuts. I’m gonna’ pull my hair out.” Sometimes it’s easy to think of a procedure, and other times, a question will have us stumped for years. Take pencils for example. They’re these little lead things, y’know.

10 Exit Slip Prompts that Will Work for Any Class - Teach 4 the Heart If you’re not using exit slips, you really should try them. Basically, you give students a quick prompt at the end of class (or for elementary, at the end of the day or the end of a subject). Then the students have just a couple minutes to write an answer and turn it in. For teachers, it’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it Credit: Alison Yin for EdSource Today Denisia Wash, a kindergarten teacher in Berkeley, didn’t want to use a sugary voice when she talked to her 5-year-old students – they weren’t babies and that voice wasn’t actually effective, she said. But she didn’t want to use a sharp-edged voice either, the impatient tone that can come out when she’s tired or under pressure. “I call that teacher voice my ‘stress voice,’” she said. Last year, she conducted an experiment as part of her evaluation at Berkeley Unified. If she changed her tone of voice, would her students feel more involved in what they were learning?

The Importance of a Healthy Teacher Ego I have two primary messages for secondary school teacher training candidates. If you don't love adolescents and don't have a healthy ego, you should seriously consider finding another profession. You'll be living with these kids for 6-8 hours every day, and if you don't love them, the days will be long and difficult. And if you don't have good ego strength (or if your ego is strong in a less-than-ideal way), you'll find it difficult to deal with a multitude of challenges. I want to focus here on the latter message. There are very few professions in which success is usually less obvious.

Why You Shouldn’t Try To Convince Difficult Students To Behave It happens every day in classrooms from Fresno to Kathmandu. The teacher pulls aside their most difficult student for a private meeting. Sometimes it’s a lecture. New Teachers: A Primer on Assessment In order to effectively plan instruction, it’s important to determine students’ current level of knowledge and state of academic, social, and emotional skills. There are a variety of ways for teachers and students to arrive at this understanding and gauge student progress through assessment. View the video "Five Keys to Comprehensive Assessment" for a helpful overview of the various types and purposes of assessment.

Classroom Behavior Management Site Safe harbor for 'Captains of the Classroom' Click the ship's wheel for a welcome message from Dr. Mac A warm & hearty welcome to you! You've reached this granite planet's most visited and respected classroom behaviour management web site. Here you'll find thousands of positive and respectful strategies & interventions for promoting appropriate behavior (in kids AND the adults who serve them). 8 Pathways to Every Student's Success Teachers who transform lives understand not only how to teach curriculum, but also how children develop into capable, caring, and engaged adults. They see beyond quantitative measurements of success to the core abilities that help students live healthy, productive lives. Famous educator Maria Montessori wisely remarked, "The greatest sign of success for a teacher. . . is to be able to say, 'The children are now working as if I did not exist.'" The world has changed dramatically since the early 1900s when Montessori made her mark in education. Yet the same goal remains: scaffolding children toward self-sufficiency. How does this occur today, particularly when test results often seem more important than the development of a child ready to tackle career-life challenges?