Classroom Management Plan

Classroom Management Plan Lindsey Deetz EDSS 511 9/29/2013

Classroom Management Plan

Classroom Management is very important to provide a great classroom environment for learning and understanding. Every teacher is different, and therefore creating a classroom management plan is very individualized. To help facilitate a management plan, it is important to know and understand your educational philosophies. After taking the educational philosophies test, I was shown to have the highest amount of responses in Progressivism. Progressivism basically focuses more on the child over the content. Students should be able to learn from their own experiences and develop their own values. Through content instruction, students should be able to develop their own methods of learning through prior experience and their own personal opinions. Learners need to focus and concentrate on their own personal interests and growth. Schools still should teach content appropriate lessons however students should be able to learn using their own preferred method. The management approaches that will be discussed are the preventative, supportive, and intervention approaches. The preventative approach fosters rule display, community building, bulletin boards, student choice, and differentiation. The supportive approach fosters greeting students at the door, student check-ins, verbal or nonverbal cues, the 10:2 rule, and effective transitions. The intervention approach fosters behavior plans, time outs, corrections, parent contact, and referrals. These three approaches highly relate to my philosophy because students need to remain active and interested in the learning process. They also need to remember and comprehend what they have learned in the subject matter so they can apply it to new knowledge they might gain in the future. The Prevention Approach is simply as the name states. The teacher takes measures to ensure that the students stay engaged within the lesson so they dont have any opportunity to misbehave. The idea is to take measures to prevent bad behavior from happening. Ideally, this is seems as the most obvious approach to implement in the classroom. This approach includes

Classroom Management Plan

everything from curriculum, environment, teacher/ student expectations, and teacher/students interactions (Charles, 2007). There are many different strategies that can be used to implement the Prevention Approach. The first strategy that can be implemented to support my classroom is a visual display of the classroom rules for all of the students to see (Charles, 2007). This correlates with a rule display. Class rules are important for all students so they can constantly refer back to them and read on their own time. This is highly centered in towards my philosophy because I believe that schools should help students develop proper personal and social values. With the classroom rules displayed, the students know what values the classroom is portraying. Linda Albert suggests that students should be involved with developing classroom rules; When students participate in developing consequences to be applied when misbehavior occurs, they become much more likely to consider those consequences reasonable and abide by them (Albert, 1989 as cited in Charles, 2007 pg. 96). This is a great idea to help further my philosophy by allowing the students to demonstrate their personal interests and growth. Another strategy to help negate bad behavior in students is to implement Community Building Activities (Charles, 2007). Linda Albert also mentions the three Cs of Cooperative Discipline to help students see themselves and others as valuable in the classroom (Albert, 2003 pg. 94). Community Building Strategies can help build confidence in the classroom which highly relates to my philosophy because students are the main focus. Albert mentions that success can be used to help facilitate confidence, and success can be implemented in a multitude of ways that does not necessarily involve written work (Charles, pg. 94, 2007). Community Building strategies can be implemented to now only allow student confidence, but student success as well. When students are confident and successful, they are least likely to engage in misbehavior. My philosophy is centered on the student. It is important to provide differentiation in the classroom to account for

Classroom Management Plan

the varying needs of students and to prevent students from getting frustrated. Differentiation is another great preventative approach because students needs are being met. When the students are able to learn and comprehend their assignments, they feel more confident in the classroom. Nelson and Lott mentions the importance of checking vs. assuming: Too often teachers assume, without checking with students, that they know what students think and feel, can and cannot do, and how they should or should not respond. Rather than assuming they know what students think and feel, it is better that teachers check with them (Charles, pg. 105, 2007). This can relate to differentiation strategies, because once you check with a student, you can accurately develop differentiation strategies. This also demonstrates the need for student choice. Again this goes along with my philosophy because differentiation is centered on the student. A huge tactic to implement preventative approaches is incorporating student interests into lesson plans. For example, if most of my students are interested in skateboarding, I can implement a lesson where they calculate the surface area and volume of a skateboard. Curwin and Mender suggest that students who have lost the drive for school can be reclaimed through a sense of hope that they can succeed in school (Charles, pg. 168, 2007). When students interests are cultivated, students can see a possibility of retaining subject matter. Bulletin Boards are a great method to implement my discipline approach because they are highly supportive of student success. A bulletin board in the classroom can display excellent student work, current news, or upcoming tests/quizzes that students need to study for. Again this is a huge relation to my philosophy because it brings student interests and needs to attention and practice. Students are not going to misbehave if they have a personal interest in the subject matter being taught. Students are also not going to misbehave if they constantly have a visual reference that they can easily access.

Classroom Management Plan

The supportive approach goes along with the preventative approach. The supportive approach demonstrates how educators support their students in the classroom to make sure that they are learning the content manner. My first tactic to implement the supportive approach is to greet students at the door when they walk in the classroom. When you greet students at the door, compliments and/or positive feedback can be given to the student to maintain their focus and drive in the classroom. Nelson and Lott encourage a positive tone to be set in the classroom according to their format for class meetings (Charles, pg. 108, 2007). Greeting students at the door is a way to introduce a positive tone to the classroom while re-iterating that the student is the main focus, which again goes along with the Progressivism philosophy. Keeping student focus in the classroom is difficult, which is why I plan to implement the 10:2 rule so I can assess my student comprehension and understanding. This can prevent failure in my classroom because I am constantly checking my students to allow ample time for understanding. According to Alberts hypothesis, students fear failing and would rather quit to appear lazy (Charles, pg. 97, 2007). Again the student is the main focus, which demonstrates my philosophy. Going along with student focus, I want to implement check-ins every month or so with each student to reaffirm that I am here for their success. Curwin and Mendler mention; School is a place where we protect and look out for one another, rather than hurt or attack on another (Charles, pg. 170, 2007). Students dont always get hurt from physical abuse; they can also be hurt from a lack of support or verbal abuse. Having a check in with students will allow me to make sure that the students are on track and successful. The personal growth is important for the student to succeed in school, and that cant happen if we dont make sure that students are not having any problems. Progressivism is clearly concentrated on student growth. Cues are something that is important to support student success in the classroom. I hope to use cues to not only show when students are

Classroom Management Plan

off task, but to show when students are succeeding as well. A simple thumbs up or thumbs down can suffice. This can be related to the Win-Win strategies from Kagan, Kyle, and Scott. Verbal or Non-verbal Cues are implemented when good or bad behavior is taking place. This can be applied to Moment-of-disruption structures where strategies are applied at the moment of the good/bad activity (Charles, pg. 154, 2007). Effective transitions are highly needed in the classroom to ensure that students are maintaining their focus in the classroom. This can be related to the Moment of Disruption structures mentioned above. An effective Moment of Disruption can be related to a transition that gets students ready for the next topic or activity in the classroom. All of these strategies mentioned above hugely relate to Progressivism because they are centered on the needs/ actions of the students. The Intervention Approach centers on how teachers can interrupt classroom activities to help students stay on task and remain focused. The first method of implementing this approach that I plan to take advantage of is student behavior plans. These plans will take time and observation to make sure that each individual student is understood. Using this method is a huge practice of Progressivism because every individual student need is placed as a high importance for success in the classroom. According to Charles; Involve your students in discussing the details of your discipline plan and listen to suggestions they might have. Make sure they understand what it involves, what their responsibilities are, and what your responsibilities are. (Charles, pg. 247, 2007). This links to a Synergetic Discipline in which everyone interacts to form a mutual energy (Charles, pg. 246, 2007). Student center is the continued focus, which replicates my philosophy of focusing on the students through Progressivism. In cases of extreme behavior issues, I also plan on distributing referrals. Referrals are a huge eye-opener that allows the student to realize the repercussions of his/her actions. Gordon mentions the importance of

Classroom Management Plan

determining who owns a problem to allow that person to implicate disciplinary measures on the student in question. Most of the time a teacher owns the problem (Charles, pg. 81, 2007). It is then important for the teacher to adequately initiate disciplinary measures. This can be completed with a referral, to make sure that the student is aware of the problem they created, and hopefully it is enough to prevent it in the future. Student accountability and ownership are again majorly associated with Progressivism due to the importance on student growth. Parent contact is huge in school and that is a strategy I plan on implementing through the Intervention Approach. Sometimes it is not enough for the teacher to confront the student. The parent is a huge support to the student and making parent contact can be a valuable asset to support student success. Albert mentions that recognizing achievement is a huge asset for the support of student growth. (Charles, Pg. 94, 2007). Recognizing achievement can be demonstrated by making parent contact. Conversely, recognizing areas that students are not achieving in is a support for student growth. Progressivism clearly defines that student growth is very important, which can highly associate with parent contact. If none of the strategies are as effective, time outs are another method that I would use to implement Intervention Approaches. Sometimes students need to isolate themselves for a moment to help re-gain their focus or calm them down. Throwing heat on to the fire will only make things worse. Directing students to take a small moment of time to themselves at the front of the class or directly outside the classroom provides a safe strategy for a cool-down period that doesnt disrupt the safety of the classroom. Coloroso mentions that student dignity is very important. The method of a time out can be seen as a form of discipline, not punishment, which helps students to learn how to handle problems that they will encounter throughout life (Charles, pg. 100-101, 2007). While a time-out may sound childish, it is centered on the safety and growth of the student by allowing them to reflect on their behavior in

Classroom Management Plan

a safe manner. The time out also correlates with corrections, because it provides an opportunity to show the student where they need to improve. Corrections can be related to classroom behavior or classroom work. If classroom work or behavior is not corrected in the classroom, then the student will have fewer opportunities to succeed. This associates with the importance of student growth as mentioned before in the Progressivism Philosophy. Everything that is in place throughout the Intervention Approach fosters student growth, safety, and interests. Progressivism is a philosophy that centers on students needs, interests, and personal growth. The Prevention approaches mentioned above fosters student interests, differentiation within lesson plans, visual rule displays, bulletin boards, and community building activities to help develop a comfortable environment for student progress and learning. These approaches are centered on my philosophy belief because each approach is to help foster individual student needs, which is very important to me. The Support approaches listed above define student greetings, the 10:2 rule, student check-ins, effective transitions, and verbal/nonverbal cues. All of these approaches are highly contingent on what the student needs to succeed in the classroom, which is centered on my Progressivism philosophy. Again, student needs/interests to help foster growth is a huge importance. The Intervention strategies I plan to implement are student behavior plans, corrections, parent contact, time-outs, and referrals if necessary. All of these Intervention strategies may or may not be used on every student depending upon the needs of my students. The strategies listed above allow ample opportunity to show encouragement, needed breaks, proper student behavior, performance support, and repercussions on misbehaving actions. It is the students responsibility to be accountable for his/her actions. It is also the students responsibility to acknowledge great or poor behavior. These methods allow students to selfmonitor, which can be an important practice to determine and reflect on the importance of

Classroom Management Plan

themselves; the student. All of the approaches and related strategies mentioned above demonstrate the importance of the student in the classroom. It is important for the student to be aware of their actions, their performance, and be encouraged to continue positive contributions to the class and their career in school. Progressivism is a philosophy that believes in the importance of the individual student, which all of the strategies above greatly support. Students need to acknowledge the importance of their time in school because it will prepare them for their future.

Classroom Management Plan

Bibliography:
Charles, C.M. (2007). Building Classroom Management, 9th ed., Pearson: New York, NY.