[ Classroom Management & Communication Plan ]

Management Styles and Philosophical Beliefs Behind every successful classroom is a management plan. Without a management plan, the classroom-learning environment would suffer. Many teachers fail to move on as an educator because they cannot bring a group together or do not know how to settle a class down. Without management skills, the teacher will struggle to teach and the students will struggle to learn. It is said that ineffective behavior management leads to teacher stress, exhaustion, and negative attitudes about teaching, which leads to teachers leaving their profession (Davies & Yates, 1998 / Ingersoll, 2002). Not only that, these management skills are highly correlated to the relationship one will have with their students. In order to build effective relationships, students must know that the teacher cares enough to create such an environment that has order I believe that well managed classroom provide an environment where students learn and grow the most. With the many management styles that are out there, it is up to the teacher to decide what will work best for him or her. I do not believe there is one correct method when managing a classroom. Personally, I would combine many types of managements. I would like to take what I call a preventative approach. Before the classroom gets out of hand, I would like to guidelines before in the beginning of the year giving clear expectations and consequences of the classroom. Students will be aware beforehand as to what behavior leads to what consequence. I plan to set logical and reasonable consequences and when necessary enforce them in a calm, consistent way. I will always allow a student to explain themselves and their behavior. If a student were to misbehave, I will always have them on a clean slate the following day. It is important for me to make an effort in connecting with each my students personally as well as to Iearn who they are along with their backgrounds. This way, I can anticipate (and thus avoid) areas of discomfort. I would like to set up my classroom to be student centered, giving the students full responsibility when they misbehave. I would like to enforce the fact that our classroom is our community and that together we establish rules and respect each other.

Positive Classroom Culture In order for students to truly enjoy and thrive from a class, regardless of the subject, I believe that there must be some sort of student-teacher relationship. Having a positive and welcoming environment is key in a classroom. When I am a teacher, I know that I will try and get to know my students to the best of my abilities. This means asking how they are in their personal lives outside of class, attending their extracurricular activities, and etc. Something I would like to utilize is an interest survey at the beginning

of the year. These questions would include their level of comfort in art and some personal questions regarding their lives. In terms of my plan in the classroom, I would like to create a safe, non-judgmental, and equal environment. This means treating every student equally and letting him or her know I am always available to talk to (even outside of the realm of art). Because it is an art classroom, I feel that the work produced by the students will say a lot about who they are as a person. I am a strong believer that when the teacher asks about the students work, they will want to talk about it and it lets the student know that the teacher actually cares about what they are doing. If the students lack motivation because they have no ideas, this is where the interest survey comes to play because I can then help them come up with ideas based on what they have expressed in the beginning of the year. Knowing that I probably cannot get to every single student and know exactly what his or her work is about, I will give a survey at the end of each project for them to explain what their work is about and also allow them to grade themselves for their efforts (see artifact 2). All in all, I would like to have the kind of relationship where the students know I care about them as a person and for the students to be comfortable approaching me regardless of the situation knowing that I will offer genuine feedback.

Developing Classroom Rules and Procedures Developing and making students aware of classroom rules and procedures are crucial in every classroom. I believe that in an art classroom, it would not be wise to allow the students to create all of the rules because it is not the typical classroom. I say this because some rules I would like to advocate is material treatment and clean up procedures. Based on what I have gathered from numerous practicum experiences, one thing every teacher struggles with is the clean up procedure. Many students will not fully clean out brushes (which ruins them) or clean the tables (which is unfair the following class period). I know that I will have to model many procedures to make sure the students are well aware of material treatments and clean up procedures. What I expect is for the students to do very well with it for the first couple of weeks but then slowly grow lazier throughout the year. To avoid this, I plan on spending time to go out material treatment and clean up procedures at the beginning (and if necessary the middle) of every project considering there will be different clean up procedures and materials used. I will also explain to the class that this is respectful and non-judgmental environment. It is easy for a student to feel inferior in an art classroom because their work is blatantly shown. This means that I will have to let the class know that everyone is at different levels and that I will not grade them by comparison to others but rather improvement on one self. In terms of the typical classroom policies such as going to the bathroom, eating in class, tardiness, and etc., I will simply write it out on the syllabus I will hand out in the beginning of the year (see artifact 3). The consequences of being late to classes will be clear for the students. Students will be allowed three free passes for being late (less than 5 minutes after class starts) for any reason but the following tardy will result in a

conversation. Students that continue to show up late regularly will also result in a more serious conversation. When students are absent, there may be a phone call home that night asking why the student did not show up to class though I can assume that I will be able to hear from the grapevine of teachers or the main office as to why the student did not come to school. I believe that it still wouldnt hurt to give the parents a call if the student was ill consecutive days to make sure the student is doing all right. Academic dishonesty will result in a 0 for the project. It would be easy for me to tell if the student is being dishonest seeing as I will get a grasp of their drawing styles and work ethics. The consequence for that will lead to an explanation as to why they let someone else do their work. Regardless of the student being lazy or them not enjoying their personal work, I will let them know that I mostly grade on effort and through processes.

Classroom Layout The explanation of my classroom layout will be referred heavily to artifact 4. In my classroom, I would like to have my desks arranged in the format of brackets (blue). I believe that this will be an interesting twist for the students to walk into. One of the reasons Id like to have to arrangement is to have demonstrations or still life guides in the middle of the space this way, all the students will be able to see without moving too much. The black lines indicate where how the long desks break apart, meaning that the room could change based on the project happening at the time. Something I know I will like to have is a bulletin board to showcase student work at all times during the year. One idea I had in mind is have students draw something that represents them on a small piece of paper in the beginning of the year and having one huge collage on the wall (pink) to show the students the different types of students there are in every class. I will also put up a lot of posters, famous works, and perhaps things hanging from the wall to create a fun vibe (pink). Because I do not have a say in where sinks, cabinets, and the like are located in an art classroom (orange), I will have to do my best to work with what I walk into. I plan on labeling all the drawers, cabinets, and cupboards to let students know where to put work or where certain materials are. I am hoping to have large cabinets where students from each period can get their work from in the beginning of class and to put back in at the end. The teachers desk (yellow) will be across from to door so I can see students walk in when they entire the classroom (if I am sitting at the desk in the beginning of class). In one corner of the room, I would like to offer a bookshelf (green) with art-related books that students can gain inspiration from. In a nutshell, I would like to create a colorful and fun atmosphere for the students where they can feel free to express themselves in.

Monitoring the Classroom and Responding to Student Misbehavior Teachers must be very thoughtful when responding to student behavior. I personally believe that there is no point to jumping to conclusions in terms of sending students to the office right away or being aggressive/snappy. Personally, besides hindering the misbehavior, I would like to try and get to the bottom of the behavior itself. To every act is reason behind it. I would really like to take into consideration what the student has been going through that day or perhaps even for their entire life that made them do what they did. This may result in a personal conversation after class of stepping out of the classroom to have a short talk. I do not believe in purposefully humiliating the student in front of the entire class. Artifact 5 is a chart explaining my response to disruptive hierarchy. Though I understand verbal interventions could potentially be humiliating for a student, I will inform them in the beginning of the year that if and when I call someone out, it is not personal and that it is for the benefit of the classroom-learning environment. In terms of monitoring behavior, there will be a lot of listening and walking around involved. In an art classroom, I expect to be constantly floating around the room assisting students. My goal would be to do a couple laps around the room to touch base with the students to make sure the students they are either on task or in need of assistance. One particular student behavior that is unacceptable in my classroom is negative/hurtful comments towards student in any way. This could be towards their work or anything about their personal lives. This will result in an immediate verbal intervention explaining that we respect each other in this classroom. When the class gets too loud or are not coming back together from a transition, the lights will go off and that means the students must be quiet (this will be informed to the students in the beginning of the year).