Many aspects of my student teaching
have become easier as the weeks have gone by, but it seems that others have
not. Several teachers I work closely with are not planning to return next year
and are struggling to remain checked-in to their responsibilities for this
year. I hate to admit that I have been affected by their daily mentality and
often feel uncertain about the idea of becoming a full-time teacher.
One thing that I have struggled immensely
with this semester has been classroom management. I feel that my lesson plans
are strong and engaging. However, some classes are easier to work with than others.
At my placement school there are large class sizes with 25+ students in every
period. Rather than put my whole self into establishing a well-managed
classroom, I have found myself ready to give up and feeling incompetent. Whenever
I notice one class improving there seems to always be another class that needs
adjustments in the management plan. My mentor teacher tells me that I need to
be “more mean” and send students out/write them up/give them detentions. After
much reflection and some reading into educational sources, I have come up with
a few techniques I will be trying to implement in my classes.
The
misbehavior in my classes are often disruptive but rarely make others feel
unsafe. This means that I do not usually send students out of the classroom but
often spend the whole class period reminding, pleading, encouraging, arguing,
etc. While reading Secrets for Secondary
School Teachers: How to Succeed in Your First Year, I have come to realize
that this creates an in-class source of entertainment for all the students.
Rather than correct misbehavior in front of the whole class, the authors
suggest I remain poised, confident, and fluid in my actions and talk to
students individually in a calm and quite tone (Kottler et al. 70-71). They
also encourage teachers to “. . . direct the rest of the students to engage in
some activity so they aren’t frozen in the role of audience watching the drama
unfold” (71). Although a lot of students do not seem to respond well to this
now, I believe with some diligent practice they will get used to this method of
correction. In the event that I do get into a public argument with a student
who tests my authority, the authors state that it is my responsibility to
figure out what went wrong and how I made the problem worse – for example: raising
my voice, showing my disgust, etc. (73-74). Additionally, they reiterate that
misbehavior is not personal and should not affect my emotions (which I have
heard hundreds of times – but it doesn’t’ hurt to hear it again).
Another
source I looked at was Classroom
Management for All Teachers: 12 Plans for Evidence-Based Practice. In this
text, Cipani provides twelve different strategies for managing a classroom,
ranging from rewarding on-task behavior to preventing dangerous and disruptive
behavior. One of my favorite strategies as the “Signal Time-out” periods. With
this technique, students will monitor their own behavior and determine whether
it is on- or off-task. When a student is exhibiting off-task behavior, they
will receive a signal card that will alert their attention to their off-task
behavior. The Signal Time-out period gives many students a chance to see that
their behavior is disrupting other work and will hopefully help them see how
their individual behavior affects the whole class. I am excited to try these
techniques over the next few months and will no doubt be returning to these
texts for more ideas on classroom management.
Sources:
Cipani, Ennio. Classroom Management for All Teachers: 12
Plans for Evidence-Based Practice. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education,
Inc., 2004. Print.
Kottler, Ellen,
Jeffrey A. Kottler, and Cary J. Kottler. Secrets
for Secondary School Teachers: How to Succeed in Your First Year. Thousand
Oaks: Corwin Press, Inc., 1998. 69-76. Print.
