Classroom Management

The readings on classroom management emphasized three key points: clear expectations, considering if certain actions lead to better outcomes, and being aware of high-needs students. Clear expectations are important for creating a productive and safe classroom culture. Expectations may vary day to day but should always be met. Considering if certain actions lead to better outcomes helps in handling student behavior effectively. For instance, providing opportunities for improvement instead of punishment can be more beneficial. Lastly, being aware of high-needs students and meeting their specific needs improves classroom efficiency. This includes not only students with disabilities but also those with social needs. This week's readings were on classroom management, and there were a lot of really good points across kind of all the different articles and videos that we read and we watched, but some of the three key ones that kind of stuck out to me that were common across a lot of them, and I think some of the most important was the first one being clear expectations. I think this is extremely important for establishing classroom management and a classroom culture that can be productive and that can feel safe and warm and welcoming, especially kind of just laying out what an expectation is. I think it's important, especially teaching at the high school level, sometimes they don't quite understand what an expectation is and that it's something that is expected from them every day, no ifs, ands, or buts, and just understanding that they can meet the expectation and it can look a little bit different on different days. Like for example, you know, if the expectation is to give your best effort, giving your best effort on the day that you score a date to the dance, that's going to look different than your best effort on the day that, you know, your dog died, but as long as you continue giving your best, that's what you're looking for. So just kind of reinforcing that an expectation can be done every day, some days it might look a little bit different, and especially having students kind of give a little bit of input on setting the classroom expectations I think kind of goes a long way as well. Another one of the key points was determine if it leads to better outcomes, like for example, like your responses to behaviors or to outbursts and things like that. This one I really liked how it was worded because I think sometimes we're so quick to, okay, a kid does this, okay, here's what the classroom policy, or here's what the school policy is, you know, write them the attention, write them the referrals, send them out to the office, and in some cases I just don't know if that's always the best way to handle some situations. Like for example, we're in our last few weeks of school here and we have a, I had a student that had cheated on a homework assignment, pulled her aside, we talked about it, and she admitted to cheating on it, and it would have been easy to write the referral, contact the parents, and then go on from there, but again, she's failing the class, there's really no chance of her passing, she's had a tough year all the way through, so instead gave her the opportunity to attend my tutorials for the rest of the year, and so far she's attended two in a row, we've got a few left, but she's attended two in a row, we've been able to sit down, work through those problems, make sure that she has an understanding, and I think by doing that, I think we're going to get her a little bit closer to being, you know, getting something out of, you know, she's still learning that she can't cheat on a homework assignment, and she's learning how to do it the right way rather than, you know, just getting in trouble from it and kind of move on. The last kind of key point that I have here that I really liked was the awareness of high needs students. I think this is especially important teaching in California, we've got large class sizes, classes are 50 minutes, and we move quickly, so identifying those students of high needs and figuring out what their needs are and how I can help meet their needs, so that way I can run the classroom as efficient as possible, because one thing as being a little bit of a newer teacher, a class of 36, if I give each kid just one minute of my time, that's 36 minutes of my 50-minute class, so I can't always do that, so finding those kids with high needs and say, hey, okay, the kids with high needs, let me get them, you know, their minute, or maybe the kid only needs 30 seconds of a, hey, how was your game last night, or, hey, you know, how did you do on your history test, and sometimes maybe that's just that little bit of attention that they need, and that's enough for them to kind of get into the rhythm for the class period, so identifying the high needs and what their needs are and seeing if I can come up with a way to be efficient with it. I think that's really the one that I need to work on the most, just because sometimes I get so caught up on students with disabilities and thinking those are the high needs students, and they do have a lot of needs, but there's also students that have other high needs, like, for example, socially, and they just want to have their voices heard, and they want to be able to share, and so those are some things that I definitely need to work on, and I really liked how the article kind of brought it up there.