TIP LIST

1. Build Community 2. Design a Safe, Friendly, and Well-Managed Classroom Environment 3. Include Students in Creating Rules, Norms, Routines, and Consequences 4. Create a Variety of Communication Channels 5. Always Be Calm, Fair, and Consistent 6. Know the Students You Teach 7. Address Conflict Quickly and Wisely 8. Integrate Positive Classroom Rituals 9. Keep It Real 10. Partner with Parents and Guardians
WEVE ALL HEARD THIS ABOUT STUDENTS: If they are engaged, they are managed. And this is absolutely the truth. But we still need rules, routines, trust, and student ownership to make a classroom run smoothly and effectively. This guide will address those practical aspects of managing a classroom, with suggestions and resources appropriate for grades K-12. Most of these tips are applicable to students of all ages, but the actual techniques will look different for the various grades. For instance, Build Community (tip #1), might mean playing name games with elementary students but involve setting up a photo booth for middle school students. Tip #8, Integrate Positive Classroom Rituals, may sound like its all about elementary learners, but look for suggestions to make the morning meeting an important part of the day for teens and tweens too. During my first year in the classroom, a seasoned teacher told me, You are as much an ethics teachers as you are an English teacher. What she meant was that literature brings along life lessons and themes, so its inevitable that you end up deeply discussing morals, what is right and wrong, and wise choices versus poor decisions. Its no accident then that the ten tips offered here also give a noticeable nod to social and emotional learning, or SEL (http://www.edutopia.org/socialemotional-learning), an approach that teaches children how to handle challenging situations, manage their emotions, and form positive relationships.

1.

Build Community

BUILDING CARING RELATIONSHIPS with students is the cornerstone of good classroom management. Building these relationshipsteacher-student, student-student, classroomcommunityand creating the time and space to do so in the beginning of the year and throughout the following months can make or break a classroom. Simply put, when there is care in the air, there will be significantly fewer behavioral problems. Greet your students at the door: This simple gesture creates that moment when you and the student make eye contact, speak directly to each other (good morning), and have a connection. This may be the only one-on-one you have that day with the student, but it has great value. When

you model a respectful way to greet another human being, you are implicitly telling each student that this is how we will communicate with each other. Get to know one another: Teachers and students begin learning one anothers names the first day of school and should be able to address one another by name within two weeks. Use engaging, ageappropriate activities (http://wilderdom.com/games/NameGames.html) for learning names and for getting acquainted. As students learn more and more about one another, connections will begin to happen. This inevitably leads to more empathy and understanding and, ultimately, caring relationships with a lot less classroom conflict. Student photos will help you connect names and faces. In this article from the NEAs website, retired middle school teacher Phil Nast recalls some favorite photo tips, such as having students create their own passports as a first-day-of-school activity: http://www.nea.org/tools/gettingto-know-each-other.html. With the right app, you can even set up a photo booth in a corner of your classroomsomething that should appeal to tweens and teens. Heres an example using the iPad: http://www.apple.com/ipad/built-in-apps/photobooth.html. Veteran educator Peter Pappas recommends using the first day of school to encourage teens to multitask, to get students thinking at the same time theyre getting acquainted. He explains on his Copy/Paste blog how an engaging activity like solving a mystery can deliver multiple benefits: http://www.peterpappas.com/2010/08/first-day-school-engage-problem-solve-how-toget-students-thinking.html. Definitely take the time and energy to continue growing community and relationships in the classroom. The payoff is worth the effort.

2.

Design a Safe, Well-Managed and Friendly Classroom Environment

THE RIGHT PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT helps create a positive learning community. When students walk into a classroom, they need to feel ownership. Their writing assignments and projects should prevail on the walls, and they should have easy access to supplies and handouts and a place to turn in class assignments. Ask students to be designers of their room: They choose where to hang the dioramas on photosynthesis or the book reports, and they get to do the hanging. Also, charts, directionsany permanent postersshould be written by student hands. The more they see themselves in the environment, the more they feel valued (and the fewer number of conflicts we teachers will have with them). Hows the lighting in your classroom? Try making small adjustments, such as bringing in a few floor lamps and turning off some of the fluorescent lights. This can create a calmer, less institutional vibe. Learn more about lighting in this Edutopia primer, What They See Is What We Get: A Primer on Light: http://www.edutopia.org/what-they-see-what-we-get. Moving desks and trying different table configurations can also create a more friendly setting thats better suited for collaboration. Social and emotional learning emphasizes student-centered, cooperative learning. This means you will cluster desks into groups or move students so they face one another. This may make your classroom a bit louder, but it helps grow a community of learners a lot more quickly than rows of desks facing the front of the class. Take the plunge and just do it!

3.

Include Students in Creating Rules, Norms, Routines, and Consequences

RULES ARE DIFFERENT from routines and norms. Rules come with consequences whereas routines and norms have reminders. (Read Rebecca Albers Edutopia blog post for more on this: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/rules-routines-school-year-start-classroommanagement.) Social Contracts: When establishing both rules and routines, its crucial that students have a say in the matter. The teachers role is to facilitate and guide students through the steps to develop social contracts. Whats the result? Students have full ownership in what has been decided around class norms, expectations, and consequences.

The start of a new school year is the ideal time to draw up a social contract. Start by asking kids to brainstorm about all the things they see, feel, and hear in a classroom that make them feel comfortable, safe, and happy. Use this graphic organizer, http://www.edutopia.org/pdfs/stw/edutopia-stw-louisville-sel-Y-chart.pdf, to create a chart as a whole class and then decide on rules, routines, and consequences together. Developmental Discipline: How often do you notice the same student arriving late to class, making unkind comments to peers, or repeating other negative behaviors? Change the pattern with developmental discipline. This is a philosophy that has the individual examine why something happened and then consider what can be done to rectify the situation and prevent it from happening again. Developmental discipline encourages teachers to use community-building activities, along with appropriate consequences, to lead students to think about how they behave and how they treat one another. Instead of detention, a student may write a fix-it plan or apology letter or come up with his or her own suitable and effective consequence. Watch this Edutopia Schools That Work video that demonstrates what developmental discipline looks like in the Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville, Kentucky: http://www.edutopia.org/louisville-sel-discipline-behavior-video. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, better known as CASEL, shares links to video examples and case studies about SEL schools: http://casel.org/inschools/selecting-programs/programs-in-action/.

4.

Create a Variety of Communication Channels

HOW MANY DIFFERENT WAYS do students have for communicating with you? The more modes they have, the better. Teacher-Student Communication: Having varied and reliable options for students to talk with you will help keep your class running smoothly. Here are a few ideas to try: Encourage students to connect with you online. Provide them with your school email account so they can send you their questions, concerns, and suggestions, or use social-media tools to connect with students who are old enough to have Facebook accounts. To create a private back channel for real-time classroom discussions, check out tools such as TodaysMeet (http://todaysmeet.com/) or Chatzy (http://www.chatzy.com). Offer a variety of times when you are available. This will make certain that all students are able to come and sit down with you privately for a chat if needed (before school, once a week at lunchtime, any day after school). Place a suggestion box on your desk where students can leave anonymous notes. You might be surprised to get messages like these: Please turn up the heat in the morning, Richard is picking on Jessica after class, or Please give more examples for writing a thesis statement. Have students turn in weekly notebooks or project logs. Include one or two assignments for which students can just freewrite anything, including a letter to you if they wish. Student-Student Communication: Students grow emotionally and socially as they share their intellectual thoughts and ideas with one another. As teachers, we must explicitly integrate as much time for this as possible. We can do so through such activities as think-pair-share, talking-triads, tea parties, and Socratic seminars. To learn more about various thinking routines (and the research behind them), visit the Visible Thinking website at Harvards Project Zero: http://pzweb.harvard.edu/vt/VisibleThinking_html_files/VisibleThinking1.html. When it comes to student groups, be mindful to mix them up frequently to prevent cliques from forming. If you keep groups and pairs in heavy rotation, then in no time, all students will have spent some time with one another and the connections will be visible. Finally, when youre talking with the whole class, use phrases that are empowering rather than defeating, accusatory, or negative. As teachers, we must continually model the behaviorsand languagewe wish to see in the children we teach.

5.

Always Be Calm, Fair and Consistent

TRUST IS THE BEATING, healthy heart of a functioning classroom. Without it, classroom management is nearly impossible, as is building relationships with students. A calm, fair, and

consistent teacher is a trusted one. (Edutopia blogger Rebecca Alber shares more insights on this topic: http://www.edutopia.org/trusting-relationships-teachers-students.) Calm: Always keep a calm and steady demeanor, even if your head and heart are telling you to act differently. (Dont ever match a childs rage, sarcasm, or anger.) Use those acting skills we all acquire as teachers! And when you feel the blood boiling, remember this: Kids do not trust reactive teachers, and often they dont respect them. Fear should never be the great motivator in our classrooms. Staying calm means never raising your voice or speaking over the class. If students are talking, wait. Wait longer. Wait until it becomes so uncomfortable that several students begin to shush the others. Then, even if you are feeling beyond annoyed, use a calm, quiet voice so they will need to lean in to listen. Now youve got them. Fairness: Though you may not feel the same way about every student, they should never know or see this. Being fair means all students are under the same rulesand get the same exceptions to those rules. To make sure you are being fair, remind yourself to do the following: Avoid calling on or selecting the same students over and over. Acknowledge to the class when there has been an exception (for a student, another class period, or a group) and, if possible, share why. Keep a solid line between rules and routines. Rules come with consequences whereas routines come with reminders. Consistency: If you are having an erratic day, stay the course and dont change that days agenda or class structure. This helps children feel safe. Modeling Positive Behavior: While you are teaching, you should be demonstrating compassion, caring, patience, and self-control every chance you get. Students eyes are on us at all times, even when we think they are immersed in the task at hand. They watch, they listen, they learn, and then they repeat the behaviors they see.

6.

Know the Students You Teach

ASK YOURSELF THIS QUESTION, How well do I know myself? Thinking about this question helps you to better know and understand your students. By looking at your own background (economics, culture, education, and gender), you will be able to acknowledge the lens through which you view your students. For example, if you grew up middle class but teach students whose families live mainly below the poverty line, you can take time to learn about their specific challenges. The Education Alliance has produced an online guide to culturally responsive teaching: http://www.alliance.brown.edu/tdl/tl-strategies/crt-principles.shtml. Take a moment to reflect on where you are with all this. Consider the following characteristics of a culturally responsive educator: She challenges and confronts all stereotypes in the instructional curriculum and environment. She strives to know her students and seeks professional development and reading materials to learn how to better serve all of them. She helps her students gain hope and develop strategies for overcoming academic and societal barriers. She uses texts that are relevant and speak to the lives and experiences of the students she teaches. When we do our best to exhibit all of these qualities, we are including all children, especially those we most struggle to understand. How are you doing when it comes to creating a culturally responsive classroom? As a way to invite feedback, consider asking a colleague or mentor to observe your classroom.

7.

Address Conflict Quickly and Wisely

DONT LET CONFLICT FESTER. That means you should be sure to address an issue between you and a student or between two students as quickly as possible. Bad feelingson your part or the studentscan so quickly grow from molehills into mountains. Now, for handling those conflicts wisely, you and the student should step away from the other students, just in the doorway of the classroom perhaps. Ask naive questions such as, How might I help you? Dont accuse the child of anything. Act as if you do care, even if you have the opposite feeling at that moment. The student will usually become disarmed because she is expecting you to be angry and confrontational. And always take a positive approach. Say, It looks like you have a question rather than, Why are you off task and talking? When students have conflicts with each other, remain neutral. Use neutral language as you act as a mediator to help them resolve the problem peacefully. Educators for Social Responsibilities maintain an Online Teacher Center with a variety of resources and classroom-ready materials (free registration required) that focus on resolving conflict: http://www.esrnational.org/otc. Not In Our School (http://www.niot.org/nios) showcases stories of students and communities that stand up to bullying and prejudice. Online resources include classroom discussion guides and lesson plans designed to create safe schools, free from intolerance.

8.

Integrate Positive Classroom Rituals

ITS MORE COMMON in elementary grades that the day will begin with a community-building activity. But getting off to a good start is important at all ages. Here are some suggestions to make it happen. Morning meetings: This is a brief forum during which each individual in the group is acknowledged. It creates a feeling of we are all in this together. Edutopia blogger Suzie Boss describes morning meetings at a unique school in Colorado: http://www.edutopia.org/buildingschool-community-eagle-rock. Good things: Ask for a few volunteers to share something good that has happened to them (getting an A on a test or having a new baby in the family, for instance). The student can also share an upcoming event that is positive (such as a birthday or trip). Whip around: Ask students to say one word that describes how they are feeling today. Start with a volunteer and then whip around the room. Give students the option to pass if they like.

9.

Keep it Real

DISCOVER THE THINGS your students are interested intrends, music, TV shows, and gamesand incorporate those as you teach the skills, concepts, and knowledge they need. You want to attach the learning to their lives as often as possible. Tap Into Prior Knowledge and Schema: The father of critical pedagogy, Paulo Freire, rejected the notion that children are empty vessels. Instead, he promoted the belief that learners offer a wealth of knowledge conventional and unconventionalfor the teacher to build on. Kids with bad behavior tend to get treated and taught as if they need to be filled with information and knowledge. This tactic, in fact, leads to more acting out. With a constructivist approach, the teacher encourages the child to actively construct new ideas or concepts based upon his current and prior knowledge and beliefs. Use Essential Questions: Big, overarching questions are a fantastic way to launch a unit of study and to help connect learning with the lives of your students. Essential questions do not have a right or wrong answer, nor are they easy to respond to. They give meaning and relevance to what your students are studying, and they are meant to grab the attention and thoughts and sometimes the heartof a group of learners. They are not to be solved but to be discussed and pondered. Here are some examples of essential questions (but remember to use them strategically and sparingly): In what ways are animals human and in what ways are humans animals? (science) What is love? (English/poetry) When is it acceptable to rebel? (history)

What would life be like if mathematics did not exist? (math)

Authentic Assessment: Authentic assessment (http://www.edutopia.org/stw-assessmentschool-of-the-future-introduction-video) measures student learning with relevant, high-level Blooms Taxonomy tasks the kind students might be required to do if they were actually working in the field of study. To do authentic assessment, you will need to backwards plan, starting with what you want the kids to know and be able to do for the assessment. Grant Wiggins, the acclaimed author of Understanding By Design, calls this starting with the end in mind. If the start and end of a unit feel real to your students, then they are more likely to be engaged during the important journey in the middle. Edutopia blogger Suzie Boss explains how to get projects off to a good start: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/summer-pd-starting-projectssuzie-boss.

10.

Partner with Parents and Guardians

THIS IS THE LAST TIP FOR A REASON. Teachers know that partnering with parents is neither easy nor completely in our control. Returning a teachers call may not be the top priority for a parent or guardian. They may be more concerned with paying bills, putting food on the table, navigating the rough waters of managing a single-parent home, and so much more beyond our imaginations. Yet connecting home and school is worth the extra effort because of the benefits for students. So here are some simple yet surefire ways to partner and connect with parents and guardians. Intel First: Have kids fill out an About Me index card the first week of school. Ask them about their favorite books and school subjects and things they are good at. Also ask for their parents or guardians cell phone numbers. Go Digital: Consider setting up your own website, wiki, or page on your schools website so parents can take a quick look and get up-to-speed with topics of study and class and homework assignments. Edmodo (http://www.edmodo.com) offers a free platform for creating a secure socialnetworking site for your students and their families. Face to Face: Make sure on open house and back-to-school night (or any other family night) that you have plenty of business cards or contact-information cards that include your email, cell phone number (optional), classroom room number, and the schools phone number. This may seem basic, but that card not only makes it easy for parents to connect with you, it shows them that that you want them to call. Calling Home: Make good calls home as often as you can. There is nothing more depressing than having to sit down after a day of teaching and call five students homes with bad news. Calling home with something positive will put a smile on your face and theirs, and it opens the door for a relationship. When you do have to make that call with a concern, be sure to mention something positive about the student before you say, One thing I am concerned about . . . .