What is a Classroom Management Plan?

A classroom management and discipline plan can assist teachers to maximize the amount of class time students will spend on learning.  Wong & Wong (1996, pp. 85-86) cite research that says that teachers who spend the first three weeks of school teaching specific routines and procedures increase student time on task.  In addition to creating an orderly classroom, teachers who emphasize the importance of becoming a community of learners who value and respect individuals and work effectively in groups will also be contributing to the long-term social and emotional development of their students.  A classroom management and discipline plan can provide a structure for beginning the school year that can contribute to student motivation, prevent disruptive behavior, and provide strategies for responding to disruptive behavior when it occurs.

Purpose of Plan:  The purpose of an effective management plan is to provide a safe environment where meaningful, authentic learning can and will occur.  A teacher can be the most creative lesson planner but if he or she is a poor manager, those instructional events will not be delivered effectively.  Therefore, it is vital to have a clear, well-articulated, and comprehensive management plan to ensure student engagement and appropriate behavior.

Student candidate will develop a classroom management plan to be able to communicate effective models of classroom management to be implemented in their classrooms. This assignment will help you clarify your ideas about classroom management and discipline and provide you with guidelines for your teaching. As you develop this plan, think about the classrooms in which you have observing teaching and the future classroom you will establish.  Consider the range of students in these classrooms and the unique learning and behavioral challenges posed by students.  Use your public-school classroom experiences and your education class readings and discussions to explain and provide support for your ideas. When appropriate, use quotes or citations from class readings. Please provide a reference list at the end of your paper for your citations.

 Prepare this assignment for inclusion in the classroom management portion of your InTASC LiveText Portfolio.

Components of an Effective Classroom Management Plan:

a) Philosophical statement on your beliefs about classroom management:  Write a 2-3 pages (500-1000 words, APA format for the citations and reference list) research-based personal philosophy for creating a positive learning community. and managing student behavior entitled My Classroom Management Philosophy Statement. Your philosophy should incorporate pertinent and appropriate information from course textbooks regarding

-Classroom Management: Models, Applications and Cases

-Teacher-Tested Classroom Management Strategies

Work through each category, spending time thinking about the prompts and writing your ideas down.

1. View of the Teacher: discuss the relationship between teaching and learning by defining the characteristics of an effective teacher and their influence on students’ success in the learning environment.

Provide examples, and draw on personal experiences and views as well as those of colleagues, and/or mentors. Note your values, beliefs, and aspirations as a teacher. (For example, do you wish to encourage mastery, competency, transformational learning, life-long learning, general transference of skills, critical thinking, etc.) What does a perfect teaching situation look like to you? Why do you consider this “perfect”? What is your role as a teacher?

1. View of the Learner: Extending the discussion on teaching and learning you should focus now on your personal beliefs about learner and the learner’s characteristics (learning styles, learning environment, cognitive structures, learning strategies and student motivation) and their influence on student success in the learning environment.
2. Building positive teacher-student relationships: Effective classroom managers use specific techniques to establish an appropriate level of dominance and specific behaviors that communicate an appropriate level of cooperation.
3. Establish rules and procedures: This section should include an overview of daily/weekly schedules.  It should include rules, routines, procedures and time management decisions that are needed throughout the instructional day.  Student responsibilities and “job” assignment can also be included in this section. The rules and procedures that you determine will clearly help establish your dominance in the classroom
4. Use disciplinary interventions: When misbehavior occurs, follow it with interventions to stop inappropriate behavior. Use of interventions is another expression of your dominance in the classroom. What type of interventions do you think are effective?
5. Exhibit assertive behavior: Involves standing up for one’s legitimate rights in ways that make it less likely that others will ignore by using assertive body language, speak in an appropriate tone of voice, and persist until the appropriate behavior is displayed. Which technics are more valuable for you? Explain your choice.
6. Establish clear and flexible learning goals. Communicate clear learning goals at the beginning of a unit of instruction, provide feedback on those goals, revise the goals and provide summative feedback regarding the goals. How will you communicate the learning goals to your students?
7. Take a personal interest in your students: Which strategies you will use to get to know your students?
8. Use equitable and positive classroom behaviors: How can you be sure that your behavior is equal and equitable for all students, thus fostering positive teacher-student relationship?
9. Respond appropriately to students’ incorrect response. How will you respond to the students’ incorrect responses to maintain a positive teacher-student relationship?
10. Interacting with students: What skills you will need to maintain a a higher academic achievement and more productive classroom behavior?
11. Reinforcing desired behaviors: Which consequences will you use to increase to strengthen behaviors that are valued and to motivate students to do things that will benefit them? . How might your selection and use of reinforcements be affected by subject area or grade level?
12. Teaching Methodology: What methods will you consider to reach these goals and objectives? What are your beliefs regarding learning theory and specific strategies you would use such as case studies, group work, simulations, interactive lectures, etc.? You might also include any new ideas or strategies you have used or want to try specific examples. How are the values and beliefs noted above realized in classroom activities? The section will include specific descriptions of instructional strategies that contribute to classroom management.  Such as teaching positive discipline strategies, class meetings, etc.  Describe instructional strategies to be used when implementing the plan including how you will involve parents, students, and your administrator.

Assessing learning: How will you assess student growth and learning? What are your beliefs about grading? Do you grade students on a percentage scale (criterion referenced) or on a curve (norm referenced)? What different types of assessment will you use: traditional tests, projects, portfolios, or presentations?

b) Classroom Environment:  Briefly describe or diagram effective room arrangements, seating charts, and specific information needed to provide a safe environment including emergency procedures. The room arrangement that you select should be consistent with your instructional goals and activities. Teacher-led instructional approaches such as presentations and demonstrations require one type of room arrangement, whereas small group work requires a different type of arrangement.

Guidelines:
Using a piece of ¼-inch graph paper (8 ½ x 11) layout the placement of furniture and equipment in your ideal classroom. You must provide area identifications on the classroom layout. The scale of this exercise is ¼ inch to 1 foot. Icons representing items in the classroom should be customary in appearance (desk looks like a desk). Provide a key if items are not easily identifiable. On the upper right corner, include the following information:

• Your name
• Class subject area/Grade level of the class

Helpful Hints:

• Consider traffic patterns and potential congestion areas.
• For the areas that you identified for specific activity use, be sure to provide adequate room or clear space.
• Consider storage access for student use and teacher use, materials/ equipment.
• In your classroom layout, be sure the following are accounted for:
  • visual distraction
  • adequate line of sight
  • environmental noise suppressors
  • group work areas
• Be sure to indicate where students will be seated.
• Remember to electronically scan the final Classroom Design and Layout.

1. School/home communication: Prepare an introductory letter to families to welcome them and to inform them about the teacher, the curriculum, grading practices and standards, the homework policy, rules and procedures and so on. Communicating the classroom expectations to parents and making them aware of positive and negative behaviors can be a powerful tool in creating an effective classroom management plan. Parents want their children to do well in school. By making parents aware of the classroom plan before problems occur, positive relationships can be developed.
2. Evaluation and Reflection:  Reflection on one’s own work is a key component of being a professional and is essential to teacher education and the preparation of future teachers. Teacher candidates must learn to examine their own beliefs, assumptions and biases regarding teaching, learning, and classroom management and determine how those beliefs influence classroom practice and impact on the learning environment. Furthermore, since teaching is often an uncertain, dynamic and complex practice, teacher candidates must make constant judgments about appropriate goals, teaching methods, students’ learning, and classroom management approaches.

Reflective practice can also shed light on the teacher candidates’ written work. It helps the teacher candidate to become more aware of the comparative content of their written document to the assignment requirements. The reflection may lend itself to suggestions for revisions prior to the submission of the assignment, produces a better quality final document, encourages teacher candidates’ growth in writing skill, and provides teacher candidates the opportunity for a more in-depth analysis of their written work.

Guidelines:
Write a one to two page (250-500 words) reflective page about your Classroom Management Plan. Please write the reflection in narrative form. The reflection paper should highlight how your Classroom Management Plan details how you plan to develop a safe and supportive learning environment for your students. This may include:

• How do you believe your Classroom Management Plan will work to provide the students with a safe and supportive learning environment?
• How you plan on getting to know students?
• How you plan on introducing students to the management plan in the first days of school and then reinforcing it beyond that time period?
• Communication of class and behavioral expectation to students and family
• Substitute Teacher materials?
• Does the narrative reflect an understanding and thoughtful consideration of classroom management?

Classroom Management Plan Submission:
In a three-prong folder, submit a hardcopy of the Classroom Management Plan and Reflection with a copy of both Peer Reviews and Self-Assessment forms to the instructor by the beginning of class on the due date. An electronic copy of the Classroom Management Plan and Reflection must also be submitted in LiveText no later than 5:00 p.m. on the due date (submit each section of this assignment into the corresponding section within LiveText). When submitting this assignment, please submit each document embedded into the body of LiveText and also attach copy of each document into LiveText. No credit will be given for late submissions.

Scoring: Classroom Management Plan Rubric.