Classroom management techniques

Good classroom management means the difference between a box of kittens and a bowl of tigers.  As the kind of teacher who is done trying to teach in a bowl of tigers, I thought it might be useful to make an awesome flowchart to remind me what to do when my students start to get stripey.

Robert Marzano writes about using "graduated action steps" to deal with behaviors in the classroom.  The process begins by silently alerting the student that you are aware of his or her behavior.  He or she then has the choice to correct his or her behavior.  [At this point in the writing of this blog post, Clay suddenly remembers that he works at an all girls school, and he doesn't have to play these silly pronoun games.]  If the student chooses not to correct her behavior, the teacher walks toward her, closing the physical distance between the two of them.  If the behavior continues, the teacher quietly reminds the student that she is being a jerk, while interrupting the class as little as possible.  If there is a physical distraction involved, the teacher might take this opportunity to remove it.  If the distraction continues further, the teacher can interrupt the class to apply a consequence, separate difficult students, or send the student to have a chat with a person of higher authority (Marzano, 2007).  See the chart for an idea of what this process looks like with a pair of chatters.

Positive reinforcement is important, too.  In our school, the general process is to let the student know that we like and appreciate what she's doing, and then report it forward to other people who can praise her for the same behavior.  This process, in conjunction with the process outlined above, seems to work very well.

Cited:
Marzano, R. (2007). The art and science of teaching. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.