Classroom Management

EDUC 132

Amy Palmer
May 6th, 2015
Dr. Hodgkinson

Management Style and Philosophical Beliefs:

Your management of your classroom determines what will be explicitly taught for the
grade year, how you will conduct your daily schedules, as well as the types of relationships you
will be have within your classroom. Classroom management is an important aspect to student
achievement. (Marzano) When you set high expectations in your students, they begin to also
believe in themselves and want to achieve. When you are consistent with behaviors expected
from student to student, they begin to feel just as important as anyone else in the room. You want
to hold genuine interest in your students so they feel a connection of engagement in your room,
but so you are more able to authenticate the tasks for each student. I feel when you build interest
in your students you also communicate a form of respect for each other; when students feel
respected in your classroom, they are more likely to participate and engage themselves.
My classroom management style is authoritative in that I show passion in what my
students are learning as well as set high expectations for them. I also allow them to communicate
with me areas of confusion and interest by encouraging students to express their ideas. By being
a facilitator of the classroom instead of a dictator I am allowing students to use their own voice
and creativity for problem solving. I will employ a wide range of instructional strategies to help
keep the students involved in activities and meeting the needs of all learners. I feel it is also
equally important to give students choices within my room and allow them to have say in
constructing their own education. (Sprick). I will employ all of these practices while
continuously communicating with the students. I will periodically take temperature checks to
access the understanding of students within my room, as well hold individually conferences to
offer feedbacks and constructive criticism towards success.
My management style will be constructed around my philosophical beliefs on education
as a whole. I will hold each student to the same set of ethics I hold myself. I will expect them to
be respectful to one another and themselves all while exploring the endless possibilities of their
imagination. I will expect all students to participate in their learning process and reflect on
projects, assignments, and my teaching style. I will be active in working with students develop
their own way of thinking and encouraging avenues of pursuit without directly giving them
information. I will employ intrinsic motivators in my students the most I can, by praise and
encouragement. I will provide students with strategies in becoming advocators for themselves
and learning self-regulatory evaluations. While I will be mindful of the behaviors around the
room, I will push students to monitor their own behaviors and become advocates for their own
learning environment.
Resources:
Lane, Kathleen L. Managing Challenging Behaviors in Schools: Research-based Strategies That
Work. New York: Guilford, 2011. Print.

Marzano, Robert J., and Jana S. Marzano. Classroom Management That Works: Research-based
Strategies for Every Teacher. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum
Development, 2003. Print.
Sprick, Randall S. Discipline in the Secondary Classroom: A Positive Approach to Behavior
Management. Third ed. Print.
Artifact: Ginott Quote.pdf
The artifact that I choose to use for this area is the quote by Dr. Haim Ginott. I believe
this quote really demonstrates how important the teachers role is in each students life. I feel it
will be important to show compassion for each student while still a holding a professional
ground of communication for teacher to student relationship. I will display optimism and
inspiration for each student in my classroom, as well as providing a plethora of resources along
their path of student development.

Positive Classroom Culture:

I want students to come into my classroom with a positive outlook on what the semester
entails and will begin by greeting each student as they walk in. I do not want students worried on
the first day about their artistic abilities, whether or not they are going to capable of completing
the assignments, or fitting in in the art room. For this, I will begin the class with an entrance slip
that asks each student to sit according to their date of birth. This will get students talking to one
another first thing without building clicks. Once everyone is in the room I will begin the class
by a presentation about myself. I will provide students with pictures and fun antics about my life
and then introduce my class building activity. The activity that I chose was cat got your tongue?
The reason why I chose this activity was because it involves the whole group and does not begin
to pair students up on the first day.
I will then spend a few minutes doing the name game where we gather in a large circle
and come up with an adjective to describe us that begins with the first letter of our name; this
will not only help me putting a name to the face of each student, but the student to student name
to face relationship as well. I will then walk through my classroom syllabus that outlines
expectations, classroom assignments, grading, academic honestly, and a few procedures that will
be implemented in the days to follow.
For the exit slip on the first day I will have students write on a sticky note one thing they
expect from me as a teacher. I will have a large sheet of white paper hanging on the door on their
way out of the classroom that they will place their sticky note on. These will help me gauge the
types of responsibilities by students expect from me throughout the semester and how I can
address them.
Artifact: Positive Classroom Building Activity.pdf

Establishing Classroom Rules and Procedures:

Classroom rules and procedures will be addressed in the first few weeks of class. When
working with classroom rules I will begin with broad statements that spell out pride. These
behaviors are preparation, responsibility, integrity, dedication, and effort. I will split students
into groups and have them create their own role playing performances that display one
appropriate aspect and one inappropriate aspect behavior to their category.
For policies and routines, I will model the desired behaviors by having students interact
from the beginning. I will begin with routines by making sure every student has a pencil on the
first day, bell ringer on the overhead, engagement by having student participation in classroom
activity, and exit slip of what they expect of me as their teacher. I feel that by starting out with a
routine students will get a better understanding of what is expected of them for the remainder of
their time with me. The policies will also be addressed right away on how I feel about leaving
the classroom for restroom breaks, handing cellphones, late work, tardiness, absences, food and
drink, and academic honesty. I will address these in my syllabi and make clear consequences for
each. I will be creating a website/link for students and families to access assignments and video
demonstrations when class is missed or to refer to when working at home. I will allow students
to use cell phones for musical purposes but they must earn the privilege. Students will have the
first ten minutes of class to get out their supplies, hook cellphones up to their ear buds and music,
and start on the bell ringer. When students begin to use their phone out of context the behavior
will be acknowledged/ noted; and if it becomes a chronic occurrence, a private conference will
be help to eliminate the behavior before it becomes a problem.
Late work is the artifact I choose to use for this component of classroom management. I
will not accept late work after a week unless there are certain circumstances that have been
communicated to me by the family or students and can be documented. I will accept late work
within that week, but it will be automatically docked ten percent from the original grade. I want
students to be prompt when during in the work because there is a reflection component with each
project. We will be moving onto a new unit and want students to seamless be able to reflect on
the project just completed before another begins. Students will be given one late work coupon
that can be used anytime throughout the year; they will also be able to earn one extra coupon by
talking through letter to parents and families and providing signatures.
Artifact: Late Homework Coupon.pdf

Classroom Layout:
Art classrooms are typically bigger than your core content areas. Since I am unsure how
big my actual classroom will be, I based my layout on allowing students 45 square foot per high
school student, not including storage areas. I have included large, tall student desks, instead of
the standard student desks. In an art classroom, students need room to get out all materials and

assignment on their table tops, as well as notes needed to refer when compiling a product. I also
included a large storage room for all the materials that are required in an art setting. Since my
specialty in art is with painting and/or drawing, I included art easels in my classroom for students
that may like to move away from their desks. The regular art desks will adjust to a tilt as well if
need. There is a small area in the room for art work displayed by students that will be rotated for
use through each. I have chosen to do it this way since there are also display cases throughout the
school that will be utilized. Along the wall with a white board there will be the many resources
available to students that miss class and extend on current projects, such as their visual verbal
content journals. There will also be electronic copies of assignment sheets along with video
demonstrations if class is missed on a website. The objectives for each cluster of courses will be
written out on the white board for students view at all times the goal we are achieving. There will
also be a bell ringer that will coincide with the day of the week, but change in content required
for completion on the white board. All of these displays tie into my classroom management by
engaging students into the curriculum upon arriving into class and knowing what is required
ofthem. My desk is in the middle of the classroom so I am able to view all students while
completing roll call, but I will spend much of my time helping students individually when they
are working. The kidney table at the opposite end of my desk will be for demonstrations that will
have a large mirror over head for students to view what I am doing while at their desks. This
type of set up allows students to engage in activities and communicate with one another as well
as work alone when needed.
Artifact: Classroom Layout.pdf

Monitoring the Classroom and Responding to Student Misbehavior:

Monitoring classroom behaviors is a huge key to classroom management. I feel the layout
of my classroom will help set the mood for classroom routines, but also allow me to view all
students during all times. I feel a key component to classroom monitoring is with-it-ness. I will
stay attuned to all students in the classroom even when working one-on-one or with small
groups. When students become off task, I will address the situation immediately by moving
closer to the student miss behaving in hopes to address the issue by stimulus cueing. I do not
believe in calling a student out individually in from of the rest of the group, as some students
may be doing the behavior for attention, but depending on the behavior it may be warranted
depending on the behavior. If there are chronic behaviors I will monitor the situation to assess
the antecedent of why the behavior is occurring and ways to defer the situations before they can
begin in the future. If the situation entails I will create behavioral contracts for students that I feel
would benefit most. These contracts will include the targeting behavior(s), the behavior
objective(s) or task(s) that student needs to be achieving, ways to reach those behaviors,
consequences and rewards, as well as the evaluation/monitoring process to make sure the
behavior is being corrected.

I feel another important component to classroom management and addressing behaviors

are the types of interactions you have with your students. For my artifact I have included ways to
increase the positive interactions with students and decreasing negative interactions. Positive
interactions will help students understand what behaviors are expected by acknowledging them,
while decreasing negative interactions are a reminder to myself of behaviors that may occur and
the ways to prevent them.
Artifact: Increasing Positive Interactions.pdf
Decreasing Negative Interactions.pdf

Parents as Partners:
The parents/families role in the students academic career is a key component to success
for each student. It is important for parents and families to be involved in understanding their
students academic progress throughout the years as well as their expectations as an engaged
citizen within the school.
Before classes even begin for the next school year, I will set up displays and provide
parents with a letter introducing myself, my professional development, the type of education
their child will receive within the fine arts department, as well as the types of products they may
achieve along their visual arts high school career. This will be done during an open house night
that the school sets up for extracurricular activities and development.
With the start of each semester, I will send home a letter welcoming the families into my
classroom; this is my artifact for this section. In this letter I will introduce myself, what their
child should be able to demonstrate by the end of the semester, the general rules I have for my
classroom that fall under the more broad guidelines of school policy, how I will grade student
work, how to access student gradebook and assignments, and my contact information with best
time to reach me. I will spend time going through this with my students first and then have them
take home to share with their parent(s) or guardian(s) to sign and return. If the family needs the
information translated, I will work with school personal or the local AEA to translate the
material so it is available in the native language for every family of my classroom.
Parent-teacher conferences are not mandated for the visual arts, but I will highly
encourage students to bring their families into my classroom and involve them in a short
scavenger hunt to examine the routines and work of the child and to get a briefing of their
students accomplishments. I will have students begin the conference with how they feel they
have done this semester and have a print of their grade based on assignments as well as examples
of their students work. I will make an effort to let families know the positive about their student
and not only the negative if there is a situation arises and the families must be contacted.
Artifact: Introduction Letter to Families.pdf