Classroom Management Plan

Seth Manesse

December 10, 2017

College of Southern Nevada

 Education is the passport to the future,
for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.

Malcolm X

As a new teacher, I am sure that I will be faced with many challenges--some foreseeable and
some that will surprise me. Preparation, patience, and persistence will help me face these
challenges. I will enjoy my successes and I will learn from my mistakes.

I will model valuing diversity. I will foster relationships between my students to build connections
between all peoples (Gruwell, 2007, Kindle Location 198). By word and deed I will teach my
students to actively respect and honor the differences of: race, ethnicity, gender,
sexual-orientation, gender-identity, age, religion, values and beliefs, disability, body mass,
country of origin, language, etc.

Much of my instruction will be based upon learning through social interaction, culture, and
context. I will be paying attention to my students zones of proximal development, modeling
desired behaviors, creating dialogues, having my students perform practice exercises, giving
feedback through formative assessments, and provide scaffolding. I will be following many of
the cognitive development theories of Lev Vygotsky (Snowman & McCowan, 2012, pp. 50-55).

I believe in fostering a Growth Mindset--I will instill in my students a belief that they can improve
(Mindshift, 2014).

Classroom Management Plan

Set up a classroom layout conducive to collaborative learning;

Establish classroom expectations and rules;
Prepare Lesson plans that meet standards and engage students;
Establish critical routines;
Spell out systems of feed-back, recognition, and rewards;
Spell out systems of correction and consequences for unproductive or unkind behaviors;
Comply with legal and Constitutional rights and responsibilities.

Classroom Layout

A classroom that is conducive to learning must be:

Clean,
Neat,
Organized,
Well lit,
Comfortable,
Safe,
Personalized with posters and decorations that reflect a welcoming environment,
Stocked with readily available supplies.
Technology and equipment must be:

Working,
Assessable,
Available at all workstations.

Workstations must be:

Clean,
In good condition,
Arranged in small groupings for my students,
Teachers workstation will be at the back of the classroom.

Classroom Expectations and Rules

Students are expected to take responsibility--you are accountable for your actions;
Students are expected to be productive;
Students are expected to be kind to each other and themselves.

(Snowman & McCowan, 2012, p. 484)

Lessons, Standards, and Engagement

I plan to teach middle-school mathematics. I believe any middle-schooler can master all of the
required subject matter. I will manage an engaging and efficient classroom geared towards
having all of my students achieve mastery of the middle-school mathematics curriculum.

I will be following the appropriate school mandated standards--CORE, InTASC, or any other
standard/test put forward by school administration. These standards will be incorporated into all
lessons and will act as a road-map of topics to be taught. This does not mean that I will be
teaching to the test, it does mean that I will hold my students accountable for learning what is
expected of students at their grade level.

For my special needs students, I will work diligently to meet the goals, standards, and
expectations that are part of each Individualized Education Plan (IEP). The IEP will be my guide
and benchmark that measures if the needs of my students with exceptionalities are being
appropriately and successfully addressed.

Critical Routines

I plan to flip my classroom. Lectures and demonstrations will be given via videos that students
will watch outside of class. I will keep each lesson short and match my lectures and reading
assignments to the work that we will be doing in class. Exercises and practice will be done in
class either individually or in groups.

I will be dividing my students into workstations of four to six students per grouping. Students will
be expected to be collaborative. Each group of students will be responsible for demonstrating
that they are all learning and participating. As the instructor, I will be guiding each group towards
working cohesively and cooperatively in mastering the material.

Classroom structure will be based upon cooperative learning and will include:

Cooperative structures--rewards based upon shared goals and success;

Individualistic structures--rewards based upon individual efforts;
Diverse groupings of students;
Positive interdependence--students support each other to achieve group goals;
Individual accountability;
Team competition--framed to encourage group learning from successes and failures;
Equal opportunities for success.

(Snowman & McCowan, 2015, pp. 488-491)

Scaffolding support will be available to all students. I will make my students aware of available
scaffolding so that they can voluntarily take advantage of the additional support. Students who
need help will be encouraged to seek it out proactively. Some of my students will lack the
introspection or social skill to ask for this assistance. For these students, I will be actively
offering and extending the available scaffolding.

One of the biggest hurdles for middle-schoolers is reading comprehension (Willingham, 2017). I
expect that my students will have difficulty comprehending math textbooks. I will support my
students with the scaffolding tool of reading the textbook out loud to them on videos--students
can follow my readings in their own books or choose read on their own. I will keep the videos
short and match the content to upcoming planned classwork.

Creativity will be encouraged. Doing geometry one week and a Pythagorean Theorem poetry
slam the next will be par-for-the-course.

I will establish routines and expectations for how work is to be handed in and presented. One of
the major drawbacks of many current systems of grading, in my opinion, is that as soon as
classwork is handed in there is no further instruction on that particular topic. I believe that
assignments should be handed back to students with suggestions for improvement and students
should be given the opportunity to re-do coursework to demonstrate mastery of the topic and to
improve comprehension. Resubmitting work in order to improve ones grade will be a system of
scaffolding/formative assessment that will be available in my classroom.

Each student learns at their own pace; with this in mind, late assignments will be accepted
without penalties as long as they are turned in before grading is due for quarter/semester
drop-dead dates.

Critical routines are based on Guided Learning, focusing on Higher Order Thinking Skills,
Maslows principles of Self-Actualization, and creating a sense of community and belonging in
the classroom (Snowman & McCowan, 2015, pp. 481-488).

Systems of Feed-Back, Recognition, and Rewards

Systems of Correction and Consequences for Unproductive or Unkind Behaviors

I plan to spend the first week of each school year doing very little teaching. Instead I will be
engaging in exercises that allow me to get to know and build rapport with my students. The
relationship and rapport I build with my students will be the primary asset I will use to maintain
the growth mindset and cooperative style of my classroom.

I will give a lot of praise to my students. For praise to be more than empty words it must be
sincere and effort must be put into it. If I dont mean it, I wont say it. I will offer praise that
specifies what was good and why it was good. I will spend as much time getting my facts right
before I offer praise as I do before I offer criticism. I will praise in public and criticise in private.
When I am critical I will be kind and gentle. Praise and criticism should help build an image of
what success looks like; they should be practical indicators of where we are, where we would
like to be, and how good of a job were doing in getting from here to there (Lockhart, 2017)
(Sallstrom, 2016) (Scott, 2016).

My rule-of-thumb: Never set a consequence that you dont mean. Children must know
boundaries. They will test to see what happens when they push, bend, and break the rules. For
rules to be enforceable the consequences of breaking them must be a response that the student
finds so unpalatable that they adjust their behavior but not so unpleasant that the punishment is
extreme or causes harm. For the punishment of: Mr. Manesse is disappointed in me to be
effective, the student has to actually care about what I think and feel. If each student knows that
I am invested in them, I can use that knowledge to help them moderate their behavior.

Compliance with Legal and Constitutional Rights and Responsibilities

I will adhere to constitutional and legal mandates related to education, including:

Mandates pertaining to education contained in the State of Nevadas Constitution;

Legal and constitutional obligations, responsibilities and rights of teachers,
administrators, and Boards of Education based upon state and federal laws and the
Federal Constitution;
Rights of parents and students;
Important laws and court cases that pertain to education.

I will be responsible to school administrators, parents, and students. I will respect my coworkers.
I will be professional and upstanding.
 References

Gruwell, Erin & The Freedom Writers Foundation. (2007). The Freedom Writers diary teachers
guide. New York: Broadway Books.

Lockhart, Elisse. (2017, January 17). Podcast episode 3: Ruinous empathy and praise. Radical
Candor. Retrieved December 7, 2017 from website:
https://www.radicalcandor.com/blog/podcast-episode-3/

Malcolm X Quotes. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved December 7, 2017, from

BrainyQuote.com Website: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/malcolm_x_386475

MindShift. (2014, December 23). Why talking about the brain can empower learners. KQED.org.
Retrieved December 7, 2017 from website:
https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/12/23/why-talking-about-the-brain-can-empower-lea
rners/

Sallstrom, Andrea. (2016, September 2). Praise & manipulative insincerity. Radical Candor.
Retrieved December 7, 2017 from website:
https://www.radicalcandor.com/blog/praise-manipulative-insincerity/

Scott, Kim. (2016, July 12). Juggling praise and criticism. Radical Candor. Retrieved December
7, 2017 from website: https://www.radicalcandor.com/blog/juggling-praise-criticism/

Snowman, Jack & McCown, Rick. (2015). Psychology applied to teaching, fourteenth edition.
Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.

Willingham, Daniel T. (2017, November 25). How to get your mind to read. The New York Times.
Retrieved December 7, 2017 from website:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/25/opinion/sunday/how-to-get-your-mind-to-read.html
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