Having a good management plan can help to prevent having dicipline problems latter on. I am all about focusing on the positive! If at all possible I will forsee problems before the arise and create a management plan and lesson plans that will prevent those problems. One thing that is important to me is that my classoom becomes a place where students feel safe. I know that having a good managment plan is a big part in creating that environment. As a great professor of mine once said "Your classroom is only as safe as you treat your most difficult student."
Extrinsic motivators or no extrinsic motivators?
As part of management I do believe in extrinsic rewards. Some believe that this neatively affects intinsic motivation, but second graders deserve a reward for good behavior every once in a while, at least that is my opinion. By focusing my attention more on how to plan engaging lessons and how to share my excitemnt for learning with my students rather than on rewards I know that the reward I do give on occasion will not undermine my student's intrinsic motivation.
Large Group Management
Free Time - kids will work pretty hard for just a few minutes of free time. One of my professors introduced this idea to me and I feel that it could be very succesful. The great thing - it's simple and won't cost you a dime!
Each week write the word "Free Time" on the board (you could se oher words that go along with your class theme instead - since my theme is travel I will be using the word "Vacation!!"), each letter of the word stands for one minute of freetime on Friday. If the class gets off task or misbehaves at any point during the week, letters can be erased. If your class is easily motivated by free time it my onl take reching for the eraser to get them back on task. It is up to you whether you will let students earn letters back. If I see my whle class on task or walking quietly in the halls I will gladly give letters back.
Mystery Motivators - Mystery motvators are another great way to manage the whole class. ...
Class Parties - Kids love class parties, thus they serve as good miotivation. The class can go about earning class parties in a variety of different ways, I will share with you how I am going to do it. In accordance with my class theme I will have an airplane at one end of the board in the front of the room and a cut out continent on the other end (make sure to laminate thee so that you can re use them!). There will be some type of line or number line in between. As the whole class behaves well and acts as they should I will move the airplane towards the continent. When the airplane reaches the continent the continent will be turned over to reveal what the class party will be (writen with dry erase marker on the back). I will not ever move the airplane back for poor behavior, I don't believe in taking away what the students have earned but to eah his own!
Small Group Management
Indiviual Management
Positive Praise - Postive praise is one of the best ways to reward a student, and it gets the rest of the class on task as well because the other students want to hear their name in association with postive praise(make sure that you know your students because some students may be embarassed by the attention). When giving positive praise make sure to state the name of the student, or "I like how I see some students" and the the specific positive behavior observed.
Bingo Board - The Bingo board is a popular technique used for managing individual students. The Bingo Board is a 5 x 5 grid with the word BINGO going down the left hand side and the numbers 1-5 accross the top. When an individual student is seen exhibiting exceptional behavior the teacher invites the student to sign the bingo board (multiple names can be signed in the same space if needs be). There are two ways of going about this, either the teacher draws a few spaces (eg. B3, N2 et.) at the end of each week and the winners get a prize or students keep writing their name on the bingo board unil they have written their name in five spaces in a row and then they get a prize.
Stamps - In accordance with my travel theme each student will have a passport at their desk. Each page in the passport will have ten boxes. I will stamp passports for good behavior. When a student has filled up a whole page in thier passport I will sign the page and they will get to choose something from the cass treasure box. The idea of recieving stamps could be adapted so that they werent necessarily in passports making it work for an class theme - or even for a classroom without a theme.
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