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Kagan strategies are nothing new – if you haven’t been to a conference then surely you know a teacher who has. I was one of those teachers that absorbed all the information teachers could give me about Kagan Learning since I was never lucky enough to attend. While I pushed cooperative learning and being interactive, […]

Inclusive Classrooms ~ "Promote a safe and welcoming classroom school and community where individual differences are valued..."

Want to learn new pedagogy in education best practices? Read how I attended professional development and gained new knowledge. Click here!

The educational strategies I use in my classroom are things I continuously reflect on and develop. The classroom management of my middle school classrooms is one of the things I’m most proud of with my teaching. I generally had a happy classroom that was under control and focused on learning, which wasn't always easy considering my classes each consisted of 30+ seventh graders at ALL possible academic levels working out of their seats on science experiments and activities. My biggest pieces of advice for a well-behaved class are to keep your rules and consequences simple, clear, and consistent. My Classroom Rules: I only had three rules in my classroom and they were broad enough to cover just about any out of line behavior. At the beginning of the year we went over these rules thoroughly and acted out examples and nonexamples so there was no room for confusion or purposeful misinterpretation. Find links to get these posters at the end of this blog post. Rule Number One: “Respect yourself, your peers, your teacher, and your surroundings.” This rule is meant to cover all interactions in the classroom. Students who respect themselves value their education and learning time and get their assignments completed to the best of their abilities. Students who respect their peers understand their classmates need a safe learning environment free of distractions and impolite communications. Students who respect their teacher recognize the importance of the education opportunities being presented in class and allow the teacher to facilitate lessons and help all students learn. Students who respect their surroundings acknowledge the resources, furniture, and equipment in class are used by others for the pursuit of education and need to be kept in good condition. Rule Number Two: “Raise your hand silently to speak.” Having strong student participation is important for learning, but entering chaos territory is so easy when middle school students are allowed to interject whenever and for whatever. Students need to know every voice is important; for everyone's thoughts, ideas, and questions to be heard there needs to be an order to the sharing process. Rule Number Three: “Follow all directions quickly the first time they are given.” It sounds basic (and it is) but so much educational time is saved with this rule, especially in a science classroom where there is limited time to complete time-consuming experiments. My Class Consequences: After much trial and error and some great advice from an administrator, I developed a list of consequences that worked perfectly to enforce the rules of my classroom. The key with consequences is they must be followed in order every single time for every single student. Find links to get these posters at the end of this blog post. Consequence Number One: "Warning." This was in place so I could let students know their behavior was unacceptable in the classroom and needed to be changed. I gave the warning in different ways to communicate with the offending student, depending on what worked the student’s personality. Sometimes I would approach the students discreetly and quietly tell them they had a warning. Other times I would catch the student's eye from across the room and show a number one with my finger. If I had a particularly easygoing class where the students were all comfortable with one another I'd pause in the lesson to tell the student they had a warning. Consequence Number Two: “Complete a Behavior Think Sheet and move seats.” If students continued to disregard the class rules they would get this consequence that served three purposes. First it removed the student from the situation, making it easier to revert to proper behavior. Second, it allowed them to reflect on their behavior and analyze its effect on themselves and others. Third, the BTS provided me with documentation of misbehavior that I could save and keep on file. I realized completing a BTS takes time out of learning, and so did the students. My lessons were fun, engaging, and rigorous; the students did not want to and could not afford to miss part of the lesson by acting out and completing a BTS. In addition, if the misbehavior was allowed to continue it would distract others from learning the content. Occasionally I would have a student test me by not completing the BTS. For those students I gave them a choice: They could complete it in my class and be late to their next class (without a pass), or they could leave it incomplete and move on to the third consequence. The Behavior Think Sheet (with English and Spanish copies included) is available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. Consequence Number Three: “Parent or guardian contact.” If the first two consequences were not effective, consequence three often curbed the desire to misbehave. Sometimes I would have the student call home with me right after class. Sometimes I would make the contact immediately after school. Rarely, and only after exceptionally poor misbehavior, would the family be contacted during class. Consequence Number Four: “Referral.” I was lucky enough to teach in a school with a fantastic dean of discipline. The fourth consequence involved me contacting the dean about the student’s misbehavior and it would then be handled in a fair manner. In other schools a similar consequence might be used with the principal or other administrator instead. As I said earlier, the consequences should be followed in order every time for every student. There are exceptions to that, and I was always upfront and honest about the exceptions with my students. My students knew that if one student punched another student in class that a simple “warning” would not happen. That just wouldn't make any sense. The steps can be skipped for serious breaches of the classroom rules. The only other reason I would skip a consequence was for repeat offenders. If the same student had the same problem over and over again I met with that student privately to make a plan. Usually that plan involved skipping one or two steps in the list of consequences until the student was able to demonstrate appropriate behavior consistently over time. All of my classes knew skipping steps could occur in such situations, so there was never any backlash of “that’s unfair” if I went out of order. Using These Rules and Consequences in Your Classroom: As I mentioned, I created these rules and consequences for my middle school students. However, they work just as well as part of an upper elementary or early high school classroom management plan. I hope this post provided you with useful information and gave you ideas for rules and consequences in your own classroom. If you like my rules and consequences, save yourself some time by getting my rules and consequences posters from my TpT or Etsy store. The posters come in a variety of styles that are sure to brighten up your classroom while displaying important information that will make your teaching life easier. Find your favorite from the options below! And remember to check out the Behavior Think Sheet! Rules and Consequences Posters: Version 1: This is the original set with solid blocks of color and a structured layout. Version 2: It's a warm and calming set. Black and White: Perfect for printing restrictions—you can print the posters on vibrantly colored paper or grab a set of colored pencils and make them your own. Scales: They're wonderful for mermaid or dragon-themed classrooms. (Get it from Etsy instead.) Floral: My favorite! See these posters in the video below. (Get it from Etsy instead.) Lemons: Something about lemons just draws me in every time. I don't know if it's the happy yellow color or the reminder of delicious foods. (Get it from Etsy instead.)

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Inside: Read about my favorite opener activities for Spanish class, as well as warm-up strategies and routines for starting Spanish class each day! Find access to free resources, too!

A daily agenda slide is an excellent classroom management tool that will keep you organized. This editable PowerPoint template can be used in Google too!

Some days you just need a break from the monotony! Preparing for exams, transitioning to a new unit, days when half your students are gone for a basketball tour

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9 valuable lessons I've learned about Classroom Management as a middle school teacher!

In the first month of school, teachers are usually focused on classroom setup, establishing procedures, launching routines, and digging into the first unit. Although we DO want students to be organized and to feel safe as individuals, we also need them to open up and collaborate as part of a bigger classroom community. Read on for 9 ideas about how to create bonding, shared experiences, and interactions that foster community-building. (By the way, you can check out a similar blog post of ours about community-building here.) The SuperHERO Teacher Teaching kindness and collaboration amongst students is such an important part of a positive classroom community! I love using interactive bulletin boards to encourage students to motivate each other. Recently, I created this nature-themed bulletin board using Polaroid frames with inspiring quotes, twine, and clothes pins. Basically, if students need a bit of motivation, they can take a quote from the board, but they must replace it with a new quote! At the end of the year, students will be exchanging quotes from each other-- making a strong classroom relationship! Here's the link. Addie Williams I work hard to create a collaborative and welcoming classroom community and one way I do this is through writing about kindness. I share a kindness quote with my students as a writing prompt and have them work on it individually before sharing their ideas with a partner and then with a larger group. I ask them to look for similarities in their responses. Demonstrating to my students that I value kindness and community early on in the year will hopefully create a sense of caring throughout the year. Use these free Kindness Quotes to get started! Secondary Sara One of the hurdles to community-building is when students aren't willing to be vulnerable, they try to be perfect, or they compete instead of connect. As much as strengths and growth mindset are important, we teachers also need to help students identify and tackle their weaknesses in an honest way. I like doing this in a humorous way by "curing" student diseases. I joke about students who have "Procrastinitis", and when students own that problem, it becomes a springboard for other areas of concern as well (like upset binders, high test pressure, and silence infections). Get the poster set AND activities to accompany them here. Danielle Hall One of the ways students build our classroom community is by working together to solve problems or puzzles. I use team trivia to start out our class at the beginning of the year, getting students used to collaborating and thinking critically. They develop a healthy sense of teamwork and competition. Here's a free week to get you started. The Classroom Sparrow A simple way to create a positive classroom community is to display work from students around a classroom. It doesn't necessarily have to be an assignment, even a collaborative discussion full of insight from everyone in a class adds positivity and shows that everyone's opinion/view is valued! If you're lacking in work to display, simply begin a class with a simple prompt, motivational quote, or question! Here is a collaborative poem I had students create to begin a poetry unit. Everyone took 10-15 mins to cut out 30-40 words, then I paired students and peers to create a beautiful and colourful example of poetry, which remained on my bulletin boards for the length of the unit! The Daring English Teacher I teach at a very diverse school, and there are 23 different home languages represented in our student body. Bringing together such a diverse group can sometimes be challenging, so I created Classroom Community Bell Ringers to help us all find a common ground. These bell ringers include quotes about love, acceptance, diversity, and tolerance and a brief writing prompt. My students take the first five minutes in class to read the quote and quickly respond to the prompt. Then we share our responses aloud. This exercise has helped forge new connections amongst students who once thought there was no common ground. Stacey Lloyd At the beginning of the year we always spend time thinking about positive and negative behaviors in the classroom: social, emotional and academic. Students come up with their suggestions by walking around the room and anonymously adding their thoughts to various prompts. I then compile these into a list and have students all sign their names on the document - which stays on the wall all year. Any time I find a student acting out or being unkind or unhelpful, I point to their signature and hold them to account. Room 213 We spend a great deal of time during the first few weeks building our classroom climate. I want kids to feel free to discuss their views and to know that it's okay to disagree with someone, as long as they do so respectfully. We develop a class code of conduct, and I put up posters to remind them to be empathetic, kind and understanding of differences. They are a good visual reminder of the things we discussed and the exercises we do during the first few days of school. You can grab them for free here. Presto Plans Building a positive classroom community is an intentional process. One way to do this is by having students complete short challenges that encourage kindness, collaboration, teamwork, expression, and the sharing of ideas and opinions. Start your year or semester by presenting short classroom challenges that can be used as bell-ringers, a class close-up activity, or a fun way to start or end the week. I suggest you set up a bulletin board that allows you to build suspense and reveal one challenge at a time. Make the challenges fun, collaborative, and stress-free. For example, you might consider getting students to write a thank-you card for someone, write a funny top 10 list, play a game of 20 questions, or interview a classmate. We hope you enjoy these ideas! Tell us what you think, or tell us more ideas in the comments!

Too many classroom icebreakers require students to take big social risks with people they barely know. Or they don't really help students get to know each other. Or they are just plain cheesy.

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Some days you just need a break from the monotony! Preparing for exams, transitioning to a new unit, days when half your students are gone for a basketball tour