The authoritative teacher favors rules but believes that students should have a say in the rules and structures of the classroom. This is the type of teacher I want to be. I believe that everyone in the classroom, including teachers and students, would benefit from a structured classroom because it is reliable. It requires everyone to work efficiently, and that is why students should be included in the process of creating? the rules for the classroom. Marzano et. al (2003) agreed that a “code of discipline” (p. 76) should be a collaborative effort between the teacher, students, and even parents. Rules in my future classroom will function as an agreement between the teacher and the students. After all, it is their classroom too.
This leads me to my next plan to always communicate with my students in the classroom about expectations of their behavior and assignments. I plan to build a relationship with my students where they feel comfortable approaching me with any questions or concerns they have with the material or their grades. Building relationships with my students involves me showing interest in their interests and continuing to be honest with them. In this essay, I will explain how I will utilize documentation in my classroom and maintain communication with my students and their parents.
Documentation
To establish rules and expectations in my classroom, I will dedicate a class period to discussing and agreeing on a plan with my students. We will discuss what they expect from me as their teacher and even what they expect from their fellow classmates. Students will have a vote on a fair late work policy and the consequences that come with failing to follow that policy. To aid the discussion I will provide pre-written classroom rules but allow students to add or revise any of the ideas I have come up with. Once the rules of the classroom are officially
established, I will constantly remind students of our agreed-upon policies. Especially in situations where students will be working together on assignments or students are asked to speak out loud, they need to be reminded to respect their classmates.
One procedure I will establish in my classroom in terms of late work is approaching students about their late work and emphasizing how it will benefit their grade and their overall learning experience. Students in my classroom will be aware of my late work policy because we established it together, but I understand that with the pace of the curriculum and the workload from their other classes an assignment might be forgotten. All assignments that I plan to give students will be integral to their preparation for any tests, norm-referenced tests, and criterion-referenced tests. So, I plan to make students aware of that. They should also be aware that my English Language Arts lessons provide skills that they will need in the future, whether they go to college or not.
In terms of getting students’ attention and providing transitions in between assignments in my classroom, I will make those routines clear at the beginning of the school year. Fuhrman (2022) suggested that one way to get students’ attention was by playing a song for a certain amount of time and making it clear that when the song came to a stop the students’ loud behavior should cease. This sounds like musical chairs to me, so I want to frame my attention-grabbing technique as a game students might be familiar with. I would play a clip of a popular song (instrumental) for about ten to thirty seconds and give students time to find their seats and finish their conversations before the music comes to a stop. If students fail to correct their behavior before the music stops, they “lose the game” and further action will be taken.
When students violate the rules and procedures we agreed upon, I will document those instances in a weekly behavior log that will include multiple questions that provide enough context about the incident and its severity (See Figure 1). This documentation process is strictly for classroom use and I could possibly share these observations with other teachers to stay in correspondence about our students’ behavior, whether good or bad. Keeping track of students’ behavior is important because it can help teachers understand students’ behavior and the best way to deal with it or encourage it. Violations worth documenting include but are not limited to classroom disruptions and any instances of disruptive behavior between students. If there are rules that schools implement school-wide, such as dress code or chewing gum, I will implement those rules in my classroom as well but possibly give any students in violation of that rule a warning first.
Figure 1
Weekly Behavior Log Sample
Note. Weekly behavior log with an entry example.
Communication
The weekly behavior log will be useful for parent-teacher conferences. I plan to communicate with my students’ parents as often as each quarter to discuss their child’s achievements and what needs to be improved. It is important for me as a teacher to communicate to the parents how their child has contributed individually to the classroom environment and how well they do on assignments. Another way I can show parents that their child is succeeding in class and encourage them to be a part of their learning process in some way is by expressing that in a letter I could send out to them. This is a meaningful idea, that Reed (n.d) called “Notes of Praise,” because parents have schedules and important jobs and might not be able to take a call or meet in person as often as I plan. I would even send the note home with a student to show that their achievements are being seen.
In terms of meeting with students, I plan to hold a lot of writing conferences for when students are assigned to write papers and choose/research a topic. This will give me a chance to ask about the students’ feelings about the assignment and even purposely venture off-topic briefly to build rapport with them. To document my meetings with students and their parents, which is important for any future use or relevance, I will take notes in a conference documentation form. Outside of the context of class assignments, I will hold meetings every quarter about students’ grades, whether they have an A or a D. I believe it is important for students to know that I care about their success in my class.
References
Free 9+ behavior log samples in PDF. Sample Templates. (n.d.). Retrieved May 1, 2022, from https://www.sampletemplates.com/business-templates/behavior-log-examples.html
Fuhrman, R. (2022). 7 attention-getters to use instead of raising your voice. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/7-attention-getters-use-instead-raising-your-voice
Marzano, R. J., Marzano, J. S., & Pickering, D. J. (2003). Classroom management that works: Research-based strategies for every teacher. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.