3 Life Changing Classroom Management Strategies
There are an abundance of articles and books that try to have all the answers with “10 ways to have better classroom management.”
While these books can be insightful with pedagogy and philosophy about the importance of building relationships, they often lack concrete strategies for how to sustain student engagement and teach the required learning targets.
Teachers, here are 3 life changing STRATEGIES that can be applied to any content or grade level with ideas for differentiation to meet the unique needs of your classroom and students.
Teachers, here are 3 life changing STRATEGIES that can be applied to any content or grade level with ideas for differentiation to meet the unique needs of your classroom and students.
#1 Battle of the Classes
Battle of the Classes is a classroom management strategy to mold student leaders, increase holistic engagement, and hold students accountable for their learning. Students are highly competitive and thrive on being challenged against their peers. Having a points system that is reflective of a class instead of individuals introduces students to life skills of how to work as a team and to keep each other accountable for success. Battle of the Classes challenges students in each class to reflect on their performance as a group, and set goals.
Step 1: Create a Visual
The visual should be in an area for students to see everyday when they walk in to class. In my classroom, each class has their own designated white board to show how many points they have at the beginning of class. The most essential element of battle of the classes is not only to verbally praise classes when they hit a goal or were actively engaged, but to write on the board how they earned points for the class that day. When other classes arrive for the day, they can see how other classes performed and internally make the decision of how they are going to not only achieve what the other classes did, but set themselves apart.
Step 2: Reflect on your Classroom Values
After the visual is set, begin by reflecting on your ideal classroom and the expectations you have for your students. Something I wish someone had said in my first years as a teacher is to set your own expectations first. Yes, of course you are going to do this with your individual classes, but to set any structure to your planning and management of the class you have to be confident in your standards as a teacher. Think, what are my non negotiables when it comes to expectations in the classroom? I recommend teachers to prioritize no more than 4 key ideas that students must practice each day. These ideas should be posted on the board for students to see and for the instructor to reference at any time. The 4 I chose for my classroom are:
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Respect Ms. Hazelbach and your classmates
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Active Engagement
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Setting up for Success
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Appropriate Cell Phone Use
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This is how students "win" Battle of the Classes
Step 3: Set SPECIFIC Expectations with your Class
As a class, identify what these look like in the classroom. For example, “active engagement” means not letting the same students carry the classroom discussion, having a positive attitude in class, and being a leader helping other students. “Setting up for Success” means coming to class prepared and following directions on the board to be successful in class each day.
Students earn points for achieving these goals. *IMPORTANT* Taking away points only crushes morale for students who were following expectations. It is essential that you only reward points. The class period (team) with the most points at the end of the designated time (quarter, semester--you decide what works best for you) wins a class reward. The instructor can choose the class reward or provide reasonable options and allow the classes to decide.​
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Reward ideas include: a game day, a movie day, bringing doughnuts/snacks, extra credit points on a formative or summative assessment, or a free day for students to choose their own activity. As always, trust yourself and what your students need.
Optional Elements
Differentiation (our favorite word lol)
Optional Element #1 You can also incorporate a bonus category that changes each week. Examples of bonus categories I have used are all students turning in their assignment on time, keeping the classroom clean, no tardies, putting the computers back in their appropriate place on the cart and charging, random acts of service for the class or another student, participation on spirit days, and encouraging their classmates.
Optional Element #2 In my class, each time we do a major writing assignment, MCQ, or summative assessment I give 5 points to the class that had the highest class averages. This extra push shows students how they collectively rank with the other classes without singling out students who may be below level, and promotes goal setting.
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Distinguish how many points will be given for specific categories depending on the needs of your students and classroom. In the beginning, I recommend focusing on a specific category for the week and build on 1 category each week until students are achieving all of the expectations every day they are in your classroom.
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Create realistic expectations that reflect meaningful goals for the needs of your students.
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At any point you can adjust which classes are in battle. For example, if you have honors and standard classes you can have the honors classes battle each other and the standard classes battle each other. Or if you find that your morning classes are more on top of things than your afternoon classes, you can have the morning in battle with each other while the afternoon battles each other. If you choose a split, be prepared to offer rewards to two classes instead of one. If you teach multiple courses you can always divide the battle to fit your needs.
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Within the first weeks of school, the instructor can have each of the classes brainstorm expectations for the classroom and collect 5 common ideas to use as the 5 expectations for Battle of the Classes.
#2 The Desk Tag Method
Whether you group your students in pairs or groups, tagging the desks with colors or numbers to assign student responsibilities is a game changing classroom management strategy that increases student engagement and accountability, incorporates differentiated instruction, and empowers critical thinking.
The Desk Tag Method can be used with assigned colors or numbers. For the sake of consistency, I will use colors to explain how the method works. Begin by assigning each desk a color. You can use colored post-it notes and tape them to the desks, or I have also laminated colored notecards and attached them to the desks using velcro strips. Students at each desk know that their color represents a role in class and understand that it is their responsibility to pay attention when their color is called for a task or responsibility within their group.
Leadership Roles
Small groups are great for project based learning when students are empowered to accomplish a task and are assigned roles for success. Model for students the responsibilities for each role, and allow students to choose their role for the team or choose at random.
Reading Roles
If students are reading short sections of literature or plays, I assign each color to read a section aloud to their group. If they are reading a play (like Romeo and Juliet) I have students read in groups when there is a scene that has fewer roles. If there is a scene with 3 characters speaking, I assign students in groups of 3 to read for a character that correlates with their desk color. If I know there is a character with a larger role, I will assign it to a specific color where I know I have strong readers or readers who need to practice their fluency.
Reading Roles Example (post this where you display your content)
Yellow: Read for Romeo and track his behaviors.
Pink: Read for Tybalt and track his behaviors.
Green: Read for Mercutio and track his behaviors.
Together: When finished reading the act.
1. Summarize the events in 3-4 sentences.
2. How do the behaviors of each of the characters impact the events of the scene?
Warm Calling
Desk tags are a great alternative to cold calling during instruction. Say an instructor calls “turn and talk” on an essential question in class. They can say “teams, prepare the student at the orange desk to share your team’s response.” Students in the orange desk know that they could be called upon to share an answer. If the student at the orange desk does not know the answer, they can receive helpful insights from the people in their group and feel confident in their answer before they share it with the class. A student sharing a group's response also alleviates the pressure from a single student as they share the responsibility to critically think about their response.
Differentiating Instruction
If you use a seating chart for grouping students, desk tags also serve as a great tool for differentiation and dividing tasks. Imagine students are assigned discussion questions for a piece of literature and they are grouped in 3’s with the colors pink, blue, and green. The discussion questions are labeled 1-3. Each colored desk is assigned a number 1-3, and any question that has their assigned number next to it they are responsible for tracking and providing a written response. The teacher can choose a color that represents the difficulty of each question to cater to the needs of students' learning levels.
#3 Utilizing Verbal and Visual Timers
Structure of expectations is critical to keeping a group of adolescents accountable. Applying timers for activities in the classroom not only keeps students on track with their tasks, but helps you to stay organized in their lesson planning based on how much students can achieve within specified time frames.
To drive instruction, provide students a short time frame every time they turn and talk or are assigned a small task. Not only will this keep students accountable for their thoughts and their work, but it keeps the classroom moving to the next task without downtime for student’s minds to wander. In my class, I have used internet timers embedded into PowerPoints from Youtube or a physical timer that shows students how much time they have remaining. Providing a visual timer is important for students to know how much time they have spent and how much time is left to accomplish a task.
*Disclaimer* I promise I don't put this many words on PowerPoints anymore lol!
