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Sara Simoes

The article gives new teachers useful advice on managing their classrooms effectively. One important point is balancing building relationships with students and maintaining authority. New teachers may want to be liked and form close connections, but avoiding becoming too friendly is also essential. Teachers like Crystal Frommert stress the importance of being approachable while still staying in control, which helps build respect from the start. Another helpful suggestion is using positive reinforcement, focusing on what students do well rather than just correcting bad behavior. This helps create a more positive classroom environment. The idea of giving students movement breaks is also great, especially for middle and high school students who may struggle to stay focused for long periods. Short breaks or chances to move around can help students stay engaged and prevent burnout. This is a tactic I use in my student teaching placement. I also like the idea of using surveys and one-on-one check-ins to get to know students. Understanding their backgrounds and learning styles helps teachers better meet their needs and shows that teachers care about them as individuals. Having students help create classroom rules is also a smart way to encourage responsibility and respect.

Overall, the article offers great advice and research-based strategies for creating a positive classroom culture. The key takeaway for me is the importance of balancing kindness with authority. Setting this tone early in the year can help ensure success throughout the school year.

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I enjoyed reading this week’s article since it focused on sharing some tips/strategies for classroom management. As a current student teacher, one of the biggest problems I need to work on is classroom management. I believe that I have a good handle on things when it comes to controlling classroom management for the most part, but it’s still something I want to work on and improve in. The article mentions utilizing brain breaks in between lessons to allow students to take a little break and get out of their seats. Currently, since we have ELA and Social Studies back to back in the morning, we do a brain break and pull up different movement activities on YouTube each day to get their bodies moving. Another strategy my cooperative teacher uses throughout the day to control the classroom volume is a classroom bell. Everytime she rings the bell, the students are aware that they need to stop talking and wait for the teacher’s instructions. I use this bell all the time during my lessons if I notice my students start to get off-task and will continue to use this strategy in my own classroom in the future.

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Deanna Masucci

This week's article was insightful with different tactics to tackle classroom management. One thing I do already is build a rapport with my students, every day I greet them in the morning and they choose a greeting. I also try to keep up with their lives, are they playing hockey, are they big readers? I show interest in what they have shared and I also find myself at events they attend like the school's fall festival. I try to navigate distractions. If I notice students are loud and disruptive I tell the students who are working quietly how proud of them I am. Or I say " I love how focused ... is, they are working so nicely" and I may reinforce that behavior with a star reward. I also use brain breaks, primarily in the afternoon. Getting the kids moving and away from academics for a few minutes helps lock them in overall.

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This article was a great refresher for me on the different ways to maintain student attention and engagement while building rapport and structure. As a student teacher, it can sometimes be easy to either be too silly with students or too firm, so this article helped me to understand how to find that sweet spot. One classroom management strategy that I hope to implement in my future classroom is a contract. I believe that this gives students the opportunity to decide what kind of environment they want their classroom to be, and participate in introspective discussions that allow them to consider ways that they can build that environment. It also gives students a feeling of importance early-on in the classroom, so each student feels like they have something to contribute. I also hope to have established brain break routines in my classroom. My goal is to give students an opportunity to move during learning so they feel more energized throughout the day. This may include moving throughout the school building or grounds to teach lessons, especially outside for science lessons. I also want to give students the chance to work with peers by discussing things so students feel heard and do not always feel lectured at. My classroom will have many opportunities for sharing and communication. In order to provide a brain break for students, I will implement relaxing videos, such as Disney Chalk videos, to ease anxieties and provide time to breathe. I hope to use these strategies to appeal to student needs and also build a health rapport.

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This week's article was helpful because it gave additional classroom management strategies. My favorite was one the "Getting to Know You" questions. I think as teachers the best thing we can do is show our students we care and the easiest way to do that is by getting to know them. Classroom management is one of the most if not the most important component of running a classroom. If there is no classroom management, there is no classroom. With getting to know students there is still a line that cannot be crossed. As teachers, there is still such a thing as sharing too much. At the end of the day, we are still their teachers not their friends.

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Shivani Singh

This week's article gives helpful tips for managing classrooms, especially for new teachers. It suggests using strategies like quick brain breaks to keep students focused, short surveys to understand how students feel, and setting clear routines for a smooth classroom flow. The main idea is to stay consistent and calm while managing student behavior.

One key tip is using "brain breaks." These are short activities that let students take a quick break from learning to refresh their minds. They help prevent restlessness and improve focus, making it easier to keep the class on track.

I feel being in kindergarten this year and compared to my last year clinical 1 experience which was in 6th grade I can definitely see why this is important for kindergartners, whose attention spans are shorter than older students'. Brain breaks help maintain engagement and prevent burnout in young children, making it easier to manage their energy levels and keep the classroom environment positive and conducive to learning.

For kindergartners, who are still developing their self-regulation skills, structured brain breaks provide a necessary balance between work and play. These breaks help children manage emotions, transition smoothly between activities, and maintain focus, all of which are crucial for a successful learning experience.

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Since taking classroom management last semester, this week's article seemed like more of a refresher for me. By now I am sure (or at least I hope) we can all agree on how important classroom management is and how having a good system in place can benefit the classroom climate and foster student learning. Making connections and building a good rapport with students is the easiest for me, but I know that if I am too nice, I will get taken advantage of/manipulated. So keeping a fine line between having fun while learning and maintaining respect is something I am working on this semester. I like that the article notes to not overload students with rules; I think it is really easy for teachers to fall into the habit of setting expectations too high (making them unachievable) or not including students in the process of making the class rules/expectations. (I have seen the classroom contract example multiple times and think I will adapt that in my future classroom.) Since I started substitute teaching, I have noticed an increase in dance/movement/brain breaks within the daily schedules of many classrooms. I had always assumed that they were to help students concentrate and "get their wiggles out," but I learned from the article that these movement breaks help students store more information/learned material in their long-term memory. So cool! Although this article was a bit repetitive for me, I did learn something new and saved it to my "future classroom" file to review soon.

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I recorded a video because I didn't want to type; I hope you enjoy it. LOL

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I found this week's article extremely helpful because classroom management is a topic I am most concerned about. The suggestions outlined in this article were very helpful because I gained a new perspective on techniques I was already implementing. For example, I have used 'Get to know you' questions at the beginning of the year, but planning daily check-ins with students will help reinforce those connections. In my classroom and my clinical practice, I would love to incorporate 'brain breaks' because of the benefits that allow students the opportunity for a break which helps retain the information they were just taught. One strategy I plan on implementing when I have my own classroom is setting the tone from the beginning and then letting the playfulness ease out through the year. I love to have fun and joke around but being able to set strong expectations early on will make a huge difference in the way the classroom is conducted throughout the year.

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Having good classroom management skills is really at the root of effective teaching, so it's always great to be presented with ideas and techniques in this area. Being in a kindergarten class, managing behavior is constant. My CT and I are both constantly redirecting students. I definitely believe that getting to know your students is crucial. In a previous class last semester, Dr. Lee introduced me to the concept of student interest surveys--I really love this idea and plan to use it every school year. There are many times in class that a student will raise their hand or approach my CT with a fact about themselves and she either ignores them or responds, "that's nice" and it really irritates me. As noted in the article, I find that putting too many rules in place and making the class too stringent does not get good results. I'm in kindergarten and I constantly see behavior that I think movement breaks would help manage, but my CT does not believe they are effective unfortunately, so instead of giving these students the opportunity to move around and get some energy out, there is a lot of yelling that goes on.

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I found this week's article incredibly helpful and eye-opening. Classroom management is something that everyone does differently, which is what I have observed working with two cooperating teachers with different perspectives and ways of managing a classroom, and it's nice to see different strategies and approaches when it comes to this. One of the things that I think I do a decent job at is getting to know the students. I like it when they tell me about their day and stuff that happened to them after school or on the weekend, however, I think it can also backfire because they can see me more as their peer and not an authority figure in the classroom. I think it's important to get to know your students and establish yourself and your classroom as a safe space, but it's also important to set boundaries and establish yourself as the adult and not their friend.

Another classroom management approach I found helpful is to get your kids moving. Whether you are teaching elementary, middle, or high school, kids are not going to want to sit at a desk for 7 hours. Having students stand up and move around will also engage them in what they're doing since they will be actively participating and not listening to a seemingly boring lecture. I have noticed in my placements that students are more engaged and participating during hands-on activities or activities where they are allowed to write their answers on the smartboard. Having students become more involved in the classroom and learning is something I feel very strongly about because it's something that I struggled with during school and I always felt like I had to actively participate through hands-on activities or visuals in order to understand.

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This week's hot topic article definitely has great tips and pieces of advice that are helpful not only to new teachers but also to teachers who have been teaching for many years. What I found the most interesting advice in this article was "Establishing yourself as the authority figure in the classroom—a friendly and caring one but an authority nonetheless—in the first week of school is critical." I definitely believe the way you present yourself as a teacher in the first days of school is crucial because students will either know that they cannot mess around because there will be consequences or students will have it their way since they won't see you as an adult with authority. What I like the most about my CT is that she definitely shows authority in the classroom. If students are not doing what they are supposed to do, she will ask them in a serious way, "What are you doing?" or "Is that what you are supposed to be doing right now?" However, she is also friendly, as she praises students for their efforts. I've learned a lot in her classroom, not only about content but also about classroom management.

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I found this article to be very helpful and have already started implementing some of these strategies in my classroom with my cooperating teacher (CT). Since transitioning from Clinical 1 to Clinical 2, I've noticed significant growth in myself; I have improved in many areas and will continue to do so in this journey, I’m beginning to see myself as a teacher even though I'm a student teacher, and my students do too. They show me respect even when my CT is absent. This week my CT was absent for two days, I took over the class completely, and the students listened and respected me just as they would with my CT. Setting the tone was particularly beneficial (using my teacher voice). I reminded students to use hand signals and had students help me distribute materials. My CT provided a detailed schedule for those days, but I noticed there wasn’t any time for students to unwind, which I believe is important, even just for a few minutes. During a reading lesson, we finished early, so I used the extra fifteen minutes for students to choose a book, color their notebook covers, or work on a puzzle while I played relaxing music on the smart board. I realized that giving them this time to relax helped them transition back into learning more smoothly than if we had jumped directly from one subject to another. I found it very helpful to spend the first week of school reviewing classroom rules and expectations. Since we maintain a consistent routine each day, the students are becoming familiar with what they need to do as soon as they walk into the classroom. As a result, we can now navigate instruction time more smoothly. I've gained a lot of insights from Clinical 1 and 2, and reading this article on classroom management has reinforced that it’s an ongoing process. What works one week may not be effective the next, so I believe it’s crucial to explore various strategies and continually learn to find what works best for both me and my students.

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Kayla Findeis

After reading the article, I thought the strategies listed were useful and started thinking about what would work best. The first suggestion, building rapport with the students, seems very useful because I can relate to that. If you don’t know the person that you’ll be with for five days, how can you like or even feel respect for them? I believe that showing students that you are friendly and enjoyable to be around will make them feel comfortable and also have them like coming to school. On the other hand, I do agree that telling too much could be troublesome. If a student views you as just a friend, they start to treat you like one. They could start calling out, interrupting, or just being too comfortable with the way they speak. I believe that starting as a firm but approachable person at the beginning of the year is a good strategy I’d like to implement. I also believe that setting the first few weeks of school to learn class procedures and expectations is so helpful. My cooperating teacher only spent the first two to three days going over this, and in week three of school, students still forget what to do in the morning. I think if we took the time to show the students every day continuously, they would have learned the procedure by week three. Another strategy mentioned is giving the students a break. This is something that is already implemented and I think it works well. The students are given small breaks after a lot of work. If we’ve been sitting for a long time, we all stand up and do stretches together. If we’ve been writing a lot, then the students could get free time to play some games with each other. Lastly, a strategy I’d like to implement is creating a list of rules with my students. It might depend on the grade level, however, in fourth grade, I believe they could work in groups to help create the rules. It also helps with teamwork and gives students a sense of purpose. They like being able to help the teacher out when they can.

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I found this week's hot topic to be helpful, although I would like to believe I implement a lot of the classroom management techniques. One suggestion that was mentioned in the article that I have implemented in any classroom I work in is to get to know the students. While it is great to get to know students, to help build rapport, there is a fine line to ensure students do not view me as a peer instead of their teacher. I do like the idea of survey questions for older students, so that they can share information with us that they feel comfortable with. Establishing classroom rules is also very important to ensure the class has guidelines to follow, as far as expectations. In my current placement, we created a short list of class rules for the students and asked all the students to sign the list if they felt they would be able to follow the rules. This allows students to be held accountable for their actions, as well as holding their peers accountable. Getting kids moving and giving them a break seem to be extremely important for students now. Unfortunately, many students are now unable to go through the entire school day without moving around and having brain breaks. Students are burning out and losing focus and motivation by the middle of the day, so encouraging brain breaks and movements in the classroom may help keep students on track. My goal as an educator is to ensure I develop a good relationship with my students, ensure that they know what is expected of them, while providing opportunities for them to have fun in class.

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I think that this article was very helpful as an aspiring educator. They are right there are many things we can't control as educators but what we can control is the climate in our classroom and the student discipline. I think that establishing yourself as an authority figure is important to do, as the article mentions. I definitely set the tone in the first day of school. I let my students know about me and wanted to make myself approachable all while letting them know we are here to learn together and follow class rules. I also implemented the embracing positive behavior instead of always focusing on the negative. However, I do want to begin implementing the 3 questions to get the students back on track "what are you doing? what are you supposed to be doing? what are you going to do about it?". I also want to implement surveys in my classroom or something similar that allows me to get to know my students, asking meaningful questions. If I know a little more about them I can understand their why. And finally I'd want to implement brain breaks, especially in the afternoon after lunch.

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I thought this week's hot topic was very interesting. Classroom management is something that everyone does differently. Classroom management is very important because it creates a safe, positive and inclusive classroom. Having great classroom management helps maintain an organized classroom and helps the teacher have fewer behavioral problems. I am a strong believer on routine and structure because of the way I am as a person. I am very organized, love to stay on top of everything and know what's coming next. As a teacher, it is very important for your classroom to be predictable, so your students know what is coming next. For example, when the students are coming into your classroom they know I need to put my backpack away, take out my homework, write down tonight's homework and begin my morning work. These are all important factors in creating a well managed and organized classroom. When the classroom is complete chaos it is impossible to get anything done and that begins with the way a classroom is managed. Everyone has their own way of implementing classroom management, but it is what creates their classroom environment.

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After reading this week’s hot topic article I realized that I already began implementing some of the classroom management strategies detailed within. In clinical 1 practice, I was able to build relationships with students but failed to set the tone from the outset. I was the new teacher mentioned in the article; the students viewed me more as their friend. I had a difficult time establishing boundaries. I’m grateful to my cooperating teacher for pointing it out to me. I promised myself I would do better during clinical 2. I’ve been more mindful of how I set the tone. I’ve realized it’s more about me training myself to be kind but firm on a more consistent basis.

I’ve also continued to build connections with students. I get to know them better by helping them with short one-on-ones throughout the day. I try my best to make is so that this time isn’t interrupted. When other students interrupt, I gently remind them of how they’d like to have their time with me uninterrupted. I continue to work with the student I’m with then create a list of the order I help students (usually by who puts their hands up first). I then reiterate that list and move around helping as many students as I am able to by modeling, prompting, and reminding them that others also need help. I also keep track of students who I haven’t touched base with that day and try my best to give them some one one-on-one time the following day.

I’ve also learned to avoid rule overload. My cooperating teacher, myself, and our class created a list of broad class rules together. It’s a short broad list of rules that can be adjusted to meet the needs of multiple situations. Some examples include respect, and keeping our hands and feet to ourselves. Respect includes each other, the teachers, the supplies, etc.

I still haven’t tried implementing social contracts. I feel they can be easily adjusted to every grade level but I’d use them for third grade and above after we create our classroom rules together.