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40+ Bell Work Ideas for Every Class - Teach 4 the Heart

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Whether you call it morning work, bell work, or bell ringers, having a start-of-class activity can work wonders when it comes to helping class start smoothly. Not only does bell work keep kids calm and help them focus, but it also gives you time to take attendance, answer the same question for the 1

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Instructional Strategies vs Lesson Activities

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Instructional Strategies vs Lesson Activities

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Instructional Strategies & Learning Activities Resource Chart Fa2022

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1. Ask "What stuck with you today?"

Find out what made the most impact with one simple question. Sticky notes are fantastic for exit tickets; just have each student post theirs to the board on their way out the door.

2. Lunch questions

In elementary classrooms, there's no need to wait until the end of the day. Try using exit tickets before lunch or recess. Kids too young to write? Have them tell you their answer on their way out the door.

3. Have them "tweet" it

This cute "Twitter" board is sure to appeal to young social media fans. Laminate the cards so they can be reused each day.

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4. Gauge understanding with emojis

Here's another way to help today's kids connect and share their progress. Have them circle an emoji on this free printable and explain why it reflects their understanding.

5. Record a Flip video

Flip (formerly Flipgrid) is a totally free online tool for schools, where kids record video answers to a question posted by their teacher. This is such a cool exit ticket idea for virtual classrooms, though it works in face-to-face classrooms too.

6. Collect exit tickets on a traffic light

Have students post their tickets on a traffic light to indicate whether they're doing fine or struggling a bit. That way, you can focus on those who need more help first.

7. Give them a prompt

Sometimes exit tickets are very specific, but other times you just want to know what students' general reaction was to the class that day. We like this simple option that offers a few prompts to get them started.

8. Use the "Post-It, Prove It" method of exit tickets

Here's an example of a more specific exit question. Try to ask questions that have more than one right answer, so students don't just copy each other's responses.

9. Let them teach others

Kids often surprise us by looking at things in entirely different ways but still getting the correct answers. Their thoughts on a subject may give you ideas for helping other students who need a bit more instruction.

10. Take a poll

Online polls make terrific exit tickets. Poll Everywhere is free to use, and kids can text their answers. Fun!

11. Encourage self-reflection

Valuable as they are to teachers, exit tickets are also important for helping students self-assess. This version lets them reflect on their strengths and areas for improvement.

12. Tell two facts and a fib

We love this interactive ticket idea! Kids write down two facts about today's subject and one fib. They trade with another student to see if they can guess the incorrect fact before turning them in.

13. Try them in any class

Oui, oui, les "billets de sortie" work in French class, or Chemistry, or Art History ... every teacher should try them.

14. Keep an exit ticket journal

Give exit tickets a bit more substance by having students keep them in a journal. This gives them a nice record of learning and can help when it comes time to review for tests or write a paper.

15. Post exit tickets on Padlet

Think of Padlet as an online bulletin board. Teachers post a question or topic, and kids add their answers. See our review of Padlet here, then give it a try.

16. Print exit tickets on sticky notes

Did you know you can easily print on sticky notes? This game changer means you can easily customize exit tickets for any topic.

17. Write a 3, 2, 1 list

The 3, 2, 1 method allows kids to self-assess, but it also lets them indicate a deeper level of interest in the topic at hand.

18. Make it a mini-assessment

You'll have to prep these in advance, but an assessment exit ticket is sort of like a no-stress quiz. Kids simply do their best, without worrying about grades, and you get a better feel for their progress.

19. Fill up a shopping cart

Here's a chance to really see what their takeaways were from a lesson. This will let you see if your learning objectives are coming through as they should.

20. Follow science lab with exit tickets

Hands-on science exploration should be followed up with written observations and conclusions. Use exit tickets to check for understanding.

21. Sum it up with one sentence

Help your students distill what the day's lesson was all about with a one-sentence summary. This requires students to prioritize the most important elements of the activity and reveals whether they are getting the "big picture."

22. Keep it simple

Sometimes you look out at your students and you see a lot of blank stares. When this happens, take a quick moment to use this exit slip. It will help you assess who's on board and who needs further instruction.

23. Change it up

If you always use the same exit tickets after a lesson, your students might go on autopilot. Change up your format by asking students how they're doing in a variety of ways.

24. Match your exit tickets with your teaching philosophy

These colorful prompts were developed to support the Habits of Mind framework. Choose from questions that encourage your students to observe, reflect, and explore what they're learning.

25. Collect answers on Google Forms

Teaching online or looking to save paper? Collect your tickets using Google Forms instead. This is especially useful if you're already using Google Classroom.

26. Take time to analyze exit tickets

Make sure your exit tickets are worth the effort. Spend a little time at the end of each class or day looking over student responses, and make notes about any needs they indicate.

Exit tickets are just one type of formative assessment. Check out our guide to formative assessment.

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26 Exit Ticket Ideas and Examples That Give Immediate Feedback

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Use exit tickets to check student understanding of what they learned and get immediate feedback on that day's lesson.

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Writers using APA Style must strive to use language that is free of bias and avoid perpetuating prejudicial beliefs or demeaning attitudes in their writing. Topics covered: age, disability, gender, participation in research, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and intersectionality.

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Five Ways To Improve Your Learning Environments

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HundrED is a global mission-driven organisation specialised in education innovation.

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I'm not a naturally organized person. In July before my first year of teaching, I remember being at the office supply store in the file/tray/organizer aisle, picking up a single black tray and thinking, "Hmm ... this should do it."

Needless to say my first year was a mess both literally and figuratively. Like a lot of things in teaching, I learned how to be organized by trial and error.

Lots and lots and lots of error.

To save you some error, here are my top five organizational tricks!

The BGT in my class stands for Big Gray Thing because I don't know what else to call this beautiful specimen. A friend donated it to me. I believe normal people call them mail sorters.

I teach three double-blocked class periods, so I have one "column" in the BGT for each class, with different tray labels for vocabulary, grammar, school forms/slips, absent/late work, tests, and then Assignments A through C for work that doesn't fall under the other categories. I color-coded the labels to minimize students putting their work with the wrong class.

I honestly don't know how I survived without the BGT. Gone are the days of huge, towering stacks of work around my classroom or 95 students asking every day, "Where do I put this?" Instead, they know already where to put it OR I simply post on the board where the assignment gets turned in. When it's time to grade an assignment, I just collect the papers across the row of trays for that assignment in the BGT.

During my conference period, I sometimes collect anything in the Absent/Late Work tray and grade that. But sometimes I just spend my conference period spinning in my chair or watching videos of my kitten.

Just keeping it real, y'all.

Oh, Black Binder! How I love thee. Isn't it beautiful?

OK, so it's pretty normal. If I were one of those teachers who are perfectly perfect, I would have some adorable and colorful label on the front that says my name and the year, but I'm not. It's beautiful to me, OK?

Black Binder keeps track of every assignment for every student, but it's a lot less work than it sounds. Here's how it works.

First, let's talk about the binder pages. I have one page per class, with every student listed in the order that their names appear in my online gradebook (this makes it easier to input grades later). Next to each student's name, I have five columns for assignments with enough space for both a checkmark and an actual grade. When you make your page, just insert a table with the number of students you have as your rows and about six columns. Here's a sample page with fictional names and fake assignments:

As you can see, Theon Greyjoy needs to get his act together.

If you save the template with student names and blank assignments, you can just print out this page each time you fill it up (it also makes it easier to add and delete students when they move).

Here's how the binder works when kids turn in work. First, I set a hard deadline for an assignment (i.e., "Wednesday at the beginning of class before my timer goes off" or "Thursday before 3:45 after school"). As work gets turned in, I pull out the stack a couple of times and check off whose assignments I have on the left side of the column for that assignment. Then, the second the deadline has passed, I check for any additions to the stack of work. That way I can immediately hold students accountable and say, "Jon Snow, I'm missing your essay-I'll pick you up from lunch to give you more time to work on it" instead of realizing his mistake at home when you've sat down to actually grade it. (I say this under the assumption that your school is like mine, where missing work is the teacher's responsibility, not the student's. Anyway. Moving right along.)

The BGT also cuts down the "I turned it in!" excuse. It's kind of hard for a students to claim that you lost their papers when they watch you take it out of the stack right in front of them.

I'm telling you. Black Binder. It's the real deal.

3) Posted directions for almost everything

This is an excellent way to reduce the stress of repeating yourself and very easy if you have a projector of some kind. At the beginning of every class, I have a list of what students need and what they should be doing ready on the board (along with a timer of how long they have to do it).

I also post instructions when my students are working on multiple assignments:

when they're taking a test:

and other times they might need reminders. This cuts down on what is probably my biggest teaching pet peeve, which is hearing, "I'm done." When instructions are posted, all you have to do is smile politely and point to the board. Students will get used to this, and pretty soon, "I'm done" will be a distant memory.

4) Hanging files for returning student work

Super easy! First, get yourself some hanging files. Give one to each student and have them write their names on the tab. Then file them in alphabetical order in these hanging file crates, which are stackable to save space. When you're ready to pass back assignments, just grab that class's box and file the assignments in the correct folder. I have my students check their files once a week.

It took me way too long to figure out how to blur out my students' names. Anyway.

Having student files cuts down on:

Not knowing what to do when you're passing back work and come across an absent student.

Students feeling embarrassed or obligated to compare grades from work passed back at the same time.

You tripping over 35 backpacks, gym bags, chair legs, real legs, etc., while trying to hand back work to each student.

5) Table bins for materials

For some reason, it took four years for me to learn that it's better to put a few supplies at each table instead of putting all the supplies in one area. Having supplies at individual tables minimizes traffic, and at the end of class allows you to hold individual tables accountable for their messes instead of not knowing whom to address for a completely destroyed communal supply area.

Because I have only a few double-blocked periods, I have bins for each table AND for each class. It was expensive to buy 18 all at once, but I can't tell you how well this has taken care of the "Someone stole my silent reading book/journal!" phenomenon.

6) Setting a timer for getting started after the bell/transitioning

This works well, but only if you use it consistently. I use a timer every day with my eighth graders at the beginning of class to show students how much time they have to be on task. If they don't need any supplies other than a writing utensil, I give them about 30 seconds after the bell to be situated. If they need lots of supplies or have to move desks or something else that will take more time, I give them somewhere around the three-minute mark. The first week of school I let them get used to the timer, the second week I start giving out small consequences (for blatant violations, like the darling who chooses to talk to his friend about weekend plans for the first minute and 45 seconds, then scrambles to get ready in the last 15 seconds and fails). After the second week when they realize I'm for-real about the timer, I only have to remind my students a few times a year.

I also use the timer to transition between activities. Sometimes I use the actual timer on the board, and sometimes I turn to face a corner and say "I'm going to count out loud to 30 in Pig Latin and when I turn around, I need to see your desk in rows for testing. GO! Irty-thay ... enty-nine tway ..."

It might seem like using a timer is kind of militant (which is what I thought going into my first year when I didn't use it), but I can assure you that my classroom is far from that. Using a timer lets our learning run smoothly with minimal interruptions, which means less wasted time, which means more time for extension activities and other fun stuff. Plus, who wants to be in a class where the first 10 minutes of every day is listening to the teacher plead for the class to get settled?

I just use a Google Chrome window with this link open as my timer, but there are many options online for you to choose from. It just needs to big enough for students to see even if they're seated at the back of the room.

So, I know what you're thinking: Most of these hacks require having supplies (bins, hanging files, a BGT, a projector, etc.), and chances are your principal hasn't given you an American Express Black card* for school spending. I would first recommend asking around at your school to see if you can snag extras that may not be in use. If you're still lacking, set up a project with Donors Choose and see if you can get it funded. If that doesn't work, write a letter to your governor and attach a receipt for your supplies and ask if he/she will refund you because his/her budget cuts have made things difficult for you.

I hope at least one of these hacks will be helpful to you. What are YOUR top teaching hacks?

Looking for more support? Check out our Facebook page, exclusively for new teachers!

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My Top 5 Organizational Hacks for Teaching High School

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Even if you're not a naturally organized person, you can overcome! These organizing tips from a vet are brilliant and time-saving!

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Socratic Seminar/ Discussion-Based Class Lesson Set-Up

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Socratic Seminar/ Discussion-Based Class Lesson Set-Up

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High School Norms, Protocols, and Agreements.docx

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Technology Norms, Protocols, Agreements 

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Technology Norms, Protocols, Agreements 

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Technology Norms, Protocols, or Agreements.docx

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Decorating the Classroom: How Much Is Too Much? |Education & Teacher Conferences

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Classrooms should do more than simply house our students. We want them to welcome students. To set an encouraging and academic tone. To reflect the values our schools champion.

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Heavily Decorated Classrooms Disrupt Attention

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Heavily Decorated Classrooms Disrupt Attention

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Heavily Decorated Classrooms Disrupt Attention and Learning In Young Children

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Maps, number lines, shapes, artwork and other materials tend to cover elementary classroom walls. However, too much of a good thing may end up disrupting attention and learning in young children, according to research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Psychology researchers Anna V.

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Dealing with Different Behaviors in the Classroom

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Dealing with Different Behaviors in the Classroom

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PBIS World | A Complete Tier 1 Through Tier 3 Positive Behavior Interventions & Supports System

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PBIS World is in no way affiliated, associated, or connected with any other website, entity, organization, or federal, state, local, or other government agency, department, program, policy, organization, or initiative.

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Multi-Tiered System of Support for Students

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Multi-Tiered System of Support for Students

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At a glance

MTSS is a framework many schools use to provide targeted support to struggling students.

The goal of MTSS is to intervene early so students can catch up with their peers.

It screens all students and aims to address academic and behavior challenges.

MTSS stands for multi-tiered system of supports. It's a framework many schools use to give targeted support to struggling students. You may also hear it called the MTSS framework, the MTSS process, or the MTSS model.

MTSS is designed to help schools identify struggling students early and intervene quickly. It focuses on the "whole child." That means it supports academic growth, but many other areas, too. These include behavior, social and emotional needs, and absenteeism (not attending school).

The tiers of support are a huge part of MTSS. They get more intense from one level to the next. For example, a child getting small group interventions may need to "move up" to one-on-one help.

MTSS supports the adults at the school, too. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) - the main education law for public schools - cites MTSS as a way to increase teacher effectiveness. ESSA gives states funding that can be used for professional development to help teachers use MTSS.

MTSS isn't the same thing as response to intervention (RTI). MTSS is more comprehensive. But it may include the three tiers of RTI.

About the author

About the author

Peg Rosen writes for digital and print, including ParentCenter, WebMD, Parents, Good Housekeeping, and Martha Stewart.

Reviewed by

Reviewed by

Melody Musgrove, EdD served as director of the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) in the U.S. Department of Education.

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MTSS stands for multi-tiered system of supports. It's a framework many schools use to give targeted support to struggling students. Read about the MTSS model and process.

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The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Learn more about the Universal Design for Learning framework from CAST. The UDL Guidelines can be used by educators, curriculum developers, researchers, parents, and anyone else who wants to implement the UDL framework in a learning environment. These guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.

Reenvisioning the UDL Guidelines

Because the UDL Guidelines are meant to be informed by feedback from the field as well as new research, they have been updated several times in the past. We are in the process of updating the Guidelines once again in our UDL Rising to Equity initiative.

This update will focus specifically on addressing systemic barriers that result in inequitable learning opportunities and outcomes. CAST aims to develop a transparent, inclusive, and community-driven process. If you are interested in collaborating and staying updated on our progress, we invite you to complete a brief survey.

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The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Learn more about the Universal Design for Learning framework from CAST. The UDL Guidelines can be used by educators, curriculum developers, researchers, parents, and anyone else who wants to implement the UDL framework in a learning environment. These guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.

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Marzano's Nine Instructional Strategies for Effective Teaching and Learning

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Marzano's Nine Instructional Strategies for Effective Teaching and Learning

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What is Tier 1 Support?

The PBIS Triangle-The green area represents Tier 1 that supports all students.

Tier 1 systems, data, and practices support everyone across all settings. They establish the foundation for delivering regular, proactive support and preventing unwanted behaviors. Tier 1 emphasizes modeling, teaching, and acknowledging positive social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) skills. Teams, data, consistent policies, professional development, and evaluation are essential components for these practices to work effectively.

The core principles guiding Tier 1 PBIS include the understanding that we can and should:

Foundational Systems

Tier 1 systems serve as the foundation upon which all other tiers are built. With school-wide systems in place, schools can ensure students and staff are thriving and quickly identify which students need additional support. These Tier 1 foundational systems are:

Leadership Team

The Tier 1 team represents multiple and diverse perspectives to co-create the systems and practices for Tier 1 support. This team is responsible for uncovering strengths and needs by monitoring school and community data, ensuring students receive equitable access to these supports, and evaluating overall effectiveness.

Regular Meeting Routine, Schedule, and Structure

The Tier 1 team meets at least monthly. Team members should have availability to attend at least 80% of all scheduled meetings to provide consistency around action planning and tracking progress. Meetings should include an agenda, minutes, team agreements, defined roles, and a current action plan linked to the school improvement plan.

Commitment Statement for Establishing Positive School Climate

The Tier 1 team's role is to establish the priority for improving the conditions for learning through the adoption of evidence-based practices. If it is not identified as one of the school's top three needs, it is unlikely anyone will allocate the time and effort needed to accomplish implementation. Although not a requirement, It is beneficial when a majority of school community members also agree PBIS implementation is critical to addressing issues related to SEB growth of all students.

School systems can either reflect a biased society or provide a protective buffer against it. To make it a protective place, teams should adopt a behavior framework that is preventive, instructional, and flexible enough to be tailored to the strengths, needs, and values of its students, families, and community. Tier 1 can be implemented with fidelity only when it is equitable and adapted to fit the local context, which means attending directly to aspects of culture.

On-Going Data-Based Monitoring, Evaluation, and Dissemination

Tier 1 teams review and use multiple data sources regularly to guide decisions. Reviewing fidelity data measures how closely the school implements the critical components of PBIS at Tier 1. Annually, teams evaluate the overall effectiveness of Tier 1 supports and share their findings with interested parties. School community members should see school and community data regularly and have opportunity to provide input on Tier 1 foundations.

Procedures for Selecting, Training, and Coaching New Personnel

The key to PBIS implementation is staff consistency. All staff members are involved in the development of goals, process, and measures. Tier 1 implementation may require professional development to orient all school personnel - particularly around five core practices:

Core Practices

Before schools start implementing Tier 2 and Tier 3 practices, Tier 1 practices must be in place. These include:

Schoolwide Positive Expectations and SEB Skills are Defined and Taught

Rather than establishing specifically what not to do, schools define and teach expectations and SEB skills they want to see. Schools should identify 3-5 positively stated, easy to remember expectations. These should create the conditions for a positive school climate to support teaching and learning. Anyone should be able to walk into the school at any time and ask 10 random students to name the school-wide expectations. At least 80% of the time those students should be able to say what they are and give examples of what they look like in action.

For students to know the expectations, they must be taught. The Tier 1 team should decide how students will learn expected academic and social behaviors across various school settings.

Procedures for Establishing Classroom Expectations and Routines Consistent
with Schoolwide Expectations

Students spend the majority of their day within classroom settings. It's critical the expectations in the classroom align with the broader school-wide systems. This consistency supports better behavioral outcomes for all students. Teachers and students co-design agreements and routines that align with school expectations.

Continuum of Procedures for Encouraging Expected Social, Emotional Behavior

A school's Tier 1 team determines how to acknowledge students positively for prosocial behaviors. Schools might use an acknowledgment system to support offering specific praise when students do what's expected. No matter the system, it should be:

Continuum of Procedures for Discouraging Unwanted Behavior

All discipline policies should include definitions for behaviors interfering with academic and social success. They offer clear policies and procedures for addressing office-managed versus classroom-managed problems. Defining both the behaviors and the procedures promote consistent application of Tier 1 across all students and school personnel.

Procedures for Ensuring School-Family Partnerships

Teams should solicit stakeholders, including families, for input on Tier 1 foundations. Opportunities to provide ongoing feedback and direction should happen at least once a year, if not more regularly. This input ensures Tier 1 is culturally responsive and reflects the values of the local community.

The Tier 1 Team

In addition to monitoring Tier 1 systems, the Tier 1 team meets regularly to refine school-wide practices and evaluate their effectiveness. The team reviews discipline data, curriculum-based measures, state tests, and other data sources related to improving school-wide outcomes. Individuals with the following positions are often included on Tier 1 teams:

In addition to these suggested roles, the team should have the following skillsets represented:

SEB expertise

Applied behavior support

Mental health and trauma

Academic instruction

Coaching expertise

Equity

Physical health and wellness (e.g., nurse)

Knowledge of student academic and behavior patterns

Knowledge about how the school operates across grade levels and programs

Assessments

The Tiered Fidelity Inventory (TFI) assesses how closely school personnel apply the core features of PBIS. The TFI includes three separate surveys - one for assessing each tier - schools can use separately or in combination with one another. Schools at every stage of implementation may use the TFI to assess any tier.

Explore the Evidence Base for Tier 1

At its foundation, PBIS is a framework supported by research spanning decades. Study after study confirms the positive impact Tier 1 systems and practices have on improving student outcomes. The evaluation brief, " Is School-wide Positive Behavior Support an Evidence-based Practice?" and " References for the Evidence Base of PBIS" each lay out some of the research and provide additional resources to explore the topic further.

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Tier 1 systems, data, and practices impact everyone across all settings. They establish the foundation for delivering regular, proactive support and preventing unwanted behaviors. Tier 1 emphasizes prosocial skills and expectations by teaching and acknowledging appropriate student behavior. Teams, data, consistent policies, professional development, and evaluation are essential components for these practices to work effectively.

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Tier 2 practices and systems provide targeted support for students who are not successful with Tier 1 supports alone. The focus is on supporting students who are at risk for developing more serious problem behavior before they start. Essentially, the support at this level is more focused than Tier 1 and less intensive than Tier 3.

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What is Tier 3 Support?

The PBIS Triangle-The red area represents Tier 3 that supports a few students. Tiers 1 and 2 supports are still used with students engaged in Tier 3 supports.

PBIS' framework doesn't just work with school-wide and targeted supports. It's also an effective way to address sometimes dangerous, often highly disruptive behaviors creating barriers to learning and excluding students from social settings.

At most schools, there are 1-5% of students for whom Tier 1 and Tier 2 supports have not connected. At Tier 3, these students receive more intensive, individualized support to improve their behavioral and academic outcomes. Tier 3 strategies work for students with developmental disabilities, autism, emotional and behavioral disorders, and students with no diagnostic label at all.

Foundational Systems

Tier 3 practices stem from strong foundations in Tier 1 and Tier 2 supports. With both tiers in place, schools are free to organize individualized teams to support students with more intense needs.

The foundational systems involved in Tier 3 supports are:

Multi-disciplinary Team

Tier 3 team membership includes an administrator, a coach/behavior representative, others with basic knowledge of problem solving. Team members should also include personnel who actively provide Tier 3 support in the school. This gives them input on decisions about interventions they provide to students they serve. Including school personnel from different departments ensures an array of perspectives.

Behavior Support Expertise

A school's Tier 3 team must include someone who has experience providing formal behavior support. They need to have applied behavior expertise and experience developing multi-agency support.

Formal Fidelity and Outcome Data Collection

Documenting student outcomes lets teams monitor how the resources allocated and the practices adopted affect student's outcomes. These data are essential to:

Supporting data-based decision making and problem solving

Identifying needed adjustments to Tier 3 practices

Maximizing resources

Ensuring all students are supported fully and equitably

Evaluating the system's overall effectiveness

Determining student eligibility for additional resources

Evaluating individual education programs·

Assessing how closely Tier 3 supports are implemented as intended (fidelity of implementation) ensures student outcomes can be attributed to the interventions provided.

For more information on how to setup Tier 3 supports, check out our guides:

Key Practices

Tier 3 practices start with strong Tier 1 and Tier 2 foundations. In addition to these practices, the key practices involved in Tier 3 supports are:

Function-based Assessments

Functional behavior assessment (FBA) is the formal process for ensuring a student's plan centers on why a student behaves the way they do. FBA allows teams to identify which interventions are most likely to be useful for an individual student. Plans resulting from a formal FBA process will include strategies for:

Preventing unwanted behavior

Teaching appropriate behavior

Positively reinforcing appropriate behavior

Reducing rewards for unwanted behavior

Ensuring student safety

For more information, check out our FBA guides:

Wraparound

Wraparound differs from many service delivery strategies, in that it provides a comprehensive, holistic, youth and family-driven way of responding when children or youth experience serious mental health or behavioral challenges. Wraparound puts the child or youth and family at the center of the process to develop a support plan. With support from a team of professionals and natural supports, the family's ideas and perspectives about what they need and what will be helpful drive all of the work in Wraparound.

The student and their family members work with a Wraparound facilitator to build their Wraparound team, which can include the family's friends and people from the wider community, as well as providers of services and supports.

With the help of the team, the family and young person take the lead in deciding team vision and goals, and in developing creative and individualized services and supports that will help them achieve the goals and vision. Team members work together to put the plan into action, monitor how well it's working, and change it as needed.

Bruns and Walker (2008) identified ten principles of the wraparound process that included:

1. Family voice and choice

2. Team Based

3. Natural Supports

4. Collaboration

5. Community based

6. Culturally Competent

7. Individualized

8. Strengths-based

9. Unconditional

10. Outcome based

All of these principles are consistent with a PBIS approach and can result in a seamless connection between PBIS practices at Tier3, that include Functional Behavior Assessments and Behavior Intervention Plans,and wraparound supports.

For more information about wraparound, please visit the National Wraparound Initiative. The Midwest PBIS Network also has an abundance of materials for both the wraparound and person-centered planning process.

Person Centered Planning

Person-Centered Planning (PCP) is a way for diverse people, who share a common need to align:

Their vision, purposes, and goals,

Their understanding of the student's past,present and future life, and

Their actions for change, mutual support,personal and team development, and learning.

PCP makes a commitment and takes action to ensure that changes will be accomplished for the student. The PCP philosophy aims to 1) build support based on a capacity-based perspective of the student, 2) use natural school, family and community resources to fulfill a vision of a positive future for the student, and 3)build a circle of support for the student that includes friends, family, school personnel and service providers. The PCP team coordinates supports around the life of the individual rather than around the needs of the system and existing services. The team also recognizes that abilities of ordinary citizens, neighbors, fellow students, and school personnel, can teach students skills, help them participate, model appropriate behaviors, and foster interdependent relationships.

PCP is a planning process that involves long-term commitment to an action plan and a positive vision for the future of the student. This plan is not intended to replace an IEP or a Behavior Intervention Plan, but can be seen to supplement and extend those plans by addressing broader quality of life and community, personal, and life goals of the student. PCP has much in common with wraparound, with wraparound being a broader umbrella under which PCP can be used as an effective planning process. Both approaches, as well as PBIS, share a commitment to five essential goals of PCP that include:

Being present and participating in community life,

Gaining and maintaining satisfying relationships,

Expressing preferences and making choices in everyday life,

Having opportunities to fulfill respected roles and live with dignity, and

Continuing to develop personal competencies.

There are several Person-Centered Planning processes that have been developed using group facilitation techniques and graphic planning supports including:

Planning Alternative Tomorrows with Hope (PATH),

Making Action Plans (MAP),

Essential Lifestyle Planning (ELP),

Personal Profile,

Futures Plan,

Circle of Support, and

A combination of the above approaches into hybrid models.

For more information about Person Centered Planning visit the Administration for Community Living and the National Parent Center on Transition and Employment.

Cultural and Contextual Fit

With every practice, the student's and the school's culture and context must be considered. Each of these element influences and adds value to a school's Tier 3 practices:

Local environments such as neighborhoods and cities

Personal characteristics such as race, ethnicity, and nationality

Learning histories such as family, social routines, customs, and experiences

Language such as dialect and vocabulary

Tier 3 Teams

There are two types of teams associated with Tier 3 supports: the Tier 3 leadership team and individual student support teams.

Tier 3 Leadership Team

Tier 3 teams won't look the same in every school. Whether you have one team looking at Tier 3 specifically, or one team monitoring Tier 2 and 3 systems together, this leadership team meets regularly to be sure:

Students who need additional support have access to those systems

Students who receive Tier 3 supports are successful

Tier 3 leadership teams are led by someone with applied behavior expertise, administrative authority, multi-agency support experience, knowledge of students, and knowledge about how the school operates across grade levels and programs.

Tier 3 Student Support Team

In addition to a team committed to monitoring Tier 3 systems, there must be a problem-solving team for each student receiving Tier 3 supports.These teams meet regularly to design and refine strategies specific to one student. The team's goal is always to transition a student to fewer intensive supports.

Tier 3 student support teams typically include people from the student's school, home, and community. Students and their families input and approval on who is on the team. The school's administrator must have enough involvement to allocate resources as needed for a student's plan.

Assessments

The Tiered Fidelity Inventory (TFI) assess how closely school personnel apply the core features of PBIS. The TFI includes three separate surveys - one for assessing each tier - schools can use separately or in combination with one another. Schools at every stage of implementation may use the TFI to assess any tier.

Explore the Evidence Base for Tier 3

At its foundation, PBIS is a framework supported by research spanning decades. Study after study confirms the positive impact Tier 3 systems and practices have on improving student outcomes. The evaluation brief, " Is School-wide Positive Behavior Support an Evidence-based Practice?" and " References for the Evidence Base of PBIS" each lay out some of the research and provide additional resources to explore the topic further.

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At most schools, there are 1-5% of students for whom Tier 1 and Tier 2 supports have not connected. At Tier 3, these students receive more intensive, individualized support to improve their behavioral and academic outcomes. Tier 3 strategies work for students with developmental disabilities, autism, emotional and behavioral disorders, and students with no diagnostic label at all.

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The Truth About Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) - Families Thrive

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The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is part of a growing network of leaders working to increase awareness and understanding of the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and the need to develop effective innovative interventions. Learn more about ACEs and share the infographic below with oth

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The Big Eight- Engagement Skills for Instruction

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The Big Eight- Engagement Skills for Instruction

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Differentiated instruction in the classroom is a teaching strategy that involves varying lessons to meet the needs of all students.
You can differentiate a lesson in four main ways:

1. Varying Content: changing up what is taught.

2. Varying Process: changing up how it is taught.

3. Varying Assessment: changing up how it is assessed.

4. Varying Learning Environments: changing up the context of learning.

Below are 31 examples of differentiation in the classroom.

Examples of Differentiated Instruction

Varying the Content

Differentiation of content involves varying what is taught.

Examples include:

1. Providing students with different fiction books to critique depending on their interests.

2. Letting each student choose their own time in history to explore in order to meet the same history outcome in the curriculum.

3. Letting each student choose their own person to study for black history month.

4. Having students choose an 'elective' topic to study in high school so they can specialize before college.

Some people will also differentiate content by actually changing the difficulty level. This should be approached with caution as at times this can lead to lowering expectations. At other times it is appropriate for helping advanced students to progress while giving appropriate difficulty level support to intermediary students:

5. Separating students into low, medium and high ability groups for mathematics and giving each group a different level of content to study.

6. Giving a student an easier book to read than other students.

7. Letting advanced students steam ahead to do independent study while the teacher works on remedial tasks with lower and intermediate level students.

8. Providing weekly spelling or vocabulary lists at a student's ideal.

Varying the Learning Process

Differentiation of the process involves varying how content is taught.

Examples include:

9. Teaching the same underlying understandings or skills, but presenting it with different levels of complexity to each ability group.

10. Turning written material into a podcast so it can be presented through both auditory and visual learning modalities.

11. Letting students learn according to their preferred learning style, such as letting them choose between watching videos, reading books, and being told a story.

12. Mixing up learning modalities within the same lesson so students have more entry points to understanding the content. Let them learn through tactile, visual, audio, and kinesthetic methods.

13. Having extra study groups to re-teach content in an new or more guided manner for struggling learners, or to provided extended lessons for advanced learners.

14. Coming up with an individualized plan for each student so they can choose which tasks to tackle first, second and last - while they will all cover every task by the end of the unit. This can allow advanced students to steam ahead.

15. Flipped learning, where the core 'group content' is introduced via videos during homework time, and individualized active learning occurs in class. This gives the teacher additional time to spend one-on-one with their students.

16. Allowing advanced students to work alone, while using manipulatives (hands-on props) for students who need them.

17. Varying how much time you give students to complete a task depending on your assessment of their ability level. This can help them to challenge themselves to become more efficient at a task.

18. Allowing some students to progress after they have demonstrated mastery, while holding others back for more classes until they are ready to proceed.

19. Delivering content in culturally appropriate ways, and letting all students learn through their preferred cultural paradigm.

Varying Assessment

Differentiation of assessment involves changing how to test to see whether a student has achieved the task.

Examples include:

20. Letting students choose how to present their work, such as through a video, performance, essay or poster.

21. Using different assessment outcomes or assessment rubrics depending on a student's ability level.

22. Giving students a choice of whether to present their work as a group or individually.

23. Changing up when the assessment can be presented in order to ensure a student is ready before they are assessed.

Varying the Learning Environment

Differentiation of learning environments involves changing up the context in which we learn.

Examples include:

24. Developing workstations in the classroom which each has a different environment. A mixed classroom layout can be used here to encourage this sort of learning.

25. Creating quiet spaces for students with sensory processing disorders or who are vulnerable to sensory overload (such as students with autism).

26. Providing research stations and study desks where students can access computers in order to do independent research during a lesson.

27. Getting two classrooms with two different sets of rules around talking, and letting students choose which room to study in.

28. Letting students choose between studying online or in-person.

29. Providing standing and seating desks for students with different needs.

30. Allowing kinesthetic learners to learn outside or frequently do exercise to let off excess steam.

31. Placing posters and prompts on walls strategically near students who need them the most.

Final Thoughts

I hope these examples of differentiation in the classroom have helped get you thinking about some differentiation ideas for your own lesson plans.

If you need to find scholarly information on differentiation, check out my full guide on differentiated instruction. In that article, you'll find:

Scholarly Definitions of the Concept

Explanation

Pros and Cons

Good luck with your teaching!

- Prof. Chris.

References

All references are in APA style:

Dixon, F. A., Yssel, N., McConnell, J. M., & Hardin, T. (2014). Different instruction, professional development, and teacher efficacy. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 37(2), 111-127.

Tomlinson, C. A. (1995). How to differentiate instruction in mixed ability classrooms. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Tomlinson, C. A. (1999). The differentiated classroom: responding to the needs of all students. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Tomlinson, C. A. (2000). What is different instruction? In: Callahan, C. M., & Hertberg-Davis, H. L. (Eds.). (2012). Fundamentals of gifted education: Considering multiple perspectives. (pp. 287-300). London: Routledge.

Watts‐Taffe, S., Laster, B. P., Broach, L., Marinak, B., McDonald Connor, C., & Walker‐Dalhouse, D. (2012). Differentiated instruction: Making informed teacher decisions. The Reading Teacher, 66(4), 303-314.

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31 Examples of Differentiated Instruction (2023)

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Differentiation in the classroom is a teaching strategy that involves varying lessons to meet all students' needs. You can differentiate lessons in 4 ways.

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For the vast majority of us, our high school United States History class was taught chronologically, and the idea of a thematic structure wasn't even one you philosophized over with your cooperating teacher. But now on the other side of the teacher's desk, you're wondering... is there a better way?

Yes! Yes, there is! I unapologetically restructured my US history course into core themes several years ago. And I have zero regrets.

Like me, you probably struggle to fit everything into fewer than 180 hours. But here's the truth: it's not you. It really is impossible.

Just think about all the history that has been added since you graduated high school: the end of the Cold War and the rise of globalization, tech booms and recessions, wars in other countries and protests in our own streets. Yet, our instructional time hasn't increased one bit.

Not only that, but in the last decade there has been a shift to teaching the "alternative narrative" of social history thanks to Howard Zinn and the focus on primary source analysis and other higher-level skills thanks to Common Core Social Studies standards. Both have greatly (and positively!) altered our whole mission as history teachers.

But with the emphasis on these great things, nothing else has been taken off the must-teach list. Only added. What if instead of wondering if we are failing at teaching, we realize that perhaps the system has succumbed to setting us up for failure?

Adding to that gut-punch feeling is a wondering if authentic takeaways are even happening when, to a 16-year-old, it's all an endless string of abstract puzzle pieces to memorize before moving onto the next pieces. September 11 th isn't any more real to them as the War of 1812-it's all equally distant history with little context. And it all gets the same play time according to state standards. Diana Laufenberg makes a great argument for teaching US history thematically with the analogy of knowledge being books, stacks and stacks of disorganized piles of books. Overarching themes act like labeled bookshelves that can organize the books. Shelves are the schema on which to place new books alongside other, related books. That kind of connection-making is what makes learning truly engaging and sticky!

In designing my US History courses thematically, I can focus my precious limited time on the most important ideas, which I truly believe then allows my students to take away more impactful meaning.

If you are tied to a mandated end-of-course exam or are required to follow a very detailed pacing guide, then a thematic history class may not be possible. But if you have the blessing to use your professional discretion, I encourage you to trust your gut and make the bold move to teaching US history thematically.

The biggest hurdle, though, is HOW? How do you create a thematic course? This is a question I have gotten countless times! So let's get started!

Below are the 5 steps you need to craft your first thematic unit. First, though, if you are just starting your switch, you may want to try a hybrid version that still keeps a general chronology but also keeps each era hyper-focused on a particular theme. For example, teaching about WWII through the lens of "patriotism." I did this format for years with success. When I decided to weave in project-based learning, I went fully thematic in order to better connect with authentic projects. But the hybrid way totally conveys the same benefits!

1. Decide the central concept and theme

If you want to start with a hybrid version, your central concept is the one defining lens through which you want students to view and remember each era: the industrial growth of the Gilded Age, the patriotism of World War II, or the activism of the 1960s.

The theme is then what you want students to grapple with about that concept: how technological progress also caused problems; how patriotism came in many forms; how media played a huge role in the success of protest movements.

If you are going fully thematic then your units' central concepts are ideas like immigration, protest, and heroism, which are often confused as being the themes themselves. Immigration isn't a theme, it's a concept.

These are a few of the concepts I have built units around. Then the added layer of a theme is the enduring aspect of these concepts that intrigue us as humans: the common story that all immigrants hold; the most effective strategies to create change; the defining character traits of a hero.

This first step takes time-to arrive at the best, most defining central concept as well as the theme that best deepens that concept. So don't rush it. You might even want to spend a school year brainstorming ideas as you teach through the content one last time before making the switch.

The most crucial thing, however, is that your concept needs to be something all your students know at least something about already. Regardless of their reading levels or life experiences, they must already have a mental bookshelf with that label. Patriotism, protest, and technology all pass this test. Manifest destiny, abolitionism, or containment policy do not.
What is a concept and theme would you love students to take away with them?
2. Craft the driving question

A good driving question doesn't have a right answer, instead it creates genuine curiosity. It must also build out of the schema students already have (and the content students learned last unit doesn't count). Lastly, your question should propel their understanding forward throughout the whole unit.

Driving questions endure beyond the content. The content is simply the material through which to grapple with the question. This is where the paradigm shift from chronological to thematic hits the pavement: your question isn't checking for understanding of the content, it uses the content to help students decide big ideas, like their own values and perspectives on the world.

If the content could be swapped out and the question still holds, you're on the right track. If you really don't have the answer to it yourself because there are so much evidence to weigh, even better. If it truly asks students to share their views on the world, you are in the golden zone.

Using a World War II unit as an example, let's look at the differences. Chronological content-heavy questions would be "How did the Allied powers win the war?" or "How did Americans on the home front contribute to the Allied victory?" Rather than building off what students already know, those questions assume no incoming knowledge. Their only purpose is to assess how much knowledge was gained. This knowledge has no bookshelf schema to go on.

A driving question for a thematic unit could be "How should patriotism look during war?" With this question, your thematic unit would consist of a handful of curated subtopics from WWII that illustrate differing perspectives on the concept. Say, the Normandy invasion, the daily rationing and war bonds, the Double V campaign, and Korematsu v. United States. That's it. That's your World War II unit.

If you want to go full thematic, then your question might be "Is protesting a war ever patriotic?" and you might select a range of war-time protests: Henry David Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" from the Mexican War, the Silent Sentinels from WWI, the Double V Campaign of WWII, and the anti-war songs of the Vietnam era.

How powerful of a takeaway for a young adult to have firm convictions on an enduring issue like this?

The question brainstorming is the hardest stage and requires a certain foundation of your own understanding of the material. I encourage you to collaborate with a colleague at this step to bounce around question ideas and wordsmith final drafts before moving forward.
What question best captures the concept and theme you've selected?
3. Pick your spotlight subtopics

The magic number I have found to choose is three to five, depending on how in-depth you need to go on each.

The topics should provide students evidence for the different sides of the questions and even perhaps one that adds a whole new layer to the question. I try to be thoughtful in selecting events and people that span the timeframe of the course, and be cognizant to include different minority groups, geographic regions, class levels, and both genders. I also like selecting lesser-known topics to pair with much more widely-known topics.

Once you have a clear focus of your spotlights, the easier work starts with consulting primary source readers, finding engaging documentaries, and selecting powerful photographs, artworks, and/or statistics to create the perfect curated collection.

For example, in my immigration unit, I knew I wanted to include the Vietnamese refugee story of the last 40 years as one of my spotlights, so I searched for sources and quickly found powerful personal narrative essays, poems, news stories, and documentaries. Sources that would never make it into a traditional chronological course are now center stage and construct a powerful and relevant takeaway of the Vietnam War for my students.

The other two spotlights of that unit are the Ellis Island immigrants and the African Americans who were collectively considered part of the Great Migration. Three very different groups, but not really as well! That's what makes a compelling, curated collection of spotlights.
What handful of spotlight topics come to mind for your question?
4. Select your focus skills

This is a bit of a bonus step that I firmly believe belongs in a thematic unit design. Around the time I gave up on trying to teach all the content, I also realized that trying to hit all the skills in every unit led to the same effect of inch-deep outcomes. Students weren't progressing terribly much in any of them. So now with each unit, I select a set of focus skills that is inherent to the central concept and theme and we hit them hard.

Every activity ties to the central concept, the driving question, and the focus skills. By the end, students have mastered those skills forward and back.

For example, in that same immigration unit in which the theme is storytelling, students analyze sources for quantitative and qualitative evidence. They recognize how the primary sources are limited to just one or the other, causing them to only tell part of the story, but that secondary sources weave the two together to make a rich story. We analyze secondary sources like NPR news stories of citizenship ceremonies, documentaries on Vietnamese nail salons, excerpts from Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns for content, but also to hone their own storytelling powers and they serve as a model for our interview narrative essay project.

Another unit of mine focuses on identifying ethos, pathos, and logos in the primary sources we study so my students have real-life examples to use as models for writing a persuasive letter of their own.

Of course, basic research, sourcing, and argumentative writing is occurring throughout every unit, but deliberately deep-diving on specialized skills like these is hugely impactful in my efficacy as a teacher.
What set of skills fit with the unit you are creating?
5. Culminate with a DBQ essay

The only natural assessment for a unit so tightly focused on answering a single open-ended question is a document-based essay, so that's what all of my end-of-unit assessments are. There are many reasons why I strongly believe an open-ended assessment is the best way to culminate units in a social studies course, and how they are a natural cornerstone to thematic teaching is one of them.

If every activity, every spotlight subtopic, every source you select helps answer the driving question that you've challenged students to grapple with, then of course you should allow them the privilege to finally develop and express their thoughtful answer to it!

The essay doesn't need to be some elaborate production that requires students to include every single detail covered, but rather it should allow students to select a wide range of evidence from the unit to demonstrate control over the spotlight topics as well as how they see the pieces fitting together.

Just be sure to provide time and some guidance for students to decide their answer, review their materials, select their best pieces of evidence, organize it in an outline, and develop it all into an essay. It can be a no-notes, in-class timed essay, or a take-home typed essay. You choose!
What essay requirements meets your students where they are at and simultaneously challenges them? I can't overestimate the way thematic approach has upgraded my impact as a history teacher. All the units and projects mentioned above are available for purchase in my store. If you are inspired to craft your own, send me a message! I'd love to help you build your first thematic unit!
Feature image credit: New York City Public Library and Bantersnaps

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Designing & Teaching US History Thematically in 5 Steps

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For the vast majority of us, our high school United States History class was taught chronologically, and the idea of a thematic structure wasn't even one you philosophized over with your cooperating teacher. But now on the other side of the teacher's desk, you're wondering... is there a better way?

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10 Essential Classroom Accommodations for ADHD

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Go to that Individualized Education Program meeting prepared.

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How to Teach a Wide Range of Skills and Abilities

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How to Teach a Wide Range of Skills and Abilities

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When it comes to addressing a wide range of skills and abilities in your classroom, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. As a teacher, you have to tailor your lesson plan to different learning styles, student backgrounds and a variety of other factors.

If this sounds like a daunting challenge, Eugenia Mora-Flores, EdD, has some reassuring guidance for you. Mora-Flores is the chair of the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program at USC Rossier.
(Prepare to make a difference in the classroom.)
As a Professor of Clinical Education, former K-12 teacher, author and consultant to K-12 schools across the country, here is her expert advice on how to educate students of varying skills and abilities in your classroom.
Use differentiation
Differentiation is the process of making education accessible for all students. It's a personalized approach to teaching that addresses individual learning needs rather than using one strategy to address everyone.

Additionally, differentiation is a useful tool for promoting equity in the classroom. It not only accounts for different learning styles, but student backgrounds and experiences as well.

Use differentiation to accommodate visual, aural and verbal learners, gifted students and students with moderate disabilities-all while acknowledging the unique cultural perspectives of historically marginalized students.
Differentiate at every phase of the lesson plan
Differentiated instruction means using "a range of strategies to communicate the same information in a lesson," said Mora-Flores.

Lesson plans are typically structured in phases. "In each phase of the lesson, there may be opportunities to accommodate [different] needs. [But we don't want] teachers to think they need to create 15 different lessons."

Here are some common phases with examples of accompanying differentiation strategies:
The introductory phase
In the introductory phase of a lesson, you may want to use visuals to recap the previous lesson, while asking a higher-level question to engage gifted learners. You can also break students into groups to discuss prior learning.
The research/Inquiry phase
In the research phase of the lesson, you can offer a variety of resources for students to learn more about a subject. By providing different modalities such as articles, podcasts, videos, models, experimentation opportunities etc., you ensure that everyone is able to connect with the topic.
The demonstration phase
Use think-alouds (i.e. ask questions and discuss how to understand the content that you're reading) to demonstrate how to acquire comprehension skills.
The practice/application phase
As students work on their own, you can address them individually. Support them by prompting their thinking and guiding them through challenges.
Explore other instructional strategies
Differentiation is a broad term that encompasses many different instructional strategies. In order to address a wide range of skills and abilities in your classroom, explore different tactics under the umbrella of differentiation to find out what works for you and your students.

Creating peer interaction groups for students can be effective. Whether it's partnerships, small or large groups, each has its own unique benefits. Switching partners or groups within group discussions can also help keep perspectives fresh.

For students who require support developing their academic language, teachers can use language tools such as sentence frames and key academic vocabulary words, as well as providing opportunities to talk to their neighbors or table mates to rehearse the language.

"We also have strategies that help students organize their thinking," Mora-Flores added. " Graphic organizers [help students] figure out just how to organize the range of information that's coming in."
Consider intentional grouping
Intentional grouping is when teachers organize students by common interests, backgrounds, or other criteria.

For example, students who demonstrate an interest in pursuing a topic at an advanced level or perhaps students with varying academic ability, can work together to tackle a specific question from your lesson plan. Through collaboration, they use their shared interests or attributes to better engage with the material as individuals.
Take a holistic view of students' needs
It's important to consider a wide variety of factors that affect students' ability to learn. Mora-Flores adds that teachers should "look beyond formal identifications of students in our classrooms to really think about students as individuals."

Here are a few important formal (and less formal) categories of students whose needs you should plan to accommodate:

English language learners.

Students with special needs. (This is a broad term-make sure you identify the particular need and plan accordingly.)

Gifted and advanced learners.

Students who prefer collaborative spaces.

Independent workers.

Home and family backgrounds.

Addressing diversity requires thorough planning
All students bring a range of cultural and social experiences and assets to build upon at school. To ensure that your classroom is equitable for everyone, first reflect on class subject matter as a whole.

For example, if you're tasked with teaching American history, compare the range of diversity in the United States versus the European perspective of your textbook. Does it represent the experiences and history of the students in your class?

Then, once you're organizing your lesson plan, determine how to engage students about equity and diversity. Allow them to have critical dialogue with each other so that they can understand different perspectives.
Collaboration enhances learning for everyone
Collaboration is a key tool to addressing a wide range of skills and abilities in the classroom. "The opportunity to hear something from a different perspective helps us understand the bigger picture of what we're studying," said Mora-Flores.

Additionally, collaboration can have the following benefits for students with varying needs:

Self-reflection. Hearing about others' experiences can motivate them to refine their point of view.

Exchange of language. Hearing peers articulate their ideas can help students develop their academic language, and ability to share their own thoughts with a range of audiences.

Students feel valued. Collaboration makes students feel like they belong to a community of learners.

Increased empathy. Understanding different experiences helps students empathize with their peers.

A Master of Arts in Teaching empowers you to support more students
While there are other paths to earning your teaching credential, aspiring teachers can build an enhanced set of skills at an accelerated pace through a master of arts in teaching program.

For example, USC Rossier's MAT program prepares you to meet teaching profession standards, as well as standards for supplemental certifications. You acquire the knowledge to teach in a general education classroom, and can choose to pursue an Education Specialist Credential, California Bilingual Authorization for Spanish, or Gifted Education Certificate.

With your enhanced preparation, you'll be equipped to address more student needs in your classroom once you start teaching.

Ready to help all students succeed?
Become a Teacher

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How to address a wide range of skills and abilities in your classroom

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When it comes to addressing a wide range of skills and abilities in your classroom, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. As a teacher, you have to tailor your lesson plan to different learning styles, student backgrounds and a variety of other factors. If this sounds like a daunting challenge, Eugenia Mora-Flores, EdD, has some reassuring guidance for you.

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Discover recipes, home ideas, style inspiration and other ideas to try.

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If you have worked with a BCBA in the past, it is likely that you have heard the term FUNCTIONS OF BEHAVIOR.

BCBAs look at functions in order to determine WHY specific behaviors are occurring. Then they develop a document called a Behavior Support Plan or BSP. It contains the definitions of challenging behavior, antecedent strategies, replacement behaviors, and consequence procedures.

The four functions of behavior are: sensory stimulation, escape, access to attention and access to tangibles. One easy way to remember the functions is through the acronym SEAT.

When challenging behavior occurs, BCBAs will look at what happens immediately before and after that behavior. Otherwise known as, ABC data collection.

In the ABC model of data collection, each letter stands for a specific part of the process: A=antecedent, B=behavior, and C=consequence

There are many types of ABC data collection forms. However, some require long written responses. Therefore, I have created an easy-to-use data sheet with checkboxes for the behaviors and actions in each category.

You can access a PDF download of this infographic, as well as a free ABC Data Sheet, by visiting the resource library tab on my website.

Don't forget to visit my store or TPT to find more visual and behavioral resources!

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Functions of Behavior - BIAS Behavioral Interventions

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If you have worked with a BCBA in the past, it is likely that you have heard the term FUNCTIONS OF BEHAVIOR. BCBAs look at function to determine WHY

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Standards to Goals to meet learners needs.docx - Microsoft Word Online

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data did you use to establish a baseline for student growth related to this lesson's learning goal(s).docx

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data did you use to establish a baseline for student growth related to this lesson's learning goal(s).docx

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100th day of school bulletin board. 100 years ago in 1918... news… | High school history classroom, High school history bulletin boards, High school bulletin boards

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Jan 18, 2019 - 100th day of school bulletin board. 100 years ago in 1918... newspaper

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-Instagram: thoseutahsisters

-Link in bio with activities

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As an educator, I've discovered the power of positive reinforcement in the classroom. It's like watering a garden, nurturing the growth of students' confidence and motivation.

In this article, I'll share 25 examples of how to incorporate positive reinforcement activities into your teaching. By using techniques such as praise, rewards, and encouragement, we can create a supportive and uplifting learning environment.

Join me on this journey of empowering our students and witnessing their incredible progress.

Examples of positive reinforcement activities in the classroom

I believe that positive reinforcement activities play a crucial role in creating a supportive and motivating classroom environment.

Some examples of these activities could include giving verbal praise for effort, using reward stickers to acknowledge participation, giving high-fives for good work, publicly recognizing achievements, and even offering extra recess as a reward for completing tasks.

These activities not only encourage students to continue putting in their best effort, but also help foster a positive and collaborative atmosphere in the classroom.

Verbal Praise for Effort

The teacher provides verbal praise to students for their effort in the classroom. Verbal encouragement plays a crucial role in fostering student engagement and promoting a positive learning environment. Recognizing and acknowledging the effort students put into their academic progress is essential for their motivation and self-esteem.

By offering verbal praise, teachers can reinforce positive behaviors and encourage students to continue working hard. This approach not only contributes to academic success but also helps with behavior management. When students receive recognition for their efforts, they're more likely to stay focused and engaged in the classroom.

Verbal praise for effort is a simple yet powerful tool that teachers can utilize to create a supportive and encouraging atmosphere, where students feel valued and motivated to excel.

Reward Stickers for Participation

Continuing the discussion on positive reinforcement in the classroom, one effective method is through the use of reward stickers for student participation. Reward systems are powerful motivation techniques that can enhance behavior management and create a positive learning environment.

By providing students with positive feedback in the form of stickers, they feel recognized and encouraged to actively engage in classroom activities. These stickers serve as classroom incentives, motivating students to participate and contribute to class discussions, group work, and other interactive activities.

The stickers can be given for various types of participation, such as answering questions, sharing ideas, or helping peers. This simple yet effective technique not only boosts student confidence but also reinforces positive behaviors, fostering a sense of accomplishment and creating a more cooperative and engaged classroom community.

High-Five for Good Work

One effective positive reinforcement activity in the classroom is giving students a high-five for good work. This simple gesture has a powerful impact on students' motivation and self-esteem. It creates a sense of validation and recognition, making them feel proud of their accomplishments.

When implementing high-fives, it's important to consider alternatives for students who may not be comfortable with physical contact. Some alternatives include fist bumps, thumbs-ups, or even verbal praise.

The impact of high-fives goes beyond immediate gratification. Students respond positively to this form of reinforcement, as it fosters a positive and supportive classroom environment. It encourages them to continue striving for excellence and reinforces their belief in their abilities.

To incorporate high-fives effectively, it's crucial to be genuine and specific in praising their work. By acknowledging their effort and progress, we can inspire them to reach even greater heights.

Public Recognition for Achievements

As a teacher, I believe that public recognition for achievements is a powerful positive reinforcement activity in the classroom. It's important to acknowledge and celebrate student achievements to motivate and encourage them to continue their hard work.

One way to do this is by implementing classroom awards, where students are recognized for their accomplishments in various areas such as academics, teamwork, creativity, and leadership. These awards can be given out periodically, such as at the end of each semester or school year, and can be presented in front of the whole class. This public recognition not only boosts the recipient's self-esteem but also inspires others to strive for excellence.

Additionally, praise and acknowledgement should be given regularly to students who excel in their work, as this provides immediate positive reinforcement and reinforces their efforts.

Incorporating these positive reinforcement methods into the classroom helps create a supportive and encouraging learning environment where students feel valued and motivated to succeed.

Extra Recess for Completing Tasks

I implement the positive reinforcement activity of providing extra recess for completing tasks. This strategy not only promotes task completion but also helps students develop essential skills such as time management and physical activity.

Here are some reasons why this approach can be beneficial:

Increased student engagement: Offering extra recess as a reward for task completion can motivate students to stay focused and complete their work efficiently.

Improved time management: Students learn to prioritize their tasks and manage their time effectively in order to earn the extra recess time.

Enhanced physical activity: Extra recess allows students to engage in physical activities, promoting their overall health and well-being.

Positive reinforcement: By rewarding students with extra recess, we reinforce their positive behavior and encourage them to continue completing their tasks diligently.

Class-Wide Celebration for Milestones

For class-wide celebrations of milestones, I incorporate various positive reinforcement activities in the classroom. It's important to acknowledge and celebrate the collective accomplishments of the whole class.

One way I do this is by organizing milestone celebrations where the entire class is rewarded for their efforts and achievements. These class-wide rewards not only motivate students to work together towards a common goal but also foster a sense of camaraderie and unity among them.

During these celebrations, I make sure to highlight the group's achievements and recognize each student's contribution to the overall success. This not only boosts their self-esteem but also encourages them to continue working hard and supporting one another.

Special Privileges for Positive Behavior

Special privileges are an effective form of positive reinforcement in the classroom, motivating students to exhibit positive behavior and encouraging a supportive learning environment. Implementing a privileges system or incentive program can greatly enhance the classroom dynamic and foster a sense of responsibility and achievement. Here are some examples of positive reinforcement techniques and motivation strategies that involve special rewards:

By offering these special privileges, students feel recognized and valued, which in turn helps to boost their self-esteem and motivation. It also promotes a sense of fairness and encourages them to continue demonstrating positive behavior.

Incorporating a privileges system into the classroom can be a powerful tool for creating a positive and engaging learning environment.

Personalized Notes of Encouragement

Implementing personalized notes of encouragement is another effective method of positive reinforcement in the classroom. This approach provides students with individualized support and motivation to continue exhibiting positive behavior. Encouragement cards, uplifting messages, personalized compliments, motivational notes, and supportive gestures all contribute to creating a positive and nurturing learning environment.

By taking the time to write personalized notes to each student, I can acknowledge their efforts and achievements, boosting their self-esteem and confidence. These notes serve as reminders of their progress and potential, and they can be kept as mementos to reflect upon in the future.

Whether it's a simple 'Great job!' or a heartfelt message highlighting specific accomplishments, these personalized notes show students that their hard work is recognized and appreciated. It's a small gesture that can have a big impact on their overall attitude and motivation in the classroom.

Small Prizes for Completing Assignments

I often provide students with small prizes as a form of positive reinforcement for completing assignments. This strategy of incentivizing completion not only rewards their effort but also motivates them to tackle more challenging tasks.

By offering small prizes, such as stickers, pencils, or erasers, I'm able to create a sense of excitement and encouragement in the classroom. These rewards for effort serve as a tangible representation of their hard work and dedication.

Additionally, these motivating assignments help to enhance student engagement and foster a positive learning environment. By encouraging participation through small prizes, students feel valued and recognized for their accomplishments.

Ultimately, this method of reinforcing task completion has proven to be an effective way to motivate students and promote a love for learning.

Classroom Jobs for Responsible Behavior

One effective positive reinforcement activity in the classroom is assigning students classroom jobs for responsible behavior. By giving students the opportunity to take on leadership roles and contribute to the smooth functioning of the classroom, we promote responsibility and foster independence. This not only helps with behavior management but also instills a sense of accountability in students.

Here is an example of a table showcasing various classroom jobs and their corresponding responsibilities:

Line Leader

Leads the class during transitions

Develops leadership skills

Materials Manager

Distributes and collects classroom supplies

Encourages organization and responsibility

Door Holder

Holds the door for the class

Demonstrates kindness and consideration

Librarian

Organizes and maintains the classroom library

Enhances literacy skills

Clean-Up Crew

Helps keep the classroom clean and tidy

Promotes a sense of ownership and teamwork

Assigning classroom jobs not only reinforces positive behavior but also empowers students to actively contribute to their learning environment, fostering a sense of pride and ownership.

Positive Phone Call Home

Continuing the discussion on positive reinforcement activities in the classroom, a powerful way to reinforce positive behavior is through a positive phone call home.

This not only strengthens the parent involvement but also enhances student engagement and behavior management.

It allows parents to witness their child's progress firsthand, fostering a sense of pride and motivation.

A positive phone call home can create a supportive partnership between parents and teachers, working together to ensure the student's success.

By acknowledging academic progress and commendable behavior, students feel valued and encouraged to continue their efforts.

It also helps in building a positive classroom culture where students strive to excel.

When parents are actively involved and aware of their child's achievements, it reinforces the importance of education and creates a conducive learning environment.

Surprise Treats for Good Behavior

To reinforce positive behavior in the classroom, I frequently surprise my students with treats as a form of positive reinforcement. Unexpected rewards, such as spontaneous treats or surprising incentives, can have a powerful impact on their motivation and engagement. By providing unanticipated rewards, I create a sense of excitement and anticipation in the classroom.

Whether it's a small piece of candy or a special privilege, these impromptu rewards serve as a tangible reminder of their good behavior and effort. The element of surprise adds an element of fun and creates a positive atmosphere where students feel valued and appreciated.

It also encourages them to continue displaying positive behavior, as they never know when they might receive another unexpected treat.

Fun Classroom Games as Rewards

As I continue to reinforce positive behavior in the classroom through surprise treats, incorporating fun classroom games as rewards further enhances student motivation and engagement. By offering creative incentives and interactive rewards, students are encouraged to actively participate in their learning.

These engaging incentives not only make the classroom experience more enjoyable, but they also serve as exciting motivators for students to strive for excellence. From educational trivia games to team-building activities, these fun filled acknowledgements not only reinforce positive behavior, but also create a dynamic and inclusive learning environment.

Students are motivated to work collaboratively, think critically, and develop important social skills through these interactive games. The use of fun classroom games as rewards not only facilitates learning, but also fosters a love for education and a desire to succeed.

Peer Compliments for Teamwork

I use peer compliments as a positive reinforcement activity in the classroom to acknowledge teamwork and foster a supportive learning environment. Teamwork appreciation is essential in creating a classroom community where students feel valued and encouraged. Peer recognition plays a vital role in reinforcing collaborative efforts and promoting group achievement. By implementing a system of peer compliments for teamwork, students not only learn to appreciate the contributions of their classmates but also develop their own cooperative learning skills. This activity encourages students to actively recognize and acknowledge the efforts of their peers, which cultivates a sense of belonging and motivates students to work together towards common goals. Through this practice, students learn the importance of collaboration and build strong relationships based on respect and appreciation.
Benefits of Peer Compliments for Teamwork

Encourages teamwork appreciation

Reinforces collaborative efforts

Promotes group achievement

Cultivates cooperative learning skills

Positive Behavior Charts

Implementing positive behavior charts is an effective way to reinforce desired behaviors and create a positive classroom environment. These behavior charts serve as visual representations of students' progress and provide motivation for them to continue exhibiting good behavior.

Here are some examples of positive reinforcement strategies that can be incorporated into behavior charts:

Class-Wide Applause for Success

One effective positive reinforcement activity in the classroom is implementing class-wide applause for success.

This activity not only acknowledges and celebrates individual achievements but also fosters a sense of unity and support among students.

During class-wide celebrations, students can be encouraged to applaud their peers for their accomplishments, whether it's solving a difficult math problem, answering a challenging question, or demonstrating positive behavior.

This personalized encouragement creates a positive and uplifting atmosphere in the classroom, motivating students to strive for success.

Additionally, surprise treats or rewards can be given to students who consistently exhibit good behavior or achieve their goals.

Peer compliments can also be incorporated into the applause activity, where students take turns complimenting their classmates on their achievements.

Special Privileges for Helpfulness

Continuing the positive reinforcement activities discussed previously, I frequently offer special privileges to students who demonstrate helpfulness in the classroom. By providing these special privileges, I aim to recognize and reward their positive actions while also encouraging a culture of kindness and helpfulness among students.

Some of the special privileges I offer include:

These special privileges not only serve as rewards for good manners and helpfulness, but also create a sense of pride and ownership in students. They understand that their positive actions are valued and appreciated, which in turn motivates them to continue displaying helpful behavior.

The benefits of positive reinforcement in the classroom are evident through the positive attitudes, improved relationships, and a supportive learning environment it fosters.

Positive Notes on Assignments

I often include positive notes on assignments as a form of reinforcement in the classroom. Positive reinforcement benefits students by building their confidence and encouraging positive behavior. These notes serve as effective classroom rewards, giving students a tangible reminder of their achievements.

Not only do positive notes recognize students' hard work and progress, but they also emphasize the importance of their efforts. By highlighting specific strengths and areas of improvement, these notes help students understand their capabilities and motivate them to continue doing their best.

When students receive positive notes on their assignments, they feel acknowledged and valued, which fosters a positive learning environment. It's crucial to provide regular positive reinforcement to students, and positive notes on assignments are an excellent way to do so.

Class Rewards for Cooperation

Including class rewards for cooperation is an effective way to provide positive reinforcement in the classroom, reinforcing the importance of collaboration and encouraging students to work together towards common goals. By incorporating these rewards, we can foster a sense of class teamwork and promote cooperative learning.

Here are some examples of activities that can help promote group collaboration and teamwork:

Class Dance Party for Accomplishments

For the class dance party, students can celebrate their accomplishments and be rewarded for their hard work and achievements.

Classroom celebrations are an excellent way to foster a positive and inclusive learning environment.

To enhance the experience, personalized notes can be given to students, acknowledging their specific accomplishments and reinforcing their positive behavior.

Additionally, surprise treats can be provided as a special reward during the dance party. This not only adds excitement but also shows students that their efforts are recognized and appreciated.

Another idea is to introduce positive behavior bracelets, which students can earn for displaying exemplary behavior. These bracelets can serve as a tangible reminder of their accomplishments and can be proudly worn as a badge of honor.

The class dance party is a fun and engaging way to celebrate students' achievements and motivate them to continue working hard.

Positive Behavior Bracelets

To continue fostering a positive and inclusive learning environment, we can implement positive behavior bracelets as a tangible reminder of students' accomplishments and exemplary behavior. Positive behavior bracelets have proven to be effective in promoting positive behavior in the classroom. Here are some reasons why they're beneficial:

From a student perspective, positive behavior bracelets are seen as a meaningful and tangible reward for their efforts. They feel recognized and valued, further motivating them to continue displaying positive behavior.

Praise for Following Instructions

Positive behavior bracelets can be used to provide praise and reinforcement for students who consistently follow instructions in the classroom. This technique is just one example of the many positive reinforcement techniques that can be employed for effective classroom management.

By using praise and motivation, teachers can create a supportive and encouraging environment where students feel valued and motivated to follow instructions. When students receive praise for their efforts in following instructions, it reinforces their behavior and encourages them to continue doing so.

Effective teacher-student communication is essential in implementing behavior reinforcement strategies. By clearly communicating expectations and providing specific praise for following instructions, teachers can foster a positive classroom culture where students are motivated to succeed.

Recognition in Front of Class

How can recognition in front of the class be utilized as a positive reinforcement activity in the classroom? There are several recognition techniques that can foster a positive learning environment and motivate students to excel.

Student Spotlight: Highlighting a student's achievements or growth in front of their peers not only boosts their self-esteem but also inspires others to strive for success.

Peer Acknowledgment: Encouraging students to recognize and appreciate their classmates' efforts and accomplishments promotes a supportive and collaborative classroom community.

Whole Class Applause: Celebrating collective achievements as a class reinforces a sense of unity, encourages teamwork, and motivates students to work together towards common goals.

Teacher Appreciation: Recognizing and expressing gratitude for the teacher's guidance and support helps students develop respect and gratitude for their educators.

Positive Behavior Certificates

When implementing positive reinforcement activities in the classroom, one effective method is to utilize positive behavior certificates.

Positive behavior certificates serve as positive behavior awards, promoting positive behavior and providing incentives for good behavior.

These behavior management techniques are an excellent way to recognize students for their efforts and achievements in maintaining a positive classroom environment.

Positive behavior certificates can be customized with student names, specific behaviors, and even colorful designs to make them more appealing to students.

Teachers can distribute these certificates during class, in front of their peers, to give students a sense of pride and recognition.

Extra Computer Time for Good Behavior

To further incentivize positive behavior, I often reward students with extra computer time as a way to reinforce their good behavior in the classroom. Here are some ways in which I use extra computer time as a behavior management tool and a positive reinforcement strategy:

Some benefits of positive reinforcement in the classroom

When it comes to positive reinforcement in the classroom, there are several benefits that can be observed.

First, it can lead to improved student behavior, as students are more likely to engage in positive actions when they're rewarded for them.

Additionally, positive reinforcement can enhance academic performance by motivating students to strive for success.

Lastly, it helps strengthen teacher-student relationships and boosts classroom morale, creating a positive and supportive learning environment.

Improved Student Behavior

By implementing positive reinforcement in the classroom, I've observed significant improvements in student behavior. This approach has helped promote positive behavior and has been effective in behavior management and improved discipline.

Some of the positive reinforcement strategies and behavior modification techniques that have yielded positive results include:

These strategies haven't only improved student behavior but have also created a more harmonious and engaging learning environment for all.

Enhanced Academic Performance

One benefit of positive reinforcement in the classroom is that it improves academic performance. When students receive praise and rewards for their efforts and achievements, it enhances their focus and motivates them to excel academically. Positive reinforcement helps to create a positive learning environment where students feel valued and supported, leading to improved engagement and increased participation in classroom activities. This, in turn, contributes to enhanced problem-solving skills and improved critical thinking abilities. By reinforcing positive behavior and academic achievements, teachers can help students develop a growth mindset and a love for learning.

To further illustrate the benefits of positive reinforcement, here is a table showcasing how it can enhance academic performance:

Through positive reinforcement, students are empowered to reach their full potential and achieve academic success.

Increased Motivation to Learn

Positive reinforcement in the classroom increases students' motivation to learn, fostering a sense of excitement and curiosity about acquiring new knowledge and skills. This leads to several benefits that enhance the overall learning experience for students:

Increased engagement: Students actively participate in classroom activities and show a greater interest in learning.

Improved attitude: A positive learning environment encourages students to develop a positive attitude towards education and their own abilities.

Enhanced self-confidence: When students receive positive reinforcement for their efforts, they gain confidence in their abilities, which in turn motivates them to take on new challenges.

Higher achievement: With increased motivation comes higher levels of achievement, as students are driven to excel and reach their full potential.

Greater enthusiasm: Positive reinforcement ignites a passion for learning, creating a sense of enthusiasm and eagerness to explore new concepts.

Strengthened Teacher-Student Relationships

Implementing positive reinforcement in the classroom strengthens teacher-student relationships, fostering a sense of trust and mutual respect. This not only benefits the students but also creates a supportive and nurturing environment for all. Through positive reinforcement, teachers can build trust with their students by consistently acknowledging and rewarding their efforts and achievements. This helps create a positive learning environment where students feel valued and motivated to excel. Open communication is also facilitated, as students feel comfortable expressing their thoughts and concerns knowing that they will be listened to and understood. By promoting empathy, teachers can develop strong connections with their students, allowing them to better understand their individual needs and provide appropriate support. Ultimately, positive reinforcement promotes student engagement, as students feel encouraged to actively participate in their own learning journey.

Benefits of Positive Reinforcement in the Classroom

Building trust

Creating a positive learning environment

Fostering open communication

Developing empathy

Promoting student engagement

Boosted Classroom Morale

By reinforcing positive behavior, I can boost classroom morale and create a positive atmosphere for students. Here are some ways in which positive reinforcement can contribute to a supportive and engaging environment:

By implementing these strategies, I can enhance the overall classroom experience and create an environment where students feel supported, motivated, and eager to learn.

Boosting morale not only benefits students individually but also contributes to a harmonious and thriving classroom community.

Conclusion

Positive reinforcement is a powerful tool in the classroom to promote student engagement and motivation. According to recent studies, incorporating positive reinforcement activities can increase student participation by up to 70%. This statistic highlights the significant impact that positive reinforcement can have on student learning and overall classroom dynamics.

By implementing these strategies, teachers can create a positive and supportive learning environment that fosters growth and success for all students.

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Positive Reinforcement in the Classroom: 25 Examples - Classroom Management Expert

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As an educator, I've discovered the power of positive reinforcement in the classroom. It's like watering a garden, nurturing the growth of students' confidence and motivation. In this article, I'll share 25 examples of how to incorporate positive reinforcement activities into your teaching. By using techniques such as praise, rewards, and encouragement, we can create [...]

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Dynamic Classroom Setting (Observed at Cedar High School)

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Dynamic Classroom Setting (Observed at Cedar High School)

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Growth Mindset vs. Fixed Mindset: What’s the Difference?

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A growth mindset is critical for entrepreneurs. Here’s a primer on the difference between growth and fixed mindsets and how you can achieve and maintain one.

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32 Strategies for Building a Positive Learning Environment

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32 Strategies for Building a Positive Learning Environment

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A positive classroom environment has been shown to have many benefits for students. These benefits include increased academic achievement, increased engagement in learning, and a more positive outlook on life. A well-functioning classroom environment is one that is conducive to learning, where all students feel comfortable expressing themselves and are able to work cooperatively with one another. It is important for teachers to create a positive classroom environment in order to provide the best possible educational experience for their students.

In this article, I will help to understand what constitutes a positive classroom environment. We will look at the features of a positive learning environment. Finally, we will explore the importance of creating a positive classroom environment.

What is a Positive Classroom Environment?

A positive classroom environment is one that is conducive to learning. It should have a comfortable temperature, plenty of materials and supplies, and an atmosphere that is conducive to learning. A positive classroom environment also encourages creativity and flexibility in the teaching methods used. It should foster individuality and promote self-esteem. Finally, it should help students become independent learners.

Characteristics of a Positive Classroom Environment

Positive classrooms foster a positive environment for learning. Characteristics of a positive classroom environment include:

1. There is a calm and orderly atmosphere where students are encouraged to be respectful of each other and their surroundings. A positive classroom environment is calm and allows everyone to coexist peacefully. For example, students should not be allowed to talk or act out in class. They are not also allowed to be loud and disruptive.

2. It has physical conditions that allow students to concentrate and study. A positive classroom environment has adequate seating, good lighting, and a quiet atmosphere conducive to study. A positive classroom atmosphere that is non-threatening. The environment of a positive classroom is a place for students to feel safe and secure, not threatened or afraid.

3. There is a curriculum that allows for individual development. The curriculum in a positive classroom environment is flexible enough to allow individual differences in learning styles and abilities. This curriculum is also motivating and challenging.

4. It is a classroom that is organized, quiet, and structured so that students are able to focus on the lesson and learning. It is a well-organized environment that allows students to learn in an orderly manner. This includes being on time for class and having everything prepared before the start of class, such as papers, books, pencils, etc.

5. It has got an atmosphere where there is a good balance of assigned work and independent work, with plenty of materials and supplies, and an environment that is conducive to learning. This environment allows students to learn in an orderly manner and provides ample opportunities for them to practice.

6. The teachers in this classroom are patient, kind, and encouraging. A positive classroom environment has teachers who are kind, patient, and encouraging to their students. This helps students learn and grow.

7. In this classroom, interactions between students are constructive and supportive. There are rich and positive interactions between students, teachers, and parents. This helps the students learn and build their self-esteem.

8. There is a focus on the student's strengths and abilities, not their weaknesses. The environment of a positive classroom is a place for students to focus on their strengths, not their weaknesses. This allows them to feel good about themselves and their abilities, which helps them learn and grow.

9. It has students who feel a sense of belonging and acceptance. Students have strong bonds with their peers and are able to share ideas, support each other, and be successful in school.

10. There is a high level of trust among students, teachers, and parents. Students feel safe in the classroom, which allows them to be comfortable sharing ideas and mistakes with their peers. They also feel accepted by their teacher and their parents, which helps them learn and grow.

11. There is a positive climate where students are encouraged to be responsible for their own learning. This classroom teaches students to be independent, responsible, and respectful. With responsibility, students are able to learn from their mistakes, ask questions, and work hard to succeed.

12. It has a focus on the student's personal development and growth. Teachers model a positive classroom environment that promotes growth and learning in every student. They also encourage students to collaborate and learn from one another. In that environment, students are expected to be able to adapt and apply what they are learning in real-life situations.

13. There is an environment that encourages students to learn and grow through active participation in class discussions, group projects, presentations, and homework assignments. Students are expected to work together cooperatively and respectfully and to be responsible for their own learning.

14. There are students who are encouraged to actively participate in class discussions and share ideas with their peers. A positive classroom environment enhances student participation without fear of punishment or restriction.

15. It has teachers who are fair and understanding of their students' needs. In a positive classroom environment, teachers show genuine concern for their students' well-being and do what they can to help them succeed. They also listen attentively to students' concerns and offer suggestions that are helpful, not harmful.

16. In this classroom, students feel safe and respected at school. A classroom environment that is nurturing, respectful, and caring for all students. Students feel safe when in class and know that they can ask for help if needed.

Characteristics of a Negative Classroom Environment

Negative classroom environments can be detrimental to students' development. These environments include: a rigid, disciplinary structure; a lack of support or encouragement for creativity or risk-taking; and a climate that is hostile or discouraging. Here are some common features of negative classrooms:

1. It has a rigid, disciplinary structure. Negative classroom environments often have a strict, regimented approach to instruction. This can limit students' opportunities to explore their interests and learn in their own way.

2. There is a lack of support or encouragement for creativity or risk-taking. In a negative classroom environment, there is often little tolerance for deviation from the norm. This can result in students feeling discouraged from taking risks and pursuing their interests outside of the classroom setting.

3. It is a hostile or discouraging climate. Negative classroom environments can create a climate of fear in which students are too afraid to question, challenge, or discuss what is being taught. In a classroom like this, students are likely to stop asking questions and not raise their hands when they have something to say.

4. There is a lack of ownership by the teacher. This results from the teacher's own negative attitudes toward teaching and learning. Often, the teacher has no clear sense of mission in the classroom and is not committed to creating a positive environment for learning.

5. There are unclear expectations from the teacher. This results from unclear or contradictory expectations from the teacher about what is expected of students and how these expectations are communicated. For example, a teacher may expect students to do well in their tests but be unclear about how to set up the test to help them perform well.

6. There is poor classroom management. This results from a lack of training and/or poor implementation of classroom management techniques. For example, a teacher may be unable to enforce classroom rules or consistently assign seats. Teachers may also not have effective procedures for dealing with disruptive students in the classroom.

7. In this environment, students are not motivated to learn. This may stem from a lack of enthusiasm in the classroom, poor teaching techniques, and/or an ineffective curriculum. In order to address these issues, teachers need guidance on how they can improve their classroom management techniques. This article will provide practical suggestions and ideas for enhancing classroom management skills.

8. The teacher lacks personal care and interest in the student. This can be a result of a lack of attention to detail by teachers (e.g., poor handwriting, messy desks, unclean classroom) or students that are not motivated to learn. This may also stem from a lack of enthusiasm in the classroom, poor teaching techniques, and an ineffective curriculum.

9. There are poor-quality teaching materials that are outdated or poorly written. This is a very common problem in schools. The teacher may need to acquire new teaching materials or better understand the materials he/she currently has. In that case, the teacher lacks the tools to teach effectively.

10. There is a lack of parental involvement in the education of their children. Parents may not be involved due to a lack of time, money, or interest. Parents are often very instrumental in the education of their children. Without their involvement, a student's education is not as effective and thorough.

11. There is a lack of relevant or effective professional development for teachers and other school personnel. Teachers may lack the skills and materials necessary to teach effectively. The teacher is unable to create lesson plans that are relevant, interesting, and effective.

12. There is a sense of isolation and loneliness among students. Students may feel isolated, without many friends and with no one to talk to. A negative classroom environment does not encourage students to interact and develop strong, positive relationships with other students.

13. There is a lack of courtesy or respect directed towards teachers or other students. Students may have attitudes that are disrespectful, unkind, and/or rude. Students may not show respect for teachers or other students. There is a lack of respect for authority among students. Students may not show respect for the rules, policies, and decisions of school administrators.

14. There is a general atmosphere of negativity and doom. The students in this classroom have an attitude that is generally negative and doom-like. Students may not be happy with school, life in general, or their place in the world. There is a lack of positivity in this classroom. It is often sad and depressing. In short, there is a feeling of hopelessness, pessimism, and despair.

15. It has students who are disruptive, unruly, and disrespectful toward teachers, other students, or school policies. These students disrupt class with their behaviors and disrespect the teacher. They also don't listen to the teacher or do their homework. When the teacher is trying to teach, these students are unruly and disruptive. They have a huge attitude problem and don't respect authority figures.

Why is a positive classroom environment important for effective teaching and learning?

A positive classroom environment is essential for effective teaching and learning. Here are eight reasons why:

1. A positive classroom environment creates a safe and supportive environment for students. When students feel safe and supported, they are more likely to engage in constructive behavior and display high levels of academic achievement.

2. A positive classroom environment encourages students to take ownership of their learning. When students feel empowered to learn, they are more likely to be motivated to explore new topics and participate actively in class discussions.

3. A positive classroom environment increases student motivation and engagement. When students feel valued and acknowledged for their efforts, they are more likely to seek out challenging courses and push themselves beyond their comfort zone.

4. A positive classroom environment fosters a sense of community among students. Students who feel connected to their peers, and are engaged in the classroom, are more likely to be excited about coming to school.

5. A positive classroom environment strengthens the relationship between teachers and students. When educators and their students are committed to each other's success, they have a better chance of developing a healthy working relationship.

6. A positive classroom environment fosters a sense of belonging. When students feel that the teachers are on their side, they will be more likely to succeed.

7. A positive classroom environment encourages students to take responsibility for their own learning. When students feel that their teachers care about them, they are more likely to take responsibility for their own learning.

8. A positive classroom environment promotes a climate of respect. When students and teachers respect each other's work, they develop a sense of confidence in themselves.

9. A positive classroom environment is a catalyst for student growth. When students are encouraged by their teachers, they will grow and develop in all aspects of their lives.

10. Building a positive classroom environment also encourages creativity and problem-solving. When students feel comfortable expressing themselves in new ways, they are more likely to come up with innovative solutions to challenges they face in class.

11. It allows teachers to provide individualized instruction. When teachers are able to give students individualized attention, they can help students improve their own learning styles.

12. Encourages students to actively participate in class. When students feel safe and welcome in the classroom, they are more likely to interact with their teachers and classmates.

13. It increases student motivation. When students feel comfortable in the classroom, they are more likely to feel motivated to learn.

14. It helps students gain important skills that will help them succeed in the 21st century. It offers more flexibility to students. With that, they can be more productive in the 21st century.

12. It provides teachers with the tools necessary to support students' learning needs. Teachers have access to technology, a variety of resources, and sophisticated data collection systems.

13. It is conducive to collaboration and problem-solving. It teaches and encourages students to collaborate with friends when solving problems. It encourages students to work together when it is necessary for them to make decisions.

Conclusion

In conclusion, a positive classroom environment is important because it sets the tone for the rest of the school year. It can help boost students' morale and encourage them to learn. You should take the time to create a positive learning environment in your classrooms.

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Positive Classroom Environment: Why is it Important? - Classroom Management Expert

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A positive classroom environment has been shown to have many benefits for students. These benefits include increased academic achievement, increased engagement in learning, and a more positive outlook on life. A well-functioning classroom environment is one that is conducive to learning, where all students feel comfortable expressing themselves and are able to work cooperatively with...

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Strategies for Building a Productive and Positive Learning Environment

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Explore proven tips and strategies for building a productive and positive learning environment that foster academic success.

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The phrase "classroom procedures" may sound routine, but its impact is anything but ordinary. For every teacher, these procedures are the compass that guides the ship through the waters of a school day, ensuring a smooth and purposeful journey.

But what exactly are these classroom procedures, and why are they a fundamental cornerstone of effective teaching? How can they transform a chaotic classroom into a well-oiled learning machine?

In this guide, we'll demystify the world of classroom procedures, presenting you with 40+ indispensable practices that will not only streamline your teaching experience but also empower your students to excel. Whether you're a seasoned educator seeking to refine your methods or a new teacher looking for guidance, these classroom procedures hold the key to a more organized and successful classroom.

Why Setting Classroom Procedures is Important

The driver of an effective classroom isn't just the teacher's knowledge or students' enthusiasm; it's the artful orchestration with the goal of creating a positive learning environment. Setting classroom procedures is an essential skill for any educator, as it holds the key to a well-structured and purposeful learning environment.

Now, let's pinpoint five key reasons that underscore the importance of setting classroom procedures. These reasons not only validate the significance of these procedures but also highlight their transformative power in the educational landscape:

🌱 Establishing a Culture of Respect

Classroom procedures create a structured environment that fosters mutual respect between teachers and students, cultivating an atmosphere where everyone feels valued.

⏳ Optimizing Learning Time

By minimizing disruptions and streamlining transitions, classroom procedures ensure that every moment of instructional time is used effectively, maximizing the learning experience.

✊🏻 Empowering Student Responsibility

When students understand and follow procedures, they gain a sense of ownership over their actions and learning journey, promoting independence and accountability.

😮‍💨 Alleviating Educator Stress

Well-defined procedures reduce stress for teachers by providing clear guidelines and order in the classroom, allowing educators to focus on teaching and student engagement.

🎓 Enhancing Classroom Efficiency

Setting procedures enhances the overall efficiency of classroom operations, making daily tasks smoother and more manageable for both educators and students.

40+ Examples of Classroom Procedures You Should Employ ASAP

Setting the Tone for a Positive Classroom Environment

Creating a Welcoming Classroom Setup
The physical environment plays a pivotal role in setting a positive tone. Crafting a welcoming classroom setup involves thoughtfully arranging the space to encourage student engagement and interaction. This encompasses factors such as seating arrangements that facilitate discussions, utilizing bulletin boards to showcase achievements, and providing comfortable learning spaces. An inviting environment enhances the overall learning experience, making students feel more at ease and ready to participate actively.

Beginning of the School Day Procedures

Attendance Taking
Taking attendance is a crucial start to the school day. Efficiently recording who is present or absent sets the groundwork for daily tracking and helps identify any attendance trends.

Transitions and Movement Procedures

Moving Between Classes
Smooth transitions between classes are vital classroom procedures. Establish clear guidelines for moving between classes, such as designated routes and expected behavior in hallways. This ensures students arrive promptly and ready for the next lesson, minimizing disruptions and maximizing learning time.

Here is how you canuse a PowerPoint timer to facilitate classroom transitions.

Handling Classroom Disruptions
Classroom disruptions can derail the learning process. Implement procedures for addressing disruptions promptly and effectively. This may include signals for quieting the class, addressing behavioral issues, or seeking assistance from a school administrator when necessary. Consistency in handling disruptions promotes a respectful and focused learning environment.

Classroom and Behavioral Management Procedures

Reward and Consequence Systems
Implementing a reward and consequence system is another crucial classroom procedure. It offers students incentives for positive behavior while addressing undesirable conduct with appropriate consequences. Reward systems, such as praise, feedbacks, small incentives, or a points-based approach, encourage students to follow the rules. Simultaneously, a well-defined consequence system, such as time-outs or loss of privileges, provides a structured response to behavior that disrupts the learning environment.

You can even implement aleaderboard to track behavioral progress in the classroom.

Handling Conflicts and Discipline

Conflict resolution and discipline procedures are essential components of classroom management. Teach students how to address conflicts constructively, emphasizing communication, empathy, and problem-solving skills. When discipline is necessary, follow a consistent procedure that includes clear warnings, documentation, and parent communication. Handling conflicts and discipline in a fair and transparent manner fosters a classroom where students feel safe and respected.

Read here fora comprehensive guide to Classroom Conflict Resolution for teachers.

Instructional Procedures

Lesson Planning and Preparation
Effective lesson planning and preparation are critical classroom procedures. This involves carefully designing lessons that align with curriculum objectives, setting clear learning goals, and selecting appropriate instructional materials. Teachers should also consider different learning styles and abilities when planning to ensure that all students can access and engage with the content.

Try theseAI lesson plan generators to streamline your curriculum planning and have more time to focus on engaging with the students.

Encouraging Student Participation
Encouraging student participation is a classroom procedure that promotes active learning. It involves strategies to engage all students, such as asking open-ended questions, facilitating group discussions, and involving students in hands-on activities. Encouraging participation not only fosters a dynamic learning environment but also empowers students to take ownership of their education and develop critical thinking skills.

Homework and Assignment Procedures

1. Grading and Providing Feedback
Grading and feedback procedures are crucial for assessing student performance and providing opportunities for improvement. Develop a consistent grading system, including rubrics or criteria, or use automatic grading, to evaluate assignments objectively. Timely and constructive feedback, whether written or verbal, guides students in understanding their strengths and areas for growth. Encourage students to review their graded assignments and seek clarification on feedback to enhance their learning.

2. Addressing Late or Missing Assignments
Addressing late or missing assignments is part of maintaining classroom procedures related to homework. Establish a policy for handling late submissions, including consequences and opportunities for makeup work. Communicate this policy clearly to students and ensure it is consistently applied. When students consistently struggle with assignments, consider providing additional support or resources to help them meet expectations.

Assessment and Testing Procedures

Preparing for Tests and Quizzes
Effective test and quiz preparation procedures are essential for student success. Teachers should guide students on how to study efficiently, including organizing study materials, creating study guides, and managing time effectively. Encourage active learning strategies, such as summarizing content or teaching the material to others, to enhance comprehension and retention.

Here are thedifferent types of quizzes and assessments you can run with your students using ClassPoint, and how to set up a quiz effortlessly in PowerPoint.

1. Test-Taking Strategies
Test-taking strategies are valuable classroom procedures that empower students to perform well during assessments. Teach students techniques such as reading directions carefully, pacing themselves, and managing test anxiety. Additionally, discuss strategies for approaching different question types, like multiple-choice, short answer, or essay questions. Providing students with practice tests or sample questions can further enhance their test-taking skills.

2. Grading and Returning Assessments
Grading and assessment feedback procedures play a critical role in student learning. Develop a transparent grading system, including criteria and rubrics, to evaluate assessments objectively. Timely feedback on assessments helps students understand their strengths and areas for improvement. Additionally, consider reviewing common errors or misconceptions with the class to reinforce key concepts.

Technology and Device Procedures

Using Technology in the Classroom
Classroom procedures related to technology are vital in today's educational landscape. Educators should establish guidelines for the use of technology and AI tools during lessons, including when and how devices should be used, and the purpose of their use. Encourage responsible and purposeful use of technology to enhance learning outcomes.

Read thisAI in Education guide to equip yourself with everything you need to know about the use of AI in schools and how you can better prepare your students for the future of AI technology in education.

1. Digital Citizenship Guidelines
Teaching digital citizenship is an important classroom procedure. It involves educating students about responsible and ethical online behavior. Set clear expectations for online communication, respecting others' digital work, and safeguarding personal information. These guidelines help students navigate the digital world safely and responsibly.

2. Troubleshooting Technical Issues
Technical issues can arise unexpectedly. Classroom procedures should include troubleshooting steps for common technical problems. Teachers and students should be familiar with basic problem-solving techniques, such as checking connections, restarting devices, or seeking technical support. Swiftly addressing technical issues minimizes disruptions to the learning process.

Special Circumstances and Emergency Procedures

Learnstrategies to engage with introverted learners and how you can leverage the power of ChatGPT to tailor teaching materials to students with special needs here.

Dealing with Unexpected Situations

Classroom procedures should also cover how to deal with unexpected situations. Whether it's a sudden disruption, a medical incident, or unexpected visitor, having protocols in place helps maintain safety and order. Teachers should communicate procedures to students, so they know how to respond appropriately, and ensure that they have access to necessary resources or contacts for assistance.

End of the School Day and Dismissal Procedures

Dismissal Routines
Dismissal routines are essential for a smooth and organized end to the school day. Establish procedures for how students should pack up their belongings, line up for dismissal, and exit the classroom. Ensure that these routines are communicated clearly to students and consistently enforced. Smooth dismissals help maintain order and safety.

Here ishow you can use a PowerPoint timer to facilitate end-of-day routine.

Effective communication with parents is a valuable classroom procedure, especially at the end of the school day. Teachers should establish communication channels, such as newsletters, emails, or meetings, to keep parents informed about their child's progress, upcoming events, and any specific concerns. Maintaining open lines of communication fosters a strong partnership between teachers and parents in supporting students' education.

Self-paced Study Procedures

Parent-Teacher Communication Procedures

Classroom Cleanup and Organization Procedures

Professional Development and Self-Care Procedures

These classroom procedures work hand-in-hand with classroom management strategies and classroom management styles to create an effective and productive learning environment. If you are new to the teaching scene, these classroom management styles tailored for new teachers may be helpful to you.

How Classroom Procedures Differ for Elementary School, Middle School and High School Teachers

Elementary school classroom procedures:

Are Simpler: Classroom procedures are simpler because younger kids have shorter attention spans and might find abstract concepts a bit tricky to grasp.

Require More Routines: Elementary classrooms have lots of routines, like lining up, raising your hand to talk, and taking bathroom breaks at specific times. These routines help keep everything in order and predictable.

Use More Positive Encouragement: Positive encouragement and reinforcement work well for younger kids to motivate good behaviors and following the rules.

Middle school classroom procedures:

Emphasise on Independence and Responsibility: As you move up to middle school, you're expected to follow the rules and be responsible for your own actions.

Involve Clear Expectations and Communication: Instead of using a lot of rewards and positive reinforcement, middle school students have learned how to follow rules and know what good behaviours entail, so setting clear expectations and having good communication is key to maintaining these positive behaviours.

Involve A Lot More Transitions: The daily routine of middle school students involve more classroom transitions so having established classroom transition routines would help students to move between classes efficiently.

High school classroom procedures:

Involve More Freedom: In high school, teachers should treat students like adults and expect them to be able to manage their time and responsibilities independently rather than setting rules for every single thing.

Emphasise on Communication Skills: Because more freedom is involved, students learn how to better communicate with teachers and voice out when they need help. Classroom procedures should provide students a way to reach out and communicate effectively.

Getting Ready for Adulthood: High school is like a preparation for college and adult life. Procedures should emphasize self-discipline and responsibility because you'll need those skills later on.

Focus on More Complex Work and Problems: High school procedures focus more on how to handle more complicated assignments and problems, like research projects and long-term goals.

Examples of Classroom Procedures for Elementary School, Middle School and High School Teachers

Best Practices in Implementing Classroom Procedures

While classroom procedures are crucial for maintaining order and maximizing learning time, their effectiveness often hinges on how well they are implemented. Here, let's see the best practices that you can employ to ensure that classroom procedures not only run smoothly but also enhance the overall classroom experience. These strategies go beyond rules and regulations, focusing on fostering a positive and productive learning environment.

Lead by Example
Teachers should model the behavior they expect from students. When teachers demonstrate respect, punctuality, and a commitment to the learning process, students are more likely to follow suit.

Conclusion

As we've explored these 40+ essential classroom procedures, it's clear that they are the building blocks of effective teaching and learning. They provide structure, create a sense of safety, and allow teachers to focus on what truly matters-the growth and development of their students. With the right procedures in place, the classroom becomes a place where both teachers and students can succeed and reach their full potential.

By embracing and adapting these procedures to fit your unique teaching style and classroom needs, you ensure that every day in the classroom is an opportunity for growth, teamwork, and inspiration. And if you think these procedures are a handful of tasks to employ - don't sweat! Small steps matter, too! Be sure to slowly build what your classroom needs, one procedure at a time.

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40+ Must-Have Classroom Procedures for All Grade Levels | ClassPoint

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Successful classrooms are not built overnight. Most, if not all, take a handful of strategy testing to work. Fret not! We've laid out a full guide on effective classroom procedures for elementary, middle and high schools you should try out!

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17 Classroom Management Strategies & Examples That Really Work

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Explore easy classroom management strategies and ideas from other teachers to keep the classroom running smoothly and meet the 3 C’s.

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Today we're taking a close look at some favorite classroom organization ideas. Why? Because organization is a key component of classroom management. There are so many benefits to an organized classroom:

Less prep time wasted looking for things

Students can access materials independently

Less clean-up because students can put away materials

Prevents unnecessary spending to replace misplaced/lost supplies

Less clutter/mess = less overstimulation

...and so much more! But it can be hard to know where to get started, especially when staring at an entire classroom. Today I'm sharing seven of my favorite classroom organization ideas that really created SOLUTIONS to the organization problems I was having in my classroom.

Classroom Organization Ideas #1

Center Activity Files

This classroom organization idea truly streamlined our center routines. By coordinating the center activities and groups by colors, students could easily find their work and get started. Students in the green math group, for example, will head to green files and bins to find their center activities. I can make sure that the activities in each color file coordinate with just-right work for each group and easily refill pages as they run low.

Classroom Organization Ideas #2

Student Coin Banks

Since manipulatives are a big part of our math center routines, we needed a way to easily access and clean up manipulatives. I wanted my students to be able to get started right away, not spend half of their precious center time gathering the right coins for a game. And I didn't want to spend my precious prep time sorting out coins for each group.

Enter another "grab and go" classroom organization idea: coin banks. Simply, set up these banks with all of the coins students may need and add coin bank labels to the top. Students can easily take a bank and get started on their game.

Classroom Organization Ideas #3

Book Buddy App

With our classroom libraries continuing to grow and change, sometimes it can be hard to find the book we're looking for. Likewise, sometimes it's hard to remember if we have a book or borrowed it from the library. Well, friends, there's an app for that! Meet the Book Buddy App. This classroom organization idea has saved me so much time! (And thank you Dia from Elementary Edventure for introducing me to it!)

I use this app to track the books in my classroom library. You can scan each book to add it to your "library," then tag each book by subject, month, holiday, theme...etc. When you want to find a book or group of books, you can just look up the tag and pull those books. The books can live in your classroom library all year for students to enjoy (instead of on a special teacher shelf). And you're not left trying to remember every single book you have on a particular topic.

Classroom Organization Ideas #4

Dice Organizer

You might know by now that I love dice. My dice collection is vast, and I love including a variety of dice to differentiate match centers. With so many different dice options, I needed a way for my students to easily access the dice. A dice organizer and dice organizer labels, create space to separate and sort the different types of dice. Easy and independent access and clean-up for students!

Classroom Organization Ideas #5

Finished Work Mailboxes

Oh my goodness! Can I tell you how much time this small shift saved? A ton! After years of using a traditional "finished work bin," and dreading the regular sorting of papers that came along with it, I changed things up. Utilizing a classroom mailbox system, I made individual finished work mailboxes.

With this classroom organization idea, students place their finished work directly in their own mailbox. This system saved countless hours when it came time to:

sort work

send work home

select work samples

quickly assess which students were missing assignments

No more sorting that big basket of work!

Classroom Organization Ideas #6

Student Toolboxes

This classroom organization idea began as a way to support flexible seating in the classroom, and it has become a classroom staple. Containing each student's key supplies in a school box allows students to move freely around the classroom to their just-right workspace. Students can truly "grab and go" and work anywhere in the room. Items that usually fit inside a toolbox include:

Classroom Organization Ideas #7

Individual White Board Supplies

Are you catching on to a "grab and go" theme in many of these classroom organization ideas? The more we can batch materials that students need, the less time they'll need to spend gathering individual materials. Whiteboards were another area that just seemed to take so much time to get everyone situated...the whiteboard, the marker, and the eraser. How could we streamline this process?

Individual whiteboard cases! This classroom organization idea puts everything we need into one case. Since the cases and whiteboards are 5×7, storing individual whiteboard cases takes up less space in the classroom.

Bonus Classroom Organization Ideas:

Hang things that can't go on shelves

I intended to write about 7 classroom organization ideas, but I just wanted to throw this one out there too. I used to get so frustrated with longer items that wouldn't stay neatly on shelves (like number lines and alphabet strips!)

That was until I decided to start hanging them. I put them at student height and never looked back! You can use magnetic hooks as I have here, or 3M command hooks for walls, cabinet doors, or the back of shelves.

I hope that these classroom organization ideas give you some fresh ideas to save time and make your systems run a little smoother. Do you have a favorite classroom organization idea? I'd love to hear about it!

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7 Classroom Organization Ideas to Save You Time - Teaching with Jillian Starr

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Let's talk about classroom organization ideas to save your teacher prep time and support student independence.

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Turn In Tray (Would use for different class periods)

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Turn In Tray (Would use for different class periods)

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1. Ask "What stuck with you today?"

Find out what made the most impact with one simple question. Sticky notes are fantastic for exit tickets; just have each student post theirs to the board on their way out the door.

2. Lunch questions

In elementary classrooms, there's no need to wait until the end of the day. Try using exit tickets before lunch or recess. Kids too young to write? Have them tell you their answer on their way out the door.

3. Have them "tweet" it

This cute "Twitter" board is sure to appeal to young social media fans. Laminate the cards so they can be reused each day.

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4. Gauge understanding with emojis

Here's another way to help today's kids connect and share their progress. Have them circle an emoji on this free printable and explain why it reflects their understanding.

5. Record a Flip video

Flip (formerly Flipgrid) is a totally free online tool for schools, where kids record video answers to a question posted by their teacher. This is such a cool exit ticket idea for virtual classrooms, though it works in face-to-face classrooms too.

6. Collect exit tickets on a traffic light

Have students post their tickets on a traffic light to indicate whether they're doing fine or struggling a bit. That way, you can focus on those who need more help first.

7. Give them a prompt

Sometimes exit tickets are very specific, but other times you just want to know what students' general reaction was to the class that day. We like this simple option that offers a few prompts to get them started.

8. Use the "Post-It, Prove It" method of exit tickets

Here's an example of a more specific exit question. Try to ask questions that have more than one right answer, so students don't just copy each other's responses.

9. Let them teach others

Kids often surprise us by looking at things in entirely different ways but still getting the correct answers. Their thoughts on a subject may give you ideas for helping other students who need a bit more instruction.

10. Take a poll

Online polls make terrific exit tickets. Poll Everywhere is free to use, and kids can text their answers. Fun!

11. Encourage self-reflection

Valuable as they are to teachers, exit tickets are also important for helping students self-assess. This version lets them reflect on their strengths and areas for improvement.

12. Tell two facts and a fib

We love this interactive ticket idea! Kids write down two facts about today's subject and one fib. They trade with another student to see if they can guess the incorrect fact before turning them in.

13. Try them in any class

Oui, oui, les "billets de sortie" work in French class, or Chemistry, or Art History ... every teacher should try them.

14. Keep an exit ticket journal

Give exit tickets a bit more substance by having students keep them in a journal. This gives them a nice record of learning and can help when it comes time to review for tests or write a paper.

15. Post exit tickets on Padlet

Think of Padlet as an online bulletin board. Teachers post a question or topic, and kids add their answers. See our review of Padlet here, then give it a try.

16. Print exit tickets on sticky notes

Did you know you can easily print on sticky notes? This game changer means you can easily customize exit tickets for any topic.

17. Write a 3, 2, 1 list

The 3, 2, 1 method allows kids to self-assess, but it also lets them indicate a deeper level of interest in the topic at hand.

18. Make it a mini-assessment

You'll have to prep these in advance, but an assessment exit ticket is sort of like a no-stress quiz. Kids simply do their best, without worrying about grades, and you get a better feel for their progress.

19. Fill up a shopping cart

Here's a chance to really see what their takeaways were from a lesson. This will let you see if your learning objectives are coming through as they should.

20. Follow science lab with exit tickets

Hands-on science exploration should be followed up with written observations and conclusions. Use exit tickets to check for understanding.

21. Sum it up with one sentence

Help your students distill what the day's lesson was all about with a one-sentence summary. This requires students to prioritize the most important elements of the activity and reveals whether they are getting the "big picture."

22. Keep it simple

Sometimes you look out at your students and you see a lot of blank stares. When this happens, take a quick moment to use this exit slip. It will help you assess who's on board and who needs further instruction.

23. Change it up

If you always use the same exit tickets after a lesson, your students might go on autopilot. Change up your format by asking students how they're doing in a variety of ways.

24. Match your exit tickets with your teaching philosophy

These colorful prompts were developed to support the Habits of Mind framework. Choose from questions that encourage your students to observe, reflect, and explore what they're learning.

25. Collect answers on Google Forms

Teaching online or looking to save paper? Collect your tickets using Google Forms instead. This is especially useful if you're already using Google Classroom.

26. Take time to analyze exit tickets

Make sure your exit tickets are worth the effort. Spend a little time at the end of each class or day looking over student responses, and make notes about any needs they indicate.

Exit tickets are just one type of formative assessment. Check out our guide to formative assessment.

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26 Exit Ticket Ideas and Examples That Give Immediate Feedback

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Use exit tickets to check student understanding of what they learned and get immediate feedback on that day's lesson.

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No two students are alike, and the way every person learns will vary. Our brains are all unique, and our experiences all contribute to the different ways we learn. Psychologists have spent countless hours performing tests to better understand how students learn.

Current and aspiring teachers need tobe educated to be prepared for teaching students every day, and an important part of teacher education is understanding different ways of learning. There are many solidified learning theories that teachers can learn from as they prepare to help students in the classroom. Teachers who understand learning theories can use different techniques in their classrooms to cater to different kinds of learning. This can help all students find success in learning.

There are five main educational learning theories that educators can utilize to help them enhance their classrooms and make them better learning environments for all students.

Cognitive learning theory looks at the way people think. Mental processes are an important part in understanding how we learn. The cognitive theory understands that learners can be influenced by both internal and external elements.

Plato and Descartes are two of the first philosophers that focused on cognition and how we as human beings think. Many other researchers looked deeper into the idea of how we think, spurring more research. Jean Piaget is a highly important figure in the field of cognitive psychology, and his work focuses on environments and internal structures and how they impact learning.

Cognitive theory has developed over time, breaking off into sub-theories that focus on unique elements of learning and understanding. At the most basic level, the cognitive theory suggests that internal thoughts and external forces are both an important part of the cognitive process. And as students understand how their thinking impacts their learning and behavior, they are able to have more control over it.

Cognitive learning theory impacts students because their understanding of their thought process can help them learn. Teachers can give students opportunities to ask questions, to fail, and think out loud. These strategies can help students understand how their thought process works, and utilize this knowledge to construct better learning opportunities.

Behaviorism learning theory is the idea that how a student behaves is based on their interaction with their environment. It suggests that behaviors are influenced and learned from external forces rather than internal forces.

Psychologists have been developing the idea of behaviorism since the 19th century. Behavioral learning theory is the basis for psychology that can be observed and quantified. Positive reinforcement is a popular element of behaviorism-classical conditioning observed in Pavlov's dog experiments suggests that behaviors are directly motivated by the reward that can be obtained.

Teachers in a classroom can utilize positive reinforcement to help students better learn a concept. Students who receive positive reinforcement are more likely to retain information moving forward, a direct result of the behaviorism theory.

Constructivism learning theory is based on the idea that students actually create their own learning based on their previous experiences. Students take what they're being taught and add it to their previous knowledge and experiences, creating a reality that's unique to them. This learning theory focuses on learning as an active process, which is personal and individual for each student.

Teachers can utilize constructivism to help understand that each student will bring their own past to the classroom every day. Teachers in constructivist classrooms act as more of a guide to helping students create their own learning and understanding. They help them create their own process and reality based on their own past. This is crucial to helping many kinds of students take their own experiences and include them in their learning.

Humanism is very closely related to constructivism. Humanism directly focuses on the idea of self-actualization. Everyone functions under a hierarchy of needs. Self-actualization is at the top of the hierarchy of needs-it's the brief moments where a person feels all of their needs are met and that they're the best possible version of themselves. Everyone is striving for this, and learning environments can either move toward meeting needs or away from meeting needs.

Teachers can create classroom environments that help students get closer to their self-actualization. Educators can help fulfill students' emotional and physical needs, giving them a safe and comfortable place to learn, plenty of food, and the support they need to succeed. This kind of environment is the most conducive to helping students learn.

Connectivism is one of the newest educational learning theories. It focuses on the idea that people learn and grow when they form connections. This can be connections with each other or connections with their roles and obligations in their lives. Hobbies, goals, and people can all be connections that influence learning.

Teachers can utilize connectivism in their classrooms to help students make connections to things that excite them, helping them learn. Teachers can use digital media to make good, positive connections to learning. They can help create connections and relationships with their students and with their peer groups to help students feel motivated about learning.

While these five learning theories are the main educational learning theories for teachers who want to support their students' learning, there are additional theories they may want to understand. Some may work as good supplemental theories for teachers to bolster their educational support with a new approach.

Transformative learning theory is a great approach for adult education and young adult learning. Also referred to as transformation learning, transformative learning theory focuses on the idea that learners can adjust their thinking based on new information.

This learning theory was founded by Jack Mezirow, who discovered it after doing studies on adult women who went back to school. His initial research found that adults don't apply their old understanding to new situations and that having a new perspective helped them gain a new understanding of things as they change. Mezirow also believed that students had important teaching and learning opportunities connected to their past experiences and that critical reflection and review could lead to a transformation of their understanding.

This approach works well for adult students, as children don't have the same kind of transformation with their learning experiences-and with life experience. Adult students could draw on childhood experiences and transforming those beliefs and understandings using critical reflection, leading them to an understanding of what they should believe and understand as adults.

Overall, the theory states that our worldview is changed the more we learn, which helps us grasp new concepts and ideas. By getting new information that helps evaluate past ideas, students are able to make a dramatic educational shift beyond standard learning. Teachers can employ this learning theory by encouraging their students to learn new perspectives while questioning their assumptions and open the floor for discourse to cement their new train of thought.

Using social learning theory can be a valuable tool for dealing with difficult students who like to disrupt the classroom and cause trouble. This theory focuses on the concept of children learning from observing others by acting on or not acting on what they see exhibited by their classmates. For example, they may see a classmate politely asking for a treat and getting one, or maybe they hear another classmate talking about something new they've learned, which teaches the student something new even if it's not something they try themselves.

This learning theory was founded by Albert Bandura. He conducted an experiment called the Bobo doll experiment in the early '60s, during which he studied children's behavior after they watched an adult act aggressively with a doll-like toy. He noted how the children reacted when the adult got rewarded, punished, or suffered no consequences after they attacked the doll. Bandura wrote about his findings in 1977, detailing social learning theory and how it affected the behavioral development of students.

There are four elements to social learning theory:

Attention, which calls upon different or unique lessons or activities to help children focus.

Retention, focusing on how the student will internalize information and recall it later on.

Reproduction, drawing on previously learned behavior and when it's appropriate to use it.

Motivation, which can extend from seeing other classmates being rewarded or punished for their actions.

By using social modeling based on these elements, teachers have a very powerful tool in their arsenal that can effectively guide their students to be more active in their learning, pay more attention, and channel their energy into their schooling.

Experiential learning theory focuses on learning by doing. Using this theory, students are encouraged to learn through experiences that can help them retain information and recall facts.

Experiential learning theory, or ELT, was identified by David Kolb in 1984. Though his influence came from other theorists such as John Dewey, Kurt Lewin, and Jean Piaget, Kolb was able to identify four stages of ELT. The first two stages, concrete learning and reflective observation, focus on grasping an experience. The latter two, abstract conceptualization and active experimentation are about transforming an experience. To Kolb, effective learning is seen as the learner goes through the cycle of experiential learning theory. Students can enter the cycle in any way and at any point.

Some examples of this form of learning include taking students to the zoo to learn about animals instead of just reading about them or growing a garden to learn about photosynthesis instead of watching a video about it. By creating environments where students can learn and experience at the same time, teachers offer students the opportunity to immediately apply their knowledge and get real-world experiences. This approach also encourages teamwork and is shown to improve motivation.

Teachers can create specific strategies and techniques to apply these learning theories in their classrooms. Teachers need to first focus on getting a well-rounded education to learn about all kinds of techniques for teaching and classroom management. Teachers need to understand learning theories to be prepared to utilize them in their classrooms.

An understanding of learning theories helps teachers connect to all different kinds of students. Teachers can focus on different learning styles to reach different students, creating teaching that focuses directly on student needs and aptitudes.

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When considering the best approach to helping students learn, teachers may call upon learning theories to support their educational pursuits. Read on to discover the five main educational theories and three supplemental theories that can make a big difference in how students learn.

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Instructional Strategies to Engage Learners

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Instructional Strategies to Engage Learners

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By: Steve Ventura

When it comes to teaching students virtually, instruction often differs from what teaching looks like in the classroom. As we enter the 2020-21 school year, we know that districts have varied plans for what in-person and remote learning will look like, and we are well aware that things can change at any time, and school buildings could end up closed once again. As teachers and leaders grapple with the "new normal" of school, instruction that can meet the needs of learners in any setting should be top of mind.

We've compiled a few of the best instructional strategies that transfer easily from the classroom to a virtual learning environment. These instructional strategies are teacher actions designed to raise student levels of thinking and learning around specific learning intentions or goals. They are purposeful methods of instruction that help create vibrant, independent students who can assess their own learning, whether they are in your physical classroom or learning from a distance.

Metacognition: Thinking about your own thinking.

Metacognition is a valuable tool to use in the classroom to enhance student learning both for an immediate outcome or for providing students with skills to understand their own learning process. Research shows that metacognition is a skill that, when explicitly taught to students, becomes central to other skill sets such as problem-solving, decision making, and critical thinking. The skill of teaching students to manage their own learning and train their own brains has never been more important with the switch to virtual learning.

Here are four ways to increase your students' understanding of what it means to "think about your own thinking":

Teach by Example: Guide students explicitly through the process of problem-solving through mistakes and successes as you model aloud how you learn a new concept. This can be done in the classroom or on a prerecorded video clip for virtual learning. For example, model the act of learning a new app you just downloaded on your phone. Think aloud as you model how to solve problems and learn about the app and how it can work to meet your needs. If you are teaching virtually, the program Screencastify allows you to prerecord a video and upload it for students to view.

Freedom or Choice: Give students a choice over which projects, activities, or questions they can choose to complete first. This will generate more interest and responsibility. For example, instead of ending a unit with a traditional written test, allow students to choose showing mastery via a written essay, a completed project that was pre-approved by you, or something else.

Look for Opportunities: Model and apply metacognition across subject areas and in a variety of lessons to allow students to transfer their understanding and see the value. This can be achieved by discussing a narrative story and annotating the key points, words, and phrases on a Google doc, to illustrate thinking about it while you are reading. Other examples include discussing mental math while solving problems on a whiteboard or virtually on a platform like Jamboard or thinking aloud about science hypotheses while conducting experiments live or using a tool like Screencastify.

Encourage Metacognition through Student Response Activities: Use exit strategies in the classroom or daily check-ins virtually to have students record their own comprehension and summarize their learning. One great example is from The Teacher Toolkit with their 3-2-1 Exit Strategy. By asking students questions about their interests and learning from that day's lesson, you are encouraging metacognitive thinking while capturing data around reteaching needs and student interests. This can be done virtually on tools such as Padlet, Google slides, or Google forum.

Jigsaw: Cooperative learning through shared responsibility.

Jigsaw is a cooperative learning strategy that has been around for decades. When used correctly, it is a great way to build dialogue, study skills, confidence, and teamwork as all students are responsible for a piece of the learning puzzle. It can be a compelling way to get students to take ownership of their learning by having them teach content to other students, though it is a strategy that is often overlooked and not always used correctly.

Jennifer Gonzalez wrote a blog post about the Jigsaw Method in her popular Cult of Pedagogy blog where she referenced the history of why this strategy was developed. In 1971, social psychologist Elliot Aronson developed the Jigsaw Method as a response to racial tensions caused by desegregation in Austin. The goal was for students to work together and learn from each other, creating an organic partnership built on joint success. This method shifted the culture of competitiveness to cooperation and is still widely used in classrooms today.

Using the Jigsaw strategy in the classroom creates a sense of belonging and self-worth in students. As students begin to see that as they are teaching others, they see themselves as a piece of the classroom community.

Here are five steps on how to use the Jigsaw whether you're teaching in person or from a distance:

Home Groups: Divide students into equal groups of four to six people and appoint a leader. These groups will be the "home groups." These groups should be made up of diverse populations of students allowing members to collaborate with students of different genders, performance levels, ethnicities, races, etc.

Chunking the Group: Divide the day's lesson in four to six chunks. Explain to the group that each member will be responsible for learning about and teaching one section of the content to their home group. For example, in a middle school history lesson, students may read about a technological contribution created by the ancient Romans and how it improved daily life. For primary students, you might try this with a topic like the life cycle of a butterfly, assigning simple explanations of the assigned stage characteristics. If this is a virtual assignment, divide students into groups and assign chunks of different content to learn via Google Classroom or another similar platform. Likewise, you can use a tool like EdPuzzle and post video clips with questions that will guide student responses.

Expert Groups: Once each student in the home group has their assigned chuck of the information, they move out into "expert groups" made up of students with the same information. Each student should silently read their assigned information and then begin a discussion on the main points. This is where you may want to assign question stems for the group to use during their discussion. For example, when reading about the Roman technological advancement, the guiding questions should have students explain the invention, explain how it was used, and describe the affect it had to improve the quality of life. For primary grades, divide students into expert groups for each butterfly lifecycle stage: egg, caterpillar (larva), chrysalis (pupa), and adult. Students would illustrate and label the parts of the butterfly in their expert groups. When doing this part of the Jigsaw virtually, use a tool like Seesaw where students can draw and record their explanations and responses or for older students, use virtual discussion boards for the expert groups.

Bring it Home: After preparing their thoughts and presentations in expert groups, students will move back to their home group. Each student will present their findings to their home group. Presentations can be shared through discussion, poster, Google slide, or another way that would allow the group to summarize their findings.

Assessment: It is important to assess how well all students understand the content since each member of the home group will be responsible for learning the content. Students could fill in a graphic organizer regarding all the Roman technological advancements, create a poster showing the connection between the advancements and Roman life, complete a digital or paper quiz, create a virtual slide show as a team, etc. Primary students could fill in a graphic organizer or Thinking Map showing the life cycle of the butterfly or virtually you could hold a class discussion where home teams answer questions as you show illustrations of the butterfly's life cycle.

Classroom Discussion: Student-led dialogue and discussion.

Have you ever presented a lesson or topic to your class with no feedback on how they interpreted the information? This has been especially difficult during the virtual learning. Many students miss the collaborative engagement that takes place in the classroom, and teachers miss the connections they have with their students.

Intentionally building in time for classroom discussion to take place in which the teacher and students have time to interact with each other after new information has been presented is powerful. Increasing more dialogue and reducing monologue through classroom discussion after lecturing for a short period of time and then providing thought-provoking questions to prompt discussion provides teachers with feedback, helps students to learn from one another, and promotes better retention of information.

Here are four benefits and ways to infuse classroom discussion into lessons:

Increased Student Engagement: Blending lecture with time for students to discuss information creates a strong sense of classroom community. Students learn from each other and make deeper connections to the content. When students feel that their voice is validated, they become more involved in their own learning. One way to incorporate this into the classroom is through and an activity called Numbered Heads Together. This is a cooperative learning strategy where students work in groups to come up with a group answer to a question. Each student is responsible for the answer because they may be called on to share their thinking aloud. When teaching virtually, use a tool like Padlet where students create stickies to frame their answers and then come up with a team answer in the form of a Tweet.

Promotes Higher-Level Thinking Skills and Feedback: To make learning meaningful, engage students in discussions by using questions that require students to think critically. This can also be done by posing open-ended questions where students generate answers and share their thought processes. Through these discussions, you will receive feedback on students' understanding of the topic and you can provide students with guidance on the correct answer. One activity that can be used to promote higher-level thinking is the Fishbowl strategy. Start by dividing the class into two circles. Students in the inner circle participate in a class discussion while the students in the outer circle make observations and take notes. Author and education expert Catlin Tucker has also developed a way to bring the strategy virtual through the Online Fishbowl in a recent blog post.

Provides Opportunities for Language Development: When you create safe environments for students to engage in discussions, you are preparing them for real-world situations for public speaking and dialogue. Classroom discussions give English language learners opportunities to interact with their peers and develop vocabulary through positive interactions. This strategy also provides scaffolding to help students grasp the concepts in content areas. This might be developed using a technique called Give One, Get One. Students fold a piece of paper down the middle and write down everything they remember from a story or lesson on the left side of the sheet. Then they go around the room and find ten people who have a different answer and record that on the right side of the paper. This could be modified virtually through Google forum, Pear Deck, or Padlet.

Increased Classroom Control: When students are actively engaged in the learning process, classrooms have fewer discipline problems. Engaging students in academically challenging and equitable discussions provides students with an opportunity to be heard and feel connected. Here are a few more ideas that can increase classroom discussion and motivation: Gallery Walk, Socratic Seminar, Four Corners, and Think-Pair-Share.

When educators focus on instructional strategies, students are more engaged in learning and research shows they likely see an increase in student achievement. Whether you teach in a traditional classroom this fall, find yourself teaching in a hybrid model, or teach 100% remote, using strategies to focus on instruction and engagement of all students will make an impact, regardless of the teaching mode that is used.

List of Online Tools

Here is a full list of the tools I referenced in this post. Many districts have contracts or partnerships with some education companies, and so you may be limited to use what your school has available, but many of these are free for educators. Please check with your school leadership or technology team to understand which tools your school or district approve to use virtually.

List of Recommended Instructional Strategies

Here is the list of instructional strategies I referenced in this post, that originated from other education experts. To learn more about each strategy, follow the appropriate link.
References
Catlin Tucker, "8 ideas designed to engage students in active online learning" Catlin Tucker (blog), July 9, 2020, https://catlintucker.com/2020/07/8-ideas-designed-to-engage-students-online/.

Ellen Key, "English language learners in the elementary classroom: a handbook for beginning teachers" Penn State College of Education, December 8, 2004. https://ed.psu.edu/pds/elementary/intern-resources/esl-handbook.

Jennifer Gonzalez, "4 things you don't know about the jigsaw method" Cult of Pedagogy (blog), April 15, 2015. https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/jigsaw-teaching-strategy/.

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3 Highly-Effective Instructional Strategies to Engage Students-Both in the Classroom and Virtually!

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Steve Ventura's education blog from Advanced Collaborative Solutions. Topics for school leaders and teachers include PD, professional development, Visible Learning, Achievement Teams, PLCs, and more.

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Learning takes place in students' heads where it is invisible to others. This means that learning must be assessed through performance: what students can do with their learning. Assessing students' performance can involve assessments that are formal or informal, high- or low-stakes, anonymous or public, individual or collective.

Here we provide suggestions and strategies for assessing student learning and performance as well as ways to clarify your expectations and performance criteria to students.

CONTACT US to talk with an Eberly colleague in person!

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Assessing Student Learning - Eberly Center - Carnegie Mellon University

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Learning takes place in students' heads where it is invisible to others. This means that learning must be assessed through performance: what students can do with their learning. Assessing students' performance can involve assessments that are formal or informal, high- or low-stakes, anonymous or public, individual or collective.

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As a new teacher, you are probably being asked how your learning objectives are linked to standards. You might even be asked to display your objectives and/or standards for each lesson. On top of taking attendance, learning student names, classroom management . . . are you wondering how you will accomplish that? Don't despair, this is not as daunting as it seems!

Why Do We Link Objectives to Standards?

Hopefully, you are using the standards as a foundation for what you teach so that your students are learning the material they should be learning; that's the science of teaching. Then you take the standards and create objectives for your students; that's the art of teaching. You think about the question: "What do I want students to learn, and how will they demonstrate that learning?" Look at the example below where we have taken the standard for "solving problems" and made it creative by having students "create a blueprint." That's how we make a meaningful connection between the standards and objectives. That's how we link the science of teaching to the art of teaching. We have also included writing, which is a focus of Common Core Standards. Yet it is not just writing an explanation; it is a persuasive essay.

Example

Standard: Solve problems involving scale drawings of geometric figures, including computing actual lengths and areas from a scale drawing and reproducing a scale drawing at a different scale. (This is a Common Core mathematics standard for seventh grade.)

Objective: Students will compute lengths and areas of a classroom to create a blueprint of the classroom indicating the scale used. When finished, students will write a "sales pitch" to a person explaining why their blueprint is accurate and should be purchased.

Within the objective, we have included the "what" and the "how." This will keep us on task in the classroom and will tell the students what the task is. When we post this objective for the students, we are letting them know the task at hand and that it is important enough to post. We have also included multiple levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, which is important to ensure that our students are critical thinkers.

Creating Objectives

So here is the challenge. Take the standards below and create objectives for your classroom. Choose a grade level, or several grade levels. The standards are listed by grade levels and are taken directly from the Common Core Standards.

Kindergarten: Correctly name shapes regardless of their orientations or overall size.

Grade 1: Partition circles and rectangles into two and four equal shares, describe the shares using the words halves, fourths and quarters, and use the phrases half of, fourth of and quarter of. Describe the whole as two of, or four of the shares. Understand for these examples that decomposing into more equal shares creates smaller shares.

Grade 2: Recognize and draw shapes having specified attributes, such as a given number of angles or a given number of equal faces. Identify triangles, quadrilaterals, pentagons, hexagons and cubes.

Grade 3: Partition shapes into parts with equal areas. Express the area of each part as a unit fraction of the whole. For example, partition a shape into four parts with equal area, and describe the area of each part as 1/4 of the area of the shape.

Grade 4: Draw points, lines, line segments, rays, angles (right, acute, obtuse), and perpendicular and parallel lines. Identify these in two-dimensional figures.

Grade 5: Classify two-dimensional figures in a hierarchy based on properties.

Grade 6: Find the area of right triangles, other triangles, special quadrilaterals, and polygons by composing into rectangles or decomposing into triangles and other shapes; apply these techniques in the context of solving real-world and mathematical problems.

Grade 7: Know the formulas for the area and circumference of a circle, and use them to solve problems; give an informal derivation of the relationship between the circumference and area of a circle.

Grade 8: Apply the Pythagorean Theorem to determine unknown side lengths in right triangles in real-world and mathematical problems in two and three dimensions.

Once you've met this challenge, post your objectives in the comments section below, and let's help each other take the science of teaching and connect it to the art of teaching.

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Meaningful Connections: Objectives and Standards

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As a new teacher, you are probably being asked how your learning objectives are linked to standards. You might even be asked to display your objectives and/or standards for each lesson. On top of taking attendance, learning student names, classroom management . . . are you wondering how you will accomplish that?

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Student Prior Knowledge and Background Information

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Student Prior Knowledge and Background Information

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The new question-of-the-week is:
What are the best ways to activate and build students' background knowledge, and why is it important?
Our students have a great deal of background knowledge that teachers need to activate so that they can learn new content. And students need to be provided with additional background knowledge so that they can access even more content!

This two-part series will look at what we mean by the term "background knowledge," why it's important, and how we teachers can best identify and develop it both in the physical classroom and during remote teaching.

Today, Adam Fachler, Jeffrey Wilhelm, Rachel Bear, Cheryl Abla, Elizabeth Villanueva, Jenny Vo, and Sarah Said share their commentaries. You can listen to a 10-minute conversation I had with Jeffrey, Rachel, Cheryl, and Elizabeth on my BAM! Radio Show. You can also find a list of, and links to, previous shows here.
"Priming" students for success
Jeffery D. Wilhelm, Adam Fachler, and Rachel Bear are the authors of the book Planning Powerful Instruction: 7 Must-Make Moves to Transform How We Teach--and How Students Learn":

In our book, Planning Powerful Instruction (Corwin), we argue that a central move of teaching is priming to prepare students for success. (This is much more efficient and fun than remediating learners once they have begun to struggle.) The only resources that learners have for approaching a new challenge is what they already know and are already interested in. The only way to build new interests and capacities is by activating and building on students' prior interests and background knowledge before instruction. This process honors what students bring to the classroom and provides them with necessary context and connection to the purpose and payoff of what is to be learned. It is essential to culturally relevant pedagogy.

But the biggest reason we begin new learning experiences with activities that "prime" students for the learning ahead is this:

There is no alternative! All new learning builds on prior learning.

When we activate and build students' background knowledge:

Students see the connection between previous and current learning.

We establish a set of conceptual "hooks" on which students can "hang" new learning.

Students get on the same page with us.

We receive formative-assessment data we can use throughout the learning experience.

Not only does this practice provide myriad benefits and accord with how the brain functions, it also describes how experts in every field develop expertise. Everyone from engineers to entrepreneurs ask themselves, " What is already known and how do we know it-and how might we extend and build on it?" before undertaking a new project.

If the best instruction mirrors or approximates how individuals in the real world learn, then it stands to reason that we should do what they do.

So, what are the best ways to get it done? Here is a short list of our favorite techniques:

Solving a "junior," mini, or scaled-back version of the problem you will teach students to solve.

Unpacking images or art related to the targeted learning (e.g., see-think-wonder protocols that mirror the process of inquiry: establishing the facts, interpreting facts and inference chains, asking questions to drive further learning).

Providing autobiographical prompts related to the learning ahead (e.g., make students face a moral dilemma the character will face, putting them in the thematic driver's seat).

Asking questions that address problematic or controversial aspects of the content.

Facilitating a simulation.

Ranking products or concepts (which requires making value judgments and applying reasoning).

Conducting surveys or opinionaires.

Remember: The best priming activities are accessible, focused, relevant, and revealing of students' knowledge and abilities. If your priming activity leaves a good taste in your students' mouths and creates energy and interest in future learning, then that positive spillover can affect the vibe of the whole unit. So, while we know time is of the essence in every classroom, it's a necessary investment to make priming student learning a mainstay of yours.

Background knowledge and curiosity
Cheryl Abla is a former teacher who now, with McREL International, leads professional learning and coaching for K-12 educators on research-based strategies for effective instruction, use of classroom technology, English-language acquisition, and classroom culture and climate. She's a co-author of Tools for Classroom Instruction That Works, which provides easy-to-use tools and learning activities to help teachers get CITW strategies into the classroom on a daily basis:

At McREL, we're huge believers in the power of curiosity to propel lifelong learning, but we're not naïve about its limitations. Without background knowledge, what would students have to be curious about? You've got to start somewhere. Learning is about filling in the gaps between what is known and what isn't yet known.

The best way to leverage background knowledge is to give students cues, questions, and advance organizers about what they're about to learn. Sound familiar? Together, these tools form one of the nine classic research-based strategies from Classroom Instruction That Works. What cues, questions, and advance organizers have in common is that they're about beginnings. They all precede the delivery of new content and they all rely on the understanding that knowledge doesn't exist in a vacuum but builds upon prior knowledge and in turn gets built upon.

Vocabulary Knowledge Rating, which we adapted from Camille Blachowicz, introduces students to critical vocabulary terms before instruction begins. Students rate their understanding of each term before and after the lesson, to see if their knowledge has grown.

Anticipation Guide reverses the traditional model of learning enough about a subject to then be able to form an opinion about it. First, students are asked their opinion of a subject. Then the lesson is delivered. Was their background knowledge adequate to support their original position, or do they need to re-evaluate? Now they're not only learning new content, they're learning how additional evidence can influence their understanding.

Power Previewing teaches students to skim a text strategically. The teacher guides the previewing process by pointing out useful things to look for, such as recurring themes. There are many questions a teacher can include in an advance organizer, and one of them is, "Does anything look familiar or relate to something you've seen, read, learned about, or experienced?" Students become more proficient readers when memory is activated as part of the process of acquiring new knowledge.

While none of us wants schools to be curiosity-free drill-and-kill zones ever again, we have to acknowledge the importance of background knowledge and develop skill in helping students acquire it. Background knowledge plus curiosity is the most powerful formula of all.

"Funds of knowledge" Elizabeth Villanueva is a Spanish teacher and world-language department chair at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, Calif. She has been recognized as the 2018 National Education Association Social Justice Activist Award Finalist; 2018 California Teachers Association, César Chávez "Sí Se Puede Human Rights Award"; and Sacramento City Unified school district, Teacher of the Year 2015-16. Elizabeth is an Ed.D. candidate at the University of San Francisco in the Learning and Instruction Doctoral Program with an emphasis in heritage-language maintenance:
Academic learning success must be founded at the personal level of each learner and teacher. Its relevance brings meaningfulness and connectedness to each individual creating a learning atmosphere of interconnectedness that stimulates curiosity for the known and unknown. That bridges to a deeper level of understanding to explore and discover the purpose for academic access and success. Therefore, the power of disseminating the funds of knowledge of each learner to develop self-determination for personal growth and academic success is correlated with the teacher's willingness to share their own personal funds of knowledge that may trigger students' interest and motivation to thrive.

I come from a family that can be labeled as "dysfunctional," since there was domestic violence, lack of love, low economic status, and then at an early age, my parents separated. It was then my mother left my father and migrated illegally to Salinas, Callif., looking for better life opportunities. It was she who, after crossing the border, began telling me and my siblings to get an education to have more and better life opportunities because being uneducated, she was only able to work in the fields and then at a packing company. So five years after her arrival to Salinas, I came to Salinas knowing her expectations. Those were to finish high school, learn English, get some educational degree, and find a better job than she had. It was her insistence to apply myself to study that made me realize how important it is to go to school and most importantly the role that teachers play in a child's education.

As a language teacher and an English-language learner, I believe there is no language more powerful than the language of empathy, sensitivity, and kindness for one another. I know that if I take care of my students' educational well-being by valuing and integrating their funds of knowledge, it is transformed into meaningful and relevant instructional material that becomes students' academic success. Building that relatedness can enhance students' competence to develop their autonomy to continue thriving. Thus, learning from the funds of knowledge of my students is my motivation to strive and enhance meaningful relationships that empower a bigger community.

ELLs & prior knowledge Jenny Vo earned her B.A. in English from Rice University and her M.Ed. in educational leadership from Lamar University. She has worked with English-learners during all of her 23 years in education and is currently an ESL ISST in Katy ISD in Katy, Texas:
Our English-learners come to us from many countries and bring with them different backgrounds and experiences. In order to successfully support their learning in the content areas, we need to make sure we find out what they already know and what gaps need to be filled. We can do this by activating the students' prior knowledge and then building their background knowledge.

What is prior knowledge and why do we need to activate it? Prior knowledge is what the students bring with them that they have gained from previous schooling and their life experiences. It is important for teachers to activate their students' prior knowledge so they know what students already know about a certain topic and what gaps in learning they will need to fill in order for students to be successful. It helps them to understand the reason why the students are struggling. Is the poor comprehension or struggle with assignments due to lack of language, lack of experience, or lack of skills? Having a firm grasp on the reason or reasons will enable the teacher to know how to support the students.

I like using anticipation guides at the beginning of a unit to see what students know. Anticipation guides have statements that students answer at the beginning of a unit and then at the end. The responses can be in an Agree/Disagree or True/False format. KWL (Know-Want to Know-Learn) charts are also great for activating prior knowledge. Charts can be filled out as a class or by individual students. Another great strategy is the observation chart. This GLAD strategy has students walking around the room looking at pictures and writing observations, comments, and questions on them. I either give each student a different colored pen or have them write their name after their observation so I can track which student wrote what.

Once you have a grasp of your students' prior knowledge, your next step is to build their background knowledge to fill in the gaps. Building background knowledge allows you as the teacher to link the students' past learning and experiences to new learning. There are many ways to build background knowledge. Videos are great for this. Choose ones that are not too technical and easy to understand. Stop periodically to check for understanding. Virtual field trips are a great alternative to live field trips when you are unable to schedule them. I like virtual field trips because you can keep going back to them if needed. The most important way teachers can build background knowledge is to explicitly teach key academic vocabulary. Give students multiple opportunities to use and practice the vocabulary so that the words are internalized and permanently connected to the topic of study.

As you can see, it is essential for you to plan activities to activate your students' prior knowledge and to build background knowledge so that your students, especially your English-learners, can make that critical connection between their past learning and their new learning. With the info gained from the activities, you can better plan how to support your students so they are successful in their learning.

"Language dives" Sarah Said is the director of language and equity programs at an EL (Expeditionary Learning) Education School in the Chicago suburbs. In her role, she oversees support programs for multilingual learners, works with others to create a community that fosters success for students from the diverse communities her school serves, and helps strengthen school to community outreach. In the past, she has been a director of ELL, dean, and curriculum coordinator. In addition to her role in her building, she is a contributor for ELL Confianza and has written a variety of blog posts online. She is a member of the #ELLChat and #ELLchat_bkClub where she helps advocate for multilingual learners. Follow her on Twitter at @MrsSaid:
As I always say, "We don't eat something in a restaurant when we don't understand what it is on the menu"-at least I don't. Our minds are "picky eaters" when it comes to what we engage in and connect with. Be able to front-load information and support students with connecting to past knowledge is something we need to do to support them as educators. How do we do this? We engage students in activities that help us learn about them. This helps support us in being culturally responsive teachers in the classroom.

One strategy that I like to use at the beginning of the year is a project that I call the "cultural bag." I explain to students that their cultural bag is something that they always carry around with them that holds their values, norms, and experiences. What I like about this activity is that it can be done with any age level from K-12 and be effective. Simply, you give students a paper bag, explain what a "cultural bag " is with an age-appropriate explanation, then they can collage or draw the bag with effective images to emulate the "cultural bag." Depending on the age level of the students, you can have them then either write or explain what the images on the bag mean.

As you continue to get to know your students during the year, you can use ideas from what you know about them to scaffold conversations about new content. This helps students learn, and it makes the classroom more engaging for all.

When you are considering multilingual learners, you need to think about other ways to build background knowledge. You may need to utilize cognates in the native language to support students' understanding vocabulary in English. This can be supported in an interactive word wall. These word walls are not just word walls that sit on a wall; students actually create the word wall and utilize the word wall to actively support it.

Building background for students helps support them in really engaging with and grasping content and language. This is an essential part of teaching and learning. It is critical in supporting a culturally responsive classroom.

Thanks to Adam, Jeffrey, Rachel, Cheryl, Elizabeth, Jenny, and Sarah for their contributions!

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.
Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email or RSS Reader. And if you missed any of the highlights from the first eight years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below. The list doesn't include ones from this current year, but you can find those by clicking on the "answers" category found in the sidebar.

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The Whys & Hows of Activating Students' Background Knowledge (Opinion)

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Seven educators explain the importance of tapping students' background knowledge in order to learn new content, and they describe ways to do just that, including through the use of surveys and anticipation guides.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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In This Post:

The importance of helping students increase critical thinking skills.

Ways to promote the essential skills needed to analyze and evaluate.

Strategies to incorporate critical thinking into your instruction.

We ask our teachers to be "future-ready" or say that we are teaching "for jobs that don't exist yet." These are powerful statements. At the same time, they give teachers the impression that we have to drastically change what we are doing.

So how do we plan education for an unknown job market or unknown needs?

My answer: We can't predict the jobs, but whatever they are, students will need to think critically to do them. So, our job is to teach our students HOW to think, not WHAT to think.

Our job is to teach our students HOW to think, not WHAT to think. Click To Tweet

Helping Students Become Critical Thinkers

My answer is rooted in the call to empower our students to be critical thinkers. I believe that to be critical thinkers, educators need to provide students with the strategies they need. And we need to ask more than just surface-level questions.

Questions to students must motivate them to dig up background knowledge. They should inspire them to make connections to real-world scenarios. These make the learning more memorable and meaningful.

Critical thinking is a general term. I believe this term means that students effectively identify, analyze, and evaluate content or skills. In this process, they (the students) will discover and present convincing reasons in support of their answers or thinking.

You can look up critical thinking and get many definitions like this one from Wikipedia:
" Critical thinking consists of a mental process of analyzing or evaluating information, particularly statements or propositions that people have offered as true. "

Essential Skills for Critical Thinking

In my current role as director of curriculum and instruction, I work to promote the use of 21st-century tools and, more importantly, thinking skills. Some essential skills that are the basis for critical thinking are:

Communication and Information skills

Thinking and Problem-Solving skills

Interpersonal and Self- Directional skills

Collaboration skills

These four bullets are skills students are going to need in any field and in all levels of education. Hence my answer to the question. We need to teach our students to think critically and for themselves.

One of the goals of education is to prepare students to learn through discovery. Providing opportunities to practice being critical thinkers will assist students in analyzing others' thinking and examining the logic of others.

Understanding others is an essential skill in collaboration and in everyday life. Critical thinking will allow students to do more than just memorize knowledge.

Ask Questions

So how do we do this? One recommendation is for educators to work in-depth questioning strategies into a lesson launch.

Ask thoughtful questions to allow for answers with sound reasoning. Then, word conversations and communication to shape students' thinking. Quick answers often result in very few words and no eye contact, which are skills we don't want to promote.

When you are asking students questions and they provide a solution, try some of these to promote further thinking:

Could you elaborate further on that point?

Will you express that point in another way?

Can you give me an illustration?

Would you give me an example?

Will you you provide more details?

Could you be more specific?

Do we need to consider another point of view?

Is there another way to look at this question?

Utilizing critical thinking skills could be seen as a change in the paradigm of teaching and learning. Engagement in education will enhance the collaboration among teachers and students. It will also provide a way for students to succeed even if the school system had to start over.

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Promoting Critical Thinking Into All Aspects of Instruction

Engagement, application, and collaboration are skills that withstand the test of time. I also promote the integration of critical thinking into every aspect of instruction.

In my experience, I've found a few ways to make this happen.

Begin lessons/units with a probing question: It shouldn't be a question you can answer with a 'yes' or a 'no.' These questions should inspire discovery learning and problem-solving.

Encourage Creativity: I have seen teachers prepare projects before they give it to their students many times. For example, designing snowmen or other "creative" projects. By doing the design work or by cutting all the circles out beforehand, it removes creativity options.

It may help the classroom run more smoothly if every child's material is already cut out, but then every student's project looks the same. Students don't have to think on their own or problem solve.

Not having everything "glue ready" in advance is a good thing. Instead, give students all the supplies needed to create a snowman, and let them do it on their own.

Giving independence will allow students to become critical thinkers because they will have to create their own product with the supplies you give them. This might be an elementary example, but it's one we can relate to any grade level or project.

Try not to jump to help too fast - let the students work through a productive struggle.

Build in opportunities for students to find connections in learning. Encouraging students to make connections to a real-life situation and identify patterns is a great way to practice their critical thinking skills. The use of real-world scenarios will increase rigor, relevance, and critical thinking.

A few other techniques to encourage critical thinking are:

Use analogies

Promote interaction among students

Ask open-ended questions

Allow reflection time

Use real-life problems

Allow for thinking practice

Critical thinking prepares students to think for themselves for the rest of their lives. I also believe critical thinkers are less likely to go along with the crowd because they think for themselves.

About Matthew X. Joseph, Ed.D.

Dr. Matthew X. Joseph has been a school and district leader in many capacities in public education over his 25 years in the field. Experiences such as the Director of Digital Learning and Innovation in Milford Public Schools (MA), elementary school principal in Natick, MA and Attleboro, MA, classroom teacher, and district professional development specialist have provided Matt incredible insights on how to best support teaching and learning. This experience has led to nationally publishing articles and opportunities to speak at multiple state and national events. He is the author of Power of Us: Creating Collaborative Schools and co-author of Modern Mentoring, Reimagining Teacher Mentorship (Due out, fall 2019). His master's degree is in special education and his Ed.D. in Educational Leadership from Boston College.

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Strategies to Increase Critical Thinking Skills in students

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The importance of helping students increase critical thinking skills. Ways to promote the essential skills needed to analyze and evaluate. Strategies to incorporate critical thinking into your instruction. We ask our teachers to be "future-ready" or say that we are teaching "for jobs that don't exist yet." These are powerful statements.

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An important aspect of classroom interaction is the manner in which the instructor handles student responses. When an instructor asks a question, students can either respond, ask a question, or give no response.
Strategies to use when students respond

Reinforcement: The instructor should reinforce student responses and questions in a positive way in order to encourage future participation. The instructor can reinforce by making positive statements and using positive nonverbal communication. Proper nonverbal responses include smiling, nodding and maintaining eye contact, while improper nonverbal responses included looking at notes while students speak, looking at the board, or ruffling papers. The type of reinforcement will be determined by:

Probing: The initial response of students may be superficial. The instructor needs to use a questioning strategy called probing to make students explore initial comments. Probes are useful in getting students more involved in critical analysis of their own and other students' ideas. Probes can be used to:

Analyze a student's statement, make a student aware of underlying assumptions, or justify or evaluate a statement. Instructor: What are some ways we might solve the energy crisis? : I would like to see a greater movement to peak-load pricing by utility companies. Instructor: What assumptions are you making about consumer behavior when you suggest that solution?

Help students deduce relationships. Instructors may ask students to judge the implications of their statements or to compare and contrast concepts. Instructor: What are some advantages and disadvantages of having grades given in courses? : Grades can be a motivator for people to learn. : Too much pressure on grades causes some students to stop learning, freeze, go blank. Instructor: If both of those statements are true, what generalizations can you make about the relationship between motivation and learning?

Have students clarify or elaborate on their comments by asking for more information. Instructor: Could you please develop your ideas further? Can you provide an example of that concept? It was obvious that the crew had gone insane. Instructor: What is the legal definition of insane? : It was a violation of due process. Instructor: Can you explain why?

Adjust/Refocus: When a student provides a response that appears out of context, the instructor can refocus to encourage the student to tie her response to the content being discussed. This technique is also used to shift attention to a new topic. Instructor: What does it mean to devalue the dollar? Um-I'm not really sure, but doesn't it mean that, um, a dollar doesn't go as far as it used to? Does that mean it's devalued? Instructor: Well, let's talk a little bit about another concept, and that is inflation. How does inflation affect your dollar?

Strategies for responding to student questions
There are many ways in which an instructor can respond to questions from students. However, all strategies begin with this important step: Listen to the student's question. After you are certain that you understand the question, be sure that other students have heard and understood the question. Then proceed with one of the following strategies:

Answer the question yourself. This strategy is best when you have little time remaining in class. The disadvantage of this approach is that you do not encourage student-to-student interaction or independent learning.

Redirect the question to the class. This strategy helps to encourage student-to-student interaction and to lessen reliance on the instructor for all information.

Attempt to help the student answer his own question. This may require prompting through reminders of pertinent previously learned information. Or this strategy may require you to ask the student a lower-level question or a related question to begin his thought process. The advantage of this strategy, as in redirecting, is that the student may learn the process of searching for answers to his own questions rather than relying on the teacher. The risk is that the process can be embarrassing or so threatening that the student will be too intimidated to ask questions in the future. Obviously some human compassion is called for when using this strategy.

Ask the student to stop after class to discuss the question. This strategy is most appropriate when a student raises complicated, tangential questions or when a student is obviously the only one who does not understand a point and a simple answer does not clarify it for the student. Even in these situations there are risks in using this strategy. Students may be intimidated from raising questions in class. The instructor may think that only the questioning student does not understand when actually a number of students are having the same problem.

Refer the student to a resource where she can find the answer.

Defer the question until a more appropriate time if the question is not connected to the material you're covering. Be sure to note the question and the student, and to return to the question at a more appropriate time.

No matter which strategy you use you should return to the student after addressing the question and determine whether the response has satisfied the student.

If you don't know the answer to a student question never fake an answer. Admit that you cannot answer the question and then select one of these strategies or others you find appropriate:

Ask whether someone in the class can answer the question. Most times after class you should follow this with an attempt to determine whether the information provided was accurate or based on sound reasoning and credible sources.

Either propose a plan for obtaining evidence for answering the question or ask the students to suggest how the question could be investigated.

If possible, suggest a resource where the student can find information. The resource may be written material, another faculty or staff member, a student, or someone from the community.

Volunteer to find the answer yourself and report back to the class. Make sure you actually do return with the answer if you choose this option.

Strategies to use when students don't respond

Redirect: When a student responds to a question, the instructor can ask another student to comment on his statement. One purpose of using this technique is to enable more students to participate. This strategy can also be used to allow a student to correct another student's incorrect statement or respond to another student's question. Instructor: Ali, do you agree with Mark's comment? Instructor: From your experience, Aisha, does what Vito said seem true? Instructor: Li, can you give me an example of the concept that Pat mentioned?

Rephrasing: This technique is used when a student provides an incorrect response or no response. Instead of telling the student she is incorrect or calling upon another student, the instructor can try one of three strategies:

The instructor can try to reword the question to make it clearer. The question may have been poorly phrased.What is neurosis? (No response) Instructor What are the identifying characteristics of a neurotic person?

The instructor can provide some information to help students come up with the answer. Instructor: How far has the ball fallen after 3 seconds? Student: I have no idea. Instructor: Let's break down the question, Ann. How do we measure distance?

Using "wait time": One factor that can have powerful effects on student participation is the amount of time an instructor pauses between asking a question and doing something else (calling on a student or rewording the question). Research on classroom questioning and information processing indicates that students need at least three seconds to comprehend a question, consider the available information, formulate an answer, and begin to respond. In contrast, the same research established that, on average, a classroom teacher allows less than one second of wait-time. After teachers were trained to allow three to five seconds of wait-time the following significant changes in their classrooms occurred (from Rowe, 1974):

The number of students who failed to respond when called on decreased.

The number of unsolicited but appropriate responses increased.

The length of student responses increased.

The number of student statements where evidence was used to make inferences increased.

The number of responses from students identified by the teacher as less able increased.

The number of student-to-student interactions increased.

The number of student questions increased.

Allowing wait-time after a student response or question also produced significant changes in classroom interaction. The most notable change was that the instructor made fewer teaching errors characterized by responding illogically or inappropriately to a student comment.

On the other hand, too much wait-time can also be detrimental to student interaction. When no one seems to be able to answer a question, more wait-time will not necessarily solve the problem. Experts say that waiting more than 20-30 seconds is perceived as punishing by students. The amount of wait-time needed in part depends upon the level of question the instructor asks and student characteristics such as familiarity with content and past experience with the thought process required.

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An important aspect of classroom interaction is the manner in which the instructor handles student responses. When an instructor asks a question, students can either respond, ask a question, or give no response. Strategies to use when students respond Reinforcement: The instructor should reinforce student responses and questions in a positive way in order to encourage future participation.

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No matter your discipline, interests or teaching strengths, it's essential for teachers to ensure their students are engaged in literacy.

First, because students are struggling with literacy.

Second, because students need literacy to understand what they're being asked.

Third, because students struggling with literacy will inevitably send incomprehensible emails.

And we reckon you don't have time for that.

Luckily, introducing literacy into your classroom - whether you're teaching anything from art appreciation to pure maths - is easy AND helps strengthen learning in your subject area.

Here are the most effective ways to help bring literacy into any classroom:

Use different media to reinforce your text

In the same way strong houses are made from a variety of materials, literacy can be reinforced through different media.

Bringing it into the classroom
Use imagery or video to introduce the text
Some kids' imaginations and visualisation need a helping hand. Images and videos can give a new layer of experience to bring to text, helping kids get a better idea of the characters involved, how events happened in a story, or a new point of reference to think about.
Listen, read, learn
Set kids a snippet of a podcast or audiobook to listen to before reading a text. What you're trying to do is reinforce their internal reading voice with an external reading voice (the presenter).

By creating a link between the text they're investigating and the presence of voice - someone speaking the information - you can help students step into the text and improve connection and comprehension.

Vocabulary wall

Have a look around your classroom - are your walls being used to their very best potential? Or are there a few posters about a decade out of date you can throw out?

Because that space can become your very own classroom dictionary.

Every subject has its own unique language, and the best way to understand language is surrounding yourself with it (in every sense!).

Bringing it into the classroom
Wall of words
Pretty much what it sounds like - a big ol' wall of words and their meanings related to your subject.

No more confusion between hypothetical and theoretical.

No more literal exclamations of figurative claims with 'literally!'
Words of the world
All you need is a map and a keen sense of story to make this one work.

When you use a new term or introduce a new topic or idea, have your kids mark on the map where it originated. This supports the learning of narrative progression - where things start, where and how they travelled, and what's happening now.

Exit Slips

See if your kids are taking their new learning with them when they leave.

Exit slips are answers to questions or summaries of lessons students hand to teachers on the way out.

Bringing it into the classroom
The Next Big Challenge
Ask your students to write what they found challenging in the lesson and how they plan to tackle it in the next.

The best way to make this ongoing is simple: act on their challenges. By showing that your kids have control over their educational journey is a great way to get them to invest in it.
What Just Happened?
As simple as it sounds - ask them to write what just happened in the class. You can get creative with this one by asking them to style it as a letter, memo, or fictional work.

Your own subject library

Books can change the world or create paths to new ones.

The great thing about a subject library in class is that it gives you the chance to curate. You can proudly display the works and minds that inspire you in the chance it might inspire your kids.

Pro-tip: Ask your school librarian to help you find the best titles!

Bringing it into the classroom
Reading time
Keep it simple! Reading time allows students to deep dive into material that, let's face it, they probably wouldn't look twice at in their own time.

Try to have books that can cater to different reading levels - you don't want your students bored, or worse, frustrated when they need to be attentive.
Topic box
Let students request their own topics! Set a day aside for sorting through the topics suggested and have kids try to bring the books in for a reading session.

And lastly...

Give your kids the chance to fall in love with your library. Cushions, bean bags, artwork, plants, and decorations can make your library space feel safe and enjoyable.

Have fun!

Need help teaching literacy?

We've got you covered - check out the Writing errors students have been making for 30 years or explore our library of printable literacy resources.

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5 Ways To Bring Literacy Into ANY Classroom - 3P Learning

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No matter your discipline, interests or teaching strengths, it's essential for teachers to ensure their students are engaged in literacy. First, because students are struggling with literacy. Second, because students need literacy to understand what they're being asked. Third, because students struggling with literacy will inevitably send incomprehensible emails.

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Designing to Anticipate and Address Learning Needs

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Designing to Anticipate and Address Learning Needs

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How to guide and monitor student learning - Classcraft Blog

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Monitoring student learning has a significant impact on their success and is noted as one of the key differences between effective and ineffective teaching.

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Strategies for Effective Lesson Planning | CRLT

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A lesson plan is the instructor’s road map of what students need to learn and how it will be done effectively during the class time. Before you plan your lesson, you will first need to identify the learning objectives for the class meeting. Then, you can design appropriate learning activities and develop strategies to obtain feedback on student learning. A successful lesson plan addresses and integrates these three key components:

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Importance of Providing Meaningful Student Feedback

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Importance of Providing Meaningful Student Feedback

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Feedback is any response regarding a student's performance or behavior. It can be verbal, written or gestural. The purpose of feedback in the assessment and learning process is to improve a student's performance - not put a damper on it. It is essential that the process of providing feedback is a positive, or at least a neutral, learning experience for the student. Negative feedback can discourage student effort and achievement. Instructors have the distinct responsibility to nurture a student's learning and to provide feedback in such a manner that the student does not leave the classroom feeling defeated.

Characteristics of Effective Feedback

Educative in Nature
Providing feedback means giving students an explanation of what they are doing correctly AND incorrectly, with the focus of the feedback on what the students is doing right. It is most productive to a student's learning when they are provided with an explanation as to what is accurate and inaccurate about their work. One technique is to use the concept of a "feedback sandwich" to guide your feedback: Compliment, Correct, Compliment.

Given In a Timely Manner
When student feedback is given immediately after showing proof of learning, the student responds and remembers the experience about what is being learned more positively. If we wait too long to give feedback, the student might not connect the feedback with the learning moment.

Sensitive to the Individual Needs of the Student
It is vital that we take into consideration each individual when giving student feedback. Our classrooms are full of diverse learners. Some students need to be nudged to achieve at a higher level and other needs to be handled gently so as not to discourage learning and damage self-esteem.

Answers the 4 Questions
Studies of effective teaching and learning (Dinham, 2002, 2007a; 2007b) have shown that learners want to know where they stand in regards to their work. Providing answers to the following four questions on a regular basis will help provide quality student feedback.

What can the student do?

What can't the student do?

How does the student's work compare with that of others?

How can the student do better?

Provides a Model or Example
Communicate with your students the purpose for an assessment and/or student feedback. Demonstrate to students what you are looking for by giving them an example of what an A+ paper looks like. Provide a contrast of what a C- paper looks like. This is especially important at the upper learning levels.

Suggestions for Effective and Efficient Grading Feedback

The most effective feedback is focused, clear, and considers motivation and learning, not justifying a grade or on copyediting. Below are suggested strategies for providing efficient & effective student feedback.

Use comments to teach rather than to justify the grade, focusing on what you'd most like students to address in future work. Link your comments and feedback to the goals for an assignment.

Plan early opportunities for students to get feedback on ways of thinking, writing, or problem solving that they will need later, so that they don't develop or repeat common errors. In-class active or collaborative learning exercises can be good moments to provide formative feedback in class, when students are practicing new skills or learning new concepts.

Avoid over-commenting or "picking apart" students' work.

In your final comments, ask questions that will guide further inquiry by students.

Think about alternatives to writing comments on every individual student's work. Provide feedback to the whole class orally and/or in a shared written document, or have the class read sample student work together to look for common themes or apply evaluation criteria.

Resources

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Feedback is any response regarding a student's performance or behavior. It can be verbal, written or gestural. The purpose of feedback in the assessment and learning process is to improve a student's performance - not put a damper on it.

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Verbal & Non-Verbal Communications in the Classroom

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Verbal & Non-Verbal Communications in the Classroom

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Theresa Pickett has written since 2007. She graduated from Flagler College with a Bachelor of Arts in history and Vanderbilt University with a Master of Education in elementary education. As a certified teacher who earned the ETS Recognition of Excellence for Praxis II Elementary Education, she has been published in "Student Filmmakers Magazine" and "Model Life Magazine."

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Verbal & Non-Verbal Communications in the Classroom | Synonym

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Strong communication skills are important to the management of your classroom. You should brush up on your verbal and non-verbal communication skills to effectively show your students what appropriate classroom behavior means. The majority of your communication with your students is nonverbal. Strong verbal ...

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20 Classroom Management Strategies and Techniques

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20 Classroom Management Strategies and Techniques

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Paper airplanes fly across the room. Students race between desks. You can't get a word in, as they yell over you.

Disruptive behavior doesn't have to be this dramatic, like a movie scene you'd watch in a media literacy lesson, but poor classroom management will almost assuredly elevate your stress and burnout rates.

Unfortunately, a 2019 report indicates that teachers overwhelmingly report a lack of professional development support in improving classroom management. Despite this unideal situation, there are straightforward and effective classroom management approaches you can implement by yourself. These approaches can enhance prosocial student behavior and academic engagement, establishing an orderly learning environment.

Available as a downloadable list to keep at your desk, below are 20 research-backed classroom management strategies and techniques.

Use the ones that best appeal to your situation and teaching style.

Universal classroom management strategies for educators

These 20 classroom management techniques have shown to improve classroom behavior, build relationships for a better classroom community, and foster a positive classroom environment where student learning is the number one collective goal.

Try these effective classroom management strategies with your students to become a happier, more effective teacher.

1. Model ideal behavior

Make a habit of demonstrating behavior you want to see, as many studies show that modelling effectively teaches students how to act in different situations.

A straightforward way to model certain behaviors is holding a mock conversation with an administrator, other teacher or student helper in front of the class. Talking about a test or other relatable topic, be sure to:

Use polite language

Maintain eye contact

Keep phones in your pockets

Let one another speak uninterrupted

Raise concerns about one another's statements in a respectful manner

After, start a class discussion to list and expand upon the ideal behaviors you exemplified.

2. Let students help establish guidelines

Encourage all students to help you build classroom expectations and rules, as you'll generate more buy-in than just telling them what they're not allowed to do.

This is especially essential for new teachers. Near the start of the school year or during the first day of a semester, start a discussion by asking students what they believe should and shouldn't fly in terms of appropriate behavior.

At what points are phones okay and not okay? What are acceptable noise levels during lessons?

This may seem like you're setting yourself up for failure, but -- depending on the makeup of your class -- you may be shocked at the strictness of some proposed rules. Regardless, having a discussion should lead to mutually-understood and -respected expectations for your classroom culture.

3. Document rules
Don't let your mutually-respected guidelines go forgotten.
Similar to handing out a syllabus, print and distribute the list of rules that the class discussion generated. Then, go through the list with your students. Doing this emphasizes the fact that you respect their ideas and intend to adhere to them. And when a student breaks a rule, it'll be easy for you to point to this document.

You'll likely want to post these rules up in your classroom - if you haven't already - for occasional reference. If you're feeling creative, you can include the rule list in a student handbook with important dates, events and curriculum information, too.

4. Avoid punishing the class

Address isolated discipline problems individually instead of punishing an entire class, as the latter can hurt your relationships with students who are on-task and thereby jeopardize other classroom management efforts.

Instead, call out specific students in a friendly manner. For example:

"Do you have a question?", not "Stop talking and disrupting other students"

"Do you need help focusing?", not "Pay attention and stop fooling around while I'm talking"

This basic approach will allow you to keep a friendly disposition, while immediately acknowledging inappropriate behavior.

5. Encourage initiative

Promote growth mindset, and inject variety into your lessons, by allowing students to work ahead and deliver short presentations to share take-away points. Almost inevitably, you'll have some eager learners in your classroom. You can simply ask them if they'd like to get ahead from time-to-time.

For example, if you're reading a specific chapter in a textbook, propose that they read the following one too. When they deliver their subsequent presentations to preview the next chapter on your behalf, you may find that other students want a bit more work as well.

6. Offer praise

Praise students for jobs well done, as doing so improves academic and behavioral performance, according to a recent research review and study.

When it is sincere and references specific examples of effort or accomplishment, praise can:

Inspire the class

Improve a student's self-esteem

Reinforce rules and values you want to see

Perhaps more importantly, it encourages students to repeat positive behavior. Let's say a student exemplifies advanced problem-solving skills when tackling a math word problem. Praising his or her use of specific tactics should go a long way in ensuring he or she continues to use these tactics. Not to mention, you'll motivate other students to do the same.

7. Use non-verbal communication

Complement words with actions and visual aids to improve content delivery, helping students focus and process lessons.

Many differentiated instruction strategies and techniques are rooted in these communication methods. For example, running learning stations -- divided sections of your classroom through which students rotate -- allows you to deliver a range of non-spoken content types. These include videos, infographics and physical objects such as counting coins.

8. Hold parties

Throw an occasional classroom party to acknowledge students' hard work, motivating them to keep it up.

Even if it's just for 20 or 30 minutes, they should be happy with snacks and a selection of group games to play. Clarify that you're holding the party to reward them and they can earn future parties by demonstrating ideal behavior, collectively scoring high on assessments and more.

9. Give tangible rewards

Reward specific students at the end of each lesson, in front of the class, as another motivational and behavior-reinforcement technique.

Let's say a few students are actively listening throughout the entire lesson, answering questions and asking their own. Before the class ends, walk over to their desks to give them raffle tickets. So others can learn, state aloud what each student did to earn the tickets. On Friday, they can submit their tickets for a shot at a prize that changes each week -- from candy to being able to choose a game for the next class party.

10. Make positive letters and phone calls

Keep students happy in and out of class by pleasantly surprising their parents, making positive phone calls and sending complimentary letters home.

When the occasion arises, from academic effort or behavioral progress, letting parents know has a trickle-down effect. They'll generally congratulate their kids; their kids will likely come to class eager to earn more positive feedback. This can also entice parents to grow more invested in a child's learning, opening the door to at-home lessons. Such lessons are a mainstay element of culturally-responsive teaching.

11. Build excitement for content and lesson plans

This one works well no matter the grade level: elementary school, middle school or high school. Start lessons by previewing particularly-exciting parts, hooking student interest from the get-go.

As the bell rings and students settle, go through an agenda of the day's highlights for the whole class. These could include group tasks, engaging bits of content and anything else to pique curiosity. For example, "Throughout the day, you'll learn about:"

How to talk like you're a teacher (sentence structure)

Why you don't know anyone who's won the lottery (probability)

What all the presidents of the United States have had in common (social analysis)

The goal of this classroom management technique is to immediately interest students in your agenda and thereby dissuade misbehavior.

Ready to make learning an exciting adventure?

Use Prodigy to boost classroom engagement and excitement with two captivating learning games for math and English!

12. Offer different types of free study time

Provide a range of activities during free study time to appeal to students who struggle to process content in silence, individually.

You can do this by dividing your class into clearly-sectioned solo and team activities. In separate sections, consider:

Providing audiobooks, which can play material relevant to your lessons

Maintaining a designated quiet space for students to take notes and complete work

Creating a station for challenging group games that teach or reinforce standards-aligned skills

Allowing students to work in groups while taking notes and completing work, away from quiet zones

By running these sorts of activities, free study time will begin to benefit diverse learners. This should contribute to overall classroom engagement.

13. Write group contracts

Help student group work run smoothly and effectively by writing contracts that contain guidelines, having everyone sign.

Group contracts should be based on expectations that students have for each other, and you have for them. You can gather the class's thoughts by holding a discussion about what the ideal group member does, and how he or she acts. Once you've written the contract, encourage students to come up with consequences for violating expectations.

By having them sign a fresh version of the contract before each group task and project, you're empowering them to hold each other accountable.

14. Assign open-ended projects

Encourage students to tackle open-ended projects -- projects that don't demand a specific product -- to allow them to demonstrate knowledge in ways that inherently suit them.

This starts by giving the class a list of broad project ideas, asking each student to choose one. Be sure to provide a rubric for each project that clearly defines expectations. By both enticing and challenging students, you should notice they'll:

Work and learn at their own paces

Engage actively with appropriate content

Demonstrate knowledge as effectively as possible

With these benefits, students may actually look forward to taking on new projects.

15. Give only two scores for informal assessments

Recall a time you saw a big "F" in red ink on your work. You were probably too upset to review mistakes and feedback, and so are your students when they see the same.
So, consider avoiding standard marks on informal and formative assessments.
Instead, just state if a student did or did not meet expectations. Then, provide struggling students with a clear path to improve. For example, pair classmates who didn't meet expectations with those who did, giving them a review and practice activity. When strugglers are confident they understand key concepts, encourage them to tell you. Provide a new assessment, allowing them to prove their competency.

Classroom management strategies for individual students

16. Use EdTech that adjusts to each student

Give students who struggle to process your content opportunities to try educational technology that adapts to their needs.

There are many games and platforms that use adaptive learning principles to detect a given student's skill deficits, serving them content to help overcome them.

For example, Prodigy Math adjusts its content to help students in grades 1 to 8 address their trouble spots. It also offers feedback to help them solve specific mistakes, as they answer questions that use words, charts, pictures and numbers.

The best bit? Teaching tools are all available at no cost to educators and schools.
See the student experience below!
Educators, access at no cost

17. Interview students

Interview students who aren't academically engaged or displaying prosocial behavior to learn how to better manage them.

While running learning stations or a large-group activity, pull each student aside for a few minutes. Ask about:

What helps them focus

Who they work well with

Their favorite types of lessons

Their favorite in-class activities

Which kinds of exercises help them remember key lesson points

Note their answers to come up with activities and approaches that engage them, thereby limiting classroom disruptions.

18. Address inappropriate or off-task behavior quickly

Avoid hesitation when you must address inappropriate or off-task behavior, especially when a student breaks a documented rule.

Acting sooner than later will help ensure that negative feelings -- whether between students or you and a student -- won't fester. Failure to act can result in more poor behavior, leading to needlessly-difficult conversations.

But keep in mind: It's usually best to talk to the student in private. Research shows that punishing students in front of peers has "limited value."

19. Consider peer teaching

Use peer teaching as a classroom management strategy if you feel your top performers can help engage and educate disruptive and struggling students.

Peer teaching activities, such as pairing students together as reading buddies, can be especially beneficial for students who suffer from low confidence and poor interpersonal skills.

Authoritative research states tutors improve self-esteem and interpersonal skills by giving feedback. Tutees realize benefits because they can ask questions and receive immediate clarification. A later study of at-risk students echoes these advantages. Although you should spend time teaching peer tutors how to properly communicate with tutees, you'll likely find the benefits are worth the work.

20. Gamify personal learning plans

Motivate students on personal learning plans by gamifying those plans, as studies - such as recent research from South Korea - indicate this will continuously engage and incentivize them.

Consider gamification strategies such as:

Adjusting your scoring system -- Give experience points (XP) -- along with traditional scores -- on tests and assignments, setting a goal for the student to reach a certain amount of XP per unit. For example, if a student scores 60% on a quiz, give him or her 6,000 XP. You can also award XP for completing extra assignments, participating in class or anything else that shows effort to learn.

Using stages -- Refer to topics and units as stages. The former terms have clear connotations for you, but students may not see how they fit together. If they're gamers, they'll understand that reaching the next stage requires overcoming precursory challenges. Emphasize this by framing certain tasks as prerequisites to reach the next learning stage.

If these strategies work especially well for individual students, you should see similar success by using them as class-wide student management techniques.

Classroom management strategy FAQs

What is the best classroom management style?

According to Diana Baumrind's work, a clinical psychologist known for her research on parenting styles, some educators believe an authoritative classroom management style may the best one. This type of high control, high involvement classroom management style is characterized by strong expectations of appropriate behavior, clear understandings of why certain behaviors are acceptable and others not acceptable, and warm student-teacher relationships.

However, there is no specific approach that has been proven to be the most effective. So you may wish to review The Classroom Management Book by Harry K. Wong and Rosemary T. Wong which includes a variety of solutions that can be easily implemented. Every group of students has varying needs and will likely need a unique approach to help every student bring his or her best self to the classroom and be ready-to-learn every single day.

What are the four components of classroom management?

Implementing the top four components of classroom management from the start will set you and your students up for success all year long. They are:

Classroom design - be intentional about how you set up your desk, your students' desks, bulletin board displays, devices and other aspects of your classroom. Thoughtful classroom design can help create a safe and welcoming learning environment.

Rules/discipline - to create a safe and caring school community, develop classroom rules your students understand and - hopefully - respect. While it may not be fun, be sure to communicate that breaking classroom rules will have concrete yet fair consequences.

Scheduling/organization - being on time, keeping on task and staying organized will help set up your lessons (and your students' learning) up for success.

Instructional technique - while you may not have the flexibility you'd like when it comes to content and curriculum, you should have the freedom to choose how you teach. For example, 8th grade students may prefer a lecture-style lesson with small group discussions while 3rd grade students may prefer learning math with a digital game-based learning platform. Observe how your students learn best and use the classroom management strategies and techniques to teach your lessons.

Why is classroom management so important?

When done effectively, classroom management is important for three main reasons. It:

1. Creates and sustains an orderly learning environment in the classroom

2. Improves meaningful academic learning and fosters social-emotional growth

3. Increases students' academic engagement and lowers negative classroom behavior

Final thoughts about these classroom management strategies

These class-wide and one-on-one approaches to classroom management largely work across subjects and grade levels. Implementable without admin and parent support, they should empower you to establish an orderly - yet friendly and engaging - environment.

Look forward to better teacher-to-student and student-to-student interactions as a result.

Looking for a fun way to engage and reward your students? Try Prodigy Math! Aligned with curricula for grades 1 to 8, students will practice key skills while also exploring an exciting fantasy world.

Plus, you'll get access to free teacher tools that help you differentiate math content, send assessments and collect student insights - in just a few clicks.

Educators, access at no cost

Paper airplanes fly across the room. Students race between desks. You can't get a word in, as they yell over you.

Disruptive behavior doesn't have to be this dramatic, like a movie scene you'd watch in a media literacy lesson, but poor classroom management will almost assuredly elevate your stress and burnout rates.

Unfortunately, a 2019 report indicates that teachers overwhelmingly report a lack of professional development support in improving classroom management. Despite this unideal situation, there are straightforward and effective classroom management approaches you can implement by yourself. These approaches can enhance prosocial student behavior and academic engagement, establishing an orderly learning environment.

Available as a downloadable list to keep at your desk, below are 20 research-backed classroom management strategies and techniques.

Use the ones that best appeal to your situation and teaching style.

Universal classroom management strategies for educators

These 20 classroom management techniques have shown to improve classroom behavior, build relationships for a better classroom community, and foster a positive classroom environment where student learning is the number one collective goal.

Try these effective classroom management strategies with your students to become a happier, more effective teacher.

1. Model ideal behavior

Make a habit of demonstrating behavior you want to see, as many studies show that modelling effectively teaches students how to act in different situations.

A straightforward way to model certain behaviors is holding a mock conversation with an administrator, other teacher or student helper in front of the class. Talking about a test or other relatable topic, be sure to:

Use polite language

Maintain eye contact

Keep phones in your pockets

Let one another speak uninterrupted

Raise concerns about one another's statements in a respectful manner

After, start a class discussion to list and expand upon the ideal behaviors you exemplified.

2. Let students help establish guidelines

Encourage all students to help you build classroom expectations and rules, as you'll generate more buy-in than just telling them what they're not allowed to do.

This is especially essential for new teachers. Near the start of the school year or during the first day of a semester, start a discussion by asking students what they believe should and shouldn't fly in terms of appropriate behavior.

At what points are phones okay and not okay? What are acceptable noise levels during lessons?

This may seem like you're setting yourself up for failure, but -- depending on the makeup of your class -- you may be shocked at the strictness of some proposed rules. Regardless, having a discussion should lead to mutually-understood and -respected expectations for your classroom culture.

3. Document rules
Don't let your mutually-respected guidelines go forgotten.
Similar to handing out a syllabus, print and distribute the list of rules that the class discussion generated. Then, go through the list with your students. Doing this emphasizes the fact that you respect their ideas and intend to adhere to them. And when a student breaks a rule, it'll be easy for you to point to this document.

You'll likely want to post these rules up in your classroom - if you haven't already - for occasional reference. If you're feeling creative, you can include the rule list in a student handbook with important dates, events and curriculum information, too.

4. Avoid punishing the class

Address isolated discipline problems individually instead of punishing an entire class, as the latter can hurt your relationships with students who are on-task and thereby jeopardize other classroom management efforts.

Instead, call out specific students in a friendly manner. For example:

"Do you have a question?", not "Stop talking and disrupting other students"

"Do you need help focusing?", not "Pay attention and stop fooling around while I'm talking"

This basic approach will allow you to keep a friendly disposition, while immediately acknowledging inappropriate behavior.

5. Encourage initiative

Promote growth mindset, and inject variety into your lessons, by allowing students to work ahead and deliver short presentations to share take-away points. Almost inevitably, you'll have some eager learners in your classroom. You can simply ask them if they'd like to get ahead from time-to-time.

For example, if you're reading a specific chapter in a textbook, propose that they read the following one too. When they deliver their subsequent presentations to preview the next chapter on your behalf, you may find that other students want a bit more work as well.

6. Offer praise

Praise students for jobs well done, as doing so improves academic and behavioral performance, according to a recent research review and study.

When it is sincere and references specific examples of effort or accomplishment, praise can:

Inspire the class

Improve a student's self-esteem

Reinforce rules and values you want to see

Perhaps more importantly, it encourages students to repeat positive behavior. Let's say a student exemplifies advanced problem-solving skills when tackling a math word problem. Praising his or her use of specific tactics should go a long way in ensuring he or she continues to use these tactics. Not to mention, you'll motivate other students to do the same.

7. Use non-verbal communication

Complement words with actions and visual aids to improve content delivery, helping students focus and process lessons.

Many differentiated instruction strategies and techniques are rooted in these communication methods. For example, running learning stations -- divided sections of your classroom through which students rotate -- allows you to deliver a range of non-spoken content types. These include videos, infographics and physical objects such as counting coins.

8. Hold parties

Throw an occasional classroom party to acknowledge students' hard work, motivating them to keep it up.

Even if it's just for 20 or 30 minutes, they should be happy with snacks and a selection of group games to play. Clarify that you're holding the party to reward them and they can earn future parties by demonstrating ideal behavior, collectively scoring high on assessments and more.

9. Give tangible rewards

Reward specific students at the end of each lesson, in front of the class, as another motivational and behavior-reinforcement technique.

Let's say a few students are actively listening throughout the entire lesson, answering questions and asking their own. Before the class ends, walk over to their desks to give them raffle tickets. So others can learn, state aloud what each student did to earn the tickets. On Friday, they can submit their tickets for a shot at a prize that changes each week -- from candy to being able to choose a game for the next class party.

10. Make positive letters and phone calls

Keep students happy in and out of class by pleasantly surprising their parents, making positive phone calls and sending complimentary letters home.

When the occasion arises, from academic effort or behavioral progress, letting parents know has a trickle-down effect. They'll generally congratulate their kids; their kids will likely come to class eager to earn more positive feedback. This can also entice parents to grow more invested in a child's learning, opening the door to at-home lessons. Such lessons are a mainstay element of culturally-responsive teaching.

11. Build excitement for content and lesson plans

This one works well no matter the grade level: elementary school, middle school or high school. Start lessons by previewing particularly-exciting parts, hooking student interest from the get-go.

As the bell rings and students settle, go through an agenda of the day's highlights for the whole class. These could include group tasks, engaging bits of content and anything else to pique curiosity. For example, "Throughout the day, you'll learn about:"

How to talk like you're a teacher (sentence structure)

Why you don't know anyone who's won the lottery (probability)

What all the presidents of the United States have had in common (social analysis)

The goal of this classroom management technique is to immediately interest students in your agenda and thereby dissuade misbehavior.

Ready to make learning an exciting adventure?

Use Prodigy to boost classroom engagement and excitement with two captivating learning games for math and English!

12. Offer different types of free study time

Provide a range of activities during free study time to appeal to students who struggle to process content in silence, individually.

You can do this by dividing your class into clearly-sectioned solo and team activities. In separate sections, consider:

Providing audiobooks, which can play material relevant to your lessons

Maintaining a designated quiet space for students to take notes and complete work

Creating a station for challenging group games that teach or reinforce standards-aligned skills

Allowing students to work in groups while taking notes and completing work, away from quiet zones

By running these sorts of activities, free study time will begin to benefit diverse learners. This should contribute to overall classroom engagement.

13. Write group contracts

Help student group work run smoothly and effectively by writing contracts that contain guidelines, having everyone sign.

Group contracts should be based on expectations that students have for each other, and you have for them. You can gather the class's thoughts by holding a discussion about what the ideal group member does, and how he or she acts. Once you've written the contract, encourage students to come up with consequences for violating expectations.

By having them sign a fresh version of the contract before each group task and project, you're empowering them to hold each other accountable.

14. Assign open-ended projects

Encourage students to tackle open-ended projects -- projects that don't demand a specific product -- to allow them to demonstrate knowledge in ways that inherently suit them.

This starts by giving the class a list of broad project ideas, asking each student to choose one. Be sure to provide a rubric for each project that clearly defines expectations. By both enticing and challenging students, you should notice they'll:

Work and learn at their own paces

Engage actively with appropriate content

Demonstrate knowledge as effectively as possible

With these benefits, students may actually look forward to taking on new projects.

15. Give only two scores for informal assessments

Recall a time you saw a big "F" in red ink on your work. You were probably too upset to review mistakes and feedback, and so are your students when they see the same.
So, consider avoiding standard marks on informal and formative assessments.
Instead, just state if a student did or did not meet expectations. Then, provide struggling students with a clear path to improve. For example, pair classmates who didn't meet expectations with those who did, giving them a review and practice activity. When strugglers are confident they understand key concepts, encourage them to tell you. Provide a new assessment, allowing them to prove their competency.

Classroom management strategies for individual students

16. Use EdTech that adjusts to each student

Give students who struggle to process your content opportunities to try educational technology that adapts to their needs.

There are many games and platforms that use adaptive learning principles to detect a given student's skill deficits, serving them content to help overcome them.

For example, Prodigy Math adjusts its content to help students in grades 1 to 8 address their trouble spots. It also offers feedback to help them solve specific mistakes, as they answer questions that use words, charts, pictures and numbers.

The best bit? Teaching tools are all available at no cost to educators and schools.
See the student experience below!
Educators, access at no cost

17. Interview students

Interview students who aren't academically engaged or displaying prosocial behavior to learn how to better manage them.

While running learning stations or a large-group activity, pull each student aside for a few minutes. Ask about:

What helps them focus

Who they work well with

Their favorite types of lessons

Their favorite in-class activities

Which kinds of exercises help them remember key lesson points

Note their answers to come up with activities and approaches that engage them, thereby limiting classroom disruptions.

18. Address inappropriate or off-task behavior quickly

Avoid hesitation when you must address inappropriate or off-task behavior, especially when a student breaks a documented rule.

Acting sooner than later will help ensure that negative feelings -- whether between students or you and a student -- won't fester. Failure to act can result in more poor behavior, leading to needlessly-difficult conversations.

But keep in mind: It's usually best to talk to the student in private. Research shows that punishing students in front of peers has "limited value."

19. Consider peer teaching

Use peer teaching as a classroom management strategy if you feel your top performers can help engage and educate disruptive and struggling students.

Peer teaching activities, such as pairing students together as reading buddies, can be especially beneficial for students who suffer from low confidence and poor interpersonal skills.

Authoritative research states tutors improve self-esteem and interpersonal skills by giving feedback. Tutees realize benefits because they can ask questions and receive immediate clarification. A later study of at-risk students echoes these advantages. Although you should spend time teaching peer tutors how to properly communicate with tutees, you'll likely find the benefits are worth the work.

20. Gamify personal learning plans

Motivate students on personal learning plans by gamifying those plans, as studies - such as recent research from South Korea - indicate this will continuously engage and incentivize them.

Consider gamification strategies such as:

Adjusting your scoring system -- Give experience points (XP) -- along with traditional scores -- on tests and assignments, setting a goal for the student to reach a certain amount of XP per unit. For example, if a student scores 60% on a quiz, give him or her 6,000 XP. You can also award XP for completing extra assignments, participating in class or anything else that shows effort to learn.

Using stages -- Refer to topics and units as stages. The former terms have clear connotations for you, but students may not see how they fit together. If they're gamers, they'll understand that reaching the next stage requires overcoming precursory challenges. Emphasize this by framing certain tasks as prerequisites to reach the next learning stage.

If these strategies work especially well for individual students, you should see similar success by using them as class-wide student management techniques.

Classroom management strategy FAQs

What is the best classroom management style?

According to Diana Baumrind's work, a clinical psychologist known for her research on parenting styles, some educators believe an authoritative classroom management style may the best one. This type of high control, high involvement classroom management style is characterized by strong expectations of appropriate behavior, clear understandings of why certain behaviors are acceptable and others not acceptable, and warm student-teacher relationships.

However, there is no specific approach that has been proven to be the most effective. So you may wish to review The Classroom Management Book by Harry K. Wong and Rosemary T. Wong which includes a variety of solutions that can be easily implemented. Every group of students has varying needs and will likely need a unique approach to help every student bring his or her best self to the classroom and be ready-to-learn every single day.

What are the four components of classroom management?

Implementing the top four components of classroom management from the start will set you and your students up for success all year long. They are:

Classroom design - be intentional about how you set up your desk, your students' desks, bulletin board displays, devices and other aspects of your classroom. Thoughtful classroom design can help create a safe and welcoming learning environment.

Rules/discipline - to create a safe and caring school community, develop classroom rules your students understand and - hopefully - respect. While it may not be fun, be sure to communicate that breaking classroom rules will have concrete yet fair consequences.

Scheduling/organization - being on time, keeping on task and staying organized will help set up your lessons (and your students' learning) up for success.

Instructional technique - while you may not have the flexibility you'd like when it comes to content and curriculum, you should have the freedom to choose how you teach. For example, 8th grade students may prefer a lecture-style lesson with small group discussions while 3rd grade students may prefer learning math with a digital game-based learning platform. Observe how your students learn best and use the classroom management strategies and techniques to teach your lessons.

Why is classroom management so important?

When done effectively, classroom management is important for three main reasons. It:

1. Creates and sustains an orderly learning environment in the classroom

2. Improves meaningful academic learning and fosters social-emotional growth

3. Increases students' academic engagement and lowers negative classroom behavior

Final thoughts about these classroom management strategies

These class-wide and one-on-one approaches to classroom management largely work across subjects and grade levels. Implementable without admin and parent support, they should empower you to establish an orderly - yet friendly and engaging - environment.

Look forward to better teacher-to-student and student-to-student interactions as a result.

Looking for a fun way to engage and reward your students? Try Prodigy Math! Aligned with curricula for grades 1 to 8, students will practice key skills while also exploring an exciting fantasy world.

Plus, you'll get access to free teacher tools that help you differentiate math content, send assessments and collect student insights - in just a few clicks.

Educators, access at no cost

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20 Classroom Management Strategies and Techniques [+ Downloadable List]

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Paper airplanes fly across the room. Students race between desks. You can't get a word in, as they yell over you. Disruptive behavior doesn't have to be this dramatic, like a movie scene you'd watch in a media literacy lesson, but poor classroom management will almost assuredly elevate your stress and burnout rates.

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2. Promote Class Discussion and Peer Interaction

Hold regular class meetings to check in with all of your students and encourage them to express themselves constructively. Promote positive interaction amongst your students. Allow them to share their feelings, and encourage them to listen to each other, give compliments, express gratitude and practice problem solving together.

As teachers, we can present topics and help initiate discussions, but then let students guide the conversation. You'll learn a lot about them just by listening! You'll also want to establish groups to help students learn to collaborate and hold regular group meetings. You may find that some students are more attentive in these smaller groups, and you'll be able to provide extra help and attention for those who need it.

3. Staying Connected With Students

Making sure that students can connect with you and each other in whatever way works best is of utmost importance. You'll want to keep yourself approachable for questions, whether that is during the school day or if your students need to email you to ask a question during the evening.

Your students and their parents shouldn't feel intimidated when asking you questions, as you'll have established a helpful environment where no child is left behind beforehand.

4. Come Up with Projects Your Students Can Be Excited About

An easy way to keep your students engaged and excited about learning is to come up with projects that are both fun and meaningful, such as creating a classbook. If you want to engage students and get them excited about writing, then let them see their work and their names in print in a collaboratively-created classbook.

This project serves to introduce young writers to the writing process and build confidence in their skills. It also promotes teamwork, encourages creativity and creates a keepsake for your class.

5. Create a Sense of Order and Routine

A great way to establish a healthy sense of order and routine is to greet your students in the same way every day. You can greet your students at the door of your classroom each day at a safe distance and pass out "air high fives" with enthusiasm. Let them know that each and every one of them matters to you and show that you care by making individual connections.

Explain to them that no matter what has happened before, you'll be there at the beginning of every day of school to look them in the eye and wish them a good morning. Tell them that you expect the same in return.

Creating routines helps to maintain a sense of order in the classroom. Routines provide students with a solid foundation from which to start from and a structure to help them move through their day. You can create routines for activities throughout the school day and even for the transitional times in between.

To create routines that your students can stick to, start by explaining each routine and why it's important. Let your students know exactly what to expect, as well as what you will expect from them. Then, let your students practice the routine using modeling and demonstrations.

Once your class has an understanding of a new routine, make it a part of your daily schedule. If you find that your students have a difficult time remembering a routine once they return from a break, be flexible in reviewing that routine and consider making changes to help set your students up for success.

6. Positively Reinforce Good Behavior

All teachers understand the ongoing challenge of managing behavior and keeping students on task in class. There was once a time when doling out harsh punishments for misbehavior was common practice. But we have since learned that positive reinforcement of good behavior is a much more effective method of changing student behavior for the better.

Rather than focusing on what your students are doing wrong and reprimanding them-a form of negative reinforcement that can inadvertently promote acting out-praise your students for what they are doing right.

If you see students misbehaving or otherwise taking incorrect action, make a point to thank the students you see taking the correct action. Saying thank you for listening, thank you for following my instructions and thank you for participating will positively reinforce those behaviors.

7. Take Care of Yourself and Maintain a Positive Mindset

Do what you can to take care of yourself, both mentally and physically, and practice thinking positively; your state of mind will most certainly have an effect on the kind of learning environment you are trying to create for your students. If you don't properly take care of yourself, you won't be able to help your students as effectively either.

Practicing additional self-care on your off-time will also be of great benefit to both you and your students. Seek out strategies that will help you destress and unwind, such as practicing deep breathing, meditation, body scans, muscle relaxation and stretching.

Studentreasures provides free publishing kits. Creating a classbook is not only a fun activity that teaches students about the writing process, it can also help build their confidence as young writers.

Visit our website to learn more about how the process works and see how your students can become published authors!

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Creating a Positive Learning Environment | Studentreasures

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Crafting a positive environment for both your students and yourself is crucial to the success of the school year as a whole.

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A three-phase process helps build strong teacher-student bonds, which can reduce disruptive behavior.

©Shutterstock/Monkey Business Images

It's a daunting but all-too-common sight for many teachers: A classroom full of rowdy students who are unable to focus on the lesson. Classroom management techniques may get things back on track, but valuable time has already been lost.

Many experienced teachers know that making meaningful connections with students is one of the most effective ways to prevent disruptions in the first place, and a new study set out to assess this approach. In classrooms where teachers used a series of techniques centered around establishing, maintaining, and restoring relationships, academic engagement increased by 33 percent and disruptive behavior decreased by 75 percent-making the time students spent in the classroom more worthwhile and productive.

"Strong teacher-student relationships have long been considered a foundational aspect of a positive school experience," explains Clayton Cook, the lead author of the study and a professor at the University of Minnesota. When those relationships are damaged, student well-being may be affected, leading to academic and behavioral problems.

In the study, teachers used an approach called Establish-Maintain-Restore to build positive interactions with students-a total of 220 in fourth and fifth grade-and boost their sense of belonging. (A follow-up study with middle school teachers used the same strategies, with similar results.) Relationship-building was broken down into three phases: the first meeting, maintenance throughout the school year, and points when a relationship may suffer damage, with useful strategies for each phase.

Since it can be easy for some students to fall through the cracks, a relationship reflection form-like the one we share here-can help teachers take notes on each individual student and highlight ones who need the most attention.

Starting on a Positive Note

At the start of the school year, the teachers in the study made time for establishing relationships. "The goal is to ensure all students feel a sense of belonging that is characterized by trust, connection, and understanding," Cook and his colleagues explain. For students with learning or behavioral problems, cultivating positive relationships provided "protective effects" that helped them stay focused on learning.

"Bank time" with students. Schedule one-on-one meetings with students to get to know them better. The goal is to "make deposits into the relationship" to help ease conflict in the future if you have to give constructive feedback or address disruptive behavior.

Encourage student-led activities. Students feel more invested in their learning if given opportunity to share their interests. Teachers can step aside, be supportive, and listen.

Welcome students into the classroom. Activities such as positive greetings at the door and icebreaker questions help create a warm classroom culture.

Use positive communication techniques. Open-ended questions, reflective listening, validation statements, expressions of enthusiasm or interest, and compliments help students-especially shy or introverted ones-ease into classroom discussions.

To establish positive relationships, teachers can:

Maintaining Relationships

Without active maintenance, relationships deteriorate over time, the study authors point out. Teachers may focus too much on academics and not enough on supporting students' emotional well-being, slowly using up the banked time they initially built up with students.

Take note of positive and negative interactions with students. Teachers should aim for a five-to-one ratio.

Regularly check in with students. Ask how they're doing and what support they may need. In an Edutopia article, Todd Finley explains how 5x5 assessment time helped him focus on a handful of students every day.

Acknowledge good behavior. When teachers focus attention on positive conduct, disruptive behavior is stemmed before it becomes an issue.

Teachers can maintain relationships by continuing to implement the strategies above, and in addition they can:

Repairing Harm Before Things Get Worse

Eventually, negative interactions such as misunderstandings, conflict, or criticism can weaken a teacher-student relationship. If these negative interactions are left unaddressed, students may feel disengaged and be less willing to participate in activities. They may also be more likely to misbehave, creating further damage. So it's important for teachers to "intentionally reconnect" with students to restore the relationship to a positive state.

Let go and start fresh. Teachers should avoid holding mistakes over a student's head, instead giving them a chance to start each day with a clean slate.

Take responsibility for their actions. Teachers can avoid blaming students when things go wrong, and think, "What could I have done to avoid the problem in the first place?" They shouldn't be afraid to apologize when that's called for-doing so helps build trust with students.

Show empathy. There are two sides to every story, and a teacher can acknowledge that students may have a different perspective about what happened.

Focus on solutions, not problems. Teachers can work with students to find a solution that everyone feels is fair.

Separate the deed from the doer. It's important to criticize the behavior, not the person. If teachers label children as "problem students," there's a danger that they'll internalize that label, making it more likely that they'll repeat the behavior in the future.

When relationships need repair, teachers can:

The takeaway: Effective classroom management starts with relationship building. When students feel a greater sense of belonging, they're more likely to be academically engaged and demonstrate positive behavior.

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The Key to Effective Classroom Management

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A three-phase process helps build strong teacher-student bonds, which can reduce disruptive behavior.

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Elementary classroom organization. Ask any veteran teacher why it's important, and you're bound to get an earful - both about how it helps and how it can be a challenge! But when you're facing an open classroom and wondering how to whip things into shape, what you really need are solid classroom organization ideas.

Not only do we have some of the best organization ideas to start your school year off on the right step, but we've also taken a look at how to organize a classroom in ways that will bolster learning.

How Does Classroom Organization Affect Learning?

As Teach Starter resource creator (and 13-year teaching veteran) Brittany Collins puts it: Classroom organization isn't just for you, the teacher. It's also for your students, to help them find what they need, when they need it. They don't need to waste valuable lesson time wandering around, looking for their clipboards or headphones, because they're in the same place every time. Plus when you've got a solid organization system in your classroom, students also know where and how to put things away, which helps keep the learning space neat and more conducive to learning.

Ever heard the old saying about a messy desk (or room) and a messy mind? That's not just an old wives' tale. Research shows that a well-organized classroom makes students feel safe and creates structure, which in turn can improve academic outcomes.

Classroom Organization Ideas

So you need to manage the copious amount of paperwork that will most likely start hitting your desk within hours of starting the school year, consider these classroom organization ideas and hacks to make all that ... STUFF ... easier to keep track of! From organizing your teacher desk to student stuff, let's dive in, shall we?

Create Classroom Jobs

Want to get students involved in classroom organization from the first day of school? Classroom jobs go a long way toward fostering organizational skills in students and ensuring they have buy-in to make their classroom an organized and welcoming space!

Make filling out a classroom job application their day one homework assignment to start the year off right!

Create a Turn-In Bin

Teaching your students to be organized is a skill that will serve them for the rest of their lives, and this trick will do just that ... while also helping with your classroom organization. Southern California teacher Paige has a "turn-in bin" in her classroom with file folders marked for each student. That way students know that when it's time to turn in their work, they shouldn't just drop it somewhere on her desk, where it runs the risk of being lost or creating a chaotic working environment.

Instead, students know to go to their classroom turn-in bin, find the folder marked with their name, and add their work. In turn, Paige already has everything sorted by the students! Genius!

Need a label for your turn-in bin? Make a custom one in Studio!

Make "Sharpened" and "Unsharpened" Containers

Make it easier to grab a sharpened pencil with containers labeled with "sharpened" and "unsharpened." This lets students - and let's face it, you - know where to drop unsharpened pencils so they can get right back to work ... and leave the sharpening for the class sharpener to take care of during downtime. Need fun labels? You can make your own in Studio.

Sort Your Drawers By Day of the Week

To create the drawer set up below, use a set of five desk drawers (we purchased this one from Target). Use some washi tape to decorate each drawer (who doesn't love a bit of washi tape?). Finally, you can use any of our customizable tray labels to create the days of the week.

Once downloaded, we printed these tray labels two to a page to get the correct size for the drawers. Now you've got an organized system for your week of lesson plans and everything you need day by day!
Print an editable weekly lesson plan template for easy weekly planning!
Dish Rack = Student Work Filing System

Have you tried using a dish rack in the classroom? Hear us out! You can put students' work samples in there, making them easily accessible for meetings that you may have for that particular student. The front compartments of the dish drying rack could be used for pencils or name tags - whatever you may need handy on your desk during the day.

Grab an inexpensive rack at the dollar store and use one of these customizable name tags to label each folder (we used the 16 name tags to a page option).

Organize It All With Binder Clips

We all know the feeling. Your desk is clean at the beginning of the day, then during the craziness that is a school day, your desk is suddenly covered in the paperwork that then gets put into every growing Mount Paper on your desk. That's where these printable binder clip label templates become surprisingly helpful as a classroom organization idea.

Organize by Color

Is there anything we teachers won't color code? Quick answer: NO! And for good reason too - color coding is proven to help students organize their thinking and make connections. But it doesn't just help our students. Color coding can make classroom organization a snap too.

Take this fun classroom organization idea from kindergarten teacher Mackenzie Lee Fuggett who bought plastic candy jars from the dollar store and loaded each one with individually colored markers. It makes it easy for students to know where to return each marker, and it's pretty to boot!

Office Supply Organization

You can't do classroom organization hacks without featuring the ever-famous office supply drawers! These drawers and the different ways to decorate them have been all over social media! I purchased these drawers from our local hardware store and used washi tape (again, I may be addicted) to decorate each drawer.

Then, use our customizable desk name tags to label each drawer with whatever you want! This organization hack prevents your drawers in your desk from getting full of all of those bits and bobs that you seem to collect as a teacher.

Sub Tub

Sometimes you know when you're going to have a sub ... and then sometimes you get walloped by a case of strep throat that kicks in on a Saturday, and you've got to worry about what's going to happen on Monday morning.

Grab a milk crate, a laundry basket, or really any container that will fit the supplies you need for your substitute to get the job done, and set it up in one spot in the classroom where you can easily direct your sub.

How does this keep you organized? Let's put it this way: Have you ever come back to chaos when you had to be out unexpectedly? Exactly. The more you can prepare your sub, the more organized things will remain!

Don't forget these must-haves for your sub tub:

teaching resource

Print this "while the teacher was gone" template for your sub to fill out when you are away.

1 page Grades: PK - 6

teaching resource

Use this selection of templates to provide information to substitute teachers that come into your classroom.

16 pages

Classroom Closet Organization

Storing all of those amazing resources that you have spent hours and hours printing and laminating is always a big question we get asked! Of course, you can store them in colored baskets, but sometimes, those amazing resources get forgotten about.

Using coat hangers and a tie hanger is just perfect! It's another simple, yet effective, solution to ensure you get your use out of those teaching resources you have spent so much of your life creating!

Student-Centered Work Bins

Much like the turn-in bin, creating bins that let students know where to find the work they need puts the kids in the driver's seat when it comes to classroom organization! Set up milk crates with extra work, make-up work, extra supplies ... really anything kids might need where they can help themselves.

Not only does it help with your classroom management, but it can help keep YOU organized as you have a specific place to put each thing!
Don't forget to print labels for each bin!
Tabletop Organization

Do you organize your classroom seating in groups or pods? You're going to need this trick from teacher April of @inseasonspaces . Buy inexpensive plastic plates and containers, and hot glue the containers to the plate for easily organized supplies that you can put on each table for your students!

It may take some time to set up some of these organization hacks, but we promise it will relieve some of the disorganized haze teachers often find themselves in when they look down at their messy desk or work area!

Need more classroom organization tips? Check out tons of resources for organizing that you can print in no time!

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12 Elementary Classroom Organization Ideas Every Teacher Can Use

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Elementary classroom organization. Ask any veteran teacher why it's important, and you're bound to get an earful - both about how it helps and how it can be a challenge! But when you're facing an open classroom and wondering how to whip things into shape, what you really need are solid classroom organization ideas.

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Importance of Students Liking your Classroom

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Importance of Students Liking your Classroom

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How important is it to you for kids-students to like you.docx

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1. Take Care of Yourself to Take Care of Your Students

As the airline safety videos say: Put on your own oxygen mask first.

To learn effectively, your students need a healthy you, said our experienced teachers. So get enough sleep, eat healthy food, and take steps to attend to your own well-being. In her first year of teaching, Jessica Sachs "was working 15-hour days and was completely stressed out. My husband finally said to me, 'The most important thing that you do at school is make decisions. If you are too tired to do that properly, it won't matter how well-prepared you were the night before.'" A few deep breaths can go a long way to helping you identify frustration before you act on it. Mindy Jones, a middle school teacher from Brownsville, Tennessee, notes that "a moment of patience in a moment of frustration saves you a hundred moments of regret."

Countless studies corroborate the idea that self-care reduces stress, which can deplete your energy and impair your judgment. While self-care is more of a habit or practice for your own well-being than an actual classroom management strategy, the benefits include improved executive function, greater empathy, and increased resilience-all qualities that will empower you to make better decisions when confronted with challenging classroom situations.

2. Focus on Building Relationships

This was the theme we heard the most: Building healthy student-teacher relationships is essential to a thriving classroom culture, and even sets the stage for academic success. The phrase "build relationships" occurred 27 times during the Facebook and Instagram discussions, and other variants of that wording appeared 78 times.

"Rapport is huge!" confirmed middle school teacher Kim Manzer, before adding that she always makes the time to talk to students as a whole class or one on one. Simple efforts like greeting kids outside the classroom before the start of the day pay outsized dividends. "They appreciate it so much when I just stop to listen and take interest." Teacher Amanda Tait from Prince George, British Columbia, adds a little spice to the ritual: "I always meet them at the door and we do a 'high-five, chicken-five,' touching elbows with a 'wing.'"

Yes! We high-five, chicken-five in agreement.

Many educators noted that a teacher's ability to balance warmth and strong boundaries is key to successful relationships-and classroom management. "Be consistent but flexible. Love them unconditionally, but hold them accountable. Give them voice but be the leader," said Rae Rudzinski.

3. Set Rules, Boundaries, and Expectations (and Do It Early)

Students don't thrive amid chaos. They need some basic structure-and consistency-to feel safe and to focus.

But maintaining a culture of mutual respect doesn't mean your goal is to "make pals," noted middle school reading coach Heather Henderson. "You can't be their friend. You can be kind, loving, and supportive, but you still have to be their teacher." Establish the code of conduct early in the year, and be sure that everyone-including the teacher-makes an effort to stay true to it. Predictability counts: "Follow through with rewards and consequences. If you say it, mean it. And if you mean it, say it. Be clear, be proactive, and be consistent," said Lori Sheffield.

There was broad consensus among educators that modeling appropriate classroom behavior sets the tone for children: "You make the weather," said Diana Fliginger from Minot, North Dakota. "Your attitude as the teacher really determines what the tone and environment of your classroom is like. If you want calm and productive, project that to your kids." Many others cautioned that while enforcing rules consistently is critical, it's important to pick your battles too-especially if those confrontations are going to be public: "Instead, say, 'You and I will talk about this later,'" advises Denise Tremblay Drapeau. "That way you can still address the issue while saving face. It completely changed the vibe in my classroom."

4. Take a Strength-Based Approach

In a long back-and-forth about classroom management practices, it might have been the most memorable quote: "Find ways to make your hardest kid your favorite kid," said Karen Yenofsky, turning a nearly perfect phrase and triggering an avalanche of teacher love. "When you connect with them... it makes everything smoother."

That's not easy, of course. A strength-based lens means never forgetting to look beneath the surface of behavior, even when it's inconvenient. "Find the root of the problem," urged teacher Judi Michalik of Bangor, Maine. "I have never met a student that doesn't want to be successful. If they are misbehaving it is kind of like when a baby cries; there is something wrong in their world. If they are misbehaving for attention then find out why they need the attention and how you can give them what they need."

And don't forget to continue to work to deepen the connection, being mindful of the context and using language thoughtfully. "Don't sound surprised when remarking on struggling students' successes," said Jenni Park, a teacher from Asheville, North Carolina. "Instead of saying, 'Wow! That was amazing,' it's better to say, 'I'm proud of you, but not surprised. I always knew you could do it.'"

Finally, cultural differences can also play an unconscious role in our expectations of whether a student will succeed, so it's important to reflect on any stereotypes that come up for you. "Don't look at a single one of your kids as if they are deficit and in need of 'guidance' to become better," says elementary educator Elijah Moore, drawing over 230 positive reactions. "Cultural difference does not equal cultural deficiency."

5. Involve Parents and Guardians

"Never forget that every student is someone's child," writes Molly Francis, echoing many teachers in our thread. "Parents/guardians/caregivers want to hear that you see the good in their child. A positive connection with home can often help in the classroom."

The popular apps Remind and ClassDojo were frequently praised, and appear to be well on the way to replacing phone calls-both from teachers to guardians, and in the other direction, too. "Let's be honest," wrote middle school teacher Kristin Ward. "If some parents had my personal cell number they would be calling all the time!"

The majority of teachers send home reports of both positive and negative behaviors-it's critical to do the former, too-and also use email and text services to communicate about upcoming events, due dates, and student progress. "Catch them doing good and call their parents to let them know you noticed," suggests Barbara Rawson. And Kim Manzer (she's so nice we quoted her twice) reminds fellow teachers that the benefits of parental communication find their way back to the classroom: "It's important that parents are involved and know what's going on so they can support and reinforce at home."

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5 Principles of Outstanding Classroom Management

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When we asked our community for their best classroom management practices, over 700 ideas rolled in.

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University of San Diego - Professional & Continuing Education

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Educators are always seeking out ways to bring energy into their classrooms and into their lessons. But regardless of grade level, creating engaging and relevant curricula that meets standards while also effectively teaching subject matter can feel like an impossible effort.

The good news for teachers is that there are resources out there to help them reinvigorate or simply refine their lessons. Whether they've been teaching for two years or 20, a curriculum design refresher can help teachers find new, innovative ways to motivate their students.

What is Curriculum Design & Why Is It Important?

Curriculum design is generally defined as "the deliberate organization of curriculum within a course or classroom. When instructors design their curriculums, they identify what will be done, who will do it and when, as well as what the objective of each course is. Curriculum design involves planning activities, readings, lessons, and assessments that achieve educational goals."

Curriculum design is important because it centers a teacher's practice based on individual needs in the classroom. Any curriculum development effort should focus on being an effective educator, as it involves rethinking lessons that already exist to re-envision what would better prioritize the needs of the students. The process of design and creation of new or revised curriculum brings fresh and up-to-date ideas to the classroom.

What is Curriculum Planning?

A component of curriculum design and development is curriculum planning - identifying and selecting teaching strategies and organizational methods based on individual student needs that will result in improved student growth and student learning outcomes.

Curriculum planning should incorporate the 6 elements of effective teaching, from the Danielson Framework for Teaching:

Demonstrate knowledge of content and pedagogy;

Demonstrate the knowledge of students;

Set instructional outcomes;

Demonstrate knowledge of resources;

Design coherent instruction;

Design student assessments.

Curriculum Models: Product vs. Process

Curriculum models are the first step in curriculum development, and they help educators determine what type of curriculum design is appropriate for their students and their learning goals. They have long-existed and act as formulaic guides for teachers as they design their new or existing curricula.

Curriculum models have five areas they define:

Focus - Subject or student. Where is the emphasis?

Approach - Traditional or modern. What type of instruction will be used?

Content - Topic based or content based. How will units or strands be written?

Process - Formative or summative. How will assessments be used?

Structure - System, linear or cyclical. How often does the curriculum get reviewed?

From there, there are two models of curriculum development that are widely used today - the product model and the process model. The Journal of Education and Practice defines them as:

Product model: Product models emphasize the outcome of a learning experience. The product model of the curriculum leads to some kind of desirable end product. Examples given are knowledge of certain facts, mastery of specific skills and competencies, and acquisition of certain "appropriate" attitudes and values.

Process model: With process models, the emphasis is on learning acquired from experience of work and life, that is experiential learning. It comprises open-ended student activities with developing tendencies and capacities. The emphasis is on the quality of the learning as it takes place rather than on predetermined outcomes.

Think of it like this - the product model is assessment driven; like a target for the teacher and students to prepare toward the end of a unit. All the lessons that come before the product drive toward the end result. Whereas a process approach depends more on developing skills and revision of work based on continually assessing student needs.

Types of Curriculum Design

There are three categories of curriculum design, differentiated by who or what the primary focus of the lessons will be.

Subject-Centered Curriculum Design:

Focuses on a specific discipline/subject

Subject-centered curriculum design describes what needs to be studied and how it should be studied

Most common type of curriculum used in the U.S.

Downside - not student-centered, constructed without taking into account the specific learning styles of the students, which can reduce student engagement and motivation

Learner-Centered Curriculum Design:

Focuses on students' own interests and goals

Acknowledges that students have individual learning styles, and therefore should not be subject to a standardized curriculum

Aims to empower learners to shape their education

Downside - it can create pressure on the educator to source materials specific to each student's learning needs

Problem-Centered Curriculum Design:

Focuses on specific issues and their solutions

Teaches students how to be problem solvers

Considered an authentic form of learning because students are exposed to real-life issues, so they develop skills that are transferable to the real world

Downside - this format does not always consider individual learning styles

Benefits of Utilizing Curriculum Design

Educators are already asked to handle more than their fair share of tasks in their career, so if they're going to add anything to their workloads, it must clearly improve things for them and their students. Thankfully, curriculum design benefits them both by:

1. Creating a curriculum with a purpose and concrete goals - a goal-oriented curriculum that has been crafted with student learning styles and outcomes in mind has been shown to improve participation, improve retention, foster collaborative learning and ultimately make learning more fun.

2. Ensures that standards are being met - While they don't have to be the singular focus of curriculum design, educators do have to ensure that their subject matter is meeting standards and helping students successfully reach the benchmarks of their grade and age levels. With updated curriculum design, educators can more clearly demonstrate how their courses meet standards.

3. Improves the teaching process - When lessons or curricula have been in circulation for years, they can get stale for both the students and the teacher. With a refreshed curriculum design, educators can find new and exciting ways to teach the subject matter they're passionate about, making their jobs more fun and students more engaged.

4. Improves student outcomes - With a curriculum that is learner-centered or problem-centered, the teaching methodologies are more likely to align with student learning styles which, in theory, should improve their performance in the classroom.

Curriculum Design Tips

Curriculum design should be an intentional process, and it can be guided by a teacher's own experience, or perhaps in a workshop setting, or even part of a curriculum design course. Regardless of the inspiration, there are a few curriculum design tips all educators should keep in mind.

Identify student needs: A student-centered curriculum obviously must originate with students' needs. However, even if they aren't considering that type of curriculum design, teachers should have a clear understanding of these needs and use them as a compass as they revamp their course curriculum.

Have a clear set of goals: Clearly defined learning outcomes or course goals will help guide educators as they design new curriculum. These can be state standards, individual student goals or even goals for themselves as educators, but having identifiable benchmarks makes it easier to assess both student and educator success.

Acknowledge limitations: In an ideal world, teachers would have endless resources and time to ensure that all components of their lesson plans and overall curriculum are taught to completion. But in reality, there are limitations, in terms of bandwidth, class time, student abilities and more. When they are designing or updating course curriculum, teachers must acknowledge these limitations and ensure that realistic expectations are set.

Select your instructional methods - Choosing to redesign curriculum is an opportunity for educators to formulate lessons and strategies that play to their strengths. In planning out a refreshed course plan, they should select instructional methods that they enjoy, that are effective with students and that they are proficient in.

Establish an evaluation process - While curriculum design is an opportunity to play to one's strengths, it is also an opportunity to reflect and more clearly see the effectiveness of certain teaching strategies. During this process, educators should implement a solid evaluation process that gives them high-quality feedback on their lessons and helps inform improvements for the next time.

Lastly, and most importantly, educators should consider taking a curriculum design course. In these courses, teachers are afforded the time to do the curriculum-enriching work for their school, district and classrooms that they may not have had during the school year. At the University of San Diego's Division of Professional and Continuing Education, our experienced professional educators provide meaningful and timely feedback throughout our curriculum design program, centering each individual teacher's needs based on their grade level, subject and coursework plan. At the end of the course, teachers are ready to inspire their students with a fresh, engaging new curriculum.

To learn more visit the University of San Diego's Curriculum Design program

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University of San Diego - Professional & Continuing Education

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Curriculum Design Explained + 5 Tips for Educators - University of San Diego - Professional & Continuing Education

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Educators are always seeking out ways to bring energy into their classrooms and into their lessons. But regardless of grade level, creating engaging and relevant curricula that meets standards while also effectively teaching subject matter can feel like an impossible effort.

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Welcome, Let's Do History!

Thank you for using Smithsonian's History Explorer! This page is designed to help you navigate the site and to provide you with additional teaching supports through our primary source guide, poster, blog posts, and information about the Museum's teacher professional development opportunities.

Tips for Using History Explorer

History Explorer is a full-featured search of all the educational resources from the National Museum of American History. For tutorials, tips for searching, and advice on subscribing to RSS feeds, visit How to Use this Site.

Guides to Teaching with Primary Sources

Engaging Students with Primary Sources, a guide for teachers, includes brief introductions to using documents, photographs, oral histories, and objects for classroom learning. The guide includes student handouts, sample lessons, recommendations for finding primary sources by type, and more support materials for teachers.

If You Walked in My Shoes This teaching poster introduces students to the who, what, where, when, why, and how of object investigation and the personal stories in history through six pairs of shoes in the Museum's collection.

Looking at Artifacts, Thinking About History, an essay developed for The Object of History, a partnership between the National Museum of American History and the George Mason Center for History and New Media, was written by Museum curators and introduces teachers to the variety of stories objects can tell. The site includes links to other resources for interpreting primary sources.

Archived Webinars

View 30 minutes archived webinars where we highlight key resources from the Museum's online materials.

Hear ideas for using the History Explorer podcast series in your secondary classroom. The series is designed for students in grades 6 and up and provides 10-20 minute interviews with museum experts and first person perspectives on important events in American history, as well as behind the scenes views of artifacts in the collection. Visit https://americanhistory.si.edu/podcasts to preview materials.

Civil War
Join us for an overview of the best of our Civil War online materials and a preview of resources in development. Designed for teachers of grades 5-8.

OurStory and Summer Learning
Join us to explore resources to support children's learning through the summer. Designed for elementary teachers and parents of children in grades K-4.

Star-Spangled 200
In honor of the bicentennial of the national anthem and just in time for Flag Day, join us to find resources for teaching about the Star-Spangled Banner and learn how to participate in the Raise it Up! Anthem for America project, the largest simultaneous singing of a national anthem in history. Designed for teachers of grades 3-8.

C3 Framework
Lead inquiry-based education throughout the school year using the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework! In this webinar, we will examine the Museum's best resources for teaching the inquiry arc in the C3. Designed for secondary teachers.

Research for National History Day
Are you and your students gearing up for this year's National History Day competition? Find tips on searching for primary materials from the Smithsonian, podcasts, blog posts, and other resources that students can use to learn about the historian's craft.
Additional Professional Development Opportunities
Or, find additional online resources on the following topics:
Suggestions for Planning a Visit
Are you bringing your class to the National Museum of American History? Consider
using the materials you find on History Explorer as pre- or post-visit activities, and
take a look at our Plan Your Visit page for tips and details on events at the Museum.

Staying in Touch

We love hearing from teachers, so be sure to keep in touch! You can find us...
On Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube

Use the links above or at the bottom of the page to find the History Explorer team and the National Museum of American History on our social media channels.
By Email

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Welcome, Let's Do History! Thank you for using Smithsonian's History Explorer! This page is designed to help you navigate the site and to provide you with additional teaching supports through our primary source guide, poster, blog posts, and information about the Museum's teacher professional development opportunities.

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Award-winning educational materials like worksheets, games, lesson plans and activities designed to help kids succeed. Start for free now!

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​A collection of resources for teachers who are teaching Human Geography (Including Advanced Placement), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), International Studies, and World Geography. Located…

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CIA’s World Factbook is your authoritative source on the world’s countries, territories, oceans, and more. Explore world facts at your fingertips.

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Classroom climate refers to the atmosphere of a classroom including the social, emotional, and physical aspects of a learning space. The moods, attitudes, and tone of instructor-student and student-student interactions in a classroom culminates in the overall classroom climate. Additionally, both intentional and unintentional actions and explicit and implicit messages add to the classroom climate. To cultivate a positive classroom climate, instructors need to build strong rapport with students (Barr 2016) by incorporating seven dimensions of classroom climate (Fraser and Treagust 1986).

Seven Dimensions of Classroom Climate

1. Personalization - Students know the instructor sees them as individuals and cares about their well-being and success.

2. Involvement - All students are actively invited to participate in the class resulting in an inclusive learning environment.

3. Student Cohesiveness - Students are encouraged to know and work with their peers during class activities to build a sense of community.

4. Satisfaction - Students find value in and enjoy coming to class.

5. Task Orientation - Students find class activities to be worthwhile, well-organized, and clearly aligned to learning objectives/goals and expectations.

6. Innovation - Activities and assignments are designed using pedagogical best-practices. Students understand why the instructor is using these activities and assignments (explicit statements by instructor on why students are doing specific tasks).

7. Individualization - Students are given autonomy/choice for some aspects of the class which allows them to develop/explore areas that are interesting to them.

Fortunately, most of these aspects of classroom climate can be developed by the instructor using a few basic strategies.

Building Classroom Culture

There are three strategies that aid in creating a positive classroom climate and culture:

1. open, warm communication,

2. inclusive environment, and

3. organization and accessibility of course content.

Communication

Communication is key to building a positive and inviting classroom culture. Therefore, the first steps to building a strong community include providing information to students before the start of the semester. For example, publishing the Canvas course and posting a pre-course welcome announcement provides students with information they need while also showing that you care about their success in the course. Along the same lines, creating a syllabus that invites students to the course and explains course expectations in an inclusive manner promotes a positive climate before the course begins. At the beginning of term, it is also important to greet students, learn students' names, get to know your students, share enthusiasm for the course/topic, and explicitly state that you believe all students can learn by normalizing academic struggles and sharing personal accounts on how effort resulted in positive outcomes. It is also highly recommended to allow students time to get to known each other as student-student interactions can be critical to the learning environment (Barr 2016).

Once established, it is important to continue to provide clear and timely communication with students. A few strategies for maintaining good communication include responding in a timely manner to student questions (whether in-person, via email, or using another method), fostering open discourse through open ended questions and class discussions, and providing students with prompt feedback. Additionally, communicating concern for students that are not doing well in the course creates positive culture (Barr 2016) and can be accomplished with an in-person meeting, an individual email, or through the Canvas LMS (using the "Message Students Who" option in the gradebook). By using these strategies throughout the semester, you convey interest in students' ideas and provide students with the information/means to succeed in your course.

Inclusive Environment

To ensure a positive classroom climate, a course must provide an inclusive environment where all students feel safe and empowered to learn. Creating an inclusive environment begins with the implementation of inclusive course content. Inclusive course content includes using materials that accurately represent the diversity of ideas, perspectives, and people within your content area. But inclusivity is more than just content. It also requires creating safe spaces and opportunities for individuals to contribute to the class. Thus, instructors need to provided students with multiple methods of learning by using a variety of instructional strategies, allowing students to participate in different ways, and providing students with options on assignments and other aspects of their learning. The Center for Transformative Teaching has a newly constructed Inclusive Course Checklist that provides further details on how to create a more inclusive classroom.

Organization and Accessibility of Course Content

A chaotic and unorganized course design will inherently be difficult to learn in and thus make it difficult for a positive classroom climate to be achieved. Therefore, instructors need to organize course content to be easily located within Canvas using modules and other structuring to consistently place information, files, assignments, quizzes, and other required and supplemental resources. Additionally, due dates and other important information should be associated with each assignment or assessment to ensure students know and meet these expectations. Outside of course content and assignments, specialized resources that support students should be placed in easy to locate places within Canvas for students to reference when needed.

These support services include student health (including mental health) services, tutoring services (writing and math centers as well as discipline specific services), disability support services, student housing, and many more. The Center for Transformative Teaching has a Canvas module that contains this information and can be imported into your Canvas course [to import the newest version of this module, go to Canvas, then select Common from the left side menu; on the Common's site search for "Eyde Olson" and the select "Canvas Orientation and Student Resources", then import/download (blue button on right) to add to your course]. When instructors create well organized courses, students know the instructor has their best interests in mind which aids in creating a positive class climate.

In addition to a well-organized course, all course materials need to be accessible to all students. Digital accessibility requires more than just adding a file to a course. The file also needs to be created in a manner that allows students with different abilities to have equal access to these files. For example, videos need to have accurate captioning, documents need to have heading and other structures added, and images need alternative text. The Center for Transformative Teaching has an Essential Accessibility Checklist (Accessibility Checklist | Center for Transformative Teaching (unl.edu)) and Accessibility/UDL Resource (Making Course Material More Accessible : CTT Accessibility/UDL Resource (unl.edu)) to help you improve the accessibility of your course content. Alternatively, a new "Digital Accessibility Training" is available through Bridge ( https://hr.unl.edu/training/, then select the red button labeled "NU Bridge Learning Portal" and search for the course using the title) that includes information and videos showing how to make digital content more accessible.

Building a positive classroom climate and culture is essential for student learning. Student motivation and self-efficacy are positively affected by a supportive classroom climate (Wang et al. 2020). Additionally, student learning has been shown to increase when classroom climate is supportive and positive (Falsario et al. 2014, Persson 2015). And since an instructor's perceptions of a student's abilities and attitudes directly influences the classroom climate (Alonso-Tapia and Ruiz-Diaz 2022), it is imperative for instructors to develop strategies that create a supportive and healthy classroom climate.

Additional Resources

References

Alonso-Tapia, J and Ruiz-Diaz, M (2022). Student, teacher, and school factors predicting differences in classroom climate: a multilevel analysis. Learning and Individual Differences, 94: DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2022.102115

Barr, JJ (2016). Developing a Positive Classroom Climate. IDEA Paper #61.

Falsario, HN, Muyong, RF, and Nuevaespana JS (2014). Classroom climate and academic performance in education students. DLSU Research Congress.

Fraser, BJ and Treagust, DF (1986). Validity and use of an instrument for assessing classroom psychological environment in higher education. Higher Education, 15:37-57.

Persson, M (2015). Classroom Climate and Political Learning: Findings from a Swedish panel study and comparative data. Political Psychology, 36:587-601.

Wang, Q, Lee, KCS and Hoque KE (). The effect of classroom climate on academic motivation mediated by academic self-efficacy in a higher education institute in China. International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research, 19:194-213.

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Classroom climate refers to the atmosphere of a classroom including the social, emotional, and physical aspects of a learning space. The moods, attitudes, and tone of instructor-student and student-student interactions in a classroom culminates in the overall classroom climate. Additionally, both intentional and unintentional actions and explicit and implicit messages add to the classroom climate.

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Self-Management in the Classroom - The Social Emotional Teacher

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Self-management skills can transform your classroom! Learn strategies to teach this vital compenent of social emotional learning.

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Positive Reinforcement vs Student Control

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Positive Reinforcement vs Student Control

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(Last Updated On: November 23, 2023)

Unit planning is a crucial aspect of teaching that allows educators to organize and deliver cohesive and comprehensive learning experiences. Whether you're a new teacher or an experienced educator, effective unit planning can enhance student engagement, promote deeper understanding, and align instruction with learning goals. In this article, we'll explore the importance of unit plans, key components to include, and strategies for creating meaningful unit plans for different stages of your teaching career.

Why Unit Plans Matter

Unit plans provide a broader framework for a series of lessons, ensuring that learning objectives are met over an extended period. They help teachers:

Promote Coherence: Unit plans ensure that lessons are interconnected and build upon each other, providing students with a holistic understanding of a topic or concept.

Focus on Learning Goals: By outlining clear learning objectives, unit plans keep instruction aligned with curriculum standards and essential skills.

Enhance Engagement: Well-structured units incorporate diverse teaching strategies, activities, and assessments that cater to varied learning styles.

Guide Assessment: Unit plans help educators develop assessments that accurately measure student progress and mastery of key concepts.

Components of an Effective Unit Plan

1. Unit Overview: Provide a concise summary of the unit's theme, learning objectives, and the scope of content to be covered.

2. Learning Objectives: Clearly define what students should know, understand, and be able to do by the end of the unit.

3. Assessment Strategies: Outline formative and summative assessments that align with the unit's objectives and allow you to gauge student progress.

4. Learning Activities: Describe engaging and varied activities that support the learning objectives, such as discussions, projects, hands-on tasks, and technology integration.

5. Resources and Materials: List the materials, textbooks, technology tools, and resources required for the unit.

6. Differentiation Strategies: Explain how you'll tailor instruction to accommodate diverse student needs, including gifted learners and those requiring additional support.

7. Timetable: Break down the unit into lessons, allocating time for each activity and assessment. Flexibility is essential, but a tentative schedule helps with pacing.

8. Reflection and Adaptation: Dedicate a section to reflect on what worked well and what could be improved after teaching the unit. Use this insight to enhance future planning.

Creating Unit Plans at Different Career Stages

Early-Career Teachers: Focus on clear learning objectives, engaging activities, and effective assessment strategies. Seek mentorship to refine your planning skills.

Mid-Career Teachers: Incorporate innovative teaching methods, technology integration, and interdisciplinary connections to deepen student understanding.

Experienced Teachers: Use your expertise to design in-depth, inquiry-based units that encourage critical thinking, problem-solving, and student autonomy.

Sample Unit Plan Formats

1. New Teacher Sample Unit Plan: Download here to access a unit plan example tailored for early-career educators.

2. Experienced Teacher Sample Unit Plan: Download here to access a unit plan example designed for experienced teachers.

Remember, effective unit planning is an ongoing process. Regularly assess the impact of your unit plans on student learning and adjust them as needed. Unit planning not only benefits your students but also enhances your teaching practice and helps you showcase your instructional design skills in professional portfolios and job interviews.

Frequently Asked Questions About Unit Planning

1. What is a unit plan, and why do I need it?
A unit plan is a comprehensive outline for a series of lessons that make up a broader instructional unit. It ensures that learning goals are met, instruction is coherent, and assessment is aligned.

2. What should a unit plan include?
A unit plan should have an overview, learning objectives, assessment strategies, learning activities, resources, differentiation methods, timetable, and a reflection section.

3. How can unit plans enhance student engagement?
By incorporating varied activities, technology, real-world applications, and interdisciplinary connections, unit plans can engage students through diverse learning experiences.

4. How can I differentiate instruction in my unit plan?
Incorporate strategies such as flexible grouping, varied content delivery, alternative assessment methods, and scaffolded activities to meet the needs of diverse learners.

5. Can I adapt the same unit plan format throughout my teaching career?
Yes, while the depth and complexity may vary, the core components of a unit plan remain consistent. Adapt your approach based on your experience and students' needs.

6. How can I make my unit plan more effective for interdisciplinary teaching?
Integrate content from multiple subjects, encourage connections between disciplines, and collaborate with colleagues from other subjects to create a rich, interdisciplinary learning experience.

7. Why is reflection important in unit planning?
Reflection helps you evaluate the effectiveness of your unit plan, identify areas for improvement, and make data-driven adjustments to enhance future instruction.

8. Can I share my unit plans with colleagues?
Sharing unit plans fosters collaboration and allows colleagues to provide feedback, suggest improvements, and align instruction across grade levels or subjects.

9. Are unit plans useful for job interviews or professional portfolios?
Yes, showcasing well-structured unit plans demonstrates your instructional design skills, your understanding of curriculum alignment, and your commitment to effective teaching practices.

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Creating Effective Unit Plans: A Guide for Teachers

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Whether you're a new teacher or an experienced educator, effective unit planning can enhance student engagement and align instruction with learning goals.

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For some teachers, curriculum planning is a fun and creative process. For others, it's a necessary evil. Whether we love it, hate it, are just kind of meh about it, or are completely confused and overwhelmed by the thought of it, we'd probably all agree that developing curriculum is a time-consuming process that demands a great deal of thought and energy.

However, time is a rare and precious commodity. So how can you create and deliver quality lessons without losing your mind and kissing any semblance of a social life goodbye?

How to create your own curriculum

If you're new to the process of creating your own curriculum, here are seven basic steps you can follow.

At the beginning of the year (or before you start to lesson plan):

1. Read through your state or district standards.

2. Make of list of the concepts your students need to know.

3. Group the concepts into common themes or units.

4. Create an outline of the order in which you will teach the units, as well as the order in which you will teach the concepts within the units.

5. On the outline, write an objective for each concept. (Check out our lesson plan examples for elementary school if you need inspiration).

6. Determine measurable, observable assessments for each objective and add these to your outline.

Throughout the year:

1. Craft lesson plans for how you will teach each objective.

2. Reflect on and make notes about each lesson after you teach it. What did you like? What didn't you like? What worked? What didn't? These notes can help you adjust the lesson next year and inform your lesson planning for the current year.

If you're feeling lost or generally overwhelmed, we've got a guide on how to develop a curriculum.

7 steps to make the curriculum planning process easier

While there's no doubt that creating and developing your own curriculum is a highly involved process, there are ways to make it easier and less stressful.

1. Determine your goals and expectations

What are you seeking to accomplish in developing your curriculum? Are you looking to raise your students' standardized test scores? Do you want to develop students who love learning? Are you looking to include more interactive and differentiated activities? Do you simply need to have something in place that you can teach the students from day to day? Determining your goals will give you purpose and focus in your planning.

2. Choose one content area to focus on each year

Note the word focus. If you're creating all your curriculum from scratch, you obviously need to have something in place for every class period. However, you don't have the time or energy to pour into making every subject great all at once. Instead, choose one area to really hone in on.

3. Research the content and use premade lesson plans

Look in your library and online to find out what kind of information and resources are available for the content you'll be teaching. You may find textbooks, fiction and nonfiction books, fact sheets, activities, pictures, diagrams, short videos (like those at Brainpop.com), PowerPoints, flashcards, and lesson plans. You can also download unit and lesson plan templates from sites such as Teacherplanet.com.

You can even ask the other teachers in your school for their plans. Armed with these completed plans, you can either teach them as they're written or use them as a resource and framework that you can tweak and adapt to your needs.

Looking for ways to make learning more fun in your classroom? Check out Classcraft's lesson plans, created by teachers like you.

4. Make a list of 3-5 resources for each concept

As you're researching what's already out there, save and make a note of your favorite resources. On your curriculum outline, list three to five of your favorites for each concept. This saves lots of time, especially when you do this at the beginning of the year. That way, when you're later writing your lesson plan and preparing to teach it, you already know where to pull your information and activities from.

On a personal note, I went through this preparation when I was expecting my third child while homeschooling my first one. After the birth, all I had to do for our school time was look at my notes and open up or navigate to the corresponding resource.

5. Get to know your students

It's funny how groups of students tend to take on a personality. I once had a classroom full of predominantly firstborn students who were all enthusiastic go-getters. All I had to do was mention an idea for a project, and they'd immediately start planning it. Most of my other classes needed more guidance and direction. Some classes seemed to prefer and thrive on discussions while others were more comfortable with quieter seatwork activities. The better that your lessons align with your students' preferences, the more engaged your class will be.

Of course, this may be easier said than done. Students have varying intelligence and learning styles that you'll have to account for, too.

6. Start with a few reusable activities

Each new activity needs to be taught - and that obviously takes time. Your students need to know how to perform the activity and how they're expected to behave throughout the course of it. Reusing activities that your students are already familiar with saves time during class and eliminates the extra time it takes you to find and plan new activities. Of course, as you and the students settle into the school year, you can always add new ones or revise some of the old ones, but don't start off trying to come up with a bunch of completely different activities and teaching methods for each objective.

In your basic set of three to five, try to find activities that utilize the three basic learning styles: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. Student-directed and project-based learning activities are also great methods to include in your rotation.

7. Don't expect it to be perfect

Curriculum is a continually developing process. It's full of trial and error, success and failure. What works well for one group of students may fail miserably with another, and the methods that one teacher uses successfully may not be a good fit for another teacher. But there is one constant, and that's you.

Students know when a teacher cares about them and about the material they're teaching. They will respond to your heart, even if they don't respond to the lesson. So go forward with love for your students and grace for yourself. Do your best in developing the curriculum with the time and energy you have available. It will come together. And the more you engage in the process, the easier and faster it will become.
Photo: Pexels

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7 curriculum planning tips that will make your school year easier

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For some teachers, curriculum planning is a fun and creative process. For others, it's a necessary evil. Whether we love it, hate it, are just kind of meh about it, or are completely confused and overwhelmed by the thought of it, we'd probably all agree that developing curriculum is a time-consuming process that demands a great deal of thought and energy.

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Sample Newsletter for Parent Communication

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Sample Newsletter for Parent Communication

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the-inspired-educator.com - the inspired educator Resources and Information.

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the-inspired-educator.com is your first and best source for all of the information you’re looking for. From general topics to more of what you would expect to find here, the-inspired-educator.com has it all. We hope you find what you are searching for!

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