Happy Planning Week!
I’m not sure if that greeting is factual or not, because it seems as every single school district in America has a different school calendar. Either way, if you’re reading this post you are preparing for your upcoming year of teaching chemistry. Regular, honors, or AP chemistry, I will cover it all each week, but first student behavior and/or participation.
Want to read about your personality and its affects on your classroom? Read this post here.
Content is important, but it pales in comparison to setting up the mechanics of your classroom. I found this out the hard way.
I thought it was self-explanatory. In my state of delusion, when students came into my classroom, they are to sit down, read the board and get materials for the day. They raise their hand to add a comment, ask a question or to go to the restroom. When done with an assignment, they turn it into the bin. If a student needs materials like colored pencils, a writing utensil or whiteboards, they knew that they’re located on the supply table. I mean after all, in my first year of teaching, my students were primarily juniors and seniors (or 11th and 12th grade). They are a year or less removed from being labeled an adult by the United States Government. They should be able to figure all of this out by assumption or deductive reasoning, right? Wrong. So. Very. Wrong.
My journey down the hard way path lead me to have to revisit my classroom management in pieces at random intervals throughout the school year. One of the largest pain points was addressing my student’s behavior. It was a migraine, and worst of all, it was a migraine I caused myself. This could have been easily avoidable. The key is to set the tone of your classroom early.
Your administration should have an informational meeting about school wide policies and procedures. Use these as a jumping off point.
For example, at my school there are specific steps a teacher must take when a student acts out. Unless there is an outrageous circumstance, the answer is never to immediately set the student out or write a referral. This student is acting out for usually a few reasons, one because they want attention, either from you or other students, two because they don’t understand the content or what they’re suppose to do for a lesson or three because they’re simply bored.
The key is communication.
How will you let students know when they are exhibiting desirable or unfavorable behavior? Will you stop full class instruction to correct minor behaviors? How will you praise on task independent work or productive groupwork?
One tool that I have used with success is my Student Participation tracker.
This was something I put together on my journey down the hard way. My students were exhibiting behaviors I did not want to see but it was difficult to address them individually with a large class with multiple offenders. So, I implemented a system in which they got to award themselves grades.
You read that right. They got to award themselves participation grades on a daily basis. However, they had to justify their score.
The Student Participation Tracker allows the teacher to explicitly explain why a student’s behavior is or is not ideal and what could be done to improve.
Each day, a student could earn up to 5 participation points. They earned them by staying on task, working to the bell on my work, something else, or reading. In addition, they also evaluated how they contributed to the class. Did they answer questions? Did they distract others? All these factors were necessary to consider.
At the end of each class period, the final two to five minutes students were to reflect on their performance for that class period. They gave a quick one or two sentence justification and scored themselves x out of 5.
Each day they would grade and on Fridays, I would collect their tracker to read and record their grades. Here is the important part, I had to agree with their grade!
If a troublesome student gave themselves 5 for each day yet distracted their classmates and never completed an assignment, I would write out my justification for changing their 5s to a different score.
Surprisingly, I had many students rate themselves lower than what I would have given them. In those instances, I would tell them mistakes are okay and reward them a few extra points. This is a great way to communicate forgiveness and kindness to oneself.
Two way communications with each student
I love getting to have a mini interaction with each student individually. High school class periods limit personalized attention each student receives. Unfortunately, teachers end up communicating most with students who act out or perform best. Student Participation Tracker opens a new line of communication, allowing all students to feel heard and seen.
The first few weeks were the hardest because I spent an embarrassing amount of time writing detailed feedback for each student. It took FOREVER. As week progressed though, my student’s behavior changed and the amount of time it took me to grade participation trackers quickly diminished.
My Student Participation Tracker also includes the opportunity to make goals for the week and reflect on positive experiences. If you think this is something you’d like to try in your classroom, you can download it for free at my TPT store. Just make sure to give it a least a month’s commitment before you can expect results.
Happy Teaching,
Brooke