Student Teaching Placement - Reflection on Behavior Management

Student Teaching Placement – Reflection on Behavior Management The behavior management plan for the classroom that I student taught in originally consisted of having students write their name on the board. Each time the student had their name put on the board they would owe 5 minutes of their next recess either in the classroom or outside standing along the wall. This system was not working for me as a student teacher in the class. The class is a very rough class to work with and I struggled to manage behavior under this plan. Overall, the whole class was very chatty and would often carry on conversations over me while I tried to teach. When I used the classroom system of writing names on the board, it didn’t even faze the students. It became obvious to me that in order to gain control of the class, I needed to find a system that worked both for me and for this class in order to be successful. My first step in finding a solution to this problem was to look at the types of behavior problems occurring in the classroom.  Students talking during lessons  Rude and Disrespectful comments to teachers and peers  Back talking to teachers and adults  “Rough housing” (pushing, shoving, kicking…) in the classroom  Refusal to do work  Preventing others from completing their work  Aimless wandering around the classroom – during instruction and work time My next step was to look at the scope of the problem. After really inspecting the class dynamics, I realized that most of the problems stemmed from 6 students in the class. When they acted up, they would get the whole class off task and riled up as well. After consulting with my cooperating teacher as well one of my professors, I decided that in order to be able to manage this class, I needed to instate my own discipline plan. It was also decided that since the main problem stemmed from a few students, I would implement my plan only with those select students. The remainder of the class would continue to use the original behavior management plan. The plan that I instated consisted of putting up 5 sets of behavior cards for the selected students (one of the students that caused a lot of disruption was left out because he had a behavior management plan through his IEP). When a student was disrespectful, talked back, disrupted the class, was wandering at inappropriate times, refused to do work, or did not keep their hands and feet to themselves, they would be told to pull a card. The cards progressed through the colors green, yellow, orange, and red.  Green- doing good, keep up the good work  Yellow – Warning, slow down and think about actions  Orange – Loss of recess time  Red – Time Out – Students would be sent with work to another setting (usually a different classroom) for 15-20 minutes On the first day for the cards, each student was pulled aside separately and the card system was explained to them. The expectations of behavior were reviewed as well as behaviors that were unacceptable while at school. In addition to the card system, I felt that I still needed a system to get the remainder of my class on board as well. While most had not been major problems, the class was easily swayed into negative behaviors. I decided that for the whole class, I would use a positive reinforcement system. On the same day that I introduced the card system to a few students, I also introduced “caught being good” tickets to the whole class. I explained that when I caught a student being good, on task, following rules, using good manners, etc. that they would be given a raffle ticket. They could then write their name on the ticket and turn it in to our new class ticket jar. At the end of each day, I would draw out a ticket for a small prize. Each day, the jar would be emptied and students would have to start with a blank slate the next day. After instating these systems, I was astounded by the turn around that I saw in the class. Having a system of my own really signaled to the students that I really was their teacher and that they needed to treat me as such. The students with the card system made some dramatic improvements in their behavior very rapidly. The ticket system also proved to be a huge hit with the class. All of the students, from my best behaved to the worst behaved, really wanted to earn tickets. The tickets helped reinforce the idea that there are benefits to making good choices and doing the right thing. Students really wanted to earn tickets in order to win a prize, which consisted of various school supplies (which the students often needed anyway). Through my experience with this class, I have learned a lot about classroom management. I have learned the importance of making sure that the management system works not only for the teacher, but also for the group of students in the class. I learned that it is ok to have different management systems for different students if that becomes necessary because each student is a different individual and what works for some students won’t always work for all students. Another lesson that I learned is that students want to be recognized when they are doing the right thing. Often all of the attention is focused on students who are misbehaving, and students who are behaving want to have attention too. By rewarding those who are doing the right thing, it reinforces their good behavior and makes other students in the class want to make good choices and be recognized for them as well. Finally, I learned that when a situation seems out of hand and I am not sure what to do, that I can always find a support system willing to assist me in considering my options, provide me with new ideas and opinions, and help me find a solution to my problem. Although this class was a huge challenge for me, I am glad I had the opportunity to work in this classroom because I grew a lot from this experience. This placement and the challenges I had to overcome will help me be successful when I set up a classroom behavior system for my own class.