Personal Classroom Management Plan

1. Your philosophy of classroom management

I believe that the key to successful classroom management is a sweeping rule of respect,
modeled by the teacher's actions. Students want to be respected, and when they feel that respect,
they reciprocate back towards their teacher and classmates.

2. Behavior expectations
As a future secondary teacher, I expect my students to behave like young adults. I expect
an attitude of respect in my classroom. I want my students to feel respected by their classmates
as well as by their teacher. I believe that any productive attitude in the classroom must come
from the model of the teacher. The best way to tell your students what behavior is desired and
expected from them is the show them through your own actions. If you treat them with respect,
they will treat one another with respect and respect you.

3. Pre-school Checklist

Before each school year begins, I plan on reading the textbook and other materials
that I am planning on using for the coming year. This way I can prepare myself to

make the syllabus and inform parents and students of required materials.
In the syllabus, I plan on including a contract for the students and parents to sign,
detailing their commitment to academic integrity as well as an agreement to
follow the rules of the class. In this contract, I will also explicitly detail the
consequences of inappropriate behavior as well as academic misconduct.

Students will be asked to review this contract with their parents and bring it back
with both signatures. This will be used to refer back to throughout the year if any

misconduct arises, and misconduct will most definitely arise.

In a perfect world, I would like to set up all of my lesson plans for the school year
before it starts. I know that this may or may not happen and so I would like to at
least have a couple of emergency substitute lesson plans made up for

unforeseeable absences.
I also plan to have my classroom set up from the first day of school with bulletin
boards specified for each unit. If I am teaching an American History class, I
might start off the year with Columbus or the Pilgrims and Native Americans on

the bulletin boards.

I also want to make sure that I have hand sanitizer and tissues for my classroom
and any other supplies needed that the classroom is not already equipped with,
such as staplers and pencil sharpeners.

4. Classroom Slogan or Motto

I want my students to develop their own slogan for the classroom. That way, they have a
sense of ownership on it and will hopefully work hard to preserve it. Obviously, I will gear them
towards the direction of forming the motto around "respect."

5. Classroom arrangement
As a future history teacher, I hope to integrate student centered lesson plans into a
teaching field filled with teachers who love to lecture. I know that lecturing is a big part of the
subject so I will have to devise a set up that can effectively accommodate both. My ideal
classroom would have six large tables set up in three rows of two. I will have two students on

each long side of the table facing each other, with a fifth student facing forward. This allows for
everyone to focus on the projector screen and board during lectures, but also for group work and
collaboration when encouraged. I would like to have plants and bulletin boards set up to breathe
life into the classroom. Ideally, my desk would sit in the back corner of the room, where I can
view all the students, even though I probably won't spend much time there.

6. Class rules
When I give out my conduct contracts, I will explicitly state the following rules:
5. Listen
4. Apply
3. Try
3. Earn
1. Respect
However, I also would like to pick the students' brains about classroom rules that they
think are appropriate and include them in the class rules.

7. Hierarchy or consequences of rule infractions

I believe that consistency is key. Consequences should directly reflect the action of
misbehavior. There should be no need for warnings. After a grace period of two weeks, my
students will be well aware of the consequences of misbehavior. Many teachers will give
warnings to attempt to correct the behavior; however, students know the rules and they also
know how many times that they can get away with a warning. I relate this to a traffic cop: If I
run a red light, the police officer will give me a ticket, regardless of whether or not I have run a

red light before. As a driver, I know the rules of the road and should accept the consequences of
my actions.
Obviously, the school district has zero tolerance policies on the more serious rule
infractions in the classroom. When necessary, I have no qualms with sending a student to the
dean, especially when the behavior is serious and obtrusive. Unfortunately, behavior such as this
is not unlikely to occur in classrooms today and these are issues that teachers will be forced to
face. I don't look forward to sending students to the dean, but I know my limits and I know
when I need to turn it over to professional disciplinarians.

8. Motivational strategies
I believe that extrinsic motivators work for elementary students. Elementary teachers use
these extrinsic motivators to help the students eventually make the connection to wanting to be
better students and developing a good sense of self-efficacy. Unfortunately, some students make
it into middle school, and even high school, with the notion that extrinsic motivation is the way
to get them to succeed. I believe that intrinsic motivators should be the driving force. Just as
intrinsic motivators can be developed through extrinsic motivators in elementary school, I plan
on using the intrinsic motivators to achieve the items used as extrinsic motivators, but allow the
students to separate their motivations.

9. Management procedures and routines

I plan on welcoming each student at the door with a smile upon their arrival. This will
show each student that I care about them being present and even allow me to briefly catch up
with them or quickly converse about the weekend's football games. Once the students are seated,
there will be a journal entry question, related to the day's topic, on the board waiting for them to
be completed quietly while I take attendance. At the end of the week I will collect their journals
and respond to one entry in each student's journal, assigning meaning to the journals and
motivating them to really think about the questions. In terms of dismissal, I plan on allowing the
bell dismiss the students but I would ideally like to allow five minutes at the end of each class to
answer any questions that the students have.

10. Instructional planning

History is a teaching field that is dominated by teachers who like to "stand and deliver."
The majority of teachers deliver lecture, day after day, hardly ever venturing into the foreign land
of student-centered lesson planning. I would like to offer a variety with my students. Lecturing
is an important component to instruction but students need to assign meaning to their learning or
it will be wasted. The best way to combine the two worlds is to have students get involved in
regular class-time projects that take what the student has just learned, and assign meaning to the
facts.
Kounin gives a valuable insight into lesson planning with should not be overlooked. By
kidwatching and being "with it," teachers can design and accommodate their lesson plans to get
the students involved and interested as much as possible. Everyone's interests in the classroom
and strengths should be considered. If Billy doesn't test well on selected response assessments,
Why would his teacher only use selected response assessments? The same can be true of lesson

planning. I want the students to know that I have their best interests at heart and that I want them
to succeed in my classroom, as well as in the world. I will show interests in their extracurricular
activities and try to attend their games because respect carries on outside the classroom.