AUSTIN PEAY STATE UNIVERSITY

Classroom Management Plan

EDUC 4080-08: Classroom Organization and Management
Allison E. Lunday
Spring 2014 Dr. Sanders

1. Describe your current school assignment(s). Describe your student teaching environment. Include an analysis of the community where the school is located and the characteristics of the student population. (5 points) My current teaching assignment is at Fort Campbell High School in a chemistry classroom. FCHS is a Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) school located inside the Fort Campbell Army installation and serves only military families who live on post. The school houses grades 9 through 12, and I have been told there are approximately 800 students enrolled. The school has a regular 7-period schedule on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays and block scheduling on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The administration is currently considering changing the schedule, again, for the fall. The principal fielded questions, comments, and concerns from the faculty on the matter during a meeting I attended. Another big event happening for the school system is a plan for a building a replacement high school building. Construction is planned to start some time during the 2014-2015 school year. As mentioned earlier, the students all belong to active duty military families. A common struggle for students is dealing with deployed family members. The school provides many counseling services to help the students deal with this situation. During my time in the classroom, it has not been obvious to me that there are any students who are struggling with dealing with a deployment since it has not been brought up. Classroom management has gone very smoothly thus far compared to my observations in other school districts. I am unsure if this is a function of the military life and home style, the class sizes, or a combination of both. There are approximately 60 total students enrolled in four Chemistry I classes making the average class size 15 students. The largest class has 17 students while the smallest class has 11 students. I am currently teaching all four Chemistry I classes. I

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observed and helped with a review during the first week of my placement and took over the classes starting my second week. I plan the instruction, assessments, and activities with my mentor teacher, and I use a combination of his prefabricated assignments and some of my own which I have found through the internet or borrowed from my own classroom experiences. The relationship with my mentor is going very well. For the most part, we have the same views on science education, and he has shared many new resources and ideas for me to incorporate into my teaching style. The most common student behavioral issues I have are chatty and unfocused students which are quickly corrected without issue. A large majority of the students come to class ready and open to learning. They have been very accepting of my teaching style and expectations which are different than what they had become accustom to over the majority of the school year. The school does have a dress code which includes collared, plain colored shirts and no jeans (except on Fridays and other specified jean days). On the other hand, the school is surprisingly lax on facial piercings and tattoos compared to other school districts I have observed. For the most part, students are respectful of the dress code, and the only violation I have seen acted upon by my mentor teacher was a student wearing a shirt with an obvious pattern on it.

2. Diagram how you would arrange your future (or ideal) classroom. Write an explanation regarding how you have addressed visibility, accessibility, and distractibility. (5 points) (Diagram on next page)

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Computers

Figure 1. A diagram of my ideal chemistry classroom arrangement. Not to scale. 3|Page

My ideal classroom would include the lab space within the classroom. This will help me to keep an organized system for chemical and equipment management, and this will allow for me to fit wet chemistry labs into my own schedule instead of having to make arrangements around other peoples needs to use a common lab space. During instruction, students will be seated at their individual desks which will face the white board and my demonstration table at the front of the classroom. The demonstration table will be used for the obvious purpose of demonstrations related to instruction. I plan to keep this area relatively free of clutter since it is at the front of the classroom and in front of where I will be instructing at the board. Some issues a large demo table at this location pose to accessibility is obstruction of a direct route to students, delays in proximity control, and it could act as a barrier between me and the students. I believe it is a necessary piece to a chemistry classroom, though. The lab benches will be located towards the back of the classroom. Students will be expected to sit in their individual desks to receive instruction before proceeding to the lab benches to perform any activities. Students will not be allowed to hang out around the lab benches on days where there is no lab activity, but they may visit the lab prep area at the back of the classroom where I will have the paper turn-in station. The lab benches and classroom layout will be designed for accessibility per the American Disabilities Act of 1990. Each lab bench will be equipped with a sink, electrical outlets, and air, gas, and vacuum valves. Under the benches will be drawers and cabinets for storage. A computer will be located at each bench for students to write lab reports, record data, and look up information. Along the back wall is the lab prep area. This is where students will obtain and replace glassware, equipment, and chemicals set out for labs. Also in this area will be a station for paper management, turning in papers, passing back graded work, and a folder for absent work. Also

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located in the back of the classroom is the entry way to the chemical storage room. This room is off limits to unauthorized students and staff. The room will be arranged and chemicals stored and labeled per Occupational Safety and Health Association (OSHA) standards. A combination safety shower and eyewash station is also located at the back of the room near the lab benches. Fire extinguishers will be placed around the room in appropriate locations as well. My desk will be located at the front of the classroom in the corner opposite the classroom entry. I do not plan to be behind my desk during classes, but the placement of the desk should allow for me to see and quickly access students should I be there. I will also have a clear view of the classroom entryway. Some elements that may distract the students could be the windows toward the front of the room and any equipment or chemicals I may have set out on the demonstration table or lab benches. The students will know my expectation that they are not mess with any materials until told to do so. Otherwise, I plan to keep a very tidy classroom with the help of the students, and this will minimize distractions.

3. Address your beliefs regarding classroom management. Be sure to identify the different authorities from whom you have drawn ideas. (For example, if you designate Canter and Canter, be sure to identify the authorities from they have developed their work). We are looking for multiple connections (several philosophers/researchers) to be made. Explain how you have come to determine which techniques/methods you plan to use. (25 points) I have drawn from several classroom management models in creating my own plan for managing my classroom. The first of which is assertive discipline by Lee and Marlene Canter. I think the rules, procedures, and expectations should be discussed with the students up front from

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the first day so there is no ambiguity. This idea goes along with Harry Wongs classroom management principles, as well. Students come in to the first day of class feeling many types of emotions and with many questions on how the year will go. Addressing these questions and beginning to form a structure for the classroom will help to ease students emotions. Parental involvement is also a key point I have taken away from Canter. Parents can be the window into a students behavior. Although I didnt agree much with Marvin Marshalls Discipline without Stress model, I did like the suggestions for promoting a positive classroom environment through evaluating instruction and conducting class meetings. I agree that many behavior issues could stem from ineffective instruction. If students are not engaged they are more likely to misbehave and break rules. Classroom meetings can give students a sense of ownership in the classroom. William Glasser discovered that the majority of discipline problems were eliminated by allowing students to discuss their issues during meetings. With teacher mediation, students can learn the best practices in confronting their peers and any issues they have which can be applied in many ways to real life situations.

4. Identify your classroom rules. Write a paragraph regarding the behavior each rule is meant to address. Explain how you will communicate the expectations of the rule to students. Do not make the assumption that the rule is self-explanatory. Identify your system of consequences regarding rule violations and how you to enforce them. What positive consequences (rewards) will you use to reinforce your classroom rules? (15 points) The first rule for my classroom will be respect: respect your classmates, respect your teachers and administrators, respect the equipment, and respect the chemistry. I am a firm believer in mutual respect, and that it goes a long way in a high school classroom. I will explain

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to my students that I will respect their individuality and needs, and I expect them to do the same for me and their peers. The students will also know that I will not tolerate disrespect for the equipment, technology, and furniture in my classroom. I plan to keep the room organized and looking nice for their benefit as well as mine. Respecting the chemistry means following safety rules in a lab environment. My duty as a science teacher is to provide a safe environment for students to learn. Learning in my classroom will include many hands-on activities that occasionally may involve hazardous chemicals and equipment. I will provide the students with safety training at the beginning of the year and at the beginning of every lab activity that involves hazardous chemicals, but the students must choose to follow the rules and guidelines given to them at those times. I will have a ticket system for safety violations (e.g. not wearing goggles, horseplay, improperly using equipment, etc.), and if a student accumulates too many tickets, and depending on the severity of the situation, I will start assigning detention and calling home. My second rule is students must take part in keeping a clean, organized classroom. I believe that having the students taken ownership of some aspects of the classroom helps to create a positive environment and community. Students will be expected to clean up their area around their seat and straighten up their desks before the end of class. If we are working on a lab that day, students will be expected to clean up their lab benches and put away any supplies at the back of the room so it is all available in one place for the next class to use. If the classroom is not cleaned up before dismissal, I will hold the students until it is done. The students must also not be lined up at the door before the bell. If they are, I will hold them until they are all seated for dismissal. I will also let the students know that I expect them to remain seated when the bell rings if I am in the middle of instruction.

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Another classroom rule is no electronics unless otherwise specified. There will be times where I will allow the students to listen to music on headphones as a reward for good behavior, as long as I or anyone else cannot hear the music. If I see electronics out without permission, I will confiscate the device and lock it in my desk until the end of the day. It will be the students responsibility to retrieve the device at the end of the day. My final classroom rule is no food or beverages during lab activities unless it is involved in the activity. This can be a safety issue depending on the chemicals we will be working with that day. Occasionally I may have the students perform hands-on labs using food items instead of chemicals, but these will be performed at students desks instead of on the lab benches to prevent the possible contamination of food items with harmful chemicals. If any of the rules are violated by an individual student, they will receive a warning and their behavior will be noted in my personal notebook. If I notice a trend in violations for a student, more aggressive action will be taken in the form of detention or a call home. Some rewards I plan to use include listening to music while working, talk time at the end of class, free passes to sporting or arts events, a positive phone call home to parents, and a coupon system. For the coupon system, I will give students a set amount of coupons at the beginning of the year which can be used towards bathroom passes. They can be redeemed at the end of the year for extra credit if they are not used. I believe rewards should be something that is manageable and does not take much class time to distribute or deal with. Along the lines of manageability, I do not believe in having an excessive amount of rewards either. Of the rewards listed, I may choose to try one for one year and another for the next year until I find which works best for my classroom and the students I will teach. The coupon system may be a stretch for me to use because it does seem like it would

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take quite a bit of time for upkeep and management, but I have not experimented with it on a class yet, so I am saving any judgments!

5. Describe procedures you will establish to address the following questions. Provide reasons for your decisions. The students will know that when they come in to class, they are to turn in any homework to the appropriate trays in the back of the room, sharpen their pencils, obtain any needed supplies (e.g. calculators, periodic tables, etc.), and start to work on the bell ringer. I will not mind if students get up to sharpen their pencil in the middle of instruction as long as it is done quickly and without distractions. I will not keep extra paper and pencils for students to use; they must ask a friend or be more responsible. If I find that student has a financial need for paper and pencils, I will provide that to them individually. I will have a daily bell ringer to get the students minds working for the day. These will be written in their Interactive Student Notebooks (ISNs) which will be collected at the end of each week and given back on Mondays. On the first day of class, I will have the students sit alphabetically until I learn names. I will allow them to move later in the semester. They will be able to choose who they would like to sit next to unless they cause problems. In that case, I will reassign seats. At the beginning of the year, I will discuss with students the rules and procedures for the classroom along with an initial safety introduction. This will be spread out over the first few days or weeks as not to overwhelm the students. With the safety instruction, I will have the students sign a safety contact that will also go home to parents for them to sign as well. The signed contract will go in a file for reference any time a student has a safety violation.

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If a student needs to leave a classroom, I will have a sign-out sheet at the door along with passes that the student must take with them. As mentioned earlier, I plan to try out a coupon system for restroom use during class; if they do not have a coupon to give, they cannot go. When it is time to leave for the end of the day, the students must tidy up the room and clean up any lab supplies, and they must wait to be dismissed by me. There will be no lining up at the door before the bell rings or they will be asked to all sit down until they are dismissed. I will provide students will a composition notebook at the beginning of the year. This will be their Interactive Student Notebook (ISN). These will act as proxies to real-world laboratory notebooks. All notes, bell ringers, informal labs (formal labs will be typed up), and other activities will be placed in the notebooks. They will have their name and class period on the front and a table of contents on the first few pages. At the beginning of the year, I will provide students with the guidelines and rubric for the ISNs. Any assignments that must be turned in will go in folders or cubbies located at the back of the room. Graded assignments will be located in different folders/cubbies in a different area of the room as to not allow for any possible mix-ups between the two. These folders will be organized by periods, and students will be responsible for gathering their own graded work from those folders. If a student is absent, they are to ask a fellow student what they missed and check the absent folder at the back of the room for any work that was handed out while they were gone before they come to me with questions. I plan to keep a website updated with the class activities and assignments for each day, so students and parents can access that at any time. I will accept late work, but points will be deducted if it is turned in after the due date. In regards to extra credit, I believe students should have to go above and beyond for the opportunity to receive any significant additional credit outside of the normal assignments. I would like to offer enrichment activities to provide students with an opportunity

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to receive some extra points. These enrichment activities would be listed for students at the beginning of the year and could be completed at any time for a maximum number of points per semester. Some example activities include researching a scientist or recent scientific advancement and providing some type of report or poster on their findings, creating a song or poem about a chemistry concept currently being taught, or finding and performing a household experiment and writing a lab report to discuss their discoveries.

6. Describe your instructional style and how it relates to classroom management (10 points) I view my instructional style as a combination of teacher-centered and student-centered. There will be days where I will need to give students instruction and notes on a lesson for the whole class, and there will be many days where students are doing an inquiry or discovery lab without any formal lecture from me. I think it would be very difficult to conduct a chemistry classroom without providing the students with some teacher-centered instruction, but I do not enjoy lecturing at my students. If I am giving instruction at the board, I will ask for student participation through clicker questions, or I will pause instruction to have a class discussion. This helps to get the students involved in what they are learning which can help to keep the students on task. I like to draw from constructivist and behaviorist schools of thought when it comes to education. I believe that by making science as hands-on and relatable as possible will make it less daunting for students. Through inquiry labs, students can discover concepts on their own or cooperatively and build upon their prior knowledge which helps to scaffold their understanding of new concepts. Connecting science classroom activities to real-world experiences will also help the student learn new concepts since they can relate it to something they may have already

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experienced and know. Not every student is going to grow up to be a scientist, but science is an integral part of everyones life so it is beneficial for everyone to have some experience with it. Not only do students receive the scientific knowledge from these courses, but they are also provided with critical and higher-level thinking skills that can be applied in other aspects of life.

7. Explain how you will address diversity issues in your classroom such as race, exceptionalities, English Language Learners, etc. (10 points) I plan to address exceptionalities and ELL in my classroom through Universal Design for Learning (UDL). This strategy is one where lessons are designed to accommodate for all the individualities of students in a classroom. It provides the students with choices for assessment and feedback according to their personal learning styles. UDL operates on the idea that what works for an accommodation for a student with exceptionalities can also help regular education students as well. Knowing my students will help to address diversity in my classroom. Every student is different and knowing what they like and dislike and what their interests and backgrounds are will help me to reach them and to teach them. This idea is the basis for a culturally responsive classroom. As I discussed earlier, making a subject relatable to a student will help them create connections to new material which will help them learn. I would like to be able to bring in scientists from the community from all different types of backgrounds, ethnicities, races, genders, abilities, etc. This could be accomplished through face-to-face interactions or even through a webcam chat with the class.

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8. Explain how you will address communication with the parents of your students. Include ideas you have for parental involvement with your classes. You may also include a log of telephone calls, emails, and letters to parents. Include a letter that you would send to parents discussing your discipline system for the classroom. (10 points) I plan to mail a letter to all parents at the beginning of the year discussing a few of my expectations and procedures for the class, opportunities for the parents to get involved, and information about myself and how to contact me. In the letter, I will ask if any parents have jobs which involve knowledge of chemistry or any type of science and if they would like to be a speaker one day. I also would like to draw from Canters suggestion about not only calling the parents when students have misbehaved, but try to make one positive phone call per week. (See next page for a sample letter to the parents)

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Sample Parent Letter Dear Parents, Hello! I am Mrs. Allison Lunday, and I will be the chemistry teacher for your student this year. A little background on myself and my qualifications: My husband and I have lived in the Clarksville-Fort Campbell area since 2011 with our two dogs. I have a B.S. in geological sciences from Indiana University (Go Hoosiers!), and I worked for two years in the mining industry before I found my calling in education. I received my B.S. in chemistry with a minor in education from Austin Peay State University (Go Govs!), and I am licensed in Tennessee to teach chemistry and Earth and space sciences. I am certain my educational background and industry experience will help me to prepare your child for their post-secondary endeavors! I have many plans for introducing the exciting world of chemistry to your son or daughter! Chemistry is a challenging but rewarding class, and I am glad your student has chosen to step up to the challenge! This year the students will be provided with Interactive Student Notebooks (ISNs). They will be expected to bring this notebook to class and use it to take notes, write informal lab reports, and bell ringers. These are modeled to resemble how a real-world scientist would keep a laboratory notebook. Take the time to ask your son or daughter about what they are learning in their classes. This will help you to know how they are doing in school, and it will encourage your son or daughter. Please visit our classroom website for information on classroom assignments and activities! I like to incorporate as many relatable real-life experiences as possible into my instruction. I am always looking to invite people who work with chemistry in a job or career field to discuss opportunities with my students and spark their interest in a career. So, if you or someone you know fits this description, please contact me and we can set up a presentation!

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There will be several opportunities throughout the year for you, as parents, to be involved in our classroom. You can expect me to be in contact with you about these opportunities and about your students progress, whether it be excellent or needing improvement. I hope to meet you during open house and parent-teacher conferences. Please feel free to contact me any time with any questions or concerns, and enjoy the rest of your summer!

Sincerely, Allison Lunday (school address) (room number) (phone number) (email address) (classroom website)

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