Improving Classroom

Management
Self-Study
Ashley Borta

Goal:
The goal of this study is to improve classroom management with less blurting out
in class. This will then improve the learning environment for all students.

Area of Focus:
My area of focus is behaviors. In my student teaching, I have noticed the sixth
hour eighth grade English Language Arts class has difficulty with containing their energy
after lunch and not disrupting class. There are a couple students who stand out more
than others, however, every student has blurted at least one time per week before I
began a new implementation.
The most disruptive part of class is the warm up and transitioning into what we
will be doing for the day. This occurs within the first 15 minutes of class time every day.
Then throughout the class there is still blurting, however, it is more manageable and
contained.

Plan:
My plan to improve classroom management is to begin class with the front light
off and have my students write silently for five minutes each day. I will also be playing
relaxing classical music so there is some background noise in the classroom. This will
allow them to come in and begin with a calm exercise. By writing on their own, students
will not have a reason to talk to each other and can express their thoughts and creativity.
I will allow them to write about anything, as long as it is school appropriate. After they
finish writing, students will be able to share their pieces with the class. This will occur
before the warm up each day. The expectation of this activity is that they will not talk to
other students and must write the entire five minutes.
I believe the use of this plan will help to calm the eighth grade students down and
allow them to express their energy in an academic way through writing. This fosters
student development of ideas and writing skills, and also allows them to practice their
handwriting, which a few students drastically need.

Resources:

Barbara Brown: English Cooperating Teacher

Barbara Brown has been a teacher at Breckenridge Community Schools for eight
years. She teaches English at various levels, including middle school and high school.
She has done an amazing job with classroom management in her classroom, however,
we have both struggled with the eighth grade class which is after lunch. We spoke about
the needs of the students and what they may be interested in doing at the beginning of
class so we could grab their attention early on.
Angela Watson: The Cornerstone for Teachers Instructional Coach
Angela Watson is a National Board Certified Teacher from Brooklyn, NY. She has
11 years of classroom experience, and 7 years of experience as an instructional coach.
She created the site The Cornerstone for Teachers to share practical classroom ideas
and help teachers build a positive mindset (Watson). After reviewing her article 10
Ways to Calm a Class after Lunch or Recess I found many tips that would fit my
teaching style.

Implementation:
To begin the implementation, I had the lights off and quiet classical music playing
before students walked in the door. At first the students did not know what was
happening, but went along with it anyways.
Once the new system was truly up and running, students knew what to expect
each day. They would first take out their warm up sheets and a piece of paper, and wait
for me to give them a topic to write about. Often times the students were allowed to
choose what they wrote about, but sometimes I used this as a tool to get to know my
students and gave topics such as: what is your biggest accomplishment?

Data:
To collect data, I counted the number of times students blurted out from the
beginning of class to the end of the warm up, which is approximately 15 minutes per
day. I collected the data for 10 school days. Overall, the numbers grew less and the
students enjoyed the activity.
Day
1
2

Number of Blurts
19
18

3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

19
16
13
17
12
9
4
2

6th Hour Eighth Grade English Language Arts

20
18
16
14
12

Number of Blurts

10
8
6
4
2
0

1.0

2.0

3.0

4.0

5.0

6.0

7.0

8.0

9.0

10.0

Days

Analysis:
By looking at the results, I noticed the number of blurts dropped drastically over
the course of ten days. However, at the end of ten days, there was still blurting occurring
at the beginning of class. On the tenth day, both blurts came from the same student. It is
clear the students tried to stop blurting out in class, because the numbers dropped
significantly over these days. However, there were some days which spiked throughout
the weeks. For example, on Day 6 (Monday) the students blurted 17 times, whereas on
Day 5 (Friday) they only blurted 13 times. The following day (Tuesday) the students
dropped it back down to 12 blurts, and continued to blurt less as the week progressed.

Overall, I believe the use of relaxing music and a small five-minute writing activity
worked well for these students and made a significant impact on the blurting issue that
was happening in our sixth hour class. This activity was clearly a success and I plan to
use it throughout the rest of my teaching career.

Improvement Plan:
In order to improve this study, I could have collected data for more days. This
would have allowed me to analyze if the students ever hit zero with the amount of blurts
occurring during the warm up of our class. I continued doing this for the remainder of my
student teaching experience, however, I did not collect data.

Reflection:

Benefits
Looking back on this activity, I have found numerous benefits. The first benefit is
it lessened the amount of blurts that happened throughout the beginning of class, which
then led into the rest of the class period.
Another benefit of this activity is it allowed the students to be creative and write
about whatever they would like. The students also built courage and speaking skills by
then sharing their stories with the class. It also allowed me to get to know my students
better. When I would assign a specific topic the students would tell me more about
themselves.
A third benefit to this activity is that it did not take long to complete. The entire
activity takes approximately eight minutes from start to beginning. This eight minutes is
worth using for the activity because it affects the rest of the class period and calms the
class down.
The fourth benefit of this activity is it gives students the opportunity to practice
their handwriting. There is one student in this class who has a 504 Plan for handwriting.
This activity allows him to practice his handwriting. He tries very hard on this activity
because if he wants to share it, then he has to be able to read it.
Difficulties
As we began using this activity in class, a few difficulties were presented. One of
which, it never solved the entire problem and students still occasionally blurt throughout
the beginning of class. This activity only reduced the amount of blurts, rather than fully
solving the problem.

Another difficulty I experienced with this activity was inappropriate stories. Rather
than writing a fictional story, a few students wrote about other students in negative ways.
This only happened in the first few times of completing this activity, then students
understood that was not okay.

Bibliography:
Watson, Angela. "10 Ways to Calm a Class after Lunch or Recess." The
Cornerstone. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2016.
<http://thecornerstoneforteachers.com/2014/12/10-ways-to-calm-a-class-afterlunch-or-recess.html>.