Alicia O’Neill’s Classroom Management

Plan
Philosophy:

I believe that classroom management is actively maintaining a calm

and safe environment for all students to learn, grow and thrive in. The
purpose of successfully managing classrooms is to keep the room controlled,
organized and safe. I believe that in order to allow students to comfortably
learn, they need to feel safe and secure in their environment with an
effective management system. Having children feel that they belong in your
classroom leads to less disruptions and attention-seeking behaviors
(Dreikurs). It is also important to include students in the process of creating
the classroom rules and punishments. Students will connect more to rules
that they created and are less likely to break them because they were their
idea. This leads into punishments as well; students will see them as logical
consequences instead of irrational punishments because they helped create
them (Dreikurs).

This leads into focusing on the behavior not the student when they
misbehave. Many adults associate a bad behavior with the student being a
bad person. I believe that it is important to realize the student does not have
bad character just because of their action. As a teacher it is vital to build up
students’ self-esteem, and in order to do these communications between
teacher and student must be congruent (Ginott). This can be done by
sending sane messages to the students to address the behavior
appropriately. Focusing on the act and not the student corrects behaviors
without tearing down the student’s self-esteem and confidence (Ginott). An
excellent way to do this is by reacting quickly and calmly and using I
statements (Canter). This also gives students a reason for why you are
correcting them. It is crucial to tell them why they need to correct their
behaviors. Students need to understand why they are receiving the
discipline/consequences set before them for behaviors. I believe in talking
calmly to students because not much can be accomplished when the
authority figure is frazzled and visibly upset. Teachers are the rock in many
children’s lives, they remain level headed to ensure the students mental and
physical wellness. I believe that calling out a student in a loud and emotional
way can actually lead to more unwanted behaviors.
 I believe children should always be given the opportunity to play and
move around the classroom. Students need to move around and involve their
whole body. Many students benefit tremendously from using motions when
learning new materials. I know when I was a student, using any motion
helped me remember material better than if I had tried to memorize it.
Movement also keeps children's interest, engaging them in the material
being taught. I believe it is also important to do kinesthetic brain breaks in
order to allow students to break from routine. Children love to move around
and dance, regardless of their ability level. To allow play is to allow students
to discover themselves and build their confidence.

Glassner believes that children are inherently rational beings. He

believes that they are in control of their own behaviors. I believe also believe
that children are capable of choosing their own behaviors. Children know
right from wrong in most cases in the classroom. They are aware that they
should raise their hand to answer a question, but some choose not to. I
believe that this should lead to a consistent consequence. This can happen
after bad or good behaviors. I will not accept excuses for bad behavior
because that means that the student is not taking ownership of what they
did.

Synopsis:

The largest goal I have as a teacher is to create a safe and nurturing

learning environment for all of my students. I believe that I have created a
classroom management plan that will allow me to achieve this goal. I will
strive to give my all to my students every day in order to keep our classroom
running in the best condition possible for our learning. I will create strong
communication channels with not only my students, but also their families. I
will use all of these parts to aid the children in reaching their full potential
within the walls of my classroom. The students will experience the classroom
community I have laid the foundation for as they continue to grow together.

Relationships:

I believe that forming strong bonds between teacher and student is

key to creating a successful classroom. Teacher student relationships build
the foundation for a safe classroom environment. Children often learn by
observing what the teacher models. According to Ginott, teachers should
model the behavior they want to see in their students. Positive relationship
building can be modeled in the classroom with things as simple as greeting
students every day and asking them a personal question. By simply asking a
student how their soccer game went last night, students recognize that their
teacher cares about them and the bond strengthens. When a student feels
this bond, they are more likely to participate and try their hardest in class to
impress their teachers. I will notice favorable behaviors and reinforce
students positively. This not only reinforces that student, but it also shows all
of the students listening what I am expecting from them.

In my classroom, I will make a constant effort to connect with all of my

students. For some I am the only positive role model they have in their lives
to look up to. When I get to know my students at such a deep level, I can
understand where their behaviors are coming from. I will figure out where
their outbursts are stemming from so I can properly address them. With a
strong bond between me and my students, the students will be compelled to
have strong relationships with each other in my classroom. I will generate
this positive attitude between the students by stressing that this is our
classroom and we will learn and thrive together as friends. My students will
see each other as their friends because in order to thoroughly maintain a
positive classroom environment, all of the relationships in the classroom
must be positive and genuine.

Four ways I plan on building a positive community in my classroom are:

1. I will attempt to talk to each student daily about something. It does not
matter what the subject is, as long as the student is sharing something
about themselves with me. I will remember these conversations and
bring them up with the student, so they know I care about them so
much that I remember the little conversations we have during class.
2. I will also pick a student to eat lunch with me during the week. I may
pick this student based on how well their behavior has been, or
because I have seen a behavior change recently and I want to check in
with them. Young students typically love being able to be “special” and
getting to eat with the teacher. I will keep our lunch times fun and
positive because I want to get to know all of my students, so I can
properly teach them.
3. I also plan on posting student work in the classroom and hallways. I will
never post tests or worksheets because I would never want to make a
student feel bad about a score they achieved when compared to their
peers. I would post artwork, stories we create as a class, and group
projects. Students love to see their work on the wall because it shows
 that I am so proud of their work that I want everyone to see it. I believe
that student work is the most important thing to have all around the
walls in my room.
4. I will build a positive relationship with my students by remaining
consistent and constructive with my responses. I will aim to never say
a student is wrong when they answer a question during full class
discussions. Telling them they are wrong in front of their peers can
discourage them from raising their hand and answering questions in
the future. Children feel embarrassed if they are not always right and
may lose confidence in themselves which is the opposite of what I want
to happen in my classroom.

Instructional Strategies:

Active engagement in the classroom is vital for students to actually

learn the materials they are taught. Information should be presented to
students by different methods. I will use many different instructional
strategies in my classroom to engage my students.

Here are four examples of these instructional strategies:

1. There will be a word wall in my classroom. I will have students add
words to the wall as they are added to our classroom vocabulary. This
will keep students engaged in learning new words, which can be a
boring task for most. I will have them list new words they find in stories
that we read as a class and give them to me. I will then create a list of
new words to add to the wall once a week and the student who
suggested the word will provide the class with their definition of the
word.
2. Music is a very large part of my life in and out of the classroom, so it is
natural for me to incorporate it into my curriculum. I firmly believe that
students can remember anything if it is set to a tune. Using a common
melody like Are You Sleeping makes it easier to learn new words
because they do not have to worry about remembering the melody.
Students enjoy learning songs and dancing during class, which keeps
them actively engaged.
3. I will replace a paper and pencil with other things often. I recognize
that students must use paper and pencil sometimes because they will
still be using this in their daily lives, but that is not a very engaging
way to learn. I will incorporate whiteboards, chalkboards, magnetic
letters, shaving cream on a desk, etch-a-sketches, and many other fun
 mediums we can use to write. I will make my students enjoy learning
and writing because I know how tedious and daunting writing can
seem. Some students see the large blank paper and freeze up, so
changing up their writing utensil and surface can give a stress reliever
to them.
4. Graphic organizers allow topics to be better taught and comprehended.
Seeing how the information flows together is an excellent visual
representation for students. I will not use graphic organizers on their
own because I know that it will not benefit all students, but it is an
attractive alternative to monotonous note taking on a lined sheet of
paper.

Procedures and Routines:

Children and classrooms thrive when they are working under

consistent routines and procedures. Teaching routines and procedures are
very important components keeping my classroom organized, managed, and
safe. Students feel safe in their environment when they know what is going
to happen. Once students fall into the daily routine and they understand the
classroom procedures, there are fewer misbehaviors and distractions. I will
make sure my students not only know how we follow our classroom
procedures and routines, but why. If my students understand why they are
following these routines, they are more likely to comply.

Five of the procedures and routines I am going to implement in this

classroom are:
1. On the board I will have the morning routine posted for my students.
They will learn that when they enter my classroom I expect them to
put their coats and backpacks away, they place their name card on the
correct area to indicate packing or buying lunch, they turn in any
papers from their folder to the bin, and they come to the carpet so we
are ready to begin the day all together.
2. Following this routine, I would like to have a morning meeting with my
students. It is important to recognize every student during each day.
We will go around the circle and we will greet the person next to us
using their name. We will then share something of my choosing. This
will be anything from how they are feeling today, to what is their
favorite animal and why. I will be careful to remain culturally
responsive with these questions because I do not want to ask
 something that would make a child feel excluded or bad about their
family.
3. I will teach my children multiple different attention grabbers at the
beginning of the school year. These will be used to regain focus of the
classroom when they become too rowdy or off task. One example
would be for me to say, “And a hush fell over the crowd” and the
children reply “hush”. They know when I say this what to reply with,
and that I am signaling that they need to pay attention and get back
on task.
4. Lining up to enter the hallway can be a chaotic time that allows for
unwanted behaviors. My classroom will have a rehearsed procedure for
calmly making our way over to the door to line up. There will be a
picture of feet on the floor where the line leader will stand. They will
then move into line while I sing “1-2-3 line up for me, don’t make a
sound tip-toe, tip-toe like a spy, 1-2-3 line up for me”. I will have the
students tip-toe into line while I sing it in the song. This will add some
fun to our line up procedure, and my students will get very into tip-
toeing like they are a spy. I will only have to say this once after we get
the routine down. Then my students will know to keep a bubble in their
mouth because spies cannot talk or else they can be caught! The
students will be “sneaking” through the halls to get everywhere like
real spies would.
(https://www.pinterest.com/pin/863917140993710937/)
5. Getting classwork to a student who is absent can become
overwhelming if there is not a system in place for them to follow. In my
classroom there will be a crate with a file folder for every day of the
month in it. When one of my students is absent, I will place the paper
they missed with their name written on it in the correct folder for the
day they missed. They will then collect the work from this folder on the
first day they come back and complete the makeup work with one on
one instructional time if needed. There will also be extra copies of the
worksheets in these folders incase a student loses their paper from the
day before. This cuts down on interruptions in my teaching because
they will not have to ask for a new paper, they will kn0w to get one
from the file.

Expectations:

Safety, Respect, and Responsibility are the main themes in my

classroom. Before going over the class expectations, I will ask my students
to give me their own definitions of these words and examples of how they
have seen them used before. I will then explain to my class how we are
expected to remember these words daily. I will describe how these
expectations are understood in my classroom and how I would like to see my
students act. It is important to stress that we not only follow these
expectations in the classroom, but throughout the school building. I will set
the expectation that I want to see these being followed in the hallway,
bathroom, cafeteria, and any specials classroom. I will include students in
the decision making on what rules they feel are necessary in our classroom.
They will not have full control over the rules as I have a baseline I want to
cover, but the students will feel like they are the ones coming up with the
rules. They will feel like they are important, and I understand how they are
feeling when I include them in making this decision (Curwin & Mendler).
Having students agree to which rules to follow in the classroom keeps them
more inclined to follow the directions because they formed them and agreed
to follow them.

I will make sure my students are fully aware of the correct behaviors to
remain respectful, safe, and responsible. We will practice these values daily
and they are reflected in the classroom rules.

The rules I will have in my classroom are:

1. Be a friend to everyone
2. Walk through the halls and classroom
3. Give every speaker our full attention
4. Try our best on every assignment
5. Share with everyone
6. Clean up all messes

Reinforcement:

Reinforcement is an extremely important aspect of running a managed

classroom. Teaching routines, procedures, rules, and expectations alone will
not be sufficient enough to maintain the high standard I have set for my
students. They are not all going to remember exactly what to do and how to
act at all times because they are children. I have made a plan for
reinforcement in my classroom and for each individual student. Both focus
on praising students for their positive behavior and giving the students
choices. I believe in ignoring the unwanted behavior and praising the good
behaviors being exhibited in the classroom (Neo-Skinnerian Model). It is
important for me to go back to the student who was misbehaving and praise
them for fixing their behaviors, so they know I am paying attention to them.
This will reinforce the good behaviors that I want to see in my classroom.

The classroom reinforcer I will use is a warm fuzzy jar.

When a student exhibits a positive rule following behavior, they will get to
place a warm fuzzy into the jar. They can earn a warm fuzzy for doing things
like cleaning up without having to be told, sharing something with the class,
or being kind. Along with their tangible warm fuzzies, the students will
receive praise for their actions. The class can also earn warm fuzzies as a
whole. If the entire class listens to directions or we go a certain amount of
time without someone speaking out of turn, or any other reason that we
come up with as a class can earn us a warm fuzzy for the jar. When the jar
fills to the top with warm fuzzies the class will win a prize. There will be a list
of prizes from the class to choose from that are relevant to their interests
and wants.

The individual reinforcer I will use is card flip chart.

Each student will have five cards in their flip chart on the wall. Every day
they will start on the green card, with the ability to move up two cards or
down two. They can flip to a blue or purple card for positive behaviors or
down to a yellow or red for misbehaviors. At the end of the day, I will attempt
to address each student whose color changed while they are coloring in their
take home chart with the color they ended on for the day. I will reinforce the
students who moved to blue or purple by reminding them what I was proud
of that day. I will then address the students who moved to yellow or red and
ask them what they think they can change for tomorrow, and if the problem
behaviors persist I will reteach the student the desired behavior.

Consequences:
(From Module 09)
Not all actions require the same consequence for every child. I will use
a tiered system to handle unwanted and time-wasting behaviors from my
students. I will communicate this to my students in an abridged version
because it would bore them if I went into detail. I will use this picture in my
classroom because they can understand this better than they would
understand a list of consequences. I will also include this in a letter home to
parents, so they are aware of the consequences that I will be upholding in
my classroom. I will go over these rules during the first few days of class and
answer any questions the students may have. I will make sure they
understand that getting to the last red piece that says “office referral” is not
the place they want to ever be. I will let the students know that their
mistakes are not permanent, and we can come back from our misbehaviors.
As every situation varies, it is important for me as the teacher to plan to
reteach the student’s behavior that is expected when they do not follow the
correct behaviors. I will attempt to keep all consequences dealt with in my
classroom, but I will also recognize when an issue is bigger than me and I
need help. I will maintain a consistent following of these consequences
because consistency is key to achieving a successful management plan.

This consequence sequence is also tied into the reinforcement system I

am using in my classroom. The individual reinforcement system will have
cards representing the green, yellow, and orange pieces of the picture. I do
not plan on having an actual time out corner or anything like that, but I do
plan on having flexible seating throughout the room that I can send a
student to if they need a moment. I will try to not send them in the hall
because this leaves them unsupervised and they may cause issues for other
classrooms.
Communicating Expectations:

Communication between teachers and students comes in many

different forms than just talking. In my classroom I will be aware of the other
forms of communication like body language and tone. I will address every
one of my students individually each day. I will discuss their behaviors,
wanted or unwanted, and tell them why their behaviors were good or bad. I
believe in doing this daily because young children deserve to start new every
day, but they are still being held to the same expectation. I can review these
expectations with individual students and even the whole class when
needed. I will teach and model what I am expecting from my students, so
they have a strong foundation to act on. I also plan on having a weekly recap
to go over with my students, so we can come up with examples of positive
behaviors to try to follow the next week.

Communicating with parents is extremely important because a lot of

parents would like to know how their child is doing in school. I plan on
sending out a weekly letter every Friday to parents. This can be sent by
email, hard copy via the student, and being posted on my class Facebook
page. It is important to use different methods of delivery because not every
parent has access to internet, and not every parent gets to see their child
during the week to receive a hard copy. I will recap what we learned and did
that week in class, and what I am expecting during the upcoming week. I will
include when I will need parent volunteers, and when I would like parents to
come into the classroom and get first-hand experience with what their
children do every day. I will encourage every parent to make their way into
school, and if they say they cannot for reasons like transportation, I will
figure out a way to get them to the school and be involved. I will send home
individualized behavior reports to parents once a month to recap how their
child's past month has gone. During the month, they will see their child's
behaviors because the student will take home their colored chart for their
parent every night. This will differ from me because I will be adding any
pertinent comments and observations I have noticed along with their
behavior chart colors. If the parents would prefer to, I can call home to
discuss this or they can stop by for a meeting with me. I am flexible because
I know parents have busy lives too and they may not always have time to
come in and sit down with me.
 I also plan on having a private class Facebook page. I can use this page
to post things like the weekly letter, and any updates I have for the parents. I
can post photographs from celebrations, or just a fun craft we did in class
that day. Many parents like to have pictures of their children, and this is a
safe way to post them. I will also post videos on the page explaining how to
help with any work that I send home. It is not fair of me to expect every
parent to understand what their child is learning in class, so I will post videos
to walk them through the homework.

Record Keeping:

Often people think that they should only record students’ bad
behaviors. I do not believe this to be true. I am willing to put in the effort to
record both good and bad behaviors. I should be able to pull out my chart
and show parents how their child has been behaving in my classroom. I will
maintain a simple record on each student continuously. During class, I will
have sticky notes on my clipboard where I can quickly write any behaviors I
am seeing. I will not do this during instruction to make sure I am not drawing
attention away from their learning. Then, at the end of the day I will transfer
these observations to an excel sheet. I will also have students monitoring
their own behaviors with the use of the warm fuzzy reinforcement system.
They know that in order to get the warm fuzzy they must be exhibiting
positive behaviors, so they will be paying attention to their own behaviors in
order to get their desired reward. I will also be able to keep record of each
student’s behavior with the sheet they color and take home every day.
Coloring in the chart creates an easy visual for parents, students, and me to
look at and get a sense for the particular students’ behaviors. They will be
recording this for me and I can track their behaviors with what color they
were and the additional comments I have written and saved. I can use this
data when tracking their progress and I can back up any claims I make about
the student’s behavior with my recorded data. The data will also represent
any behaviors the student needs to work on or be retaught.
Dear Parents,

Hello! My name is Alicia O’Neill and I am going to be your child’s teacher this
year! Let me begin with telling you a little bit about myself. I am a graduate
of the University of Mount Union, and I am in my third year of teaching third
grade. I absolutely love teaching and I cannot wait to get this school year
started!

I would like to give you a brief overview of the expectations in my classroom

this year. I am focusing on remaining responsible, respectful, and safe within
our classroom. The classroom rules we decided on together are:
1. Be a friend to everyone
2. Walk through the halls and classrooms
3. Give every speaker our full attention
4. Try our best on every assignment
5. Share with everyone
6. Clean up all messes.
I am fully aware that there will be days when these rules will not be followed,
so I have created a card flip behavior system. Your child will bring home a
chart colored in every day corresponding to how their day went. The chart
will have a key to understand what each color represents. There are
sometimes consequences that need to be enforced, but we will handle these
matters on an individual basis because every situation is different.

I believe in having a fluid communication line between the classroom and

parents. I will be sending home weekly letters over what we did that week,
and what we are looking forward to doing the next week! I am willing to
communicate this by email or paper so if you have a preference please let
me know! I also have created a private Facebook page for the class. This can
be used to post photos from school events and I will be using it to post
videos about homework and lessons!

Getting you guys to be involved in the classroom is very important to me. We

will have parent volunteers, and opportunities to come visit the classroom to
see what we do during the day! This invitation stands to every single one of
you and I hope you decide to take me up on this offer.

Thank you so much for allowing your daughter or son to be in my classroom

this year!

Sincerely,
Miss Alicia O’Neill