M. Hawkins
CEP 883- Final Project
Classroom Management Strategies
for a Secondary Science Classroom
Meredith Hawkins
CEP 883
Summer 2008
Final Project
Nearly every teacher at some point in their career struggles with finding a classroom management style or collection of useful strategies that will work for their classroom. Most teachers, especially early in their career, struggle to find a balance between building relationships with students and also being viewed as both an authority figure and as a mentor or role model. Because of this struggle, how students react to stimuli within the classroom can be affected. Student behavior can be driven by the tone set by the teacher from the moment students enter the classroom. It can leave an even more lasting effect on the student then on the teacher, resulting in displeasure in the class, displeasure in the subject area to even displeasure in school itself. At the secondary level, in particular high school, it can even drive students to drop out of school. It becomes crucial for teachers to effectively manage a classroom that prompts student involvement, learning and self-expression.
I currently teach high school science for Cassopolis Public Schools located in rural southwest Michigan. Cassopolis’s high school has just over 500 students in grades seven through twelve. Most of the students come from low social economical status. Currently, there is limited employment within the community allowing for a great flux in student population. Often students can move multiple times within a single school year. Unlike other poor rural schools, Cassopolis has a great diversity within its student population. Cassopolis once served as a final stop for the Underground Railroad resulting in nearly half of the population being black. Also within the past 20 years, there has been an increase of immigration from Laos, causing about 5% of the population to be classified as Asian. Since the area has been largely diverse for roughly 150 years, there are very few issues with regard to race relations. This diverse student population coupled with the low socio-economical status can create differences in values in education, particularly between educators and the community with respect to student behavior.
Teaching secondary science also adds to the complexity of classroom management. While in other subject areas students may be subjected to expectations for full class activities, small group activities or individual activities, science classrooms add in other activities as well. Within a given class, I easily expect my students to be involved and responsible while working with scalpels, dangerous chemicals and even outdoor labs. It is imperative during these times that students be on task, responsible and also to be aware of the class and what is going on in various parts of the room. Because these differing activities require different expectations, it may be difficult for students to adjust to the varied situations.
This fall I will be teaching Advanced Biology, Introductory Chemistry and college-prep Chemistry. Advanced Biology is a second year biology course that serves as an elective for any student interested in a career in science, particularly bio-medical careers. In fact, this class will eventually become Advanced Placement Biology in the next few years, so that our students could earn college credit while in high school. The students in this class tend to be high achieving and highly motivated students that experience few major behavioral problems.
For the class of 2011, the State of Michigan is requiring all students to take either Chemistry or Physics, in addition to Biology. Because of this new requirement, we are currently moving towards having our chemistry classes to fit into both a required freshman introductory class and a junior level elective class. Thus for the next two years our Chemistry A class will be a mix of both eleventh grade and ninth grade students with eventually Chemistry A being required for all freshman while Chemistry B being one science elective option for juniors and seniors. Thus for the next two years, I will have the brightest and the best juniors mixed with the entire freshman class both learning in a class heavily driven by mathematics. On top of this, this fall will be my first time teaching chemistry. Without the proper class management plan, this arrangement could easily become difficult for any teacher to manage.
To help students meet the demands of the new high school requirements, Cassopolis implemented trimester scheduling in the fall of 2005. Instead of students taking six one-hour classes for two 18-week semesters as with a traditional schedule or four hour and half classes for one 18-week semester as with a block schedule, my students take five 75-minute classes for twelve weeks. Each of our core classes is broken apart into two trimesters such as Advanced Biology A and Advanced Biology B. Many students end up having an “A course” during their first trimester then having the “B course” during the third trimester. This 12 week break between trimesters often allows students to unlearn or forget classroom expectations and rules, resulting in either reviewing and re-teaching these expectations at later parts of the year (as in the case with any “B course”) or having to introduce classroom expectations in November and March to my second and third trimester students in “A courses”. I have found that, because we as teachers easily remember to teach classroom rules, expectations and procedures during September, we can easily forget to review and reinforce these in classes that start later. This can create complications for the students, as some must remember rules for a class they were not in for twelve weeks or be expected to learn new policies late into the year.
Cassopolis also plans to implement a district wide discipline procedure in the fall of 2008. This new system known as “Responsibility Thinking Process” or RTP involves teaching the students to take responsibility for their behavior within the school environment. Students are given a chance to become familiar with the classroom expectations. If a student chooses to not follow a rule or expectation, then the student is asked a series of three questions: What are you doing? What are the rules? What will happen when you break these rules? This allows students to address with the teacher in a private manner their behavior and how they want to correct or address the situation. If the inappropriate behavior continues, the student can be sent to the “Responsibility Thinking Center” or RTC. Here students must draft a behavioral contract that will help them “negotiate” to be allowed to re-enter the classroom and participate in class activities. This process was first developed by Ed Ford and is based on the Perceptual Control Theory, developed by William T. Powers. By giving students, especially high school students, the perception of control over not only their behavior but also the consequences of their behavior, it allows them to generate more value in their education and responsibility for their behavior.
When taking into account that I will be entering my third year of teaching, teaching a new subject area and participating in the implementation of a new discipline procedure, having a strong classroom management plan with multiple effective strategies will help to ensure that the year is productive and educational year for both myself and my students. The following are strategies that will hopefully be useful in a secondary science classroom that meets the needs of both my students and myself.
Good classroom management involves having a detailed plan for how to prevent disruptions and how to handle those that do occur. This tone for the entire school year must be set within the initial moments of the class (Sprick, Garrison, Howard, 1998 p. 153). Students need to be greeted as they walk into the room but also start the class with an opening activity. In my class, as students enter the classroom, I plan to greet them and hand them a three inch by five inch index card. The students can then use this to fill in contact information for themselves and their parents. This will give the students a task and will get them focused at the start of class. This activity will also give me an opportunity to meet every student. In addition to the information cards, the students will be greeted by the schedule for the first day posted on the chalkboard. This will also help to elevate some of the first day anxiety for students because it will let them know what classroom they are in and also what the days activities will involve. I feel that posting the schedule and teaching my students about classroom procedures, especially where to find a daily schedule, will be most helpful to my ninth grade students and my lower performing students.
Another useful suggestion is to allow students to generate their own list of classroom expectations (Jones, 2007, p.200). If students are allowed to brainstorm and create their own list of expectations for themselves, their peers and the teacher, they create value in the classroom procedures. Suddenly it becomes their rules and policies instead of the procedures forced upon them. This conversation can be initiated by discussing with students the teacher’s expectations for them, along with the basic three to five classroom rules. By first introducing the teacher’s expectation, students will have an example of what are good expectations and students feel less pressure to brainstorm on their own. I also feel it may be difficult for students to generate their own list of classroom expectations. In my classroom, I plan to incorporate the phrase “Rules for everyone to be successful” to help students understand that these rules or expectations are to help them to succeed but to also help their peers.
While as a secondary teacher who meets with four classes each day, it may be difficult to keep track of four different sets of expectations and my upper level students may also find this task too remedial or elementary for them to complete. To adapted this to my upper level students in Advanced Biology and Chemistry, I plan to present the students my expectations or rules, then have them work in pairs or small groups (up to four students) to generate an explanation or example of why the expectations are important for the whole class to succeed. I then plan on having each group present their group findings to the class. This way, students are engaged with the rules instead of listening to the explanation and are generating their own reasonings in their own language to make it more student friendly. I feel this activity will be most useful at the beginning of each A section of the classes, whether they meet in the fall or winter trimester. But it would also be useful to reintroduce these at the beginning of each B section as a reminder to students. Regardless of when students take the B section of the course, this way all students are familiar with the class expectations.
Another first day activity that will be incorporated into my classroom are the introduction games and activities generated in the Jones text (p. 130), such as “Know your classmate” and “Guess who?” Cassopolis is a small district and students are familiar with most of their peers. But there are still transit students who move into and out of the district (and sometimes both) throughout the school year. Each of the games presented help the students to learn more about each other or learn about each other on a deeper level. This will allow students to develop deeper connections with students that they are already friends with, develop more friendships with students they may not be familiar with, help new students develop relationships and transfer students to reconnect with former classmates.
These activities can also be adapted to fill in those times when I’ve run out of content at the end given class period. One example is to take an introductory game such as “Interview your classmate” and have students pair up to share information about a given topic, such as the current class topic. The students can use these partners, who they may not normally work with, to ask questions, get answers or develop a friendship. Because this type of introductory activity falls in the middle of a trimester, it can help any transfer or new student to learn about their classmates, along with learning the content.
Introductory games can also be adapted to help students learn content and not just information about each other. For example, very easily I could change the “Know your classmate” to become review questions or problems for a given unit, such as “Find someone who knows what the atomic number means for an element. What is the answer?” or “Find a classmate who knows how many electrons are one Carbon atom. How many electrons are in Carbon?” As part of the unit review, I can have students collect both signatures and answers to the questions. This review relieves students of knowing all the answers themselves and gives them the opportunity to look for classmates that can answer the question. It also encourages students to interact with the whole class not just their close group of friends. Once the activity is over, as a whole class, we can review everyone’s answers are correct by checking it as a group.
Introductory games can also be used to help students form or become familiar with their base groups (Jones, 2007, p. 142). Almost all students, especially those struggling in a class, could benefit from having a small group of peers to clarify questions or to participate in small group discussions about the material. As Chemistry is a problem-based class, which uses many math skills, my students will come with many different ability levels. By having a group of peers for students to discuss the material, they can get help and a better understanding of the material, without necessarily waiting for the teacher to answer their questions.
Teachers should also make the effort to teach and review with students the expectations beyond the first day, but throughout the course. Because we do not teach any lesson of our content in one day, we must also do the same for procedures and expectations. One way of doing this is review expectations throughout the first week and have a quiz over the expectations at the end of the week. My plan for my introductory chemistry students is to have students complete a short writing assignment after the first day in which students write about three expectations and explain why they are important. Another lesson might be having students generate a list of the rules in a bingo square grid and play “Rule Bingo” (Jones, 2007, p. 211). Then the rules can be pulled randomly from a box or jar as students fill in their bingo grids with prizes for completing bingo or completing the full square. This fun activity allows students to review the material in a non-threatening or pressure filled way and since students are generating their own boards, they must recall the rules and expectations.
The expectations should also be tested. This allows students to develop value in learning the material. Frequently, if students know they will never be tested over the material, they will not review the information. By having a mini-test or quiz over the class rules, it helps to reinforce them and retain the information. A test or quiz will also help to understand which rules may be difficult for students.
My upper level students, especially in my Advanced Biology classes, come very much prepared to succeed and behave. For many of them, playing “Rule Bingo” or taking a quiz over the expectations would be academically beneath them. For them, I plan on using class time to help students set goals (Sprick, Garrison, Howard, 1998, p. 364). I would first introduce the activity by discussing with students my goals for both them and myself for the school year. I would also pull in examples from sports to help students see the value in goals. I would then discuss how this could be translated into academic and behavioral goals. Students could generate a list of goals that they want to meet that include both academic but also behavioral, as even some of my best students academically still struggle with staying on task. Students would also have to generate examples of what tasks they would be doing if they were working on their goal. An example of this is if a student’s goal was to have less incomplete assignments, he could write that, during individual work times, he would be on task, they would be asking for help and not socializing. This would allow students to understand the steps necessary to complete their main goal and what those steps would look like to an outside observer. To finalize this activity, students would generate a goal contract as a final draft. Both the student and myself would sign it. The students would also be allowed to keep the goal in a prominent place, such as the cover or inside pocket of a binder or notebook. By allowing the students to keep their goal contracts, they can review them daily and see how they can or have made progress.