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Getting students to stay on-task and engaged during the school day is no easy feat. While administrators can do their part by implementing school-wide behavior management strategies, individual classroom management largely falls on teachers. Tackling classroom management can be overwhelming, so we’ve gathered 13 classroom management strategies to help and inspire you.
What is a classroom management strategy?
According to The Glossary of Education Reform, classroom management is defined as “the wide variety of skills and techniques that teachers use to keep students organized, orderly, focused, attentive, on task, and academically productive during a class.”
Classroom management strategies are techniques that help teachers address the following within their classrooms:
- Classroom expectations and guidelines
- Challenging behaviors
- Classroom community creation
- Student engagement
- Physical classroom organization
Classroom management strategies have been diligently researched for effectiveness, but they’re also personal choices that need to work for your teaching style. What works well for one age group may not work well for another, so you have to account for child development, too.
1. Choose, set up, and acknowledge your classroom expectations
Different classrooms, students, and grade levels have varying needs, so reflecting on and deciding what will work best for you and your class is important. It’s a good idea to have baseline expectations to start a new school year, but you may want to get to know your students for a few days before finalizing them. This way, your expectations will be attainable for the specific students in your class at this time.
Keep everyone accountable with learning contracts
Clearly communicate the rules and procedures to students from day one, so your entire class is on the same page. To make your expectations tangible to students, consider using learning contracts, which students can sign and keep on hand throughout the school year.
Classroom Etiquette Handout for Middle School or High School
By HappyEdugator
Grades: 6th-9th
Students will have no excuses after they read this detailed set of rules for good manners in the classroom. The set includes black-and-white or color classroom etiquette acknowledgment forms, classroom etiquette questions/comments forms, and teacher directions.
Science Safety Contract Freebie
By Kimberly Scott Science
Grades: Not Grade Specific
Start your lab year off right with a science safety contract. Students will have clear lab practice rules to follow with this PDF download. It includes two versions: The first takes the student’s and parent’s signatures, and the second includes just a student’s signature.
Display your classroom rules and procedures for reference
Make your classroom decor fun and functional by hanging up posters that showcase your classroom procedures to help students remember them. Having information readily available and on display will not only remind students what they need to do but also make the information accessible to classroom visitors and any transfer students.
Classroom Management Decor Spanish & Bilingual
By Mrs Cabello Spanish Class
Grades: PreK-4th
These are great visual reminders for good choices and staying on track. The set includes colorful pennants, a clip chart, and five classroom rules posters that feature bright colors and cartoon images that match the text.
2. Teach (and reteach) your students about appropriate behavior
Students all come from different backgrounds, so take the time to teach and explain the behaviors expected in your classroom. This way, all of your students will have a good foundation for how to behave in class.
Since behavior is learned, use moments of misbehavior to review, refresh, and reteach your class about the positive behavior you’d like to see. This can be taught in an entertaining way through a fun game, like behavior bingo.
Use social stories to make behavior expectations clear and relatable
Companies often have to provide employees with handbooks that detail all their rules, and teachers can do the same for classrooms. Creating a booklet with relatable storylines allows you to review rules in a fun storytime format with younger students. For older students, you can direct them to review the booklet as needed.
Daily Routines Social Stories & Visual Supports
By Autism Classroom Resources-Christine Reeve
Grades: Any
Each social story focuses on a specific aspect of common routines (e.g., waiting in line). Together, the nine social narratives and eight visual support cards can help your students, especially those on the autism spectrum, demonstrate more appropriate behavior through understanding expectations in each specific situation.
3. Explore creative solutions to prevent disruptive behavior
Sometimes disruptions are opportunities to implement new class procedures. Your students may be an energetic bunch, be easily riled up before a test, or still full of energy after recess. Adding an activity like a short brain break to your transition into a test or out of recess could be a creative way to defuse this energy.
4. Be positive as you redirect students’ behavior
At times, a gentle nudge in the right direction is all a student needs to get back on task. Maintain neutral body language and an even tone of voice while redirecting your student’s attention so your student feels encouraged, not punished.
5. Give appropriately-sized consequences
While it’s important to correct behaviors before they escalate, it’s equally important to ensure the consequence matches the action. This smart classroom management technique helps build trust with students because it shows your dedication to fairness.
6. Create an easy-to-reference behavior intervention plan for extra support
From time to time, students may need more support in learning positive behavior. This support may involve multiple educators at your school and require coming up with a detailed plan.
Use a template to keep intervention plans consistent
Using a straightforward template for a student’s behavior intervention plan can help keep everyone on the same page and give each student the consistent support they need.
BIP at a Glance
By News From the Resource Nook
Grades: PreK-12th
This product helps teachers and other school personnel to be able to quickly read over a Behavior Intervention Plan at a moment’s notice. There are 18 different templates included.
7. Address behavior with individuals instead of the whole class
While there are certainly frustrating times where it feels like the whole class is acting out, there are usually at least one or two students who stay on task. Keep these students as your allies in setting an example of positive classroom behavior by correcting individual students’ behavior instead of reprimanding the class at large.
If you do need to address the whole class, try using positive narration. This allows you to acknowledge on-task students’ positive behavior and to motivate disruptive students to change their course.
8. Kindly acknowledge when a disruption has affected student learning
Disruptive students can have an impact on the whole class, especially when their behavior calls for a larger intervention, like being sent out of the room. To get students back on track to learning, acknowledge the impact of the situation before moving on with your lesson. A simple, “That was challenging to do, but I hope it gives [student] the time and space they need to think on their behavior,” can go a long way in helping the rest of your students process their reactions and continue learning.
9. Find fun ways to reinforce positive classroom behavior
Learning how to behave can be a fun aspect of your classroom. Rewarding individuals who behave well with raffle tickets, a small prize, or even the ability to perform a coveted task will encourage students to implement what you’ve taught. Explain aloud why a student is being rewarded, so the rest of the class knows how they can also achieve a reward. If all of your students are consistently behaving well, consider giving the whole class a prize like a mini party.
10. Get students invested in your classroom management strategies
Student involvement can lead to increased trust and participation. If you have room to be flexible, give your class choices where possible and ask for feedback on rules and processes. You can also involve your students by creating different class jobs that students can rotate through, like line leader, homework collector, and announcement reader. This not only takes tasks off your plate, but it also teaches students responsibility and makes them more aware of classroom procedures.
11. Create consistency with classroom routines
The repetitive nature of routines ensures students know what to do when they enter your class and allows them to learn and improve over time. Creating an easy-to-follow routine not only takes some of the guesswork out of your students’ days but also yours.
Post your class schedule for students to see
When students know what to expect, they’re more likely to oblige. Incorporate posting your daily schedule into your classroom management strategy, so students know what’s on deck and can prepare themselves. If your plan ends up needing to be changed, be transparent with your students about why and take the moment to emphasize the importance of being flexible when needed.
12. Preview exciting lesson plans and materials
Take a play from an English teacher’s book, and use a strong hook in your lesson introduction. Add some creativity to this preview to pique your students’ interests and capture their attention. For example, you could preview a geometry lesson about shapes by saying, “Today we’ll learn how a circle is really just a fancy oval.”
13. Practice transitions with students
Similar to having a classroom routine, practicing lesson and class transitions allows students to learn, understand, and improve the way they change from one activity to another. Rehearse one or two transitions consistently to allow for the habit to take shape.
Set your class up for success with classroom management strategies and TPT
Remember that these classroom management strategies take time, so be as kind to yourself in this process as you would be to your students. And if you need more help with your classroom management strategies, check out resources for classroom management on TPT for inspiration.