CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT PLAN 1

Classroom Management Plan

Elide Grande

California State Dominguez Hills

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT PLAN 2

Introduction

My fieldwork was completed in a combined classroom at George Washington Carver

Elementary located in Compton California. The classroom was composed of 25 students, of

which 22 were in first grade and 3 were in second grade. To fulfill my fieldwork hours, I would

attend Mrs. R’s classroom on Fridays, Thursdays, and/or Mondays, so I had the opportunity to

observe students in different lessons-as the agenda changes depending on the day. During this

time, I was able to work in small groups with students on their reading comprehension, reading

fluency, vocabulary, and at times with their testing. Most of all, however, I was able to observe

the students. Specifically focusing on Student A who is an English Learner, Students B who

needs emotional support, and Student C who might need additional support to thrive

academically. Students A is one of three second grade students in Mrs. R’s classroom. Student A

is Hispanic/Latino, who mainly speaks Spanish at home. Listening to him read, it is evident that

he needs support with sounding out words and reading fluency. Spelling is also challenging for

him, due to his language, because he does not say all the sounds in a word, so he ends up

incorrectly spelling a word as he is sounding it out incorrectly. Mrs. R explained that he is below

grade level in reading. However, Student A is great at comprehension when a story or passage is

read aloud to him. For example, I read a short story, out of his workbook, to him and he was able

to verbally summarize the entire story using details. Furthermore, Student A thrives in subjects

were reading and writing are not required as often (such as math), thereby, obtaining the highest

I-Ready math score of the class. Students B, on the other hand, is not classified but requires lots

of emotional support. He is an African American student whose mother works long hours and

whose father is currently in prison. Student B tends to have very good or very unpleasant days.

Unfortunately, as Mrs. R explained, unpleasant days occur a soon as the bell rings since he
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arrived to school already upset. Student B is also a hugger, he loves to give and receive hugs.

One day he was really upset because he had to take a test but did not want to sit in his assigned

seat, so I went to him and we went to the back of the room where I assisted him with his exam

(standing up the entire time). After this event, every time I arrived Student B would greet me

with a big hug! I was even able to connect with him at a personal level because he confided to

me that he loves playing spies with his cousin and misses his dad a lot. Mrs. R believes that he

lacks attention at home due to his mother having to work all the time and his babysitter having

other children to look after. Finally, Student C is a Hispanic female who has not been classified

as having a learning disability, but Mrs. R has begun the process as she has concerns based on

Student C’s behavior and/or actions. Student C struggles with social and behavior conducts such

as throwing tantrums when asked to put on her glasses during reading time, becoming agitated

when educator does not call on her first, and loosing focus quickly. Mrs. R informed me that she

has a meeting with Student C’s parents and the principle to see if they would be willing to go

through the process of seeing is she has a learning disability, but Mrs. R mentioned that it is a

long process- sometimes taking the entire school year or longer. Overall being in Mrs. R’s first

and second grade classroom provided me with real experiences in a diverse classroom with

different learning styles, ethnicities, cultures, and/or backgrounds that will assist me as I develop

my classroom management plan.

Classroom Management Spectrum

My classroom management spectrum is The Reward-and- Routine Focus. According to

Pinto (2013), this spectrum is focused mainly on positive discipline and routines that allow a

classroom to flow. My experiences, fieldwork, and courses have caused me to strongly believe

that student behavior, work ethic, and classroom culture improve/benefit from routine and
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rewards, as these help establish the classroom climate by creating a positive environment where

students get praise for their accomplishments rather than getting constant attention for their

misbehavior. In addition, having each day planned accordingly and making students aware of

how each day should look reduces confusion and unaccounted time that provides students the

opportunity to make negative choices. For instance, I worked three years with the Norwalk La

Mirada Unified School district as part of the ASES Prep after school program. During this time, I

had my own third grade classroom that consisted of 24 students. My first three months made me

question my ability to be an educator because I completely lost control of my classroom and

sight of my goal as an educator as I found myself only correcting “bad behavior”. After breaking

down and asking for support, my site director came into my classroom and began to incorporate

the reward and routine focus- turning my classroom around in a matter of weeks. Once students

had a routine to follow and an agenda provided daily, plus, hearing and receiving constant verbal

praise for positive behavior and work, as well as monthly rewards, I was able to connect with

students and create a positive classroom climate that allowed them to thrive. Thus, my classroom

management plan will be formulated through the spectrum of Rewards-and-Routines.

Classroom Climate

In order for students to have a culturally responsive educator, I need to be able to provide

students with a classroom climate that is inclusive of their diversity, so they can receive equitable

opportunities of academic and emotional success. According to “Culturally responsive

Classroom Management Awareness Into Action” by Weinstein, Curran, and Tomlinson-Clarke

(2003), “In order to be culturally responsive [educators must learn] about our students’ family

background, their pervious educational experiences, their culture’s norms…” Therefore, to learn

about the community around the school and student’s home life, at the beginning of the school
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year, I intend to get to know students and their immediate families by having students, along

with their parent or guardian, design a persona doll that resembles the student’s ethnicity,

background, and home culture. A questionnaire will also be attached for parent(s) or guardian(s)

to answer, thus, providing me with more information of the student’s home culture. Once these

dolls are completed students will have the opportunity to present them along with having a

lesson that teaches about being accepting, understanding, and respectful towards everyone

because we are all diverse in our own way. Having an activity of this sort will help eliminate

discrimination and harassment towards students because they will understand that, in our

classroom, we respect and accept everyone. In addition, learning about the community will allow

me to include content in the curriculum that students can identify with and decoration in the

classroom will reflect the kind of community we are, so when anyone walks through the doors

they see the diverse community we represent.

Moreover, the classroom climate will allow students to feel safe by having a conflict free

zone. This will be a section in the classroom that will have charts on steps to resolve a problem,

charts providing student with sentence frames that allows them to express themselves clearly,

and charts that provide strategies to deal with negative emotions like anger or frustration, so they

do not harm themselves or others. There will, also, be a jar where students can inform the teacher

of a problem or something important they over heard or saw. After students put their note in the

jar, I will read them during lunch time and address the issues, as needed, toward the end of the

school day- unless of course students are in immediate harm then they should come directly to

me. The conflict free zone will also have booklets of what bullying is and how to ask for help if

being bullying. By having a conflict free zone students have a recurrent routine on how to solve
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problems, and the message would not be that there is no place for problems in the classroom, but

rather when there is a problem here is a way to resolve them in a respectful manner.

Furthermore, as a culturally responsive educator, I plan on keeping my bias in check by

being conscious and reflective because “we must recognize that we are all cultural beings, with

our own beliefs, biases, and assumptions about human behavior” (Weinstein et al., 2003). By

being free of bias and culturally responsive, I hope I can create a classroom climate that allows

the diverse population of students, I will have, an equitable educational experience.

Expectations and Rules

As mentioned above, my classroom management spectrum has a rewards focus; thereby,

making clear expectations and rules crucial in my future classtoom in order for students to

receive verbal praise and other forms of rewards. My plan is to have about three to four rules and

expectations ready for the first day of school and having them on charts that are visible for

students to see constantly. Rules, for example, will include: raise your hand before speaking or

getting up from your seat and come into the classroom quietly strait to your seat. Expectation

will include: be respectful of other thoughts, opinions, feeling and unique qualities, be prepared

for class by having your materials and homework, and always do your best work. Although these

expectation and rules will be written prior to students’ arrival, I plan on having students

contribute by adding rules and expectations they feel are necessary. Additionally, I plan to keep

track of how well students follow the rules and expectation by having tables set up in group form

so students can work callobartivly to earn team and class points. I also plan on tracking

individual behavior on a clip board in order to prevent student embarrassment/shaming when

asked to move their color or name on a chart visible to the entire class. I feel that by keeping an

individual behavior chart private and speaking to students about their behavior separately, I will
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model respect towards emotions. Finally, I will go over the expectation and rules on a daily basis

as part of the morning routine.

Routines and Procedures

Routines and procedures allow students to thrive because “routines not only mean a

smoother-functioning classroom, but they also allow students to feel a sense of security over the

course of their time in the classroom…a good routine will also help students to become involved

in learning…” (Pinto, 2013). I plan on having constant procedures as to how students should

transition from one activity to the next, how working in center looks like, and how dismissal time

works. For example, during my fieldwork I noticed that every morning- as part of their entering

the classroom routine- some students would walk over to the sink and place their water bottle

down. When I asked Mrs. R why the students placed their drink at the sink, she replied that

students tend to get distracted when their water bottle is on their desk, so she told them that they

were allowed to bring their drink to class but it had to be placed on the sink as they entered the

classroom. Now students in Mrs. R’s classroom put their drink on top of the sink without having

to be asked. Although it might seem like a simple thing, this procedure allows Mrs. R’s

classroom to run smoother since there is no time wasted calling attention to water bottles and no

longer do students move their color for throwing their water bottle up in the air in the middle of a

lesson. Moreover, I plan on having routines like greeting students at the door every morning,

going over expectations and rules, and meditation time after recess and lunch. Meditation time

will come after recess and lunch, in my classroom, to provide students the opportunity to relax

from the excitement of recess and lunch before continuing to learn. Finally, I plan on having an

agenda on the board for students to see and an individual one for me, so I know exactly how the
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day should look reducing confusing and unaccounted time that provides the opportunity for

students to lose focus or to misbehave.

Maximizing Instructional Time

I plan to use several strategies for my classroom management in order to maximize

instructional time. Frist, I plan on having every lesson prepared ahead of time with all the

materials and resources I will need. Second, I will use attention getters to re-focus students. For

example, I will say “class, class” and students will respond “yes, yes” and/or “water fall, water

fall” and students respond- while moving their fingers down- “shhhhhhhhhhh”, which will mean

they are facing forward, with noting in their hands, and ready to listen. Third, I will have class

jobs that assign two students to pass out paper/worksheets, one to pass out pencils to students

who need one, and one to collect and to put supplies back in their place. There will also be a

chart with options of activities to do if a student finishes early, so they always have something at

hand rather than loosing valuable academic time.

Addressing the Needs of Diverse Learners

Being a culturally responsive educator also means addressing the needs of diverse

learners such as the three students mentioned from Mrs. R’s class. For English language

Learners, I plan to use project Glad because it “is an instructional approach that incorporates a

variety of strategies to support bilingual students in simultaneously learning content and

acquiring language” (Nickerson et al., 2017). For example, when starting a new lesson, I will

create a big book that has images, facts, and vocabulary that students need to know (Nickerson et

al., 2017), so students have a reference of the concepts to learn from the lesson. The images will

also help English Language Learners correlate the word and the image allowing them to better

understand the lesson. For students with special needs I will use Universal Design for Learning
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(UDL) because it “addresses the three learning networks within a broadly defined concept of the

curriculum that includes goals, materials, methods and assessment…[providing] multiple, varied

and flexible for representation, expression, and engagement” (Ralabate, 2011). Thereby, for a

student like Students C who struggle with focusing for long periods of time, I plan on having a

worksheet with the same direction I explained, so they can look at them as many times as need

during the activity. I also plan on extending time on tasks depending on the students’ disability

and on their Individual Education Program (IEPs). Furthermore, to accommodate the diverse

styles of learning, I plan on having multiple forms of instructional time such as: working in small

groups, think-pair-share, having hands on activities, providing visuals, and independent work as

some students work best in quiet spaces.

Social Emotional Development

To support social emotional development for students, like Student B in Mrs. R’s

classroom, I plan on connecting with students at a personal level because “Trauma affects

children’s ability (or willingness) to form relationships with classmates and teachers; children

who have experienced trauma may be distrustful or suspicious of others, leading them to

question the reliability and predictability of their relationships” (Krasnoff, 2017). One way to do

this is by greeting each student at the door and having a short but thoughtful conversation with

students outside school subjects, so they can have someone to confide their emotions and

thoughts too. I believe this is important because students like Student B might not get any

attention at home due to their parents working long hours or other home situations. Also, I plan

on providing students with an activity they can work on at home during the weekend to keep

them motivated to come back to school and to tell me and/or their peers how the activity went.

Next, I plan on having a section where students can go, at any time during the day, to take a five-
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minute break. This section will have emotion cards, reflection sheets, a stress releasing ball, and

coloring sheets to help students relax before rejoining the class to continue their learning. Lastly,

I plan to make a conscious effort to speak with the students, who went to the calming down

section, to make sure they are okay and to see if they need any further support.

Peer Collaboration

To promote peer collaboration in my classroom, I will have the tables set up in groups of

four or five, so students can work together to earn group points in order to receive a reward at the

end of two weeks. Second, when doing think-pair-share students will need to find a new partner

each time. For example, I might say “think-pair-share with your elbow partner to the right” and

then to the left, or “think-pair-share with the person sitting behind you”. Next, there will be

projects and/or activities that require group collaboration. I will keep track of who was in a

group, so I can put them in a group with different peers in the next group project- this way

students step away from only collaborating with their friends and collaborate with all their peers.

Parent Communication and Involvement

Parent communication and involvement is also a crucial part of my classroom

management plan because parents and educators need to work in collaboration to provide

students with greater academic success. To communicate with parents, I plan on doing positive

calls home (sunshine calls), so students can be praised both by their teacher and their parent or

guardian. I also plan on sending weekly newsletters in English and in the students’ home

language to keep parents or guardians informed of what their child is learning. Furthermore, for

parent involvement I plan on having career day where parents come and speak about their jobs

and provide after school homework workshops for both students and parents, so parents can
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better support their child. Finally, I plan on having home culture time once a week where one or

two students bring their parents or guardian and share about their home culture to the class.

Conclusion

The Reward-and-Routine spectrum formulates the majority of my classroom

management plan because it assists me in becoming a culturally responsive educator. In addition,

every section in the plan connects in one way or another to the reward-and-routine focus because

it allows diverse students to thrive. Classroom climate uses both rewards and routines to

establish an accepting and respectful classroom culture towards a diverse population of students

and their families/communities. Expectations and Rules, Routines and Procedures, and

Maximizing Instructional time rely on rewards- and- routine focus to be effective, to manage

student behavior, and to have class structure. However, classroom management is “an ongoing,

long-term…in which cultural diversity becomes a lens through which teachers view the task of

classroom management” (Weinstein et al., 2003). Thereby, this classroom management plan is

only the beginning of my journey towards being a culturally responsive educator who provides

students with an equitable educational experience, so they learn to love and value their

education.
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References

Krasnoff, B. (2017). A Practitioner’s Guide to Educating Traumatized Children. Retrieved from

https://educationnorthwest.org/resources/practitioner-s-guide-educating-traumatized-

children

Nickerson, B. (2017). Tips for teachers: Promoting the Achievement of English Learners.

Journal of Department of Curriculum and Instruction, 4, 1-4.

Pinto, L. E. (2013). From Discipline to Culturally Responsive Engagement. Thousand Oaks, CA:

Corwin

Ralabate, K. P. (2011). Universal Design for learning Meeting the Needs of All Students.

Retrieved from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/universal-design-learning-meeting-

needs-all-students

Weinstein, C., Curran, M., & Tomlinson-Clarke, S. (2003). Culturally responsive Classroom

Management: Awareness Into Action. Journal of Theory Into Practice, 42, 269-275.