Davis Oldani

EDUC 450

John Knight

October 31, 2021

Management Plan

Classroom management and teaching styles are unique to every educator and can

make or break the educational experience of the students and the teacher. I hold a

personal philosophy of creating a space where my students and myself feel welcome and

are members of a community rather than just students in a classroom. To foster this in

my classroom, I strive to develop routines and an environment in which students are the

focus. This is shaped by the physical environment, my routines, and my personal

responses to behaviors.

The physical space of my classroom will involve table arrangements, decoration,

and lighting. The table arrangements in my classroom will begin by being placed in

groups of two, all facing the front of the classroom. This will allow me to have more face-

to-face contact with my students and build the teacher-student relationships while

setting expectations for the class. A week or two into the class, I will shift from groups of

two into groups of 3-4. This larger small group will allow my students to begin fostering

relationships with each other and reinforce collaborative work. My classroom will be

decorated with historic posters and maps that relate to parts of history that I am
passionate about as well as include historical symbols to communicate that everybody is

welcome in my class. As a primarily environmental historian, I love collecting posters

from historic sites and national parks which will all be displayed along side pictures I

have taken in the outdoors. This brings an aspect of my personality into the classroom

and can bridge relationships with my students by demonstrating my own personality. To

signify that everybody is welcome in my classroom, I intend on collecting world flags to

display as well as cultural flags (LGBTQ+, BLM, indigenous communities). As far as

lighting, I feel that having warmer lighting than the fluorescent lights that typically are in

schools can make to classroom more comfortable and help students reduce stress and

anxiety.

In addition to the physical environment, my classroom management will be

heavily rooted in my routines as a teacher, these routines range from instructional to

non-instructional. My non-instructional routines will be focused around fostering

community in the classroom. Some examples of non-instructional routines will be to

welcome my students at the door and connect with them individually first thing as they

enter my classroom, to have set expectations for behavior, and to present myself with a

positive attitude and growth mindset regardless of the day or scenario. My instructional

routines will be vital to the function of my classroom as I want my students to feel

prepared for my classroom and to have a general idea of what will be happening. As far

as instruction, I will begin every class with music or a video playing as my students enter

which will be related to the topic of the lesson for the day (ex. Learning about Vietnam

war in class, play Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival as students enter.)
Following this as students enter, we will briefly discuss the connection to the lesson for

the day and then engage in a hook activity. Following the hook, I will discuss the

expectations for the day and introduce the learning expectations. Next, I will engage in

instruction how it is required for the intended lesson. Every class will end with some

form of check in and formative assesment to determine how the day went.

To respond to negative and positive student behavior, I am a major advocate of

positive reinforcement and the Love and Logic method. For positive student behaviors, I

will typically acknowledge the behaviors or reward them in some way. This is different

for every student as everybody feel appreciated differently, some students will prefer

being called out and applauded in class, others may prefer one-on-one positive feedback.

For negative behavior, I intend to have very clear and displayed expectations. I am going

to have a stop light in my classroom with different expectations associated with the

colors. When a specific color is lit up during class, my students will know what the

expectations of me and them are. Anytime a student does not uphold these

expectations, I will walk by and remind them “expectations”. When behavior exceeds this

basic check in, I will follow up with “we need to speak after class”. In cases that behavior

exceeds the previous responses, I will work very hard to resolve the issue on my own,

doing everything I can to keep that student in class, but in the case that it escalates

further I will rely on support from my administration.