Hayes Horstmeyer

Management Plan
I am planning on starting my career in a middle school classroom. For me, management
between high school and middle school has to be very different. Let’s start with the classroom
itself. For middle school, I want things to be engaging and fun, as well as have helpful things
posted around the room. I want to have a theme with some different colors to make the room feel
more lively. I am a bit of a nerd, so I’m sure there will be movie and book decorations from
Marvel to Harry Potter. With that, I plan to post my expectations on the walls, either as a look of
“commandments” or a “legal agreement.” The hope isn’t to have students always reading them,
but to have a clear document that sticks out and I can point to whenever we need a reminder.
Routines are very important, both non-instructional and instructional. I want to find more
non-instructional routines to use, but for the moment I plan on starting everyday with a warm-up
and a “focused” time. A warm up with mathematics is a great way to get students’ brains
activated and ready for the day's material. It is also a good formative assessment to see if the
material we have been working on is sticking with students. I’m unsure what exactly I will do
with late work, but I highly value communication, honesty, and integrity, so if a student is going
to be gone or has late work, I want them to feel comfortable to communicate with me as well as
be honest about it. Flexibility comes to mind, but after multiple late assignments, having some
sort of consequence (even just a one-on-one chat) might be necessary. For turning in any work,
having designated bins for either different classes or periods is what I plan to do. The “focused”
time could look different depending on the day, but having a quiet 5 minutes to get your
belongings together, read alone, read as a class, or work on an assignment is a good way to bring
attention and direction to the class.
I want to stay open-minded with my instructional routines as each class I teach might
have its own needs as well as routines that work better for it than for a different class. I want to
make a point of group work, so my main routine for every class will be valuing class discussions
and answers. I want to be able to build a lot of lessons around students working together to find
answers, affirming each other and feeling confident to move on without always needing me to
confirm if they are correct or not. I also want to create a solid system for switching tasks from
group work to lectures or quizzes. This could look like many things, but having one fun and
unique sound for a given task seems like a good way to invite a unique classroom community as
well as keep expectations on transition times.
Behavior is still a topic I have a lot of questions about and know it will be one that will
become easier to manage with time. Dealing with positive and negative behavior is extremely
important. For positive behaviors, this to me is students raising hands to answer questions or
making a specific effort to help out a peer. To reward this behavior I want to have candy or some
fun treat for them. It would also be good to have a box where students can anomalously submit a
good deed they noticed another student do. Negative behaviors are the harder ones to deal with,
but I like the idea that “you can do anything you like as long as it doesn’t harm you or anyone
else in the world.” Students should feel free to move about and take care of their needs, however,
I want it to be clear that as soon as it is disrupting their own learning or the learning of another
student, it is a problem. With posted expectations, responding to this behavior could be anywhere
from a quiet correction while walking by or, if things get out of hand, having that student step
aside and chat with them one-on-one. I want every student in my class to be there and for them to
know they are wanted, but it is also important that every single one of them feels safe and
respected.