Any veteran teacher will tell you that classroom management affects learning. If you don't have some tools in your tool box for managing the behavior of a challenging class, all of the amazing lesson plans in the world won't help you. Classroom management can include classroom reward systems, raffle books, treasure boxes, blurt beans, beat the teacher competitions and so much more. However, management must be more than just rewards. It also must be about relationships and expectations.

 
​Classroom Management Ideas - the Basics:
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•  The first step to good classroom management is to have guidelines in place for students to learn and understand your expectations. This is going to look differently in every classroom. I prefer my students to come in and get started, so I often post directions for an activity on the board. Other teachers prefer students to complete a listen and repeat at the beginning of each activity. (Teacher gives directions orally, students tells those directions to a friend.) Still other teachers would rather students jump right in and experiment with an activity and then after they have built some background knowledge the teacher will give specific directions. In reality you'll probably use each of these methods at some point during your week. However, your students need to be taught your go-to method from the first day of school so that they know what is expected of them. Students want to follow the rules (for the most part), but they can't follow rules they don't know about or understand.

 

•  Next set up procedures for a regular day of school. Routines and schedules are your best friend when it comes to classroom management. Children are creatures of habit. They work better if they know exactly what is expected of them. During the first week of school, model and teach students a procedure for EVERY part of your day. (I mean every part of the day, when and how they sharpen a pencil, when and how they get a book off of the shelf, when and how they interact with their classmates.) Then keep your schedule exactly as it is (as best as you can) for at least 2 weeks. Once they have gotten the routine and procedures down, you can change it up a little, but remember that routines and procedures give students security and help them remember what behavior is expected of them when.

 

• Take time to get to know your students! I can't stress how important it is to get to know your students. In fact, I wrote a whole blog post about ideas of HOW to get to know your students. Getting to know the needs, interests, and personalities of your students will be invaluable to you in increasing engagement and knowing what rewards will help what students. Each kiddo has their own kid tool box of strategies that work for them, but they're not going to list fthe contents for us. We have to get to know them in order to motivate and reward them properly.

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• Use different types of rewards. Now I'm one of those teachers who doesn't reward EVERYTHING. I don't think that an average 3rd grader should get a sticker every time they remember to to raise their hand. However, some 3rd graders who have a history of never remembering to raise their hand might need a sticker every time for a short period while you are teaching that skill. Rewards should be given regularly, for skills you are developing. These rewards should eventually be weaned back when students have the skill. This being said, these are kids and there is always a new skill we can work on and reward. Below I've listed out some specific rewards that I use. Remember that not every reward will work for every student.

​Successful Classroom Reward Systems

Not every reward system will work for every student, so it is important to have a variety of ways for students to earn rewards and a variety of rewards they can earn. Here are some ways students can earn rewards that have worked well in my classroom:

• Class Dojo (can also be done with a simple sticker chart) - Students earn and lose points based on criteria that we develop as a class.  I record these points on the class dojo website, which can be viewed by students and parents. When students hit a multiple of 20, they get to choose from a reward book. Some teachers refresh their points each week or each month. I allow my points to accumulate for the entire semester, so we only reset at New Year's. This way those students who are slow to accumulate still get a chance to earn the rewards.

 

• Classroom Marble Jar - Have a mason jar (or other similar sized jar) in the front of the room. When the whole class (or an individual student if that's how you set it up) is doing their best, we add a marble to the jar. When the jar is full we have a whole class reward (dance party, extra recess, time to draw, etc.) Some teachers also remove marbles if the entire class is misbehaving. I try not to do this, as generally someone was doing the right thing, but they get punished with everyone else.

 

• Classroom Raffle - Purchase (or see if parents will donate) larger prizes. I generally get things like a football or a set of books the class likes. Some free ideas could also be "a day as the teacher's assistant" or "a month with no homework". Either way, set up the prizes on a high shelf where students can see, but not touch. Place a jar or baggie in front of each prize. Buy a roll of raffle tickets (or use post it notes). When students are caught being awesome, they get a raffle ticket which they can write their name on and put in the container in front of the prize they desire. After a set amount of time, draw raffle tickets and hand out the prizes. Because these prizes are bigger, I generally draw at the end of the semester or the end of the month, depending on the attention span of my kiddos. In addition to being a way to talk about statistics, this is a great time to remind students that the person who is chosen may have one entry or 100 entries, but if you have 0 entries you can't win.

 

• Do the Dab! (or the Floss or whatever weird thing is the new fad) - Kids LOVE to see their teachers in a different light. Sometimes they love it enough that it can be a reward. Last year my students loved to watch me dab for some reason. So I took advantage of it. We had a difficult time walking through the hallways quietly. So I made a deal with my kiddos. If we could make it from point A to point B without Mrs. Raki having to remind anyone of the expectations, I would dab for the class when we got to point B. Another teacher I worked with used to put a timer on in his classroom. If the class finished cleaning up before the timer went off, he would spend the extra time showing them tricks using a fidget spinner. I've also seen this done the other way, if the goal is met then the kids get to do some weird dance move or fad that is popular now. It's all about motivation. If the kids are into it, it can be used as a quick (and FREE) reward.

Classroom Reward That Don't Break the Bank

Classroom rewards are wonderful, but even when you're using the dollar store and oriental trading, they add up! So here are some ways to have rewards without spending your entire paycheck.

• Ask for donations - As a former Title I Teacher, this one is hard for me to remember. However, I've found that even low income families have access to things that might be a good addition to a treasure box.  I had one mom who worked at McDonalds bring me a pack of coupons for free ice creams that her manager donated. Old toys that are headed towards Goodwill, bags of clearance Halloween candy, items parents have picked up as freebies at conferences or festivals - these are the donations I ask for at the beginning of the year. I let my parents know that I will accept donations all year long, and I warn them that they go into a treasure box where students can pick when they earn a reward (which means some of those might end up back at their house, lol. )

 

• Create a catalog where students can choose from in-class rewards like:
  • computer free time
  • art supply free time
  • puzzle or game free time
  • lunch with a friend
  • swip swap (sit near a friend for the day)
  • stinky feet (no shoes in class)
  • wear your shirt backwards in class
  • wearing a hat in class
  • selfie with the teacher (to be sent to parents)
  • a good phone call home
  • being the teacher's helper
  • no homework pass
  • sit in the teacher chair
  • classroom job of your choice
  • teach a lesson to the class
  • show and tell
  • lunch with the teacher

 

• Whole Class Rewards can also be experience based like:
  • Dance party
  • Computer lab party
  • Drawing and coloring party
  • Kickball game
  • Watch a movie
  • Students create a play, or a board game
  • Let students bring in board games or puzzles
  • Fortune teller and origami party
  • Play with the math manipulatives

 

• Not free, but cheap and unique rewards include:
  • printable coloring pages (print on a topic that interests your students)
  • party favors (multiple in a pack)
  • seashells or shiny rocks (sold at hobby stores or collected on the beach, and the kids LOVE them)
  • string for friendship bracelets (tie off the sections, you get more than you think)
  • stickers (buy a big pack, cut it into strips)
  • trading cards (buy a pack, open the pack the reward is one card)
  • art supplies (buy a multipack, split it up, it's amazing what kids will do for a new paintbrush)

Most third grade teacher and students are familiar with Google Slides. My students LOVE creating slide shows about their research or about other topics that interest them. (I can't tell you how many slide shows I've read about dogs!) However, this year I stumbled on a cool upgrade to Google Slides - the collaborative slide show!

In order to create a collaborative slide show, you create a slide show that has at least one slide for each student and you share the slide show, on edit mode, with the entire class. This way the kids can each work on their slide seperate of their friends, but they can see the work their friends are doing. This works great with a one-to-one device situation like having Chromebooks in the classroom, but I have used it in a classroom of just 3 computers. Students do not all have to be working at the same time, they can simply go to the slide show when they go to the computer center.


A few management tips:
 - Students need to know in advance which slide is their slide. In my classroom the students have numbers, so I often just have them work on the slide that coordinates with their number. However, students can choose a number from a hat or be assigned which number slide to work on, depending on the needs of your project. Some projects they may even need 2 slides.

 - Students will lose the link, so make sure that you post the link to the editable version in some place accessible to them - in your Google Classroom or Edmodo or even on your class blog, just some place they can access easily.

 - If someone's work "disappears", try going to File - Version History. You can then make a copy of the old version and copy and paste the deleted work back into the slide show. (This happens more than you think with 24 students all working in one document!)

 - When you are done working, it is possible to change the share settings so that students can no longer edit. This comes in handy if you want a finished product!


Collaborative slide shows have a lot of uses, here are just a few:

2.) Create a problem of the day (math word problem) slide show where each student's slide has the same problem (or different if you want to differentiate). Students can work on their problem, showing their work with sentences and drawings (insert drawing or insert shape). Then students can compare their own thinking with the thinking of their classmates. 

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3.) Create a slide show to completely explain and explore a story you are reading in class. Each slide can have a prompt or question about the story like characters or connections. Students can each complete one slide, and then as a class you have a full slide show explaining and describing the story. 
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4.) Create a vocabulary slide show for any subject. Type one vocabulary word in the title section of each slide. Each student explains their vocabulary word using sentences and images. You may give them a list of what needs to be on each slide (definition, examples, non-examples, etc.) or you may allow them more leway to describe the word in any way they see fit. Once all of the words are described, the class can review the slide show and add or subtract if necessary.
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5.) At the beginning of the school year (or any other time your students need reminding) have your students create an expectations slide show. In the title section of each slide, type an area of the classroom or school, or a material they will use. On their slide, the students define what the expectations are for using that area or material. Then as a class you can review the slide show and add or subtract if necessary.

How else could you use collaborative slide shows in your classroom? 

The Escape Room itself takes us about 2 hours and it's a very engaging 2 hours for the class. Even those who do not escape tell me they had fun trying. I have tried to make the experience as similar to an escape room puzzle that you would pay for as an adult, while still making it educational and appropriate for my kiddos.

For the escape room, I break my class into 3 groups. Each group has colored clues to follow. The clues I use are all math problems for topics they should have mastered. Once they solve the clues, they use them to unlock envelopes. Inside some of the envelopes are harder problems. The answers to these problems help students to unlock other envelopes, which have brainteaser type problems in them. These brainteasers lead them to the prize, which unlocks the classroom.

Students work on so many skills with the escape room. They do math. They work as a group. They strategize. They divide and conquer. I love watching the real thinking that happens. I also love that they think it's a party when they're showing me their thinking much more than on any test I've ever given!

This is only my second year administering the PARCC, as I was homeschooling and teaching overseas when Common Core and PARCC came into fruition. (And let me say I'm actually a fan of the idea behind a common set of standards and a common test, I'm just not a fan of THIS test). This is also the first year I really looked deeply at the "proficiency report". I was astonished to realize, by using the NWEA to PARCC relationship scale, that the PARCC is set up so that students must be ahead of the pack in order to be considered "proficient". The NWEA is a norm referenced test which allows us to compare our students to the thousands of other students who take the same test (My students at an international school in Morocco took the same test.) and see if they are doing better or worse than the average. PARCC is a standards based test which only tests is students can do exactly as they are asked, which as a side note wouldn't be a bad thing except that PARCC overtests certain standards (such as the ability to write an essay comparing and contrasting two texts or the ability to find one specific quote in a story that justifies your answer to a question) and undertests other standards (such as determining the point of view of the author or using text conventions).

Now, the word proficient means that someone is competent. It means they can do what we ask of them, but maybe not go above and beyond. It's equivalent to "average", but apparently not on the PARCC. According to the NWEA's  website, in order for a student to be proficient on the PARCC, they have to be scoring in the 65th percentile or better in 2nd grade. By 8th grade, they have to be scoring in the 75th percentile. This means that only the top 1/3 to 1/4 of students will be considered "proficient". Let that sink in for a second, we are purposely telling the majority of our students that they are not proficient.

This means that the majority of students who score at the "average" score on NWEA/MAP will score "approaching proficiency" on PARCC.  This, in my mind, changes "proficient" from meaning "average" to meaning "perfect" or at least "advanced". We are expecting perfection, or at least advanced skills, out of every students and then telling them that even if they achieve this, they're only average. How defeating is that? Additionally, this means that struggling students will never reach the "proficient" level. They will grow up their entire life feeling they aren't good enough.

Now I'm all for realistic goals and high expectations. I DO NOT believe in giving students gold stars just for showing up. I think that students need to be pushed to read harder and more challenging texts and to think critically in math. But I also believe in developmentally appropriate activities. The PARCC texts and questions are not developmentally appropriate. It's like asking a Kindergartener to read a chapter book. Just because a few Kindergarteners can read chapter books doesn't mean that everyone should be able to, or that they should be looked down on if they can't. And if our students don't score well on the PARCC, they will be told they aren't good enough. They aren't proficient. 

And because I'm their teacher, if they aren't proficient, it's my fault. My evaluation will be linked to their scores. So we are expecting perfect students and perfect teachers. Gee, I wonder why morale is so low in our schools.

I'm not sure how to change the system without personally creating a more fair assessment, but I do feel if we all stand up and say this system makes no sense, then we can work towards a better future for our students. In the meantime, I have told my students that all I expect out of them is their personal best (especially since I won't see the scores for the test until they are no longer my student). I refuse to stress out my students (or myself) over a test that expects perfection out of 3rd graders.

1.) The projects are meaningful. Projects give students a chance to connect deeper to a topic or subject than they can through a worksheet or a list of questions. Through our book reports, I have watched my students dig deeper into a book than they ever would with a list of close read questions. They get involved with the characters and the plot. Through the math projects, the kids have made connections to real world math. During our holiday recipe project, the kids went out to the store with their parents and took pictures of store labels. They got in the kitchen and did real measuring, and figured out the reasoning behind elapsed time. 

2.) The projects are easily differentiated. Because the book reports are genre based, they can be done with books on any level. This means that most of the time I can find a book on each child's level making it easier for them to complete the appropriate project. For the math projects, the students are in control of many aspects making them able to work at their own level. For example, during our holiday shopping project one student used a Sears catalog and simply tore pictures out while another shopped the internet using three different stores. The projects can be made simpler or more challenging depending on the needs of the students.

3.) The parents get involved.  So often we worry about parents being under or over involved when it comes to homework. For underinvolved parents, I have found that projects draw parents in because they are more fun and because there is generally no "right way" to complete them. However, I have also found that the overinvolved parents aren't doing the projects for the students, but instead pushing them to add detail or find another way to make it better. And all in all parents involved in schoolwork means that parents know what the children are learning and what the children are capable of. Both of these are benefits in my book!

4.) The kids enjoy being an expert and presenting. The kids LOVE presenting their projects. It's their favorite day of the month. At the beginning of the year, a few were very nervous about getting up in front of the class, but now that they've done it four or five times, it's easy peasy. They are building their public speaking skills. They are building their confidence. And they are sharing their work, which is the most important part. The rest of the class is learning from their project, and they are learning about how to give good critiques as we share "glows and grows" after each presentation.

5.) There is very little grading. One day a month I grade homework. I sit with the kids' rubrics while they are presenting and put together 2 grades. One grade uses the project rubrics. I don't actually put this grade in my gradebook, but it gives the students feedback on their work. The second grade is a quick review of their public speaking. This one goes in my gradebook. Both grades are done while the kids are presenting, and I'm done! I love it!
 
6.) They use time efficiently. Last year we reviewed homework every single day. For at least 20 minutes. This year, I take one morning and month. It's easy and simple. Plus, most of these projects are things I was doing in class last year, so I don't have to spend additional classtime on projects either. Win-win!
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7.) They help teach time management. From the first project, the kids learned that they could either wait to the last minute and have a hard time, or they could use Mrs. Raki's timeline and have it easier. For book reports, I have students read the book one week, complete the story map the second week(which gives slow readers this second week to finish the book if needed) and then spend two weeks on the project. The first week I suggest as a plan and gather supplies week and the second week as a creation week. In addition to helping the students, the parents like that if they have sports one night or piano another, they can skip the homework and do it when it works for their family. Many of the parents have had time management discussions with their children too, so it helps to have everyone on board.

8.) They are helping the kids learn about different presentation techniques. No matter how artsy you are, five posters in a row will wear you out. So one of our class agreements is that each project of a certain subject has to be presented differently. So, if you made a poster for your mystery book report, you shouldn't be making one for your information book report or your historical fiction book report. The same for dioramas, etc. Now I have allowed overlap between the book reports and the math projects, but a poster about a mystery book and a poster about a recipe you cooked are quite different beasts. As students watch each others' presentations, they have gotten bolder with their techniques. They have used new techniques because they saw someone else in class try that. For our mystery book report, I had one student try out Google Slides. For our holiday recipe project, half the class used it. Incidentally, the student who had started with Google Slides had moved on to using Powtoon!

If you haven't tried a homework project, I would suggest you do. The results are incredible. For a starting point, try out some of my math projects or book reports, the formats are simple and will help guide you and your kiddos through the projects.

Politicians say that class size doesn't make that big of a difference. Any teacher can tell you that this isn't true. Here is my true life story about why and how class size matters in students' success.

This year has been challenging me. I feel tired faster. I'm having a harder time keeping up with planning and grading. I'm not doing as much differentiation as I usually do. It's taking me longer to cover certain topics and there are so many "extras" we haven't done yet that I normally have introduced by this time of the year.

I couldn't figure out why I was having a harder time until my husband made a comment the other day. He said "You're trying to do everything you did for a class of 16, but now you have 24." This was a great "aha!" moment for me. He's absolutely right. Last year I was able to do a lot with my students and a lot more for my students because there were less of them. Eight kids may not seem like much, but when you're trying to differentiate for the specific needs of your students, fitting eight more students into small groups and one-on-one conferences can really throw you off, even if some of them recieve special services with other teachers. 

Last year I taught at a charter school in a different part of town. There were less "extra" services available to me in the way of specialists and support teachers. However, my class sizes were kept drastically smaller. This year I have moved to a "regular public school" to be closer to home. I'm not knocking the school at all. The teachers I work with are fabulous and administration is very helpful. We have quite a few specialists and support teachers. However, because of our budget, the class sizes are bigger. I have 24 kids in my class. 24 kids with different levels, different needs and different backgrounds. I've had quite a few people tell me I have a "small class". I guess when the some classes have 27 - 30 kids, that's true. It's all about perspective, isn't it? But of course my previous experience has  given me a different perspective too. And it's this perspective that got me thinking:

What do we give up in order to teach a larger class? Or more specifically, what do the students give up?

Individual attention:
I have less time for one-on-one conferences. I have less time for small group reading and small group math. Of course this means that as a teacher, I often prioritize and those with the greatest needs. This means that if a student has greater abilities, they don't get as much of my attention. Additionally, these higher achieving students are also used as peer tutors and asked to help other students out, often taking on an almost grown up role. When I had a smaller class, I worked on novel studies with these higher achieving students and I didn't rely on them as much as peer tutors. They got a much more equal share of my attention.

 In larger classrooms, higher achieving students recieve less of a push. They spend more time helping other students and less time exploring their own interests. Lower achieving students recieve less individualized instruction. They spend more time being helped by students and less time being helped by a teacher. Overall, we tend to "teach to the middle" more in larger classrooms and this really doesn't do the needs of our students justice..

Calmer, more peaceful classrooms:
Students who have behavior problems often behave worse in larger classrooms because they can't have the attention when they are just beginning to be distracted. There are also more students in the classroom, meaning that there are more chances of one of those students providing them with a trigger or distraction for their behavior. Students who have focus problems recieve less help in staying focused. Instead of having one child who might need some light reminders, I have multiple students with checklists on their desks. Because of this, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Students who can skate by without making a fuss often get very little help because we spend so much time dealing with the student who is turning our classroom upside down. Additionally, we spend more time "managing" behaviors and less them teaching which leads to louder, less peaceful classrooms.

Interest Based Learning:
In addition to less time for differentation due to needs, we have less time for differentiation due to interest. Even though studies show that students learn more when they can connect their own interests and background knowledge to the curriculum, most students do not get a chance to see their own interests mirrored in the curriculum. When we have small class sizes, we get to know our students and their interests and we make connections for them. The more kids in the class means the more interests to connect to and generally the less connections that are made. Unless a students is extremely vocal about a certain interest, we as teachers may not even know to make a connection. However, in a small class, there was time for conversations and this led to me building up connections for students, buying books that were of interest to students and finding other ways to allow students to see their own interests in the curriculum.

Access to Technology and Learning Tools:
I have the same amount of technology in my room this year as last year, but we get less use of it. Why? Because now there are 24 students vying for those 4 devices instead of 16. In order to rotate students through, we would need 6 rotations instead of 4. This means that technology tends to be available for those early finishers instead of something everyone touches every day. The same is true for any other centers or learning activities. Unless you have a one to one setup for technology or other resources, students will spend a lot more time waiting for the technology than on the technology when you have more students in the classroom. 

Engaged mentors:
Our students need us not just as teachers, but as mentors. They need to know they can come to us with a problem and feel like we're listening. They need to know that we care. When we are tired, we are less engaged with our students and less likely to listen to their problems. More students mean that teachers are more tired and less engaged. There are also more problems, and a wider range of problems, for teachers to listen to. This means that in larger classes, we often lose that personal connection that allows students to know that we care for them.


Now I'm going to have some teachers read this post and say "I've taught a class of 30 for years and I differentiate and give individual attention!" And they won't be lying. Teachers are an amazing group. We do the impossible because we strive to treat a class of 30 in the same way that we would treat a class of 10. I know that I still try each and every day to give each and every child my undivided attention. We differentiate and we find ways to make miracles happen. But I've also taught a class of 10 and know that the attention and differentiation I give my current class of 24 is not the same as I was able to give my class of 10.

Of course as teachers we have little control over the number of students they place in our classroom. Often the numbers go up for reasons that are out of even our administrators' controls: shifts in school district lines, emergencies that cause people to move from one area to another (I got an extra 6 kids during the aftermath of Huricane Katrina.), or budget cuts happen. Teachers "make it work" because that's our job. That doesn't mean we don't go home exhausted because of our effort and it doesn't mean that just because we "can" teach a class of 30 that we "should" teach a class of 30.

​In my perfect world we would look at what students are losing in these larger classes and prioritize our students' learning over whatever fancy new tool the military is getting or what great tax cut is going to bring a new millionare business into our state. In fact, in my perfect world I would put less kids per classroom and take the money to afford it from the billions we spend on standardized testing and curriculums that are not developmentally appropriate. But alas I don't run the world, so for now, I will just make my point that size does matter, especially if it's class size!