required mcblog: mtc fall 05, edse 600 blog 1

Evaluate Your Classroom Management Plan

What changes have you made to your plan now that you are in the classroom? What parts of your plan worked/didn't work? Has your philosphy of clasroom management changed?

at the level of operation, the plan is as follows (philosophy of classroom management will be dealt with at end). comments will follow each section, in brakets:

I. Classroom Rules
1. come prepared for class - mentally and physically.
2. do your own work , unless directed otherwise.
3. when in Math class, do math.
4. do not interfere with the learning process.

[I.1. i've yet to interperet this with any consistency, so possible breaches have yet to receive much response. i did, however, work this rule into my gradebook - as i collect my students's binders from time to time and check for proper organization/completion. in terms of management, i should either (a) spot-check, (b) respond to repeat offenders, or (c) develop a more easily measurable/observable rule.

I.2. although students responded with a muffled chorus of grins when i mentioned how serious i was about academic dishonesty, my first quizzes seemed to run smoothly - calm atmosphere, few wandering eyes (i called out the ones i saw, and had mentioned that (a) if you need to look off of your paper to think, look up [thanks to the teacher corps person who i stole that from], and (b) i'm not going to get into arguments of interpretation, i'm just going to mark down a zero), no questionable answer patterns in work shown. however, i'm nowhere near establishing a system for checking for academic dishonesty on homework. at this point, i'm just going to promote/encourage honesty, and keep on moving.

I.3. perhaps my most comically observed rule. i've put a blue crate in a corner of my room, and have labelled it the "not-math" box via a piece of paper displaying the words "not-math," and an arrow pointing down to the crate. if i see items out on students desks that do not pertain to our math class (agreeably, most objects have something to do with math in the abstract, and my kids are more than intelligent enough to use this angle to no end), they go in the crate for the rest of the block. i've gotten radios, novels, photo albums, notes, and projects for other classes. students respond with a mixture of humor and respect. after a few weeks, desks have been pretty clear of not-math.

I.4. my most elastic, most used, and most functionally vague rule. seems to be a catch-all for disruption, and it focuses on the shared classroom environment - not just my pedagogical desires for hegemony. it's elicited my most spontaneous policemen, as students quiet each other because they want to learn.]

II. Consequences
0. verbal warning
1. loss of choice for friday activity
2. detention
3. detention, letter home
4. office referral, call home, possible parent/teacher conference

severe clause: office referral, call home, possible parent/teacher conference

[*added, after students - in a brilliant move - insisted that i give a warning to the individual from whom i confiscated my first cell phone (not allowed at jim hill) - because that was the first step on my discipline ladder (well, it was a "zero" step, but it was a good defense nevertheless) :

School Policy Clause: Disciplinary actions dictated by school policy (e.g. food/gum restrictions, cell phone prohibitions) will be dealt with according to mandated action, though violations will also be eligible for Mr. Molina’s consequences.

II.0. as i feared, it took me a while to get off of a mushy dependence on this non-consequence (which is why i marked it "0" from the get-go), and actually assist the management of my classroom by actively disciplining. i spent a good week or so trying to get kids to calm down and stop talking - and i was doing this by patience and overdistributed warnings. the result was a shakey 5 minutes of productivity, then a return to disorder. to get out if this mess, i began to give explicit warnings ("X, you've been warned," or "X, this is your warning") when a student was literally on the starting block of the discipline ladder. this elicited a better response, and was a more comfortable transition point into actual disciplinary action.

II.1. this consequence means nothing without a lived example of a friday activity, so it's a wash until students (a) know what may be taken away from them, and (b) value what may be taken away from them. also, i've been uncertain as to whether or not i should treat this as a class-wide consequence, or as one that acts on an individual. the former seems to risk punishing the innocent, but the latter needs a good sytem for recording offenders, and alternate - somehow "not fun" - activities to do on friday.

II.2. detentions have been my most trustworthy opening salvo of real consequences. a class seems to reign itself in pretty quickly when you start backing yourself up with paper contracts that bind a student to 30min of your undivided attention. however, of the 15 or so detentions i've handed out, about 6 have served (immediate office referral for no-shows), and a significant amount of the rest simply hand back the detention with a smirk or scoff - at which point i have no problem sending them to the office, for an understadably harsher fate.

II.3. i kick myself every day for this: i've totally dropped the ball on parent contacts. i can give you plenty of excuses (last week's was a hurricane), but it's all bullshit at the end of the day; i need to get on the phone and establish a relationship with these homes. then i'll be in a position to work with guardians to deal with discipline issues.

II.4. i've got a great asst. principal of discipline. i'm blessed for that. he's backed me up on the kids i've sent to him, and students seem to respect/fear him. one thing i've picked up on, though: always check up with the disciplinarian after you've written a kid up (do this at lunch or before/after school). because, students are more than intelligent enough to leave your class with a referral, walk around the building for a while, and return to your classroom with a story and/or a forged signature. i've caught a lot of students by just asking my disciplinarian if he saw X or Y this morning; it's a simple safeguard, and extremely effective.]

III. Rewards

Individual
1. verbal praise/acknowledgement
2. positive call home
3. display of work

Group
4. math games/puzzles
5. creative/expressive projects
6. Alice activities/party

[III.1. kind of like the happy side of II.0 - as much of a non-reward as it is a non-consequence. nevertheless, i let students know if they've said something on the right page - and i'm not too discriminatory with my engouraging tag of "brilliant" in response to a creative thought/attempt.

III.2. again, i fail on the homefront.

III.3. i fail here, too. seem's like i'm more of an asshole than a fun guy. hopefully this will equal out in time. i've got various visual projects in infant stages, and student work will find its way to my wall.

III.4. my saving grace during the first days of school (the ones when the schedule isn't totally up and running, and you don't know what to do with your kids for a whole 95 minute block) was this deck of playing cards with math puzzles on them. i've developed it into an Alice activity for my fridays. good way to work logic/reasoning in through the back door. although, it's sad that russell and whitehead - two mathematicians/philisophers who proposed that all math could be reduced to logical symbols, and (do to the impossibility of the proposal) failed - have been reduced to the sideshow mathematical thought.

III.5. fail. this will somehow tie-in to III.3. two things i have done (though don't get to the creative/expressive level): a linear systems assignment that dealt with cell phone plans; a reality-check assignment that dealt with degree status and income level, and math literacy and debt.

III.6. Alice is still alive. this blog post is already way too long, and i'm not going to go into explaning Alice in full. suffice it to say that Alice is short for Alice in Wonderland, that "lewis carroll" was the pen name of a british mathematician named charles dodgson, that i've got this crazy idea (as do plenty of other people) that the things we find interesting about Alice are mathematical things, and that i'm designing a bunch of projects/activities around the Alice theme.]

Philosophy of Classroom Management

- Learning - to a large degree - is a process of interpersonal/intrapersonal discourse.
- A successfull classroom management approach should be able to frame a group of individuals within a physical space in a way that encourages such discourse, and is at the same time able to deter individuals or groups from leaving and/or disrupting the moment of the learning environment.
- The moment of the learning environment is a moment of intellectual activity, and the classroom manager is responsible for promoting this activity within an individual, and directing this activity towards productive and cooperative goals.

[No substantive changes. My critique of my plan seems to maintain this philosophy.]

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