Latest / New Teacher Talk / Ep 145: Building Community Through Structure: Essential Classroom Management Techniques with Kwame Sarfo-Mensah

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Ep 145: Building Community Through Structure: Essential Classroom Management Techniques with Kwame Sarfo-Mensah · New Teacher Talk

Hi new teachers, my name is Kwame Sarfo-Mensah,
and I am the founder of Identity Talk Consulting,
a global educational consulting firm that's dedicated to
developing K-12 teachers into identity firm educators.
And today I'm going to talk about classroom management,
which is something that is very important for you all to
know.
One of the biggest hurdles you may come across as a new
teacher is figuring out how to maintain order and a safe
space within your classroom environment.
How do you create a space that's going to be welcoming to
your students,
but also will allow for you to maximize on your ability to
deliver instruction and maintain some structure within your
classroom?
So I know we only have a few minutes together,
so I have a few ideas that I feel will be valuable to you
all.
And there are many, many more.
This is not the end all, be all list,
but I think these are the top few strategies that you
should definitely incorporate into your practice.
So I'm going to go ahead and get started.
Number one, I want to talk about call and response.
So when we talk about call and response,
what we're basically doing is getting the attention of our
students without having to utilize our voice.
Because over the course of a 180 to 200 day school year,
you're going to have to use your voice a lot to teach,
use your voice to make decisions,
use your voice to talk to colleagues,
fellow faculty members and administrators.
So you have to preserve it as much as possible.
And one way to do it is by creating some signals that will
allow for you to get the classroom back in order,
especially when you need to address the entire class.
So when I was in the classroom as a middle school math
teacher,
there are a few things that I did in order to get the class
back in order.
If I saw that there was a lot of talking or there was just
a lot of things happening and I needed to just get
everybody's attention, I would do a clapping pattern.
So I know we're not visual right now,
but I'm going to go ahead and demonstrate what that is.
So let's say that students are talking and you're trying to
get their attention.
I'll simply just do a loud clapping pattern, like this.
And then students respond back with,
and you can even switch up the cadence too.
So sometimes I might do a beat.
And then students will come back with the same response.
And if you want to incorporate some hand motions in the
process, you can do that to make it fun for them.
So that's something that I did.
I know some other people, they do the countdown method,
whether it's a simple five, four, three, two, one.
And by the time they get to one,
students are fully focused on you, the teacher.
So there's a lot of things that have to happen there.
But call response is something that you want to
incorporate.
And there are many ways in which you can do that.
And I promise you,
if you're able to maintain consistency with that,
you're going to be able to get the attention of your
students and preserve your voice at the same time.
Another thing that I want to talk about is what I like to
call the power of proximity.
So as a new teacher, you may feel timid,
you may feel nervous during those first few weeks because
you don't know your students and you don't want to step on
people's toes.
But here's one thing that you have to understand.
It is so important for you to move around your classroom.
You cannot be stationary in front of the classroom the
entire time you're teaching because you're not going to be
able to capture everything that's going on with your
students.
So with the power of proximity,
what we're talking about is the importance of circulating
your classroom,
but also understanding that when you're able to get close
to students, particularly students who may be off task,
students who may need some redirection with their behavior,
you're also letting those students know that, hey,
I see what you're doing,
and I need for you to get back into focus so we can get
through our lesson.
And sometimes you don't need to make a big fuss out of it.
It's just something as simple as,
let me circle around if I see some talking.
I'm not going to embarrass the student by making a huge
scene.
I'm going to just simply walk over to the student as I'm
still teaching, and I may tap his desk.
I may give a look and that student will know, okay,
I got to stop what I'm doing and get back into focus.
So power of proximity is important because if you're not
seeing what's going on,
if a student believes that you're not paying attention to
them and they can get away with whatever,
they're going to do that because the one thing that
students do is they will try to engage in negative
behaviors when they think that the teacher's not looking.
So it's important for you to always be attentive and always
just walk around to see where students are, right,
especially if you have a big class,
you want to be able to do that.
All right,
another thing that we want to do is what I like to call the
pause and stare.
And as a child,
you may have seen your teacher do that with you or with
your classmates.
So what is the pause and stare?
It's exactly what the title suggests.
So let's say that you are in the middle of teaching a
lesson,
and you notice that there are students who are talking in
the back or there's some activity that you know shouldn't
be happening.
Rather than call out the child and embarrass them,
you'll just stop the lesson,
and you'll stare directly at the students who are causing
the misbehavior.
Just stare at them, don't say a word, stare.
And what's gonna happen is you'll see some students wonder
why did you stop the lesson?
And they're gonna look around and see that, oh,
there's a student who's talking,
there's a student who's playing around,
and they may be the ones that say, hey, hey, stop talking,
come on, listen, right?
So when you're doing that pause and stare,
you're now putting the responsibility and the agency onto
the students to get ordered back in the classroom.
And this is especially effective when you have really
strong relationships with your class,
and they already know what time it is in terms of how you
operate your classroom space.
But here's the thing that's important.
You don't continue your lesson until you see that child or
group of children fully back to focus.
So, for example, if you see that they're still talking,
you don't continue your lesson.
You wait until it gets fully silent,
and you maintain your eye contact with those students until
they fully redirect their behavior.
That is so important.
Sometimes we make the mistake of doing the pause and stare.
You might pause the lesson,
but you don't give a long enough stare to where those
students redirect their behavior,
and then you start the lesson again and they still are at
it.
You gotta see it all the way through that process.
So that's the silent pause and stare.
And I wanna also talk about positive phone calls because
when we talk about classroom management,
we also have to talk about relationship management because
part of classroom management is managing relationships with
students, building rapport,
and what better way to do that than to send positive phone
calls home.
It's one thing that tends to happen,
and this is a mistake that a lot of teachers make,
not just new teachers, but even veteran teachers.
We only call students homes when a student is either
misbehaving, when they're not submitting their homework,
when they are failing exams or tests or quizzes.
It's always about negative stuff, right?
But imagine what kind of relationship you'll be able to
have with a parent when you're able to mix in some positive
phone calls with the negative, right?
Almost like a sandwich, right?
Because with positive phone calls,
you're letting the parent know that you truly are invested
in the growth of their child,
and you want to see the child succeed.
And you're not just being negative or picking on the child
whenever they do something wrong.
You also want to identify when they do something right.
And this is especially important for students who you may
view as, quote unquote, behavior challenges in your class.
They need more positive reinforcement than anybody.
So even when they do little things like raise their hand in
class,
or they have a two or three day streak of submitting their
homework on time when they had this issue of chronically
not submitting homework,
you want to make a big deal out of it in order to build
confidence,
but in order to build the habit into the student.
Because here's the worst thing that could happen, right?
When you are dealing with a student who might be struggling
with their behavior, or they are not submitting their work,
or they're failing your class,
and you don't call the parent when these things are
happening, but then two or three months go down the road,
parent comes for a parent-teacher conference,
and they find out for the first time from you, the teacher,
that their child is failing, and you're already two,
three months into the school year,
what's that parent's reaction gonna be?
They're gonna wonder,
how come you didn't let me know in advance so that I could
intervene in the situation and support my child?
They're gonna be infuriated.
So it's important that not only you're making positive
phone calls,
but you're also putting together a schedule where these
conversations are happening regularly enough so that
parents are aware of what's happening in the classroom.
So those are some strategies that you definitely wanna
consider.
So just to wrap it up, we talked about call and response.
We also talked about the silent pause and stare,
power proximity, and finally,
making consistent and positive phone calls to your
students' parents.
And hopefully,
these small tips will allow you to experience sustained
success in the classroom.
So that's all I have for y'all today, new teachers.
Thank you for tuning in to this new episode of New Teacher
Talk, and hope you're able to tune back in the next time.