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Important Note

  • One of the toughest things about teaching right now is the first 7 lines...because we have no control over what happens in the home, or with peers, or outside of our classrooms.

  • We must do our best to provide the last 11, but remember, you are only human. You are not a miracle worker. You are not the parent or guardian. You are not a trained therapist or social worker. You are not responsible for raising any of the children in your room. ​

  • It feels like your as a teacher, you have to be a pedagogy expert, subject expert, therapist, parent, performer, entertainer, conflict resolution expert, security officer, human target, and the most patient person on earth.
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  • Do your best to provide the last 11, but remember, you are only human.
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Classroom Management

  • Your job is to teach and to keep everyone in your room safe. 

  • You have to be present every moment you are in the classroom and every moment you are around the students in other spaces. You have to be aware of each student in your space - how they are feeling that day, what their habits are, who they do not get along with, what they are capable of.
 
  • You need to start recognizing the little things that will become larger problems. Prevention is a lot easier than reaction and punishment.
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  • You must also work hard to build positive habits through purposeful routines - routines help students to behave in expected ways because their is no guesswork and the patterns are easy to follow.

  • Students crave structure. They need structure. You are the one that needs to provide it. Your team needs to work together to set clear expectations.
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classroom_management_2021.pdf
File Size: 142 kb
File Type: pdf
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Setting Up Your Classroom Space - Considerations

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Looking Closer at Prevention Strategies

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Prevention Practice

  • Educators need to be good at seeing the future...not an easy task.

  • You need to re-wire your brain to think about what might happen based on what information students are given (or not given).
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  • We actually do this kind of thinking all the time, often unconsciously. We need to make that thinking conscious and utilize it to create safe, functioning classroom spaces and to create clear communications.

Activity - Example

  • Imagine your classroom is filled with these desks and chairs and the room set up looks something like picture 2

  • Now, imagine that all of the desks are facing the wrong way with the opening in the front.

  • We are going to think through the problems that might arise if student desks were utilized for the original purpose (to hold student materials) but were facing the wrong way.

Questions:
  • What student actions do you anticipate in this scenario and how might those actions create issues in your classroom?
  • Let's take a few minutes to think, then talk through it

Activity - Evaluating Classroom Layout

  • Each core team will be assigned and image below.

  • Each image is a random picture of a random classroom I pulled off the Internet.

  • Fill out this chart in relation to the image you are assigned.
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  • Feel free to include questions about elements that we cannot see in the image
Classroom layout - editable.pdf
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Activity 2023 - Puppyproofing Your Classroom

  • No classroom space is perfect because there is no perfect student.
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  • There are always going to be distractions and times/places in the room or lesson that can create dangerous or distracting situations. 
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  • Your job is to do your best to think through the possibilities and mitigate them before they even become a problem (same for unit and lesson planning!)
Evaluating Your Classroom Spaces
  • We will start in one of the classrooms and work through it together (10)

  • Go into your core team spaces and take this time to evaluate and rearrange your room. 
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  • Use this sheet if you need a guide - take notes for later in case you don't finish and need to come back later.
evaluating_your_classroom_spaces_-_team_activity.docx
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Cultivating Classroom Community

  • Download and open this doc. 

  • Take the next 10 minutes to read through this doc.

  • Please feel free to take notes as you go.
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  • We will then share out our thoughts and move into a core team activity.
cultivating_classroom_community.docx
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Activity

Classroom Community -editable.pdf
File Size: 50 kb
File Type: pdf
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  • We will now split into core teams.

  • Head to your core team classrooms.

  • With the last doc and discussion in mind, start thinking through your personal/teaching/core team values and tangible ways to promote those values.

  • Also think about what procedures you will need to apply in your classroom.

  • You can work individually and as a a team.

  • Feel free to download the editable doc of these two worksheets and work on them directly.
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  • Take this time to start thinking about your classroom layouts as well.
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