Reading Response- Week 6 (Management)

Chapter 6 in Principles of Classroom Management by James Levin and James F. Nolan explains structuring the environment, and two elements of this are communicate guidelines and obtain student commitments (Levin & Nolan, 2014). In my classroom on the first day, my teacher created a “Ms. Groom’s Pledge” where she worked with the students and read the Knight’s guidelines to them and asked to put it in their own words for their specific class. Little hands all shot up and they all participated in creating this pledge. To complete it, each student signed it in order to hold themselves accountable for these guidelines. Any time there is a problem with students not following a certain guideline, my teacher refers to this anchor chart they created and students will have to write to the teacher on how they will fix this behavior to make sure they are sticking to these pledge statements.

Chapter 2 in Elementary Classroom Management by Carol Simon Weinstein and Molly E. Romano discusses the six functions of the classroom setting to keep in mind when designing the physical environment of a classroom (Weinstein & Romano, 2015). It is apparent that my teacher set up the classroom in rows based on how she wanted the students to interact, which relates to the social contact aspect of the six functions of the classroom setting (Weinstein & Romano, 2015). The tables aligned in two rows are a teacher-centered learning environment and discourages group work; however, I would like to set up my classroom tables in groups to allow for more collaboration. But every teacher prefers different types of interaction, and this setup works for my teacher’s teaching methods.

Educational Leadership by Rheta DeVries and Betty Zan explain that when children notice a problem in the classroom and participate in solving it with classroom rules, they are more likely to see these rules as fair (DeVries & Zan, 2003). This relates to the point I made in my connection to chapter 6 in Principles of Classroom Management. My students’ pledge they created is one they view as fair because they created it themselves. I noticed that the rules my students created together were much more meaningful to them than when my teacher read off the original school pledge created by the faculty. I also would like to use this strategy if there is any issue within the classroom, and have my students resolve it by coming up with new rules to help with the issue in the future.

DeVries, R., & Zan, B. (2003). Educational Leadership. Building Classroom Relationships, 61, 64-67.

Levin, J., & Nolan, J. (2013). Principles of Classroom Management: A Professional Decision-Making Model. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Weinstein, C., & Romano, M. (2014). Elementary Classroom Management: Lessons From Research and Practice. New York: McGraw-Hill.