Your First Year

How to Survive and Thrive as a New Teacher

Todd Whitaker, Madeline Whitaker Good, Katherine Whitaker

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317296850
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Learn all the essentials for making your first year of teaching a success! In this exciting new book, internationally renowned educator Todd Whitaker teams up with his daughters--Madeline, an elementary teacher, and Katherine, a secondary teacher--to share advice and inspiration. They offer step-by-step guidance to thriving in your new role and overcoming the challenges that many new teachers face. Topics include:

• Learning classroom management skills such as building relationships and maintaining high expectations and consistency

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• Setting up your classroom and establishing procedures and rules

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• Planning effective lessons and making your instructional time an engaging experience

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• Managing your own emotions in the classroom and dealing effectively with misbehavior

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• Working with peers, administrators, and parents to build support and foster collaboration

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The book is filled with specific examples and vignettes from elementary, middle, and high school classes, so you'll gain helpful strategies no matter what grade level and subject area you teach. You'll also find out how to make tweaks or hit the "reset" button when something isn't going as planned. Things may not always go perfectly your first year, but the practical advice in this book will help you stay motivated on the path to success!

Bonus: As you read the book, get even more out of it by discussing it with others. Free study guides for practicing teachers and student teachers are available as eResource downloads from our website (www.routledge.com/products/9781138126152).

Section I Before the Students Arrive: Structure, Structure, Structure

1 Setting Up and Organizing Your Classroom

DOI: 10.4324/9781315647050-1

Teaching is a complicated profession, and there are many facets to being an outstanding educator. As a beginning teacher, however, it is imperative to have one main focus for the first few weeks before and after school begins: managing the classroom. In a large-scale meta-analysis, Wang, Haertel, and Walberg (1993) studied the effect of a variety of influences on student achievement, and they found classroom management to have the greatest impact. Also, research has shown that the majority of teachers consider discipline issues the most stressful part of their job (Wasicsko & Ross, 1994). In your first year, there are many things that you won’t know or you won’t get right—but your structure and procedures should not be one of them.

In your first year, there are many things that you won’t know or you won’t get right—but your structure and procedures should not be one of them.

How spacious, attractive, or modern the classroom, portable, or pod that you will get the keys to is out of your hands, but what you turn it into is entirely in your control. Many different researchers and educational experts, including Fred Jones in Tools for Teaching: Discipline, Instruction, Motivation, 3rd Edition (2013), defend the critical importance of classroom arrangement. While you are setting up (and possibly cleaning up from how it was left after the previous year), you will need to think about two major aspects of your classroom_ the furniture and the materials.

Furniture

With regard to furniture, it is important to focus on classroom flow, functionality, and structure. Many of the basic classroom management issues can be addressed even before students enter the classroom by making sure the furniture is set up in a functional way (Jones, 2013). Thus, begin by thinking through these major questions: How many students will you have? Do you have enough desks or tables? What configuration will help you be most successful from day one? Your class size will largely determine how your class will be set up. Let’s look at two different examples of teachers who arranged their classroom before the first day of school.

Ms. George is a middle school science teacher with 30–35 students in each class. She was placed in one of the smallest classrooms in the school, and this, paired with her large class sizes, limits her options on how to design the space. She is also a bit nervous about managing a class that large, so she is looking for a classroom set-up that will be beneficial as she introduces her classroom expectations and procedures with students. The best option for Ms. George is to start the year off with her desks in evenly spaced and orderly rows. This will allow movement between desks to be seamless and help limit student interaction. Even though Ms. George really wants her desks in groups so students can collaborate during labs, she knows that she can introduce a different desk arrangement at any time. Her main goal at the start of the year is seamless implementation of structure and order. Once she establishes her procedures and routines, she then can move the desks into groups because it is always easier to become less structured instead of more structured.

Mr. Grant is an elementary teacher with 25 students, and he has a fairly large classroom. Because of this, he can be more flexible in how he designs his set-up. He feels confident about placing his desks in groups because most of the whole-class instruction will be done on the carpet. Thus, he decides to group the 25 desks into pods of five, keep the area in front of the board open for his carpet, and then reserve the back corner by the window for the classroom library. Even though Mr. Grant has more flexibility to be creative, his main focus is still flow, functionality, and structure—it just looks dissimilar to Ms. George’s because his classroom, students, needs, and comfort level are different.

When you are setting up your classroom furniture, the final, and maybe the most important thing to think through is making sure that you will be able to monitor all students at all times, no matter where you are instructing from. If Ms. George has one desk hidden behind a file cabinet, or if Mr. Grant’s reading nook is nestled behind the technology center, both teachers have set up a situation that could turn sour quickly. There would be places that students could go in the classroom and be “hidden.” Now, there is a chance that Mr. Grant and Ms. George could have a class of perfect angels who would never ever take advantage of those “hidden gems,” but as a new teacher we would not take that risk. It would be much easier to be proactive about those possible issues than to be reactive and have to deal with the behavior later.

Materials

The second aspect of classroom set-up and organization is the materials that you will be working with. Make sure that necessary and regularly used materials are easily accessible, while less-frequented materials are stored away in an organized fashion that allows you to retrieve them when the time comes. What are things that you and your students will need on a day-to-day basis? Pencils? Notebooks? Textbooks? What are things that you and your students may not need as regularly, but should still be accessible? Scissors? Calculators? Math manipulatives? It is also likely that you will end up with materials that you have absolutely no clue what to do with—like the previous curriculum guides. Feel free to ask your teammates or administrators what to do with the items. If they tell you to keep them, then put them somewhere that will be out of the way since they won’t need to be accessed regularly.

When Ms. Smith, a 3rd grade teacher, was preparing her classroom, she made sure each student had a dry erase board and a clipboard in his or her seat pocket because in her mind those were going to be used regularly. She placed binders, however, in their locker cubbies, because those would probably be used less frequently. When it came to notebooks, she was entirely unsure if she would use them at all at the beginning of the year, so she put them neatly in a cabinet that she could easily reach when the time was right.

Although Mr. Jenkins is a high school English teacher, he too thought through placement of materials. He knew that most students would come in on day 1 with a spiral notebook, but he has many extra near his desk just in case. He also placed spare sharpened pencils in a cup on his desk so students could get one if they forgot, but also placed a sign-out sheet to keep track of them so at the end of the period he could collect those that he lent out. Finally, on the cabinets below his window, he stacked up the textbooks by class, and had them organized in number order so they were ready to be handed out efficiently.

By preparing as much as you can prior to students arriving, you increase the likelihood of success when school starts. One of the best places to start this preparation is with your furniture and materials. Once the students arrive, this planning minimizes the time you will have to deal with things other than what is most important: students and teaching.

By preparing as much as you can prior to students arriving, you increase the likelihood of success when school starts.

2 Developing Your Procedures

DOI: 10.4324/9781315647050-2

While you are organizing your classroom and preparing for the year, you also need to think extensively about classroom procedures and expectations. These are the basic routines that you and students will use to help the classroom “run,” almost like a well-oiled machine. Research has shown that procedures are a critical aspect of preventative effective classroom management that positively affects students’ learning and behavior (Marzano et al., 2005). Thinking deeply about procedures in a proactive manner can be a huge make-or-break with regard to student management and overall classroom climate. The tighter your procedures are, the less misbehavior will occur and the calmer and more productive the environment will be. Listed below are many of the common classroom procedures that teachers of a variety of grades must think through:

• ◆ Pencils: How will students get them? How will they get sharpened? What if a student forgets one? What if the student needs an eraser?
• ◆ Notebooks/textbooks: Will students come into the classroom each day with them? If not, how will you get them handed out each day? What if a student comes one day without them?
• ◆ Homework: Where will it be turned in or how will you collect it? How will you return it to the students after grading?
• ◆ Late work: How will students learn about what information they missed? What system will you use so they have access to the make-up work?
• ◆ Bathroom: How often can students use the bathroom? How will they let you know that they need to use the bathroom? Will you need to keep track of how many times a student has used the bathroom?
• ◆ Technology: How will classroom technology be stored? If portable, how will it be distributed to students? Will devices need to be charged overnight?
• ◆ Phones, tablets, personal devices: What is your school’s policy? When are the times students can access them? When are the times they should be put away?
• ◆ Entering the classroom: Should students remove hats? Are they to be quiet? Should they go straight to their seats? What work should they get started on?
• ◆ Exiting the classroom: Will you dismiss students? Do they leave when the bell rings? Is there a line order they must learn? Should they line up quietly?

The tighter your procedures are, the less misbehavior will occur and the calmer and more productive the environment will be.

In addition to overall basic procedures that apply to almost all teachers, there will also be some that apply to just you and your classroom. For example, 1st grade teachers will need to think through where their students will store their backpacks and lunches after they walk into the classroom, while 11th grade chemistry teachers will need to think through how students will retrieve and use the beakers for experiments. Take time to walk through your classroom and think through your day—make a list of what procedures you should be proactive about.

On the next page is a more extensive list of possible things that will require procedures. Although this may not be an exhaustive list of everything you will need to prepare for, it should be a strong base that can help you begin to process your procedural expectations. Keep in mind that once students arrive, adjustments will most likely need to be made based on your students and unanticipated situations. Thus, use this list to prepare as best you can, knowing that there will be mid-flight corrections.

1. Kleenexes
2. Students asking questions
3. Checking out books from the school library and/or your classroom library
4. Eating food in the classroom
5. Storing and distributing materials that may not be used daily (crayons, colored pencils, scissors, glue, etc.)
6. Taking attendance
7. Fire drill
8. Beginning of the day/period routines
9. End of the day/period routines
10. Tornado drill
11. Lost items
12. Throwing away trash and/or recycling
13. Classroom jobs
14. Unfinished work
15. Technology availability and utilization
16. Earthquake drill
17. Late work
18. Make-up work
19. Seating arrangement
20. Students who are tardy
21. Acceptable noise levels
22. Talking and participating during lessons
23. Getting into/choosing groups
24. Lockdown drill
25. Sudden illness
26. Dismissal

This list of things you will need procedures for may seem overwhelming at first. Fortunately, there may be others who have already solved this issue for you. For example, your school may already have procedures for walking down the hallway, checking out books from the library, and even emergency drills. For others, you may ask a mentor teacher, a trusted colleague, or even look for different ideas on the Internet.

Always remember that it is better to be over prepared than under prepared when it comes to procedures. As a matter of fact, it is almost impossible to be over prepared. For example, if you are unsure of whether or not you will need to keep track of when students use the bathroom, be safe and start out with a system. If you find out that it is a non-issue, then you can taper away from that structure. If it turns out to be a huge help, though, then you will be very grateful that you began that structure on day 1! As mentioned previously, it is much easier to loosen structures after school has begun than to tighten them once the students have arrived.

Always remember that it is better to be over prepared than under prepared when it comes to procedures.

3 Developing Your Rules

DOI: 10.4324/9781315647050-3

A final part of classroom preparation is thinking through your classroom rules. There is a significant amount of research that describes the importance of establishing clear rules (Marzano et al., 2005). Rules are different from procedures because they are broader, generally pertain to student behavior and character, and have some sort of consequence when they are broken. This part of preparation is critical because your rules will be something that you enforce every day, thus you want to use them to cultivate the type of classroom that you desire.

Some teachers choose to have a set of classroom rules posted on the wall right when students walk in the first day. Some prefer to form the rules together as a class to build student ownership of them. Others may just use the school rules that students are already familiar with, so they only need to be addressed during the first day of class. Certain master teachers, especially secondary ones, do not even have explicit rules or expectations posted in their classroom—but they are clearly written in their heads. No matter which type of teacher you are, make sure that you have a clear vision of what you want the rules to be.

No matter which type of teacher you are, make sure that you have a clear vision of what you are wanting the rules to be.

A teacher’s rules should represent his or her core philosophy, and they should drive the climate of the classroom. Even teachers who don’t consciously have a set of classroom rules still have them subconsciously buried in their brains on a daily basis. As a first year teacher, you won’t be able to define classroom rules as clearly as the master teacher down the hallway is able to do. Thus, you must think through exactly which ones you need based on what type of classroom you want to run.

Always remind yourself that rules, when implemented effectively, represent the philosophy of the classroom teacher and drive the tone of the classroom. What kind of climate do you want to build in your classroom? Which rules will help you do that most effectively? What are your personal non-negotiables? Also, do not be afraid to include non-traditional rules like “Take chances.” We call these “culture-building” rules. The term “culture-building” comes from the motive behind the rule. Most rules are put in place to let students know what behavior is not appropriate. Some rules, however, can be put in place to build a certain positive classroom environment. For example, “Take chances” helps build a classroom full of tenacious students who can picture success, whereas “Finish all work” does not build motivation, and may not even be a realistic rule for struggling students to follow.

On the next page is a list of example classroom rules. Feel free to go through this list and critically reflect upon which ones you want to use. Keep in mind, whatever rule you put in place, you will have to enforce it on a consistent and daily basis. If you feel discomfort with any rule you are contemplating, it may better to not include it, especially at the very start of your first year. Wasicisko and Ross (1994) summarize this idea nicely: “To avoid the pitfalls of inconsistency, mean what you say, and when you say it, follow through” (p. 64).

Keep in mi...