5 Classroom Management Tips for Taming a Chatty Class [Fan Fave] [episode 178]

Emily  0:05

Hey, friends. Do you have one of those classes that is constantly chatting? You’ve probably tried to rearrange seats to move your chatty kids away from each other, and then discovered that your students are chatty no matter who they sit by.

Emily  0:20

If you are familiar with this struggle, this episode is for you. Today we’re replaying one of our fan favorite episodes with five teacher approved tips to help you tame your talkative class.

Heidi  0:53

We start our episodes with a morning message, just like we used to do at morning meeting in our classrooms. This week’s morning message is, what’s one item in your classroom that always goes missing? Ooh, Emily, what’s your missing item?

Emily  1:18

Oh, it was definitely my water bottle, because I would carry it with me someplace in the room, and then forget where I set it at. And inevitably, I’d find it inside a cupboard that I went to grab math manipulatives earlier and set it down to pick up the manipulatives, or up on a bookshelf where I set it down to pick up a bunch of books, and it’s way up on a bookshelf out of sight. You know, constant. How about you Heidi?

Heidi  1:42

Yeah, water bottle is a real struggle. I lost my scissors all the time. Yep, I would use them, set them down, and, you know, never be able to find them again. So I finally just had to buy several pairs and stash them in different drawers in the classroom so I didn’t have to carry them around the room and risk losing them. And I have applied that same theory to my house, and it just helped a lot.

Emily  2:02

I was just gonna say the same thing. I have so many things that are like essential items, so I have them, like one next to my bed, one on my work desk, one in the kitchen, like whatever. Do that with nail clippers. Yep, that’s one of them.

Emily  2:20

We have some responses from our teacher approved community. Amy said, whatever I just had in my hands a moment ago, be that a book, manual, water, name sticks, you name it. Jessica said, glue sticks. And Melinda added the caps to glue stick. A whole big struggle is real. Melissa said dry erase markers and the caps to the dry erase markers. Lisa said her staple remover, she said it was the best one and she can’t find it. Oh, so it’s always sad if it’s a quality item as well.

Emily  2:53

Lauren said her SMART Board remote, oh no, that’s a bad one. Terry said my tape and my stapler solution, I bought several, so I quit taking them with me. They are strategically placed, so I don’t carry them around with me, but I still lose them. I feel that Terry. Gina said my coffee cup, and Lauren said my patience.

Heidi  3:12

And I did notice that several other teachers replied with their sanity.

Emily  3:16

Yep. We’d love to have you join the conversation over in our teacher approved Facebook group.

Heidi  3:22

We have heard from several listeners recently that they are struggling with chattiness in their classrooms.

Emily  3:29

Yeah, it’s definitely that time of year, and it’s great that your kids feel comfortable with you and with each other, but the downside is that when you’re comfortable with people it’s easy to let things slide.

Heidi  3:43

But always if you slide too far, you’re going to find yourself with a problem. We want a friendly classroom, but if chattiness is interfering with your ability to teach, or your students abilities to learn, then it needs to be corrected.

Emily  3:57

To help tame some of the chattiness in your classroom, we are sharing five teacher approved tips, and our first tip is to have reasonable expectations. So tell us about that Heidi.

Heidi  4:08

As teachers, we often have a low tolerance for noise in our classes. But not all noise is unwelcome.

Emily  4:15

With chatting, it’s only a problem if it’s preventing work from happening. Your reaction may be to shut things down as soon as you hear talking, but pause for a moment and notice what’s going on. If the kids are getting their work done, maybe the talking is okay.

Heidi  4:29

So I had a class that was, this was the worst one. They were incessant noise machines. I called them my everything’s okay alarms. And that is a very dated Simpsons reference, which decade are we talking? Oh, like, when did it kind of came out, like 89 so it would have been like one of the first, like, maybe three or four years.

Heidi  4:51

As long as those kids were making noise, I knew everything was okay. When it went quiet, there was a problem. My clearest memories of that year are from like sitting at my table at the back of the room, kind of breathing deeply and doing a scan at the class to make sure that the kids were actually working despite all the talking. And somehow they were.

Heidi  5:14

The assignments were getting done, they were doing their centers. They were moving on to their next tasks. It was all running the way I wanted, except for the noise. So in that case, I was the one that had to adjust, which is hard, yes. And I fully warned all of my subs, what they were in for.

Emily  5:31

Each class is different, but I’m going to guess that for most chatty classes, the talking is a hindrance to work getting done and not a help.

Heidi  5:37

Oh, for sure. And I also had plenty of those classes with that particular problem. Having reasonable expectations doesn’t just mean tolerating some noise, it also means knowing when to blow the whistle on too much noise. If you are in a situation where student talking is causing issues, take the time to teach your noise expectations, and the good news is that you can teach this like any other procedure using tell try tally talk.

Emily  5:39

If you’ve covered this with your students at the start of the year, you might only need a refresher, but if you didn’t, it’s not too late to teach it now. Tell your students what you expect them to do during work time or reading time or during lessons or any other time you need them to be quiet. Go into lots of detail, model it for them, show them what not to do.

Heidi  6:25

Then it’s time to try. Have a volunteer model for the class while you narrate. Oh, look how he’s keeping his eyes on his own paper and not worried about what his neighbor’s doing. And then hand out just some quick, simple activity for your students to do while they practice working quietly.

Emily  6:41

Afterward, lead a class discussion about what went well and talk about what they will do going forward.

Heidi  6:47

The nice thing about a procedure like work quietly is that it has way fewer steps to teach than you know, lunch time or packing up at the end of the day. Yeah, just a few minutes of discussion will go a long way.

Emily  7:00

And if you want to make this even easier, we have editable, tell, try tally talk slide decks that you can use to teach your class any procedure, and we’ll link to those in the show notes. All

Heidi  7:12

All right our second tip for dealing with a chatty class is to build student stamina for silence. And that was more of a tongue twister than I anticipated. Not talking takes a lot of self control, and sometimes kids just need to practice those working quietly muscles.

Emily  7:28

One way to build focus is to set aside 20 to 30 seconds a day for silent, deep breathing. I liked to do this at the end of morning meeting, and after any transition where the kids were a little squirrely. You can also try adding guided meditation or yoga into your day.

Heidi  7:45

The headspace app gives free subscriptions to teachers, so that might be worth a try. You can also give your class a focus challenge. I used to have my students focus on a circle on the board while I time them. They could blink, but as soon as someone looked away, I would stop the timer, and then I recorded that time, and that became the time to beat the next day that we did it. As my students improved, I made the focal point smaller, or I tried to distract them. I just tried to keep it fun.

Emily 8:16

And if you keep it fun, practice feels like a game. There’s a Montessori practice called Making Silence that also works well as a class challenge. If you stop and really listen, there are noises around us all the time. If we want silence, we have to work together to create it. So making silence becomes a class challenge.

Heidi  8:36

Emily and I used to do this with our preschoolers, and I know I used it with my second graders. You know, older kids maybe aren’t going to buy into this challenge, but it might be worth a try. I’d like to have my students make silence. When we were transitioning from the rug to our desks.

Heidi  8:51

I would whisper the name of one student at a time. So yeah, I know it’s not totally silent, but their job was to get back to their seats as silently as possible. So it makes them really think, how do you have to get up off the floor if you’re going to do it completely silently? How do you have to carry a paper so it’s not going to wrestle? How can you pull out your chair without it scraping on the floor?

Emily  9:12

I like making silence because it really does make students aware of how much noise we’re putting out all the time. Plus, because everyone is working together, it shows that our connection with each other doesn’t require constant talking. It’s okay to be still together.

Heidi  9:29

So our first two tips for combating a chatty class are to have reasonable expectations for our classes noise level and help students build their silent stamina. Emily, what is our third tip for our chatty classes?

Emily  9:43

Make it easy for students to do the right thing. We can do a lot to tip the scales in our favor when it comes to students making the kinds of choices we want them to make. And with chattiness, we make it easier for them to do the right thing by making it harder for them to start chatting in the first place.

Heidi  10:00

Perhaps the key fundamental of classroom management is that proximity to the teacher is the greatest deterrent to off task behavior. The closer the kids are to you, the better they’re going to be. So you have to do what you can to be everywhere at one time.

Emily  10:18

Yeah, if only that were possible, you could prevent so many problems. But since you can’t actually be everywhere all at once, do what you can to be everywhere every once in a while. You gotta work the crowd, if your lesson permits it, walk around while teaching, walk around while the students are working. The chatting is going to drop dramatically.

Heidi  10:37

Of course the downside to walking around during student work time is that you are missing out on teacher work time. So unless your class is talking is verging on out of control, you probably aren’t able to walk around monitoring them the whole time, and that’s where your seating chart comes in. You can make it easier for your students to do the right thing by strategically arranging their seating.

Emily 11:01

Strategic seating refers to both the arrangement of the furniture and the arrangement of the students. So go back to Episode 97 for all the details on how to get the biggest boost out of your seating plans. And also check out our editable, digital seating chart tool that will walk you through how to arrange your students so that your seating chart makes your job easier instead of harder.

Heidi  11:24

So many teachers have let us know that this tool has been so helpful for them. I really like this feedback that said this was just what I needed. Struggling to find the best seating arrangement. I would change my students from rows to groups to twos, never finding the best plan. Being able to categorize students based on need gave me the visualization I needed to create an arrangement that would allow my students to do their best learning.

Emily  11:49

That’s exactly what we want to have happen with a seating chart. If you’re interested in this tool, you can find a link to our seating chart tool in our show notes.

Heidi  11:58

When it comes to making it easy for students to do the right thing, don’t underestimate the power of your attention signal. If you’re using it right this can be a great tool in helping keep everyone on track.

Emily 12:11

Back in episode 98 we talk all about attention signals and how to really maximize their impact. So definitely go back for a refresher on that.

Heidi  12:20

Now, our fourth tip for managing a chatty class is to plan times when it’s okay for your students to talk.

Emily  12:27

Obviously, kids need some times when it’s okay to talk. You can help get some of that chatty energy out by giving them times when they are expected to talk. Try adding more turn and talk to a neighbor opportunities in your lessons and offering more group work times. The tricky part with this, however, is making sure the talking stays productive.

Heidi  12:47

And that brings us to our fifth tip, increase the structure to hold your students accountable. To keep the novelty of getting to talk from over running your class we need to set strong boundaries. Make sure your students know exactly what to do and what they are expected to be discussing.

Emily  13:05

You also might need to introduce external structure, like a voice level light. I’ve seen lots of versions of this, where you have those little stick on lights next to various noise levels, like silence, whisper, voice, quiet, talking, loud presenter, voice, things like that. Then you can tap the light next to the level of noise you want to hear. Students know if they exceed that level, there’s a consequence, like switching from group work to independent work.

Heidi  13:31

Using a digital noise meter can also help with the class noise level. If you have Class Dojo, for example, I know they have a noise meter that you can use. You can also find several online. One that is new to me is from class craft, and it looks really fun. If your class can go the allotted time without going over the noise limit, they get to uncover a hidden treasure.

Emily  13:55

And I’ve seen a lot of teachers use bouncy balls. The noisier the class is, the more the balls bounce. The problem with that, that I see, and probably with any of these noise meters, is that kids will want to see what happens when they’re too loud. So I would recommend giving them a few seconds before you start to be as loud as they want. And if they aren’t noisy during the activity, maybe they can have a few more noisy seconds at the end.

Heidi  14:20

That is assuming, of course, that you can be crazy noisy without disturbing any other classrooms. You don’t want your co workers mad at you over this.

Emily  14:29

Yeah, you definitely don’t want that. We’ll link to both the class craft and the bouncy balls noise meters in the show notes, but there are lots of other versions out there. If you have a noise meter you love to use, come tell us about it in the teacher approved Facebook group so everyone can give it a try.

Heidi  14:45

To recap, here are our five tips for taming a chatty class. Have reasonable expectations of both yourself and your kids. Build student stamina for silence. Make it easy for them to do the right thing. Plan times where it’s okay to talk and increase the structure in your classroom to hold students accountable.

Emily  15:05

Now did we cover it all? We’d love to hear any of your tips for managing a chatty class. And again, come on over to the teacher approved Facebook group.

Heidi  15:14

We are trying out a new segment here on the podcast. So get excited. Each week we will shine a spotlight on a procedure and share our tips for how to better implement that procedure in your classroom.

Emily  15:27

We have a very robust procedure resource that looks at 26 essential classroom procedures and offers guiding questions to help teachers think through all the nitty gritty details they need to consider when designing that procedure for their own classrooms.

Heidi  15:43

So this week, Emily and I are going to take a look at the procedure for transitions.

Emily  15:48

And we chose to start with transitions, because when students are switching from one activity to another, that’s often a spot where chattiness can really escalate.

Heidi  15:58

So we have a list of 20 questions about transitions. But don’t worry, we’re not going to go into all of them. Emily and I have each chosen one question to talk about. So, Emily, which question did you choose?

Emily  16:10

I chose what is the consequence for individual students getting off task during a transition?

Heidi  16:16

Okay, Emily, tell us more about this one.

Emily  16:18

Well, I picked this one because I think it’s good to have a plan, because you know you’re going to have problems with this. Yeah, and I think for the most part, for individual students, if they’re just like goofing off a little bit on the way to the rug or not coming in a timely manner, for the most part, I think I’m comfortable with just a reminder.

Emily  16:38

But if the same student is doing it often, or they’re causing a huge distraction when they’re off task during a transition, then that’s when I’m going to send them back to their desk to do the transition again, or back to wherever we started before the transition, and have them do it again, following the things that they know they’re supposed to be doing during the transition. So I think it’s just good to have a plan for how you’re going to handle that.

Heidi  17:04

I think that’s such a good point that decide that ahead of time, because it will inevitably happen, and in the moment, you’re annoyed and frustrated, and so you’re not going to be your best teacher self. So it’s just so much smarter to be like, okay, when this happens, this is how I’m going to deal with it. And then you just have that automatically. You can switch over without losing your cool.

Emily 17:24

And it’s probably good to decide what level requires the going back and doing it again. Yes, if you’re like, Okay, this kid rarely does this, then yeah, go ahead with the reminder. But maybe tell yourself, if I have to remind this kid more than once or twice a week, then they need to be practicing their transitions again, or something like that, so that you mentally know what needs to happen in the moment. So what transition question did you choose Heidi?

Heidi  17:51

Well, I chose, will you include a behavior prompt in your transition directions? For example, I want you to quickly and quietly.

Emily  18:00

Okay, so what are you thinking about that?

Heidi  18:02

I liked this question for this particular podcast episode because it comes back to two of the tips that we mentioned earlier, which is to have reasonable expectations and to make it easy for students to do the right thing.

Heidi  18:15

So I’m setting up my expectations at the front so they know exactly what I’m expecting them to do, right? I want this to happen quickly and quietly, and then I’m making it easy for them to do the right thing, because there’s no doubt in their little brains what the teacher wants me to do, right.

Heidi  18:32

And then again, like, if it’s not happening the way that I want it to, it’s easy to redirect, because I can point out, Hey, I told you this was supposed to be quick and quiet, and what I was seeing was slow and noisy. So let’s go back and try again. Yeah, it just helps guide their behavior a little more by making it clear from the outset, and makes it easy to redirect when they get off course.

Emily  18:54

Yeah. And it’s easier to hold them to a standard of behavior when you know you told them what that standard is before you started.

Heidi  19:01

Right. Even if you think like we have done this transition 173 days of school, I shouldn’t have to say it again. You have to say it again.

Emily  19:09

Yeah.

Heidi  19:10

It doesn’t matter the one time you don’t say it. That’s like giving permission to not do it. So you always just have to hold those high expectations and hold them accountable for meeting those expectations. And isn’t that exhausting?

Emily  19:22

Yes it is. We are not paid enough as teachers.

Heidi  19:25

No we are not. We will link to our procedures planning guide in the show notes, and that can help you think through any of the difficult procedures that you might be dealing with in your classroom.

Emily  19:36

Now let’s talk about this week’s teacher approved tip. Each week we leave you with a small actionable tip that you can apply in your classroom today. This week’s teacher approved tip is teach your students a quiet signal to use with each other. Tell us about this, Heidi.

Heidi  19:51

Well if you are a kid, and you probably have been one in at least some point in your life, just guessing you can end up in a tricky spot when you’re the one trying to follow directions, but a classmate is trying to talk to you. Right? Kids don’t want to get in trouble, but they also don’t want to blow off their classmate.

Emily  20:08

Even little kids know it’s rude to ignore someone.

Heidi  20:11

So as the teacher, you can help solve this problem by introducing a signal. The idea is that the kid who’s trying to work can show the signal as a way to say, Hey, I’d love to chat with you right now, but I’ve got work to do, and you need to do your work too.

Emily  20:25

How would you introduce the signal to the class?

Heidi  20:28

So I think I would start with a class discussion, explain the problem to the class and then offer the signal as a solution. But I would take my student suggestions for what signal they wanted to use. Your class is going to be way more likely to buy into this if they are choosing their own signal.

Heidi  20:45

You know, you could suggest something like a thumbs up or a quiet coyote or any other appropriate signal, but I would let the kids have the final say, since, after all, they’re the ones that are going to be using the signal. And then when one student is trying to interrupt a neighbor, all that child has to do is show the signal as a friendly reminder to get back to work.

Emily  21:05

I love this idea. I think this could be really helpful in your classroom, to help keep your kids on task.

Heidi  21:12

To wrap up the show, we are sharing what we’re giving extra credit to this week. Emily, what gets your extra credit?

Emily  21:17

I’m giving extra credit to puzzles. Remember how I set a goal to do a puzzle during winter break? Well I did, and then it was so relaxing and fun that I did another one. And now I’ve just had a non stop rotation of puzzles for several weeks. I was doing a puzzle before I came over here right now. Oh, my, I don’t know. I don’t know.

Emily  21:37

I love being able to work on it in bits and pieces. I think is what I like about it, and I can do it while I’m helping the kids with homework or waiting for water to boil for dinner. I especially love listening to an audio book while I puzzle. It’s been a great way to get more books in and keep from scrolling on my phone when I have downtime. I find this bit on my phone a lot less, and the kids will often come by and decide to work on it with me for a little while too, which I love, because it’s great chatting time.

Emily  22:07

Although I did put my foot down recently when nobody wanted to help with a very hard puzzle, but they all showed up in the last 50 pieces and wanted to do the satisfying part. It was very Chicken Little. I was like, if you want the joy of finishing the puzzle at the end, you have to help with the hard work before. Anyways, I’m a puzzle person now, so send me links to your favorite puzzles.

Heidi  22:30

How many pieces are we talking here?

Emily  22:32

Usually 500 is where I prefer, because I don’t like to manage so hard. But the one I started today is the 1000. I’m already regretting it, so we’ll see how it goes. Maybe once I get into it, the border is particularly hard, so good luck. Yeah, thanks. What are you giving extra credit to?

Heidi  22:48

Well, I’m giving extra credit to a book called The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston, what do we think Poston or Poston? I don’t know. Well, Ashley, wherever you are out there, your name is tricky. It was just such a delightful and clever story.

Heidi  23:04

I don’t want to say too much, because I think part of the fun is kind of uncovering the plot as you read. But it is the story of Clementine, who happens to have an apartment that occasionally slips seven years into the past and wants a girl to do? So the romance was absolutely perfect. It kept me guessing the whole time. It was so sweet and cute. Loved all of it so.

Emily  23:25

And I’m almost done with it, because after you posted it on Instagram the other day, I grabbed the audiobook, and I’ve been listening to it while I puzzle and drive. Like I get a lot of my audiobooks in when I’m driving the kids.

Heidi  23:37

I’m glad you’re putting audiobooks with driving, not puzzling with driving.

Emily  23:40

That would be wild.

Heidi  23:43

That’s it for today’s episode. Try out our five tips for managing a chatty class, and don’t forget our teacher approved tip to give students a quiet signal they can use with their classmates.