3 Ways to Hold Students Accountable to Your Classroom Expectations [Episode 282]

Heidi 0:01
This is episode 282 of Teacher Approved.

Heidi 0:06
You’re listening to Teacher Approved, the podcast helping educators elevate what matters and simplify the rest. I’m Heidi.

Emily 0:14
And I’m Emily. We’re the creators behind Second Story Window, where we give research-based and teacher-approved strategies that make teaching less stressful and more effective. You can check out the show notes and resources from each episode at secondstorywindow.net.

Heidi 0:28
We’re so glad you’re tuning in today. Let’s get to the show.

Emily 0:36
Hey there! Thanks for joining us today. In today’s episode, we are talking about how to respond when it seems like your class has forgotten everything you taught them in week one. Plus, we have a teacher-approved tip to help the little lefties in your life.

Heidi 0:52
But first, let’s start with a try it tomorrow, where we share a quick win that you can try in your classroom today. Emily, what’s our suggestion for this week?

Emily 0:59
This week, why don’t you try having your students work together to write a short class affirmation, and then it can be something that you repeat together every day. This type of project is ideal for building community early in the year, and it’s a great way to convey to students what matters in your classroom.

Heidi 1:19
Plus, this is something that can easily grow with your class. If you wanted to start off the year with something simple like a sentence or two, you can add to it as the year goes on. Doing this every day will help it become an important part of your class’s identity.

Emily 1:33
If you appreciate our teacher-approved episodes, we would love it if you took 30 seconds to rate and review the show on your podcast player.

Heidi 1:42
So we’re in the middle of August, and it’s always such a weird time. I swear, the whole month feels like one long Sunday night.

Emily 1:50
Well, that’s exactly what it feels like because it’s this sense that like something’s about to change, things are changing, but nothing has started yet.

Heidi 2:00
And then it’s kind of hard to really talk about because the timing of things varies so much depending on where you live. Some of our listeners are heading into their second or even third week of school, and some of our listeners will still have two weeks of summer break ahead of them.

Emily 2:16
And if you live in the southern hemisphere or you teach year round, we don’t even know what you guys are doing, but we’re so glad you’re here.

Heidi 2:23
Yes, thank you for joining us anyway. But if you are in the barely back in school or the not quite back in school camp, you can listen to this episode and just file it away under stuff I will be glad to have in a few weeks.

Emily 2:37
And if you’re already well into your first month of school, buckle up because this episode is for you.

Heidi 2:43
So imagine you are in the middle of your third week of school, and you walk past the backpacks. Three weeks ago, every backpack was zipped shut and hanging from its assigned hook. The floor was tidy. Nobody’s Capri Sun had popped and stained everything. It was so well organized it could have been a stock photo.

Emily 3:02
But that was then, and this is now. It’s a different story now. Some backpacks are hanging. Some are on the floor, propped against the wall. A couple are just nowhere near the hooks. The zippers are gaping open. Papers and broken pencils are littering the floor, and you’re just standing there thinking, “I could have sworn that we spent the entire first week practicing this.”

Heidi 3:29
And you did. Don’t gaslight yourself about that. You taught a whole lesson about this. You even had slides, and your kids knew exactly what to do. They could manage it just fine.

Emily 3:40
Well, for a little while, I guess, but now whether they realize it or not, they’re checking to see if you meant what you said in the beginning. Because given the option, they would really prefer not to have to take care of their backpacks. That would be way easier.

Heidi 3:55
So let’s talk about why that happens. The first few weeks of school are full of novelty. Kids are figuring out who you are and how your classroom works, and then after a few weeks, they settle in.

Heidi 4:06
Yeah, they finally know where things go and what you expect of them, and that’s how you know you are officially in the season of settling in. Now, this is a special golden stretch of the year because you can finally focus on teaching content instead of all the effort on procedures, the routine finally starts feeling like a routine, and you and your new class are finding your rhythm.

Heidi 4:30
But comfort brings a new challenge, and students start testing boundaries. It’s not that they’re trying to be bad, you know, at least most of them. It’s just that it’s easier to ignore an expectation that they don’t feel invested in yet.

Emily 4:45
And can you blame them? It’s so much easier to just leave your backpack wherever, and it doesn’t affect them. At least they don’t think it affects them until they can’t find their jacket before recess.

Heidi 4:58
Oh yeah, that panic jacket hunt. So when your kids seem to push back on every single standard you taught in the first weeks, they’re not telling you that they forgot what to do. They’re telling you they need you to make sure they remember.

Emily 5:11
And that brings us to the hardest part of this season. It’s not teaching your expectations, as tedious as that is. It’s holding students accountable for meeting them, because just like with the kids and their sloppy backpacks, it is easier not to deal with it. I mean, in the short term, it feels easier.

Heidi 5:31
Yet, what nobody prepares you for in college is that when you see the mess or the kids chatting in line, your brain starts negotiating. It’s not that big of a deal. You tell yourself we’re already running behind. I don’t want to cause a distraction. I’ll just deal with it next time.

Emily 5:46
And of course, sometimes letting it go is the right call, depending on the day and what’s happening. But what matters most here is why you’re letting it go. Is this a thoughtful decision about what you want students to learn, or are you just avoiding the discomfort of dealing with it?

Heidi 6:02
And this is in no way a guilt trip. Sometimes the honest answer is, I cannot deal with this right now. We cannot be our best all of the time. Sometimes you just have to let the little stuff go.

Emily 6:13
Yeah, the problem isn’t making that call. Sometimes it’s making it every time without ever noticing you’re making it. Every time a student misses an expectation, you’ve got a decision to make. If you address this now, it means losing time, resetting, interrupting the flow, and spending energy that you probably don’t have.

Heidi 6:33
So that’s why letting it go feels easier. You’re saving time and energy in the moment, but letting it go has an expensive cost that shows up later. Students learn that your expectations are flexible, and next time they’re going to push a little farther.

Emily 6:50
And then you’re just in a loop because you let it slide. They push again, and then the behavior gets harder to address, and you’re more frustrated because now the problem has grown.

Heidi 7:00
And what’s extra frustrating is that there’s no shortcut past this. Kids are designed to test the edges of their environment, and until science invents a way to uninstall that particular feature, it means our job is making sure that the edges are solid enough to hold when the kids are leaning against them.

Emily 7:20
And we’ve said this before, but the standard of behavior in any classroom is whatever students can get away with.

Heidi 7:27
Or to put it another way, your expectations are whatever you allow. Which means holding students accountable has to happen more often than not.

Emily 7:37
Accountability can sound really harsh, like we’re a judge and jury, but it’s important to separate the idea of accountability from the idea of punishment. Punishment is saying how do I make this painful enough that the student decides it’s not worth doing again.

Heidi 7:55
But accountability takes a different route. It asks how do I help the student understand why their behavior matters, so they can make a better choice next time.

Emily 8:05
Or you can think of it like this: punishment is about paying a price. Accountability is about learning. So let’s say a student is upset and kicks over the trash can.

Heidi 8:13
Now punishment would be pick up the trash and you’ve lost five minutes of recess. But accountability is what happened, how are you going to fix it? What will you do differently next time?

Emily 8:26
So both responses get the trash picked up, which definitely needs to happen. But in the accountability example, the student walks away having learned about themselves and their choices, and I guess your expectations of their behavior.

Heidi 8:38
Yes, and hopefully gained a little more skill with noticing when there’s a problem and solving it. That’s the big goal here, right? So let’s take a look at three strategies you can use to make sure that you are holding students accountable, and each strategy fits a different kind of situation.

Emily 8:55
So the first strategy is to reteach what you expect. Use this when a procedure has gotten sloppy, like our backpacks.

Heidi 9:04
Now, the mistake that most of us make here is giving a reminder. Remember, we hang our backpacks neatly. A reminder just restates what students already know, but it gives them no reason to change anything.

Emily 9:17
Holding students accountable requires action, not reminders. Let’s look at these backpacks. What do you notice? Let’s try it again. Then have them reset their backpacks and pick up the floor. Then end by asking students what they’ll do differently tomorrow.

Heidi 9:33
And if the sloppy procedure has become a chronic problem, you may need to reteach a full tell try tally talk lesson. Tell them what’s expected and model it. Let them try it while you watch. Tally or discuss whether they hit the mark, and then talk about what they will remember going forward.

Emily 9:51
And if you made procedure slides with our tell, try, tally talk at the beginning of the year, then you’ll want to dig those back up.

Heidi 9:58
And unfortunately, there will be a fair amount of reteaching, so make it as easy on yourself as you can.

Heidi 10:04
Now, normally we are all about increased student engagement, but a reteach lesson should feel a little boring. We want to send the message that we don’t have time for the fun stuff when we are stuck practicing the stuff that we already learned.

Emily 10:17
And the lesson we teach by reteaching expectations is what my teacher says goes, and it’s more enjoyable to do it right the first time than have to practice it later.

Heidi 10:28
Our second accountability strategy is for when kids aren’t following directions. Imagine you tell your class, “Get out your math workbook, turn to page 48, solve problems one through five, and then bring your book back to the table so I can check it.”

Emily 10:42
Before you’ve even said turn to page. Half the class starts moving, and 30 seconds later they’re all asking, “Wait, what are we supposed to be doing?”

Heidi 10:51
I hate that question so much.

Emily 10:52
I know.

Heidi 10:53
So when confusion strikes, start by making sure that you didn’t accidentally create the problem. Consider if you had everyone’s attention before you started talking. Students can’t follow directions they didn’t hear.

Emily 11:06
And oh, it feels awkward. But don’t be afraid to pause after your attention signal and wait until all eyes are on you before you say a word. We talked all about troubleshooting your attention signal in episode 98, so you can check that out if you need some support there.

Heidi 11:23
I can’t believe that episode was so long ago. I thought it was last year.

Emily 11:26
That feels very recent.

Heidi 11:29
But if you know you had everyone’s attention before you started talking, the next question is: Did you use an action cue? Kids start moving the second they think they know what you want, which means that they might miss the rest of your directions.

Emily 11:44
An action cue heads that off. It’s a word or phrase students listen for as their signal to start moving. I always used the when I say go, I’d give the full set of directions, make sure everyone was with me, and then I’d say go.

Heidi 11:59
Yeah, that was my standard action cue too, but this is also an easy place to sprinkle in a little spark. So sometimes instead of when I say go, it was when I say banana pajamas or, you know, the kids’ favorite when I bawk like a chicken.

Emily 12:15
Are you going to showcase your chicken bawking?

Heidi 12:17
No, I don’t think, that’s that’s a paid subscriber thing.

Emily 12:21
Okay, if we make a VIP tier, she will show her chicken bawking.

Heidi 12:26
Okay, but if you do want some more details about this strategy, we talked all about action cues and everything else that goes into efficient transitions back in episodes, yes, episodes multiple, 48, 49, and 50 because we needed three episodes to talk about transitions, and you know what? I stand by it. Those are three of our best episodes. So go back and check out those episodes for some extra tips.

Heidi 12:49
Yeah, you really cannot say too much about transitions because that is the wild west every day.

Heidi 12:55
Okay, assuming you used your attention signal and an action cue, the next question is: Did you give students a way to reference the steps on their own?

Emily 13:04
Now, the easiest fix for this is writing the list on the board. Adding icons or photos helps too, especially for younger kids or English learners or anyone still building their reading skills.

Heidi 13:15
If this is a transition you do all the time, make it a poster or a slide so that you’re not having to rewrite it every single day.

Emily 13:22
Okay, then, and this is the accountability part. You have to expect them to do it. If a student asks, what page are we on, don’t answer. Just point to the list.

Heidi 13:32
And obviously, if they are still stuck after that, help them. But don’t train them that you are the only source of answers in the room.

Emily 13:40
Yeah, because kids are so happy to use your brain rather than their own, but we really don’t want to encourage that. Then it becomes one of the hardest parts of teaching if you’re constantly having to answer questions all day long that you already answered. So the lesson we want them walking away with is that they are capable of figuring out the next step themselves because you give them all this information in a way that they can easily reference.

Heidi 14:03
So, so far, our first strategy for holding students accountable is reteaching expectations. The second strategy is to give directions clearly and expect follow through. And now, our third strategy is to help students take ownership.

Emily 14:19
This is how you use accountability to help manage behavior problems. When a student is openly pushing back against your expectations, it’s tempting to think your job is to take back control.

Heidi 14:30
But that is not what accountability looks like. If you want the behavior to change next time, the question has to shift from, how do I stop this, to, how do I help the student learn from it?

Emily 14:43
For example, imagine you have a shoe kicker. Your class is walking to lunch, and one kid is lightly kicking the shoes of the kid in front of him, and of course, an argument breaks out. So, what’s your next move?

Heidi 14:55
Now, it is okay to wait until the student is calm before engaging, because after an argument, there’s probably some heated feelings. So you can say something like, “We don’t kick people’s shoes. Go eat your lunch, and after recess, we’ll talk about how you can fix this.”

Emily 15:08
And I think teachers often worry that if they don’t address the issue right then, that they’re letting the student get away with something. But if the student is keyed up, there’s nothing you can say that will get through to them. You’re probably just going to make things worse.

Heidi 15:22
Plus, I think maybe this is an experienced teacher tip. I always think that the waiting adds a little more meaning to the discussion because it’s giving kids that extra time to really consider what went wrong.

Emily 15:34
Yes. So when the moment’s right, you can ask what happened. Do you understand why your classmate is frustrated? How can you fix it? What will you do better next time? And what do you need from me?

Heidi 15:47
Try to keep your own opinions out of this as much as you can, and let the student do most of the talking. That’s what turned this type of situation from a mumbled “I’m sorry” into actual ownership.

Emily 15:58
So when students fall short on an expectation, but you’re behind schedule, or you don’t want to stop the lesson, or you’re just tired, pause and ask yourself, what do I want students to learn from this situation?

Heidi 16:08
Sometimes the answer is to reinforce the expectation. If kids are chatting in line because they’re excited for recess, the lesson we want them to learn is we save our talking for outside. So you send them back to try lining up quietly.

Emily 16:21
Sometimes the answer is to support the value underneath the behavior. Kids are chatting in line because one student had a rough morning and the others are checking on her. The timing’s not ideal, of course, but the bigger lesson there is we take care of each other.

Heidi 16:35
So that’s probably a moment where the relationship matters more than the rule. So as the year shifts from back to school season to the season of settling in, be prepared for the pushback.

Emily 16:47
And remember that holding firm isn’t about being strict. It’s about being trustworthy. Every time you calmly reinforce an expectation you’re telling a kid, you can count on me to mean what I say.

Heidi 16:58
So the next time a student misses the mark. Don’t ask, is this worth dealing with? Ask, what do I want the student to learn from this moment? And let that answer be your guide.

Emily 17:08
If you found this season-specific discussion helpful, you are in luck because our brand new book, Structure and Spark, provides the same level of support for each season of the school year.

Heidi 17:19
And for those of you who were kind enough to pre-order, thank you so much, so so much. We are sending you a million high fives.

Emily 17:28
And if you left us a kind review on Amazon, we will send you a million more high fives.

Heidi 17:34
But if you don’t have your copy of the book yet, this is your moment to grab it. You don’t want to miss out on even more of our tips for the season of settling in, plus the other six seasons of the school year.

Emily 17:46
There is a link to Structure and Spark in the show notes, or you can find it at your favorite online bookstore.

Emily 17:52
Now for our teacher-approved tip of the week, where we share an actionable tip to help you elevate what matters and simplify the rest. This week’s teacher-approved tip is make your class lefty friendly. This has been on our list to talk about since basically the beginning of the show. So you know, four and a half years later, we’re finally getting to it.

Heidi 18:13
That’s about the speed we work around here, but it’s fine. It’s fine. We lefties are used to being overlooked, but please don’t overlook the lefties in your class when it comes to assigning seats. If you’re a righty, have you ever sat next to a lefty at crowded dinner table and then you just end up bumping elbows the whole meal?

Emily 18:31
Ah, yeah, I do have experience with that with my sister.

Heidi 18:34
Thank you for your patience with my infirmity. But the same thing happens when a lefty is crammed in next to a right-handed student. If your desks are wide enough or your students are small enough, this might not be an issue. But just double check that everyone can write without elbowing their neighbor. And if it is an issue, try seating your lefties at the end of a row or to the left of their neighbors.

Heidi 19:01
Now, the second suggestion for making your classroom lefty friendly is for anyone who teaches younger grades, and this is important. Watch how your lefties are writing. Watch for that hooked grip, where the kid positions their arm above the line and then kind of curls their wrist into write. This is a really common pattern for left-handed writers. When I was in fourth grade, my mom got me like a button that said “Hire the left-handed. It’s fun to watch them write,” and it had someone with that pencil grip. But over time, that grip can cause pain and fatigue, especially as handwriting demands increase. So please help your lefties straighten out their wrists.

Emily 19:42
And if you teach older students, it might be too late to fully correct without real intervention. But you can still talk with the student about it and explain why that hand position could cause problems down the road, and ask if they would want reminders from you to adjust their form. And now I’m wondering if my lefty child writes like this, I’ve never, I don’t think I’ve ever looked to see. I don’t think he does, but maybe he does.

Heidi 20:05
I think he would notice. It’s pretty dramatic.

Emily 20:08
You know, how often am I sitting there watching him write at this age?

Heidi 20:11
It’s true. Well, I guess you’ll have to test it out now.

Emily 20:13
I guess I’ll have to pay attention.

Heidi 20:15
Okay, and then our third suggestion is to let them be adaptable. Don’t force a fix onto something that isn’t broken. This is speaking from my experience, but I had teachers who insisted that I use left-handed scissors, which drove me crazy because I could never make them work. I still can’t cut with left-handed scissors, and so I used to wait till the teacher wasn’t paying attention and then sneak right-handed scissors out of the caddy because I had already learned to use right-handed scissors with my left hand. And it’s the same story with tilting my paper to the right, the direction you’re supposed to tilt it when you’re writing. I, I can’t do that, or using a left-handed mouse, which I can do, but I don’t.

Heidi 20:52
Once I had already figured out my own workaround, being forced to use left-handed tools just caused frustration over something that wasn’t hurting me. It’s not like the pencil grip, this wasn’t a big deal.

Emily 21:02
Right. My son’s kindergarten teacher reached out to me really early in the year and was like, I’m ordering some left-handed scissors, which I thought was funny. I’m like, surely you’ve had a lefty before now. But also, I was like, he doesn’t need left-handed scissors. He knows how to use the right ones. But I think she got them anyway. But I know he uses the regular scissors because he’s just, and honestly, because of you, I think I encouraged him often to just adapt. It would make his life easier. Like with the mouse, it was like, well, we can get you a left-handed mouse, but it’d probably be easier if you just learned to use the right one.

Heidi 21:31
Yeah, we’re just used to adapting to a world built for other the other side of the body. If you want to try this out for yourself, try using a can opener, one of those turny kind, with your left hand sometime, if you want to know, because it’s it’s not built for that. It’s probably part of why lefties tend to be such creative problem solvers because we’ve just had to adapt our whole lives.

Emily 21:52
Well, that’s why you’re all geniuses.

Heidi 21:55
Maybe I shouldn’t bring this up, but also there’s a higher rate of murderers of left handed people too, so we’re just frustrated by the can openers.

Emily 22:03
It’s a lifetime of repressed anger that just comes spilling out. Maybe if we gave our lefties some consideration in elementary school, we could be preventing all these murders.

Heidi 22:16
Please, someone, please study that.

Emily 22:18
Yeah, so please take a minute to watch your lefties work and make sure they have what they need to be able to work efficiently, and don’t force a tool on them that they don’t want or need.

Heidi 22:29
To wrap up the show, we are sharing what we’re giving extra credit to this week. Emily, what gets your extra credit?

Emily 22:34
I’m giving extra credit to some trays.

Heidi 22:37
Giving extra credit to trays.

Emily 22:39
Yes, I love a tray. So I got these trays from Amazon, and they’re just kind of like school lunch trays, but a little bit, well, they’re cuter colors for starters, and they’re not as heavy. Well, maybe I’m remembering our childhood lunch trays. I bet these days, if they even have real trays, they’re not heavy.

Heidi 22:57
No, I think they use styrofoam trays. But I have a set of like school lunch trays that are metal, and they’re heavy duty.

Emily 23:03
The metal ones are heavy. And then you have the plastic ones that we used to use in preschool. This is in the middle, it’s wheat straw, so it’s sturdy, and you know you can wash it and all of that. But it’s not very heavy, so that’s nice. But I got this at the start of summer, so that when my daughter was doing diamond painting here and slime there and rock painting here, I could put a tray for each of the projects she’s working on, and it has been a game changer.

Emily 23:29
It’s so nice every time somebody’s working on something to be like, “Oh, here’s a tray to contain all of the pieces to that Lego set you’re working on.” So I’ll link them in the show notes. They were, I had seen a much more expensive version of these somewhere. I don’t even remember what website that was like the most amazing color scheme, and I was like, I have to have those. And then I was like, oh no, those are very expensive. So I’m like, what’s available on Amazon? And you know what? These are pretty decent and very well priced. So I will link them in the show notes.

Heidi 24:00
And they’re just going to get covered in paint and glue, so it’s not worth the investment.

Emily 24:03
So true. All right, what are you giving extra credit to, Heidi?

Heidi 24:07
Well, I’m giving extra credit to instrumental piano music. It’s a new thing in my life. I started listening to it, specifically piano music, when we were writing our book because I needed something in the background, and now I find that I’m listening to it all the time when I work. My Spotify day list is all instrumental piano, and it’s really going to mess up my wrap for the year.

Emily 24:30
It is, although I think you can go in and exclude it from your taste profile. So maybe that would help your wrap.

Heidi 24:34
I’ll try that. Okay, but some of my favorite artists so far are Ophelia Wilde, Lysander, and then I’m not sure how to say this name. Is it Moronus, Morunis? I’m not sure. But if you want some instrumental piano for yourself or for your classroom, I have been building a Spotify playlist. It’s called Teacher Approved: Calming Piano, and you can search for that title. The image is a piano with flowers coming out of it. Or you could just use the link in the show notes, and I add new songs to this playlist every time I come across one that has the right kind of just mellow, chill vibe. So so far, there’s more than four hours of music, and I’m sure it will get longer.

Emily 25:13
Okay, I’ll have to check that out because I did the same thing when we were writing. Like I couldn’t handle silence, but anything with words was too distracting, and now I’m finding anytime I’m working, I’m like, oh, this music is distracting me. So I had been listening to a lot of the Bridgerton soundtracks.

Heidi 25:29
Oh, that’d be good too.

Emily 25:29
But the problem was those are all covers of like pop songs, so then the songs would get stuck in my head. So I stopped doing that. But I have needed something, so I’ll have to check this out.

Heidi 25:40
I’ve got four hours for you. And after you listen a little bit, Spotify will just start suggesting it.

Emily 25:46
Lucky me.

Heidi 25:48
Well, that is it for episode 282. If today gave you something to try tomorrow, we would love to hear about it. You can find us in the Teacher Approved Facebook group or on Instagram @2ndstorywindow, and that’s spelled with a two.

Heidi 26:02
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Teacher Approved. I’m Heidi.

Emily 26:07
And I’m Emily. Thank you for listening. Be sure to follow or subscribe in your podcast app so that you never miss an episode.

Heidi 26:14
You can connect with us and other teachers in the Teacher Approved Facebook group. We’ll see you here next week. Bye for now.

Emily 26:20
Bye.