Help Your Class Kick Bad Habits with These 5 Classroom Management Questions [Fan Fave] [episode 177]

Emily  0:05

Hey, friends. Now that it’s mid year, you may have noticed some bad habits starting to creep into your classroom procedures. If you’re tired of wearing your voice out, reminding your students of your expectations, this episode is for you.

Emily  0:20

We’re replaying one of our fan favorite episodes, all about dealing with procedures that have gotten sloppy. We have five guiding questions you can ask yourself to get to the root of the problem with your rusty procedures so that you can get your class back to running like a well oiled machine.

Heidi  1:09

We start our episodes with a morning message, just like we used to do at morning meeting in our classrooms. Today’s morning message is what is one must have that you always have in your teacher desk. Emily, kick us off here.

Emily  1:22

Well, I actually always keep nail clippers in my desk, and actually all over for my whole life, I like to have a nail clipper. Oh, same handle it. There’s just nothing worse than a broken nail or a hang nail like I always want to have nail clippers handy. So that’s what I always keep in my teacher desk. What about you?

Heidi  1:40

The responses we got that we’ll share cover most of what I had on my teacher desk, so I’m not gonna steal their ideas, but one thing that I found helpful that no one has mentioned is a tape measure. It was not something that I needed every day, but in the moments when I did, I was grateful that I had it. I just had the little fabric, kind that, like, you know, roll up, and they just use, like, a rubber band to, like, make it so it was small and didn’t take up much space. But when you need a tape measure, you need a tape measure.

Emily  2:09

That is such a good point. That’s a really good idea. We have some responses from our community as well. Anna said, a snack and post its, yes, can never have too many post its. Sonia said, headache medicine and white out tape.

Heidi  2:24

One thing you might need to pay attention to is if your school has rules about like, what medicine you’re allowed to have in your classroom. Sometimes schools have real big rules about that, so check on that.

Emily  2:35

Heather said, an expo surplus, and hopefully it’s hidden away where these kids are not gonna grab your precious Expo markers or a sub get into them. Joy said, quarters for the soda machine and my appreciation file, which is her notes from former students and parents, which I love that idea. It’s a good idea.

Emily  2:55

Jody said, chocolate and flare pens. Those two things could fix any ill. I think Gemini said chapstick. Oh, yes, very smart. And Heather said lotion, mints and hair ties.

Heidi  3:08

Yeah you forget you need mints until you really need a mint. Yes. Apron Education has a list of self care items that teachers might want to stock in their desks or in their classrooms. I found it on her Instagram page. Some items on the list that jumped out to me are protein bars, safety pins, thank you cards and Tums. We have all needed those at some point or other, and that’s just a handful of the ideas on the list, so it’s definitely worth checking out if you want some suggestions that maybe you haven’t thought of before.

Emily  3:40

We’d love to hear your response to this and other questions over in our teacher approved Facebook group or on Instagram at @2ndstorywindow, and that is with the two.

Emily  3:51

Now that we’re a few weeks into school, you’re probably feeling more settled after the hustle and bustle of back to school, but now the cracks in your classroom procedures may be starting to show.

Heidi  4:03

It happens so fast. One day, everyone comes in and remembers to turn in their homework and hang up their backpacks, just like you taught them, and then the next day, there are only three papers turned in and an enormous heap of backpacks on the floor.

Emily  4:20

Isn’t teaching fun.

Heidi  4:21

Yeah, fun, fun is the word I was thinking. So what do you do? Now your first impulse might be to start flinging backpacks around the room, but I will caution you to resist that urge.

Emily  4:33

Yes, Heidi, don’t do it. Breathe through it.

Heidi  4:36

And when you’re a little calmer, ask yourself, What does this situation need? It could be that a reminder of your procedures is enough. Hey guys, the backpacks are looking a little sloppy. Come take care of it. If yours isn’t where it should be, but you may notice yourself doing this reminding day after day, which signals a bigger issue.

Emily  4:57

Yeah, when you’ve reached that point, it is time to do some actual troubleshooting of the problem.

Heidi  5:03

So we’re going to walk through five guiding questions to help you identify the problem with a failing procedure and also determine how to fix it. Think of it as a kind of flow chart. We’ll start with the big questions and then work down to smaller ones to help you zero in on the trouble spots. We’ll be talking about procedures but really, these questions apply to transitions or routines as well. Emily, why don’t you get us started with the questions.

Emily  5:31

I would love to. Our first guiding question is, Do I have a clear vision of what should be happening with this procedure? If the answer to that is No, obviously your first step is to get a clear idea of what should be happening, because if you don’t know, the kids can’t know.

Heidi  5:50

Now this may seem trivial, but sometimes we have an idea of how we think things should go when we’re in the planning stages, but in practice, it’s not really panning out like we envisioned.

Heidi  6:03

For example, let’s say my routine is that the kids line up outside the center doors after recess. I taught them this. We practiced it in my head. It seemed the most efficient way for kids to come in from recess, but I hadn’t taken into account that the bin for all the soccer balls is by a different door, so the kids who were playing soccer now have to run all the way in from the soccer field, run and drop their ball off, and then come meet the class. So this is adding five minutes to the time it should take to come in from recess.

Emily  6:34

So the first place to start is getting clear on what should be happening with your procedure. In this case, what should be happening is that Heidi students come in from recess in the most efficient manner possible, so that she can minimize wasted time. So maybe she’s going to have to line up next to the soccer ball so the kids can drop off their stuff and get right in line. It will add a few more steps to get back to class, but we’re not stuck waiting for kids to line up.

Emily  7:04

Or maybe she doesn’t want to deal with extra hallway walking. In that case, she could have the kids line up with their soccer balls, and then, if she trusts that they’ll behave, she could send them to drop them off while she starts leading the class back to the room. Or maybe the kids just bring their soccer balls back to her class after recess, and then they return them on the way to lunch.

Emily  7:26

There’s a lot of different ways she could approach this problem, but they all come down to having a clear vision of what should be happening, and then she can adjust her procedures accordingly. Problem solved. But if you’re already clear on what you want to see happen and you’re still having problems, the second guiding question is, did I introduce the procedure properly at the beginning of the school year?

Heidi  7:52

Sometimes we are in such a rush to start teaching content that we hurry through teaching procedures. I know I have been guilty of this, or we think something should be so obvious, like how to stand in line at the drinking fountain, that we don’t think it needs to be taught.

Heidi  8:09

Oh yes, but if you are finding yourself battling an ongoing issue with a certain procedure, there’s a good chance that it’s just because the students don’t understand the expectations. If that’s the case, the solution is to carve out a few minutes to explicitly teach the procedure. Emily, why don’t you explain how we like to do that?

Emily  8:28

We like to use a three step process to introduce procedures, and we call it tell, try tally. Let’s look at the backpack example from earlier. I start by telling kids what’s expected when you arrive in the morning, the first thing you do is hang up your backpack and jacket on your assigned hook. I model it as we walk through it together.

Emily  8:28

Then I ask one of the kids if I can borrow their backpack, and I pretend I’m a kid arriving at school in the morning. I’ve got my backpack slung over my shoulder, and I do a funny walk, because I make my way back to the coat hooks, I make sure to point out any potentially tricky parts, like how to get both your coat and backpack on the same hook. You want to be super specific here, yeah, don’t assume the kids know anything when you’re teaching a procedure.

Emily  9:15

Then I let the kids try. I usually start with one or two volunteers as models, and then I have them get their backpacks and walk through it. I might even ask a volunteer to show how to do it the wrong way, and ask other students to point out what the volunteer did right or wrong. Then the whole class gets to try.

Heidi  9:34

And while they try, you can be acting like the world’s most boring sportscaster. Look at how he’s made sure his backpack is zipped up before hanging it up. He’s not going to have papers falling everywhere today. And then we tally or discuss how it went. Did they meet expectations? Was any part of it tricky? Is there any part they’re not sure about?

Emily  9:57

So that’s how we like to teach procedures. If you’re looking back at your problematic procedure and you know you did teach it explicitly, but you’re still having issues, then it’s time for our third guiding question, did they practice the routine enough?

Emily  10:13

Most of the time, even with young students, a few minutes of practicing a new procedure is enough. But if you have a procedure that’s giving you headaches, maybe they needed more practice than you anticipated. This is particularly true if a procedure is part of a whole routine that requires several procedures. If this is the case, we want to refresh everyone’s memories doing more practice, practice, practice.

Heidi  10:39

So let’s say your students are leaving a mess at their centers. I’d start by standing by the center and pointing out the game pieces that have been left out or the papers that are on the ground. I’d say something like, what’s going on here friends? What should be happening?

Heidi  10:55

If they don’t know, then that’s your signal that it’s time to reteach the procedure. But if they do know it’s time for practice. I’d send all the kids to one of our senders and give them two or three minutes to get stuff out, and then tell them it’s time to clean up. And after they’ve successfully cleaned up, guess what? We’re doing it again. I’d send each group to a new center, and we would repeat the process.

Emily  11:20

You’re going to feel like a broken record when you’re doing this, but that means you’re doing it right. At that point if it looks like they’ve got the hang of it, I’d wrap up the practice by having them tell a neighbor what they’ll remember to do better tomorrow. But if they haven’t gotten it perfect yet, we’ll practice another time. The sooner they realize that I mean what I say, the sooner they’ll stop trying to push back against my expectations.

Emily  11:45

Now, if you’re clear on what you want your procedure to accomplish, you’ve taught it explicitly, and you’ve provided plenty of practice, and it’s still not working, then it’s time for our fourth guiding question, am I holding them accountable?

Heidi  12:00

It’s a harsh truth, but sometimes we as the teachers are the weakest link. You are the weakest link. When we have got so many things we’re dealing with at once, it’s tempting to let little things slide with our procedures. We’ve only got so much time and energy, so when an occasional kid was sharpening their pencil during work time maybe I just let it go.

Heidi  12:24

But then it snowballed into everyone sharpening their pencils all the time, and now pencil sharpening is interrupting things left and right. If I had cracked down on the behavior early and reminded them of our pencil procedures, a small problem wouldn’t have escalated into a big one.

Emily  12:41

We have to hold ourselves accountable for holding our students accountable. And honestly, consistency is so often the hardest part of managing children, but if you allow something, sometimes that becomes the accepted behavior. Fred Jones has a great quote about how the standard of behavior in any classroom is, what can I get away with?

Heidi  13:04

And if it’s gotten to the point that bad habits have developed, you may need to do something drastic, or, if not drastic, at least dramatic. You need shock and awe. So let’s say your kids are being gross of the drinking fountain. Maybe when they come to school tomorrow, they will find a sign from the health department, and I’m using finger quotes that you can’t see, from the health department, informing them the fountain is closed until further notice.

Heidi  13:33

And once the kids start asking questions about it, you have the perfect opening to address the situation. This is your chance to point out what you’ve seen going on and reteach as needed. You also make it clear that you will be keeping a very close eye on the situation. And when you catch someone sticking their gross little mouth right on the drinking fountain, so gross, you kindly and then, you know, without singling anyone out, remind everyone why that’s a problem and what should be happening instead.

Heidi  13:34

I’ve seen teachers do this with the classroom library when kids are not taking care of the books and they’re making a big old mess of the library shelves. Sorry, classroom library is closed for a few days.

Heidi  14:15

Yeah, that would definitely get their attention. It’s still early in the school year, but if you’ve noticed that a bad habit or two has crept in, and you’re sure that they are not due to lack of understanding it may be time to employ that shock and awe. Think about what you can do to push the reset button on the situation. You want to send a clear message that we are done with what’s been happening and we will be making better choices going forward.

Emily  14:41

Here’s one example of pushing the reset button. If your class gets out of control during your morning meeting activity, maybe you stop doing it for a couple weeks. Once they really start to miss it, you can have a discussion about how they need to manage their energy and going forward if it becomes a problem again, you start skipping the activity again.

Heidi  15:01

I have had to do that with classes in the past. Or maybe shock and awe means that the kids don’t get to work on Chromebooks for a few days until they can show you they’re ready to be responsible. Or maybe they have to miss the first five minutes of PE to clean up the glue bottles they left open and dripping.

Emily  15:18

When teachers know they have introduced and practiced their procedures properly, but are still having bad habits develop, accountability is almost always the answer. That’s because it’s so hard to do.

Emily  15:30

It is so hard as busy teachers, we have all been here at some point. And can I say, as a parent, I have also been here very often. Consistently holding your students accountable is vital if you want your procedures to run effortlessly, and if you want to keep small problems from developing into bigger problems. And holding your kids accountable will likely be just what you need to stop the bad habits that have developed.

Heidi  15:58

But what if you have done all the things, and you’ve got a procedure that’s still not working right? Maybe the problem isn’t the people involved, but the procedure itself. Our fifth guiding question is, do I need to re evaluate this procedure? It could be that the reason you’ve struggled with a procedure is because it’s not right. With examination, you may discover that some of your procedures need to be revamped in order to work the way you want them to.

Emily  16:27

Or maybe you don’t have the steps of your routine in the most efficient order. Maybe you need to move the routine to a different time of day. Maybe you only need three kids to pass out papers, rather than having everyone trying to come get their own paper at once.

Heidi  16:42

So start experimenting. Try a few different options for your procedure and see what works best. Once you have a clearer picture, you can teach your new procedure to your class with the needed changes.

Emily  16:55

And the key here is that you must appear cool, calm and collected, even if those little darlings have just tackled your very last nerve. Some kids enjoy the power of being able to push your buttons. We’ve all had students like that, but if they don’t know they have that power, it can never become a power struggle.

Heidi  17:15

So when these issues crop up, take a deep breath and summon your inner Beyonce. Do you think she would lose her cool when there are two kids playing in the drinking fountain? No, she would not, no, she would not. So deep breaths and Beyonce are going to help us solve all of our classroom procedure hiccups.

Emily  17:35

So to deal with those classroom procedure issues, remember to apply these five guiding questions to figure out what the problem is and fix it. Number one, do I have a clear vision of what should be happening with this procedure? Number two, did I introduce the procedure properly at the beginning of the year? Number three, did the students practice enough? Number four, am I holding them accountable? And number five, do I need to re evaluate this procedure?

Heidi  18:09

Applying these questions will help you troubleshoot any procedure, routine or transition that isn’t working the way it needs to. When you see bad habits start to crop up around your procedures during the year come back to these questions to help you examine your procedures and keep them running smoothly.

Emily  18:26

We would love to hear how your procedures are going so far this year and where you might be having trouble. The teachers in our Facebook group have great ideas for helping solve any classroom challenges you might be running into, so come share it with us in our teacher approved Facebook group.

Emily  18:43

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 rate your procedures. Heidi, will you tell us about that?

Heidi  18:57

If you want to do a brush up on your procedures now that we’re coming up to the end of term one, make your students part of the process. So to do this, you’ll need a list of your most important procedures. You probably don’t need to do all of them, unless, I guess maybe you’re struggling with all of them. Make sure that your list is big enough for the kids to see easily, and then have your students rate how well they’re doing.

Heidi  19:21

You could just do like a checklist, like, Yep, we’ve got it down. Or you could do something like a star rating. Maybe five stars means we do it perfectly without needing reminders. Four stars means we need some reminders. All the way down to maybe one star means we don’t do it at all. And then you can have the kids rate how many stars they think the class gets for walking quietly in the halls or packing up at the end of the day or whatever your most important procedures are.

Heidi  19:47

And then, after rating, you can have a class discussion about what can be done to get all of the procedures a higher rating. This will help your class keep your expectations in their minds as you move farther into the year.

Emily  20:00

You could even make this something you do at the end of every term, and the kids can compare how well they’re doing and identify areas for improvement. So add that to your schedule now.

Heidi  20:10

Yeah, that’s a great idea.

Emily  20:11

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

Heidi  20:18

I am giving extra credit to the new Copeland album. I know like so if you were also listening to what the Fray and Death Cab back in 2008 This is an album you need. It is a greatest hits album, but they have updated all the songs with orchestral arrangements, and they are just stunning.

Heidi  20:44

I’ve listened to you have my attention like 50 times now, and that’s probably not a joke. I have to say that I’m a little bummed that your love is a fast song is not on the album. Oh, that is a bummer, but the songs they did include are just like that chef’s kiss, perfection. So good. And I am holding out hope that maybe they’ll release a deluxe version down the road, and it will have your love as a song on there.

Emily  21:07

Better. I’m adding that to my Spotify right now.

Heidi  21:10

You should tell me what you think. It’s so good. Emily, what’s your extra credit?

Emily  21:13

I’m giving extra credit to the TV show Lego Masters on Fox. Oh, it’s so fun. You may remember I gave extra credit a few months ago to the show Domino Masters, but Lego Masters is our number one love around here, and it has finally come back.

Heidi  21:28

I was gonna say, you’ve been waiting a while to start.

Emily  21:31

It was supposed to start during the summer, and they were even running promos saying it was about to start, and then they decided to push it to the fall schedule, and my nine year old, Neil was devastated. So he was really excited when the episodes finally started a couple weeks ago.

Emily  21:47

And it’s really the only show that he pays close enough attention to that he knows what days there should be a new episode. And we all love watching those teams compete to create truly mind blowing Lego creations. It’s such an engaging show with a lot of heart that I think you’ll love if you’re looking for something new to watch with your family.

Heidi  22:08

That’s it for today’s episode. Use our five guiding questions to help you get back on track when you run into classroom hiccups. And don’t forget today’s teacher approved tip to have students rate their progress with procedures.