Write an article based on this "Determine your philosophy. Start with school policies and procedures. Move on to positive reinforcement. Understand each child's motivation. Figure out negative reinforcement. Decide on a consequence time frame. Decide on rules. Write the rules."
Many classroom management plans begin with the teacher's philosophy of motivation. Basically, it lays out what you believe about education and how students should learn. You can talk about the environment you want to create and how you plan to create that environment, both physically and emotionally. Your school will have certain consequences and even certain rewards already in place. You can and should use this system as the basis of your own. Build off these and incorporate your own policies, procedures, and rules to create a positive classroom environment for your students. Most management plans have some type of positive reinforcement. For instance, you can have kids earn stickers or stars towards a certain reward. These types of plans help motivate students to stay on task. Not every child will be motivated by the same reward. If you choose to do so, you can have a system where each kid chooses her own reward. For instance, some kids may enjoy being rewarded by working in a group, while other kids might enjoy choosing their own activity for a period. Still others may prefer a prize of some sort. Finding what motivates each child can help encourage all personality types. You can also build plans based on age level, as what motivates a second grader will not likely motivate a high school student. One teacher identifies these six groups as the main motivators: praise, power (helping the teacher), projects (deciding what learning activity to do), people (playing outside, working in a group), prestige (recognition in front of the school), prizes, and praise (affirmation from the teacher). While positive reinforcement is the best way to deal with behavior in the classroom, you will also need consequences for negative actions, as well. These consequences should be progressive; that is, each one should be more severe than the last one. Stick with consequences that are easy for you to enforce; that is, you shouldn't need to stop everything to enforce it. It's often best to start with a warning, as all kids make mistakes. You can move on to other consequences, such as a time-out, a write-up, or a letter sent home. For instance, you could start with a warning, move on to a write-up, and then go to a letter home. Alternatively, so many write-ups could equal a letter home. For instance, maybe each kid starts fresh everyday with consequences. Alternatively, you could have consequences carry for a week. With rewards, you should generally let them carry over for the whole year, meaning that kids keep earning towards rewards all year. Once one reward is earned, you let the kid move on to earning the next one. You could have the rewards get progressively better or just let each small goal speak for itself. Rules should be simple enough for kids to understand. They should be to the point with little-to-no gray area. You should also be able to enforce them easily. Make the basic rules. If you word them carefully, you'll be able to cover a lot of ground with just a few rules. For instance, one rule could be to "Respect the classroom, your peers, and your teacher," as that covers being nice to other children, not talking back to the teacher, and not trashing the classroom. Keep it short and simple. Four or five rules is better than 10. Rules should give instruction about what to do, not what not to do. For instance, "Keep your hands to yourself" is better than "Don't touch others."