Classroom Management

        I believe that the key to having a successful classroom with well-behaved students is based on the classroom managment skills that the teacher possesses.
       When I become a teacher, to help my students control their behavior in the classroom I would have a How am I doing? pocket chart. On the chart I would list each student's name and behind each student's name each child would be given a red, yellow, and green square. Green means that the child has good behavior and is following the classroom rules. Yellow is a warning, this means that the student is beginning to get off track and is not behaving and acting in the way that he/she should. If a child gets to red, this means that the child is continuing to act badly and I would either have to send a letter home to the parents or I would have to call the parents. The How Am I Doing Chart? would help the students to learn to control their behavior in the classroom (and could also be a form of positive or negetive reinforcement as well).
         In the classroom, I would also manage the students by creating a way to get all the children's attention if they are being too loud, if I want to signal the end of an activity, or if I want to give directions. I might clap my hands in a certain way and then the children would have to stop what they are doing and respond back by clapping their hands. I could also strike a chime and when the children hear the chime they would freeze, stop talking, and would put their hands on their shoulders. Then after I stated the directions I would say "melt" and the children would unfreeze and would do what I asked them to do.
       Classroom management in a classroom also means that the teacher is giving her students enough time to do each activity. If a teacher is doing a group activity where she is having students write things down, she can determine whether every student in the class is finished by telling the students to give her a thumbs up when they are finished. Once the teacher sees every student with their thumb up then she can move on and instruct the whole class on the individual activity the students were just doing. This can also be useful if the children are taking a spelling test. Before the teacher moves on to the next spelling word she can have the students give her a thumbs up so she knows if she can continue to the next word and so that she is not moving too quickly for the students who work at a slower pace.