Effective Classroom Management Strategies for New Teachers
This post contains some affiliate links, which means that we make a small commission off items you purchase at no additional cost to you.
If you’re new to teaching, effective classroom management can feel overwhelming as the first day of class approaches. Standing in front of a class of middle school students (or really any age!) can be nerve wracking. Let’s talk about the best way effective teachers approach disruptive students and foster a respectful classroom environment while meeting students’ needs!
Classroom Expectations
Setting Effective Rules for First Year Teachers
First, you need to consider your classroom rules to have clear expectations. This takes time to find things that work for you and your teaching style, and you’ll likely try something and make tweaks to it year after year as you find a good fit and grow in your classroom management skills. That’s okay!
You just want to have something in place so you can lean on them for things like cheating, late work, retakes, and more. Depending on your grade level and school, you might need to set up a cell phone policy, too! Check out this blog post for my thoughts to give you a jumping off point as you’re mulling it over.
Student Participation and 90% Time in the Target Language
ACTFL talks about spending 90% of class time in the target language to aid in language acquisition, but this can be really difficult if the entire class isn’t on board. In fact, it’s helpful if student engagement holds you accountable for that goal and you work together to achieve it! Individual students will really like “catching” you to help keep you on track, and this can be an opportunity for positive feedback for you as well.
This goal of 90% time can be one of the biggest challenges if students and guardians don’t understand they why behind it. They can find themselves overwhelmed or surprised by hearing so much Spanish in Spanish class. However, it’s the best use of instructional time to spend it in the target language, as long as students are supported via scaffolding and other tools.
I have found it incredibly helpful to give them a head’s up at back to school night or open house to help them adjust to the idea that yes, we will be speaking Spanish IN SPANISH CLASS this school year. One way to do that is to just have this handout available. It’s a free download in my blog post here, and it just lays out why spending 90% of class time in the target language is the goal based on more recent research, where that number came from, and how students and the teacher will work together to make it happen for a positive learning experience for the class.
Classroom Rules
It’s hard to have classroom management techniques without clear rules, but this is the area I honestly tend to feel the most “off” from others: classroom rules and expectations. Before I spell it out, I’m just going to remind you that this is how I run things in my classroom – but that might not work for you, or you might have different opinions, and that’s okay!
I take a very laid back approach to this. I don’t go over rules and expectations on the first day of school, we don’t co-create classroom rules, and the classroom rules I have posted is a school-wide PBIS poster requirement with whatever catchy motto is scrawled across the top. In my classroom, things are generally fine & good unless you cross the line and turn the positive learning environment sour.
There are times where as a whole class we will talk about exact and specific expectations, like for story telling or story asking days, running dictation, Corre en Círculos – activities that might take a turn for the particularly wild if we don’t have very clear lines and boundaries, so I like to review those with students.
In general, as my teaching career has been spent with high school students who have “done the school thing” for over a decade and understand general class expectations, I tend to trust in the school norms to set boundaries, and that’s worked well. I always lean into positive reinforcement for good behavior, but without it feeling like you’re just saying “Good job!” for the simplest, lowest expectations of things. Personally, those positive relationships will go a long way, and we’ll talk about what that looks like next.
Positive Relationships
Everyone under the sun will tell you that step one to a positive classroom environment is building relationships. Strong relationships encourage mutual respect and positive behavior. It’s strange to think about classroom management strategy this way, but it is absolutely one of the best classroom management practices! Let’s talk about some ways to build positive relationships for successful classroom management.
Here are 5 strategies you can use to build classroom culture:
- Special Person Interviews
- Recommend books based on student interest
- Regular check-Ins with guardians
- Brain Breaks
- Share about yourself on a personal level (some caveats here, check out my recommendations in this blog post for more details!)
- Play games that encourage critical thinking and group work
Learn more in my blog post here!
Handling Disruptive Behavior
After you’ve thought about those policies and procedures, you’re going to want to put them in writing. Even if you teach middle school, it’s so handy to have a syllabus ready for little things like, yes, using AI to answer questions IS cheating, and no, you can’t ask Siri to translate that for you. Putting those policies in place in a neatly organized handout is helpful to communicate to students and guardians about those expectations, and means you can point back to it if any hiccups occur.
Check out my tips for creating a syllabus to outline your expectations for digital tools like AI and translators, active participation and active listening, and more in my blog post here!
Professional Development
To wrap this all up, I wanted to share some resources to support you as you learn different techniques and strategies. I share several of them in this video:
The first is the training from Kagan that I’ve mentioned before. I really enjoy the strategies I learned there, and use them often! This is the book I received at the training and it is jam-packed with info.
I also love the book A Natural Approach to the Year. A lot of the book was super interesting, but didn’t apply to me at the time I read it because I had a curriculum I had to follow, but the entire chapter on classroom management is GOLD.
Next is the community of teachers that you turn to, whether those be in person, out of state, or just online. I’m personally part of a few Facebook groups that I find really helpful as well as my state organization! Here are 2 posts where I’ve detailed information about in person and online organizations that you can check out to find more places to connect:
These are all great ways to keep learning and growing in effective communication and classroom behavior strategies. Whether it is the beginning of the year, before winter break, or making it through to summer, having strong behavior management is vital to supporting student learning and their academic performance.
Save this post for later!
Advice for First Year Teachers
Make sure to check out my series of tips and advice for first year teachers!
