Classroom management is a challenge for many teachers, but it can be especially triggering for STEM teachers. This is where procedures for the STEM classroom come in handy! Most Stem teachers see multiple groups of students a day or every week. They can sometimes even see every class at their school site for a total of 30 minutes a week. It’s often difficult to create, implement, and hold to a classroom management system in that short amount of time.
In the worst of cases, if there is no system set, students won’t know the processes for the class and when they’re building during their stem challenges. Behavior issues can arise, along with teacher frustration.
This is why that it is extremely important for STEM teachers, whether they are in their own classroom or cart stem teachers, rotating from class to class, to have a system that they can work with and keep all year long.
In this post, you will a breakdown of how to get started with creating your own system that works for you and your students this year.
Setting Procedures
You’ve probably seen the hundreds of lists of procedures to set for your classroom, but chances are you haven’t seen any that are specific to STEM teachers. It’s still very crucial to set procedures for daily tasks and tasks that are repeated. It provides a sense of security for the students and allows them to be creative and free within their classroom bounds.
Get started with setting procedures from day one, and model how you want the procedures to be followed through. Keep practicing until you feel the students are responding well to it.
Some teachers may feel that this should only be done at the beginning of the school year, but the reality is that students forget. It’s best to review them after big breaks, long weekends, and before/during/and after special holidays.
If you decide to change or modify a procedure, don’t just mention it to your students, but explicitly teach how you want it to be executed, just like you did at the beginning of the school year.
It may seem repetitive, but these actions make running what can sometimes be a chaotic STEM class to be smooth-running.
20 Procedures in the STEM Classroom
Here is a list of stem procedures you may want to consider teaching in your classroom. Pick and choose which fits your needs.
- Walking into class
- Getting picked up from their homeroom teacher
- Getting engineering journals
- Using engineering journals
- Storing engineering journals
- Finding a pencil in the STEM classroom
- Storing belongings in the STEM classroom
- Classroom Jobs such as journal passers, light monitor, equipment cleaner, technology guru, etc…
- Getting supplies in the STEM classroom
- Choosing a group to work with
- Finding a space to work with your group
- Working in groups (You can find how I set up groups here)
- Walking around the STEM classroom
- Using technology in the STEM classroom
- How to Get technology in the classroom
- How to Store away the technology
- Working in STEM building groups (You can find how I teach my Stem Challenges here)
- Jobs during STEM building groups
- Coming to a Solution when students in a group can’t decide
- How to Contact the teacher when you have a question in your group
- How to get work during an absence
If you’re looking to go even further than the modeling of the procedures, you can even have the students work through scenarios. Some of the scenarios can be such as “If a group member does not want to agree with your design, what do you do?” Having a classroom discussion about this can be very helpful.
STEM Group Scenario Cards
You can find those cards here.
FREE STEM Guide: Getting Started in the STEM Classroom
If you are a new STEM teacher or wanting to improve your classroom management, sign up to receive this everything-included STEM Guide. You will find posters, group-building jobs, and an ebook on how to get started with all of your new free resources.
