Picture my first year as a STEM teacher. I had no classroom management plan for my stem class, but I still thought I had everything under control. You see I already had been teaching four years in first grade. I thought I had a system that could easily transfer over. Little did I know that teaching a STEM class would be very different from a classroom teacher position.
When you’re a STEM teacher, you might see your students only 45 minutes a week or 20 minutes a day. You will most likely be in a constant rotation of the students in the school. n my case the entire district! I saw about 400 students a week, and it seemed like the next time I saw the students, they were completely new students all over again.
They barely remembered my name, and I most definitely didn’t remember theirs.
Struggles in STEM Class
Another struggle was learning to be flexible in every STEM class. As a cart stem teacher, you go into other teacher’s spaces. You will have to use their systems and be comfortable with adjusting your level of comfort for certain things. Some of those things will include noise level and student competency in working in collaborative groups.
This can affect a STEM teacher because it may seem hopeless to try to set up a classroom management system in a room that you will only be in a fraction of the time in the year, but the truth is that it is possible to set up a system for yourself as well learn to be flexible when you step foot into another classroom.
In this post, I will be sharing how I set up my classroom management system in my STEM classes and I continued to foster this system to help to learn more smoothly.
Foundation of Classroom Management in the STEM Class
If you have seen my past Youtube video on classroom management for first-year teachers then you know that the heart and foundation of my classroom management plan is always the care and love I have for my students. I am not trying to control my students with this plan, nor do I want their behavior to be modified just because of this plan.
My goal is for them to see that as a person, I care about them and am setting these guidelines and restrictions (just like engineers have in their jobs) to create a successful setting where students are able to reach and surpass their potential. These systems will remove any doubts of what can be done and what cant be done and allowing the students to thrive.
This is something I always explain on the first day of class because my students need to know that the main priority is to learn in our class. It’s not to have fun while building, it’s not with their friends, and it definitely is not to hang out with the teacher.
Classroom Procedures
You can read this blog post on classroom procedures for a very detailed look and a list of procedures to set in your classroom.
Classroom procedures in the STEM class are not only necessary but could be dangerous if not implemented. With so many technological pieces, STEM materials, and a hoard of moving bodies in the classroom, it is necessary for a STEM teacher to teach their students how to do certain things.
This will take weeks to fully implement, but the students that you have this year that come back next year will be professionals. You will notice that the explanations and modeling of these procedures will get shorter and shorter because your students have grown so accustomed to them.
Create a Plan and Share it
In my class, my students knew that I had a roster of every class with every guardian’s phone number on it. This was something I tried to get year after year because being able to hold my students accountable with their families is very important.
The classroom teacher doesn’t have the time to hear the problems you had in your classroom and for you to ask them to take care of it by calling their families. They want to know that when you come into their class, you will handle the situations that arise. This may mean you will have to take time to call some families, reach out to students during non-class times, and contact administration for more support if need be depending on the situation.
When I was creating my system for my classes, I needed to know I could handle this system week after week. I had over 400 students a year, and sometimes it took me 3 months to learn every student’s name. So I had to make sure that I could live with the system I created after I shared it with the students, their teachers, and families.
If you know me, then you know the next thing I say will not be a shock.
I kept it simple.
The Three Guidelines
The students were required to follow the three guidelines.
- Be respectful
- Participate
- Have Fun
We did a thorough discussion about each one, and the students knew that the first rule was most important to have in class. They also learned that the second rule was to help the students learn and grow in class. The third rule was more about attitude.
STEM is hard, if you don’t know yet, read this blog post on STEM misconceptions.
It’s hard to hold class when students are complaining about how hard something is or how they feel they can’t do the assignment. I will discuss this most in the Socio-Emotional Learning part in this blog post.
Step 1: Reminder by the Desk
Every day I saw them, I would review quickly the expectations of class. I had a slide in my weekly slide deck. It lived there, and my students knew to expect it right after they read the objective for the day.
But for some reason, there was a student that decided to be disrespectful to me, their peers, or the classroom/materials, then I would walk over to them and quietly, at eye to eye level ask them to stop doing the disrespectful behavior. Then I would ask them why they were doing the behavior. This is when they would share their thought.
Sometimes it was a simple miscommunication. Sometimes it was a response to a negative feeling they had within themselves. Oftentimes, I would quickly empathize with them, tell them it was ok and moved on as nothing happened.
Step 2: Conversation Outside the Door
Sometimes, you still have students who continue to push the limits of the guidelines and rules. This is when I give the students a task to complete while I ask the students calmly to come outside the door so I can speak to them. I never speak aloud to students when the other students are listening. I make the time to keep it extremely private.
When the student steps outside, I tell them why I called them outside to speak to them. I will then try to understand what was going on in their head when they did the behavior. I may ask them to explain what they did if I was unsure of their behavior and needed clarification.
If the incident is between two students, then I will ask both students to come outside and explain their side of the story. I teach them that there is only talking from one side until they are done. We listen, and then the other side can speak.
Pulling students out to have a private conversation is the least we can do to try to understand the undesired behavior. Singling out students out in front of their peers will hurt and embarrass them, so providing opportunities for two-way, private communication is important.
Before my students leave to back indoors after I have excused their behavior and done a quick re-teaching of my expectations, I explain that if I call the students outside the door again, then their guardians/families will be contacted to further discuss how I can help them learn the class guidelines.
Step 3: Contacting Families
Through this three-step system is a simple one, it has transformed how I respond to behavior and how quickly students’ behaviors have turned around.
The students are able to see my actions of respecting them and keeping matters private. They can also see the love and care I have for them by giving them grace for their first and second mistakes. In all my years of teaching STEM to thousands of students, I’ve only had to contact families with behavior issues a handful of times.
Though it was difficult, it was a necessary action to get to the bottom of habits that were getting in the way of learning in my STEM classes.
I set this system for my classes, but that doesn’t mean this will work for you. After reading mine, think about what you want your guidelines/rules to be in STEM class. How will you share it with your students? How will you hold them accountable? What opportunities will you create for re-teaching of guidelines?
Scenario Cards
If you feel your students need more practice on how to properly respond in all kinds of situations in STEM class, these STEM Class Scenario Cards are perfect to model different types of responses that are appropriate in a stem class.
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