Perfecting Procedures: Practical Practices for a Productive Classroom!

Brick and Mortar Classroom Procedures 

During summer planning, it is a great time to decide what specific procedures you want to make sure you put in place to keep yourself sane. Anna’s system is to create a safe space where there are no excuses for students not to learn. What did that consist of you ask? Anna created a station at the back of the room that always had pencils, extra paper, and any supplies needed for the day. What else was in her room? A special place (and order) for textbooks and notebooks. Now, students are not going to enter your classroom on day 1 and understand your organization system. Some days, it may seem like their supreme goal is to test every piece of your organization system. The key is a lot of patience and a lot of practice and a lot of labels. 

So, we encourage you to make a list of procedures that you want followed in your classroom. This list may get long, and that is ok! If there is a particular process you want students to follow for sharpening pencils, then you need to teach students your procedure for that so add that to your procedures list. Just a few procedures that Megan and Anna taught in class to help you start thinking about it...  

• Sharpening pencils 

• Passing up papers 

• Passing out papers 

• Turning in homework 

• Retrieving notebooks/books 

• Returning notebooks/books 

• When a student has a question 

• When someone knocks on the door 

• Emergency drills (fire, bad weather, intruder) 

• Leaving the room (restroom / drink / visiting another teacher)  

Once you make your list of procedures you would like in your room, make sure you also decide what / how they will be completed. Will students always come in, take their seat, then work on the warm up, or will it be students come in, turn in homework, grab the daily lesson then sit at their desk. Make your procedures as detailed as you would like for your notes, but remember to keep them simple for the students. The longer/ more complicated the procedure the longer it will take to master. Teaching students these procedures takes a lot of time the first few weeks of school but it is worth it! Students get into the routine and this allows you (and them) the time to focus on the math content instead of all of the housekeeping.  

What do Procedures look like in the Virtual Classroom?  

Currently we both teach in virtual classrooms with students who can schedule times with us to meet one on one. Therefore, we don’t have a structured class time or lesson to explain. In this setting, it is important to still set those expectations at the beginning of the year. One way to do this is in a series of welcome emails sent to the students and parents before their first day in class. In these series of emails (try to keep them short so only a little bit of information is sent over a week rather than a lot of information on one day), we lay out how to turn material in as well as any specifics about how to type up/write math.  (Some schools have specific ways they want this and some schools let it be teacher discretion. Know your school and what they are willing to stand behind you on with this aspect.)  Then throughout the course length, we just keep referencing and reminding the student what is expected of them. Again after a few units (which is usually about a month) the student usually remembers the process which allows for their learning to take a bigger jump forward! 

Procedures at Home?  

All the above information is fantastic if you are a teacher with a classroom of students who are not your own children. However, little of it really will work if you are homeschooling since homeschooling usually looks so much different than classroom learning. We will be the first to admit we are new to homeschooling and its way of teaching/ learning, but we do know that the structure/ routine is again the key to a successful day! While bell ringer and exit tickets may not work in the traditional sense you could still utilize them to start and end the math portion of learning for the week. Whenever you have a math lesson start with a review question (or a few) that activates the prior knowledge and sets up the lesson with what will be covered. Once the lesson is complete and the problems are practiced, pick one of them and use it to track the learning that was completed that day. You as the parent/ teacher can also use these end of day problems to track what was learned throughout the year and to see where your child may be struggling verses excelling. The key here is to set the expectations early, teach your child(ren) the procedures, and stick to it. With consistency, your students understand what is expected of them and when.  

What are some of the procedures you have in your classroom / home learning area? Are there any we missed talking about that are absolutely fundamental to the smooth running of your room?

-Megan and Anna