Teaching Procedures

Effective, consistent classroom procedures are essential to creating a classroom environment favorable to student learning. They communicate who and what is valued and, if stewarded well, can become opportunities for discipleship of students’ hearts toward God-honoring values and purposes. They help to improve student engagement while reducing poor student behaviours, leading to an environment in which students feel safe and ready to learn.

How do you establish classroom routines to maximise learning engagement for all students, thereby limiting learning time lost to managing poor behaviour?

Firstly, let’s take a couple of diversions, which help enormously, and then we’ll move on to broad and specific strategies.

Quality First Teaching (QFT)
Quality First Teaching has been around in the UK for a number of years with varying definitions and coincides with the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework in the US. These frameworks promote consistent teaching strategies which should be embedded into our practice, even into classroom procedures, because they work particularly well for students who have additional needs, with little or no detriment to students without those needs. Underpinning this perspective is a desire to value the full range of learners in each classroom, celebrating the diversity of each uniquely-created child. While most often QFT and UDL strategies apply to instructional practices and learning activities, they also help address behavioural matters.

Behaviour – Choice or not?
In most situations, all people, children and adults, who make poor behaviour decisions have at least some element of choice in what they do (though we recognise that a fully developed prefrontal cortex does help to make wise choices!). In many Western cultures, the prevailing view seems to be that if someone makes an inappropriate choice, it was most likely the result of something in their background, neurochemistry or circumstances, rather than anything to do with free will or choice. We disagree. As teachers, we can pre-empt some of these poor behaviour choices with consistent practices that create a safe but challenging environment for all our students.

Establishing Routines
Now, back to our main question. How do we establish routines to maximize learning engagement, minimize lost learning due to misbehaviour, and create an excellent learning environment for our students?

General Tips

• Be part of a team... even when no one is looking.

Following school wide expectations can be a challenge for some teachers. Most of us like to say we want to be part of a team, but for some teachers, this is followed by the whispered caveat of...obviously only when I agree with what I am being asked to do!
A teacher’s role is peculiar in that, in most cases, they are the only adult in the room and have an authority structure built around them that can make it hard to simply do what they are asked to do. Where you feel unable or unwilling to follow a schoolwide expectation, it is better to share your reasoning with leadership than to ignore the expectation and say sorry afterwards!

One aspect of being part of a team is to understand and use the schoolwide behaviour management systems, if your school has one. A good teacher is not one who never uses school-established sanctions, but one who uses them fairly and whose students know the teacher is aware of this support system behind them.

Another helpful aspect of being part of a team is that often your best source of professional development is your colleagues. If you find that you just cannot regularly get a particular student to behave the way you expect, then ask around, or even better, go and observe this student in different lessons in other classes. What do other teachers do that seems to work for this student? It may be that the student just doesn’t like your subject (or you teach them straight after lunch), but, then again, it may be there is an intentional strategy that a colleague is using that you don’t...but could.

• Be in charge. Your classroom is your space to control, so,

Develop healthy adult-student relationships. Your job description does not ask you to be the student’s best friend; you are still the adult leading the learning in the room. Yet, developing healthy adult-to-student relationships is a key factor in effective student learning.

Whenever possible, be in the room before students to welcome them into your space, greet each child as an individual, and get the lesson moving quickly with a starter activity.

Create a seating plan so students sit where you want them to, using this strategy to break up potentially challenging groupings and to support weaker students. You can relax this expectation over time, but sticking to it early in a school year, makes it clear, without your needing to state it, that you are in charge in the classroom.

Try a ‘no hands up’ or ‘directed questioning’ policy. Choosing a student with their hand up to answer a question usually makes you feel that the class understands, yet it may be that just one individual does. It also makes it easier for students to switch off from thinking about learning content, knowing you will not ask their view. In my current school, class sizes average around 15 students, and in the vast majority of lessons each student has asked or answered a question in the first 30 minutes of the lesson, with rarely a hand up in sight.

• Consider QFT / UDL strategies.

Be predictable: Maintain consistent daily routines and provide advance warning for changes to reduce anxiety for all.

Be calm: Create a calm environment by reducing clutter and limiting displays to minimize sensory overload.

Be clear: Use direct, literal language; avoid sarcasm and metaphors.

Be concise: Keep instructions concise, ideally only 1 or 2 steps.

Be reasonable: Give 7-10 seconds to process verbal questions before repeating.

Specific Procedures to Plan
The list of classroom procedures can be endless. Here are a few examples that are important to consider:

• Entering the classroom:
  Have a plan for how you want students to enter the classroom. What should they bring or not bring? Do you greet them at the door or once they are inside? What are they to do once in the classroom?

• Dismissal from the classroom:
  As the teacher, you should dismiss your students, not the clock or a bell. How will students know they have permission to leave? What do they need to take with them? How do you expect them to interact with another as they leave? How do you expect them to interact with you?

• Transitions between activities:
  During the lesson or day students will move between activities. How will you help them to know when it is time to end one activity and move to another? Giving students a warning that transition is coming a few minutes ahead is helpful for them to prepare. They are less likely to cause disruption or have behaviour outbursts when they are prepared for the transition to a new activity.

• Getting and storing materials:
  Students will need various materials to complete learning tasks. Some of these materials they will carry with them or store in the classroom. How will they access these materials in a way that is safe and efficient? If this requires students moving within in classroom, will all students move at the same time? Where are they to go and how are they to move? If getting materials does not require movement around the room, how do students know when it is permissible to get materials from their belongings or not? It is important to consider safety and space when thinking through these procedures. Also, consider how to encourage loving and serving one another in this procedure.

• Movement in the classroom:
  Students have the need to move their bodies throughout the day. When and how is this appropriate? What types of movement are permissible? Likely running in the classroom is not permissible due to the size of the space and the safety of all individuals. What movement do you anticipate students making and how can you help plan for them to be safe and effective, thus building habits of discipline and care for one another and the learning space?

Teach-Model-Practice
Procedures need to be taught explicitly to students. You need to set the expectations for what they are to do, how they are to do it and the reasoning behind it.

1. Teach the procedure in detail and include the ‘why’.
2. Model it by showing exactly what you want students to do. Another helpful type of modelling is to have individual students demonstrate the procedure correctly to the rest of the class. Ask the class to give feedback. Then have a student model the procedure incorrectly. Ask the class to give feedback as to what needs to be done differently. This is also a great way to allow for some students to receive positive attention.
3. Have all students practice the steps of the procedure. Give feedback and correct needed behaviours to help them complete the procedure as you expect. Praise students on what they did well and tell them what they need to do differently.
4. Continue to practice and model as needed. Have high expectations for your students and take your procedures seriously. In giving feedback and being consistent balance with grace and opportunities for growth.

Classroom procedures are a foundational part of the environment that you establish in your classroom, the “home” you create.[1] They help promote good learning, reduced poor behaviour, and a safe environment where students know they are valued.

Mark Prothero & Amanda Ferris

Mark has been a classroom teacher for 40 years in his home in the UK and internationally in Malawi and Cambodia, in both state and independent Christian school settings. He has served in senior school leadership roles for 25 of these years, with most of these leadership roles including a focus on schoolwide behaviour management strategies. Alongside a reduced teaching role, Mark currently serves as TeachBeyond’s Regional Vice President for West Asia. Mark is very happily married to Jane, a fellow educator, and together they have two amazing young adult children.

Amanda serves as the Curriculum Coordinator for Global School Services with TeachBeyond. She has over 20 years of educational experience as a primary school teacher, curriculum coordinator, and teacher educator. She’s worked in a start-up school, a program for struggling learners, and an international Christian school. She’s lived in four countries and visited many more. Outside of her work in education, Amanda enjoys drinking Earl Gray tea, wandering the English countryside, and having long, deep conversations with friends.