Without classroom management strategies, it is easy for a class to begin to feel overwhelmed and overloaded with chaos. This is something that we’ve noticed in sped resource classrooms and a major complaint from those teachers. This will affect the amount of instruction and progress for the students.

We’re going to give you seven classroom management strategies that will help you avoid unnecessary chaos in your resource classroom. You’ll find that most of these things will seem very simple but will make a major change in the way your classroom functions:

• Consistency
• Bell Starts
• Rules clearly Posted
• Routines Explicitly Taught
• Classroom Organization
• Minimal Unstructured Time
• Use Attention Signals

Luckily, I was able to learn to use these strategies when I was teaching second grade. I remember my first year teaching second grade, and I felt like my classroom was running pretty smoothly. My students transitioned well, and there were minimal distractions happening in the room. 

After a couple of months, I started to notice that there were more interruptions, shout-outs, and students wandering….honestly, it was driving me crazy! I couldn’t figure out why so many students were deciding to cause so much commotion. After a lot of thought and reflection, I decided that I needed to pay attention to things that I was doing differently. 

I found that the problem was me!

I wasn’t enforcing rules: I allowed students to shout out answers without raising their hands, and I allowed students to talk to a peer for a second. There was much more, but the bottom line was that I needed to teach the rules again, enforce the rules again, and use my consequence and reward system when students were following or not following the rules. 

I know that this was an example from a general education classroom, but these classroom management strategies apply and are so vital to ANY classroom setting.

So, with that said, here are seven classroom management strategies to make a powerful impact on your resource classroom setting:

Consistency is a Classroom Management Strategy Must

One simple classroom management strategy is consistency. It is so important that you follow through with anything that you say will happen. Be consistent with rules, routines, and any expectations in the room. Not only will this show the class that their decisions will have an automatic consequence, but it will also help students feel safe. When they know that things are predictable and they can trust what you say, then they will feel safe in the classroom.

Plan For Consequences

Make sure that you have a plan for the consequences. You should always pause before giving out any consequences because you have to follow through with whatever you say will happen!

Side note, my very first time teaching was in a fourth-grade classroom, and I was hired to cover a classroom for the last three months of school. My class was a handful with problem behaviors that created lots of chaos. Unfortunately, I learned my lesson the hard way and fed the chaos by threatening consequences and not following through. That was the longest three months of my life!!

Have bell starts ready

Especially when you have a pull-out service model within your school, this will be such a great addition to your classroom routine. A bell start is something that you have ready for the student to practice an independent skill right when they come in. This could be a worksheet, a booklet, or even a problem on the board they need to solve on a sticky note. This not only reduces the chaos but also reinforces a skill they have learned and gets the students ready for your instruction in a few minutes.

When you have students coming into your classroom, they do not all show up at the exact same scheduled time. They kind of wander in within a few minutes. What do the students do with that unstructured time? My experience:  talking, shouting, climbing on desks, wandering around the room, teasing other students, reading a book (that I can’t get them away from), and lying on the floor.

Have your rules clearly posted in your classroom

This seems simple enough, but this classroom management strategy makes a huge difference in your classroom. You only need 3- 5 rules that are stated in a positive way (for example: instead of “no talking,” put “use listening ears”). I would even go a step further and have a picture attached to the rule so that any students who struggle with reading or the language can attach a visual to what the rule is. 

Refer to your rules frequently

Another simple classroom management strategy is to refer to your rules frequently. We have worked with many teachers who have issues with problem behaviors, and when we ask if they have their rules posted and refer to them, they usually don’t. It’s something they let go of, and need to reimplement this classroom management strategy within their room again to help decrease the problem behaviors. 

Have routines explicitly taught

Think of the routines in your classroom that need to be established:  sharpening a pencil, coming into the classroom, leaving the classroom, making a comment, etc. Now, with the word explicitly, you’ll need to make sure that the students are very aware of what the expectation is. Give examples and non-examples of the routines.

If you’re unsure of what routines you need, visualize that you are a student coming into class for the first time. What routines do you find that you need to explicitly teach? Once you’ve identified those, make a step-by-step list of how these routines are done. 

Organize your classroom  

This is not to the extent that it should look like you stepped into a house that Joanna Gaines just remodeled, but your classroom shouldn’t look like a hoarder resides there! Some may think this is an exaggeration, but I’ve been in classrooms that are so cluttered with stuff that there is no place for students to put items away, and the teachers cannot find things. If your classroom allows space for students to walk around easily and there is a home for all materials, then the day-to-day functionality is going to naturally flow nicely.

This area would also relate to routines. If there is a home for all items, then the students can be taught how to clean up things on their own. This saves you so much time!

Keep unstructured time as minimal as possible

When the students walk into your classroom, they should already know what they are supposed to do. When students don’t know what they are supposed to be doing, they will quickly find something to do – whether it’s good or bad. In most cases, it’s disruptive. This is where the bell starts are very handy. Not only the bell start, but you need to be prepared for your classes ahead of time. When you try to throw something together at the last minute, you’ll find that your students will be sitting there waiting for you to get everything organized. 

UNPREPARED = WASTED INSTRUCTIONAL TIME + CHAOS

I learned that quickly within my first year of teaching resources. I didn’t have anything for my students to do when they first came into my classroom. I was waiting for all of the group to show up before I started my instruction. I had students climbing on chairs, cracking jokes, rolling on the floor, and wandering in the room. As soon as I added a bell start when they came into the classroom, the problem behaviors decreased significantly.

Create an attention signal  

If you don’t already know, an attention signal is any visual, audio, and/or verbal cue that the teacher gives to the students in order to get their undivided attention quickly. This will save time during instruction so that you don’t have to find yourself telling eight different students to look at you during the lesson. This does not have to be anything fancy, and some examples may be:  (teacher) “One, two,” (students) “eyes on you.” As soon as the students are given the attention signal, they know to stop what they are doing, have their eyes on the teacher, and are ready to listen.

I didn’t have an attention signal in my first year of teaching resource and didn’t realize how helpful it was until the school psychologist at my school taught my students an attention signal, and I adopted the classroom management strategy for myself. The signal was “Get ready.” Fancy, huh? 

classroom management strategies Lead to Productive Classrooms

If you haven’t already noticed, many of these classroom management strategies relate to other ones. It’s really just good teaching practices that all teachers should implement in their classrooms:

• Consistency
• Bell Starts
• Rules clearly Posted
• Routines Explicitly Taught
• Classroom Organization
• Minimal Unstructured Time
• Use Attention Signals

I had a really good discussion with a teacher a while ago. It was her third year teaching special education, and I had her review the suggestions again. She immediately told me that she was going to display her class rules again. She said that in her first two years, she had to be careful with following all good teaching practices because there was a student with intense problem behaviors, but because this year her students were so much easier, the teacher was much more lax than previous years. She was starting to notice the chaos slowly evolving and knew that she needed to make a change before it got out of control.  

classroom management strategies apply forever!

The whole point of this is that even if you’re not a new teacher, these classroom management strategies still apply. They apply until the end of time!

There are many other things that you can have established in your classroom, but these are the seven classroom management strategies we felt are the most simple and basic and make the biggest difference in the culture of your classroom.