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Hello everyone, my name is Laregilon Hughes. I am a student teacher at the University of Houston. I recently did an interactive lesson about scarcity and the kids loved it, but they seemed to yell at one another while trading items. What are some ways in which you set the expectations prior to an activity?

Hi There Larrgilon, My name is Kelly and I actually live and teach in Houston so I thought I would reply. First, great idea to get the kids moving. Part of the reason they were squirrelly is that they probably are not use to moving around in there other classes so they only equate learning with fun time not learning. So to smooth the waters a bit model for them how you expect them to act, pull in a few students as helpers and show them the right and wrong ways to participate in your lesson. You could also tell them by the end of this lesson I expect you to be able to answer xyz, give them some reasons for why they are doing what they are doing. My 2 cents. If you have more questions please let me know. Kelly

To piggy back off of what Kelly said, in the classroom I student teach in we use CHAMPS. Before every activity or even if you forget to do it before you can do it in the middle when they start to go crazy, but this helps to develop an instructional structure in which students are responsible, motivated, and highly engaged in the specific task at hand. It actually works very well. When they begin to get out of hand you can remind them of what being successful looks like. You can even ask them to show you what it looks like when they are getting out of hand.

Hello Breanna,

I think it is so cool that your kids were so engaged in the lesson! I know that is such an exciting feeling. Classroom management can be difficult especially when students are exposed to different teaching styles. I agree with the users above, modeling is such a great way to demonstrate what your expectations are. In my classroom, if we are going to do anything that may be out of the ordinary or may allow students a lot of opportunities to self-regulate we talk about the expectations before we begin as a whole class. We talk about what each behavior looks like when you are doing it correctly versus what it looks like when you are doing it incorrectly.
There are a lot of really cool behavior management programs that schools adopt so that students have the consistency of expectations from class to class. CHAMPs is one of those programs. Although, it is totally appropriate to use it in your class even if you are the only teachers using it. CHAMPs is an acronym for
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As the teacher, you would clearly define what the expectations are for each of the categories for all of your students. Then as you are engaged in lessons or activities you will refer students back to the expectations. Students want to be engaged in class. They want to have exciting lessons and not be bored, so explaining to students that as a classroom they can do cool things because they are staying within the behavior expectation may help them care more about why they should honor the classroom rules. Having whole class discussions and encouraging students to define what behavior 'do and don'ts' look like may create more investment in following along. You didn't say what grade you teach but I hope that this is able to help you in your classroom. I hope you continue to do amazing lessons with high student engagement!

My first year of teaching I did a science experiment which turned into a crazy and chaotic hour! I had parent volunteers too which made it much more embarrassing.. BUT.. I learned from that experiment. I have found that some groups of kids are much more chatty/vocal than others but I still hold them responsible for their actions and set expectations high. We talk about what good group behavior looks like and what it shouldn't look like. I did some oil spill experiments with oil and water in tubs last year. It could have been a recipe for disaster but it actually was very fun and educational project. The students all listened to directions and believe it or not we didn't have a huge mess. They all worked in small groups and all had a task to do. It kept them busy and engaged. They loved it! Set those expectations high.. and let them know that they will be able to do more fun projects if they stay on task and focused.