Teacher interview


The person I interviewed for the classroom management project is Ms. Byrne, she has been teaching for about five years now. She currently teaches Social science to 7th and 8th grade. Ms. Byrne is my unit leader and I’ve enjoyed working with her for the past year. I’ve always admired the way she has controlled over her classroom, many students like it and she is a positive role model for them. This is why I decided to interview her. This is the interviewed I had with her:

What are the key skills that you need in order to be effective in classroom management?
            Classroom management skills are essential to effectively teaching. While content knowledge is indisputably necessary, the content material cannot be effectively taught in a disorderly classroom. In order to achieve a well-managed classroom, a set of concise rules and expectations must be immediately established and enforced with consistency. Classroom rules and expectations must be immediately established and enforced with consistency. Classroom rules and expectations for the day’s activities should also be visible to the students (i.e. posted on board, projected). Especially within grade levels that switch classes, establishing routines (i.e. bell ringers) are quite effective. In addition to routines and expectations, it’s important to have a strong rapport with their students and develop a mutual respect.

What do you do when students are continually being disruptive in class and affect the learning of other students?
            Initially when a student disrupts class, I provide a subtle, nonverbal cue to redirect the student back to the assigned task. If the student continues to make disruptive choices, he/she will receive a verbal redirection that names the behavior he or she is exhibiting and restated the pre-established consequence(s) that he/she will receive for continuing this behavior. If the student disrupts class again—after the non-verbal and verbal redirection – I will ask he/she to speak with me in the hallway where I will discuss this behavior and officially issue a consequence. In order to effectively manage a classroom, the consequence must then be issued. If not, the same behaviors are likely to be repeated. If a student is blatantly disruptive despite every attempted redirect, you have to be consider reaching out to his/her parent or seeking administrative support in serious cases of misbehavior.

What have been the best ways that you have grabbed everyone’s attention in a lesson?
            Anticipatory sets are a great way to peak student interest in a new topic. Anticipatory sets can take various forms including a question, photograph, song, fact, challenge, clue, etc. In order to keep student engagement throughout the class period, I would recommend limiting the amount of time you spend on any given task or activity to 10 or 15 minutes. Despite the intrigue of the activity, students begin to lose interest past that point.

What do you do when students are being too loud/wild/disrespectful/all over the place, what is your way for getting their attention?
            If a majority of the classroom becomes engaged in side conversations or another sort of disruptive behavior, it can be difficult to redirect and identify the root of the behavior. I typically use a “3-2-1 countdown” to redirect students back to the task. At the front of the room, I will countdown from 3 verbally and visually (using my fingers). From my introduction of expectations and procedures on the first day of school, the students understand that when I get to zero, [they] need to be at a zero voice level (silent). As most of the students will become silent by zero, it is much easier to identify who is still talking and that can be directly addressed. At the middle school level, I have found this more effective than simply holding up a zero to indicate the voice level or attempting to regain attention by giving directions/expectations at that time. The countdown allows students three seconds to wrap up their sentence/conversation. Losing three seconds is nothing compared to a great deal of the period becoming derailed by collective disruptions.

What tips can you give me to help me be successful in the classroom?
            As mentioned in the previous responses, creating clear expectations, establishing routines, and using anticipatory sets are great ways for teachers to achieve in their classrooms. Any of these tactics can be adapted to your own personal teaching style, which is great!

How do you manage your classroom when it comes to ESL students who may not be completely familiar with the concept being taught?
            To accommodate and support ESL students, I use many visuals and verbal/written instructions on assignments. I find that for multi-part instructions, it is best that the directions appear in a step-by-step format or checklist. I also try to gage students’ background knowledge as best as I can before introducing new material. I just started working on my ESL endorsement, so I will keep you posted about new strategies I learn through my coursework!

While reading her responses I saw the implements many things that were discussed in Woolfolk book in chapter thirteen when it talks about having a set of rules and routines (page 514) as well as giving examples of what methods she uses when grabbing students attention. Even though I wasn’t able to record her, I’ve witnessed her teaching a few times throughout the school year and the relationship she was with the students.  As mentioned in Woolfoks textbook building positive relationships with students influences the way we can manage our classroom (page 524). During my first weeks of teaching she has one of the teachers I go to when figuring out how to deal with certain classroom-management issues. Some of them work for me and some of them don’t, it depends on what grade level I’m with. It’s different when I work with 1st graders than when I am teaching 8th graders. The strategies used cannot be the same. Ms. Byrne, is a great help for me and for other first year teachers in this particular school. I continue learning from her and from my other colleagues in and outside of the school I teach.  I understand that  classroom management is extremely important and will continue exploring different strategies, but most importantly one thing I’ve learned is to always know your students and build positive relationships with them, the more you know your students the best classroom environment you will have.

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