- Physical Space: Have you changed the physical arrangement in your classroom? If you were a student in the room, how would it feel to enter and sit at one of the seats in your room? Are there clear paths to desks, storage, tools, and stations? Can you see the screen? Do you have some “private” space?
- Procedures and routines: When was the last time you reviewed procedures with the students? What do you want students to do in each section of class time? How do they know what the procedures are for doing each activity? How have you informed new students of all your procedures?
- Rules and consequences: What are the basic rules that are needed for instruction to take place? (Remember the difference between a rule and a procedure) What happens if a student doesn’t follow a rule? What happens when they do?
- Engaging lessons: What are your teaching goals for each lesson? What do you want to introduce, present, review or assess? What will students do to meet the objectives for the material taught and will the lesson be relevant and engaging?
When we first start out in education we often think that we know what we're doing. We think that we don't need any help and that everything that we need to know we learned in our education classes. It only takes about three days into the job to realize that our college education did not fully prepare us for every single student that we're going to face. It didn't truly prepare us for how we really should deliver a lesson when we have students on five different levels along with multiple types of disruptions. It didn't prepare us to handle all the routines, all the the daily tasks, all the decisions that we have to make. This isn't intended to disparage any university program, but just an acknowledgement that there is now way for them to fully prepare you for every student and situation you will face. Experience is the only true way to learn how to handle all of these different types of situations. So how do we make up for that information gap? That is a chall...

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