New Semester, Let’s Refresh

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The classroom is a very dynamic place; it refresh fosters an environment that its residents conjure and accumulates a learning climate guided by the teacher. This is why setting student expectations and defining classroom routine and procedural behavior is significant to increasing productivity and reducing disruptive behavior. If left unchecked, even the most disciplined class can become unruly over time.

Generally, routines are designed to be predictive and consistent in a manner that can help carry out classroom functions in an orderly and efficient manner. Roughly routines can be divided into three types, administrative, instructional, and interactive. The administrative routines can include activities like taking attendance or setting stationary stations. Instructional routines can include procedures students should follow when attempting or reviewing in-class material.

Finally, interactive routines can include expected behavior from students when they need to converse with the instructors or their classmates. Most teachers inherently understand the need for routines and make intentional efforts to teach students about daily routines; however, their effects are temporary Refresh.

This happens because we often fail to understand the cyclic nature of the classroom. That it resets itself, not just when new faces come in at the start of the year, but multiple times during the year. Particularly at the start of a new semester, even with the same kids for whom you had already planned everything out. This is why it can be important to continuously revisit the set of procedures and set student expectations. Prioritizing refreshing daily routines can have several advantages:

Advantages Refresh of Daily Routines

1. Soft Skills and Evaluation: Classroom routines are designed to create channels of interaction, whether for carrying out a specific task or interacting with other students. As a teacher, you can use these interactions to evaluate how well a student can follow specific instructions or gauge how confident they are in their interactions with their classmates.
2. Optimize Productivity: Each classroom is different from the next; the students you might be in charge of this year may be very different from the ones you were in charge of from the last. Hence, there cannot be a single universal method of optimizing productivity. However, you can take advantage of the cyclic nature of classes. The first semester gives you plenty of time to acquaint yourselves with the students, and the break following the semester can give you the time to choose methods that are ideal for them.
3. Smoother Transition: Revisiting expectations from students within the classroom after a significant gap such as that of summer vacation is crucial. This is because no matter how well students were adhering to daily routines or how well the behavioral procedures were delineated, routines only last as long as they are obediently being followed. Hence, it is going to be difficult for them to fall into their previous habits naturally. Actively conveying their responsibilities and how they are expected to behave can make the transition back to school smoother and save valuable time in resuming adequate learning activities.
4. Reinforce Values: As a teacher, your aim isn’t to simply teach them how to do algebra or excel in literature. Part of your duty is to impart important values to your students that can help them perform well as members of society. Hence, setting the correct expectations and choosing the appropriate list of behavioral procedures is paramount. It is also essential that the routines are properly followed to ensure that the values they entail are properly instilled in the students.

Making Classroom Routines Effective

1. Reflect and Revise: After each semester ends, you have the time to reflect. See what worked for your class and what didn’t. Look at your list of routines and procedures. Did students follow the early morning procedures well? Did they scatter and waste time transitioning from one routine to the other? You now have a chance to see how students reacted as a collective body to specific routines. Based on this, you can either remove some procedures altogether or include new ones.
2. Elucidate: An important tip for effectively using the procedures is to elucidate why they are essential. Monotonically telling students to do something in a certain way can deprive them of reaping the true benefits of following a routine. For example, if your post-class routine involves leaving the class in an orderly fashion, let students know why you are making them go through the hassle and how it can promote discipline. Students are more reciprocating when they understand why they carry out certain routines.
3. Bold and Clear: A very elegant way of communicating daily routines to your students is to have them posted in the classroom. You can use any simple medium such as chart paper, poster board, or a small whiteboard with simple routines clearly and boldly written on them. But do make sure that the routines are written as concisely as possible, in vibrant color to catch the students’ eyes, and do not have too many steps the Refresh.
4. Delegate: It can be worthwhile to delegate a student to supervise the classroom routines. Doing this can instill a sense of responsibility in the chosen student while ensuring that the other students correctly follow the procedure.
5. Praise: The best type of reinforcement is positive reinforcement. Students should be praised when they follow the routines correctly, especially if they entail a high level of individual responsibility. This can encourage other students to follow routines not in fear of doing something wrong but with the desire to do something right.

Do Your Homework

Before you set out write your own set of procedures and enact them in the classroom. Make sure that you have thoroughly revised and practiced them. It is also imperative that the routines are as straightforward as possible since they are meant to simplify actions in the classroom. A difficult-to-follow routine would only have the opposite effect of Refresh.

We also advise keeping a notepad that you can use to revise your routines based on student responses continuously. In the end, we want to help you make the classroom a better place for your students and wish you all the best in these endeavors.