This post was adapted from a larger lesson plan by Teach For America alum Rachel Wright. Show
A healthy rules and consequences system is essential in creating a culture of respect and academic achievement in the classroom. Before embarking on tackling your big learning goals for the year, your students need a chance to internalize rules and consequences, have a chance to see them illustrated or demonstrated, and understand why they’re necessary. Clearly articulated and practiced expectations will help you address behavior issues quickly and consistently so you can spend more time working with students to achieve academic goals. But where do you start? Read our guide to creating a rules and consequences system that sticks. Outline Key Points When introducing class rules and consequences to your students, first outline the key points that every student should know and understand by the end of the lesson, such as: 1. Classroom rules are important because they establish an environment of respect and academic achievement in our classroom. 2. When we follow rules, we are making good choices about our academic success and our lives. When we do not follow rules, we are making bad choices, and there will be consequences to help you continue on your progress toward your academic goals. 3. Your class rules are (sample rules detailed below): be prepared, show respect, be prompt, participate, and be responsible. 4. Your class consequences are (sample rules detailed below): a written warning, a teacher-conference warning, a seat move, a behavior/goal reflection with a call home to parent. Sample rules and what they mean:
Sample consequences:
Communicate the What Start your lesson by telling students exactly what you plan to do during the practice: that you will spend the next 20 minutes talking about and justifying classroom expectations and consequences, so they understand why you are enforcing them and don’t think that you are just being mean or unfair. Communicate the Why Explain that establishing a culture of respect and academic achievement in the classroom is the only way to reach their goals. Communicate the How Spend a few minutes doing a “looks like, sounds like” for your first rule, and then go through and explain each one of the rules and consequences. To ensure the information is accessible to all students, present the rules and consequences verbally as well as visually on poster displays. Consequences also may be acted out to engage all learners. Make time for questions to ensure everyone understands what is expected of them, and randomly call on students throughout to gauge their understanding (for example, “what might ‘be prepared’ mean?” or “what do you need each morning in order to be prepared?”). Finally, at the end of lesson, consider assigning a written project to assess students’ overall understanding. How else do you establish and communicate a rules and consequences system in your classroom? Tell us in the comments. Student Contributor: S. Hsu  This tool should be used at the beginning of the year to set the tone and climate for the classroom. There are many ways to approach this this tool, but for the sake of this article, I will be discussing it in the terms of a student-directed and collaborative sense. During the activity, the teacher will be acting as a facilitator for the discussion amongst the students. Some teachers, like Levin & Nolan (2014) point out, have some rules already created before starting the process. These pre-created rules help guide the students as they brainstorm and refine the rules they want for their classroom. On the other hand, other teachers freely allow the students to work through the process of creating rules, but reserve the right to nix a rule if deemed necessary. It is important to keep in mind the rules about making rules! Teachers cannot expect students to know the guidelines around making rules, so it’s essential that teachers discuss them at some point before or during the process. For instance, if the teacher is recording the class-generated rules on a poster or whiteboard, she should positively phrase them. It is pretty typical to hear rules that begin with, “don’t do this…” or “don’t do that…” but, studies have found that positively phrasing expectations is much more effective (Brady et al., 2011). Moreover, there is a chance that students will create 10, 20, or even 30 rules! However, that many rules are not necessary. Rules should be outlining the moral and ethical expectations within the classroom, everything else can fall to procedures. Again, this concept will have to be discussed before or during the process. Despite being a part of the preventative phase, this tool does have a place among the supportive and corrective phase. During the supportive phase, teachers can remind students of the classroom rules and expectations (these reminders are a part of the supportive phase because they happen during learning). In the corrective phase, the rules can be discussed again. Teachers can ask students that misbehaved, “what expectation did you not meet? Why are you having a hard time following this rule? What does this rule look like in the classroom?” Moreover, teachers can model the behavior within the classroom. Like mentioned above, I believe that this tool fits best within the student-directed and collaborative theories of influence because it puts the students at the center of the classroom while also allowing for conversation to happen between the teacher and students. Depending on how the teacher decides to run the activity, students can be fully in control of the discussion and process or the teacher and students can work together. Both ways of running meet the criteria of either a student-directed or collaborative classroom. More Information – Classroom rules look different for every teacher. Some use only a few, while others prefer to use more. Here are 36 rules to get you started on building your own:
Want to keep these rules close by? We've put together a downloadable PDF with all these rules that you can use in your classroom today! There are so many benefits to building a classroom that feels like a community: improved student academics, respectful discussions, and a growth mindset are just a few. Classroom rules can help establish a sense of community when they’re built on collective classroom values. Start with the big picture: what core values should inform the way you and your students interact? Values like self-respect, positivity, encouragement and passion are all great places to start. Take those big-picture rules and use them to create smaller, more actionable ones. If you want to promote respect in your classroom, create rules that ask students to use positive language, respect their classmates’ property and keep their hands to themselves. Emphasize that rules are in place to guide student learning. Communicate to students that classroom rules make the classroom a safe and supportive environment for all students. Get students involved in creating classroom rulesTake the core values you want to see in your classroom and present them to your class. Let students extrapolate and list behaviors that model key principles. Challenge them to think about what each looks like in the classroom and to develop specific scenarios that act out the rules they’ve brainstormed. After brainstorming, develop a final list of rules as a group. Which ones do students think are the most important? If they disagree with a rule, ask them to explain why. Discuss with them why the rule was made and how you can adjust it to the specific needs of the class. While it’s good to include students in the rule-making process, it’s also important to remember that the final say on what goes stays with you. When you explain and collaborate on the rules, students are more likely to accept and respect your authority. The only thing more boring for your students than a long, black-and-white list of rules nailed to the wall on the first day of school is listening to you read off the list as they sit in their desks and wish they were still on summer vacation. Present classroom rules in an engaging way to get creativity flowing on the first day of school. Ask students to help make classroom rules posters or short skits that creatively demonstrate the rules for the rest of the class. When students are involved with presenting the rules, they’re more likely to remember and uphold them. Be specificStudents, whether they realize it or not, thrive and succeed academically in an environment with clear rules and boundaries. General rules and classroom principles are a great place to start, but everyday rules should be clear and specific, with little room for creative interpretation or manipulation. If you choose to make rules with your students, ask them to go deeper than general ideas. Have them consider what rules look like in practice, and what the consequences for breaking certain rules should be. Be clear on consequencesRoutine and structure are important aspects of any classroom, and as a teacher you have to be consistent in how you apply the rules — no playing favorites or backing down on the consequences. Students won’t respect and follow the rules if you don’t. Be clear from the beginning on what the consequences are for breaking the rules. Consider a “fix what you broke” approach that asks the student to make amends for their behavior through actions or words, or set time-outs and temporary losses of privilege. Certain infractions are more serious than others (i.e. violence vs. speaking out of turn), so be prepared to respond appropriately. Some quick tips to promote community and learning:
Give (small) rewardsWhile most teachers lay out consequences for misbehavior, consider also identifying areas where students can earn rewards. Positive reinforcement is a useful technique. Make sure to praise students for acting appropriately, and consider giving small rewards to students who exceed expectations. Rewards can include stickers, a chance to be a “line leader” for the day, or even extra time on a fun, educational game like Prodigy Math. Prodigy Math is an engaging, digital game-based learning platform. Students can create free accounts and go on adventures, collect pets, play with friends — all while answering standards-aligned math questions. Use Prodigy Math to track student understanding, practice lesson material and prepare for standardized testing. Create my free teacher account nowParent involvement is the best indicator of student success — a principle that extends beyond academic involvement. Parents need to understand and align themselves with expectations for classroom behavior. Keep in touch with parents and send home a letter at the beginning of the school year that details the classroom rules that you and your class have agreed on. Consider taking a few moments from a parent evening to go over student expectations or ask for feedback on what values parents think classroom rules should uphold. Communication and collaboration with parents means more student success and fewer surprises during the school year. Your colleagues are one of your biggest assets when it comes to establishing clear rules. Students often have more than one teacher throughout the school day, and communicating a consistent set of classroom rules can help reinforce student expectations. Collaborating with other teachers is also a good way to make sure that your rules are in line with school culture. If the classroom is out of step with what the rest of the school is doing, students can get confused and start to act out. Speak with a supervisor or trusted colleague if you have any questions, and take their advice seriously. For many teachers, student discipline is a difficult subject to discuss. If every classroom needs rules, then it stands to reason that breaking the rules should come with appropriate consequences. In any classroom, broken rules mean wasted teaching time and emotional exhaustion for teachers. In one study about classroom discipline, researchers noted that: “The ultimate goal of classroom order is to enable instruction. Classroom order is not a goal in itself, nor is it a way to correct classroom disruption. Effective teachers have fewer classroom disciplinary problems not because they are good at restoring discipline, but because they are good at establishing classroom procedures that maximize time available for instruction.” With that in mind, here are some tips for making sure student discipline, when necessary, is used as a way to get back to what your students are really there for: learning! While you’re making the rules, consider making the consequences as well. In order for students to respect the rules, they have to realize what’s going to happen when they break them. Give students hypothetical situations, and ask them to develop consequences based on shared classroom values. Even if you decide to make the consequences on you own, don’t think that being unnecessarily harsh will earn you respect. If you truly want to build an efficient and positive learning environment, you should always keep the best interests of your students in mind. Be able to explain consequences when students ask. Take circumstance into account — an unusually egregious offence needs to be escalated more quickly than a small classroom disturbance. Apply the rules consistently so students learn the value of responsibility. Continue to reinforce classroom rulesIf you want students to listen to classroom rules all year round, make sure you’ve reinforced them throughout the school year.If rules are continually taught, students have less of an excuse for misbehavior. In her Cooperative Discipline Model, teaching specialist Linda Albert recommends that: “The behaviors calls for must be taught, not taken for granted, and the code should be discussed regularly. This keeps it in the foreground for reminding students and for use when correcting misbehavior. When serious violations of the code occur, procedures of conflict resolution are applied. All the while, the teacher makes ongoing efforts to help students feel capable, connected with others, and contributors to the class and elsewhere.” If students are aware of the rules and know you take them seriously, they’ll be more likely to respect them. Balance discipline with compassionAlbert also theorizes that misbehavior is merely students trying to achieve “mistaken goals,” including revenge, attention-seeking or assumed disability. She encourages teachers to reframe this as an opportunity to build a positive relationship with students. While discipline is a way to encourage a safe and positive working environment for all students, it’s important to remember students are also learning how to function as responsible and effective members of society. Difficult home situations, mental health issues and challenging social situations are all factors that can cause students to act out. While none of these factors excuse bad behavior, it’s worth checking in with a chronically misbehaving student to see if you can address any underlying factors. Work with administrators, support staff and parents to develop a response to intervention plan for students who might be struggling in the classroom, or guide students to resources that can help them succeed both personally and academically. Restorative practices: moving away from classroom rules?If you've implemented classroom rules or understandings yourself, you know there can be pros and cons. Some teachers have had success using them while others have not. While they may work for in some environments, these classroom rule systems can interrupt students' learning journeys and, in some case, result in the same or more challenging behavior down the road. Compared to classroom rules, restorative practices focus on empowering students to learn from their choices that aren't acceptable, understand the impact of those actions and, from there, to grow personally in their knowledge of how to make better decisions and resolve problems. Benefits of restorative practices in the classroomAs highlighted by EdWeek, restorative practices can help students:
Examples of restorative practicesWhether you're thinking of ditching traditional classroom rules altogether or want to find a way to bring them together with restorative practices, here are some ideas to get your class started.
Recognizing that classroom rules are but a part of classroom management. Depending on your class' specific set of classroom rules, restorative practices can provide a more empathetic approach to solving problems Each teacher uses their classroom rules differently, because each class is different. Some students might need structure and clearly defined boundaries, while others respond positively to more freedom. Encourage student buy-in, continuously communicate the rules and uphold them as necessary to find what works best for your classroom. Long days and large classes can make it difficult to respond to every need or problem equally. Do your best, and make sure that your students know that you want to see them succeed — that’s what matters the most. Create or log in to your free teacher account on Prodigy – a digital game-based learning platform for math that’s easy to use for educators and students alike. Aligned with standards across the English-speaking world, it’s used by millions of teachers and students. Create my free teacher account now! |
What is the best way to create buy in from the students regarding classroom rules and consequences?
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