When I Came Into My Student Teaching Classroom, a Behavior Plan Was Established for The

1. Effective Learning Environments:
2. design and implement a classroom management plan that utilizes respectful disciplinary techniques to ensure a safe and orderly learning environment, (e.g., instructional procedures utilizing the concepts presented in the State Board of Education’s Positive Behavior Support Policy 2006), which is conductive to the learning and takes into account diverse needs of individual students;

When I came into my student teaching classroom, a behavior plan was established for the students. It consisted of my mentor teacher giving fines to those who were not following classroom rules. On Fridays, the students would get paid their weekly “salary”, and if anyone obtained a fine or fines throughout the week, they would have that amount deducted from their pay. This system seemed to be working very well, but my mentor teacher and felt that if the students were creating the problems, then they should feel responsible for their actions. With that, we created a “Hey Batter, Batter” chart that worked along with the three strikes policy and the fines system already established.

Everyday, the students began on first base and moved around the chart until they got a homerun. If a problem occurred and I or my mentor teacher asked them to move a strike, they would put their clothespin in the three consecutive strike boxes. They would move their pins according to how many strikes were given. If the student received a third strike before lunch, then they would lose their privilege of participating in second recess. Each strike cost the students a two dollar fine from their Friday Payday. Those who hit a homerun were rewarded with an extra dollar for their Friday Payday, with the ability to gain an extra five dollars in “bonuses” for the week.

I thought that making the chart student-friendly would be beneficial for them and for myself. It would eliminate the problem of me having to interrupt a lesson to write down fines and put more responsibility on the students to physically move their “players” around the board. I made an agreement with the team that if they could all get homeruns in one day, then we would have a pizza party to celebrate our winning game. I was very excited to reward the class for their outstanding behavior of 19 homeruns! Overall, the system was modified to impede negative behavior and reward positive behavior. The students thoroughly enjoyed it and felt very proud of themselves and their classmates for all having great behavior.

Here is our Hey Batter, Batter chart.

This is an example of one fine chart I used to go along with the Hey Batter, Batter chart.