Classroom Management Concerns

When I think of classroom management, safety is the number one concern on my list. I have had teachers walk into my room and wonder how I can keep students from hurting themselves on the power machines that I have. Everything has some sharp point on it or a blade of some kind. The truth is I have given out way more band aids to students for injuries that have happened outside of my class than inside. They will have picked a scab or wore shoes that were digging into their feet or fell of their skateboard on the way to school.

The secret to avoiding most injuries is good classroom management. I have procedures set so that the students know where to put things so that they don’t become safety hazards. I plan out my activities so that I don’t have too many students huddled around one machine. I have the students make safety posters that I hang up so that they have put some effort into the rules of safety.

One project that I had problems with last year was a wooden pen project. Only two students could perform the last steps at a time. I gave instruction and showed a video of how to make one. As the class progressed I would have 2 students at a time go through the whole process. At first they did well, but soon they started forgetting what to do and would not use the equipment the way that had been taught. Next year I will have all the students work together on this project as far as they can. This will make sure that they remember how to do all the steps up to the last few that can only be done 2 at a time. I will also make the video available to watch at any time on the student computers. I talked about this idea with some of the students at the end of last year and they approved of the idea. I have found that the students will give me good feedback to make my class better because in the end they will benefit.

Another big concern that I have is class size. In the past, a traditional shop class would have no more than 24 students. With some of my classes reaching 36 I need to make sure that they all have something to do. I will purposefully let a few get ahead so that I don’t have all of them working on the same project. I will also have more than one project going at the same time. For classroom management to work in a shop class, organization and preparedness are the key elements that must be accomplished first.