Organizing classroom furniture and paper storage poolside will pay off during the next middle school year. And, thinking through potential classroom management issues before the students enter the building will help teachers keep their sanity. The key is simple planning and a shopping trip to an office or container store.
Furniture Configurations in the Classroom
The way the room is organized can make or break lessons. The furniture configuration can aid in discussion or help with classroom management issues. Traditional rows can give students their own space and are great for direct instruction lessons. Circles and U-shapes can aid in lessons that rely on discussions. Pods and tables can foster cooperative learning groups.
Teachers need to think about their beginning units to decide what works best. Some successful teachers change the configuration of the room to aid in the type of lesson each week or for each unit.
Configurations Aid in Classroom Management
In the Classroom-Connections September 2006 article "Classroom Configurations," classroom management expert Fred Jones suggests that to have strong classroom management that the teacher needs to be able to walk around quickly to all students. The Interior Loop that Jones recommends allows "the shortest distance the teacher can walk in order to read the work of every student." There is a circular walk way with off-shoot walkways to connect to all students.
Paper Organization
In addition to furniture, there is the issue of the paper piles. Teachers handle piles and piles of paper every day. Keeping it all organized can be a nightmare. Before the school year begins, decisions need to be made.
- Where will the students turn in their work?
- Where will the student work be kept before it is entered into the grade book?
- Where will the graded student work be kept after it is graded and before it is given back to the students?
- Where will hand-outs, quizzes and other assorted papers be kept after they are copied?
- What system will be used to keep different class papers separated?
If a teacher decides on places for all of these paper issues, hopefully, every flat service in the room will not be covered in paper. After the school year begins, paper will accumulate everywhere if these decisions are not made in advance. A trip to an office or container store will give the teacher many options of how to store and to organize paper.
During the school year, more pressing issues will take up a teacher's time, such as curriculum planning and test scores. Deciding on how to configure the furniture and how to organize paper during the summer months will help the middle school teacher to start the new school year on a positive note.
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