Without a doubt, classroom management is one of those intangible factors for student success. Some teachers have a knack for it while others, for whatever reason, seem to struggle. All of us as educators – mentor teachers, principals, team teachers, instructional coaches, and assistant principals – have a responsibility to help when we notice a challenge.
The biggest question is how? How can you help someone else in their classroom management?
One simple way is what we call the 3×3 Method, which is an easy and quick structure to generate ideas and tap into the direct experience of your colleagues. Here is how it works and you will see that it can be used for any topic:
- Frame the question where you want or need additional support.
- Select 3 teachers that you respect for their craft.
- Ask them to provide you 3 answers to your question.
- Capture their responses in one location to build the knowledge base.
For our purposes of classroom management, you could frame your question this way: if you were giving a teacher your best 3 tips for classroom management, without a mention of building strong relationships, what would they be? While this 3×3 process is a simple ask, it offers powerful results.
Before we proceed, yes, let’s go ahead and address something. You did read that right – specifically remove relationships. Why? We recognize the power of relationships and its foundational nature for classroom management; however, we talk about relationships frequently without digging into the details about building them. For this ask, you want and need those specific strategies and tips.
As an example, I reached out to 3 school leaders and asked them the earlier question about classroom management. In roughly 30 minutes, I received these responses via email but you can solicit this input in a live interview (face to face, phone, or Zoom) as well:
- School Leader 1 – You must make sure you are:
- Honest with your students
- Kind to your students
- Interested in your students
- School Leader 2 – You can connect with your students by:
- Setting and maintaining high expectations.
- Pausing the lesson when participation has waned – explore the why but do not settle for excuses.
- Being yourself, owning mistakes, and letting them see that you are human.
- School Leader 3 – You should always:
- Get students curious by asking them compelling questions to offer a puzzle that hooks them into a lesson. In short, they need to know why this lesson matters beyond this class and the school year.
- Include a plan for student action in each lesson – keeping them active removes “down time” that can often lead to wrong choices.
- Value a student’s opinions, preferences, choices, time, and effort – this gets back to student choice in a way to demonstrate mastery. if you tap into their creativity, they become more passionate about content.
To give you a consistent format, Stride PD has created a template that is hosted on the Free Resources page and ready for download. The 3×3 Method template specifically helps you frame your question, find your friends, and then focus your feedback. As you keep them over time and use to gain multiple ideas, you can write the topic or category in the top right corner to help you easily catalog them for future reference.
In closing, repeat the process multiple times a year and keep the responses in a singular location. You are creating an ever-expanding toolkit so your growth moments are limitless with this simple too. Even more, you can then share this with someone who needs it. As a good friend of mine – Kendall Schroeder – and I talked about this method, he summarized it well in saying, “By going through your own personal learning opportunity, you now have created a professional leading opportunity.”