Hello and Welcome to Episode 1 of our Fine Arts Educator Coaching Clinics.  I am your host, Eric Sanford.  I want to encourage you to visit our website, FAECC.org for resources and links to this podcast.  While you are there, be sure to send us an email about your thoughts on the episode, or future topics you’d like to hear.

In this session, we’ll explore Classroom Management, getting the most out of your Routines and Procedures - focusing on The Class Agenda.  

Classroom Management - Routines and procedures, is actually a three part episode including The Class Agenda, 2) How to teach your Routines, and 3) maintaining student expectations through a class management plan. 

Some of the ideas that I share in this session are derived from a book called “Classroom Management for Art, Music, and PE Teachers”, by Michael Linsin.   A link to this book is available on the Resources page on the website.  It’s a wonderful read, and even though it’s written from an elementary perspective, it’s possible to apply the fundamentals and ideas to any grade level.

How many times have you said “I just don’t have time to teach that”?  

Who has students every day asking that same question, “What are we doing today?”

The class agenda is a tool to keep you on track, promote student self-reliance, and aid in your planning so you are less stressed.  

You are welcome to follow along with the resources provided for this episode on the FAECC.org website.  The first document we’ll look at is “Class Agenda Samples”.  

There are examples for multiple fine art contents, which can be modified for any grade level.  These documents are free to use as you need for your fine arts class.

Let’s talk about the structure of these agendas first.  They don’t always follow the traditional model for a fine arts class.  In fact, these agendas are focused on individual student progress and growth, and they use multiple learning techniques to allow students to master the lesson objective.  

Let me walk you through a general example.   

As I read through these, keep these questions in mind: 

What stands out to you about the agenda for your content?  

How could this structure be beneficial to students and yourself?  

What would you add or remove based on your needs?

Example:

First, every class starts with a Warm Up of some kind.  It could be breathing, stretches, a quick sketch, or vocal exercises.  It is designed to prepare the student’s body for the specific physical activity it is about to endure. A rule I tried to keep consistent is to aim for about 10-20% of your class time to be warmup in this manner.  In an hour long class, that’s only 12 minutes.  

The second part - review or activity of elements or principles, is where students access prior knowledge.  It could be vocabulary, identifying elements or principles of that content, or skills like musical scales, rhythms, tongue twisters, common dance maneuvers, or any number of skills that consistently appear in the lessons.  Oftentimes, these first two sections of warm up and review of the fundamentals mingle together.

These are the foundations of your content that are always present.  They impact student comprehension and skill in that fine art. 

The bulk of the lesson starts next with a full group instruction to establish goals for class.   During this time, the teacher can introduce new concepts, vocabulary, skills, historical relevance, updated or leveled up skills, professional examples, and identify the main goal of the lesson.  How will students be successful today? 

It moves on to independent, partner, or small group practice - depending on the function of the lesson and group.  It is at this time that students get the opportunity to practice the skills on their own or with a small group of others.  It also allows teachers to move around the room, assessing each student’s progress and addressing questions.  

We return to full group instruction to review, reteach, have students demonstrate skills, and provide opportunities for student discourse and feedback.  It is these multiple avenues of student learning that promotes more retention of the content.  Whether you see those same students tomorrow or next week, retention is key to progressing forward. 

You will notice the last two sections are flipped from the expected.  Most classes clean up at the very end, then rush out the door for the next class.  These agendas are flipped to include quality time for student reflection, exit tickets, journals, and partner reflections.  It also creates an opportunity for students to leave calmly.  As a teacher, it is important for us to structure the beginning and end of class in the same manner - with high expectations.  

So why the agenda? Why so many details to the time, the activities, the different methods of instruction?

It’s about the student experience, first.  Second, to help you, their teacher, retain the sanity that you have.  

First, the student experience.  By having your agenda labeled and posted with timeframes and activities, several of your students will want to be the time keeper.  They see that structure, that order, and they find comfort there.  For the student that constantly is moving around, this provides clarification to them that time is finite.  

If you stick to the times you establish, not only will students begin to respond, they will increase their trust in you.  You say something will happen a certain way. You follow through, consistently, you are not a wild card.  Many students gravitate towards this.  They know your expectations of them and yourself, and even if they don’t agree with you, they will still recognize that you follow your word.

That is increasingly important to develop positive relationships with your students.

Second - for your sanity.  Lesson planning, alternative schedules, class disruptions, admin walk throughs, no lunch, and they pulled you to cover another class.  The day can be tedious.  After a certain amount of time for your class to become adjusted to your agenda, students will run class themselves.  They know where to look for the next activity, they know the expectations, and they don’t need you to constantly provide what’s coming next.  It allows you to breathe while the students do the heavy lifting work.   

Another way to help students become the drivers of instruction, create criteria for success for your lesson objectives.  Post them on the walls, the projector, the google classroom, whatever you use. The more you can have students doing the work while you guide them, the more effective and efficient your job will be.  

I’ve had many conversations with teachers that, when suggested, offer the response, “That’s not how I do my class.  I want to focus more on the creative. They need a chance to express themselves.”  I’ve heard a lot of reasons, but so far, no agenda I’ve proposed has inhibited a student from being creative.  Many times it is within that “free space” that class disruptions and behavior issues are worse.

We have to remind ourselves that we are not just artists with a studio full of students.  We are the educators, and we are responsible for them learning about this art, expanding their horizons.  

We can’t do that effectively if we don’t wear the educator hat more often and recognize what works best for our students versus what we want to work best.

I mentioned Criteria for Success a few minutes ago, and I wanted to provide some examples of what that could look like in different situations.

Partner practice - this was listed in the agenda, but we must first teach what that is and remind students what that looks like with an anchor chart or some other document.  

I would suggest practicing the partner practice.  Model it for the students, show them what to do, what NOT to do, and let them practice it on their own. Ask them questions like “Why do you think we do this next?” or “How does this affect that?”  

YOU don’t need to say the answers all the time.  Instead, aim for guiding students to find those answers on their own through your questions.

Other examples of CFS would be sectional or small group practice instructions, how to use rubrics to rate yourself and others, Sentence stems or Written Response structures, Journaling and goal setting prompts or sentence stems, and What to Do instructions if a student finishes the assignment early.  

This may be a lot to chew on, but I hope it makes a little sense.  The point is, it does not matter if you use my agenda examples or not.  What matters most is that you use an agenda to help your students and yourself by structuring your class.  

If you don’t believe me, check out an elementary classroom.  Those teachers must have routines and procedures in place.  It will be obvious to the observer if it’s a smooth class or if there are lots of bumps.  Our middle school and high school students are exactly the same, just a lot bigger.  

I hope you reach out to us with your own stories, comments, questions, and suggestions.  Our email is faecchost.gmail.com. You can find this and other social links on our website FAECC.org. 

Thank you for joining me for this episode!  Tune in to more of our episodes on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.  I am your host, Eric Sanford for Fine Arts Coaching Clinics.  

Until next time, Peace and Blessings.