I always start my day with a shower, followed by a coffee followed by brushing my teeth. We all have different routines for work, sport and trips away, but why, for myself, it creates a calm as I know I have got myself ready for what the day lays ahead. For our students. Routines are just as important. Every Monday lesson on my last practicum, I would discuss how their weekend was or a debate on something important that happened at the weekend. Within a few Monday’s the students started to expect it and more stories began to pop out as the Monday’s rolled on. As future first-year teachers, behaviour management will is a constant process and be an outgoing area of development. So how do routines help with behavioural issues? According to Cheney, (1989)“Classroom routines can positively affect students’ academic performance as well as their behaviour”, once taught, routines are daily activities that students are able to complete with little or no teacher assistance, which according to (Colvin & Lazar, 1995) “accomplishes two objectives (a) students have more opportunity to learn and (b) teachers can devote more time to instruction”.
In my second practicum, I was able to observe one teacher who was great dealing with behavioural issues, what I found after watching her lesson and discussing the topic with her, was the importance of routines especially for her junior classes. She kept a very similar method to the way she greets the students to how she structures her lessons such as Do Now’s, or instructions on the board and the way she tries to deal with behaviour issues are all constant.What she found was to not bombard the students with too many routines but to establish simple routines that become part of every classroom, so off-task behaviour is kept a minimum. According to Burden, (2003), “Routines also help to create smoother transitions between activities and therefore allow fewer opportunities for disruptions to occur”.
However, routines are only as good as the person who is driving them, so it is essential to continue to reinforce the importance of them. According to Vaughn, Bos, & Schumm, (2000). “teachers should consider appropriate consequences for when students follow or fail to follow procedures and communicate both sets of consequences to students”. What research has indicated if there are different consequences for the same issue, then students will start to rebel against those routines and the relationship between student and teachers will be strained. I remember my own practicum experience, where one student said to me ‘why do you let that group muck around, but you always tell us off’. So consistency in the consequences is essential.
Lastly, I will leave you with the below quote from Dr Prem Jagyasi (2019), which, in my views, sums up the importance of routines in the classroom.
“In order to build any structure, we should keep a close tab on its daily, weekly, and monthly progress. Unless we religiously follow all the steps, the chances are that the structure will not meet our expectations.”
A quote by Dr Prem Jagyasi. (2019, November 5). Retrieved November 5, 2019, from https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9694979-in-order-to-build-any-structure-we-should-keep-a.
Cheney, C. O. (1989, April). Preventive discipline through effective classroom management. Paper presented at the Preconvention Training Program “Exploring the Theory/Practice Link in Special Education” at the Annual Convention of the Council for Exceptional Children. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 304 869)
Colvin, G., & Lazar, M. (1995). Establishing classroom routines. In A. Deffenbaugh, G. Sugai, G. Tindal (Eds.), The Oregon Conference Monograph 1995, Vol. 7 (pp. 209-212). Eugene, OR: University of Oregon.
Vaughn, S., Bos, C. S., & Schumm, J. S. (2000). Teaching exceptional, diverse, and at-risk
students in the general education classroom (2nd ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
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Silly Point 