Classroom Management Beyond the Lesson Plan

When I interviewed for my first (and current) teaching job, the principal asked me about my approach to classroom management. As I still believe today, I talked about how an engaging lesson plan is the best tool for positive student behavior. We were on the same page about this, and she talked to me about some of the behavioral challenges specific to our campus. She asked me how I felt about the use of incentives. Little ol’ me, starry eyed and idealistic, said something like, “Extrinsic motivators? Oh, I teach my students to develop their intrinsic desire to make art.” Aaahahaha! Yeah. What an unexpected challenge it was to develop that intrinsic motivation, or rather, rely on it so heavily. Y’all, I am now more than happy to use incentives or whatever approved and appropriate method it takes to get my students to be safe, respectful, and learning more quickly.

That awesome principal knew what she was talking about (shout out, by the way, to all the practical and positive leaders I’ve been lucky to have!). My kiddos are quickly motivated with the mention of a reward. By now, they know how to earn “Mona Lisa” points, which I track with ClassDojo. A veteran art teacher in my district introduced me to this online tool. I use the app on my cell phone, and with a single click I give out reward points. Digital points are so great in the art room, where so many messy materials are always in play. I want to do away with extra stuff when I can, and ClassDojo takes fussy tickets and stickers out of the picture. When my students hear the app go “ding,” they get Mona Lisa Ready (MLR) quickly!

You may be familiar with the Mona Lisa motivation that is popular with many art classrooms. Over time my class has developed a whole game out of this. If students are the first to get MLR when I ask, or if they notice it’s getting rowdy and they get MLR on their own, their team will gain 3 Mona Lisa Points (MLPs). If students break my #1 rule (No talking while the teacher is talking) their team will lose 3 MLPs. There are lots of other rules in my class, and if I catch them following or disregarding a rule they can earn or lose 1 MLP, respectively. Over time, I have also integrated extra credit opportunities and free time activities for them to earn MLPs. On "Mona Lisa Fridays," we look at which team has the most points. Since I see students on a rotating ABC schedule, a class will get a Mona Lisa Friday about every third week.

This system is a little intricate, but it’s a point-based game that my students learn very quickly. It works great for them and for my curriculum. My first couple of lessons when we return to school in August teaches my students expected behavior and procedures with an emphasis on how a team can earn MLPs. Rewards are given to teams, and students are in teams based on assigned seating at color-labeled tables. I have 18 different sections (three sections per grades K-5), about a total of 500 students, and a high mobility rate at my campus. So it takes a lot of work to assign a seat to each student at a team table, but I find that it is absolutely worthwhile. I print out my class rosters as soon as they are available, and get to work.

My students either sit at color-labeled tables, OR color-coded polka dots on the floor area. Assigning floor seats, in addition to tables, has been extremely helpful. Sometimes materials are set out on their tables, and my students would be playing with those instead of participating in dialogue or paying attention to a demo. Switching to floor seats for certain activities minimizes distractions and maximizes instruction time.

Instead of entering individual students into ClassDojo, I enter each class section, and then within each section I enter the 6 teams: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. So even while at floor seats, I can quickly give MLPs to teams based on those colorful polka dots. They also help to keep the assigned seating consistent at all times during art class. There are a lot of kiddos in my school that have separation orders and I carefully assign my teams with a mix of kids that can keep each other safe and help each other learn.

In these screenshots of my ClassDojo app, I show how I label each class section based on my ABC Day rotation and grade level, sometimes adding the name of homeroom teachers. When I click into each class, I can track points for each team table.

Of course, sometimes individual behavior calls for individual rewards and consequences. I may select students to invite to art lunch as a reward. As per individual consequences, I often ask a student to take a break to fill out reflection worksheets, or conference with me after class, or take a note home, etc. Often, students just need a break without a negative connotation so that a potential conflict can deescalate, or to think about any number of SEL tools that we teach at my school. So I blend “Take-A-Break” areas with “Peace Areas,” and make sand timers and a mix of self-soothing tools available.

Back-to-School Portrait Units: Tying MLR to Art Curriculum and Campus Themes

My first art unit, for every grade level, is about portraiture. We define “portrait” and I prompt my students to consider a more complex or abstract definition of “portrait” at each grade level. For example, last year my kindergarten defined portrait as “art that shows a person” and my fifth grade defined “portraiture” as “art that represents a person or tells us something about them.” While learning about how to get MLR, they review and reevaluate DaVinci’s Mona Lisa. Most kinders are just looking at the Mona Lisa for the first time, and adorably tend to call me “Ms. Mona Lisa” for the first two weeks or so, tee hee. Students are prompted to look at the Mona Lisa, talk what about they notice, and older students tend to talk about DaVinci. After a few minutes of dialogue to discover or rediscover the work, all grade levels watch this video: “Why is the Mona Lisa so Famous?” (I stop the video at about 3:03).

This video happens to beautifully highlight the three characteristics of getting MLR: Hands crossed, “creepy stare” (as the video calls it) i.e. looking at teacher, and closed smile (sometimes I ask them, “Can you even make your smile lopsided like Mona Lisa? That’s tricky!”). So the brief “Look and Respond” activity transitions nicely into a review on how to earn MLPs.

Then we move on to a portrait project. My first year, I had kindergarten and first grade draw a portrait of themselves and Mona Lisa in response to the prompt: “Where would you take the Mona Lisa to make her smile?” It was a one-lesson drawing for this first day of art class. For grades 2 and up, this blog post inspired our first unit. I taught facial proportions and monochromatic color schemes (based on their color teams) and we created a collaborative mural for the art hallway:

Last year, I integrated sketchbooks to my curriculum (I use manila folders). I created a new portraiture curriculum with the sketchbooks in mind. This was so successful that I plan to repeat the curriculum this year (with just a few changes to mix things up).

For kindergarten, I designed this Blank-Face Mona Lisa coloring worksheet in Photoshop. I videotaped a Follow-Me, and played my video while watching the students work (pausing and addressing the group as needed). This assignment is not very exploratory or personally-relevant for the students, but it is very useful as a pre-assessment tool as the first project of the year. Kinders at my school are mostly learning to follow procedures first week or so, and there is huge disparity in their ability to follow basic directions and use drawing tools. I keep the activity fun and light; at the end of the unit they add their Mona Lisa to their sketchbook. In kindergarten, we move on quickly to a unit on line, and lots of exploratory art activities.

Grades 1-4 did a self-portrait on the covers of their sketchbook as their first unit. First and second grades follow along with this video to draw a self-portrait. Third and fourth grades work on a more advanced version of this prompt. Their unit incorporates a facial proportion packet as an anchor, along with a different Follow-Me video that promotes more vocabulary. With all grade levels, the Follow-Me videos act as a sort of "second teacher" in the classroom to help with the behavioral and procedural element of this Back-to-School unit. It allows me to walk about while students work, praise positive behavior, give out lots of MLPs, and, as previously mentioned, see where students are at after the summer break. These are all great pre-assessment activities.

Fifth grade explored the question “How can a pose make a portrait?” and evaluated Keith Haring’s work. I created this PPT Presentation as an anchor for the unit. Every year I make a different mural for the art hallway, and our fifth grade displayed their Back-to-School artwork in the hallway for year 2. Students worked collaboratively to create a “Pose Portrait” that expresses team character, and we talked about using joints to show movement and overall proportion of the body. They created one life-size portrait per team. This year I might have them paint an individual pose portrait on their sketchbooks, so we can do something new in the hallway.

Throughout these Back-to-School units, students practiced getting MLR and following rules to earn MLPs! I give extra time and space to teach behavioral expectations, taking breaks as needed, while they work on their portraits. I also teach students how to spend their free time in art if they are done early (productive habits earn MLPs, too!). It really helps to invest time into classroom culture this way on the first weeks of school. Later in the year I present students with different examples of portraiture (i.e by Kehinde Wiley, Andy Warhol, Frida Kahlo, and more) to revisit and expand their ideas about the genre.

School Themes

As always, bringing motivation and joy to the art classroom is key. I usually tie the Mona Lisa motivation to a yearly campus theme in a fun or humorous way. My first year, our school had a sports theme called “T.E.A.M.S.: Together Everyone Achieves More Success.” I matched the elements of art to this theme, and transformed the Mona Lisa into a Baseball MVP. I took some photos of MVP students who were exemplary at being kind, safe, and productive. These Mona Lisa photo props are so much fun!

In year two, the theme was “Superheroes.” Mona Lisa looks fabulous as a Super Portrait! I displayed some Super Kinder Mona Lisas at the beginning of the year. Later, I designed some “Studio Habits of Mind” posters in the Superhero theme. It was helpful to leave these up for the rest of the year (I have lots of other bulletin boards to display student art). Sometimes after class, I would point to these posters while talking to individual students in the hallway on ways they can grow as an artist or make helpful choices.