It's important to start at the beginning. I'd recommend starting with the slideshow to the left! It's an overview of classroom management misconceptions. Sometimes college courses get it wrong. Professional developers who don't actually interact with students ALWAYS get it wrong. Administrators look at it from a new and different perspective; not necessarily wrong, but different and not always applicable. 

I am a firm believer of Mis en Place. Yes, that's a French, culinary philosophy, but it matters in classroom design even moreso. It basically means "everything in its place" and in cooking, it basically means setting up your cutting board and kitchen to minimize movement and maximize efficiency. Your  classroom is your cutting board. The school is your kitchen. Let's make some delicious recipes...I mean compliant and well behaved students... together.

"Even the best laid plans don't survive contact with the enemy." Sun Tzu said that, and it was translated, and then I read it, and the quote above is what I basically remembered. Anyhow, no matter how much you plan for your first day of teaching, your plan will NOT survive contact with the enemy. It won't. That's why you need help, in the form of an old, angry teacher! If you do it correctly, you find someone honored by the title, "Old, Angry Teacher." If they're offended, they're the wrong person to help. 

Kids LOVE breaking rules, and spoiler alert, now you're teaching. You're tragically an adult and you need to ENFORCE the rules. Read these Slides to make sure your rules are worth enforcing, and perhaps more importantly, to make sure they're actually enforceable.

In your perfect, hypothetical world, kids would just want to learn, and intrinsic motivation would abound! The kids who didn't want to learn would be won over by a notebook (Freedom Writers) or a Karate lesson (Walker Texas Ranger). Sadly, you don't live in a perfect, hypothetical world. You teach in Dunkirk, and sometimes, kids need consequences.

A functional wrap up can be used to reinforce expectations organically and with great effect. While I place "Data-Driven" classroom management as an advanced skill, the wrap ups that it produces are something easy to use for beginners, and the data doesn't have to be scary at all.

If there is ONE important thing to learn about classroom management, it's how to manage the volume of your own voice to maximize it's effect, AND to divorce the volume of your voice from your own emotions. Sorry, rookie, whatever you were taught in school about your feelings "matter" died when you stepped into the classroom as a teacher. 

Consequences are important, but how you TALK about consequences: especially sending a kid out of class for a time out somewhere, is incredibly important. There are a few nuances of language that will help you avoid being the screaming teacher that kids love to make scream, and the teacher with high expectations that kids want to impress.

One of the key differences between beginning classroom managers and experienced classroom managers is the level of infraction that gets noticed and managed. There's this addage that teachers always want a "pound of flesh," from students who behave badly. I'd argue that astute observation and a few pin pricks or pinches can do the trick.

I know your college professors taught you that you should develop your own teaching persona based on your personality, and that students would flock to the cultivated honesty of your personal teaching persona. I recommend a different course: removing your own ego from your classroom persona and your lesson planning. Make decisions based on what's best for students, not based on your own beliefs and ego. 

Avoiding Explosions is key in a classroom. The best advice I could give is that you never need to WIN an argument, you need to END an argument. The minute you internalize this and choose your words and actions accordingly, you'll vastly minimize the number of explostions in your classroom.

Managing audience is often the key to diffusing classroom management nightmares. Kids almost never misbehave without an audience. It's why administrators and guidances counselors always say, "well I have a great RELATIONSHIP with her, so she NEVER acts out with ME!" Spoiler alert: she never acts out in a private audience because there is no student audience. Lets look at the slides to the left to learn about managing audience.

Web Presence is a hugely powerful tool, and too many people have one critical misunderstanding. They think that the absence of a negative web presence is all they need to excel in the classroom, but in fact, that is Web Absence, not Web Presence. An active and engaged Web Presence will allow you to control the narrative with parents and will drive your professional reputation.

Data is always talked about with state tests and Star tests, but I have found classroom-level data to be the most valuable and applicable at all. It doesn't just need to be used for learning. It can also be used for classroom management. None of my recommendations are difficult or systemic; they're all things you can do with a post-it note and paying a little attention.

Peer pressure is HUGE in classroom management. Harnessing the power of peer pressure is an expert tool for advanced classroom managers. When the kids are on your side, and you actively practice what I call, "social engineering," you really own the keys to the kingdom for classroom management. Kids largely become allies instead of adversaries.