On-Demand
Session
Empowering educators to joyfully fulfill their God-given calling
Smart Classroom Management Strategies for Difficult Students
with Michael Linsin of Smart Classroom Management
Every teacher encounters students that challenge them. What strategies should we use to help them and keep our classrooms calm? Join us as we talk with Michael Linsin from Smart Classroom Management about how to respond to disrespectful students, students who talk back, students with ADHD, students with ODD, and students who just don't care about consequences.
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About Michael Linsin
Michael Linsin founded Smart Classroom Management in 2009. He has taught every grade level from kindergarten through high school for the past 33 years and is the author of eight bestselling books.
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Michael, you have such a wonderful GODLY Attitude and mindset about teaching and learning!
As a former Principal (public and private), Special Education Administrator, and Special Education Teacher, I absolutely agree with all you have shared! When I taught Deaf and Hard of Hearing middle school students, I decided they would be taught the general education curriculum and take the required school wide assessments. No one had expectations for them, especially since they had never been taught the same curriculum as hearing students.
By the end of the school year, my self-contained Deaf and Hard of Hearing students passed all 4 required school wide assessments. Everyone wanted to know how it was possible. It was God! Through Prayer and obedience to the Holy Spirit, and having high expectations for the students (a Godly mindset), God’s Word proved faithful!
Not causing or adding friction – good insight and help! It reminds me of a term we use at our school called ‘mirroring.’ I appreciate the information!
It’s great to know that consistency is good. I have been doing that and I thought I was too strict.
Stay calm and be constant! Review expectations.
The proverbial “lightbulb” came on for me as Michael talked about classroom management (cm) not being about surviving the day but about making a lasting impact. And how good cm imparts independence on the students and gives teachers the burden of GREAT teaching.
So often I feel like “if only I wasn’t spending all my time getting kids to behave, we could have more fun with the lessons”. I definitely had a mind shift and look forward to re-visiting my cm plan, reviewing it with students, and letting the plan do the work so we can have the fun.
As a special education teacher with very high standards for my students, I LOVE when Michael talks about holding ALL kiddos to high expectations. Sadly, the sped profession is turning out sped teachers who have low expectations for our students. It’s so unfair. I just had a school psych who came into my self contained academic classroom to observe a student. He told me he has never observed a sped teacher have such high expectations and standards for her students. I said, Why would I not? I believe they can do great things…. and we have to do that for all students, including those with disabilities. Give them the opportunity to be all they can be and not limit themselves because it is truly hurting kids. Thank you for sharing this with us! I found lots of great nuggets– go back to the basics if you need to start over with your rules and expectations, be consistent and unemotional, student ownership of their learning and behavior, and believe your students to be successful. Allow them to know you believe they can do hard things and watch how they will! Good stuff!
Clear expectations and consistent consequences are important. Mostly preventative by good teaching that engages the students and includes movement breaks.
Consistency and clarity is key!
LOVE LOVE LOVE I was going to resign and find a new profession. I am now going to try this before I had in my letter of resignation. This is a game-changer.
The idea that the plan is there so that we all know what the boundaries are and we all follow it.
Be consistent and don’t get emotional.
It was a great reminder to stay neutral in my body and verbal language. I liked the adding behavior reminders into the beginning of each lesson. I also liked how he touched on how to fix behaviors when we are midyear.
My favorite thing that he said is it’s not about getting through the day but about making an impact that will last a lifetime.
Put more responsibility on the students. They thrive as their independence grows!
Phew feeling convicted to change a lot of my policies when I get back from fall break and making it easier to follow through! Thank you for this session. I learned a lot of great tips!
Don’t engage, give the reminder or consequence and move on. Make class fun so they are engaged in the learning!
Michael has a gentle soul and that comes through in his teaching. I love his calm demeanor and I will be using the strategies he provided, especially creating a plan, following it out and not making it personal. Yes!!
Some great gems – teach academics on first day; it’s not about getting through the day, it is about having an impact that will last a lifetime; and, the plan is to protect your right to learn and enjoy being in this classroom.
Thanks.
I agree with the idea of stating the consequence and then moving on. I would have appreciated more concrete examples.
Work with students to see if they can do more and challenge them instead of immediately giving them all the things that they have said they need.
This was such a refreshing and practical conversation—thank you, Michael! I really appreciated your reminder that strong classroom management flows from clarity, consistency, and genuine care. The way you connected structure and authority to love and respect was both convicting and encouraging. It affirmed that creating order isn’t about control—it’s about cultivating peace so students can truly thrive. I’m grateful for your wisdom and can’t wait to put these ideas into practice!
So great! Constantly stating expectations so that students can feel successful is a profound concept that is easy to implement when you think about it. I realized as I listed that I do this by going over an agenda for my class every day and having kids check off what we’ve done. We have so much fun placing big checks. Never thought about what I was doing in the way that Michael described. Thank you!
The idea that kids need to be constantly learning from bell to bell is unrealistic. Like he said, kids need breaks. I have been struggling to have appropriate breaks and down time for my students. The downtime is when the brain can process all that it has taken in. Kids need that. It’s not fluff.
I love the steps to just state the rule broken, the consequence, and then move on. Great advice!!!
I liked the encouragement to think, not just about how to model behavior we want to receive from the students, but how to model responses for when we DON’T receive it. Students need to see appropriate reactions from adults to things going wrong, from disrespect down to silly things like what we do if something happens that could be considered embarrassing (like dropping half a pile of papers). Our chill is often their chill for the classroom.
I sometimes get so focused on the the teaching, I forget the need for breaks; thanks for the reminder.
Instituting a “time out” area for any student is a unique idea. Teaching academics while teaching expectations and the reminders as needed. Interesting to teach academics day one…
I love the idea of putting the responsibility on the students’ shoulders to follow expectations and rules, which frees us up to be the teacher. Such a helpful session!
My takeaway is that California needs to bring back time-outs. 😊 I agree that a short time-out can make a huge difference. 1 – 5 minute time-outs made a huge difference on my students behavior in the past. I wish we were still allowed to give time-outs.
*** If any kindergarten teachers who read this comment and have found effective alternatives to time-outs, I’d really appreciate hearing what works for you.***
Thank you!
1. Revisit your rules/mgmt plan/expectations frequently and organically.
2. Create a classroom students are respected in, love being in, and feel successful… and the improved behaviors will follow!
This was so helpful. I valued the point on clarity, both in lessons as well as expectations. When students break this, it’s important to explain it to them in terms of the expectations and consequences rather than a view of “you hurt my feelings by being rude” as allowing feelings to get in the way may only make matters worse. It certainly takes practice!
Making the rules known and being consistent makes a huge difference! This was a game changer for this year’s middle school class!
Great ideas to diffuse a tense situation: give the student a chance to cool down, and show mutual respect.
“Classroom management isn’t about getting through the day; it’s about making an impact on students that lasts a lifetime.”
Details make lessons interesting. Know your material and add the extras.
I loved the reminder to have clear expectations and to continually review them.
I am inspired with lots of good ideas! I loved the comments on not responding to misbehaviour with emotions as well as to not allow any gray areas in your rules.
Thank you for your comments on ADHD/ODD students. It sounds like the students are lucky to have you as a teacher!
I really liked his point about continuing to teach, give the student a minute, go to them and point out what rule they broke and the consequences then move on. I like this. I see where at times I have handled it well but so many times when I made it too big and that becomes a problem and a thief of time and relationship.
This information was practical and helpful! Thank you for clear examples of what to do.
Wow! This will affirm what you’re doing that’s working or not working so great. Good reminder to take care to avoid creating friction and don’t respond emotionally. When you set up class rules the first week, regarding how you will treat each other, discuss and give examples and consequences. Then when the disrespect or other behavior problem arises, be like the referee in sports – unemotionally determine the “offense” and enforce the consequences fairly. That’s just from the 1st few minutes – there’s so much more in this q&a session!
I really like the reminder that the more specific you can be with your students the better.
Loved the reminder to “remind” them about the rules and procedures. Consistency and relationship are real to middle schoolers (my jam). thanks
I love the part about not having gray areas when it comes to your classroom management plan. It is our responsibility, as teachers, to make sure that we are clear when explaining our classroom management plan and that we revisit our classroom management plan throughout the school year.It was also a great reminder that consistency is the key to having a classroom where students have the right to learn and enjoy their experiences in the classroom.
The reminders about keeping expectations high, reteaching rules they are struggling with and keeping kids moving are so important.
Very good informative session. I like how Michael says we need to teach classroom management while also teaching academics. I teach Prek and we review the carpet listening rules often and then we practice using the listening rules during a story or lesson.
I also liked how he said it’s important the students know what they should be doing and what the teacher will be doing while they are working. I hadn’t thought much about that in my Prek classroom but I do need to tell the students what I will be doing while they are doing learning centers (documenting and observing all the standards-in kid terms ofcourse, lol) so they can become more independent instead of relying on the teacher.