Course-correcting when your class is making a slow descent into chaos

 It’s NEVER too late to change something that’s not working. Not in your classroom, and not in your life.

You don’t have to wait for next year and an entirely new group of kids. You can — and should — modify your procedures, expectations, and teaching strategies ANY time they are not effective, at ANY time during the school year.

Don’t worry that changing things up will cause them to question your authority and expertise, that if you admit to students that you told them to do something and it didn’t work out very well you are somehow incompetent as a teacher. I can’t even begin to count how many “brilliant” ideas I had that totally flopped in the classroom. No one can accurately predict what’s going to work perfectly with every single group of students. Trial and error is part of the process of becoming a master teacher.