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A simple activity can help preschoolers better understand boundaries and learn to be gentle when it comes to physical contact.

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classroom management/positive reinforcement

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Explicitly teaching and celebrating kindness is a simple yet powerful way to build a positive classroom culture.

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60 Second Strategy: Respond, Reflect, Review

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60 Second Strategy: Respond, Reflect, Review

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60-Second Strategy: Respond, Reflect, and Review

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This simple activity helps students practice giving and receiving peer feedback-and gets them out of their desks.

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Supporting Behavioral Needs: A Multi-Tiered Approach

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The 5 Second Solution for a Talkative Class

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Aspen Florence is a student advocacy services supervisor for the Ogden School District in Utah.

As schools serve student populations with increasingly complex academic, behavioral and social-emotional needs, a multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) is proving to be beneficial for identifying, prioritizing and supporting students. Educators and district leaders report the MTSS student support framework has empowered them to provide support to students before a problem occurs, ensuring no student falls between the cracks.

The ability to measure and understand the impact of interventions is critical for an effective MTSS process. While the data and insight MTSS provides holds enormous potential, only 3 in 10 educators report they are currently tracking interventions effectively. Like many school districts, educators and district leaders in the Ogden School District in Utah had utilized various sources of data to identify, prioritize and support every student. However, our district leaders still saw gaps in achievement among groups of students, and schools still faced higher-than-average rates of high school dropouts, chronic absenteeism and suicides.

We realized that we needed to uniquely equip our teachers to address the inherent risk factors that many of our students were dealing with, which is why we have spent the past three years investing in building and scaling a district-wide MTSS standard to support over 12,000 students across 20 schools. This system takes a comprehensive "whole child" approach to addressing the unique and individual needs of each student through the use of tiered interventions, an early warning system, social-emotional learning assessment and professional development for teachers.

Purposeful use of data

Ogden has always been a very data-driven school system, utilizing data from attendance, behavior and grades to make better-informed decisions when it comes to our students, but pulling those data points together would sometimes take two to three days. We also needed to step back and review how we were utilizing the data that was being gathered.

Our leaders recognized that we were not proactively meeting students' needs, as we were using the data more like an autopsy as opposed to a diagnostic tool. As part of our effort to look at data as a way to drive outcomes rather than react to them, we implemented a new early warning system and social-emotional learning assessments from Panorama Education. Additionally, we connected key data systems. This offered our educators a full view of a student's progress and an all-in-one spot to manage interventions.

This 360-degree visibility enables educators to more easily monitor the progress of individual students and groups and provides guidance on the next steps needed to meet student goals. Most importantly, this data is visible across the district, giving educators and administrators the opportunity to build collaborative, goal-based intervention plans that are readily available when the student changes schools within the district.

Gaining buy-in

Given the reality of resources, schedules and staff capacity, it can be challenging at first to establish the "culture" needed for MTSS to be successful districtwide. We began delivering consistent MTSS services by first creating student support teams at each school site-known as child assistance teams (ChATs)-to mobilize around at-risk students.

Made up of principals, counselors, and academic and behavior intervention specialists, the ChAT meets weekly to review relevant data, identify students in need of tier two supports and ensure that interventions are carried out with fidelity. Based on these meetings, next steps are planned for each at-risk student and interventions are implemented within the next 48 hours.

A narrow set of MTSS interventions assist with us delivering effective, targeted support. By keeping our intervention menu simple, we can ensure we are reaching students promptly. These include:

1. 2x10 relationship building: Connect with a student for two minutes per day, 10 days in a row. These conversations should focus on relationship building and must be about anything but school.

2. Preventative problem-solving plan (3Ps): Work with the student to identify the problem and talk through a solution.

3. Goal setting: Check in with the student around a goal; more teacher-directed than the 3Ps, but still based on what the student has identified as the problem.

4. Check in, check out: This is the most time-intensive intervention; review goals with the student every morning and collect data in 30-minute increments.

Additionally, we utilize group-based interventions to assist students needing extra support. For example, at Mound Fort Junior High, the Achievement Club has led to positive outcomes for 8th and 9th graders who need additional support on their path to graduation. One specific student went from 89% daily attendance to 95% attendance after being placed in the club.

Looking ahead

While we have made tremendous academic gains, and our growth trend is moving upward drastically, we recognize that results aren't achieved overnight, and we still have a long way to go.

With measurements that align with our five-year strategic goal, Ogden has created a sustainable, coherent system for change. Before, our students were letting us know they were struggling but not sure how to ask for help, and often we were identifying them too late. Now, by utilizing the data that we were already collecting in addition to early warning signals and social-emotional insight, we can ensure that we are addressing their needs in time.

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Building and scaling interventions to support every student

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Aspen Florence is a student advocacy services supervisor for the Ogden School District in Utah. As schools serve student populations with increasingly complex academic, behavioral and social-emotional needs, a multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) is proving to be beneficial for identifying, prioritizing and supporting students.

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The home of Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS). FInd more information on PBIS, how to implement PBIS, get resources and materials, and how to get support. Funded by the U.S.

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Avoid power struggles Call parent or note home Card Flip Clear, consistent, and predictable consequences Do unfinished work during recess or unstructured time Have student say a nice thing to the student they called a name Logical consequence Natural consequences Office referral Reflection sheet Remove from room Speak in calm and neutral tone Take away privileges Take away unstructured or free time

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Alternatives To Suspension Behavior Contract Behavior Intervention Plan (BIP) Behavior Meetings Structured Breaks Check In Check Out (CICO) Collaboration With Student's Physician And/Or Mental Health Provider Counselor Referral Daily Behavior Form Forced Choice Reinforcement Survey

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PBISWorld.com Tier 2 Positive Behavior Interventions And Supports | PBIS World

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PBIS World is in no way affiliated, associated, or connected with any other website, entity, organization, or federal, state, local, or other government agency, department, program, policy, organization, or initiative.

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ktrio pack of 6 color hand tally counter 4 digit tally counters mechanical palm counter clicker counter handheld pitch click counter number count for row

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Ktrio Pack of 6 Color Hand Tally Counter 4 Digit Tally Counters Mechanical Palm Counter Clicker Counter Handheld Pitch Click Counter Number Count for Row, People, Golf & Knitting, Assorted Colors

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Parameter Name: Ktrio Handy Tally Counter Package: A Pack of 6 PCS Material: ABS plastic case & stainless ring Package Size: 7.5 x 4.7 x 3.1cm (3x1.9x1.2 in) Weight: 0.03kg/0.07lb Email: ktrioservice@outlook.com Feature: ◆ 4 digit counts 0000 to 9999. Easily reset by turning the knob. ◆ No batte...

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Managing Your High School Classroom with Compassion

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Managing Your High School Classroom with Compassion

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High school teacher Grace Dearborn says students don't all respond to consequences in the same way, so teachers need a full toolbox of options.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach for classroom management; the methods for discipline need to be as diverse and unique as the students themselves. But according to Grace Dearborn-a high school teacher and the author of the books Picture This! and Conscious Classroom Management -a common thread should run through them all: compassion.

In a recent piece on Mindshift, editor Ki Sung provides Dearborn's tips on compassion-based classroom behavior management. Infusing discipline with compassion means considering not only what consequence to impose, Dearborn says, but rethinking some of our assumptions about how, why, and when we discipline students.
Conscious Teaching
To give students more autonomy, Dearborn presents a series of tiered choices framed "as consequences, not punishments." Even if the student's choice doesn't yield the outcome a teacher wanted, the process reinforces that the "teacher cares enough to hold her accountable."

Dearborn, who engaged in frustrated exchanges with students as a young educator, advises teachers to be vigilant about "tone, posture, and volume, to avoid standoffs"-and to consider disciplining privately when appropriate. Teachers should be mindful that high school students often act out because they "feel shame when they are called out in front of the entire class."

When students are defiant or openly angry, she encourages educators to look for the "subtitles" of the behavior. The focus is less about the action and more about the "why" behind it. "When kids are acting in a confrontational, dismissive or volatile way," according to the article, "Dearborn suggests looking for the deeper message the student is communicating, whether they know it or not. She imagines an invisible subtitle running in front of the student that communicates what she really needs." The approach has been revelatory, allowing Dearborn "to stop perceiving misbehavior as disrespect."

Another method she developed is called "drive-by discipline." Instead of engaging in a battle over a small behavioral issue, she cautions, "Say the kid's name superfast and then move on. "Sometimes it's the right thing to do. It startles her, and then I move on before she can bait me into an argument."

Dearborn acknowledges there are no simple solutions to classroom management: "changing behavior comes down to hard work." Choosing compassion over knee-jerk punitive approaches builds relationships and, she contends, does a better job of improving engagement and behavior in the long term.

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Managing Your High School Classroom with Compassion

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High school teacher Grace Dearborn says students don't all respond to consequences in the same way, so teachers need a full toolbox of options.

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Mr. Hill stops reading aloud to his 4th grade students and turns to Anisa. "Anisa, you're off task. Change your clip. I asked you once and you are still digging in your desk. Walk over and change it now."

Anisa stands and walks across the classroom. Several of her peers make condescending comments under their breath. Anisa moves her clip from green to yellow and returns to her desk and puts her head down. Her nonverbal behaviors indicate that she's angry, hurt, and frustrated.

A few minutes later, Josh raises his hand. Mr. Hill calls on him and Josh responds, "Anisa is off task again."

Mr. Hill looks at Anisa and says, "Again? Please change your clip to red. One more problem and it will be another call home. You have to learn to pay attention."

A Practice That Harms

Scenes like this are common in schools today. Pass through the halls of almost any elementary school and you are likely to at some point hear "pull a red ticket" or "you're on yellow now." Behavior charts-and their variants-are standard in elementary schools throughout the world. They represent a practice long overdue for retirement.

In thinking about this strategy for managing student behavior, we challenge you to ask yourself a question: Why are you are an educator and why do you continue to be an educator? Did you respond with, "to show students who's boss?" or "to help the students who are already doing well to succeed?" Of course not. Your response was probably some version of, "I want to make a difference" or "I want to be the teacher students need in their lives." We posed this question because we can't move forward in the argument we're about to make until we share a strong understanding of our ultimate goal as educators. Most of us are in education to make a difference in our students' lives and help them become their best selves-aspirations that, in our view, aren't compatible with behavior charts.

In working with students, we've often seen adolescents display challenging behaviors that have evolved over years. We've wondered to what extent their behavioral paths could have been corrected in early-childhood classrooms rather than exacerbated by stigmatizing practices like behavior charts. Braithwaite's shaming theory (1989) highlights the connections between stigmatizing shame and later delinquency. According to Braithwaite, "shaming means all societal processes of expressing disapproval which have the intention or effect of invoking remorse in the person being shamed and/or condemnation by others who become aware of the shaming" (p. 100). Although the relationship between shame and later behavior is complex, empirical studies provide enough evidence to compel us to stop shaming young children and instead build strong relationships and seek alternative methods to promote prosocial behaviors.

We present here three reasons to abandon behavior charts. If such charts are used in your school, we encourage you to have an open mind as you consider our reasoning. And we hope you take down those charts tomorrow and consider trying the alternatives we propose to foster positive behavior.

1. Compliance Isn't Our Long-term Goal

Behavior charts do an excellent job of teaching children that they will be punished if they don't comply with directions or rules. Although this may work in the short-term to make some students compliant, compliance shouldn't be our end game. We can shoot so much higher than that! We want students to be engaged and excited about learning, to persist when their work is hard, and to interact with others in ways that will lead to positive social and academic outcomes in the future.

Art Costa and Bena Kallick (2000) have done beautiful work organizing and describing the skills and behaviors educators should cultivate in all our students, what they term habits of mind. These lifelong skills-like persisting, managing impulsivity, and listening to others with empathy-improve students' competence, confidence, and ultimate success across the curriculum and in life. Such skills are arguably more important than the content we teach; the content is merely a vehicle for teaching them. Solidifying these habits is what teachers should aim toward. Otherwise, we run the risk of creating what William Deresiewicz (2015) called "excellent sheep"-students who play the game of school but lack true engagement and critical thinking.

2. Behavior Charts Can't Teach Self-Regulation

Teaching the whole child is our responsibility. If we are to be effective in our work, faculty at all levels must be able to teach habits of mind such as self-regulation, a key skill for shifting toward more positive behavior. Simply rewarding and punishing behaviors is not what helps students learn such habits and skills. It's particularly ineffective with self-regulation.

Punishments work to reduce behaviors by immediately following a behavior we don't want to see with a consequence that the child doesn't like (Alberto & Troutman, 2002). Thus, behavior charts can reduce a student's problematic behavior if the student dislikes negative public attention-or public shaming. This is a questionable strategy to begin with since it's based on stressing out the student rather than cultivating new aptitudes. But for many students, negative attention is something they've gotten used to, or worse, something over which they feel they have no control. Their identity has become "the kid who is bad." Have you noticed that most of the time the student who is "on red" today is the same one who was "on red" yesterday and the day before? And is likely to be "on red" all year long? What does it tell us if the intervention being put in place doesn't lead to a change in students' behavior? Clearly, the strategy isn't working. Why would we continue to use any strategy that isn't working?

Decades of research have led to a body of evidence on how educators can effectively support and teach key skills like self-regulation (Heckhausen & Dweck, 2009). Nowhere in the literature do researchers recommend that we shame children into being compliant.

3. Charts Hurt Students!

The most compelling reason to abandon behavior charts is this: They risk harming our students. Lee Ann still remembers the painful effect of the color behavior chart a teacher used when her son, Spencer, was in 1st grade. Spencer was a sensitive "people pleaser" as a young child. He preferred to do what he needed to do with little public attention, but he valued personal relationships. He was kind to everyone around him and worked hard in school. One afternoon, Spencer came home from school distraught because he'd had to "move his stick." He'd gone to school without a paper signed by Lee Ann and, in front of the class, his teacher reprimanded him and asked him to move his stick from green to yellow. Spencer felt as though he had failed and let his teacher down. He was embarrassed and affected by the event for days.

Fortunately, Spencer's experience was a one-time event. But consider the inner voice of the student who is "on red" nearly every day. When we reprimand a student in front of their peers, we risk changing that student's inner voice, shifting their identity to the "bad kid," isolating the student from peers, and disrupting their relationship with their teachers. At worst, we risk making a student feel unloved. Imagine the devastating effects for a child who gets most of her or his love at school.

Instead of using charts, we could just as effectively reduce undesirable behaviors by dumping ice water on a student or inflicting corporal punishment. Did you furrow your brow at that thought? We would never do that! We would never use physical punishment on a student in an effort to shape behavior-or even want a student to learn to avoid certain behaviors out of fear of physical harm. So why don't we have the same visceral reaction to emotional punishment?

Consider who this practice harms the most. Not the student who has a handle on self-regulation and performs well in school. It's the students who need us the most who we are hurting. Behavior charts are a way to excuse ourselves from the hard work of meeting a student's self-regulation and behavior needs. The fact of the matter is, when we use behavior charts, we are sacrificing student dignity in favor of teacher convenience.

Alternative to Sticks, Clips, and Charts

Perhaps we've convinced you to stand up right now, run down the halls of the school, and tear down the behavior charts. But before you jump out of your chair, you might be asking, "What do we do instead? If I don't have consequences in place, my classroom will be chaos." As we advocate for avoiding punitive approaches within schools, we often hear rumblings that alternative disciplinary strategies are too soft and "touchy-feely." Dominique has even heard restorative practices-that is, those based on reconciliation and understanding-referred to as the "hug a thug" approach.

Rest assured, we don't recommend removing structures or accountability. We advocate for putting behavioral structures in place, just not punitive ones. We want students to be held accountable in more natural ways and to have a chance to learn the impact of their actions on others. We want them to build empathy, persistence, or whatever skills they need to behave appropriately-and for those positive behaviors to become internally driven.

There are effective, humane, growth-producing ways to teach students that their behaviors impact others. True, there may be a bit of an adjustment period when changing to a new system. But our students' self-worth and long-term success are worth any temporary disruption we may encounter. To move away from the reactive approach of behavior charts, we recommend teachers put into place three proactive strategies.

1. "Take Ten" for Each Learner

Set aside 10 minutes each day to sit with one student (focusing on each of your students in turn). Talk about something non-school-related that's of interest to that child. When educators build strong, caring relationships with their students, each student naturally wants to protect that relationship and avoid anything that might damage it. Students' behaviors and approaches to learning in the classroom are then driven by relationships, not fear.

Teachers need to know as much as possible about what makes each student unique and special-her personal interests, what excites him, what delights her, what he fears. We need to understand much more than their academic strengths and needs; we need to know the whole child-who they truly are-and allow them to know our true selves, too.

Students should feel that teachers are on their side. Imagine how differently the opening anecdote might have turned out if Anisa's teacher had built a strong relationship with her.

2. Keep It Off-Stage

Stop making discipline for poor behavior visible. Students tend to react negatively when they're called out in front of others. Instead, when a student's inappropriate behavior needs to be addressed, have a one-on-one conversation with the student, staying calm but firm. When possible, avoid publicly calling a student aside for this talk: Publicly-and perhaps angrily-telling a child to come talk with you can have the same humiliating effect as a behavior chart. Instead, after class invite that student to have a conversation with you or quietly ask them to talk with you at a time when other students are otherwise engaged.

Be calm and supportive in discussing the behavior. To maintain your relationship with the student, always conclude by ensuring the student understands that although you are unhappy with the behavior, you still care about them and are there to support them in their growth.

3. Hear Students Out

Before acting on any student behavior, try to understand why it happened. When a student needs a corrective conversation, first ask to hear his side of the story. Generally, students prefer to have a conversation with a teacher rather than having a teacher conversation happen to them.

There's always a reason why students are acting as they do. Stop asking "What's wrong with that student?" and start figuring out what happened to that student. This may mean asking questions that prompt the student to reflect on the behavior and its effects on others. Students often have a hard time knowing why they acted in a certain way. It's only once their emotion has calmed-and through a guided analysis-that they can identify the reason.

Once a learner understands the underlying reason, we can guide him or her to consider alternatives for next time and discuss any consequence that needs to follow. Even students who are caught in a pattern of disruptive or harmful behaviors-perhaps especially those students-benefit from being heard. Certainly, there are times when we must intervene and stop a behavior, such as if it is causing harm or severe disruption. We may need to remove the student from the situation immediately to restore a calm, safe environment-and later teach that student the self-regulation skills needed to prevent such behavior in the future. The key is that the subsequent conversation should be private and should be about the behavior rather than the person.

Students Deserve Better

Imagine how much better things might have turned out if, in the opening scenario, instead of scolding Anisa, Mr. Hill had tried some of the techniques described here. He might've noted that Anisa was having difficulty remaining engaged in the reading and lesson and, after finishing the group read-aloud, approached her while everyone else was gathering their things and moving to stations for the next lesson. Imagine if he'd said, "Anisa, I saw you were having trouble staying with me today. I'm worried that if you aren't paying attention to the lesson, you'll miss something important to your learning. What was going on today?" Mr. Hill might have found out that Anisa was actually looking for a pencil to write down ideas that occurred to her as he read aloud. He might then have affirmed, "That seems to be happening a lot lately-trouble finding your pencil and other materials. Let's find some time today to see if we can come up with an organization solution, OK?" With such a response, Mr. Hill would've acknowledged the need for a change in Anisa's behavior, but not stigmatized Anisa as a "bad kid;" rather, he would have helped her develop a solution.

All students deserve this kind of supportive response. We are calling out the practice of behavior charts for what it really is: public shaming of children into compliance. We have many good strategies available for teaching self-regulation; humiliation isn't one of them. Let's stop "managing behaviors" and instead guide and support engagement, persistence, and positive interactions. Let's build relationships that promote growth of the whole child-and the skills each student needs for a lifetime of positive interactions and success.

Now, go tear down some charts!

Authors' note: All teacher and student names are pseudonyms.

Guiding Questions

› How does your approach for addressing student behavior issues square with your personal answer to the question Jung and Smith propose: "Why do you continue to be an educator?" Does how you deal with "problem" students fit your central purpose?

› What challenges might you or your school face in adopting Jung and Smith's three strategies for teaching positive behavior? What steps could you take to address those challenges?

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Mr. Hill stops reading aloud to his 4th grade students and turns to Anisa. "Anisa, you're off task. Change your clip. I asked you once and you are still digging in your desk. Walk over and change it now." Anisa stands and walks across the classroom.

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Behavior Motivation | Behavioral Intervention | Intervention Central

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Behavioral Intervention is a leading strategy to help educators increase classroom productivity by helping with behavior modification

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Description

By implementing the universal proactive and positive schoolwide approach detailed in the Safe & Civil Schools Series, teachers can spend less time dealing with disruption and resistance and more time teaching. However, some students will need more individualized support.

This resource gives educators information about how to create a continuum of problem-solving and intervention supports for students who don't respond to universal efforts-or those students who require the higher levels of support, resources, or expertise characteristic of Tier 2 or Tier 3 supports.

This book is designed for school personnel who have responsibility for ensuring that students' needs for behavioral, social, and emotional support are met, as well as anyone who will be involved in planning or implementing an individual intervention. This may include:

School psychologists

School counselors

Behavioral specialists

Members of existing problem-solving teams

Building-based administrators

Members of your behavior leadership team

District personnel such as special education directors/coordinators, directors of school psychology, and supervisors of school counselors

This revised edition provides recommendations for efficient schoolwide coordination for delivery of intervention services-the background tasks administrators and school leaders must complete in order to establish a system for individualized intervention.

It also presents an evidence-based model to guide effective and efficient problem-solving for individual students. The framework for building behavior interventions can be used for any stage of a problem, with implementation guidance, sample forms, charts, and data collection tools.

Step-by-step instructions detail how to plan and implement a set of specialized intervention strategies designed to support:

Students with internalizing challenges

Students who exhibit escalating, dangerous, or highly disruptive behavior

Students who may benefit from behavioral contracting, structured reinforcement, or self-monitoring and self-evaluation systems

Download reproducible forms for collecting data on behavior, planning and implementing evidence-based intervention plans, monitoring fidelity of implementation, and more.

Click here if you are interested in the second edition of Interventions.

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This newly revised and updated edition of Interventions helps educators who work with challenging students plan and implement evidence-based, tiered strategies to increase motivation and improve behavior. It focuses both on schoolwide systems and individual interventions to serve students with behavior challenges.

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Teacher Encyclopedia of Behavior Management

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Teacher Encyclopedia of Behavior Management

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Description

Comprehensive and insightful, the Teacher's Encyclopedia offers more than 500 easy-to-implement intervention plans, covering over 100 common classroom problems, including:

Arguing-Students with the teacher and students with each other

Blaming others/Excuses for everything

Cliques/Ganging up

Forgetting materials

Homework issues

Problems with transitions

Work completion-Daily work

The new second edition incorporates a more streamlined, easy-to-reference design, a new CD with 75 ready-to-use reproducibles to make intervention implementation easy (formerly Encyclopedia Tools), and 14 new problems, including misuse of electronics, cyberbullying, gambling, and skipping class.

For each misbehavior addressed, the Teacher's Encyclopedia offers an assortment of plans that allow you to select an intervention tailored to the purpose, duration, and severity of the specific situation. A series of questions guides you through relevant considerations to help you identify the plan that best suits your situation or develop your own custom intervention.

Teacher's Encyclopedia is listed on the National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices (NREPP). The online National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices was discontinued in January 2018, but a link to the Safe & Civil Schools NREPP listing can be found here.

Randy Sprick

Randy Sprick, Ph.D., is an educational consultant and trainer in Eugene, Oregon. Each year, he presents practical and entertaining workshops to over 30,000 teachers and administrators throughout the United States and Canada. Much of his work involves helping teachers, principals, and other staff set up schools and classrooms that encourage student responsibility and motivation, while humanely and effectively helping misbehaving students learn to behave in more responsible ways. As the primary author for the Safe & Civil Schools series, Randy has produced numerous articles, books, audiotapes, and videotapes that assist school personnel in dealing with the issues of discipline and classroom management. In 2007, the Council for Exceptional Children honored Randy with the J.E. Wallace Wallin Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his work developing, advocating, and promoting Positive Behavior Support in schools.

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Dr. Randy Sprick's top-selling Teacher's Encyclopedia of Behavior Management is now newly revised and updated. Since 1995, thousands of teachers have come to rely on the Encyclopedia's effective interventions to help them create and maintain productive, respectful, PBIS-driven learning environments.

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Teacher uses "mood notes" to help students open up about their feelings

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In this installment of our School Matters series, we look at how educators tackle mental health in the classroom. Advocacy groups say in a given year, nearly one in five adults experience mental illness. Jamie Yuccas shows us how one Northern California teacher is encouraging students to reveal their own struggles through a simple exercise.

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60 Second Strategy: Appreciation, Apology, or A-ha!

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60 Second Strategy: Appreciation, Apology, or A-ha!

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60-Second Strategy: Appreciation, Apology, Aha!

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11 Research Based Classroom Management Strategies

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11 Research Based Classroom Management Strategies

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Discover kernels-simple, quick, and reliable ways to deal with behavior challenges.

©Shutterstock.com/Monkey Business Images

Do unresolved behavior issues keep you awake at night thinking about what strategies might enhance responsible decision making and increase academic learning time? It's natural to feel personally and professionally challenged-as I have, too many times to count.

The good news is that there are some research-based strategies called kernels that you can add to your classroom management toolkit.

What Are Kernels?

In a 2008 paper published in Clinical Child and Family Psychology, Dennis Embry and Anthony Biglan describe kernels as "fundamental units of behavioral influence"-bite-size strategies that are validated by mountains of empirical evidence and teacher experience. (Barry Parsonson's " Evidence-Based Classroom Behavior Management Strategies " offers another deep dive into the research.)

Embry and Biglan describe how a kernel might help the parent whose child is struggling to get out the door on time for school: "Alone, such a complaint does not merit implementing parenting skills training. However, a simple behavior change strategy, such as the 'Beat the Timer' game ( Adams and Drabman 1995), in which the child receives a reward for completing a behavior before the timer goes off, could solve the problem, and prevent parent-child conflict."

Particularly at the beginning of the year, before you've had a chance to develop deeper relationships with your students, kernels can offer useful approaches to classroom management. Administrators and coaches recommend kernels because implementing them with fidelity is intuitive and observable. They require neither special training nor expensive consultants.

11 Classroom Management Kernels

While veteran teachers may read the annotated list of kernels as common knowledge, their ubiquity is an advantage. You'll often find them embedded in more complex constellations of evidence-based behavioral programs because of their effectiveness in cuing self-awareness, self-regulation, and pro-academic dispositions.

3. Timeouts: Hundreds of studies support the timeout strategy, which is now considered an indispensable component of many evidence-based behavior management systems. Unlike the dunce cap punishment, which intentionally shames and stigmatizes students, a timeout is now used in progressive classrooms to provide an emotional breather in a less socially charged area of the room. It's also a way for students to decompress, reflect on and enhance their self-awareness, and then return to their seats with improved self-regulation.

6. Private Reminders: When partnered with discreet praise, private reminders to students about how to act responsibly increase on-task behaviors. Researchers recommend using short and unemotional reminders.

7. Greetings: It might seem like an insignificant gesture, but greeting students by name and making a positive statement enhances their self-regulation and increases class participation. Example: "Hey, Marcus. How is my brilliant student today?"

An overwhelming number of studies recommend that classroom instructors systematically teach self-regulation, relationship management, and responsible decision making at the beginning of the school year, so implement these kernels soon.

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Discover kernels-simple, quick, and reliable ways to deal with behavior challenges.

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Teacher Behavioral Strategies Menu

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Here is a sampling of strategies that teachers can use either to head off or to provide consequences for low- to medium-level student misbehavior: Break student tasks into manageable 'chunks': Students may misbehave to escape activities that they find too hard or tedious.