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I am excited to find ways to help create a more prosocial classroom. This week I have read one article on ways to promote positive behaviors in the classroom. I loved the idea about including a happiness board in the classroom. You would have students add pictures of their dreams/goals and people that inspire them. This can be done individually. As the teacher, I would create one for an example. It might even be great to have a combined Happiness board for the whole class. You can add to it throughout the year.

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Promoting Prosocial Behaviors in the Classroom

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According to research, nurturing prosocial behaviors may improve academic outcomes-both classroom grades and test scores.

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I am most excited about finding ways to take mistakes that happen in the classroom and value them as learning opportunities. This week i took the time to research different articles on ways that teachers have taken mistakes in their classroom and used those mistakes to encourage students to work harder, instead of letting that mistake defeat the students. This article shows different ways that teachers can embrace those mistakes by providing immediate feedback, modeling that failure happens and by having strong communication between the students and teacher. These will help the students to take what they have learned and motivate them to be accountable for their learning process.

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I am most excited about finding ways to help manage behaviors better within the classroom to help all students have a safe learning environment. Today I started by watching a Ted Talk called 'What can we do with disruptive children?'. The video is about a teacher that works in a school where students have been taken out of the main stream classroom. She also talks about how a lot of the time those students with behavior issues make the teachers feel just like them. It also explains that it is important as a teacher to know your students and know their backgrounds so that there is a reason for the problem and the teacher can find a solution to help the student's needs. I will be active in my learning goal by trying to learn even more about my students and their situations.

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What can we do with disruptive children? | Debbie Breeze | TEDxNantwich

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I am most excited about finding ways to help with classroom and behavior management.  This week I took the time to read an article about eight proactive classroom management tips.  The article goes into detail about how teachers could incorporate conditions for behavior in which they are not likely to occur.  It could be as simple as greeting the students at the door with a positive statement to set the tone for the day.  It also acknowledges that teachers need to stay consistent with their expectations and rules.  Additionally, I happened to be scrolling through social media and found a behavior management strategy that will be engaging for students.  The teacher had the students earn tickets for positive behavior.  They will be able to redeem those tickets at the classroom store at the end of a certain amount of time. Each of the items within the store were worth a certain amount of tickets.  They could only redeem for one item at a time.  I know my students in my field placement would love doing this!

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New teachers-and experienced ones too-can find ideas here on how to stop disruptive behavior before it begins.

In the 1950s, psychologists Jacob Kounin and Paul Gump discovered a curious side effect of discipline: If a student was being disruptive and the teacher responded with strict disciplinary measures, the student might stop-but other students would start exhibiting the same misbehavior. Kounin and Gump called this the " ripple effect," and it demonstrated that efforts to control a classroom can backfire.

"The teacher who is interested in controlling ripple effects can generally do so best by giving clear instructions to the child rather than by exerting pressure on him," Kounin and Gump wrote.

Decades later, classroom management is still a thorny issue for teachers. Nearly half of new teachers report that they feel "not at all prepared" or "only somewhat prepared" to handle disruptive students, in part because the average teacher training program devotes just eight hours to the topic, according to a 2014 report from the National Council on Teacher Quality. This lack of training comes with a cost, as teachers report losing 144 minutes of instructional time on average to behavioral disruptions every week, which comes out to roughly three weeks over the course of a year.

Recent research confirms what Kounin and Gump discovered decades ago. A 2016 study found that while negative attention-reprimands like "Stop chitchatting!"-may temporarily stop misbehavior, students eventually became more likely to engage in disruptive behavior. Students in the study felt disengaged, had difficulty concentrating, and weren't able to effectively regulate their thoughts and emotions-a vicious cycle that "actually amplifies students' inappropriate behavior," the study authors explain.

8 Proactive Classroom Management Strategies

Instead of handling disruptions after they've happened, it can be more effective to set up conditions in which they are less likely to occur. Here are eight classroom strategies that teachers have shared with Edutopia, all backed by research.

1. Greet students at the door: At Van Ness Elementary School in Washington, DC, Falon Turner starts the day by giving each of her students a high-five, handshake, or hug. "During that time, I'm just trying to connect with them.... It's kind of like a pulse check to see where they are," she says.

In a study published last year, greeting students at the door helped teachers set a positive tone for the rest of the day, boosting academic engagement by 20 percentage points while reducing disruptive behavior by 9 percentage points-adding roughly an hour of engagement over the course of the school day.

For older students, give plenty of warning if you need them to follow instructions. Reminders and cues are helpful ways to encourage students to follow instructions without being overtly controlling or forceful. For example, if you can anticipate a disruption-such as students getting out of their seats if they finish an assignment early-give a short reminder of what they should do instead.

Reminders are commonly verbal, but can also be visual (flicking the lights to signal that it's time to be quiet), auditory (ringing a small bell to let students know they should pay attention to the teacher), or physical (using a hand signal to let students know to get back in their seats).
Courtesy of Emily Polak
But that doesn't mean choice is always bad. Giving students a sense of ownership in the room, paired with clear expectations for behavior, can have surprisingly positive effects. A welcoming space can reduce anxiety and boost academic performance. Emily Polak, a ninth-grade teacher in Madison, Alabama, gave her room a cozier feel by adding a couch, a loveseat, rugs, a coffee table, and posters. Her students decide where to sit-but if they can't get their work done, they get moved back to a desk. "Discipline issues have significantly decreased. My students seem to feel more relaxed and more motivated in a setting that honors their choices," Polak says.

It's also helpful to avoid using the word don't, suggests Alyssa Nucaro, a sixth-grade English teacher in Memphis. Students are more likely to listen to instructions that include clear reasons.

6. Set clear expectations: Instead of just displaying rules for behavior, have a discussion with your students about why those rules matter. Bobby Shaddox, a seventh-grade social studies teacher in Portland, Maine, works with his students to create a list of norms-words such as inclusive, focused, and considerate -to build a sense of community. "It helps us own the behavior in the classroom," Shaddox says. "Instead of a top-down list of rules that a teacher gives a class, these are words that we generated together. These are words that we believe in."

A 2017 study found that a teacher's nonverbal cues-such as smiling and making eye contact-can "reduce physical and/or psychological distance" with their students, boosting students' positive feelings toward the teacher and the course material while improving behavior.

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New teachers-and experienced ones too-can find ideas here on how to stop disruptive behavior before it begins.

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I am most excited about finding ways to implement culture into my classroom to allow for students to learn about individuals who are similar and different than themselves. I believe that this is an important factor in increasing motivation, self-esteem, and allowing for the students to put a footprint on their own culture. This learning environment will help students feel welcomed, respected, and part of the classroom that they learn in. Today I began with a Ted Talk about bringing culture and self-identity into their own education. This is a talk about how to make our classroom, our education something for every one of our students. Using the resistance that our students are giving us and instead of suppressing that, trying to find why are they resisting the education. This Ted Talk is thinking outside of the box about education on how to find way to bring new ideas into our classroom to better help our students feel that they belong. Overall, this video is a start to my learning about creating a prosocial classroom.

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Bringing Cultural Context and Self-Identity into Education: Brian Lozenski at TEDxUMN

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I am excited to find ways to implement positive and contagious prosocial behaviors in the classroom. This topic has grabbed my attention throughout my preclinical experience. It has been difficult to manage the students behavior when teaching students both online and in the classroom. This week I read an article that helps explain how teachers can promote prosocial behaviors in our students. I love how they suggested schools should help students develop excellent social skills by focusing on positives not punishments. Foster intrinsic motivation through genuine, concrete effort focused praise (e.g. ‘You worked hard’ rather than ‘good job’). Children are much more motivated to earn something than to have things taken away.

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Bullying is arguably one of the most significant challenges our schools face today. Bullying happens often and sometimes results in catastrophic consequences. Kids who are victims of bullying have a hard time learning, they have reduced self-esteem, and are susceptible to depression. In the worst cases, bullying has led to suicide or violence toward other students (many school shooters were, themselves, bullied).

So, how do we help reduce bullying in our schools? We consider bullying or other aggressive behaviors to be antisocial (in this context, antisocial doesn't mean you dislike parties, it actually means that you do things that harm others in some way, whether physically, emotionally, etc.). The antidote to this is to teach our kids the opposite: prosocial behaviors.

Prosocial behavior has many different definitions but simply put:

Prosocial behavior is acting in a positive direction toward someone else.

A kind word, sharing with a friend, helping others, or giving to others; these are all prosocial. Children tend to be very self-focused, so prosocial behaviors don't always come naturally to them.

Why do kids bully? No one knows for sure what causes kids to bully others, but we do know it is often about control. Kids who are bullied or bully often have low self-esteem or have adopted negative attitudes. Kids who are bullied especially tend not to have very many friends. Just one good friend can help a child who is bullied to stand up and not be a victim anymore. To fix bullying, efforts must be made to support both the bullies and the victims. Check out the proven effect conflict management series, BeCOOL® to teach your K-12 classes how to effectively deal with and reduce bullying.

More and more it seems that schools have a lot on their plates, but unfortunately, many children aren't coming into schools with the social skills they need. Schools have to teach these to kids so they can learn. If a child is a victim of bullying, they often can't focus on school. Without meaningful friendships, children withdraw, and many times struggle in school.

How Can Schools Help Kids Develop Excellent Social Skills?

Give Teachers Tools: Give teachers the tools they need to teach social skills. Teachers need training on how to teach social skills. It's likely you had pedagogy courses on math, social studies, or whatever discipline you currently teach. Social skills are challenging to explain yet often not covered in professional development. Teachers also need a curriculum to follow. It's not realistic to expect a teacher to integrate social skills teaching without giving them the tools to do so.

A great curriculum to use is the LifeSmart series. This humorous, engaging curriculum is easy to implement and uses VideoModeling™ to teach students the best ways (and the worst) to handle social situations. With LifeSmart, students learn these valuable life skills vicariously - they get to see exactly what happens with each kind of response, yet don't have to endure the consequences of making a social mistake.

Build a School Community: Be a good model by creating a school community. Staff members should build positive relationships with one another. This creates a model that kids can look up to when kids see adults having positive interactions with each other.

Focus on Positives Not Punishment: Foster intrinsic motivation through genuine, concrete effort focused praise (e.g. 'You worked hard' rather than 'good job'). Children are much more motivated to earn something than to have things taken away. Make expectations clear and be consistent on the follow through.

Determine where the child is in their process and help them move to the next step. A child's ability to be prosocial follows a predictable pattern of development. As the book Guiding Children's Social Development states, we can view the development of prosocial skills as a three-part process:

"First, in the recognition step, a child must be able to determine if someone needs help. Second, the child must decide whether to help or not to act. Third, a child must act by selecting and performing an appropriate behavior for that situation."

Prosocial behavior is not limited to times where there is an issue. Students can also exhibit prosocial behavior in events such as initiating play or conversations.

More Ways To Help Students In The Classroom

Practice: Kids need opportunities to practice. Just like every other skill children will learn, they must practice prosocial behavior to be successful. Recess or other free times are built-in practice. It is also a good idea to have some guided free play time where children are free to choose their activities, but adults are around to provide positive reinforcement and guidance. Role play is a great tactic for this!

If you're unsure where to start, try using Making The Effort™ - a proven effective program from the James Stanfield Company that teaches students the value of and how to apply effort for success in social situations.

Connect With Kids: Kids need to feel loved, safe and secure to engage in prosocial behavior. Try to make individual connections with kids. If you have a large class, this can be a challenge but something such as a special greeting at the door, a hug, high five, or handshake at the end of the day, or highlighting a specific student as the special helper for that day can help you bond with the students in your class.

Encourage Prosocial Behaviors in Students

Being able to effectively deal with conflict and be friendly toward others is crucial for adults and kids alike. Starting young and continually practicing these social skills will help your students succeed in the school and around their community for years to come.
By: Amy Curletto Amy has been teaching for 12 years in grades K-2. She has a bachelor's degree in Early Childhood and Elementary Education and also has endorsements in reading and ESL. Besides education, her other passion is writing and she has always dreamed of being a writer. She lives in Utah with her husband, her 3 daughters, and her miniature schnauzer. She enjoys reading, knitting, and camping.
Citations:

Kostelnik, Marjorie J. Guiding Children's Social Development and Learning. Wadsworth, 2012.

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How Teachers Can Promote Prosocial Behavior in Students

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Prosocial behavior is a precursor to many vital social skills. As bullying is widespread issue amount students today, it is important for teachers to promote prosocial tendencies in their students and help them learn to use these social skills to effectively manage conflict and find social-emotional wellbeing.

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I am excited to learn more behavior management strategies and how to tell which ones fits best for my students. In my field right now, the students are not allowed to unmute voluntarily. The teacher has to ask them to unmute and personally I do not think that is fair. I think that lowers the students motivation and lowers the chance of them ever wanting to participate in the future. I think the students should be able to unmute and participate and I think there are better ways to help with behaviors. This week I read an article about classroom behavior management and things you should not do. I feel like in school we learn a lot about what we should do and never really look at what we shouldn't do and why we shouldn't do it. For example, we should not ask "why did you do that?". When you ask that question to a student they are either going to give you the answer of "I don't know" or they are going to give you an answer you don't want to hear. You are setting them up for failure. Instead the article tells you to figure out what caused it and how to help such as with an ABC chart. I know that I should use an ABC chart when it comes to behaviors but I never thought about how one simple question can be setting our students up for failure and they learn nothing from it. I am excited to see what else I will learn in more articles and videos on the subject.

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Classroom Behavior Management: A Dozen Common Mistakes and What to Do Instead

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Contents Authors: Barbetta, Patricia, Norona, Kathleen Leong, Bicard, David Source: Preventing School Failure; Spring2005, Vol. 49 Issue 3, p11-19, 9p One of our primary responsibilities as teachers is to help our students learn. It is difficult for learning to take place in chaotic environments.

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I am excited to learn more ways about how to improve both classroom management and classroom feedback. These are both things that I feel are very important in the classroom. In my opinion, there is always room for improvement in these areas. Before going into student teaching next semester, these are beneficial things to learn more about. I have read many different articles to learn more about these topics. Specifically, to touch on the topic of classroom management skills, I found an amazing article about 6 different ways to improve classroom management. The 6 recommendations listed are to establish the environment, get their attention, broadcast your plan, make class fun, look for the positive, and ask for feedback. These are all great strategies to implement in my future classroom when it comes to classroom management. I have also learned many new valuable classroom management skills from my preclinical field experience this semester. Specifically, my teacher uses a "1, 2, 3" method. When the teacher says "1", the students raise their arm in the air and hold up a 1. Then, when the teacher says "2", the students place that number 1 over their mouths. Finally, when she says "3", the students are quiet and ready to resume/begin their learning. I can't wait to learn more about my learning goals and create the product and presentation for part 2 of the PLE.

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Spread the loveBetter classroom management begins with your attitude about your students. If you respect them, they'll respect you. As simple as that sounds, it works. Having a clear sense of your purpose and how you plan to go about it helps, too.

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In the following weeks I am looking forward to learning different ways that I can promote prosocial behaviors in my future classroom. There are so many different activities and techniques that can be used, and I look forward to learning about them and accumulating a collection of methods that I can try. To start this learning, I read my first of many articles on promoting prosocial behaviors. While, this is  a shorter article, if focuses on gratitude, kindness, and empathy. The article gives brief explanations why each of these attributes are important and a few ways that teachers can build the skills in their students.

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Promoting Prosocial Behaviors in the Classroom

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According to research, nurturing prosocial behaviors may improve academic outcomes-both classroom grades and test scores.

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In this personalized learning experience, I am most excited to learn about being able to discover more ways to implement collaboration into the classroom. I want to discover ways to ensure that students are playing an active role in their learning process. I am also excited to learn more about emotional and self regulation. I want to be able to properly model and address it in the classroom. I want to be able to learn how to implement ways in which students feel comfortable in talking about their emotions and frustrations. I want to discover ways in which I am able to model and allow for students to properly communicate their problems and find solutions to them. Today I read a blog which discusses different strategies to ensure that educators are creating a collaborative classroom with their students. In this blog I learned different strategies that you can use in order for students to play an active role in their learning process. One of the things that stuck out to me the most was being able to compromise and listen. A lot of times, in a classroom the teacher tells the student what they need to be doing in order to learn. However, in a collaborative learning environment, the student and teacher both listen to each other and collaborate with one another about the end goal. Both the educator and the student must listen to one another and discuss ideas that will be the most effective in the students learning process. It is so important as an educator that you are making sure that you are listening to your student and their interests. Doing this will result in your student being more likely to complete their work and be motivated in the process. I cannot wait to learn more about effective strategies in order to create a collobrative classroom and ways in which I can model self/emotional regulation in the classroom.

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As I continue to learn how to create a prosocial learning environment within the classroom, I am excited to learn more about the ways I can encourage positive relationships between students in the room. While in the classroom, I have observed students arguing with one another and not showing signs of being a good friend. This article gives ideas for way the teacher can implement positive relationships between the students in the classroom. For example, the teacher can teach problem solving and conflict resolution skills. This would be done by having students think about how actions and words can effect someone else. The teacher can give students different scenarios to work through to help with the development of this skill. The article also states that the teacher can give students opportunities to practice effective communication. For example, the teacher should model how to listen to others, taking turns in conversation, suggesting an idea, providing praise, and saying thank you and apologizing.

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Easy tips for encouraging positive peer relationships | Beyond the Classroom

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The detailed documents they share on their website include loads of practical and easy-to-do tips for encouraging positive peer relationships. Here are some

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I am excited to learn more about ways to improve choosing what accommodations work best for students to meet their academic goals. I chose to learn more about this topic because I feel that it is important that I am giving my students who need the extra help, the appropriate accommodations to do so. Throughout my field work, it has been difficult creating different accommodations for student that have some academic learning disability, along with the ones who have different ones. Finding a balance can sometimes be difficult because every student learns differently. This week I read an article on different kinds of accommodations. In the article, Accommodations in Assessment for Students with Disabilities, setting accommodation’s this is can done by reducing distractions to the student and change setting to permit physical access. Another is a response accommodation, this can be used by providing a tape recorder, spelling and grammar devices, and a word processor. These are just a couple great strategies that I have found while reading. I can’t wait to learn more about my learning goals while creating the product and presentation for Part 2 of the PLE.

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September 2010
A legacy resource from NICHCY
This info in Spanish | Esta información en español
IDEA requires that students with disabilities take part in state or districtwide assessments. These are tests that are periodically given to all students to measure achievement. It is one way that schools determine how well and how much students are learning.

This page will tell you how students with disabilities participate in this type of testing. Here's a quick Table of Contents.

In a nutshell
IDEA's exact words
Short-ish story on assessment accommodations
The long story
In a Nutshell

To support the participation of children with disabilities in such large-scale testing, accommodations or modifications may be necessary in how the test is administered or how a given child takes the test. It's the responsibility of the IEP team to decide how the student with a disability will participate, and then to document that decision in the child's IEP.

Alternatively, the IEP team may decide that a particular test is not appropriate for a child. In this case, the IEP must include:

an explanation of why that test is not suitable for the child, and

how the child will be assessed instead (often called alternate assessment).

Let's take a look at both of these scenarios and what type of information is then included in the IEP.

IDEA's Exact Words

What, precisely, is the provision in IDEA related to assessment accommodations? Found at §300.320(a)(6), it states that the IEP must contain:

(6)(i) A statement of any individual appropriate accommodations that are necessary to measure the academic achievement and functional performance of the child on State and districtwide assessments consistent with §612(a)(16) of the Act; and

(ii) If the IEP Team determines that the child must take an alternate assessment instead of a particular regular State or districtwide assessment of student achievement, a statement of why-

(A) The child cannot participate in the regular assessment; and

(B) The particular alternate assessment selected is appropriate for the child...

In these words, you can easily see the two scenarios we're going to discuss now.

1. If the child participates in the assessment, how?

2. If he or she does not participate, why not and what alternate assessment will be used instead?

The Short-ish Story on Assessment Accommodations

Children with disabilities must participate in their state's grade-level assessments to determine their level of content mastery, just as their peers without disabilities must participate, unless a child's IEP Team determines that a given assessment is not appropriate for the child. Recognizing that disability has its impact, IDEA permits children with disabilities to participate in large-scale assessment programs with accommodations. Those accommodations are individually determined for a given child by his or her IEP team.

What Kind of Accommodations Are There?

Making an accommodation in testing generally means that some aspect of the testing condition has been altered so that a child with a disability can more fully show what he or she knows or can do. Accommodations in the classroom and those in assessment situations tend to fall into several types of changes-timing, scheduling, setting, presentation, response :

Presentation Accommodations-Allow students to access information in ways that do not require them to visually read standard print. These alternate modes of access are auditory, multi-sensory, tactile, and visual.

Response Accommodations-Allow students to complete activities, assignments, and assessments in different ways or to solve or organize problems using some type of assistive device or organizer.

Setting Accommodations-Change the location in which a test or assignment is given or the conditions of the assessment setting.

Timing and Scheduling Accommodations-Increase the allowable length of time to complete an assessment or assignment and perhaps change the way the time is organized. (p. 29)

The type of accommodation any one child with a disability receives is based on an individual consideration of that child's needs.
Presentation accommodations:

Large print

Magnification devices

Sign language

Braille

Tactile graphics

Human readers

Audiotape or CD

Audio amplification devices

Response accommodations:

Scribe

Word processor

Tape recorder

Responding in test booklet (not on answer sheet)

Monitoring of test response, if answer sheet is used

Calculators

Spelling and grammar devices

Setting accommodations:

Reduce distractions to student

Reduce distractions to other students

Change setting to permit physical access

Change setting to permit use of special equipment

Extended time

Multiple or frequent breaks

Change schedule or order of activities

Assessment accommodations tend to be-and should be-similar to classroom accommodations children with disabilities receive, so that the children are familiar with the accommodation before using it in a formal testing situation. However, IEP teams should not confuse classroom accommodations with assessment accommodations. What is permitted in class may not necessarily be permitted in state or districtwide assessments.

Finding Out More About Your State's Policies

The best place, of course, to find out more about your State's policies for assessment accommodations-what's allowable, in other words-is your State Department of Education. (Local policies may also be a factor to consider, so the LEA should also be contacted.) That said, one place you might consult for this information and to gain a sense of what other states are doing as well:

What about Alternate Assessments?

What happens if an IEP Team determines that it is inappropriate for a specific child with a disability to participate in a state or LEA's large-scale assessment, even with accommodations? Well, alternate assessments happen, and so do statements in the IEP explaining why this is an appropriate approach to use with a given child.

IDEA requires states to develop and implement at least one alternate assessment, unless all children with disabilities in the State can be assessed via the general assessment, with or without accommodations. Alternate assessments may be based on:

grade-level academic achievement standards,

modified academic achievement standards, or

alternate academic achievement standards. (U.S. Department of Education, 2007)

These options are discussed at length below, under "The Long Story." Here, we're interested in giving you a broad overview of the possibilities. Keep in mind that a state is not required to make all of these options available to children, so it's important to know what your state's policies and options are.

Additional information on alternative assessment is widely available. A few "Starter" resources include:

Alternate Assessments for Students with Disabilities
http://www.cehd.umn.edu/nceo/TopicAreas/AlternateAssessments/altAssessTopic.htm

State Alternate Assessment Policies
http://www.cehd.umn.edu/nceo/TopicAreas/AlternateAssessments/StatesAltAssess.htm

Where to Find Out More About Accommodations

Here's a brief "Starter List" of resources on assessment accommodations that will undoubtedly lead you to yet more resources. Be aware that these may include discussion of classroom assessment accommodations and are often linked to discussion of classroom accommodations in general.

An Introduction to Assessment Accommodations:
http://www.specialconnections.ku.edu/~kucrl/cgi-bin/drupal/?q=assessment/assessment_accommodations

Accommodations for Students with Disabilities
http://www.cehd.umn.edu/NCEO/TopicAreas/Accommodations/Accomtopic.htm

Types of Assessment Accommodation
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/teaching-methods/educational-testing/4170.html

The Long Story on Assessment Accommodations

More? Oh yes. Namely-more about the assessment options available to children with disabilities that the IEP team will consider.

The 5 Assessment Options

According to the Department of Education (2007), there are five basic assessment options, as follows:

Participation in a general grade-level assessment.

Participation in a general grade-level assessment with accommodations.

Participation in an alternate assessment based on grade-level academic achievement standards.

Participation in an alternate assessment based on modified academic achievement standards.

Participation in an alternate assessment based on alternate academic achievement standards. (p. 11)

These options sound uncomfortably alike, don't they? What, exactly, are "academic achievement standards" and the difference between those that are alternate, modified, or at grade-level?

To start, it's useful to know that grade-level assessments must be closely aligned with grade-level content standards. Content standards establish the information or skills that a child in a specific grade is expected to learn. Grade-level assessments are intended to find out if the child, in fact, has learned that content and to what level of proficiency. Keep this in mind as you read through the options described below.
Options 1 and 2: Participation With or Without Accommodations
You've already read about Options 1 and 2, above.
Option 3: Participation in Alternate Assessment Based on Grade-Level Academic Achievement Standards
This type of alternate assessment is intended for children who cannot take the regular assessment, even with accommodations, but for whom the State's grade-level academic achievement standards are nonetheless still appropriate.

An example of this might be a child who has a severe physical disability that cannot be accommodated in the general assessment without invalidating his or her test scores but who nonetheless is working to achieve the academic standards established for his or her grade level. This type of alternate assessment allows the child's mastery of grade-level content to still be determined.
Option 4: Participation in Alternate Assessment Based on Modified Academic Achievement Standards
This type of alternate assessment is a new option recently made available to states (April 2007) with the publication of final regulations in NCLB governing its use. States are not required to develop such assessments, but they can if they so choose.

Alternate assessments based on modified academic achievement standards are intended for a small group of children "whose disability has precluded them from achieving grade-level proficiency and whose progress is such that they will not reach grade-level proficiency in the same time frame as other students" (U.S. Department of Education, 2007, p. 8). For these children, the general grade-level assessments are too difficult, and the alternate assessments based on alternate academic achievement standards are too easy (they're meant for children with the most significant cognitive disabilities; Option 5, described below). Either type of assessment will not provide teachers, children, families, and others with accurate information on what a child with a disability knows or can do and, thus, what type of instruction or supports will help the child progress toward grade-level achievement.

The Department of Education (2007) has responded to this gap in assessment options by giving states "the option of developing modified academic achievement standards for a small group of students with disabilities who can make significant progress, but who may not reach grade-level achievement in the time frame covered by their IEP" (p. 20).

Using this approach does not alter the content standards established by a state for a specific grade level. In fact, such an alternate assessment must cover the same grade-level content as the general assessment. However, "the achievement expectations are less difficult than those on the general test" (emphasis added), which means that "the same content is covered in the test, but with less difficult questions overall" (p. 28).
Two final points about alternate assessments that are based on modified academic achievement standards.
First: A child may take this type of alternate assessment in one subject (e.g., reading), yet take the general assessment in another subject (e.g., math). Deciding how the child will be assessed in each applicable subject area is the responsibility of the IEP team. However, just as it is the state's choice to develop (or not) an alternate assessment based on modified academic achievement standards, it also can decide to modify academic achievement standards only for certain grades (e.g., grades 6 through 8, or for high school) and develop only those alternate assessments corresponding to those modified standards. Similarly, the state can choose to "develop an alternate assessment based on modified academic achievement standards in only one subject (e.g., reading), but not in all subjects (e.g., math, science)" (Ahearn, 2006).

Second: Every year the IEP team must review its decision to assess a child based on modified academic achievement standards. As the Department of Education (2007) states:

We expect that there will be students with disabilities who take an alternate assessment based on modified academic achievement standards one year, make considerable progress during the school year, and then take the general grade-level assessment the following year. Therefore, an IEP Team must consider a student's progress annually based on multiple, objective measures of the student's achievement before determining that the student should be assessed based on modified academic achievement standards. (p. 23)

The option that states now have to develop and implement alternate assessments based on modified academic achievement standards clearly adds another dimension to how children with disabilities may participate in a state's assessment programs. However, as has been said, a state is not required to develop such assessments.

For your convenience, here are direct links to the new regulations, the Department's 51-page guidance for states, and its two-page Fact Sheet on this option to assessment.

Regulations on Alternate Assessment Based on Modified Academic Achievement Standards:
http://www2.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/finrule/2007-2/040907a.html

Department's Non-Regulatory Guidance:
http://www.ed.gov/policy/speced/guid/nclb/twopercent.doc

Fact Sheet: http://www.ed.gov/parents/needs/speced/twopercent.html
Option 5: Participation in Alternate Assessment Based on Alternate Academic Achievement Standards
Option 5 sounds almost the same as Option 4, but it isn't. Fortunately, the difference between modified academic achievement standards and alternate ones can be easily described. Alternate assessments based on alternate academic achievement standards are intended for children with the most significant cognitive disabilities.

While this type of alternate assessment must be linked to grade-level content, it typically does not fully represent grade-level content, only a sampling of it. Moreover, this type of alternate assessment may be linked to "extended content standards" that a state develops, standards that may restrict or simplify grade-level content in order to make it accessible to children with the most significant cognitive disabilities (U.S. Department of Education, 2007, p. 18). The state may define these content standards in grade clusters (e.g., grades 3-5). (In contrast, Option 4, alternate assessments based on modified academic achievement standards, must define content standards grade by grade.)

Summing Up The Options

Each of the five options described above represents a way in which children with disabilities may participate in large-scale assessments. Looking at them one by one is useful for grasping what each is about, but when it comes to choosing among them-that is, deciding which represents the appropriate way to assess a specific child with a disability-a comparison of their key elements can be a handy tool.

To that end, the Department of Education provides a chart of comparisons in Appendix 1 of its non-regulatory guidance on alternate assessment based on modified academic achievement standards. This chart is available online at: http://www.ed.gov/policy/speced/guid/nclb/twopercent.doc

Decisions, Decisions

The IEP team needs to know which of these options are available to it (based on state and/or on local policies) and determine which one of those is appropriate for the child. How a team determines what's appropriate for the child will vary from state to state based on state policy, which the state must make clear to IEP teams so that they can make informed and appropriate choices.

So what goes in the IEP?

Let's bring the discussion full circle and back to the component of the IEP that this article addresses: any "individual appropriate accommodations" necessary for the child's functional and academic achievement to be measured on a state and districtwide assessment. If participating in such an assessment is appropriate for a specific child with a disability, then that child's IEP Team must enumerate in the IEP any individual accommodations the child will need during testing. Some children may need no accommodations. Many will need accommodations. It's important for IEP teams to know what type of accommodations can be made without invalidating a child's test scores and which accommodations the state permits.

References

Ahearn, E. (2006). Standards-based IEPs: Implementation in selected states. Alexandria, VA: Project Forum, National Association of State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE).

Thompson, S.J., Morse, A.B., Sharpe, M., & Hall, S. (2005, August). Accommodations manual: How to select, administer, and evaluate use of accommodations for instruction and assessment of students with disabilities (2nd ed.). Washington, DC. Council of Chief State School Officers. Available online at: https://osepideasthatwork.org/node/109

U.S. Department of Education. (2007, April). Modified academic achievement standards [non-regulatory guidance draft]. Washington, DC: Author. Available online at: http://www.ed.gov/policy/speced/guid/nclb/twopercent.doc

Would you like to read about another component of the IEP?
If so, use the links below to jump there quickly.
_________________________________________________

Annual Goals
Once a child's needs are identified, the IEP team works to develop appropriate goals to address those needs. Annual goal describe what the child is expected to do or learn within a 12-month period.

Related Services
To help a child with a disability benefit from special education, he or she may also need extra help in one area or another, such as speaking or moving. This additional help is called related services. Find out all about these critical services here.

Accommodations in Assessment (you're already here!)
IDEA requires that students with disabilities take part in state or districtwide assessments. The IEP team must decide if the student needs accommodations in testing or another type of assessment entirely. In this component of the IEP, the team documents how the student will participate.

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Accommodations in Assessment for Students with Disabilities

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September 2010 A legacy resource from NICHCY This info in Spanish | Esta información en español IDEA requires that students with disabilities take part in state or districtwide assessments. These are tests that are periodically given to all students to measure achievement. It is one way that schools determine how well and how much students are learning.

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In the next few weeks, I am looking forward to creating a more prosocial classroom. One of my goals was to learn how to do authentic check ins to really learn how a student is feeling. I believe it is very important to know how a student is feeling and why they are feeling a certain way because it can impact their performance, social, and emotional being. As a teacher, it is important to do checks ins as well. I have been researching many websites and articles to find information on checks ins. One website I found gives examples of different questions teachers can ask students to get a better understanding of heir emotions as apart from a simple "How are you?". Check it out!

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If you're an administrator, teacher, or counselor, this has likely been on your mind-more than ever-this school year.

Checking in with students has always been important. But when routines are disrupted and we may not be in the same physical location as students, it's even more critical to keep a regular pulse on how students are doing.

Bi-weekly or monthly student "check-ins" are a great way to gather quick feedback and find the students who need extra help right now-academically, socially, and emotionally. They can also be an effective relationship-building tool to get to know students, especially in a virtual environment.

Below, explore a question bank and guidelines for designing your own check-in for students. The questions cover areas such as student well-being, the learning environment, and what students may need immediate help with. Feel free to take and modify the questions as you see fit! If you'd like to learn about administering these questions through the Panorama platform, please contact us.

Download our full Check-ins Question Bank (includes 80 questions!)

Guidelines: How to Use These Questions

What and Who

A teacher, counselor, or administrator creates and administers a check-in survey (maximum of five questions) asking students about their well-being.

Teachers and counselors individually review the answers and follow up with specific students.

Frequency

Taking Action on Responses

Strengthen Tier 1 practices.

Follow up with individual students.

Set up interventions for individual students or groups of students.

Question Bank: Student Well-Being Check-ins

1. How are you feeling today?

2. What emotion are you feeling the most today?

3. What was the best part of the past week for you?

4. What was the hardest part of the past week for you?

5. What can teachers or other adults at school do to better help you?

6. During the past week, how often did you feel [Excited? Happy? Loved? Safe? Hopeful? Angry? Lonely? Sad? Worried? Frustrated?]

7. How clearly did I teach things in class today?

8. If your friend missed class today and asked you to explain the lesson, what would you tell them?

9. What was confusing for you today?

10. How much did students in class help each other learn today?

11. How included did you feel in class today?

12. What was your favorite part of class today?

13. What got in the way of your learning today?

14. What's the biggest thing I/you could do better tomorrow to help you learn?

15. Do you feel bullied by other students?

16. How have you been sleeping recently?

17. If we had free breakfast at school, how much would that help you?

18. If you could do laundry at school, how much would that help you?

19. If you could get free clothes (like jackets and shoes) at school, how much would that help you?

20. If we could improve your internet access outside of school, how much would that help you?

21. Would you like to talk privately with an adult from school about how you're feeling or something on your mind?

If you use Panorama: You can send a check-in to students using our pre-built question sets. Choose the questions you want to ask, and send it to your students within minutes.
Interested in bringing Panorama to your district? Get a demo of our SEL measurement and check-ins platform. Example of reviewing check-in responses in Panorama (mock data pictured)

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21 Quick Questions to Check-in on Your Students' Well-Being in 2021-22

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If you're an administrator, teacher, or counselor, this has likely been on your mind-more than ever-this school year. Checking in with students has always been important. But when routines are disrupted and we may not be in the same physical location as students, it's even more critical to keep a regular pulse on how students are doing.

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For my personalized learning experience over the next few weeks, I am most excited to learn about how to promote prosocial behaviors in the classroom and how to teach self-determination skills.  This week, I have been focusing on how to promote prosocial behaviors.  I have been actively working towards my learning goal by reading articles about promoting a prosocial classroom.  One of the articles I read is called Making Prosocial Behavior Contagious by Ginna Giang-Myers.  It discusses simple steps teachers can take to teach empathy, how to create positive social interaction, how to use positive reinforcements, and how to establish a culture of kindness and gratitude.  My favorite part of this article was learning about how to keep the rules simple while establishing ethical principles in the classroom.  I will be active in my learning goal by continuing to research articles, watch videos, and take notes on prosocial behavior and self-determination skills.

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Social and Emotional Learning

Simple steps for encouraging classroom behavior that benefits everyone.

A boy opens the door for a teacher with a smile. A girl helps a classmate get up after an accidental fall in the playground. A teenager spearheads a movement that includes building a community garden. Psychologists call these acts prosocial behaviors, and educators witness these selfless acts regularly.

Prosocial behaviors are driven by concern for other people's well-being. Behavioral scientists have contemplated what drives individuals to commit these acts. Scientists explain that humans are born to care for each other, so these behaviors are evolutionarily advantageous. Another explanation posits that these acts are rewarded during childhood and adolescence by adults who model such behaviors.

Social learning theorists have long concluded that behaviors that facilitate both negative and positive interactions can be explicitly taught. However, recent research indicates that antisocial behavior is more contagious than helpful acts, and social proximity enhances these effects. Teachers should engage in ways that promote socially desirable behaviors.

Teach Empathy

Empathy drives prosocial behaviors. Students attuned to others' feelings who can sense others' thoughts and desires are more likely to engage in helpful acts. One way to promote prosocial behaviors is by explicitly teaching and modeling empathy.

Stories are great avenues for launching lessons in empathy, particularly stories that are personal. When I started teaching in the United States, I often told stories of how a whole community came to help me survive my first year in a country that was so foreign to me and where I had nothing. Students loved hearing about how I slept in a donated sleeping bag and managed to eat three meals daily because of the kindness of strangers.

Create a Climate for Social Interaction

One of the ways in which empathy, and consequently prosocial behaviors, can be promoted is to emphasize social interconnectedness. Provide opportunities for students that require them to rely on each other to succeed. Students need to see that every individual has something to contribute. For each critical learning goal, the teacher should ask, "How can I create tasks that involve social interdependence? How can I make all students recognize that each individual adds value to the project success because of his or her contribution?"

A group activity I often use at the start or end of a unit is concept mapping. Each student in a small group is provided cards with key ideas and concepts written on them. The group is in charge of creating a concept map that summarizes the unit. The group members must depend on each other to come up with the concept map that encapsulates the chapter. When the group reports, each member must explain how the cards of a fellow member contribute to the entire concept map. The activity shows the necessity of a contribution by each individual student. Prosocial behaviors result from multiple experiences of connecting with people and realizing that each person has something to offer.

Use Positive Reinforcements

For prosocial behaviors to take root, teachers must call out the behavior and complement the action. Peer contagion can be used to promote selfless acts. Because the negativity bias causes humans to be more attuned to antisocial acts, a sensitivity for prosocial behaviors should be developed.

Celebrate with explicit praise. I usually call out the particular action: "Today, I witnessed Maria helping a classmate who accidentally dropped her books. Let's give her the 10-finger whoo!" The 10-finger whoo, from Whole Brain Teaching, involves classmates wiggling their fingers toward a student while shouting "Whoo!" as an act of recognition. Such simple acts are worth more than any rewards and reinforce positive prosocial behavior.

Establish a Culture of Kindness and Gratitude

Make kindness normal. Establish a classroom culture where prosocial behaviors are expected. Instead of a laundry list of rules at the start of the year, keep it simple and start with the ethical principles of (1) first, do no harm, (2) act to benefit others, and (3) strive for justice and equity.

Measuring these constructs can be difficult. How do we measure empathy, or levels of it? How do we measure connectedness? While quantitative, exact measures do not exist and it may take time for the impact to be realized, teaching prosocial behavior yields an environment more conducive to learning. When students commit helpful acts without being prompted, or let the teacher know when some students need more help, we know that our strategies are working.

Equip Students With the Language of Compassion

Model empathy and prosocial behaviors by paying attention to verbal language. Try the following:

What's going on?

Wonder what you were thinking and feeling...

What do you need?

How can we show ____ that you did not mean what you said?

How can we act more kindly?

Use the language of compassion in the classroom regularly. Since a child must learn to love himself or herself before developing the capacity to act kindly toward others, teach self-compassion. Hurt individuals hurt others. Teach students how to challenge negative self-talk. Every week, strive to check in and listen to each student.

Prosocial actions can be taught through explicit actions from a caring educator. Build empathy first, teach self-compassion, model caring acts, facilitate regular social interactions, foster social interdependence, and celebrate prosocial acts. Finally, use the language of compassion by striving to listen and understand first.

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Social and Emotional Learning Simple steps for encouraging classroom behavior that benefits everyone. A boy opens the door for a teacher with a smile. A girl helps a classmate get up after an accidental fall in the playground. A teenager spearheads a movement that includes building a community garden.

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I am most excited to learn more about classroom management. I feel as though I have learned about a lot of strategies so far but I'd like to learn more especially when the classroom is so diverse. What works for one student might not work for another. I think it's important to have a plethora of classroom management skills to keep things running smoothly. I have been working toward this learning goal by reading an article titled 'Effective classroom management and the development of subject-related interest'. This article discusses how children are more inclined to understand and follow the rules when they are interested in the subject matter. I can use this research in my future classroom to make sure the way I teach is more interesting and engaging for the students in order to promote good behavior and an understanding of the expectations I have for them.

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Abstract

This article examines the effect of classroom management strategies on students' interest development in secondary school mathematics classes. Two studies using student questionnaire data (one cross-sectional, with data from 400 students; the other longitudinal, with 1900 students) are reported. Results show that students' perceptions of rule clarity and teacher monitoring are positively related to their interest. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to examine the effect of classroom management on interest development over one school year, revealing that only individually perceived classroom management strategies and none of the class-level teaching characteristics (aggregated student data) affected interest development.

View full text

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Effective classroom management and the development of subject-related interest

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This article examines the effect of classroom management strategies on students' interest development in secondary school mathematics classes. Two studies using student questionnaire data (one cross-sectional, with data from 400 students; the other longitudinal, with 1900 students) are reported. Results show that students' perceptions of rule clarity and teacher monitoring are positively related to their interest.

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For my personalized learning experience, I am most excited to learn about prosocial guidance in relation to how to help students stay on task by learning how to regulate their behaviors. This week, I took some time to complete a module from the Iris Center that discussed four strategies for how educators can create a prosocial classroom and assist students in becoming independent learners. The four strategies discussed are self-monitoring, self-instruction, goal-setting, and self-reinforcement. This was a fantastic module and I thoroughly enjoyed having the opportunity to complete it. By equipping students with the strategies that are listed above, we are setting them up for success while fostering classroom management strategies.

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This module describes how teachers can help students stay on task by learning to regulate their behavior. The four strategies discussed are self-monitoring, self-instruction, goal-setting, and self-reinforcement (est. completion time: 1.5 hours).

Work through the sections of this module in the order presented in the STAR graphic above.

Related to this module

Copyright 2021 Vanderbilt University. All rights reserved.

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SOS: Helping Students Become Independent Learners

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This module describes how teachers can help students stay on task by learning to regulate their behavior. The four strategies discussed are self-monitoring, self-instruction, goal-setting, and self-reinforcement (est. completion time: 1.5 hours). Work through the sections of this module in the order presented in the STAR graphic above. Copyright 2021 Vanderbilt University.

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I am most excited to learn prosocial ways to manage my classroom. One of my goals for my personalized learning experience is to learn how to prevent students talking to one another while I am teaching. I chose this goal as during my lesson week, I had students who would talk to each other while I was teaching my lesson. I wanted to research different ways to could prevent that behavior without having to yell over them. I am also excited to research different strategies on how to have students communicate their emotions and needs to me. I believe that having students learn about their emotions and needs would help me communicate with my students. I have been active towards learning about my goal by reading different articles on teaching strategies. One article that I read was the article

Yelling Doesn’t Work With Kids. So What Should You Do Instead?.

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How is it that some teachers seem to be able to manage their classrooms without ever needing to raise their voice? Is it some kind of magic? That's the question teachers have been discussing in our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook: How can I stop yelling to get my class's attention?

Yelling, it turns out, is rarely worth the trouble anyway. "I never yell anymore," explains Nikki W. "My kids have had enough yelling in their lives and they learn to tune it out." So how can you get them to listen if you stop yelling? Check out these ten teacher-tested tips that really work instead.

1. Try a classic call-and-response or clap-back.

Jordan A. recommends an age-old teacher favorite. "Make a call-and-response. Something like 'Like a good neighbor' and the kids say 'State Farm is there' back and then get quiet. You have to teach it, but after a bit it catches on and works like magic." ( Get more fun attention-getter phrases here.)

Elisabeth P. likes to give them a physical action as a response. "I quietly say, 'If you can hear me, touch your nose. If you can hear me, cross your arms. If you can hear me, give me your best professor look, etc.' After the first few, all students have joined in.

Clap-backs are another fun alternative. "My kids love a clap off," says Gina A. "I clap different patterns for them to mimic. They always quiet right down and I always tell them how impressed I am with their ability to copy the hardest beats!"

2. Install a wireless doorbell.

This idea from sixth-grade teacher Heather M. is downright genius. "I bought a wireless doorbell and ring the bell as my quiet signal," she shares. "Sometimes I have to ring it ten times before they get quiet, but it keeps me from ever raising my voice. There are a ton of different sounds to choose from, so I switch the chime every month or so to keep them from getting used to it and ignoring it too much. I've had kids comment that I'm the only teacher who never yells, and I'm proud of that. I used to end up yelling all the time when I tried other methods to get them quiet. The bell really works for me!" (Check out this $12 option from Amazon to try it yourself.)

3. Teach them to respond to hand signals.

Rebecca S. notes that the time out signal (arms above head with hands making a "T" shape) works at every level, including high school. "The kids put it up when they see you doing it and they're supposed to stop talking. It takes a little while to get them into the swing of it, but it works."

Try expanding your hand signals to communicate other commands too. Christina M. teachers her kids basic words in sign language like Yes, No, Stop, and Sit. See more classroom hand signal ideas here.

4. Shut off the lights.

This is another classic teaching strategy. Stop yelling and just turn off the lights instead, like Valeria T. "I like shutting lights off; it's like they know to freeze and zip it." If you're in a classroom without windows and don't want to plunge into total darkness, try turning off just one bank of lights or flashing them on and off a few times.

5. Monitor noise levels with an app.

Carol T. tipped us off to classroom noise monitoring apps. Choose an acceptable noise level and let the app do the work! Display the noise meter on the classroom screen to help kids monitor their own noise level. If they can't manage to stay quiet, the app will warn them with a buzzer or other reminder. There are multiple free noise monitoring apps out there; we like Classcraft's Volume Meter and the very popular Bouncy Balls.

6. Count down to quiet (or set a timer).

Giving kids time to transition from one activity to the next, rather than expecting instant silence, can be helpful. Terri M. says, "I count quietly backwards from 10 during transition times. Anyone not in their seat and ready does have a consequence."

A countdown timer works too. "I use an online timer with a countdown buzzer for transitions," explains Brita L. "I hold up the next activity-like if it's a read-aloud, hold up the book. If they don't respond, try a secondary signal-walking to groups holding the book, and saying this is what's coming next, get ready."

Timers work both ways, too. "I sit quietly and get my timer out," says Nikki W. "However long it takes them to get quiet is how long they stay in [from recess]. Honestly I never even have to keep them in anymore because it ends up being like 20 seconds. They freak out when they see the timer and hurry up!"

7. Give them visual cues.

Make sure your students know what noise level is currently acceptable in the classroom. Create a voice level display using battery-operated tap lights and our free printable poster. Before you start an activity, tell your kids what noise level will be acceptable while they're working and turn on the appropriate light as a reminder.

8. Reward the quiet ones.

Elisabeth P. suggests, "Start saying thank you to the kids who are listening and are looking at you. In a normal tone of voice, say, 'Thank you, Johnny, for being the first one ready to listen. Thank you, Susie, for being ready to listen.' They LOVE being the first one to be noticed. Soon everyone joins them and looks at me for directions."

Fifth grade teacher Courney S. plays a code word game. "When I felt it was getting noisy (usually right before big holidays) I would bring in a candy or a privilege for the day. As I taught I would just say in the same volume as I was or a bit quieter the code word is _______. Then I would ask who heard the code word. I would have 3 kids whisper it to me for the team point. Whichever team won before lunch or dismissal got the mystery treat or prize. The key is to do it randomly and a few times each at a quieter voice and the class quiets down with you so they can win!"

9. Get quieter, not louder.

Tammy H. explains, "I was told a long time ago: If you yell, they will get louder to over-talk you. If you talk in a normal tone students will stop and listen. It works in my classroom." Chantel J. agrees, "It takes a conscious effort to do so but after a while it becomes habit."

Sometimes it's best to just go silent and wait. "When they're noisy and not listening," says Carolyn C., "I'll stand there and look at them, and then the clock, and then them, and then the clock... and I'll wait. It only takes a few kids to notice that I've stopped talking over them and then it's 'SHHHH! LOOK!! MS. C'S WAITING!!' and peer pressure takes over to do the right thing."

Paige T. showed her students how much her voice really matters in the classroom. "With a class that refused to let me teach, we went silent for a week, so they realized how much having extra help and instructions helped. After reading part of The Odyssey alone, they got the point."

10. Learn some new approaches to discipline.

If you still just can't seem to stop yelling in the classroom, explore some new options. Here are a few recommendations from other teachers:
What strategies have you used to stop yelling in the classroom? Come and share in our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook. Plus, one teacher's success story of how she learned to stop yelling. This article includes Amazon affiliate links. WeAreTeachers receives a tiny bit of the purchase price when you buy through these links, but we only recommend products we really love.

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Yelling Doesn't Work With Kids. So What Should You Do Instead?

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How is it that some teachers seem to be able to manage their classrooms without ever needing to raise their voice? Is it some kind of magic? That's the question teachers have been discussing in our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook: How can I stop yelling to get my class's attention?

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As I work though my personalized learning schedule I am most excited about learning behavioral management strategies for my future students. One of the resources I looked through Sunday morning was a video about the meaning of prosocial behavior. I knew in my learning process I wanted to start with the very basics before I move onto management strategies. I have to say thought, I am most excited about learning behavioral strategies and plan ways to use them in my future classroom. I also want to include my mentor teacher in my learning process because she has amazing prosocial behavior management strategies.

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What is PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR? What does PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR mean? PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR meaning

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One thing that I am excited about learning through my personalized learning is how to get students to raise their hands before shouting out an answer. The students in the classroom that I am in are always shouting out answers to the questions being asked and then the students with their hands up get so frustrated. Another thing that the students do is when the teacher calls on the students the other students shout out answers so that student that was called on just get so frustrated. I think that minimizing this is will help the teacher and the students in the classroom. The students are learning to not shout out because the teacher ignores them, and tells them if you raise your hand quietly then I might call on you. This is one article that I used for some research. It gave me some information about how to get the students to raise their hands in class, even when they are so excited to yell out the answers.

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Calling out is a momentum killer of the highest order and can turn a well-planned lesson into a halting mess.

But that isn't the only reason why you should require your students to raise their hand.

Here are a few more:
Calling out is unfair
Every student has a right to participate, not just those who are more assertive. If calling out is allowed, a segment of your classroom will rarely be heard from.
Calling out inhibits learning
Good teaching allows students to form their own ideas, opinions, and conclusions before an answer is revealed or a thought expressed. Students need time-even if it's just a few seconds-to puzzle over the presented material before discussion takes place. Calling out interferes with this process.
Calling out tilts the playing field
Students who participate do better than those who don't. Allowing students to call out gives socially confident students an unfair advantage. Shy or less confident students, then, are left feeling unwelcome and disconnected from the rest of the class.
Calling out is rude
Allowing students to call out encourages selfishness. Students think, if I want something in this class, I'm going to have to bully my way to the front because that's what everyone else is doing. In this environment, rudeness, unhappiness, and misbehavior are commonplace.
Teaching Students To Raise Their Hand
Requiring students to raise their hand before speaking is a must. However, I'm aware that many teachers struggle to get students to do so consistently.

The following steps are a proven solution.
1. Model

Few teaching strategies are as effective as detailed modeling, especially for teaching procedures. Your students need to know exactly what you expect from them. The most effective way to do this is to sit in a student's chair, and show them precisely how you want them to raise their hand.
2. Use the "how not" strategy
Show your students how not to raise their hand. Act out common unacceptable behaviors. You know the ones: waving their hand to get your attention, calling out with their hand up, sighing and drawing attention to themselves, beginning to speak before you actually address them. Your students need to be clear about what hand raising does and doesn't look like.
3. Practice

Have your students show you what proper hand raising looks like. Have them practice by asking you questions about your favorite sport or hobby, or by offering information about their own.
4. Limit

Students need plenty of opportunities to ask questions and share their thoughts. But there are times when your room needs to be closed for discussion. For example, you might say, "We're going to start independent reading in a few minutes. Are there any questions... about anything? Now is a good time to ask. Once we begin reading, you'll have to hold your questions or comments until we're finished."
5. Ignore

If a student calls out and waves their hand at you, first ignore them. Send the message that you don't respond to anything except proper hand raising. This also keeps you from accidentally responding-which is a no-no.
6. Enforce
Continue to ignore, but move over to the whiteboard and put the student's name up-or turn their card over or whatever system you use to communicate a consequence. As part of your classroom management plan, hand raising should be an enforceable rule. (See The Only Classroom Rules You'll Ever Need.)
One Exception

The only exception to the hand-raising rule is when you're working with a small group of students. Guided reading or literature circles should allow for polite but free-flowing conversation.

Hand raising is a critical element of effective teaching. I've never known a teacher who was lax in this area and didn't have problems with student behavior, learning, engagement, time management, and more.

So is it really doable?

Absolutely. Follow the steps above and stick with it. Never give in and accept less than what is right for your students.

If you haven't done so already, please join us. It's free! Click here and begin receiving classroom management articles like this one in your email box every week.

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How To Get Students To Raise Their Hand - Smart Classroom Management

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Calling out is a momentum killer of the highest order and can turn a well-planned lesson into a halting mess. But that isn't the only reason why you should require your students to raise their hand. Here are a few more: Calling out is unfair Every student has a right to participate, not just those ...

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I am most excited to work and learn more about prosocial behaviors and guidance and how it can affect the overall wellbeing of students and people in general. I am excited to be able to work at my own pace during this time and find my own articles to read in order to learn about prosocial guidance and behaviors. Yesterday, I started reading and taking notes on some of the articles I found. For example, I read an article based on the roles of having anxious behaviors vs the roles of having prosocial behaviors and the effects they have on academic performance.

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Abstract

We examined two social and emotional behaviors (anxious and prosocial behavior) and their links with academic achievement among kindergarten students. We conducted a population-level examination among kindergarten students in New South Wales in 2009 and 2012 ( = 52,661), we examined additional links to grade 3 achievement. Findings showed that anxious behavior was not, whereas N = 206,210) of the extent to which the two behaviors are associated with kindergarten achievement (unique and moderated effects). With a subsample ( n prosocial behavior was, meaningfully associated with kindergarten achievement. There was no evidence of moderation. With the subsample, prosocial behavior was meaningfully associated with kindergarten achievement, and kindergarten achievement was associated with grade 3 achievement. An indirect association from prosocial behavior to grade 3 achievement via kindergarten achievement was also evident. Together, the findings yield information that is relevant to efforts aiming to promote academic achievement in the early years of schooling.

Kindergarten is a crucial time of development for young children and sets the scene for school success (Rimm-Kaufman & Kagan, 2005). An essential component for success in kindergarten (and beyond) is children's social and emotional behavior (e.g., Denham, 2006; Duchesne, Vitaro, Larose, & Tremblay, 2008; Guhn, Gadermann, Almas, Schonert-Reichl, & Hertzman, 2016; Nix, Bierman, Domitrovich, & Gill, 2013). In the current study, we investigated two social and emotional behaviors: anxious and prosocial behavior. In particular, we were interested in how they are uniquely and jointly associated with concurrent and subsequent academic achievement. Although anxious and prosocial behaviors have been investigated alongside one another in prior work (e.g., Duchesne, Larose, Vitaro, & Tremblay, 2010; Haapasalo, Tremblay, Boulerice, & Vitaro, 2000), this has often involved examination alongside other developmental variables (e.g., cognitive development, aggressive behavior; Collie, Martin, Nassar, & Roberts, 2018; McWayne, Hahs-Vaughn, Cheung, & Wright, 2012; Sabol & Pianta, 2012). Such work provides important knowledge about how social and emotional behaviors act within a broader network of factors. At the same time, there is also merit in examining only anxious and prosocial behaviors to enable a more targeted consideration of their interrelationship (without shared variance being explained by other factors). Such approaches can yield understanding about the extent to which these constructs overlap as well as unique differences in relation to important outcome variables. We suggest there are specific aspects of anxious behavior that are also reflected in prosocial behavior and we sought to disentangle their unique and joint associations with academic achievement.

Thus, the main aim of the current study was to determine the extent to which anxious and prosocial behaviors in kindergarten are uniquely associated with concurrent (kindergarten) and subsequent (grade 3) academic achievement. This targeted approach may offer new yield for intervention such as where attention is best focused-that is, in relation to anxious behavior, prosocial behavior, or both behaviors. Moreover, given mixed findings in prior work on the link between anxious behavior and achievement (e.g., DiPerna, Lei, & Reid, 2007; Ma, 1999; Romano, Babchishin, Pagani, & Kohen, 2010), our study may also help to shed further light in that area.

In phase one of the current study, we examined the behaviors' unique associations with kindergarten achievement (see Fig. 1). We also examined the extent to which prosocial behavior moderates the relationship between anxious behavior and kindergarten achievement. For this, we employed population-level data drawn from the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC), which is conducted with children in the first year of schooling across the entire country. In Australia, most children begin school between the ages of four and six (Janus, Brinkman, & Duku, 2011). In phase one, we examined data from children who underwent a teacher assessment in the AEDC in New South Wales, Australia's most populous state. In phase two, we extended our analyses by considering a subsample of the population for whom we also had grade 3 achievement data. Here, we examined the extent to which anxious behavior and prosocial behavior are associated with kindergarten achievement and, in turn, the extent to which all three variables are associated with grade 3 achievement. Indirect effects testing was also conducted to ascertain the extent to which kindergarten achievement mediates the relationships that anxious and prosocial behaviors have with grade 3 achievement-that is, whether the behaviors are associated with grade 3 achievement via kindergarten achievement. Grade 3 achievement data was taken from national standardized tests, the National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy.

In the current study, we harnessed a relevant framework on social and emotional competence, which refers to individuals' effectiveness in managing their intrapersonal and interpersonal social and emotional experiences (Denham, 2006; Rose-Krasnor, 1997; Weissberg, Durlak, Domitrovich, & Gullotta, 2015). Rose-Krasnor's (1997) theoretical model of social competence, since adapted to refer to both social and emotional competence by Denham (2006), establishes that the foundations of social and emotional competence are social and emotional motivations, skills, and behaviors (Rose-Krasnor, 1997). Motivations refer to the child's goals in their interactions, such as whether they prioritize peer dominance or equality (Denham, 2006). Skills include self-awareness (being able to recognize one's emotions, thoughts, behaviors), self-regulation (being able to regulate one's emotions, thoughts, and behaviors), responsible decision making (being able to make decisions that are constructive and respectful), relationship skills (being able to make and maintain high quality relationships), and social awareness (being able to consider others' perspectives; Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), 2013; Denham, 2006; Rose-Krasnor, 1997). Finally, behaviors refer to the outward manifestations of the skills and motivations. For example, self-awareness, self-regulation, and relationship skills are evidenced by prosocial behaviors such as listening to others, taking turns, following rules, and helping those in need (Denham, 2006). In contrast, self-regulation may be evidenced by low or moderate levels of worried or shy behavior (i.e., anxious behavior) as it reflects children's ability to redirect their attention or self-distract from feelings of anxiety that may then lead to anxious behaviors (Fox, 2010).

As noted above, our study involved investigating two social and emotional behaviors: anxious and prosocial behaviors. We focused on these two behaviors because there is some commonality between them and by examining them together it may be possible to gain more specific understanding of anxious behavior and why it has yielded mixed findings in prior research. Researchers have established that anxious and prosocial behaviors are negatively associated (Duchesne et al., 2010; Vitaro, Brendgen, Larose, & Trembaly, 2005) and we suggest that this might occur due to the social dimensions of both constructs. In the case of prosocial behavior, this involves outward social interaction, whereas for anxious behavior this often involves the reverse (social withdrawal). By examining the behaviors together, it is possible to disentangle any shared variance and determine the remaining unique variance in relation to academic achievement.

Anxious behavior is a behavioral indicator of anxiety. Anxiety is a complex construct that is made up of different processes-both cognitive and affective-such as worried thoughts, self-consciousness, and apprehension, as well as physiological processes (e.g., increased blood pressure, abdominal pain; Beck & Clark, 1997; Duchesne et al., 2008; Steimer, 2002). In turn, these processes drive behavioral reactions (i.e., anxious behavior; Steimer, 2002). Of relevance to our conceptual framework, social and emotional skills are often implicated in the complex array of processes that make up anxiety. As noted above, self-regulation is relevant to anxiety because it reflects children's ability to redirect their attention or self-distract from feelings of anxiety that may then lead to anxious behaviors (Fox, 2010). It is the combination of the processes and behavioral reactions that make anxiety detrimental at high levels-it occupies individuals' attention and induces behavioral reactions that can be alienating to others (e.g., withdrawal; Duchesne et al., 2008, Duchesne et al., 2010). It is perhaps not surprising then that the bulk of researchers have shown anxious behavior to negatively predict academic achievement among school students (e.g., Hattie, 2009; Ma, 1999). Among kindergarten students specifically, researchers have shown that anxious behavior is positively associated with loneliness, peer difficulties, hyperactivity, inattention, and aggressiveness, and negatively associated with perceived cognitive competence and kindergarten achievement (Coplan, Closson, & Arbeau, 2007; Duchesne et al., 2010; Heberle, Krill, Briggs-Gowan, & Carter, 2015; Normandeau & Guay, 1998; Pagani, Fitzpatrick, Archambault, & Janosz, 2010).

Despite the largely negative implications of anxious behavior, some researchers have shown that in preschool and kindergarten it can have a null (e.g., DiPerna et al., 2007; Haapasalo et al., 2000) or positive (e.g., DiLalla, Marcus, & Wright-Phillips, 2004) association with academic achievement and attendance. These mixed findings highlight the need for additional research to help shed more light on this topic. Mixed findings in prior research have possibly occurred because researchers have examined anxious behavior separately in some studies, and alongside additional variables in other studies (where controls for shared variance are in place). In the current study, our aim was to deliberately examine anxious behaviors alongside only prosocial behaviors in order to understand more specifically the shared variance between these constructs and whether this may help to explain prior mixed findings.

Prosocial behavior has been defined as an interpersonal act undertaken to benefit others (Schroeder & Graziano, 2015) or one that is, in general, beneficial to other people (Penner, Dovidio, Piliavin, & Schroeder, 2005). We operationalized prosocial behavior by way of three different constructs that have been established as central for success in kindergarten and early schooling (Denham, 2006; Schmidt, Demulder, & Denham, 2002): cooperative, socially responsible, and helpful behaviors. Cooperative behavior refers to social interactions in which individuals participate in interdependent relationships, coordinate their actions, and pursue common goals that have mutually beneficial outcomes (Dovidio, Piliavin, Schroeder, & Penner, 2006). Socially responsible behavior refers to adherence to social rules and role expectations for interpersonal conduct (Wentzel, 1991). Helpful behavior refers to actions in which one individual who has the necessary resources commits an act that aids other individuals who do not have the necessary resources to meet their needs (Schroeder & Graziano, 2015).

Together, cooperative, socially responsible, and helpful behaviors are indicators of prosocial behavior and are essential for school and life success (e.g., Denham, 2006; Duchesne et al., 2008; Guhn et al., 2016; Nix et al., 2013). Children who enter school with greater levels of prosocial behavior tend to develop positive attitudes about school and adjust successfully to school (Denham, 2006; Duchesne et al., 2008; Guhn et al., 2016; Nix et al., 2013; Wentzel, 1991). Possible reasons for this include the fact that prosocial behavior helps to promote students' active participation in collaborative learning activities, positive interpersonal relationships in the classroom, and a positive classroom climate, which are all linked with greater achievement (e.g., Hamre & Pianta, 2001; Reyes, Brackett, Rivers, White, & Salovey, 2012). They also help students to follow rules and listen to the teacher-behaviors that are conducive to learning and achievement. Of note, students who exhibit prosocial behaviors in preschool and kindergarten tend to have greater academic achievement and academic engagement in subsequent years (e.g., Doctoroff, Greer, & Arnold, 2006; Miles & Stipek, 2006; Nix et al., 2013).

Although prosocial behavior has been consistently linked with positive educational outcomes, the findings for anxious behavior are mixed and underscore the need for more research. When anxious and prosocial behavior are examined together, the results are often mixed too. For example, Vitaro et al. (2005) showed that anxious behavior in kindergarten was unassociated with high school completion when considered alongside prosocial behavior (and other developmental variables; e.g., aggressive behavior). In contrast, Normandeau and Guay (1998) demonstrated that anxious behavior in kindergarten was negatively associated with grade 1 achievement, and that prosocial behavior (positively) and aggressive behavior (negatively) in kindergarten were indirectly associated with grade 1 achievement via students' cognitive self-control. Thus, Normandeau and Guay focused on the mediating role of cognitive self-control. In the current study, we harness Rose-Krasnor's (1997) conceptual model, which positions self-control (i.e., self-regulation of thoughts, behaviors, and emotions) as a social and emotional skill that drives anxious and prosocial behaviors. Despite these conceptual differences, Normandeau and Guay's work provides important understanding that is relevant to the current study. The aim of our examination was to augment prior work with a targeted focus on two behaviors and a longer-term outcome of grade 3 academic achievement. Given that prior work has often utilized relatively small samples, research examining the role of anxious behavior among larger, more representative groups of students is also important.

In terms of the mixed findings in prior research, one possible reason for these concerns whether the two behaviors were considered as the only variables, or alongside additional variables, which would have adjusted findings given interrelationships and overlap between particular behaviors (shared variance). Indeed, we suggest that there is some overlap between anxious and prosocial behaviors. If children have a tendency towards exhibiting anxious behavior, but also prosocial behavior, it is possible the alienating nature of particular socially-oriented anxious behaviors that can detract from children's involvement in learning may be less deleterious (e.g., social withdrawal; Gazelle & Rubin, 2010). In statistical terms, once shared variance between these two behaviors is controlled for, anxious behavior may no longer have a negative association with academic achievement. For example, if an anxious student exhibits shyness as well as appearing worried, prosocial behavior likely shares variance with the shyness, but not necessarily the worried behavior. Indeed, if the worried behavior relates to concerns about academic performance, these may have a negligible or positive influence on achievement (Eysenck & Calvo, 1992). The aim of the current study was to provide evidence to begin to disentangle this and offer understanding in light of mixed findings in prior work. Thus, one aim of the current study was to examine the unique associations that anxious and prosocial behaviors have with kindergarten achievement while controlling for shared variance between the constructs.

For related reasons, it is also possible that prosocial behavior may moderate the association between anxious behavior and academic achievement. Perhaps for students with high prosocial behavior, the role of anxious behavior in the relationship with academic achievement is less pronounced (than for students with low prosocial behavior) because they are less likely to engage in anxious behaviors that are socially related-and thus less likely to be negatively affected in their social interactions with peers and the teacher in the classroom. In combination, there is empirical and conceptual support for examining anxious behavior and prosocial behavior alongside one another, and for an examination into both the unique effects of these two behaviors and possible moderating effects of prosocial behavior.

Researchers have indicated that anxious behavior is negatively related to achievement (although see mixed findings above) because it occupies individuals' attention and induces behavioral reactions that can be alienating to others (e.g., withdrawal; Duchesne et al., 2008, Duchesne et al., 2010). Such behaviors can reduce students' ability to engage and learn in the classroom. In contrast, researchers suggest that prosocial behaviors boost achievement because they promote students' active engagement in the classroom, as well as help build a positive classroom climate and high quality interpersonal interactions with peers and the teacher, which are linked with greater achievement (e.g., Hamre & Pianta, 2001; Reyes et al., 2012).

In order to better disentangle the ways in which the behaviors in kindergarten are uniquely associated with achievement, in the current study we examined academic achievement at two time points: kindergarten achievement and grade 3 academic achievement. More precisely, we examined the extent to which the two behaviors are associated with kindergarten achievement, and whether all three variables are associated with grade 3 achievement. As part of this, we considered whether links between the behaviors and grade 3 achievement are mediated-either partially or fully-via kindergarten achievement. Kindergarten achievement was considered a mediator because prior achievement is well-established as a strong predictor of future achievement (Hattie, 2009). By including it in the model as such, we wanted to see whether the behaviors are associated with grade 3 achievement over and above the impact of kindergarten achievement. We also conducted alternative model testing to provide preliminary support for our construct ordering. Although our study was grounded in Rose-Krasnor's (1997) model and based on prior research showing that social and emotional behaviors predict achievement (e.g., Miles & Stipek, 2006; Normandeau & Guay, 1998), this is an important step to provide support for the hypothesized model.

With the purpose of better understanding the unique relationships among the substantive constructs, we controlled for socio-demographic variables: gender, age, language background, whether students were repeating kindergarten, socio-economic status (SES), and learning disability status. These covariates have been associated with anxious behavior, prosocial behavior, and/or kindergarten achievement in prior research. For example, researchers have shown that in kindergarten, females tend to display greater prosocial behavior (Duchesne et al., 2010) and fewer anxious behaviors (Morgan, Farkas, & Wu, 2009). However, other researchers have demonstrated no gender differences (Forget-Dubois et al., 2007). In other research, female students and older students tend to attain greater academic achievement in kindergarten (Forget-Dubois et al., 2007), whereas students with a non-English speaking background tend to exhibit lower prosocial behavior and academic achievement in kindergarten (Goldfeld, O'Connor, Mithen, Sayers, & Brinkman, 2014). Students from higher SES households tend to display fewer anxious behaviors (Morgan et al., 2009) and greater academic achievement (Forget-Dubois et al., 2007), whereas students with a learning disability tend to display more anxious behaviors and attain lower academic achievement (Morgan et al., 2009). Together, several links have been made between socio-demographic characteristics and our variables. The current study offers a population-level examination to shed further light on the influence of socio-demographics on these constructs.

In the current study, we investigated the unique and moderated associations that anxious behavior and prosocial behavior in kindergarten have with kindergarten achievement (phase one) and grade 3 achievement (phase two; see Fig. 1). Four research questions guided the study:

1.

To what extent is anxious behavior negatively associated and prosocial behavior positively associated with (a) kindergarten achievement and (b) grade 3 achievement?

2.

To what extent does prosocial behavior moderate the relationship between anxious behavior and (a) kindergarten achievement or (b) grade 3 achievement?

3.

To what extent does kindergarten achievement play a mediating role in how anxious and prosocial behaviors are associated with grade 3 achievement?

4.

Is there evidence to suggest that our hypothesized model is more appropriate than an alternative model with different construct ordering?

Based on prior work, we anticipated that (with controls for shared variance) anxious behavior might be weakly or non-significantly associated with kindergarten achievement and grade 3 achievement (e.g., Miles & Stipek, 2006), whereas prosocial behavior would be positively associated with the achievement outcomes (e.g., Doctoroff et al., 2006; Research Question [RQ] 1). We anticipated that prosocial behavior may moderate the relationship between anxious behavior and the achievement outcomes (e.g., for students with higher prosocial behavior, anxious behavior may have a less pronounced relationship with achievement; RQ2). Based on prior research linking prosocial behavior and achievement (Miles & Stipek, 2006), we expected that kindergarten achievement would play a mediating role in how prosocial behavior is associated with grade 3 achievement (RQ3). However, we were not sure whether this would be a partial or fully mediational role. We did not expect that the same would occur for anxious behavior because of the anticipated weak or non-significant relationship between this and kindergarten achievement. Finally, given that our model is based on theory and research, we anticipated that our model ordering would be more appropriate than alternative ordering (RQ4).

1. Hypothesized models showing relationships among the substantive factors of anxious behavior, prosocial behavior, kindergarten achievement, and grade 3 achievement. Anxious behavior and prosocial behav...

2. Final models showing standardized beta estimates. Paths significant at p<.001 are shown here; however, we only interpreted paths of β≥0.10 as having a practical effect size. Anxious behavior and proso...

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The roles of anxious and prosocial behavior in early academic performance: A population-based study examining unique and moderated effects

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We examined two social and emotional behaviors (anxious and prosocial behavior) and their links with academic achievement among kindergarten students. We conducted a population-level examination among kindergarten students in New South Wales in 2009 and 2012 ( = 52,661), we examined additional links to grade 3 achievement.

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I am most excited to learn about different ways to incorporate prosocial behavior in my classroom. I think it is so important for us as educators to not only teach the curriculum but to also teach these behaviors and how we should deal with them in our classroom. I found a great but simple article that talks about ways that teachers can promote and encourage prosocial behavior in our students. The article definition of prosocial behavior is, "...acting in a positive direction toward someone else" (Curletto).   The article talks about building a community within our classroom and I think that it is vital that our students feel like they are safe in our classroom. By building a community within our classroom our students will feel safe and have an easier time talk to us and their peers. I also really liked that the article mentions that we should focus more on positives over punishments. Students tend to be more motivated to get something rather than getting taken away.

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Bullying is arguably one of the most significant challenges our schools face today. Bullying happens often and sometimes results in catastrophic consequences. Kids who are victims of bullying have a hard time learning, they have reduced self-esteem, and are susceptible to depression. In the worst cases, bullying has led to suicide or violence toward other students (many school shooters were, themselves, bullied).

So, how do we help reduce bullying in our schools? We consider bullying or other aggressive behaviors to be antisocial (in this context, antisocial doesn't mean you dislike parties, it actually means that you do things that harm others in some way, whether physically, emotionally, etc.). The antidote to this is to teach our kids the opposite: prosocial behaviors.

Prosocial behavior has many different definitions but simply put:

Prosocial behavior is acting in a positive direction toward someone else.

A kind word, sharing with a friend, helping others, or giving to others; these are all prosocial. Children tend to be very self-focused, so prosocial behaviors don't always come naturally to them.

Why do kids bully? No one knows for sure what causes kids to bully others, but we do know it is often about control. Kids who are bullied or bully often have low self-esteem or have adopted negative attitudes. Kids who are bullied especially tend not to have very many friends. Just one good friend can help a child who is bullied to stand up and not be a victim anymore. To fix bullying, efforts must be made to support both the bullies and the victims. Check out the proven effect conflict management series, BeCOOL® to teach your K-12 classes how to effectively deal with and reduce bullying.

More and more it seems that schools have a lot on their plates, but unfortunately, many children aren't coming into schools with the social skills they need. Schools have to teach these to kids so they can learn. If a child is a victim of bullying, they often can't focus on school. Without meaningful friendships, children withdraw, and many times struggle in school.

How Can Schools Help Kids Develop Excellent Social Skills?

Give Teachers Tools: Give teachers the tools they need to teach social skills. Teachers need training on how to teach social skills. It's likely you had pedagogy courses on math, social studies, or whatever discipline you currently teach. Social skills are challenging to explain yet often not covered in professional development. Teachers also need a curriculum to follow. It's not realistic to expect a teacher to integrate social skills teaching without giving them the tools to do so.

A great curriculum to use is the LifeSmart series. This humorous, engaging curriculum is easy to implement and uses VideoModeling™ to teach students the best ways (and the worst) to handle social situations. With LifeSmart, students learn these valuable life skills vicariously - they get to see exactly what happens with each kind of response, yet don't have to endure the consequences of making a social mistake.

Build a School Community: Be a good model by creating a school community. Staff members should build positive relationships with one another. This creates a model that kids can look up to when kids see adults having positive interactions with each other.

Focus on Positives Not Punishment: Foster intrinsic motivation through genuine, concrete effort focused praise (e.g. 'You worked hard' rather than 'good job'). Children are much more motivated to earn something than to have things taken away. Make expectations clear and be consistent on the follow through.

Determine where the child is in their process and help them move to the next step. A child's ability to be prosocial follows a predictable pattern of development. As the book Guiding Children's Social Development states, we can view the development of prosocial skills as a three-part process:

"First, in the recognition step, a child must be able to determine if someone needs help. Second, the child must decide whether to help or not to act. Third, a child must act by selecting and performing an appropriate behavior for that situation."

Prosocial behavior is not limited to times where there is an issue. Students can also exhibit prosocial behavior in events such as initiating play or conversations.

More Ways To Help Students In The Classroom

Practice: Kids need opportunities to practice. Just like every other skill children will learn, they must practice prosocial behavior to be successful. Recess or other free times are built-in practice. It is also a good idea to have some guided free play time where children are free to choose their activities, but adults are around to provide positive reinforcement and guidance. Role play is a great tactic for this!

If you're unsure where to start, try using Making The Effort™ - a proven effective program from the James Stanfield Company that teaches students the value of and how to apply effort for success in social situations.

Connect With Kids: Kids need to feel loved, safe and secure to engage in prosocial behavior. Try to make individual connections with kids. If you have a large class, this can be a challenge but something such as a special greeting at the door, a hug, high five, or handshake at the end of the day, or highlighting a specific student as the special helper for that day can help you bond with the students in your class.

Encourage Prosocial Behaviors in Students

Being able to effectively deal with conflict and be friendly toward others is crucial for adults and kids alike. Starting young and continually practicing these social skills will help your students succeed in the school and around their community for years to come.
By: Amy Curletto Amy has been teaching for 12 years in grades K-2. She has a bachelor's degree in Early Childhood and Elementary Education and also has endorsements in reading and ESL. Besides education, her other passion is writing and she has always dreamed of being a writer. She lives in Utah with her husband, her 3 daughters, and her miniature schnauzer. She enjoys reading, knitting, and camping.
Citations:

Kostelnik, Marjorie J. Guiding Children's Social Development and Learning. Wadsworth, 2012.

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How Teachers Can Promote Prosocial Behavior in Students

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Prosocial behavior is a precursor to many vital social skills. As bullying is widespread issue amount students today, it is important for teachers to promote prosocial tendencies in their students and help them learn to use these social skills to effectively manage conflict and find social-emotional wellbeing.

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I am most excited to learn how I can teach my students to turn their mistakes into learning experiences. I feel like growing up and throughout elementary school, my peers would be yelled at an dhad to flip their card to a different color and then that was it. There was no learning part in what had happened. Even now in college, we make mistakes and things happen, but it should all result in a learning experience, instead of a punishment. So far I have watched some videos on PBIS and how it would look in a classroom. PBIS is Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports. I think putting the emphasis on the positive behaviors can make a more welcoming classroom environment. I think having positive reinforcement on behaviors and learning from mistakes kind of go hand-in-hand. You can't have a classroom that focuses on positive behaviors and PBIS, but yell and punish students for their mistakes. In the next few days of my plan, I will be watching videos about mistakes and teaching students about having a growth mindset. In the video below you can watch PBIS in practice in a classroom. I really enjoyed this video and what it means to have positive behavior reinforcements. 

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I am most excited to learn how I can teach my students to turn their mistakes into learning experiences. I feel like growing up and throughout elementary school, my peers would be yelled at an dhad to flip their card to a different color and then that was it. There was no learning part in what had happened. Even now in college, we make mistakes and things happen, but it should all result in a learning experience, instead of a punishment. So far I have watched some videos on PBIS and how it would look in a classroom. PBIS is Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports. I think putting the emphasis on the positive behaviors can make a more welcoming classroom environment. I think having positive reinforcement on behaviors and learning from mistakes kind of go hand-in-hand. You can't have a classroom that focuses on positive behaviors and PBIS, but yell and punish students for their mistakes. In the next few days of my plan, I will be watching videos about mistakes and teaching students about having a growth mindset. In the video below you can watch PBIS in practice in a classroom. I really enjoyed this video and what it means to have positive behavior reinforcements. 

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Edmonton Regional Learning Consortium - ERLC

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Positive Behaviour Supports in Practice - Developing and Implementing a Behaviour Plan

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I am most excited to implement each prosocial guidance task into my classroom. Through research and the course I have learned new ways to implement prosocial guidance into my teaching. I have learned how much this has helped students grow compared to how elementary education was for me as a child. I did not have a good experience. Therefore, I want to help future students have a positive education.  Throughout this week, I have been working on my presentation to show my personalized learning experience. I have spent time researching and designing my platform on a Google Slides. Today, I learned new ways to implement prosocial guidance and how it benefits each student.

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I am most excited to learn how to better manage my classroom and behaviors. I feel like this is one thing I really struggle with because I don't want to be the bad person or upset students. so I think if I research and find ways to do it positively I will feel more comfortable with classroom management. I feel like I do okay with classroom management but there is things I could work on and learn other ways to have good classroom management. its important I feel comfortable with this because classroom management is so important. I found this website while doing some research and I really love the different tips it gives teachers to help them with their classroom management.

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New teachers-and experienced ones too-can find ideas here on how to stop disruptive behavior before it begins.

In the 1950s, psychologists Jacob Kounin and Paul Gump discovered a curious side effect of discipline: If a student was being disruptive and the teacher responded with strict disciplinary measures, the student might stop-but other students would start exhibiting the same misbehavior. Kounin and Gump called this the " ripple effect," and it demonstrated that efforts to control a classroom can backfire.

"The teacher who is interested in controlling ripple effects can generally do so best by giving clear instructions to the child rather than by exerting pressure on him," Kounin and Gump wrote.

Decades later, classroom management is still a thorny issue for teachers. Nearly half of new teachers report that they feel "not at all prepared" or "only somewhat prepared" to handle disruptive students, in part because the average teacher training program devotes just eight hours to the topic, according to a 2014 report from the National Council on Teacher Quality. This lack of training comes with a cost, as teachers report losing 144 minutes of instructional time on average to behavioral disruptions every week, which comes out to roughly three weeks over the course of a year.

Recent research confirms what Kounin and Gump discovered decades ago. A 2016 study found that while negative attention-reprimands like "Stop chitchatting!"-may temporarily stop misbehavior, students eventually became more likely to engage in disruptive behavior. Students in the study felt disengaged, had difficulty concentrating, and weren't able to effectively regulate their thoughts and emotions-a vicious cycle that "actually amplifies students' inappropriate behavior," the study authors explain.

8 Proactive Classroom Management Strategies

Instead of handling disruptions after they've happened, it can be more effective to set up conditions in which they are less likely to occur. Here are eight classroom strategies that teachers have shared with Edutopia, all backed by research.

1. Greet students at the door: At Van Ness Elementary School in Washington, DC, Falon Turner starts the day by giving each of her students a high-five, handshake, or hug. "During that time, I'm just trying to connect with them.... It's kind of like a pulse check to see where they are," she says.

In a study published last year, greeting students at the door helped teachers set a positive tone for the rest of the day, boosting academic engagement by 20 percentage points while reducing disruptive behavior by 9 percentage points-adding roughly an hour of engagement over the course of the school day.

For older students, give plenty of warning if you need them to follow instructions. Reminders and cues are helpful ways to encourage students to follow instructions without being overtly controlling or forceful. For example, if you can anticipate a disruption-such as students getting out of their seats if they finish an assignment early-give a short reminder of what they should do instead.

Reminders are commonly verbal, but can also be visual (flicking the lights to signal that it's time to be quiet), auditory (ringing a small bell to let students know they should pay attention to the teacher), or physical (using a hand signal to let students know to get back in their seats).
Courtesy of Emily Polak
But that doesn't mean choice is always bad. Giving students a sense of ownership in the room, paired with clear expectations for behavior, can have surprisingly positive effects. A welcoming space can reduce anxiety and boost academic performance. Emily Polak, a ninth-grade teacher in Madison, Alabama, gave her room a cozier feel by adding a couch, a loveseat, rugs, a coffee table, and posters. Her students decide where to sit-but if they can't get their work done, they get moved back to a desk. "Discipline issues have significantly decreased. My students seem to feel more relaxed and more motivated in a setting that honors their choices," Polak says.

It's also helpful to avoid using the word don't, suggests Alyssa Nucaro, a sixth-grade English teacher in Memphis. Students are more likely to listen to instructions that include clear reasons.

6. Set clear expectations: Instead of just displaying rules for behavior, have a discussion with your students about why those rules matter. Bobby Shaddox, a seventh-grade social studies teacher in Portland, Maine, works with his students to create a list of norms-words such as inclusive, focused, and considerate -to build a sense of community. "It helps us own the behavior in the classroom," Shaddox says. "Instead of a top-down list of rules that a teacher gives a class, these are words that we generated together. These are words that we believe in."

A 2017 study found that a teacher's nonverbal cues-such as smiling and making eye contact-can "reduce physical and/or psychological distance" with their students, boosting students' positive feelings toward the teacher and the course material while improving behavior.

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New teachers-and experienced ones too-can find ideas here on how to stop disruptive behavior before it begins.

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Over these next few weeks, I am excited to look into new ways to help manage behaviors within my classroom and how I can go about handling it in the best/most effective way possible. The goal is to help create a safer environment for all students and to help myself come up with new plans to stay calm during certain situations and not get upset. I started researching and came across a very helpful website and it even has a Ted Talk linked to it. This will not only help me as a teacher come up with better ways to manage behavior, but also create new plans to help with behavior within the classroom. I believe the first step in this is to work with myself and how to remain calm in situations. If I can't stay calm and not get easily frustrated, how will anything get solved? It will only make the situations worse within the classroom and that is something that needs to be avoided.

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Teachers today face many challenges that didn't exist even a few years ago. They must be ready to understand and respond to problem behavior in the classroom every day because it's there every day. Classroom management strategies have become critical for student success. Challenging behavior is often the result of a combination of skill deficits and misdirected motivation. Motivation drives behavior. Understand what motivates your students to engage in both problem and pro-social behaviors and you know how best to respond. The challenge is that what motivates students today is completely different from what motivated them a few years ago.

Why is Motivation Changing?

This type of learning no longer motivates all students, if it ever did. Our world is changing rapidly with more knowledge available at our fingertips than ever before. At the click of a button, students have access to watching the birth of a rhino, the view from Mars, and the entire works of Shakespeare. At home, students are inundated with sensory stimulation from TV, video games and music. Technology changes motivation. Without motivation, students stop learning, turning more into robots who act out or simply spit out information because teachers expect an answer.

External rewards and reinforcement

Many teachers experience genuine concern that external rewards and reinforcement lead to a decrease in intrinsic motivation, leading to resistance in implementing many recommended classroom management strategies. This fear that reinforcement actually demotivates students is understandable, but when used cautiously and intentionally, rewards and reinforcement actually build intrinsic motivation.

If you require external rewards and reinforcement for completing tasks that feel difficult to you, shouldn't your students receive the same benefits? Many students need external rewards and reinforcement to overcome the perceived effort of learning something new. In our society where so much comes easily to us, we all naturally become inclined to stick to what's easy. Stretching our minds and our bodies is difficult for the most motivated among us.

Learn more about motivating students in our post: Motivating Students: Generate Excitement for Learning.

An Objective View of Behavior in the Classroom

The same is true for your students. We all want our students to find learning fun and rewarding. In reality, many students need other sources of motivation. When there is a disconnect between expectations, skills and motivation, problem behavior often arises. When a student feels unmotivated to meet expectations, that student engages in various behaviors to escape those expectations or to achieve reinforcement from other sources. Whatever behavior you observe (desired or undesired) occurs because it works for your student. Classroom management strategies that fail to take this information into consideration are doomed to fail.

Why Problem Behavior in the Classroom Continues

All behavior continues because the individual gets something good or avoids something bad. Looking at behavior objectively helps you determine what the student "gets out of" engaging in the behavior. Let's take another look at the examples above to see what the individual "gets out of" engaging in the behaviors:

Challenging behavior in the classroom often continues for a wide variety of reasons. Understand the context of the behavior from your student's perspective before implementing any classroom management strategies. The context helps you uncover why the student continues to engage in the behavior, making the strategies you choose more effective.

Do any of your students' behaviors give them access to:

Peer attention (maybe making peers laugh, cry or otherwise react)

Teacher attention (maybe in the form of reprimands or unnecessary help)

Tangible items like favorite items, snacks, etc.

Sensory experiences such as visual or auditory stimulation

Do any of your students' behaviors allow them to escape or avoid:

Knowing what the student "gets out of" the behavior guides your decision in how to help that student. This information tells you what skills your student is missing. Students don't engage in challenging behavior to upset you. They engage in behavior that works for them because they lack the skills they need to use more adaptive methods of getting their needs met.

In his video, Rethinking Challenging Kids-Where There's a Skill There's a Way, Dr. Stuart Ablon explains that "kids do well if they can." Challenging behavior is the result of skill deficits. Identify the skill they need, teach them that skill, and behavior improves. Teaching these skills becomes the "hidden curriculum" in your classroom, but the skills are no less important than the ability to read and write. A student who fails to learn the skills to function independently in the classroom will struggle with employment and independent living.

ABCs of Behavior in the Classroom

Antecedent

The antecedent, also sometimes referred to as the trigger, occurs immediately before the behavior we are interested in learning more about, usually within 30 seconds. The antecedent is usually observable, but it may not be obvious. Common antecedents in the classroom include:

Identifying the common antecedents for challenging behavior in your classroom allows you to make adjustments and accommodations to reduce their impact. With these accommodations in place, devise opportunities to teach your students the skills they are missing.

Wait time

This catchy song begs children to repeat it over and over. Sure, your students might get a little loud when singing, so try teaching them to whisper the song. The point is to make that potential trigger (waiting) not a trigger any more by giving the students something fun to do that's a better option to the maladaptive behavior they choose on their own. Over time, your students learn how to entertain themselves to make wait time a fun time.

Demand to complete an assignment

Do you have students who refuse to complete assignments or who constantly ask for help? These students may not have the skill they need to work independently. Some of these students may have deficits in executive functioning skills or experience learned helplessness. These students are not being disrespectful or uncooperative because they want to be. They lack the skills they need to meet your expectations.

In their book Smart but Scattered, Drs. Guare and Dawson go into detail about the impact of executive functioning deficits on a child's ability to complete tasks. This book provides helpful tips on how to teach children the skills they need to become successful.

Learned helplessness is a sense that no matter what you do, you will fail so it's not worth trying. Focus on building skills and countering learned helplessness to improve a student's independent work. Learn more about learned helplessness in our post: Learned Helplessness: Reducing Impact in the Classroom.

Behavior of other students

Many students respond to the behavior of other students in the classroom. This presents unique challenges when you have multiple students in your classroom who exhibit challenging behavior for a variety of reasons. This leaves you feeling as though you're putting out fires all day rather than expanding the knowledge of your students. Students may observe others acting out, find it funny or think that student gets special attention or doesn't need to do the work.

Help your students understand behavior. Talk openly about the behavior you expect in your classroom and how students should respond when their peers engage in behaviors they shouldn't. This open discussion does not give students permission to act out. It empowers them to make decisions when they see unexpected behaviors from their peers.

Julia Cook, a former school psychologist published a series of books designed to help you. Help your students understand that we all engage in behaviors we shouldn't at times.

Ganit and Adir Levy published a series of choose your own adventure books that your students will love. These books take students on a fun adventure while helping them make decisions in commonly challenging situations. Make learning appropriate responses to difficult situations fun and interesting to engage your students.

Transitions

Transitions are difficult for many students, especially those with disabilities such as ADHD or autism. These transitions include moving from one activity to another, one part of the room to another, or one part of the school to another. Often the transitions requiring the most physical movement provoke the most maladaptive behavior; however, transitions from preferred activities to nonpreferred activities are also difficult for many students.

For example, transitions from recess to a writing block might be challenging for many students, especially those who struggle with writing. Even when the transition doesn't require physically moving from one space to another, such as in the case of indoor recess, the students may engage in challenging behavior.

Consider including the use of:

Although you may have a large classroom schedule on your wall, students often fail to attend to it given all the visuals competing for attention on the typical classroom wall. Help your students attend to the schedule by doing the following:

Move the schedule to a prominent location.

Highlight important aspects by adding them to your board as a temporary schedule.

Use first/then language such as "first writing block, then brain break."

Incorporate the use of a variety of strategies to meet the varying needs of your students. Strategies that ease the challenge of transitions for one student may not help another as significantly.

Independent work time (restricted attention)

Many students require more adult or teacher attention than they receive every day. When students don't have the skills to use adaptive ways to get their needs met, they rely on challenging behavior. Students who are expected to work independently but crave that adult attention often find ways of getting it. They may act out by fooling around, causing the teacher to issue a reprimand. Alternatively, they may repeatedly ask for help on tasks that are well within their abilities.

Behavior

Take the time to identify those behaviors that are most problematic in your classroom. If you're faced with many different challenging behaviors from many different students, begin to make a list and prioritize those behaviors that are most problematic. As you learn new classroom management strategies to address the behavior in the classroom, choose the behavior of 1 or 2 students to get started with. Avoid the temptation to target the behavior of all your students at the same time. It's ok to let some behavior slide while you focus on addressing the behaviors that are of highest priority.

Although we often think about "behavior" in reference to challenging behavior, this information also applies to behaviors that we want to se more of. Similar to reducing problem behaviors, consider some of the behaviors you want to see occur more often. Behaviors like staying on task, completing homework, and raising a hand to ask a question all occur throughout the day in your classroom. You might feel that since these behaviors are "expected" you don't need to target them.

In reality, those behaviors that you give attention to occur more frequently, in general. When you find yourself constantly correcting or complaining about the behavior of your students, those behaviors frequently increase. When you focus your attention on teaching the skills your student lack, those behaviors increase. The choice is yours.

Consequence

The consequence is what happens immediately after the behavior you're interested in understanding. When you hear the word "consequence," you may think of the artificial or arbitrary consequences that your school applies to problem behavior, but here the word consequence literally means whatever occurs in the environment immediately after the behavior. As with the antecedents, this usually occurs within 30 seconds following a behavior.

A consequence is either reinforcing and results in the behavior occurring more frequently or punishing and results in the behavior occurring less frequently. Often "consequences" that we intentionally apply end up having the opposite of the intended result.

For example, most schools have zero tolerance procedures where if a student threatens to harm a teacher or a staff member, that student is suspended from school for a period of time. Part of the reason for this protocol is to ensure the safety of those in the school, but it's also intended to teach the student that the behavior won't be tolerated. For students who prefer to stay home end up learning the most effective way to get a break from school.

Once you know why your student engages in the behavior you decided to target with your classroom management strategies, intentionally alter the consequences that behavior receives. As mentioned earlier, all behavior continues because the individual gets something good or escapes something bad. In ABA, this is called the function of the behavior. Identifying the function helps you choose classroom management strategies with the greatest chance for success.

How to Identify the Function of Challenging Behavior in the Classroom

For many behaviors commonly seen in the classroom, you can collect some simple information about the context within which the behavior most often occurs to determine what the student "gets out of" the target behavior. In the case of severe problem behavior, consult a professional in the field, ideally a Board Certified Behavior Analyst, to help guide you in identifying the function of the behavior you face in your classroom.

The easiest way to start looking at the context of the behavior is to collect ABC data. Although you don't have time to watch over the student and write a long narrative about the behavior, you probably have time to check off a few boxes when the behavior occurs (or shortly after). Doing so is likely to provide you with most of the information you need.

The image below shows a basic ABC data sheet with checkboxes. When. the behavior occurs, simply check off which antecedent, behavior and consequence apply to the situation. Once you have several days worth of data, look for a pattern to see if you can spot what the student "gets out of" engaging in the behavior. This data sheet has a blank spot to write in something that isn't already listed. You can download the template below which also includes 3 additional ABC data sheets for you to choose from.

Understanding Setting Events

Setting events are things that make behavior more likely to occur but do not directly impact behavior. Understanding setting events helps you recognize that when specific factors are present, you might need to be a bit more on your game. The student might need more support, accommodations or reinforcement on days when those setting events occur. Common setting events include:

Two of the data sheets in the templates above include space for you to record setting events. Setting events effect everyone just a little differently. For some students, this information is critical. For others, it's simply good to be aware of. Often you won't have control over many of the setting events. All you can do is be prepared to offer more supports when they are present.

Becoming a Classroom Champion

Learn to use the information in this post and you will become a classroom champion. You will see your students achieve more than you ever dreamed possible. You will enjoy walking into your classroom full of students ready and eager to learn because you understand them in a way they have never been understood before.

Teaching in today's society requires so much more than focusing academics. You are now armed with the knowledge you need to make a real difference in the lives of your students. Become that teacher they remember long after they graduate.

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Behavior in the Classroom: What I Wish I Knew About Classroom Management When I Started Teaching

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Teachers today face many challenges that didn't exist even a few years ago. They must be ready to understand and respond to problem behavior in the classroom every day because it's there every day. Motivation drives behavior. Understand what motivates your students to engage in both problem and pro-social behaviors and you know how best to respond.

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I have been actively talking to professionals I see at work about AIM and what it is about and their experiences with it. I like hearing from real people that I know and what stands out for them. Not interviews, but less formal. I even got to observe a AIM activity done by a BCBA  with a group of 4 boys who attend a social group and are on the autism spectrum ages 9-12. I see such a specific connect between the AIM social emotional curriculum and prosocial guidance. The students all reported feeling "better" or "calm" which was even cool to see from one activity. I want to read chapters from the AIM curriculum and continue to observe and watch videos about the outcome and more professional opinions about the AIM curriculum and outcomes.
https://www.acceptidentifymove.com/about-aim

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I am most excited to learn about how prosocial behaviors apply to students who are in special ed. I am very passionate about students who have disabilities and how we as teachers can help them succeed. So when we were given the opportunity to pick what we wanted to learn I knew that I wanted to learn about special ed. To go off of prosocial behaviors in students who have disabilities I am excited to learn how to promote prosocial behaviors in a students who has disabilities. One way that I have been active in achieving my learning goals is finding and researching articles that pertain to this topic. One power point that I have started to read is about the intervention of Tootling which as stated about is an intervention that we can use to promote prosocial behaviors in students and especially students who have disabilities.

file:///home/chronos/u-077b7e78c183fb5a3bfa90074cf91829881453dd/MyFiles/Downloads/Ray_Jannine_Slides.pdf

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I am really excited and looking forward to what the next few weeks of growing and implementing my own Personalized Learning Experience within the classroom. There are several things that I have learned from this course that I will use as a takeaway for the class that I am in now and for my future classroom.  There are two main learning goals that I have planned for myself, one being classroom management and the other is working on classroom collaboration/engagement.   Throughout this week I have been researching more on classroom management through prosocial guidance on both NAEYC and ISTE websites. There are several articles that focus on classroom management and the flow of transitions, especially when the lesson or activity does not go how you plan.  I am excited to share my learning goals and excited to work on them to better myself as an educator.

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Increase your understanding of young children's learning and development through our extensive selection of research-based books, articles, and journals (Teaching Young Children and Young Children).

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As I work on experience I am most excited to learn about how to learn how to manage my classroom and how to teach my students to not shout out in the classroom when they have something to say. In my placement this can be a real problem since I am with kindergarteners and all any of them ever want to do is talk so sometimes the classroom can get really loud when everyone is trying to talk. I am excited to learn different tips and tricks to teach my students and have for future classrooms that I am in so that I can manage the behaviors in my classroom. an article that I found while doing some of my research is linked below. this article has different "secrets" for teachers on how to stop students from shouting out in the classroom.

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Blurting out happens in pretty much every grade and classroom. Sometimes students are just eager to share the right answer. Other times, they just want to share their opinion or story. No matter the reason, it's a very real (and challenging) dilemma for teachers. How should blurting out be handled?

We went to the educators on the WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook for their advice and wisdom, and they definitely came through. Here are some of the best tips for blurting out. Plus, check out this video from Elizabeth Coller with the Kinderhearted Classroom for her great tips.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twNVhAPGNr4[/embedyt]

Encourage active listening.

When students learn active listening, they are encouraged to focus on what the speaker is saying. This is something Elizabeth C. even uses with her kindergarteners. "I teach all the students who had their hand raised that after I call on a student, they put their hands in their lap, and they shift their eyes to the speaker," she says.

Avoid negative reinforcement.

Don't put a child's name on the board when they blurt out because it calls attention to the negative behavior. Instead, reverse it and tell students you will put their name on the board when they are showing the kind of behavior you DO want to see. "Put a student's name on the board when they are working well, respecting rules, etc.," says Kathy H.

Another example of this is from Meg E., who says she will give feathers (kind of like raffle tickets) or Class Dojo points to recognize positive behavior.

Give students an incentive.

"Incentivize active listening by giving students blurt cubes, coins, beans, or erasers," says Elizabeth. "I use a strategy in class where I give students points based on how many counters they have left."

Heather M. uses Popsicle sticks, which she calls shout-out sticks. If students lose all their sticks, there's a consequence. But there's pride in wanting to keep them all. Plus, having something physical is a handy reminder.

Help students become more aware.

Teacher Kathy H. has a system that works like a charm. She writes, "Without giving a student advance notice, I put a paper clip on the counter or in a dish every time they blurt out. Then at the end of the day, I talk to them and ask them how many times they think they disrupted the class."

Kathy says students have to count the paper clips themselves, and they're often shocked to see how many there are. She will track this for a week, allowing her to work with the student and let them see how much progress they make along the way.

Help kids understand how a filter works.

Monica S. writes, "I tell students they have a brain [point to your head] a mouth [point to your mouth] and in between, there's a filter. Let them know that not everything in their brain needs to come out of their mouth."

Of course, this is easy to say, but the real value and understanding comes when students practice their filter in everyday situations. Encourage students to do this with you and with each other. Seeing it in action really helps.

Give kids movement breaks.

Sometimes it's just a matter of getting kids up and moving more! If you're spending too much time lecturing or in discussion with wiggly students, then try Melissa Z.'s idea. She writes, "Try offering movement breaks throughout the day. I know it can be hard to give up the classroom time to try this, but it might be worth it."

Another genius idea we saw was from Lydia D., who says her school's gym teacher offers roadrunner passes to kids. When kids need to run off some energy, they can earn a pass so they can go down to the gym for a break.

Don't forget to tell kids why blurting out isn't okay.

Gina R. says sometimes we just need to take the time to offer an explanation. She says some kids get so excited about sharing the answer, and she's found that once she explains blurting out to them, they are a lot more aware. She writes, "Try telling the student that it's thinking time for other students. The blurting out and constant wanting to answer the question doesn't allow you to see how other students are thinking."

Let them say what they need to-on a sticky note.

Post-its can be a great tool for dealing with kids who blurt out often. "I have them write things on Post-it Notes and put it on my desk," writes Melisa W. "About 90 percent of the time, they just want someone to have heard their idea."

Chelsea L. says she once worked with a group of gifted students who were all eager to share their answers. She had students put their answers on whiteboards. Then they could all share their answers at once (when she asked), and/or they could share with someone sitting next to them. This gave everyone a chance to answer every single time.

Read literature on the subject.

Books are some of a teacher's best tools. "My Mouth is a Volcano is one of my favorites," says Elizabeth C. "This book teaches strategies to students to help them know when it's appropriate to talk and when it's not."

Another book to try is Interrupting Chicken.

Personalize your approach as needed.

Teachers know that what works for one student doesn't necessarily work for another. So all good teachers are ready to adapt as needed. Bobi C. says she had a student once who couldn't stop himself from blurting out. She had a chat with him about how he needs to be fair to other kids, too. So they came up with a secret signal instead. This way, the student was able to let her know he knew the answer but he was choosing to let other students answer instead.

It really helped him become more aware of the other students. Plus, he mostly just wanted to be recognized for knowing the answer. She said he improved so much after they developed this method.

Eliminate hand raising altogether.

"My classroom is a no hand-raising zone," writes Shelly G. Instead, she'll use a name generator or pull sticks to call on kids. "They just know this is the classroom system, so it keeps them from always raising their hands and/or blurting out when it's not their turn."

Many other teachers back up her success with pulling sticks. This way, there's no argument or discussion about whose turn it is.
What are your tips for blurting out? Come and share your ideas in our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook. Plus, get our tips for classroom management, according to the wonderful Mary Poppins.

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Tried-and-True Teacher Secrets to Stop Students from Blurting Out

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Blurting out happens in pretty much every grade and classroom. Sometimes students are just eager to share the right answer. Other times, they just want to share their opinion or story. No matter the reason, it's a very real (and challenging) dilemma for teachers. How should blurting out be handled?

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I am really excited to work on my Personalized Learning Experience the next few weeks, mostly because I am looking forward to having a better understanding of how to implement prosocial guidance within the classroom. While I have read about it before, I am looking forward to having a deeper understanding and having a plan and materials that I can use within my classroom to foster a positive and inclusive environment for all of my students. I have started my research already and I have begun taking notes. I feel like I will have a lot of notes by the time I am done with my research and will have to cut things out and weight what I find is most important to me and what I feel most strongly about implementing. One thing that I found very interesting today was from this website: https://notjustcute.com/2009/09/29/what-is-positive-guidance/
In the article, the author proposed a very relatable example of why prosocial guidance is important. She used the example of offering $50 to someone to do 10 push ups. They might try it, or they might be able to do it, but that experience doesn't motivate them or teach them how to adopt a healthy lifestyle. When using prosocial guidance, you want to teach students how to do something and guide them to understand the importance of that so they adopt the behavior or routine into their everyday life. I thought that was super relatable and one of my favorite things I found so far! :)