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Empowering students can be in charge of their learning can be intimidating at first. Once you embrace a growth mindset and do so, you'll find your students are more engaged and self-directed when they are co-creators of their educational experience.

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Empowering students can be in charge of their learning can be intimidating at first. Once you embrace a growth mindset and do so, you'll find your students are more engaged and self-directed when they are co-creators of their educational experience.

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The three UDL principles were designed to ensure that all students become expert learners. This is completely transformative because, in the past, the main goal of school was teaching content. Through UDL, we shift our focus to teaching learning.

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The three UDL principles were designed to ensure that all students become expert learners. This is completely transformative because, in the past, the main goal of school was teaching content. Through UDL, we shift our focus to teaching learning.

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Experts learners are students who are: Purposeful and motivated, Resourceful and knowledgeable, Strategic and goal-directed

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Experts learners are students who are: Purposeful and motivated, Resourceful and knowledgeable, Strategic and goal-directed

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Helping Students Become Expert Learners (peer-reviewed study) 

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Helping Students Become Expert Learners (peer-reviewed study) 

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What it Means to be an Expert Learner - video

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What it Means to be an Expert Learner - video

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We can't develop expert learning in our students if we don't acknowledge how different and unique each of them is. In order to universally design lessons, it's important that there are options and choices that meet the needs of students of all variability. 

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We can't develop expert learning in our students if we don't acknowledge how different and unique each of them is. In order to universally design lessons, it's important that there are options and choices that meet the needs of students of all variability. 

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What is learner variability? What does brain research say about it? What is systematic variability and how does it impact our classrooms?

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Planning for Student Variability - pages 1-4 provide great background research on UDL, the theory of variability and the UDL Guidelines.

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Engagement is broken up into three parts in the UDL Guidelines. To access engagement, we must first recruit student interest. If there is NO interest there is NO learning.

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Engagement is broken up into three parts in the UDL Guidelines. To access engagement, we must first recruit student interest. If there is NO interest there is NO learning.

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Information that is not attended to, that does not engage learners' cognition, is in fact inaccessible. It is inaccessible both in the moment and in the future, because relevant information goes unnoticed and unprocessed. As a result, teachers devote considerable effort to recruiting learner attention and engagement. But learners differ significantly in what attracts their attention and engages their interest. Even the same learner will differ over time and circumstance; their "interests" change as they develop and gain new knowledge and skills, as their biological environments change, and as they develop into self-determined adolescents and adults. It is, therefore, important to have alternative ways to recruit learner interest, ways that reflect the important inter- and intra-individual differences amongst learners.

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Information that is not attended to, that does not engage learners' cognition, is in fact inaccessible. It is inaccessible both in the moment and in the future, because relevant information goes unnoticed and unprocessed. As a result, teachers devote considerable effort to recruiting learner attention and engagement.

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TED Talk - Do Schools Kill Creativity? 20 mins 

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TED Talk - Do Schools Kill Creativity? 20 mins 

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Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.

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When Students Learn to Choose, They Choose to Learn - Learning Personalized

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How do we help our students move away from a teacher-centered focus and instead move toward student choice? Empower them to choose for themselves.

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Listen to this post as a podcast (sponsored by Kiddom):

The scenario is all too familiar to me: One of my kids comes home with an assignment to complete. She brings it to me for help. Not wanting to do the work for her, I start by asking her to tell me what she knows.

"Okay," I say, looking at the paper she's handed me. "What are you supposed to be doing here?"

"I don't know," she says.

I hand the paper back to her. "Read the directions to me," I say.

Reluctantly, she reads. As I listen, I realize I don't quite understand the instructions, either. We wrestle with the task for a few minutes, I offer one possible approach, and when that idea is rejected, I offer another. As the conversation progresses, my kid gets more and more distressed; it has become abundantly clear that I'm not going to be able to tell her how to do it.

______________

I should mention the assignment is not the kind where creativity is the goal. We're not talking about a task that encourages divergent thinking or has multiple possible right answers. That's not it. This assignment and almost all the others we find ourselves stuck on are worksheets produced by large companies where the task just isn't worded clearly. It's obvious that one right answer is supposed to be given. We just can't figure out what that answer is supposed to be.

I should also add that my kids, in general, do not struggle in school. Early readers, good at math, high test scores, no behavior or attention issues. So we're not talking about students who tend to take longer to understand things. These are three bright kids who do well in school, but this scenario has played out with all three of them at different grade levels and with different teachers throughout their school years.

______________

So then I say, "Well, did you go over this in class before bringing it home?"

And she says, "Yeah. Sort of."

I say, "Did you understand what you were supposed to do then?"

In return, I get a blank stare. "Not really."

Here's where I start to get irritated. "So did you say something?" I ask. "Did you tell your teacher you didn't understand?"

"No," my kid says. Then she adds, "I didn't want to get in trouble."

That. That right there. That's when I feel my flipping out reflex start to kick in. When my professionalism starts to waver and the hysterical, teacher-bashing helicopter parent voice starts whispering in my ear. No student should feel like they can't ask questions in school. No student should go home not understanding how to do their homework. No student should ever worry that asking for more explanation will result in punishment.

Two Sides to Every Story

At first, I imagine the worst: A teacher like some I remember from my own childhood, teachers who regularly said things like, "A stupid question deserves a stupid answer," and, "You know we just went over that. Sit down!" They never said these things to me, but when I heard them said to my classmates, I knew I'd be better off keeping my mouth shut.

I can imagine this scenario, and the irrational part of my brain wants to assume this is what's going on.

But I taught middle school for seven plus years. I know exactly what it's like to give 100 percent effort in your instruction and see that some kids are completely tuning you out. I know how it feels to answer the same question four times in a row. I know that when a student tosses his paper aside and says, "this is stupid," we don't always recognize it as a cry for help; sometimes we respond like regular humans, let our egos get in the way, and simply interpret it as misbehavior.

I also know how unskilled students can be at asking questions. I remember how easily students could misinterpret, oversimplify, and misrepresent things I said. I know how often students ask for help two seconds before the bell rings, or two seconds before an assignment is due. I know that "I don't get it" can actually mean a hundred different things.

So when I try to figure out why my child is sitting in front of me with an assignment she doesn't know how to do, I know all too well that my kid's version may not be the whole story. Maybe the teacher did explain it. Maybe she provided time to work on the assignment in class. Maybe she showed examples. Maybe my kid was talking, or daydreaming. Maybe my kid was in the bathroom. Maybe there's another student in class whose very presence makes my kid feel embarrassed to ask any questions at all.

There are dozens of possible reasons why she doesn't understand this assignment.

But what can't be argued is that the thought of telling her teacher this makes her uncomfortable. There's something about that teacher or that classroom that isn't as academically safe as it could be. Every time a student chooses not to ask for help or clarification, it's a missed opportunity for learning.

And it's something we have the power to improve.

Making Your Classroom a Safe Place to Learn

Here are a few simple, powerful ways you can make your classroom a place where students feel free to ask questions and take academic risks. If you're already doing most of these, you may only pick up one new idea, but it may be just the thing your students need to grow as learners.

Build in More Checks for Understanding

Most teachers are already doing a lot of this: We teach something, then we make sure students understand what we taught them. We just may not be doing it as much as we could to make sure everyone really gets it.

Ask questions instead of asking FOR questions.
When teachers finish delivering some kind of content (a lecture, a video, a reading), or giving a set of instructions, we often say, "Does anyone have any questions?" This is one of the least effective ways to actually find out what questions our students have. For one thing, when a person doesn't understand something, they don't always know what they don't understand, so it may not be possible to formulate a question. On top of that, many students fear looking stupid, so even if they do have a question, it's only the bravest who will put themselves out there. So instead of asking, "Are there any questions?" ask targeted questions to see if students understand what you just taught them: "Ciara, can you tell me what you're going to do after you get your test tubes?" "Jordan, what could happen if you forget to carry the one?" "Mikey, where should everyone put their journal today when they've finished?" These brief exchanges will get everyone's attention, provide a quick review, and help students identify areas where they might be confused.

Have students explain things to each other.
After teaching a concept or giving instructions, have students do athink-pair-share to explain it to each other. This gives each student a chance to process their thoughts to a low-risk audience of one, and the act of trying to put what they just learned into their own words has massive cognitive impact. Once students have explained it to each other, they can correct small misconceptions, and if they can't, they will be more likely to ask you for help after discovering that someone else is confused about the same thing.

Do the first few steps together.
Instead of assigning something, then sending students off to do it on their own, provide time to get started together. TheI Do, We Do, You Do structure is a classic method for modeling a task for students, and by building this kind of scaffolding into most tasks, you're saving yourself a lot of time that would have been spent re-teaching later on.

Have students score a sample completed task.
When you're giving a more complex assignment or project, give students a completed sample-ideally with a few problems built in-and have them evaluate it. This forces students to pay closer attention to the assignment criteria, and it will call everyone's attention to areas that may be unclear. (By the way, creating this model is a valuable lesson in itself. Around here we call thisdogfooding your lessons, and it's one of the best ways to improve the assignments you give to students.)

Teach Students How to Ask Questions

Students don't come into the world understanding how to monitor their own understanding, then formulate respectful questions that target their exact area of misconception. The only way they'll get good at doing this is to practice. So in your classroom, whether it's formally or informally, show students how to ask these kinds of questions. You may even want to provide question stems that show them the kinds of questions they could ask to clarify their understandings:

This is what I do understand... (summarize up to the point of misunderstanding)

Can you tell me if I've got this right? (paraphrasing current understanding)

Can you please show another example?

Could you explain that one more time?

Is it ______ or _________? (identifying a point of confusion between two possibilities)

By encouraging students to ask these kinds of questions, you're teaching students how to monitor their own learning and get the help they need.

Provide Time for Private Questions

If the only time students are given to ask questions is when the whole class is listening, some students may never raise their hands. Ever. And the reasons could run a whole lot deeper than basic shyness. Here are some possible situations when a student may not feel comfortable asking a question in front of the whole class:

Students who are aware that many of their classmates are academically stronger than them and don't want to look stupid.

Students who have a crush on someone in class and would rather die before putting themselves out there.

Students who are currently embroiled in some kind of argument with another student.

Students who are being bullied by another student.

Students who just this morning found a huge zit on their forehead or have some other totally embarrassing physical "situation" going on.

I could go on and on. The possibilities for humiliation are endless. So make time for your students to approach you privately with their questions and you'll definitely get more of them. If you allow students to ask each other first, or establish an Ask 3 Before Me policy, you'll cut down on the number of times you have to answer questions directly while still giving students a chance to clear up misunderstandings.

Create Contingency Plans

It's frustrating to be working on your own, find yourself in a tight spot, and not be able to get the help you need right away. Students need to know what they should do if they are stuck-at home or at school-and you're unavailable to help. Set aside some class time to talk about your response to these questions:

Is it better to make a wild guess or leave an answer blank?

What if their school-based resources (textbook, worksheet) don't have the information they need? Is it okay to look for more information online, or would you rather they stick to the materials from class?

If they don't understand a question, is it okay to write, "I didn't understand"? Could they also add an explanation of why they didn't understand? Letting students do this would show you that they didn't just give up, or blow off the question, but that they had a question that couldn't be answered.

Is it acceptable to give two different responses to the same question, along with a brief explanation for each interpretation of the question?

These are all decisions my own kids have struggled with when they got stuck on an assignment. I've said to them, "Go ahead and bring it in and tell her you didn't understand how to do this one." Shock and horror when I say that! It's like, "Nooo! I'll have to sign! I'll clip down if I say that!" And I'm thinking really? You're going to get punished for saying you didn't understand? Either this teacher doesn't value learning very much, or my kid doesn't understand the rules in that class, and they need to have more discussion about what to do if they're stuck. Talking about these kinds of contingency plans would be a great use of 20 minutes of class time.

Ask Your Students

One of the fastest ways to understand how your students feel in your class is to ask them. You can do this one-on-one, but this will be incredibly time-consuming, and if students already feel intimidated by you, they may not be very forthcoming. It's more efficient to survey students in writing: Ask them whether they feel comfortable asking questions in class, if they feel they can get help if they need it, if they feel comfortable asking questions in front of their peers. If you want to take a really accurate temperature of your class as a whole, make the surveys anonymous, or have students put names on them if you're looking for more individualized feedback.

If you need something that's ready to use, check out my How's It Going Form, which comes in two versions: elementary and secondary/college.

Learn something new every week.
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So much of learning depends on whether your students feel comfortable taking risks. Here are some suggestions for making your classroom an academic safe space.

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One of the biggest frustrations with providing students with autonomy and choice is the reality that sometimes, they choose the "easiest" option. It's important to note that when designing options, all of them should allow students to express that they can meet the standards. That being said, there are certainly some far more challenging than others and it would be great to get students to embrace that challenge as that will be necessary for their future success. If we want students to sustain effort and persistence, they must embrace a growth mindset and have some grit.

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One of the biggest frustrations with providing students with autonomy and choice is the reality that sometimes, they choose the "easiest" option. It's important to note that when designing options, all of them should allow students to express that they can meet the standards. That being said, there are certainly some far more challenging than others and it would be great to get students to embrace that challenge as that will be necessary for their future success. If we want students to sustain effort and persistence, they must embrace a growth mindset and have some grit.

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Do you stick to your long-term goals? Or do you constantly get distracted by new ideas and projects?

Do you keep showing up when things get difficult? Or do you procrastinate and give up?

Your answers to these questions are important because they say a lot about the level of success you're likely to experience in life.

"80% of success is showing up"

That quote belongs to legendary actor, author, filmmaker, comedian, playwright, and musician Woody Allen (1).

When giving advice to aspiring writers, he elaborated on his statement this way (2):

My observation was that once a person actually completed a play or a novel he was well on his way to getting it produced or published, as opposed to a vast majority of people who tell me their ambition is to write, but who strike out on the very first level and indeed never write the play or book.

Some people talk. They are the ones who "strike out" and get stuck.

Other people do. They are the ones who make consistent progress and get real results.

So, what separates these two groups from each other? In one word, the answer is...

Grit

In short, grit is "perseverance and passion for long-term goals." (3)

1. The ability to stick to long-term goals.

2. The ability to keep going despite adversity.

The psychological definition of grit contains two components:

Angela Duckworth is a professor of psychology and pioneer in grit research.

In study after study, she has found that "where talent counts once, effort counts twice." (4)
TALENT x EFFORT = SKILL SKILL x EFFORT = ACHIEVEMENT
She explains that finding with this formula:

When you apply effort to a talent, you get a skill. And when you apply effort to a skill, you get achievement.

Without effort, your talent is just untapped potential.

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This is How to Grow Your Grit: 5 Secrets From Research

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Do you stick to your long-term goals? Or do you constantly get distracted by new ideas and projects?

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TED Talk - Grit: the power of passion and perseverance

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TED Talk - Grit: the power of passion and perseverance

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Grit: the power of passion and perseverance | Angela Lee Duckworth

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Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals (peer-reviewed study) 

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Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals (peer-reviewed study) 

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Learning gets difficult at some point for every student. As teachers, we must foster self-regulation and coping skills in our kids to ensure that they don't shut down when they are challenged. Part of this is creating a safe judgment-free environment where failing is okay and normal but there is more to it. We also must teach students how to self-regulate and deal with the stress of not knowing how to do something. 

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Learning gets difficult at some point for every student. As teachers, we must foster self-regulation and coping skills in our kids to ensure that they don't shut down when they are challenged. Part of this is creating a safe judgment-free environment where failing is okay and normal but there is more to it. We also must teach students how to self-regulate and deal with the stress of not knowing how to do something. 

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As parents, it can be natural enough to conclude that when our kids act up or act out - at home, at school, away at the beach or park on family summer vacation - we should tell them to calm down and be sure they follow through.

After all, isn't it our job to teach our kids to learn some self-control?

But what about the kids who not only can't calm down, they have no idea what it means to calm down? What about the kids who are continuously over-aroused, stressed to the point where their nervous systems need not words but step-by-step embodied guidance to even begin to calm?

In the just-published Self-Reg: How to Help Your Child (and You) Break the Stress Cycle and Successfully Engage with Life, psychologist Stuart Shanker of York University and the MEHRIT Centre in Canada asks us - parents, teachers, coaches, anyone who mentors kids - to think not in terms of self-control but of self-regulation.

Shanker writes: "Self-control is about inhibiting impulses; self-regulation is about identifying the causes and reducing the intensity of impulses and, when necessary, having the energy to resist."

Looking at five domains in a child's life - biological, emotional, cognitive, social, and prosocial - and how they interact, we can begin, he says, to reframe our own perceptions of what's going on with our kids, as a starting point to help them gain greater calm and attention, and also empathy for others.

The biggest lesson that I've taken from Self-Reg is that when a child insists that a teacher's voice is harsh, or a restaurant or classroom is unbearably bright or loud, we need to recognize (even though we might not experience things that way at all) that the child is very probably not lying, exaggerating or trying to be oppositional. Instead, the child's biological sensitivities may make her exquisitely reactive in a way that triggers a constant cycle of over-arousal-crash-over-arousal as she tries to cope. That's where Self-Reg comes in, with strategies for regulating the out-of-whack nervous system.

And the worst thing we can do is to ask our kids to calm - or even go to sleep - by playing with computer or gaming devices. That sort of activity only feeds brain and body hyperactivity, and when the child eventually becomes depleted, he will crave even more arousal.

Stuart Shanker and I have collaborated on research and writing projects in anthropology and psychology. Last week, after I read Self-Reg, I asked him some questions via email:
I was very struck by your point that many young children today simply don't know what the sensation of "calm" feels like. How did we get to this point, and what are the first steps that parents and teachers can take, in turning that around?
Kids get stuck in what neuroscientists call a "higher set point" - think of a car with a higher idling speed - and seek out experiences to keep their engine racing. They become so accustomed to this state that they find slower-paced activities aversive. They push their nervous system to its limits, crash, then push to the limits again. Parents need to slow things down with them. Find shared calming activities - like going for a walk, listening to music, baking - where the reward is being in this state together. The big thing is, they need to feel what it's like to be calm, not be told to "calm down."
The "Interbrain" is a key concept in your book. Can you talk a bit about what it is and why it matters so much?
The Interbrain is like a wireless brain-to-brain connection that operates, not just between a "higher-order brain" that possesses self-regulating skills and a developing brain just acquiring them, but throughout the lifespan. Our need for strong Interbrain connections is a biological imperative, and when that need wanes, this is a sign that the stress-load is too great. The old "genetic" way of thinking about the brain as an isolated organ governed by ancient mechanisms actually describes what human functioning is like when social engagement has broken down because of heightened stress.
Do parents or teachers ever snort disbelievingly at your insistence that there are no bad kids, or tell you, "look, these kids need to toughen up - if we fix for them every little sensory annoyance they'll never function in the real world?" I think it can be hard for all of us, at first, to grasp the idea you write about, of an escalating cycle of over-arousal that may be set off by sensations that - to a hyper-sensitive child - aren't small at all.
One of the most rewarding experiences has been to see teachers who did more than just snort go on to become Self-Reg champions. We place so much emphasis on how a child's learning of "calm" has to be experiential, but the same point applies to Self-Reg: You have to feel and not just read about the changes that occur when you help a child self-regulate in order to get past your initial resistance. What you are describing in your question is that true empathy for children that is our species' greatest strength.
It seems a profound realization for all of us as parents to hear what you say in Self-Reg: "All too often we confuse our needs with the child's. We seek to make children more manageable, rather than self-managing." Your program aims to change that, and has caught on not only in Canada but internationally. Why do you think this shift from managing kids to helping kids with self-reg is touching such a chord?
I think there are two reasons. The first is, because the stress that children are under today has become far too great, and for that reason, we are seeing so many problems in mood, behavior, and attention as well as a sharp rise in physical health problems. To understand why this is happening we have to recognize the many different kinds of stress that kids are under, hidden as well as overt, and learn how to distinguish between misbehavior and stress-behavior.

But the second part of the answer is that our own stress drops dramatically when we shift from trying to enforce compliance to reducing the causes of challenging behaviors and teaching kids how to do this for themselves.
Barbara J. King is an emerita anthropology professor at the College of William and Mary. She often writes about the cognition, emotion and welfare of animals, and about biological anthropology, human evolution and gender issues. Barbara's most recent book on animals is titled How Animals Grieve and her forthcoming book is Personalities on the Plate: The Lives and Minds of Animals We Eat. You can keep up with what she is thinking on Twitter: .

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Why It's 'Self-Reg,' Not Self-Control, That Matters Most For Kids

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As parents, it can be natural enough to conclude that when our kids act up or act out - at home, at school, away at the beach or park on family summer vacation - we should tell them to calm down and be sure they follow through.

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Listenwise
A website filled with podcasts covering current events , Listenwise is a good platform for students to practice patience when confronted with controversial ideas or opposing views that appear in the news on topics like race, politics and religion . As students listen, they can describe and rank the strength of their emotions as the story progresses. Then, they can analyze how their reactions changed over time, reflect on how diverse opinions made them feel, and make a strategy for being mindful in the future.
Twitter
Twitter has been a go-to platform for teens and adults to air grievances , and the consequences can have a lasting impact on people's digital footprints. Twitter is also a valuable communications tool that can be a great way to share ideas and engage in conversations . Kids need to understand the risks of social sharing and can be taught the importance of using the tool conscientiously by seeing some of the consequences of tweeting emotionally or impulsively . Students can tweet about a topic from class. But before it goes out into the world , they can write out how they think people will react to it.
Smiling Mind
Smiling Mind is an app that helps students practice meditation through breathing exercises and visualizations. Practicing some of these self-calming skills have been shown to help kids focus at school and at home. Smiling Mind can help kids learn lifelong skills to cope with stress and stay calm. Hopefully the next time they get into an argument, they'll remember to just breathe.
This article's content is an extension of the We All Teach SEL blog series from Common Sense Education. Check it out for a complete look at social and emotional learning in the classroom.

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4 Tools To Help Kids Understand Conflict and Self-Control | KQED

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Conflict in school is bound to arise among kids. Some tools can help kids become better at making arguments and hearing one another out or just take guided breaths to calm down.

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Anxiety is a huge barrier to learning and very difficult for educators to identify. "When anxiety is fueling the behavior, it's the most confusing and complicated to figure out," Minahan said. That's because a student isn't always anxious; it tends to come and go based on events in their lives, so their difficulties aren't consistent. When we are anxious our working memory tanks, making it very difficult to recall any salient information.

Researchers surveyed a group of first graders none of whom had any reading or math disabilities. Those who had been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder were eight times more likely to be in the lowest achieving group in reading, and two-point-five times more likely to be in the lowest quartile in math achievement by the spring.

"Anxiety is a learning disability; it inhibits your ability to learn," Minahan said. But it isn't usually recognized as a learning disability and there is almost never a plan for how to address it in the classroom. "For kids with anxiety, the 'can'ts fluctuate," Minahan said. "When they're calm they can. When they're anxious they can't. And that's very deceiving."

Anxiety isn't about ability, it's about interference, which means that traditional rewards and consequences don't often work with this group of learners.

"Rewards and consequences are super helpful to increase motivation for something I'm able to do," Minahan said. But an anxious person's brain has shut down and they aren't able in that moment to complete the task being asked of them. The best way to combat this tricky problem is to try to prevent anxiety triggers and build up students' social and emotional skills to cope with the moments when anxiety sets in.

When kids are in the throes of bad behavior they have poor self-regulation skills, often get into negative thinking cycles that they can't stop, have poor executive functioning, become inflexible thinkers and lose social skills like the ability to think about another person's perspective. That's why kids can seem so unempathetic when teachers ask, "how do you think that made Sam feel?" At that moment, the student acting out has no ability to take Sam's perspective, but a few hours later or the next day, he might be able to show the remorse educators want to see.

ALL BEHAVIOR HAS A FUNCTION

Bad behavior is often connected to seeking attention, and when kids act out, they can see the results.* "Negative attention is way easier to get and hands down easier to understand," Minahan said. "It's much more efficient." Adults tend to be unpredictable with attention when a student is doing what she is supposed to do, but as soon as there's a dramatic, obvious tantrum, the student has the teacher's attention. And negative attention is powerful -- one student can hijack a whole classroom.

A common teacher response to low-level negative attention seeking is to ignore the student. The teacher doesn't want to reward bad behavior. "I want to caution you about ignoring someone with anxiety because their anxiety goes up," Minahan said. Ignoring an already anxious student can accidentally convey the message that the teacher doesn't care about the student, and worse might escalate the situation. Perhaps a teacher can ignore a student tapping his pencil or banging on his desk, but threatening behavior can't be ignored. And the student learns exactly what level of behavior he must exhibit to get attention.

TIP 1: Instead, "what you need to do is make positive attention compete better," Minahan said. She often suggests that teachers actively engage the most difficult student at the beginning of class saying something like, "I can't wait to see what you think of this assignment. I'm going to check on you in 5 minutes." When the teacher actually comes back in five minutes, validates the student's progress, and tells her another check-in is coming in ten minutes it sets up a pattern of predictable attention for positive behavior. And while it might seem unfair to take that extra time and care with one student, it ultimately saves instruction time when a teacher doesn't have to deal with a tantrum that sends the student out of the room.

TIP 2: Often in an attempt to form a positive relationship with a student teachers will publicly praise positive behavior. That can backfire, especially with anxious kids who don't want any extra attention from peers. Private or non-verbal praise is often better. Minahan recommends pulling students aside at the beginning of the year to ask how teachers can best tell them they're proud. "It's a gift to your February self if you can figure out a system now, otherwise you'll get stuck on the negative attention scale," Minahan said.

Tip 2.1: She also recommends fact-based praise as opposed to general praise. Vague praise is easy to dismiss.
ANTECEDENTS TO BAD BEHAVIOR
Many kids have predictable anxiety triggers like unstructured time, transitions, writing tasks, social demands or any unexpected change. Similarly the antecedents of negative behavior are fairly predictable: unfacilitated social interactions, interaction with an authoritative adult, being asked to wait, when demands are placed, being told no, writing, and transitions.**

Tip 3: "Teach waiting now," Minahan said. "When you are anxious, despite your age, it's very hard to wait." She was asked to observe a boy who constantly disrupted class. Minahan soon noticed the boy often did his work, but if he finished early or there was downtime in the class, he would start causing trouble. When Minahan pointed this out to him he had no idea what "wait time" was. She had to spell out to him that when he finished a task he should apply a strategy, like turning over the paper and doodling appropriately on the back. After this small intervention the student's behavior was so improved that his teacher thought he'd gone on medication.

'You can have really bright, able children whose anxiety is interfering so much.'

For kids with anxiety, there are a number of strategies teachers can employ. The first is not to take any student behavior personally. The student isn't trying to manipulate or torture the teacher, his behavior is reflecting something going on internally. Often a short movement break can help relieve anxiety, but not the way they are commonly given.

Minahan described a seventh grade girl who was recovering from an eating disorder. The girl was scraping her arms so badly they would bleed. After lunch, predictably, the behavior was worse, so her teachers were letting her color and draw to relieve her anxiety. Another common break is to tell a student to go get a drink of water down the hall. The coloring break wasn't working for this seventh grader and Minahan soon figured out why. "We accidentally left her alone to fester in her anxious thoughts," she said.

Tip 4: Leaving class doesn't give the student a break from internal negative thoughts like "I'm fat," or "I'm not smart enough," which paralyze thinking. But a break paired with a cognitive distraction does offer respite from the "all or nothing" thinking that's so common with anxious students. An older student might take a break and record herself reading a book out loud for a younger student with dyslexia. It's impossible to read out loud and think another thought. Other distractions could include sports trivia, sudoku or crossword puzzles. Little kids might do a Where's Waldo or look through a Highlight magazine for the hidden picture.

Tip 5: When teachers want to wrap up a task they often use a countdown. "Silent reading time is going to be over in five minutes." But counting down doesn't support a high achieving anxious child who feels she must finish. And it takes a lot of executive function skills and cognitive flexibility to fight the urge to keep going after the time is up. So instead of counting down, a teacher might walk over to that student and say, let's find a good stopping point. She may stop a minute later than the rest of the class when she reaches the designated point, but it won't escalate into a tug-of-war.

Transitions are another common time for kids to act out. Younger students often don't want to come in from recess, for example. But when a teacher says, "Line up. Recess is over. It's time for your spelling quiz," it's no wonder the student doesn't want to go from something he loves to something he hates.

Tip 6: The teacher can give students an in-between step to make the transition more palatable. Go from recess, to two minutes of coloring, to the spelling quiz. The intermediary step gives that non-compliant student behavioral momentum. He's already sitting down, quiet, with pen in hand, so the jump to spelling isn't as jarring.

For middle and high school students, school is all about being social, but the only times students get to see their friends are in the two to five minute passing periods between classes. Again, the transition is from something they love to something they hate, so don't make that transition extra hard by collecting homework as they come in the door. The toughest kids are probably already not doing well in the class, and a reminder of the homework exacerbates feelings of inadequacy.

Tip 7: One high school geometry teacher started playing two minute YouTube videos about geometry as students came into class. It got students from the hallway into the classroom without thinking negatively and her class started to run more smoothly. She didn't have the same interruptions she used to, which made the lost two minutes seem worth it.

Tip 8: Minahan also likes some of the biofeedback tools that are now available, like the EmWave. A wound up student puts a sensor on his finger and calming down becomes a game. He might start out with a picture of a black and white forest, but as he calms down (and the sensor monitors his heart rate) the colors start to pop in. It can take as little as two to five minutes to completely calm a kid down when they can see the feedback so clearly.

"I like it because it's so concrete," Minahan said. A student with high functioning autism might not even know what a teacher means by "calm down," but with the biofeedback device she can see what it means.

WORK AVOIDANCE

Minahan says it's very common for students to have trouble initiating work, persisting through work and asking for help, but there are strategies to help kids build the skills to get better in these areas.

"You can have really bright, able children whose anxiety is interfering so much," Minahan said. The anxiety isn't coming from nowhere; it's coming from prior experiences of feeling frozen and stupid. In that moment the child's working memory isn't working, so teachers need to find ways to bypass it until the anxiety passes.

Tip 9: One way is to let students preview the work for the day. In the morning, an elementary school teacher might work on the first few problems with the anxious child so she knows she can do it. Then, when it's time for that work later in the day, that child receives the sheet she's already started and can go from there.

Tip 9.1: In high school, teachers can give students with trouble initiating the preview as homework. Students can start at home without any pressure and continue at school. "Fight or flight is the worst when they first see it," Minahan said, so try to bypass that moment and prevent a breakdown.

Tip 10: At the same time, when the teacher names the strategies a student is employing, he is helping the student build a toolbox that can be used independently. Strategies might include, asking a teacher to help her start when she feels frozen, or asking to preview the homework. For perfectionist students, difficulty starting can stem from a fear of messing up. Give those students dry erase boards, where the mess ups can be easily erased. It helps when teachers treat the difficulty starting as a small problem and say something like, "Looks like you're not initiating. What strategy are you going to use?"

'When I shift the reinforcement to skills, I've noticed the skills go up and that's what makes the difference for the kids who have mental health difficulties.'

Tip 11: Some strategies to build persistence include skipping the hard ones and doing the ones a student knows first, working with a buddy, and double checking work on problems that have been completed.

Giving help in class is often a tricky balance, especially if a student is too embarrassed to ask vocally. Instead of acting out because she can't do the work, the student might raise her hand, pass the teacher a note or make eye contact. Then the teacher has to be careful not to give too much help. "We accidentally create dependency because we help so much," Minahan said.

That goes for academics as well as behavior. Often a teacher will notice a student becoming agitated and dysregulated and tell him to take a short walk. But ultimately the student will be better served if he can learn to monitor himself and implement strategies when he notices early signs of agitation. "Kids have to learn how to catch themselves on the way up and calm down there," Minahan said, because that's when the strategies work. But kids need to be taught how to recognize the signs.

Tip 12: Teach kids how to do a body check. With younger students a teacher can describe the signs of agitation as they are happening so the student starts to recognize them. With older students, ask them where in their body they feel anxious, for example, "in your belly?" "Give them the data every day," Minahan said. "This is your body on the way up." After the groundwork has been laid, a teacher can just say "body check, please" to let a student know it's time to check in with themselves and start using a strategy.

But what can you do when a kid is already exploding? Minahan says, not much because the child will have a very hard time reacting in a reasonable way once he or she is riled up.

Tip 13: What educators can do is anticipate those moments and rehearse self-calming strategies when the child is calm.

In one case, Minahan knew an elementary student she was working with was going to have a traumatic change in her life. The child's mom was giving her up to foster care and the date had been set. To prepare for what would undoubtedly be a moment when the student couldn't control herself, Minahan had her practice self-calming in the social worker's office, where she would probably go on the day. Twice a day for five minutes she rehearsed a self-calming routine when she was already calm so her working memory was available and she was learning the strategies.

When the day came and the child did freak out, Minahan quickly got her into the office with very little touching or verbal interaction which might further set her off. Once there, the girl got into her routine, and started singing to herself as a cognitive distraction. "The rehearsal allowed for automaticity and did not require cognition or working memory in that moment," Minahan said.

Tip 14: Rehearse replies to confrontations. Minahan worked with a high school student who constantly got in fights. If he felt disrespected he'd start swinging. Together they rehearsed over and over him saying, "I don't have time for this," and walking away. During the rehearsals, Minahan gave him something to hold in his hands as he said this. And soon, he stopped getting in fights. It gave him the moment he needed to make a decision not to use his fists and a go-to automatic reply.

Tip 15: Use data to disprove negative thinking. Writing is a common barrier for kids with anxiety, Minahan said. But one way to begin getting students past this hurdle is to ask them how hard a task will be before they start and again after they've completed it. Almost always the perception of the task is worse than the actual task. With several weeks of data you can show students the pattern in their responses.

Minahan worked with a girl who hated writing so much that she was skipping school twice a week. She would often say that writing was torture to her. Minahan broke writing down into component parts with corresponding strategies for getting started on each part. When the student worked on a writing task Minahan would ask her how many strategies she employed. Often the girl didn't use that many strategies, which didn't fit with her own conception of herself. "We reframed her whole thinking and she felt more empowered to solve her problems," Minahan said.

INTERACTION STRATEGIES

In any interaction with students teachers can only control their own behavior, but that's actually a lot of power. "We are 50% of every interaction with a child," Minahan said. "We have a lot of control over that interaction."

Tip 16: If a teacher gets off on the wrong foot with a student early in the year, try randomly being kind to the child, rather than only giving positive attention based on his or her behavior. This kind of noncontingent reinforcement helps the child to see the teacher likes him for who he is, not because he does math well or reads perfectly, Minahan said.

Tip 17: In areas where the difficult student is competent, give her a leadership role. Maybe let her take a younger child to the nurse or start an activity club. This helps change the child's perception of herself and also her relationship to the teacher.

Tip 18: When demanding something of a student, don't ask yes or no questions and teach kids not to ask yes or no questions. In that scenario, someone has a 50 percent chance of being disappointed with the answer. By changing the question, the teacher opens the door for the answer to be diffusing, rather than an escalation of defiance. For example, if a student asks, "Can I work with Jack?" The teacher can reframe the question: "Oh, did you want to know when you could work with Jack? You can ask: When can I work with Jack." The student might not like the answer, but it likely won't produce the same explosive reaction as getting an outright "no."

Tip 19: Give kids time and space. If a student is prone to arguing, eye contact and physical proximity can escalate potential protests.*** For example, if a kid is humming in an annoying way, a typical teacher move might be to make eye contact with the child and shake your head to get him to stop. But in this situation eye-contact is non-verbally asking the child for a response, which he may be incapable of giving at that moment. Instead, calmly walk over and put a note on his desk that says, "please stop humming." Then run away and do not make eye contact with that student for a few minutes.

"The initial reaction is not pleasant and you have to wait for them to de-escalate before they can comply," Minahan said. Sometimes the mere presence of the teacher prevents that de-escalation.

Tip 20: Reward practice or strategy use, not performance. "When I shift the reinforcement to skills, I've noticed the skills go up and that's what makes the difference for the kids who have mental health difficulties," Minahan said. Ultimately, educators are teaching kids the skills and strategies that they can then use throughout their life when they're anxious, so rewarding practice makes sense.

The more teachers can empathize with students, teaching skill building and focus on preventing challenging behavior, the smoother the classroom will run. Often that means learning about the student in order to identify triggers and design new ways of interacting with even the most challenging students.

*An earlier version of this post overstated the connection between bad behavior and seeking attention.
**An earlier version of this sentence highlighted only one type of negative behavior -- fighting.
*** This section was updated to include the situations under which eye contact could make a situation worse for a student. We regret these errors.

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