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Podcast: The Teaching Behavior Together Podcast

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Podcast: The Teaching Behavior Together Podcast

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The Teaching Behavior Together Podcast provides teachers with strategies to increase their classroom management while incorporating behavioral and social emotional learning strategies in their classrooms. Gone are the days of frustration and tearf…

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Article: Cognitive, Emotional, and Behavioral Engagement Strategies That Work

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Article: Cognitive, Emotional, and Behavioral Engagement Strategies That Work

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Teachers can use a mix of approaches to overcome students' attention span limits so they stay engaged in learning.

Recent research highlights a growing concern: Attention spans are shrinking. Across all age groups, maintaining focus and engaging with others is becoming more difficult. David Brooks notes that even adults are struggling with the habit of actively tracking a speaker. In classrooms, teachers face the challenge of capturing students' attention for even a fraction of the time they used to.

Studies identify three key dimensions of engagement: behavioral, cognitive, and emotional. Behavioral engagement is seen in students following directions, while cognitive engagement reflects their investment in learning and willingness to tackle challenges. Emotional engagement relates to students' positive feelings toward a topic and their sense of belonging. These dimensions are interconnected and critical in fostering deeper learning.

For example, in a virtual discussion, behavioral engagement might be shown by a student writing a post, cognitive engagement through the depth of their ideas, and emotional engagement by their enthusiasm for the topic. Teachers can integrate these dimensions of engagement to overcome the attention span deficit and help students feel more engaged in their learning.

Integrating the Dimensions of Engagement

To maximize student learning, new research suggests mixing engagement strategies within short intervals, such as shifting between direct instruction and collaboration with peers every three to six minutes. In addition, research suggests that combining a mix of low-challenge and high-challenge tasks every three to six minutes boosts academic achievement and replenishes energy to sustain attention and reengage in more complex tasks.

How do we then combine direct instruction and collaboration while rotating between complex and low complex tasks while maintaining high engagement? Here are some approaches you can take in class today.

Quick wins: Start lessons with brief, explicit instruction and guided practice before moving into larger group activities. This ensures that students grasp key concepts early, with a strong "we do" approach that incorporates modeling and questioning. For example, a teacher decides to break down a lesson into several parts rather than one longer lesson and begin by demonstrating how to compare fractions with common denominators. After three minutes, the teacher asks students to identify fractions with common denominators. This is repeated with additional intervals across the lesson.

Integrate SEL into content: Instead of isolating social and emotional learning, weave executive functioning strategies into academic lessons. This could involve a brief interval where students reflect on how they manage their time or attention within a math or science lesson, promoting both self-regulation and content mastery. For example, after students have engaged in a few intervals related to food chains and food webs, they reflect on the three dimensions of engagement-e.g., Cognitive: What did I learn about food chains and energy pyramids? Emotional: How confident do I feel in explaining the flow of energy in an ecosystem? Behavioral: What steps did I take to progress to this point in the lesson or unit?

Small, structured collaboration: Begin group work in short, structured bursts-just one to four minutes. As students build confidence and deepen their understanding, gradually extend the time. This keeps the cognitive load manageable and aligns the duration of group work with the difficulty of the task. For instance, after a social studies teacher presents key figures in the Civil Rights Movement, students spend three minutes working in pairs, sharing their personal reflections on fairness and comparing them with what they've learned about historical struggles for equality.

Low-Challenge/High-Engagement Activities

Teachers should infuse a few three- to six-minute activities that are low challenge and high engagement for students into each lesson. These should not take much time to create and should be designed to replenish student attention by integrating cognitive, emotional, and behavioral approaches to engagement. These could be strategies to consolidate previous learning.

Question generation: Have students create questions on the topic for younger students. For example, you could ask ninth-grade world history students to create questions for students in third and sixth grade on this same topic. Instead of answering questions, students create them! In pairs or small groups, they have three minutes to write questions based on the lesson content. After the time is up, they trade questions with another group and try to answer each other's questions. The teacher may ask them why those questions are so important for younger students to know.

Trivia/quiz activity: Have students participate in a short quiz, such as answering questions about key events from a history lesson, while competing as part of an ongoing trivia game that lasts several days or weeks. To do this, consider designing questions that blend knowledge with fun by incorporating interesting facts, pop culture references, or challenges. Make sure to keep the format light and competitive, providing multiple-choice or timed responses to add excitement and encourage participation.

Two truths and a lie: Students work in pairs or small groups to come up with two true statements and one false statement about a topic they've learned from the past several units (e.g., historical facts, scientific theories, literary events). They present their three statements to another group, who has to guess which one is the lie.

Quick round questions: The teacher asks fast-paced questions related to the topic (e.g., vocabulary definitions, dates of key events, formulas) while students respond by raising their hand, calling out, or writing their answer on a small whiteboard. Keep the pace lively and engaging, and encourage students to celebrate correct answers with a quick clap or cheer.

Crossword puzzle: Students engage in a part of a crossword puzzle and repeatedly work to solve it over several days.

Bingo/search: Give students a list of things they need to find (e.g., "Find someone who can explain photosynthesis," "Find someone who knows the capital of Luxembourg," "Find someone who can give an example of a metaphor"). They have three to five minutes to walk around the room and ask classmates to fill in the blanks.

Mind maps: Students are given three minutes to create a mind map of key concepts from the lesson, starting with one central idea and branching out to related terms or ideas. Afterward, they can compare their mind maps with those of a partner or small group to see if they captured the same key points.

ABC game: The teacher starts with a vocabulary word from the current lesson, and students must quickly come up with a related word that begins with the last letter of the previous word (e.g., Ecosystem → Mammal → Leaf → Food chain). The chain continues for three minutes, with students taking turns contributing.

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Cognitive, Emotional, and Behavioral Engagement Strategies That Work

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Teachers can use a mix of approaches to overcome students' attention span limits so they stay engaged in learning.

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Classroom Management Apps and Websites | Common Sense Education

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Classroom Management Apps and Websites is a list of 28 apps, games, and websites curated by Common Sense Education editors.

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Website: Postive Behavioral Interventions and Supports 

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Website: Postive Behavioral Interventions and Supports 

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PBIS World | A Complete Tier 1 Through Tier 3 Positive Behavior Interventions & Supports System

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

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Website: Empowering Classroom Management Strategies for Diverse Learning Environments

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Website: Empowering Classroom Management Strategies for Diverse Learning Environments

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Empowering Classroom Management Strategies for Diverse Learning Environments

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Gain valuable insights into fostering inclusivity and cultural responsiveness in diverse classrooms. Explore effective techniques for managing diverse student populations, cultivating a positive classroom culture, and overcoming common challenges.

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Article: Compassion-Based Strategies for Managing Classroom Behavior

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Article: Compassion-Based Strategies for Managing Classroom Behavior

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There's a saying some educators use: "The best classroom management strategy is an engaging lesson plan." That may be true, but there are often a few students who act out in class no matter how well the teacher prepares. Dearborn says when she started using compassion to help her students behave in school-appropriate ways, she had far more success. She often found that punishments embarrassed students and caused them to resent her deeply, damaging their relationship.
7 COMPASSIONATE BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES Tone, Volume and Posture
Dearborn empathizes with students who feel shame when they are called out in front of the entire class. Whenever possible, she tries to discipline privately, but classrooms are hardly private, so she often uses a combination of tone, volume and posture to get students on task.

First she adopts a calm and serious tone in her voice. Then, she squares her body to the student. She says this kind of communication can usually do the trick, but there are other steps if needed. For kids who might have oppositional defiant disorder or be emotionally disturbed, Dearborn advises a side posture with averted eyes so as not to trigger a violent response.
Avoid Standoffs
Dearborn said that in moments of escalation with students, often the best strategy is to offer a few alternative choices to the behavior a child is showing and then walk away. Sometimes a small nudge is enough to redirect behavior, and teens especially may not follow the teacher's direction if she hovers. Dearborn calls this "drive-by discipline."

"Say the kid's name superfast and then move on," she said. "Sometimes it's the right thing to do. It startles her, and then I move on before she can bait me into an argument."
Look for the Subtext: I Don't Care
When kids are acting in a confrontational, dismissive or volatile way, Dearborn suggests looking for the deeper message the student is communicating, whether they know it or not. She imagines an invisible subtitle running in front of the student that communicates what she really needs. When things get tense, "everything out of their voice and their face and their body, that is just interference getting in the way of me reading the invisible subtitles," Dearborn said. She has had to practice ignoring the loud anger and hostility in order to look for the invisible subtitle.

"If you're assuming the best about the kid, that they want to learn appropriate behavior, they want to be positively connected to you, but they somehow can't, there's something in the way. What can you imagine the invisible subtitle is for 'I don't care?' " Dearborn asked a crowd of educators at the Learning and the Brain conference.

"For me, the invisible subtitle for 'I don't care' is, Mrs. Dearborn, I really, really care, but I can't tell you that. Do care?"

Reading the "subtitles," as she calls them, has helped Dearborn to stop perceiving misbehavior as disrespect. That doesn't make her a pushover, she said. It makes her an advocate for the student.

"So now when kids say, 'I don't care' to me, I say, 'That's OK because I care, and I can care for the both of us right now, so let's do this.' "

Approaching the student with the assumption that they want to behave appropriately changes the communication dynamic.

"I'm not doing it because I'm frustrated and now I want to punish them. And even though the words and the consequences I'm giving might be the same in either case, it is the quality of interaction that shifts, and kids pick up on quality and our unspoken intention more than anything else in a disciplinary interaction."

The subtext could also be simpler. Maybe a student is talking in class, and when the teacher calls her out on it, she denies talking. "For me, the subtitle for 'I wasn't talking' is, 'Mrs. Dearborn, I was totally talking. You know I was talking. I know I was talking. Everybody in the room knows that I was talking. But I'm embarrassed that you called me out about it right now, so if you walk away, I'll stop.' "

Dearborn says to accept the student's answer and move on.
The Gentle Press: Head Down on the Desk
High school students often put their heads down in class either sleeping or refusing to participate. A teacher might tell say, "sit up" or "no sleeping in class," but to Dearborn, those approaches don't demonstrate care. Instead, she tried to express compassion, saying: "It's OK to be tired, but you can't sleep in class. Can you sit up and work on the assignment?"

If that gentle reminder doesn't work, Dearborn knows a more private conversation is necessary. She would spend a few minutes with the student in the hallway. Sometimes a walk outside is enough to wake the student up, but other times it's a chance to reaffirm an offer to help or learn about deeper issues that are going on.

"This is called the gentle press - when you gently press forward at a student until either they're in the academic work or you're in a relationship-building moment," Dearborn said. "Sometimes this doesn't end in academic work. Sometimes the gentle press ends in relationship-building."

She recounted a past experience with one of her students who had his head down. When they stepped outside class, the student burst into tears and said his brother had been deployed by the military.

"He's not going to access the academics today. He's in emotional crisis and we have to have some space for that." she said. "If I had just gone by him and said, 'sit up, no sleeping in class,' what would that have expressed to him? "
Choice, Timeline, Walk Away
Dearborn said that when people come to her workshops, they arrive with hopes of an exotic new solution that will solve everything. But changing behavior comes down to hard work. And to help students learn appropriate classroom behavior, she presents a series of choices that are connected to consequences, not punishments. Students can be given choices, including ones that lead to undesired consequences.

"The sooner we can get our students to internalize this truth - that their choices matter, that they are in charge of whether they receive the sweet or bitter fruit based on how they choose in any given situation - the sooner they internalize that concept, the better off they're going to be."

Giving students space to make their own choices means that sometimes they'll choose to act in ways teachers wish they wouldn't. But even in those moments, incidents that could lead to an office referral, students are testing whether their teacher cares enough to hold her accountable.

"[The student] understands I can go to the wall without abandoning or abusing, without lashing out," Dearborn said. "And she for whatever reason needs to learn that lesson, apparently. So I can be that person. It's not how I want it to go, but if we need to go here a couple of times so she can learn who we are together, that's OK with me."

It's counterintuitive, but Dearborn said it would be easier for the student if she lashes out at them because then the student can blame her for how the interaction ends. That way, the student doesn't have to confront her own actions.

"But if I just maintain choices, leave them with her, with kind eyes, in the end, even if she ends up out of the room, she understands at some level, maybe not consciously and right then, later, that could have gone differently," Dearborn said.
Visual Cues
When kids don't follow through with a teacher's verbal command, it might not be because they're being defiant. Sometimes they're not listening because of attention issues, learning differences or auditory processing issues. They could also be English language learners or they're fatigued by a teacher talking too much.

"Because they're hearing my voice too much, they're tuning me out," Dearborn said. "If I don't have another way to communicate with them I'm losing half of them half the time."

This is where she can communicate expected behavior with an image . She has had kids line up, for example, in what they thought was a straight line. When she showed them a photo of how they were actually lined up, they did it again.

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Compassion-Based Strategies for Managing Classroom Behavior | KQED

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By addressing student behavior with compassion -- even when they're acting out -- teachers can find productive ways to get kids on task or engage in relationship-building.

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The 40 Best Classroom Management Apps & Tools

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What comes to mind when you hear 'classroom management'?

Experienced teachers know that effectively managing a classroom is the essential prerequisite for successful instruction, collaboration, and assessment. A teacher can have the most engaging and well thought-out lesson plans at the start of a class, but if the teacher is lacking in one or more areas of classroom management, the lesson may fall apart.

The challenge for many teachers is that reactionary classroom management threatens to disrupt learning and take up class time. Having the right structural supports in place for learning management, time and task management, student engagement and formative assessment, behavior management, and communication with parents and students makes it easier for teacher to effectively manage their classroom while focusing primarily on instruction and feedback. Responsive classroom management anticipates students' needs and potential challenges in the learning environment, and embeds structural supports throughout the lesson to keep students engaged, on-task, and aware of how their actions impact others.

Below, we've compiled 40 of the best classroom management apps and tools, recommended by experienced teachers. From digital assistance queues and peer grading to providing positive reinforcement and game-based formative assessments, we're confident that readers will take away at least a handful of resources that can make teaching in their classrooms all the more simple. If we've left some awesome classroom management apps out of this list, let us know what we're missing!

The 40 Best Classroom Management Apps & Tools

Learning Management Apps & Tools

Manage a standards-based gradebook, utilize rubrics, maintain your calendar, communicate with parents and students, track attendance, plan lessons, and more.

Both a learning management system and curriculum library, Canvas makes it easy for teachers to organize online, hybrid, and in-person learning.

Teachers can create assignments, distribute them to students, and give real-time feedback and grading through Classkick's tools. Additionally, teachers can view how students are progressing on any assignment.

Make learning visible with photos, videos, and other media by assisting students in curating their own digital portfolios.

One of the most popular LMS out there, Google Classroom is adored for how well it integrates with other useful apps. Post content, give feedback on assessments, and organize student groups in this all-in-one location for teaching and learning.

Teachers can build gamified courses that motivate students to pay attention to their own learning. Activities utilize concepts to increase student autonomy and give them freedom to take risks without the fear of their grade plummeting.

Create your own online courses and assignments and keep track of students' progress using Moodle, one of the most popular LMS used in schools today.

The Schoology LMS comes equipped with more than 200 integrated tools and education platforms (like Google Drive, nearpod, Khan Academy, and Brain POP). Teachers can manage classes, design and distribute assignments, foster interactive discussions, perform assessments, and more.

With Seesaw, students use embedded multimodal tools to capture their learning in a digital portfolio - teachers can observe all aspects of student thinking and progress to better differentiate instruction.

Showbie helps teachers deliver feedback, and this tool has it all: a gradebook, parent sharing, collaboration, assignments, portfolios, voice notes, discussions, and annotation tools.

Time & Task Management Apps & Tools

No seconds, minutes or hours...just an hourglass that allows students to visualize time flow and make decisions regarding task management.

In a class with one teacher and 25+ students, it can be hard to keep track of who needs help. Students may also get frustrated and impatient when they wait for help that may never come. With ClassroomQ, students can join a queue for assistance, and the teacher can go to students in the order in which they ask for help.

This Google Chrome extension visualizes information about student work in Google Docs, Sheets, Slides and Drawings assigned through Google Classroom, along with assignment deadlines from a course calendar, allowing teachers to get a view of student effort.

LanSchool classroom management software allows teachers to monitor student devices to keep them safe, shift focus to them by blanking screens and locking devices, view individual student monitors, and limit or disable access to specific websites during tests, quizzes, or other times.

This app rewards students for staying off of their phone during class with deals from local and online retailers. Teachers can also create privileges like extra credit points, dropping a lowest assignment score, tardy passes, and snacks passes.

Time Timer's red disk disappears as the seconds go by. It's easy to set a timer and start a visual countdown for classroom activities and transitions.

Student Engagement & Formative Assessment Apps & Tools

Teachers can map conversations of up to 40 participants with this tool that tracks types of contributions by groups or individuals.

This beloved formative assessment tool makes learning fun by offering timed quizzes set to upbeat music, and showing a leaderboard after each question round.

Enhance instructional content with interactive games, assessments, and lessons. Users can also discover ready-made graphic organizers and manipulatives.

Teachers can make any slides-based lessons interactive, add formative assessments and videos, and deepen engagement and understanding through gamification.

Start by browsing a library of thousands of conversation topics, host an online roundtable, encourage dialogue, and highlight exemplary responses with Parlay.

Students can participate meaningfully in peer feedback with this app, which allows teachers to require certain questions, randomly distribute anonymous writing to other students, and stipulate the length of feedback responses.

Plickers is a free, quick-response class polling app that scans and records student responses.

With Socrative, teachers can engage students with activity choices like quizzes, space races, exit tickets, multiple choice questions, true/false questions, or short answers. It's also easy for educators to deliver quick feedback during assessment.

Teachers can select a student at random with just a tap! Additionally, the app can suggest question stems for learners at different levels and record how students respond during discussions. Questions can be based on Bloom's Taxonomy, ELL skills, or degree of difficulty.

Behavior Management Apps & Tools

Bloomz allows teachers to share class updates, manage events, schedule conferences with parents, sign up volunteers, and talk with families (all without sharing their personal cell phone number).

With Class Charts, educators can create instant seating plans for differentiation or classroom management, view behavior analytics, and motivate students with behavior points.

Aligned with SEL, PBIS, MTSS and behavioral RTI initiatives, Classcraft allows teachers to reward students for doing the right thing, demonstrating growth mindset, staying on task, helping others, and more. Essentially, it helps motivate students to be invested in their own learning, as well as their classmates' learning.

Over 95% of U.S. schools use this app to engage students and connect with families. Teachers encourage students to demonstrate specific skills or values, students can create digital portfolios, and parents can visualize their children's learning.

Teachers can track standards-based practice on Marzano scales, record positive and negative behaviors (along with consequences), track student accommodations, and manage hall passes.

Class123 houses a timer, seating charts, random student selectors, a chalk board, and mechanisms for keeping records and giving positive motivation to students.

Educators can track and reinforce behaviors like teamwork, perseverance, disruption, and off-task in this mobile app - the family portal allows parents to get a detailed picture of their child's daily activity.

Create and print automatic or differentiated seating charts in minutes.
The Great Behavior Game
Designed for students in grades K-5, the Great Behavior Game allows students to earn points for appropriate behavior, assigns time-outs, and freezes a student's points while they are exhibiting undesirable or disruptive behavior.

This app displays a noise meter on a digital whiteboard to help students realize when they need to change volume levels.

Student & Parent Communication Apps & Tools

Educators can send messages, share class materials, and facilitate discussions with Edmodo, an app that also shares class updates with families.

Need to make a call to a student's family member outside of school hours, but don't want to share your personal cell phone number? Google Voice assigns you a special 9-digit phone number that you can use to make contact with families when it is most convenient for them and you.

Otus calls itself the best platform for standards-based grading, common assessments, and progress monitoring. It also organizes data so teachers can get a holistic picture of each student's growth journey.

Teachers can manually add students, or students can sign up to join a class remind account. Here, teachers can send all-class or individual student messages to remind them for upcoming tests, quizzes, field trips, and important class/school events.

Document student behavior, identify behavior trends, and communicate with parents - this is a great tool to keep records and anecdotes of the spectrum of student behavior.

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The 40 Best Classroom Management Apps & Tools

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What comes to mind when you hear 'classroom management'? Experienced teachers know that effectively managing a classroom is the essential prerequisite for successful instruction, collaboration, and assessment. A teacher can have the most engaging and well thought-out lesson plans at the start of a class, but if the teacher is lacking in one or more areas of classroom management, the lesson may fall apart.

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Look to this board for classroom management ideas, tips, strategies, techniques, tools, and activities to help the teacher with incentives, discipline, consequences, procedures, and enforcing rules for all types of behavior while teaching in the upper elementary classroom.

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Website: Panorama education with strategies

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Website: Panorama education with strategies

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Classroom Management Strategies to Establish a Smooth School Year

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Discover research-backed classroom management strategies that help teachers create positive learning environments & improve student outcomes.

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900+ Best Classroom Management ideas in 2025 | social skills activities, classroom behavior management, classroom behavior

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Save your favorites to your Pinterest board! | social skills activities, classroom behavior management, classroom behavior

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Social Media: Cult of Pedagogy (more general)

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Social Media: Cult of Pedagogy (more general)

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Tweets by cultofpedagogy