By Dr. Harry Tennant
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Saturday, April 7, 2018 Success Story: 7 Habits of Happy KidsI called Dontae Wilson, Principal of Robert B. Pollock Elementary School. They've been working with Behavior Manager for several years and I noticed a significant change in their data over the past two years. Office referrals were reduced by 52% and out-of-placement consequences were reduced by 93%. I asked Mr. Wilson what they were doing right to see such improvements. DW: A lot of the improvement is teachers looking at ways to engage kids differently. During that time we started with Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. He've had a lot of teachers working with kids on those social and emotional skills. That's really been helpful. We also hired an additional counselor this year. So it's a combination of things. The 7 Habits of Happy Kids, let's call it...from 8:30 to 9:00 our teachers teach the prosocial skills you want the kids to have. That sets the tone for the day. Obviously, sometimes referrals still have to occur. Teachers often fill out a referral for documentation. They may handle the situation but they're letting us know this is what they've done. That's helpful because in a lot of cases it doesn't require additional administrator action. That's good too because the teachers are taking ownership and responsibility. They develop a better relationship with the kids. Edclick: So, the teaching of the 7 Habits...that's what started in 2015? DW: Yes, that was our first year of it. As you might imagine, we got better at it. Overall, we've definitely seen a lot of progress since that first year. For us, the big message to the teachers is, if something happens, report it via a referral, letting us know what you've done to address it, because then we can pull up that history and let parents know that these are all the referrals that your child has had. In a conversation with the parents we can talk about what's happened and we know what the next steps are. It's been really helpful. Edclick: One of the features that you folks requested that we put into Behavior Manager was a way to document function of behavior. How has that worked out? DW: Oh, that's been tremendously helpful. As an administrator, that gives us a sense of what was happening before the incident and whatever escalation occurred. I think for teachers, it gives them a chance to step back and think, what was happening? Yes, the kid did X but usually the student did X in response to something, whatever that might have been. We see patterns from that information. For special ed teachers that's really helpful. When they have to make adjustments in the IEP, they have the data right there. Not only what happened but what lead up to it. Edclick: The out-of-placement reductions: was that by decree or did it fall off because the behavior improved? DW: It's a little bit of both. Our district is focused on reducing suspensions, particularly in the lower grades. So we've devised some alternatives to suspensions. And the practice of the teachers has improved to where those consequences aren't necessary. Edclick: Are there some consequences that you're using now instead of out-of-placement? DW: Definitely the Saturday detentions are helpful. Teachers can work with the students in a smaller setting and with the reflection sheets in the system, we'll have some conversations with the kids about what the decisionmaking was and how the student can make some adjustments. Edclick: Thanks! Congratulations on your progress! Posted at 3:02 PM (permalink)
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Thursday, March 8, 2018 PBIS and TardiesOne of our customers told us about a surprise success. They had purchased Behavior Manager mainly because they had a big problem with tardies. They had started using our tardy station and enabling teachers to do one-click tardies when a student walked into class late. They had also implemented tardy rules so students were warned or automatically assigned consequences immediately. A couple of weeks after starting to use the system, one administrator encountered another in the hall between classes. He asked, "Did the bell ring? I didn't hear it." The other admin answered, "No, not yet." The first asked, "Where is everybody?" The second answered, "They're in class." The main benefit from Behavior Manager's tardy system is that it's easy and consistent. Students quickly learn that they aren't going to get away with tardies so they make it a priority to get to class. Another benefit of equal importance is that the tardy system doesn't add any more lost instruction time than what the student has already lost by being late. It doesn't make sense to tell a student arriving late to class to march down to the office to get a tardy pass. That's just more lost instruction time. Rather, the teacher taps a link, the student is marked as tardy, the tardy rule fires based on the number of tardies recorded and assigns the student a consequence such as a warning or detention. But he doesn't miss additional instruction time. Here's how we recommend you use Behavior Manager most effectively for reducing tardies.
If taking these steps still leave you with too many tardies, it's time to gather some data. Why are these students late? Have students caught tardy fill out a form to learn more about the reasons. An example form is shown here.
Have the student indicate all reasons that they are tardy to class Social/Student
Instruction
Routines
Other: __________________________ Typically, the majority of your tardy problems will be effectively handled by setting expectations and having a system that's easy and consiistent for dealing with tardies that does not cause an ever greater loss of instruction time, i.e., Behavior Manager. See our One-Click Tardy Station in action Posted at 12:00 AM (permalink)
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Tuesday, March 6, 2018 Keep doing what worksWhen people talk about improving a school or a business or a process of some kind, most often they think about fixing something that's broken. Yes, when you find something wrong, by all means, fix it. But there's something else that pays off even better. Sometimes, you'll run across surprise successes. When this happens, keep repeating the surprise win! Here's an example. I found three schools today whose data showed dramatic improvements in tardies. One of the schools had a 71% reduction in tardies compared to last year. That amounted to thousands of tardies fewer. I called each to find what they had done to make such large improvements in tardies. I know lots of other schools that would love to reduce their tardies. But these schools hadn't had tardy improvement programs going so they didn't know why the tardies were so much improved. This is a great opportunity. Something caused these improvements. The numbers are too large to be explained by random variation. If we figure out the cause, it can thange the most common discipline issue simply by repeating whatever they are already doing. This kind of opportunity comes up more often now that we have enough data to look for interesting things that are happening. But to benefit from it takes three things. First, we need to be willing to take the time to just poke around in the data to see what's interestung. Second, once we've found something interesting, we must resolve to track down what caused this surpise success. Third, we need to keep doing what works, whether we found it by surprise or not. Posted at 12:00 AM (permalink)
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Friday, March 2, 2018 Success Story: Darden Middle SchoolWe noticed in the Behavior Manager statistics that Darden Middle School has seen significant improvement in office referrals over the past two years. I asked Assistant Principal Edwina Lucas about that. Edclick: We saw your office referrals were down 33% from 2016 and 54% from 2015. Are doing something new to see such dramatic improvements? Edwina Lucas: Yes, we’re doing a number of things. We’re doing PBIS, teaching expectations monthly, celebrating positive behavior. Also, some of the staff members we lost had high referrals. It’s a conglomeration of different things. There is a typical signature in office referrals when a teacher needs to improve classroom management skills. The combination of disrespect, disruptive behavior and insubordination suggests disorder. When a new teacher experiences this in his classroom he may think that he's just not cut out to be a teacher. But it's simpler than that. There are a collection of classroom management skills that the best teachers master. To the uninitiated, it almost seems like a magical power. But it's not. It's a set of skills that can be learned and practiced. Darden Middle School addressed it with teaching coaches. Edclick: It seems that the misbehaviors that were reduced the most were in the areas of disrespect, disruptive behavior, inappropriate language and insubordination. We ordinarily see improvements in those areas when there’s an improvement in classroom management skills. Are you doing anything specifically to improve classroom management skills? Edwina Lucas: We have been doing classroom management sessions. We have two coaches. One works mostly with new teachers and the other works with teachers across the board. There’s a lot more support in that area this year that we didn’t have last year. One of the foundational ideas of PBIS is to make evidence-based decisions. The data collection and reporting capabilities make it possible to see what's going on in the school and to see the effects of interventions. One of the things that differentiates the most successful schools from the rest is that they make the effort to learn what the data is telling them. Edclick: Are there any other ways that Behavior Manager could be more useful for you? Edwina Lucas: It’s doing everything we need it to do. We study the reports regularly to tell us where the hotspots are. We look at kids who don’t have referrals. Kids that have high referrals. We do extra work with the students who are high flyers. We have a lot of things going on that are positive. Posted at 12:00 AM (permalink)
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Thursday, March 1, 2018 Success Story: Oxford Middle SchoolOur Behavior Manager statistics for Oxford Middle School showed extraordinary improvements this year.
I called Neil Burton, Assistant Principal at Oxford Middle School about their success. Edclick: We noticed that referrals were down by 25% from last year and out of placement consequences were down by 51%. Are you doing something different to get these improvements? Neil Burton: We have tried to move toward a PBIS model. We still include the punitive model in some respects but we have tried to shift toward that PBIS model as much as possible. Oxford Middle School is not alone in this. Many folks assume that once they adopt PBIS, there will be no more misbehaviors. Not so. Misbehaviors are often significantly reduced but they don't disappear. Schools still need consequences when required. Edclick: How did you do that? Are you teaching expectations early in the school year and rewarding positive behaviors? Neil Burton: Exactly. We’ve always done that but not with the fidelity with which we tackled it this year. We can quickly give a child points for behavior…helping out someone or being responsible or accountable. That’s made a big difference. There was also a change with out of school suspension. We changed our code of conduct. We try to keep every child in school unless it was a violent act or there was blood drawn, charges pressed or there was a knife or drugs…otherwise, instead of sending them home, we use ISS. Improved behavior not only improves the atmosphere in classrooms making them more conducive to learning, it it reduces the amount of instruction time that students miss. This is a big benefit. Students who are out of class rapidly deteriorate achievement. This applies both to students who are sitting in the office waiting for a tardy slip and to students who get suspended. In addition to reducing the number of suspensions, schools can use innovative consequences which keep students in class. One example is Check In/Check Out. Edclick: Do you use Check In/Check Out? We see that being used as an alternative to OSS. It has the benefits you’re talking about where you keep the kids in school yet you’re addressing the problem. Neil Burton: We have used it with a few students. Beware of the trap of simply mandating that teachers solve their own classroom behavior problems. They still need backup. Edclick: Sometimes we hear a complaint from teachers where administrators are doing PBIS and they’re telling us that they can’t do referrals any more. Neil Burton: We addressed that with the teachers getting started. We explained that we’re adding a carrot in front of the child. We’re not taking away the stick. We’ll still use the stick if needed…metaphorically. We’re just adding to the arsenal that the teacher can use. We see that a lot of the teachers are really good at reinforcing positive behavior. At the end of the period they take the time to note that kids are responsible, accountable, working hard. They’re giving them points right then and there. Keep in mind that when you're adopting proactive behavior methods, you're making a culture change and that it takes time. At Delay Middle School, the school that Behavior Manager was originally built for, the proactive behavior teaching got easier each year. After three years, when all of the original students had moved on, behavior management was much easier. It had become part of the culture. New students picked it up from the current students. Edclick: We’ve seen that there’s a culture change in the school when you start using these techniques. Sometimes it takes time for the kids who aren’t of the new culture to move on. In the meantime, you’re teaching the new culture to each new incoming class. Neil Burton: Yes, even though we’re using PBIS, kids are sometimes going to misbehave. We talk about above the line and below the line behavior. We have high expectations for our teachers. And we expect them to lay out high expectations for their students and follow them throughout the year. If they do, great. And rewards are appropriate. If they’re not, we empower teachers to address it. If they can’t, then we will. We do try to make sure that the teachers know that they have the autonomy to deal with the parents, make those phone calls, give their own detention. If that doesn’t work, of course, send them our way. Congratulations to students and staff at Oxford Middle School for the great improvements this year! Posted at 12:00 AM (permalink)
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Wednesday, February 28, 2018 Success Story: Fike High SchoolOur Behavior Manager statistics for Fike High School show a dramatic improvement in office referrals this year. I asked Assitant Principal Timothy Messer about that. Edclick: We noticed your referrals were down 67% compared to last year. Have you done something different? Timothy Messer: We sure have! We made a change in the culture. We increased accountability and consistency and set expectations. Edclick: How did you do that? Timothy Messer: Training on expectations at the beginning of the school year. And a new rules matrix. We required consistency among teachers, administrators and students. There’s no more “this teacher says this” and “that teacher says that.” With training it’s now consistent across the board. Edclick: I see that most of your improvement was in disrespect, disruptive behavior, inappropriate language and insubordination. Improvement in these areas are typically the result of improved classroom management skills. Did you work on that? Timothy Messer: We did a lot of training on what defines a misbehavior. We made it clear what should be handled in the classroom and what requires an office referral. Edclick: Is there any way we can improve Behavior Manager to better support you? Timothy Messer: I don’t think so. Behavior Manager is an excellent program. It’s easy to use. And it does just what we need. Randy St. Clair, Principal of Fike High school, added: It's been the result of buy-in from both teachers and students. The staff and administration are working hard to be consistent in handling discipline but also rewarding positive behavior We're just getting started. I know it can be better than what it is. I am excited and thrilled to see that the things we've put in place are having a positive result in our building. Thanks for your support. It isn't easy to make such a significant change in a school's culture in one year! But the folks at Fike have demonstrated that it is definitely possible. A complete culture change, the transition for proactive behavior methods to fully take root, typically takes several years. With so much progress in the first year, we're looking forward to the results over the next few years. Posted at 12:00 AM (permalink)
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Tuesday, February 27, 2018 Responsible-Motivated-Engaged: ConclusionThis series of posts comes from a paper, Responsibility, Motivation and Engagement: How To Develop Learners Using Behavior Manager. It describes how Edclick’s Behavior Manager combines three essential capabilities.
Teachers have complained about student behavior at least since the time of Socrates. Student behavior problems are not likely to go away with some simple gimmick in a new app. The scientific evidence is mounting that the best solutions include teaching behavior proactively, developing basic students’ social skills, developing sophisticated and subtle social skills in teachers and teaching material in an engaging way. In addition, the school and staff must adopt an attitude of continuous improvement in these skills and procedures. Behavior Manager covers the scope of student behavior issues. It might seem daunting at first. But it’s not necessary to take it all in one bite. Some schools start by using Behavior Manager only for tardies. Some start with only PBIS functions of merits, rewards and Check In/Check Out. Many who do start with only a subset of functionality tend to find that they can benefit from the other functions too. Choose what’s right for you while keeping your mind open to other features that other schools have found valuable and use every day. Mastering student behavior in the classroom is a challenge. But it is worth rising to the challenge because it leads to more effective teaching, more pleasant classrooms and higher student achievement. Posted at 12:00 AM (permalink)
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Saturday, February 24, 2018 Parental involvementThis series of posts comes from a paper, Responsibility, Motivation and Engagement: How To Develop Learners Using Behavior Manager. It describes how Edclick’s Behavior Manager combines three essential capabilities.
Parent involvement is highly correlated to student achievement. It’s important to get parents on your side. Just as with students, the best approach to building an effective relationship with parents is to be proactive. Start as early as possible and communicate expectations and rules. As with the students, keep it brief, 3 – 5 expectations that are most important to get across. Let the parents know how things will be working in the class and how the parents can be most helpful. Let them know about the cool things that the class will be doing. If the parents are excited about what’s coming up in the class, it’s likely they will transfer that enthusiasm to the student. Also be thinking about how to deliver a positive message about each student to the parents as early in the school year as possible. You and the parents have one important thing in common: you both want what’s best for the child. It’s as important to know their expectations as it is important for them to know yours. If problems arise with a student, it’s helpful to have a relationship with the parents to help resolve them. How to send and track notifications, personal messages and newsletters in Behavior ManagerBehavior Manager automatically notifies parents of behavior referrals. Make sure that parents also hear from you about the good news. In addition to automatic notifications, Behavior Manager has two other important features for building relationships with parents, the contact log and flash messages. The contact log makes a record of all the parent notifications that are automatically sent for behavior notifications. It also allows you to record other contacts you’ve made with the parents by phone or email. Then you can review the contacts, the reasons for them and their outcomes through the contact log reports. Below is an example of the contacts made between the school and the parents of Huck Finn. There have been two discipline referral notifications and one introductory message. From here you can explore other messages, show contacts to parents of all students, change date ranges and so on. Behavior Manager makes it easy to send messages to parents using flash messages. Flash messages can be sent to the parents of an individual student or to groups of parents such as all 9th graders or the parents of Ms. Armey’s period 2 Biology class. The flash messages can be automatically personalized with the student’s name, useful when sending to large groups. The most effective communication with parents is when it’s two-way. In addition to keeping parents informed about what is going on at school, make it easy for them to provide feedback. Consider sending out a survey once or twice a year when parents can let you know if they are getting enough (or too much) information from you and from the school. Behavior histories in Behavior Manager
Key: Keep in mind that when a student is having behavior issues at school, it is especially important to keep parents notified of things the student is doing well. The behavior history is also available through the Behavior Manager student and parent portal. They can keep up to date whenever they wish. Also available to parents on the portal is a database of parent tips. The parent tips cover a wide range of parenting issues. If their child is having a specific behavior problem at school, the parent tips may include useful suggestions on what parents can do about it. Posted at 12:00 AM (permalink)
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Friday, February 23, 2018 Toward more effective interventions - Restorative DisciplineThis series of posts comes from a paper, Responsibility, Motivation and Engagement: How To Develop Learners Using Behavior Manager. It describes how Edclick’s Behavior Manager combines three essential capabilities.
Restorative discipline in Behavior ManagerRestorative discipline is a consequence for misbehavior that emphasizes belonging in the school community instead of punishment and exclusion. The main idea is to get the offender and victims together and make things right. Ideally, after restorative discipline, the victims feel that their needs have been addressed and the offender rejoins the community. Restorative discipline is an effective substitute for suspension or expulsion, takes the victims into account and does not incur the academic damage that comes with suspensions. There are several techniques for restorative discipline. Different situations require different approaches. Outlines of several restorative discipline techniques included in Behavior Manager are shown below. Conference with students and parentsConference with students, parents, teachers and administrators regarding misbehavior such as use of banned substances. Attendees · Offenders · Parents · Teachers · Administrators · Others To Offenders: what did you think or feel when you found out that parents, administrators and friends learned of the misbehavior? To All: How have things been for you between then and now? To Offenders: Who do you think has been affected by your actions and how? To Parents, Teachers and Administrators: What were you thinking or feeling at the time you found out about the misbehavior? To All: How have things been for you between then and now? To Offenders: Are there additional things that need to happened to restore you to the community and rebuild the community's trust? To Parents, Teachers and Administrators: Are there additional things you would like to add? The CircleThe purpose of the circle is to discover what happened, the impact on victim(s) and offender and what would make it right. Attendees · Offender(s) · Victim(s) · Others The incident · What happened? · Who has been hurt? · What are their needs? · What are the causes? · Who had a "stake" in this? What is the appropriate process to involve stakeholders in an effort to put things right? Community serviceAs an alternative to punishment, a student can be assigned community service with the parent's permission. Community service may include hours worked at school or with a non-profit charity approved by the administration. Community service should include: · Number of hours to be served, · A complete-by date and · Requirement for proof of service time. Community service is most effective as a positive intervention which is viewed as making a positive contribution to the community rather than a "forced labor" or public humiliation punishment. The positive contribution can be seen as making things right following a negative behavior incident. Offender/Victim conference for serious harmsParticipants · Offenders · Victims · Parents · School staff (teachers, administrators, coaches, etc.) What happened? How did participants feel about it? What needs to be done to make things right? How might the situation be prevented in the future? One-on-one restorative processFor incidents such as bullying Initial private meeting with the person harmed. · Create a safety plan · What does he/she need to put things right? · Create an agreement if necessary Private meeting with the wrongdoer · Get his/her perspective · What did you do? · What did you want to happen when you did that? · How do you think [the person harmed] feels about what happened? · Remember a time when someone hurt you. What happened? How did you feel? · Do you want to be someone who fixes mistakes? How can you make things better? · How will you do that? When will you do it? · Encourage self-reflection, responsibility-taking and better actions in the future · Create a plan to put things right · Use an agreement if necessary Follow-up with both parties to assure agreements have been met Are there environmental conditions that may have contributed to the incident? Victim/offender mediationThe purpose of mediation is to find how to make it right for both victim and offender. The mediator's role is not to arbitrate and decide the proper action. Rather, the mediator in Restorative Discipline only facilitates the discussion leading to an agreement on how to make it right. A speaker's token is recommended to help all be heard. Attendees · Offender(s) · Victim(s) · Victim and offender participation should be voluntary · Mediator The incident · What happened? · Who has been hurt? · What are their needs? Making it right · How can the situation be made right? · Have the actions been taken to make it right? Posted at 12:00 AM (permalink)
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Thursday, February 22, 2018 Toward more effective interventions - Behavior Questionnaires & Character BuildersThis series of posts comes from a paper, Responsibility, Motivation and Engagement: How To Develop Learners Using Behavior Manager. It describes how Edclick’s Behavior Manager combines three essential capabilities.
Behavior Questionnaires and Character Builders in Behavior Manager
The Character Builders are about character issues. They are not specific to particular misbehaviors. However, they can be used as consequences for misbehaviors where relevant. They can also be used in a general class on character. The Character Builder subjects are shown below.
Posted at 12:00 AM (permalink)
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Wednesday, February 21, 2018 Toward more effective interventions - Social SkillsThis series of posts comes from a paper, Responsibility, Motivation and Engagement: How To Develop Learners Using Behavior Manager. It describes how Edclick’s Behavior Manager combines three essential capabilities.
Social skillsMisbehavior is often related to lack of social skills. Conflict may arise between a student and peers or between a student and a teacher simply because the student is lacking necessary social skills. And, if we are to be honest, problems in classrooms are often due to another social skills deficit, that of teachers. When a teacher loses his temper or engages in a power struggle with a student or reacts to a student’s misbehavior with ridicule, he is causing additional problems that could be avoided with appropriate social skills. But here we’ll focus on student social skills. First, consider the proactive big three: expectations, rules and procedures. What are they if not instruction in social skills that apply to schools and classrooms. In that sense, we have already discussed social skills instruction for students. However, there may be a small percentage of students who could benefit from additional social skills instruction. And, just as expectations, rules and procedures proactively prevent misbehaviors, instruction in additional social skills can be beneficial to those students who need it. Here are some example topics.
There are many other social skills to discuss, so it’s important that when assigning social skills to students that the range of topics be specified. Social skills instruction is typically conducted in small groups. There may, however, be students who would need individualized instruction. Posted at 12:00 AM (permalink)
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Tuesday, February 20, 2018 Toward more effective interventions - Check In/Check OutThis series of posts comes from a paper, Responsibility, Motivation and Engagement: How To Develop Learners Using Behavior Manager. It describes how Edclick’s Behavior Manager combines three essential capabilities.
No, Virginia, PBIS will not eliminate all misbehaviorProactive behavior management, the kind advocated in PBIS, will do a great deal to reduce misbehavior in your school. However, students will continue to misbehave. Unfortunately, many books on PBIS, in their enthusiasm for the very real benefits of the approach, give the impression that PBIS will completely solve your school’s behavior problems. It won’t. Lots of things can result in student misbehavior. A few are listed below. Proactive behavior management will help reduce misbehavior even when some of these motivations apply. · Seek attention · Seek escape · Desire for power · Look for revenge · Lack self-confidence · Are sick, hungry or tired · Are in a classroom that is uncomfortable · Have problems with the school work · Have emotional issues · Have problems at home Misbehavior will appear in the school and you must be prepared to deal with it. Is the goal to punish or to improve behavior?The most commonly used consequences for misbehavior is an escalating set of actions that that have been imposed on the student, which he dislikes. Most schools use detention, loss of privileges, in-school suspension, out of school suspension and expulsion. Since the student dislikes the action, the assumption is that she will change her behavior to avoid it in the future. A psychologist might call it a behavior reductive intervention. Others might call it a punishment. The benefit of these common punishments is that they are a way to take immediate action on a misbehavior and get an immediate result. There a several disadvantages to managing student behavior with punishments. · Punishments tend not to be very effective in making long term changes in student behavior. It is far more effective for far more students to take the proactive approach, teach expectations, rules and procedures. However, the proactive approach will not eliminate all misbehaviors, so they need to be dealt with somehow. · Escalation often works against your goals. Take tardies as an example. Schools using escalating punishments for repeated offenses often find themselves giving out-of-school suspension for repeated tardies. At that point, the school is no longer conveying that “we value instruction time and we want you in class.” Perhaps the first punishment was about valuing instruction time, but by the time it has escalated to suspension, the issue has become defiance in the form of not responding to previous actions. · Punishments are designed to be disliked but they may not be. For example, if a student is being tardy to class because he wants to avoid being in class, a suspension becomes a reward, not a punishment. · Punishments typically do not address the problem behind the behavior. Why is this student repeatedly being tardy? The root cause may have something to do with crowded hallways or a preference for chatting with friends over getting to class on time. The root cause may be wanting to avoid a class in which the student is doing poorly. The root cause may be something else. The root cause is not that she hasn’t yet had enough detentions. · Punishments, being imposed on students by staff, are often resented. Resentment decreases the student’s interest in abiding by school rules. The relationship may become adversarial which gets in the way of improving behavior and student achievement. How to get away from punishmentsSignificant progress is made in getting away from punishments when we adopt a proactive approach to behavior management: expectations, rules and procedures. For the misbehaviors that still occur (and some will, although not as many), we can change the student’s perception of the consequence and create better consequences. Consequences should never be assigned in anger. If there is anger, revenge or vindication or an expression of the greater power that the school has versus the student, the student is likely to see that emotion and not consider the lesson behind the consequence. Consequences should be assigned with empathy. Even if a consequence is going to be something that the student dislikes, the responsibility for the consequence should be given to the student. “I like you, Billy, but I can’t let you get away with that. Do you know the consequence for what you did?” That way, the student has caused this detention, not a vindictive teacher. Also, by getting the student to state the expected consequence, he’s showing (himself) that he knew the consequence was expected. Consequences should be seen as a mechanism for learning, not suffering. We want the student to learn to solve her own problems. If Janet has been involved in outbursts with another girl, we can approach this as a problem to be solved rather than a misbehavior to be punished. After Janet has given her side of the story of the incident, the teacher can, rather than imposing a punishment, ask something like “What are you going to do?” or “How will you make amends?” or “What do you think I should do?” Asking questions like these does two things. It shifts the teacher’s task from picking a punishment to solving a problem. It also shifts the responsibility for solving the problem on the student, not on the teacher. Give the student some degree of control. If you’ve asked the student for ideas for solving his problem and he doesn’t offer any, you can still give him some control. Give a list of a few consequences for him to choose one. Even that much control moves him closer to perceiving the problem-solving as his responsibility. In addition to improving the student’s attitude toward consequences, we can assign different consequences that are more effective. Check In/Check OutCheck In/Check Out is an intervention that has received a lot of research attention. It has been found to be very effective in teaching students who have had difficulty following the expectations, rules and procedures. It consists of evaluating the student’s behavior in each class throughout the day, reviewing it quickly at the end of the day (that’s the check out), then reviewing it with the student’s parents at night and returning a card signed by a parent to the school in the morning (that’s the check in). We’ll describe it in more detail in the context of Check In/Check Out in Behavior Manager below. Check In/Check Out has proved to be effective for students from elementary through high school. It’s generally offered as an intervention to students who have not responded to simpler interventions for disruptions, talking out, getting out of one’s seat and disrespect. It benefits the student by focusing on behavior expectations in each period of the day and getting attention and encouragement from teachers throughout the day. Check In/Check Out is often used for repeat offenders so it can be an effective replacement for suspension. It has several significant advantages over suspensions. Most important, the student continues to stay in class so instruction time is not lost. Second, she gets direct feedback throughout the day and day after day on her problem behavior, so it helps in actually solving behavior problems. Third, it is not a punishment and should not be presented as a punishment. It is an intervention to help make behavior changes so it is less likely to be resented by the student. How does Check In/Check Out work in Behavior Manager?
In each class period there is a chance for a brief interaction between student and teacher with a chance for praise or reminders of rules. In some cases, teachers may choose to create expectations specific to this student. At the end of the day, the student has a brief meeting with a counselor or some other designated staff member for a quick recap of the day. Scores are entered into a database. This is Check Out. He then takes the card home, has it signed by a parent and brings it back the next morning. The recorded data is used to track progress. Students are given a goal such as an overall score of 75% or more of the maximum total score. As the data shows progress, the goal is increased. In time, they may switch to having the student evaluate his own behavior and just check with the teacher on whether she agrees. Eventually, the behavior improves and the CICO process is stopped. Behavior Manager improves on this paper process by making it electronic. We can deal with the paper cards and data entry at the end of the day, but it is simpler if it’s all online. The image on the right shows the scoring page. Teachers click scores (0, 1 or 2 for middle schoolers and high schoolers, smiley faces for elementary). They can also enter comments of two kinds: comments for students and parents and comments (with the light blue background) meant for internal use. Scores are tallied and percentages calculated. A graph shows progress and compares scores to goals. Daily score sheets can be digitally signed through the parent portal. The blue internal comments are not presented on the portal for either students or parents.
Social skillsMisbehavior is often related to lack of social skills. Conflict may arise between a student and peers or between a student and a teacher simply because the student is lacking necessary social skills. And, if we are to be honest, problems in classrooms are often due to another social skills deficit, that of teachers. When a teacher loses his temper or engages in a power struggle with a student or reacts to a student’s misbehavior with ridicule, he is causing additional problems that could be avoided with appropriate social skills. But here we’ll focus on student social skills. First, consider the proactive big three: expectations, rules and procedures. What are they if not instruction in social skills that apply to schools and classrooms. In that sense, we have already discussed social skills instruction for students. However, there may be a small percentage of students who could benefit from additional social skills instruction. And, just as expectations, rules and procedures proactively prevent misbehaviors, instruction in additional social skills can be beneficial to those students who need it. Here are some example topics.
There are many other social skills to discuss, so it’s important that when assigning social skills to students that the range of topics be specified. Social skills instruction is typically conducted in small groups. There may, however, be students who would need individualized instruction. Behavior Questionnaires and Character Builders in Behavior Manager
· Bullying · Bus Behavior · Cell Phones or Other Electronic Devices · Discipline Evaluation · Disrespect · Driving Violations · Fighting · Gang-Related Activity · Homework/Project Not Completed · Horseplay · Inappropriate Language · Insubordination · Misbehavior at an Extracurricular Event · Missing Mandatory Tutorials · Off-Task Behavior · Play Fighting · Responding to Adults Respectfully · Restorative Justice · Running in the Halls · Signed Materials Not Returned · Skipping Class · Skipping School · Tardies · Theft (Minor) · Vandalism The Behavior Questionnaires contain 35-40 questions about the offense and its implications. Not only are the Behavior Questionnaires useful for getting a student to think about her behavior, but the answers may reveal insights about the root causes of misbehaviors. The Character Builders are about character issues. They are not specific to particular misbehaviors. However, they can be used as consequences for misbehaviors where relevant. They can also be used in a general class on character. The Character Builder subjects are shown below.
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