Thursday, February 15, 2018

Systems for managing the consequence process in Behavior Manager

This 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.

1. Proactive PBIS tools to prevent student misbehavior
2. Reactive interventions and processes for misbehaviors to minimize loss of instruction time and keep students in school
3. Data and tools for continuous improvement

Systems enable flexibility

We define procedures in classrooms to make things go smoothly. The same applies to the process for managing consequences. The difference is that the process for managing consequences is a lot more complex than the classroom procedure for passing out papers or putting dictionaries away.

Using online systems to support the process of managing consequences offers teachers more flexibility than they had before. In the days of paper office referrals, there were two possibilities. You could either make up consequences or you could create simple rules to follow. Most schools, in the spirit of ease and fairness opted for the latter. That’s where policies come from like first offense, warning, second offence, detention, third offense, extra school, fourth offense, ISS, fifth offense, OSS. That’s problematic because consequences that are punishments like these tend to be ineffective for improving long term behavior. Students would often march right up the ladder of escalating consequences until they were suspended. And once suspended, they are missing more instruction time, falling further behind in their classes and becoming more likely to drop out of school.

Some administrations advocate policies of strict sequences of escalating consequences, arguing that by making the sequence mechanical, they are treating everyone the same. It’s important to be fair and equitable. However, another approach, and one that is likely to be more effective, is to treat everyone the same: with dignity and respect. This approach gives greater flexibility to teachers and administrators to exercise their judgement about what would be most effective for the student. Does that open the school to the possibility of bias? Yes, that’s possible, but with the much improved access to data, queries and trends available through online systems, we can readily detect and track down staff who are using their flexibility to not treat everyone with dignity and respect.

Key: Use the flexibility of online systems to increase effectiveness.

It’s better to have more flexibility. But flexibility means more complexity. Enter the online systems to handle complexity easily.

Here’s a simple example. Minor misbehaviors can result in an after school detention. But if that after school detention has to be served on Tuesday, it could be a problem for the student and his parent if the parent is counting on the student to be home right after school on Tuesday to take care of his sister. So, make it more flexible. Allow the student to serve the detention any day but it must be served within a week. That way the student can choose an afternoon when he’s free or, if arrangements must be made for the little sister, there would be time to set it up. It’s more complex but it’s no problem in Behavior Manager because the detention roll is generated automatically and the system keeps track of whether the student has complied with the deadline.

This same system also allows more flexibility on the number of after school detentions assigned. Since the system is keeping track, administrators now have the flexibility of assigning four or five after school detentions instead of one day of ISS. The system will keep track and the student doesn’t miss any class time.

Assembling the context for assigning consequences

Assigning an intervention is an important act. In many cases, one would like to take relevant information into account. What are the details of this incident? How many office referrals has this student had this year? How many this grading period? What interventions have been tried so far? Do they seem to be effective? What is the general policy for dealing with this behavior? For some behaviors, the state imposes consequences. Does that apply in this case? What consequence will I choose? Does it interfere with any pending consequences that have already been imposed but have not yet been satisfied?

A lot of issues can be considered when assigning a consequence. And there are many types of consequences that might be applied. In addition to considering the details of the student’s behavior history, the administrator may wish to discuss it with the student. After all, it’s the student’s problem, not the administrator’s. Perhaps the student should figure out how to solve it. That’s possible because of the wide range of options available to the administrator.

An important benefit of involving the student in solving the problem is that he makes the problem and the solution (intervention) his own. By making the problem his own, the student is correcting his own behavior rather than having a penalty imposed on him. Taking responsibility for the behavior and its consequences makes it more likely that the student will also take responsibility for his behavior in the future.

Data behind the scenes

When the administrator assigns a consequence, a number of things happen behind the scenes. Rolls, such as the detention roll, are updated. The referring teacher is notified that an intervention has been assigned. The incident and consequence automatically become part of the student’s behavior history and are incorporated into behavior dashboards and database queries. If it is an out-of-placement consequence, emails are sent to the student’s teachers requesting assignments for the student to work on while he will be out of class. Parents are notified and the notification is added to the parent contacts database.

All of this data keeps teachers and parents informed. And it makes data available immediately allowing data-based decision making so people have immediate information on status and trends. And that feeds into the opportunities for continuous improvement which will improve student behavior and student achievement over time.

Posted at 12:00 AM (permalink) 0 Comments View/Leave Comment
Keywords: Responsible-Motivated-Engaged, Behavior Manager

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Continuous Improvement

This 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.

1. Proactive PBIS tools to prevent student misbehavior
2. Reactive interventions and processes for misbehaviors to minimize loss of instruction time and keep students in school
3. Data and tools for continuous improvement

Schools and districts often bring in Behavior Manager with the goal of making things quicker and easier. And it does that. Many times, they keep addressing their behavior issues in the same way before Behavior Manager, but now, it’s online. Doing that misses a huge opportunity.

Behavior Manager collects and stores a lot of data. The data can be explored in a variety of different ways and it often reveals insights that were unanticipated.

Typically, when people look through the data available in systems like Behavior Manager, they are looking for the good news. What can I show my superintendent that will impress her? What will I show my staff? Showing off the good news feels good. And often that’s what the recipient wants to see. But there is something much more powerful to pull from data like this: where are the opportunities for improvement?

Many people are reluctant to look for opportunities for improvement because they think of them as problems and they think problems are bad. But if you’re going to do better than you’re doing now, it will be because you found a problem and fixed it. Identifying problems is good. Problems are where all the progress comes from. Problems are opportunities…the opportunities for improvement.

Finding opportunities for improvement is only half the job. The other half is finding and implementing the improvement.

How to explore data in Behavior Manager

Common behavior issues are described by the behavior dashboard.

The quickest way to get started with data in Behavior Manager is with the dashboards. Dashboards show a summary of the most commonly sought behavior metrics. The dashboard above gives a quick overview of behavior issues, where they come from and what has been done about them. The graphs suggest some immediate questions. Why do some teachers have a lot more office referrals than others? Are we providing the best interventions for those students who have the highest number of referrals? What about the out-of-placement consequences? Are there better interventions for keeping those students in class? What about the overall numbers? Should we be satisfied with these numbers? (Hint: no) If not, what are we doing about it? (Hint: you should be working an explicit behavior improvement plan)

 Another useful report is the behavior analytics report. The analytics report to the right is showing the number of out-of-placement days assigned in the school year until January 30. The numbers are compared for this year (red) to previous years (pink). The declining trend looks good. Do we know why it is declining? Is it random or because of something we’re doing right? Should we be happy with this year’s total or should it be half that? What are we going to do about it?

The civil rights dashboard displays key behavior metrics. It compares the percentages of special populations to the overall percentages in the school population.

The civil rights dashboard in this example shows that we need to understand what is going on with consequences  versus race. About 10% of our students are African American but 17% of the out-of-placement consequences assigned are African American. Do we know why?

The query and reporting components of Behavior Manager allow us to ask more specific questions of the data and drill down for more detail and to look for evidence for or against theories we may have.

Taken together, this data suggests opportunities for improvement. It also helps us answer the question, are the steps we’ve taken for improvement working?

Building a culture of continuous improvement

The most important shift is to develop the mindset that our goal is to always be improving. Improving what? Improving everything. And the fundamental metric to improve is student achievement.

Key: Be better than we were yesterday!

In order to improve the school, involve everyone with making improvements all the time. Make a common question be, how are we better today than we were yesterday? From lots of small improvements come big changes.

If a cynic answers, we’re not better today than yesterday, then ask about last week or last month. Pretty soon even the most resistant among us must admit that stagnation is not a winning strategy.

Keep in mind that not every experiment will work. Some attempts at improvement will fail. But it’s still a form of progress to keep trying. Remember Thomas Edison’s response when asked if he had failed to make a practical light bulb:

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
-- Thomas Edison

Procedure improvements

Most improvements will be small. You might notice that when students pass papers to the person behind them that there tend to be little disruptions. One student just throws the papers over his head. Another jams the papers into the face of the person behind. You could reprimand or it may be better to change the paper passing procedure to pass papers to the right instead of to the back. If that procedure change helps, make it stick. The aggregation of many small procedure changes results in big behavior changes.

Encourage teachers to share their procedure improvements. A useful new procedure in one class is likely to be useful in others.

Data for insights into common issues

A number of questions are frequently asked in schools. Behavior Manager provides convenient data for insight into the answers. Here are some examples.

How many office referrals are made weekly?

Which students are the most common offenders?

Which teachers make the most referrals?

How are referrals distributed throughout the day?

Where to offences occur?

What are the most common offenses?

How many out-of-placement consequences are being assigned?

Are office referrals biased by race? By ethnicity? By gender? By English proficiency? By special ed status?

Are out-of-placement consequences biased by race? By gender? By English proficiency? By special ed status?

Are serious crimes being reported?

Are there allegations of bullying, intimidation or harassment? How are they distributed over sex, race, nationality and religion?

Are there weapons violations?

If there seems to be racial bias, are certain individuals responsible for it?

How do key success indices compare from the current school year to previous school years? Do the indices indicate improvement?

These questions and more are addressed in the dashboards, civil rights report and behavior analytics report. To dig deeper into these questions or to ask other questions, Behavior Manager includes query capabilities through the behavior population reports, behavior record query and behavior records by intervention.

“That’s funny…”

One of the great benefits of capturing a digital trail of events in schools, is that it can lead to facts and insights that would otherwise be hidden. How should we take advantage of this opportunity?

The science fiction and science fact author, Isaac Asimov wrote

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka!” (I have found it!) but “That’s funny…”

That is what the dashboards, reports, analytics, histories, drill downs and the rest are about. Some folks look at that sort of data and think of it only in terms of a snapshot of the status of the school. Yes, it is that. But more important are the opportunities for improvement that it may be revealing.

Here are some general questions to ask.

What are your most important metrics?

A few numbers will be the most important indicators of how your school is doing. What are your key indicators for concerning student behavior? Office referrals per week? Tardies? Out-of-placement consequences? Harassment complaints? The first step is to decide what is important to you and 1) start watching those numbers regularly and 2) make it a specific, scheduled task to take steps to improve them. If you feel that those key numbers are unimprovable, pick the set of next most important indices and improve them.

Does the data contradict your gut feel? In other words, is it funny?

If you’re looking to improve, you’re looking for surprises. If something looks funny, for whatever reason, follow up on it. These are often the sources for the greatest insights.

Keep in mind that you might be surprised in two ways. The numbers may be worse than expected. Or, you may be surprised that the numbers are better than expected. Surprisingly good numbers often point the way to your best opportunities for improvement. Whatever caused that surprisingly good result, identify it and do more of it!

Why are the aggregate numbers this high (low)? Why not lower (higher)? How can we make it lower (higher)?

Pick a data point. For example, pick the number of out-of-placement consequences assigned. Too often we look at a number like that and think that, if it is close to what it has been in the past, then it is okay. With the mindset of continuous improvement, the question should always be, how could we make that better, even if just by a little bit? Small incremental improvements add up to large improvements.

Is there a trend?

Look for trends by week, month, grading period and year. Do you see a pattern? If you do, what do you think causes the pattern? If you see no pattern, why not?

Am I seeing the effect I expected?

When you make a change, what effect do you expect to see? For example, if you’re implementing hallway sweeps between classes to reduce tardies, how much of a reduction in tardies do you expect to see? Are you seeing it? Is it more or less than expected? Has the improvement been worth the effort? What should we try next?

Are there correlations? Do the numbers for a subpopulation differ from the overall aggregate numbers?

This is what drilldown is all about. Compare overall aggregate numbers for whatever you’re investigating to the numbers for subpopulations. We do that in the dashboards for the most common metrics and subpopulations by race, gender, special ed, LEP. Do the differences suggest opportunities for improvement?

Don’t get too hung up on the data.

The goal is to improve. Ideas for improvement will come from all directions, not just out of the data. Solicit ideas from teachers, students and parents. But then figure out how you can measure the current baseline and then the effect of change. Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.

How to create and track improvements with Plan-Do-Check-Act cycles in Behavior Manager

It is best to think of improvement as a repeating process. It’s not just one-and-done, but each improvement is built upon previous improvements and provides opportunity for further improvements.

Also, improvement should be based on the scientific method. We should be specific about what we intend to change and what measureable effects are expected. After we try it, measure the results. Did we see the measured improvement that was expected? After trying this improvement, what should we do next? Implement the improvement? Try an alternative?

This approach to improvement is captured in the simple Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle.

Plan – Assess the current situation and hypothesize how it might be improved. What can we measure before and after that would show improvement?

Do – Do the planned improvement. This is a test so implement it as quickly and easily as possible.

Check – Measure the data captured during the Do phase. Did you see the expected improvement? Why or why not?

Act – If the change was an actual improvement, then incorporate it into your process. If not, decide what to do next. Modify the plan and try again? Abandon this approach?

Behavior Manager includes a tool for documenting improvement opportunities and the PDCA cycles to test and implement them.

Posted at 12:00 AM (permalink) 0 Comments View/Leave Comment
Keywords: Responsible-Motivated-Engaged, Behavior Manager

Thursday, February 8, 2018

Teacher skills

This 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.

1. Proactive PBIS tools to prevent student misbehavior
2. Reactive interventions and processes for misbehaviors to minimize loss of instruction time and keep students in school
3. Data and tools for continuous improvement

Teachers create more effective classrooms when they prepare with the proactive big three: expectations, rules and procedures. In addition to these, they can also increase the effectiveness of their classrooms by developing skills for classroom management and skills for presenting engaging lessons.

Classroom management skills

Teacher training rarely provides the skill building needed to effectively manage a classroom. When teachers lack these skills, classrooms are not effective learning environments. In addition, a disorderly classroom can be extremely stressful for the teacher. Inability to effectively manage a classroom is one of the most common reasons that teachers leave the profession.

From the point of view of an inexperienced teacher, master teachers seem to have an effortless way of maintaining a well-run classroom. It appears to be almost magical. But it isn’t. It is based on a particular set of skills.

Teachers don’t need to suffer through presiding over chaotic classrooms. Classroom management depends on a set of skills that can be learned through deliberate practice.

Classroom Management Skills Practice in Behavior Manager

Behavior Manager includes Practice Classroom Management Skills, a game-like application that provides deliberate practice in essential classroom management skills in a real classroom: your classroom!

The teacher is given a skill to practice each day and marks her progress until the full set of skills become second nature. There are five categories of skills: rules and procedures, leadership, cooperation, interventions and mental set. Mental set is further broken down into emotional objectivity and withitness. This collection of skills is based on research on what makes some teachers so much more effective at classroom management than others.

Key: Skills are developed through deliberate practice. (You’re a teacher, you know that!) This application provides a framework for practicing classroom management skills, not just reading about them.

Below is an outline of the skills covered in Practice Classroom Management Skills.

·         Rules and Procedures

·         Leadership

o   Orientation and Goals

o   Authoritative Body Language

·         Cooperation

o   Wish for Someone's Good Day

o   Catch Them Doing Something Right

o   Learn Their Names

o   Talk Informally With Students

o   5 to 1 Ratio

o   Negotiate Difficulties With Class

·         Interventions

o   Reminders

o   Student Self-Assessments

o   Tokens or Symbols

o   Be Assertive

o   Be Consistent

o   Create a Discipline Plan

o   Class Circle

·         Mental Set

o   Practice Emotional Objectivity

o   Practice Withitness

§  Scan

§  Intervene Promptly

§  Use Names

§  Stop Instruction

§  Nonverbal Commands

§  Avoidance

§  Reminders and Warnings

§  Walk Around

Engaging instruction

In addition to classroom management skills, teachers must inspire students to engage in the class content. Engaged students are rarely problem students. While certainly some aspects of engaging instruction is an art, many aspects of it are well known. We’ve included a checklist of aspects of an effective lesson.

Just as pilots go through an extensive preflight checklist before every flight, we recommend that teachers go through the SCORE CHAMPS checklist for every lesson. Yes, it is lengthy. Yes, you may be an experienced teacher. But just as checklists have improved the safety of flight and the outcomes of medical procedures, SCORE CHAMPS can help you present more engaging instruction.

SCORE CHAMPS checklist

¾  Structure

o   Write and follow lesson plans

o   State objectives

o   Use graphic organizers

o   Provide mediated scaffolding

o   Use effective classroom management techniques

¾  Clarity

o   Provide explicit instruction

o   Prime background knowledge

o   Carefully design examples

o   Define vocabulary

o   Teach conspicuous strategies

o   Repeat important information

o   Use organization language (e.g., “First a…then b…)

¾  Opportunities to respond

o   Provide high levels of opportunities to respond to instructional stimuli during new learning and practice

o   Ensure high levels of correct responding

o   Use a variety of response formats, including choral responding and response cards

¾  Redundancy

o   Ensure repetition in teaching new skills

¾  Explicit instruction

o   Provide direct, teacher-led instruction

o   Incorporate elements of structure, clarity, opportunities to respond and redundancy

o   Provide clear feedback for student responses

¾  CHoices

o   Provide choices before and during academic tasks

¾  Assess the forms of knowledge

o   Determine whether instruction targets represent factual learning, rule learning, conceptual learning, procedural learning or problem-solving learning

o   Use instructional methods that are appropriate for the form of knowledge being taught

¾  Monitor student learning

o   Monitor students’ academic progress using frequent, objective data

¾  Practice

o   Provide sufficient practice opportunities that reflect the learning objectives, provide high levels of response opportunities and provide immediate feedback

¾  Success

o   Ensure high levels of success in academic tasks

The SCORE CHAMPS checklist is from Positive Behavioral Supports for the Classroom by Brenda K. Scheuermann and Judy A. Hall.

Avoiding boredom

One of the most common student complaints about classes is that they are boring. Using the SCORE CHAMPS checklist above will go a long way toward preparing to teach a class. Boredom is highly relevant to student behavior and classroom management because a bored student 1) is not learning and 2) soon starts looking around for more stimulation. Since the complaint of boredom is so common, here are a few ideas of things to do and not do specifically to eliminate boredom.

The Anti-Boredom Checklist

Do incorporate…

¨  Adventure

¨  Humor

¨  Challenge

¨  Fascination

Don’t make these common mistakes…

¨  Sitting too long

¨  Talking too much

¨  Speaking too softly

¨  Making the simple complicated

¨  Making the interesting uninteresting

¨  Talking instead of doing

¨  Directing too much, observing too little

¨  Slow pace

¨  Failing to adjust

Posted at 12:00 AM (permalink) 0 Comments View/Leave Comment
Keywords: Responsible-Motivated-Engaged, Behavior Manager

Tuesday, February 6, 2018

The proactive big three: expectations, rules and procedures

This 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.

1. Proactive PBIS tools to prevent student misbehavior
2. Reactive interventions and processes for misbehaviors to minimize loss of instruction time and keep students in school
3. Data and tools for continuous improvement

Expectations, rules and procedures can make dramatic improvements in student behavior in the classroom and throughout the school. Take the time to create, teach, review and hold students accountable to these essential components of student behavior.

Expectations, rules and procedures, for all the benefit they will provide, will not eliminate misbehaviors. They are likely to significantly reduce misbehaviors, but they are not likely to eliminate them.

When misbehaviors occur, it’s important to respond appropriately. We have already mentioned that your attitude is important. Don’t take student misbehavior personally. Maintain emotional distance from the misbehavior. Be consistent in holding students accountable for following rules and procedures. But then what?

Select consequences thoughtfully

Poorly selected consequences can actually encourage misbehavior rather than diminish it. First, consider why the student is misbehaving.

We behave the way we do for a purpose. In general, there is something we are trying to accomplish when we do something. Being aware of what a student is trying to accomplish with her misbehavior helps you select an appropriate consequence.

This idea is known as function of behavior. When a student is familiar with class or school expectations, rules and procedures yet still misbehaves, there may be a purpose to it. It also may be that he has just gotten sloppy with adherence, but if the infractions are repeated, consider whether there is another function behind it. Challenging behavior is often motivated by one or more of the following:

·         To obtain…

o   Adult attention

o   Peer attention

o   Preferred activity

o   Money or things

o   Or something else

·         To avoid or escape from…

o   Hard tasks

o   Reprimands

o   Peer negatives

o   Physical effort

o   Adult attention

o   Or something else

A student is disruptive in class. Why? It might be that he is seeking the teacher’s attention. Or it might be that he is unprepared and doesn’t want to be asked to do the work that is assigned. In the first instance, attention from the teacher would increase the likelihood of another disruption for more attention. In the second instance, attention from the teacher may enable him to do the assignment and thereby decrease the likelihood of another disruption.

How does Behavior Manager support function of behavior?

Behavior Manager supports office referrals for serious or frequent misbehaviors. Behavior Manager also provides behavior notes where a teacher can record behavior challenges that do not yet rise to the level of an office referral. If the challenging behavior persists, the teacher has the option of including the notes in an office referral, giving the administrator more context on the incident.

Key: Embed fields and reminders in the system to lead to most effective use.

In both behavior notes and office referrals, a field called Motivation/Function of Behavior is available to designate the student’s likely motivation or function of the challenging behavior. When a motivation is selected, a set of possible consequences is displayed that is unlikely to encourage the function of the misbehavior. Notice in the example that the selected Motivation/Function of Behavior is Gain Item or Activity. Interventions relevant to that function are shown under Consequence and Prevention. The teacher has checked the consequence Called Parents which has been automatically added to the note. He has also checked Preferred Items/High-Interest Items which, when provided for the student, may avoid another incident like this one. When checked, it too was added to the note. The teacher can then further elaborate on the incident in the text box.

Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence

A second way to consider the effectiveness of consequences is Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence or A-B-C. A-B-C is useful for identifying the conditions that may trigger an incident for a student.

·         Antecedent: events that occur before the incident that may set the stage for the incident

·         Behavior: the behavior of this incident

·         Consequence: events that follow the incident that determine whether the behavior will be repeated or not.

Note that the A-B-C model suggests that both the antecedent and the consequence of a behavior has an effect on whether the behavior is likely to be repeated. Teaching and enforcing expectations, rules and procedures are examples of manipulating antecedents in order to encourage desired behaviors. Selecting appropriate consequences relevant to the function of behavior is one approach to manipulating consequences for the most successful effect.

How does Behavior Manager support the Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence model?

Behavior Manager includes an option to prompt for Antecedent, Behavior and Consequence in each office referral. When the option is activated, it also requires that content must be entered for each of the fields.

The prompts may be customized as desired by the school. In the example, the prompts also include setting events and duration.

Behavior monitoring

In a sense, behavior monitoring is the opposite of awarding merits. Behavior monitoring is for data collection to measure a student’s tough behavior problem so you can determine whether the intervention you’re using is being successful.

Imagine you have a student who shows frequent aggressive behavior toward other students. He shoves, kicks, pinches and spits on other students. The reprimands you’ve tried to stop the behavior have not been effective. What can you do?

For a difficult case like this, it’s best to first collect baseline data to quantify how bad the problem is. Count the number of times the aggressive behavior is exhibited in a period or a day. With quantified baseline data, you can now try an intervention and count the number of times the aggressive behavior is exhibited. If the aggressive behavior stops, you’ve found your solution. If the frequency is reduced, you’ve found a partial solution. If you have only a partial solution, try another intervention and start the counting again. Repeat until the aggressive behavior stops, or at least until you’ve found the best partial solution you can think of.

Obviously, monitoring data like this takes a lot of attention and effort. You wouldn’t want to do it unless it is absolutely necessary. You also need to be sensible. If a parent says to you, “That boy hit my little Billy and you did nothing about it!” You can’t just say, “Yes, I know. I’m just collecting baseline data. I’ll start doing something next week.” But for perplexing cases where the best intervention isn’t clear, Behavior Manager includes a behavior monitoring tool that helps.

How to do behavior monitoring in Behavior Manager

Behavior Manager includes a behavior monitoring tool. Because behavior monitoring can take some of your attention, the tool is designed to require the minimal amount of effort. One click records an event.

Key: Record monitored behaviors with one click or tap to minimize distraction from instruction.

The Behavior Manager behavior monitoring tool is simple to use. Teachers can set up behavior monitors for specific students. Since behavior monitoring takes teacher attention, you should limit yourself to one or two monitors per class at any one time. Select the student, the name of the behavior and a description. The description should be specific and denote observable conditions or events.

To record monitored behaviors on the one-click behavior monitor page, select the teacher and class. Any students in the class for whom a behavior monitor has been set up will appear on the list. To record an instance of the monitored behavior, click or tap the student’s name. The dropdown menu indicates the intervention that is currently being used. All monitors start with Baseline, but as you start using an intervention, click the new link and add the intervention. The dropdown will default to the most recently used intervention. Click results to see a graphical display of the monitor results, separated by intervention.

Posted at 12:00 AM (permalink) 0 Comments View/Leave Comment
Keywords: Responsible-Motivated-Engaged, Behavior Manager

Thursday, February 1, 2018

Being proactive to prevent problem behavior - Procedures

This 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.

1. Proactive PBIS tools to prevent student misbehavior
2. Reactive interventions and processes for misbehaviors to minimize loss of instruction time and keep students in school
3. Data and tools for continuous improvement

We can prevent problem behavior by teaching appropriate behavior. We organize and structure the classroom and the school so that students know how to succeed. Appropriate behavior is typically broken down into expectations, rules and procedures. This approach is foundational to Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), which is widely advocated as the new direction in student behavior (see pbis.org).

Start by organizing and structuring the classroom so students know how to succeed.

Procedures: How we do things here

A procedure is a process for getting something done. Procedures aren’t specifically about avoiding misbehavior, although they do have that effect. Rather, they are processes for doing things smoothly and efficiently.

Creating and using procedures is one of the most effective means of reducing student misbehavior. And  procedures aren’t even explicitly about misbehavior! Procedures are just about efficient ways to get things done. That’s why they are so effective at reducing misbehavior. Procedures let students know just what they should be doing. There is less opportunity for students to goof off and get into trouble.

It’s important to note that procedures don’t imply soulless regimentation. They are simply statements of “this is how we do things here.”

Anything done repeatedly should be made into a procedure. Procedures save time and they avoid opportunities for disruptions.

Define a procedure and then teach it. Here are recommended steps.

·         Model how to do it.

·         Model how not to do it.

·         Have a student model how to do it.

·         Have a group model it.

·         Have the class practice it.

·         Start using the procedure regularly.

·         Give reminders of the procedure.

·         Insist that the procedure be used. If the procedure is not being followed, ask the errant student what the procedure is. If necessary, reteach the procedure. If a student resists the procedure, turn it into a rule including consequences.

·         If a suggested change will improve the process, go ahead and change the procedure but remember to reteach the new way.

You will find that students typically like procedures, especially after they have grown accustomed to them. Procedures are small bits of mastery, repeatable bits of excellence. People like being good at what they do.

Making procedures habitual results in permanent behavior changes. In contrast, reacting to behavior problems has only a temporary behavior effect.

Here’s a list of 30 classroom procedures found online (https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/30-classroom-procedures-head-behavior-problems/). The message is, you will need quite a few procedures and you might as well look around for procedures to copy rather than invent each one yourself.

1.       Entering the room

2.       Lining up

3.       Leaving the room

4.       Beginning the day

5.       Ending the day

6.       Taking out/putting away/caring for supplies

7.       Participating in group lessons

8.       Obtaining help with assignments

9.       Handing in finished work/homework

10.   What to do with unfinished work

11.   When and how to use the school restroom

12.   When and how to use the drinking fountain or sink

13.   When and how to use the pencil sharpener

14.   Being a classroom helper; learning a classroom job

15.   Getting into work groups

16.   Using the classroom library

17.   Handling seatwork pages

18.   Preparing for lunch

19.   Getting a tissue

20.   Lunch count/attendance

21.   Throwing away trash

22.   Turning in lost items

23.   Locating lost items

24.   Pledge

25.   Visitors in the classroom

26.   Fire drill

27.   Signals for attention

28.   Helping other students

29.   Organizing desk

30.   What to do during free time

Posted at 12:00 AM (permalink) 0 Comments View/Leave Comment
Keywords: Responsible-Motivated-Engaged, Behavior Manager