Note: Science Research Associates published the book in 1971. I am unsure if the publishers reprinted the book or if it is available to buy. I found it through a university inter-library loan program. I suspect that Becker or Engelmann use the book or some form of it in their special education teaching classes at the University of Oregon.
- Questions to address classroom management
- Behavior management plan
- What are the rules?
- What are the consequences of not following the rules?
- What are the rewards for following the rules?
- Organizing and structuring the classroom
- What activities do you use?
- What are the teaching objectives?
- Do NOT focus on discipline and control
- The steps to teach behavior
- Specify the behavior desired
- Make rules clear and positive
- Be sure the class understands through practice
- Ignore disruptive behavior as if it is not there
- Praise students who behave
- Tell the students what you like
- Specify, praise, ignore method
- Specify the rules (behaviors) in a positive way
- Emphasize the behaviors by praising the students who follow the rules
- Reinforce the behaviors for students who follow the rules
- As students follow the rules, repeat them less often but continue to praise
- Reinforce behaviors incompatible with what you want to eliminate
- Reinforce behavior that helps development
- Rules can change depending on what is happening (examples: work, study, play)
- Rules need to be five or less
- Relate performance to rules
- Praise behavior, not the student
- Be specific on behavior about paying attention or working with perseverance
- Examples: “You watched the board the whole time I showed an example. That was paying attention!” or “he is working without stopping on his writing. He will do well.”
- Ignore disruptive behavior except if someone gets hurt
- Focus attention on students who work well to prompt the misbehaving students
- Remember that some persistent problem behaviors are reinforced by YOU!
- Setting the school year example of class management
- Rules on the first day of school at front of room
- Raise hand to talk
- Walk in the room and halls
- Keep hands and feet to self
- Be polite
- When you finish work you can do a fun activity at the back of the room
- Rule reminders
- The students read the rules everyday
- Praise comments were contingent on following the rules and making references to the rule (example: “I like how you walk with in our room” or “I called on you because you raised your hand”)
- Early in the year the students relied on teacher approval and not on peer interactions for reinforcement
- Since the students were unfamiliar with one another
- Rule breaking tended to happen after work was completed
- While working the students did not show rule breaking behavior
- The punishment was to withdraw a reinforcer
- If the student could not play or read quietly without disturbing others, he had to put away the activity materials
- When he student had returned to his seat and worked quietly, he was praised by name for appropriate behavior
- Problem behaviors were often stopped by:
- Praising other students who followed the rules
- When praising others failed, the next step was to send a student to a chair facing the wall and away from others
- The teacher did not raise voice or or change facial expression
- As little attention as possible was given to the student
- Ideally peers did not know the student was in trouble!
- Once the students formed peer groups and wanted more peer attention, more time outs were necessary to control the students
- Summary
- Specify desired behaviors by making rules clear and positive
- Ignore deviant behavior until impossible
- Praise behavior to strengthen it
- Breaking a rule and its consequence was understood to be a choice, not a judgement
- The teacher was relaxed and happy and so was the classroom
- Students were friendly and positive
- So time out was very effective because students did NOT want to be excluded
- Specify, praise, ignore was used by the teacher
- Calm model example of class management
- Prior to behavior management training, a teacher ran around the room a lot, talked a lot, and yelled often
- This modeled for the students to act the same!
- The teacher then modeled what did she want the students to do
- She walked around the room slowly
- She talked softly and distinctly
- She carefully explained what she wanted and waited for questions
- She let the students talk in the morning more often
- She stopped talking about everything in her head
- Teaching procedures she used
- She used the cues “ready” and “class” for class responses
- She deleted useless words and parts of lessons
- Results
- Class works quietly for long periods of time
- Class cleans up quicker
- The class is more relaxed
- The class transitions well from activities
- Experiment (game) example of class management
- The teacher told the students they would try an experiment
- They would try to follow the following rules:
- Raise you hand to speak
- Sit in your seat
- Work hard
- The students liked the experiment and wanted to continue
- The teacher had to be consistent especially with students whose behavior got worse over time
- Three times boys had to be sent out to the office to think how to behave
- One boy started refusing to answer the teacher by raising his hand and saying nothing
- One boy made noises with his pencils, flew airplanes, and shouted out “Who’s bad?” repeatedly
- But even he ended up going with the group and behaving
- The quiet students who were overpowered by the misbehaving students participated more as a result
- Remember: Teachers can do nothing about the home environments or past conditions of the students
- They CAN work to improve the students’ behaviors
No comments:
Post a Comment