Overview of Classroom Systems

1
Overview of Classroom Systems

• Arranging for Effective Behavior and
  Instructional Management

2
Purpose

• To describe the implementation of a systems
  approach to classroom behavior and instructional
  management
• Critical features
• Steps and effective practices
• Supporting teachers

3
Objectives

• Focus on classroom component of PBS - how to
  support teachers
• Describe current status of classrooms
  (student-teacher interactions)
• Discuss several types of teacher support

4
Basic Rule

• Design the structure and functions of classrooms
  to increase predictability and to accommodate
  individual and collective needs of students

5
School Environment

• Lack of discipline is viewed as one of the most
  serious challenges facing public schools
• National Education Goals Report (1995)
• U.S. Surgeon Generals Report (2002)
• Teachers report that problem behavior is
  increasing and is a threat to effective learning
• Skiba and Peterson, (2000)

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Guiding Principles

• Teach and manage social behaviors directly and
  proactively (positively and preventively)...like
  teaching reading, math, physics, music, etc.
• Integrate social and academic management
  strategies within and across curricula.
• Maximize academic success to increase social
  behavior success.

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Prerequisites

• Appropriate and relevant curriculum
• Meets needs
• Perceived as important
• Appropriate goals and curricula that are fair,
  functional, and meaningful
• Avoid frustration, dissatisfaction, confusion,
  rebellion, etc.

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Common Mistakes

• Students know what is expected of them
• Absence of clear rules
• Vaguely stated rules
• Punishing students for failure to exhibit a
  behavior that they do not know how to do
• Large increases in instructional minutes will not
  make up for ineffective instruction (Christenson
  et al, 1989 Rosenshine Stevens, 1986)

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So What Can We Do?

• Classroom Organization
• Instructional Management
• Behavior Management
• On-going Teacher Support

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PBS School Culture

• Proactive Behavior Support for All
• Common language
• Agreements about expectations
• Consistent and predictable environments
• Three Tiered Model
• Primary (all students, all times, all locations)
• Secondary (efficient interventions for at-risk
  students)
• Tertiary (individualized interventions for those
  students with the most intense problem behavior)

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Arrange Environments

• Establish the policies, systems, tools and
  documentation to make implementation
• Adoption/implementation easier in subsequent
  years
• Continuous process of adaptation and improvement
• Process driven, not person dependent
• Example
• School PBIS handbook, Job descriptionsRequest
  for Assistance, SST/TAT/BST

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Classroom Organization

• Physical environment
• Student and Teacher routines
• Transitions
• Attention-getting signal
• Climate

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Considerations

• How many students will you have in the room at
  one time?
• What kinds of activities will be taking place in
  your classroom?
• Where should students be seated?
• How will you regulate movement/supervise/interact?
  
• What should my classroom look like?
• Wall space, storage, lighting, etc.

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Physical Environment

• Seating/furniture arrangement
• Traffic patterns
• Materials/supplies
• Student areas (e.g., small group, break,
  time-out)
• Teacher areas (e.g., desk, materials)
• Problem features (e.g., unsupervisable areas,
  dangerous items/equipment)

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Routines

• Increase predictability and consistency
• Both teacher and student routines
• Build into environment/prompts
• Bear Stops
• Consider common routines
• Lining up
• Meeting personal needs
• Preparing for work
• Transitions between activities

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Student Routines

• Start/end of day
• Transitions
• Personal needs (e.g., bathroom, pencil)
• Working in groups and independently
• Special events
• Materials and equipment
• Homework and assignments
• Personal belongings

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Teacher Routines

• Planning and implementing instruction
• Classroom movement (circulation)
• Working with assistants, volunteers, student
  teachers
• Communications

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Efficient Transitions

• Teach signal routine
• Practice in natural context
• Precorrect in problem situations
• Monitor continuously
• Positively reinforce contingently

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Attention-getting Cue/rule

• Select cue that is effective, efficient, and
  relevant
• Apply consistently
• Positively reinforce contingently

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Classroom Climate

• Develop plan before school starts
• Determine expectations
• Teach expectations directly
• Use first weeks of school to establish
• Expectations and behavior/routines
• climate (laugh, smile, accept student
  ideas)Kameenui Simmons (1990)

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Instructional Management

• Temporal Framework (Kameenui Darch)
• Before
• Design of instruction
• During
• Delivery of instruction
• After
• Evaluation of instruction

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Before Instruction

• Student outcomes
• Materials/curriculum
• Control for acquisition of misrules
• Detail presentation of content
• Maximum student engagement
• Correction procedures
• Practice activities
• Cumulative review

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Before Instruction

• Task/lesson design
• History (new, familiar, mastered)
• Response form (yes/no, choice, production)
• Modality (oral, motor, written)
• Complexity (easy, hard)
• Schedule (long/short, frequent/infrequent)
• Variation (uniform/varied)
• Measurement systems
• Follow-up

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During Instruction

• Introduction/objective/precorrections
• Delivery of instruction
• Monitoring performance
• Delivering consequences/feedback

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After Instruction

• Follow-up activities
• Evaluation of student performance against
  objectives
• Evaluation of instruction
• Modification of instruction
• Preparation of next lesson

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Generic Instructional Approach

• Define
• Operational definitions of what will be taught
• Observable and measurable
• Teach
• Identify and explain rule
• Model/demonstrate relevant examples
• Arrange structured practice, role play,
  behavioral rehearsal
• Remind
• Precorrect or prompt rule immediately prior to
  entering natural context

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Generic Instructional Approach

• Monitor
• Supervise independent application in natural
  context
• Provide feedback (positive reinforcement
  corrections)
• Collect data
• Evaluate
• Examine effect of instruction (i.e., review data,
  make decisions, follow up)

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Behavior Management Basics

• Use continuum of strategies to encourage
  expectations
• teach expected behavior
• increase opportunities for academic and social
  success
• provide positive feedback more often than
  corrections and reprimands (e.g., 5 to 1)
• move from tangible to social reinforcement
• move from external to self-managed reinforcement
• individualize reinforcement
• Use continuum of strategies to discourage/correct
  inappropriate behaviors

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Characteristics of Effective Praise

• Good praise follows the if-then rule.
• Make sure students are doing exactly what you
  want them to be doing
• Praise them within 1 or 2 seconds after the
  behavior occurs
• If it is an on-going behavior, praise during the
  behavior

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Characteristics of Effective Praise

• Effective praise
• includes students names
• is descriptive
• Simply describe what the student is doing at the
  time - focusing on actions
• is convincing/genuine
• is varied
• does not interrupt the flow of instruction

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Infrequent Errors

• Respond proactively to infrequent social behavior
  errors
• Signal
• State rule and expected behavior
• Ask student to state/show expected behavior
• Give positive feedback

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Chronic Errors

• Precorrectprompt for desired behavior in problem
  context
• go to problem setting/situation
• get attention of students
• give reminder or opportunity to practice skills
• watch child for demonstration of skill
• acknowledge demonstration
• Provide positive feedback

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Summary ofEffective Teaching PracticesBrophy
and Good (1986)

• Prioritizing and allocating time in academic
  instruction
• Classroom organization and management (academic
  engagement, opportunities to respond/pacing)
• Acknowledging correct academic responses
• Use of praise

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Current StatusSummary of Descriptive Research
(e.g., Wehby, Shores, Symmons, etc.)

• Low rates of instructional interactions.
• Extremely low rates of praise.
• When interactions occur, most often around
  non-academic issues.
• Most academic activities consist of independent
  seatwork.
• Inconsistent distribution of attention.
• Compliance to a command generally resulted in
  the delivery of another command
• Correct academic responses by a student did not
  occasion teacher praise above chance levels.

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• Sanders and Horn (1998) indicate, regardless of
  risk factors found among students in schools
  today, the single biggest factor affecting the
  academic growth of any population of youngsters
  is the effectiveness of the individual classroom
  (p. 2).

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Impact of Classroom

• Sanders and Rivers (1996) reporting up to a
  difference of 50 percentile point on standardized
  tests among student who experienced successive
  years of poor instruction at the elementary level
  have been reported

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However

• Need to examine, evaluate, and strengthen the
  educational systems (preservice training and
  inservice support) rather than the classroom
  teacher behaviors only.

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Systems Support

• Shift to school-based teams rather than relying
  on outside experts
• As with SW-PBS the systems guide the
  implementation of effective practices
• Link classroom management practices to SW-PBS
• Use data for decision-making

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Supporting Teachers

• Self-management for teachers has produced
  temporary increases in the use of effective
  instruction strategies
• Performance feedback used for temporarily
  increasing staff/teacher behavior

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Performance Feedback

• Provides information and knowledge of processes
  and results in an effort to promote transfer or
  maintenance of skills and behavior
• Results in more consistent intervention effects
• A performance feedback package may result in
  more optimal results

42
Peer Mentoring

• Non-evaluative, reciprocal observations
• Performance feedback aimed at improving use of
  effective instruction
• However, research is limited and primarily
  descriptive

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Team Activity

• 20 Minutes
• Work as team
• Complete submit one copy of Classroom section
  of the Self-Assessment Survey
• Add activities to Action Plan as needed
• Consider using active supervision to assess
  and/or monitor specific settings
• Prepare 1-2 minute report about status of system
  and planned activities