Addressing Disruptive and Noncompliant Behaviors (Part 2): Behavioral Interventions
As talked about in part one a clear behavior management system along with an understanding of the acting out cycle can all help with negative student behavior. This second part looks at how do we encourage positive behavior and further discourage negative behavior. There are many people who can help new teachers with behavior problems in the classroom, such as:
District behavior support teams
District behavior specialists
School counselors
Family members
Principals
School nurses
Community resources
Other teachers
Special Education teachers can be an especially useful resource because they have often had training in specialized behavioral interventions.
Behavioral difficulties often arise when teachers have asked for students to participate in a task or complete an activity and they will not. A common belief is once a student is engaged it is easier for a teacher to hold their attention through praise at that point. A strategy for encouraging initial compliance is high probability (high p) requests, which operate on the assumption that students are more likely to obey teacher directives if they are already engaged in compliant classroom behavior. This strategy is most effective if the hard task is requested 5 second after the last high-p request and the praise that comes after the high-p request. High p is a positive experience.
Choice-making is not about students avoiding school but allowing students to have more say in their learning. Having many positive choices that still produce work and then allowing students to choose what they want to start with. Another form of choice is how they accomplish the task. This is an accommodation, where the work they have to produce is not lessened but the way they show what they have learned is different. It is not a question of "if" they do the work but "how" and "when".
Students are often looking for reinforcement in what they do, so if classmates laugh or the lesson is delayed some students see this as reinforcement and so the disruptive behavior can continue. Differential reinforcement is based on withholding or giving reinforcement depending on if the behavior is desired or not. Behaviors that are consistently reinforced will increase but those that are not will most likely decrease. Stimulus control can also help when the same behavior is reinforced and not reinforced depending on if the situation is appropriate or not. There are three types of differential reinforcement:
Eliminating Behaviors Using Differential Reinforcement of Other Behaviors (DRO)
- Reinforces the non-occurrence or absence of the problem behavior. Teacher reinforces every behavior other then the undesirable behavior. Be careful though to not reinforce other negative behaviors. Teachers also need to be realistic for how long they except students to not perform the undesirable behavior.
Reducing Behaviors Using Differential Reinforcement of Low Rates of Behavior (DRL)
- This reinforcement helps to reduce the occurrence of an appropriate behavior. The teacher will reinforce the students when the appropriate behavior is reduced to a more reasonable amount for a certain amount of time.
Substituting Behaviors Using Differential Reinforcement of Incompatible Behavior (DRI)
- One way to get rid of a undesirable behavior is to substitute it with another one and then reinforce the other behavior. The teachers choose a behavior that can not be accomplished at the same time as the problematic behavior to reinforce the good behavior over the undesirable one.
This is a place where Danielson Domain 4: Professional Responsibilities, plays a role, it is easier to know the occurrence of this undesirable behavior if the teacher has been keeping data on the kids behavior.
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