During today’s behavior management class, we spent a little time talking about differential reinforcement of incompatible (DRI) behavior. I asked students to list a behavior they didn’t want to have occur in their own classrooms and then identify an incompatible, pro-social opposite (IPSO) for that behavior. We then talked about using DRI to promote the IPSO. In a later part of the class I harangued the students with the importance of creating a learning environment that promotes academic success for learners, explaining that engaging students in academic tasks at which they can succeed (i.e., learn) was a big-time IPSO.
When I got back to my office, I found that I’d received a notice about a cartoon that makes the same point. Even though I don’t know enough about the success record for Singapore Math, the idea works. Click on the miniature of the cartoon or jump to it on Weapons of Math Destruction.
Marisol León, who is teaching for the first time, has a very well written op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times. There’s not really much connection to Behavior Mod, save for the extract I’ll add here. Still, it’s a worthwhile read.
Every teacher I’ve talked to emphasizes the importance of classroom management, so I made my expectations on behavior and academic performance — and the consequences of not meeting them — very clear that first day too. But before we got into that, I asked my new students two questions: What is something you have in common with everyone else in this classroom, and what is one thing that makes you unique? We discussed the importance of finding strength in our differences and similarities as a class. We talked about classroom values: Respect. Honesty. Pride. Community. Responsibility.
I hope that the behaviors associated with those watchwords that Ms. León used (which seem very popular among novice teachers) are taught efficiently and explicitly. The challenge for teachers, beginners and experienced, is to apply the same systematic procedures for teaching behavior that one would use for teaching students how to read.
Regardless of that point, what I enjoyed, beyond the word-by-word quality of Ms. León’s essay, is the resolution of story. She ends with a sentiment that is probably familiar to most teachers. But, you’ll have to read it yourself….
Link Ms. León’s “A Teacher’s First Day.”
In a story headlined “AC/OV spankings on the decline,” Carleta Weyrich of the The People’s Defender (OH, US) reported that spankings were used in two of the seven Ohio Valley School local education agency (LEA). The 11 spankings reported in the past two years represents a decline from previous time periods, according to school officials.
Adams County/Ohio Valley School district held its annual public corporal punishment meeting on Aug. 25 to discuss the use of spanking in its schools. AC/OVSD is one of 17 districts in the state of Ohio to permit its staff to spank students.
Continue reading ‘End corporal punishment’
A few years ago, Karen Oswald and colleagues reported the results of an investigation of the use of positive behavior supports (PBS) on middle-school students’ behavior in hallways during the passing time between the last morning class and the lunch period. They worked with a team of school personnel and developed a school-wide plan based on the work of Geoff Colvin and his colleague’s Project PREPARE, which was an exemplary effort to create safe and positive learning environments developed and tested during the early 1990s. The study showed that the program the school PBS team implemented produced substantial (effect size ≈ 0.49) improvements in hallway behavior, with overall frequency of a combination of problem behaviors (running, jumping, kicking, screaming, cursing, and pushing) reduced as much as 50%.
Continue reading ‘Improving hallway behavior’
