Behavior Management Tips & Tricks

Hi Again!  It is Bee from Miss Teacher Resources 101.  

I can't believe that the year is starting to calm down.  I have 30 days of school left and it's definitely bittersweet!  

Okay so now for a little background on myself and the reason for this blog post...

I am the Kindergarten Special Education teacher in a school in New York.  My class is a collaborative class composed of 27 general education and special education students.  My group is a cute, sweet, -yet rambunctious bunch.  About half of my class are sweet, innocent, and eager to please and the other half is sweet and rambunctious.  Boy, can this make teaching hard... especially in the beginning and end of the school year.  The beginning of the year is when you want to start training your class without revealing all of your tricks.  The end of the year is when you use every last trick you could think of!  :)

As my experience in Special Education builds, I come up with more tips and tricks to get my difficult students attention and behavior under control.  

Tips and Tricks

1. TICKETS 

I have found this to be effective at almost any given time.  When students are "caught doing the right thing" they can earn a ticket.  On Friday afternoons, I will pick tickets (usually about 6) and let the students who get their ticket picked, take a prize from the treasure chest.  This teaches students a "you have to be in it to win it" attitude and helps them to learn that you may not always "win it" so be happy for others.

2. BEHAVIOR LADDER 

Same concept as the ticket reward system except I generally find this method quicker.  You can be on the carpet in the middle of a lesson, notice one person doing the wrong thing and compliment someone doing the right thing as a way to reinforce positive behavior as opposed to paying attention to the negative behavior.  Now, sometimes this doesn't work - every once in a while you may get a student that doesn't care or know how to earn moving up the ladder.  For these particular students, you need to find small things to compliment them on.  As students with behavior problems begin to get acknowledged for their positives, they usually become more inclined to craving it and working hard for it.  I'm telling you, you have to try it!  It works like a charm.

This is what my behavior ladder looks like.

Can you tell that we obviously use it a lot?  The clips started off nicer in the beginning of the year. Everyone had a colored clip at first but every once in a while one will break ..

This is a freebie in my store... so go ahead, check it out, prepare it for next year, or even use it for the end of this year!

Behavior Ladder

The Way I Use My Behavior Ladder

Every time a student is caught doing the right thing, they can move their name up the ladder.  Students can also move down the ladder for poor behavior.  If a student makes it to the top (super student), they can then get a prize from the treasure chest.  I have found that this helps level the playing field for all of my students.  Students that are good in class can be acknowledged for doing the right thing consistently, while the system also focuses on students that need the extra encouragement or firmness of the ladder.  This ladder is really effective in allowing students to reconsider their actions or to continue, being the positive role models that they are.

My treasure chest is actually purple so I'm not sure why the color is showing up differently! Anyways, treasure chest is a student favorite in my room!

Your Feedback

I have more tips and tricks to share with you in regards to behavior management.   Pinning, sharing, and commenting on this post will allow me to know if you want to hear more about classroom management!  

Also, I would love to hear which behavior management systems work for you.

Don't Forget!

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7 Student Participation Hacks: A Cheat Sheet for Teachers

Summer holidays. We're all longing for them. Some of us are mentally there already. So, how can we overcome inevitable student apathy at this time of year? Here are some quick hacks to increasing student participation in your lessons...

#1 Make Learning Intentions Clear and Relevant

Students are much more likely to actively participate when the context of learning is relevant.  Reinforce what students will gain from successfully completing your lesson.

For example, when learning about time in First Grade, I encourage students to think about occasions when it is necessary to be able to tell the time.  They inevitably generate a huge list of situations relevant to their lives such as; play dates, church services, birthday parties, watching movies at the cinema, catching a bus or train etc.

#2 Increase Wait Time 

On average, teachers tend to wait only one or two seconds before answering their own questions (Clarke, 2005). This, coupled with rapid answers from fast thinking students, can be very demotivating.

Introduce a "thinking time" visual clue for younger learners (e.g. a sand timer) and make it explicit that answers will not be sought until that period of time is over.

#3 No Hands Up! 

A lot of classrooms have a cluster of students that regularly put their hands up whilst others are happy to sit back and let their classmates do all of the work. Implementing "no hands up" with increased wait time, can dramatically increase student participation since students will be very much aware that they might be expected to contribute.

There are a variety of fun ways you can randomly select students including names on lolly (popsicle) sticks, spin the bottle etc.

#4 Pair/Share

Given the opportunity to share ideas, students are a lot happier to discuss their thinking with the class.  In the early years, time will have to be spent on explaining "partner voices" as well as basic talking and listening skills (e.g. actively listening and looking at your partner when talking).

#5 Encourage Questioning 

Invite expert visitors to your class, or have students "hot seat" (take the role of an expert character) to encourage active talking and listening.  In the early years focus on forming who/what/when/where/why questions.

#6 Plan Collaborative Lessons

Carefully planned collaborative lessons involve allocating responsibilities to individual students and holding them accountable within their grouping.  If you are working in the early years you may wish to begin with simple partner work.

An example could be the creation of a 4 seasons poster.  Each student within a group of 4 would be allocated a season to research.  Students could then share their findings and discuss and create a "jigsaw" style poster (consisting of 4 jigsaw pieces) which showcases each of the 4 seasons.

#7 Introduce Choice

Research has consistently shown that introducing choice increases student engagement levels as well as their ability to think deeply and creatively.

If you wish to assess your students understanding of a chapter of text, you could provide them with a variety of choices to demonstrate their learning, for example; create a slide show explaining the key points, write a newspaper article detailing the "news" revealed in the text or work in a small group to "act out" the main event/idea.

Finally...

Enjoy these last few months with your classes.  Take heart, summer is almost upon us. Remember that, as an educator, you are all kinds of awesome.

OkinawanGirl is a Scottish primary school teacher who has taught in the UK, Japan and Spain.  She has trained preschool teachers and developed curriculum for students whom speak English as an additional language.  You can help prepare your students for your end of year vocabulary assessments by downloading her free Dolch Sight Word Game available by subscribing to her blog.

Credits:
- photos from pixabay
- research cited by Shirley Clarke
- quotation image from http://www.pinterest.com/pin/569916527816227192