Dana repeatedly encounters violations of the rules by some of the pupils in 7 A. She spends a lot of time trying to bring them into line causing her to lose valuable time needed for teaching the content she has prepared. Dana reacts to inappropriate behaviour the moment the pupils are misbehaving. She feels, however, that her interventions do not work well. She is thinking about how to make sure the pupils follow the agreed rules.
A Guide for Beginning Teachers
Supporting expected behaviour
What would you recommend to Dana? Write down your ideas.
Read the following articles to learn about the measures for supporting expected behaviour, also known as PBIS - Positive Behavioural Interventions and Supports. Even if this programme is not applied to the school as a whole, you can use many elements in your daily interactions with pupils. PBIS is an evidence-based framework for managing pupils’ behaviour at school. It is based on a proactive approach and positive reinforcement of the expected behaviour of pupils. The framework replaces punishments of inappropriate behaviour with the training of expected behaviour and its fixation through positive feedback by teachers. It is a very effective approach for preventing inappropriate and risky behaviour of pupils in the school environment.
Learn more about PBIS Framework in the material below. Look at the suggested measures recommended for reactions to students' behaviour.
Assignment: Functional measures
Recall the rules that apply in the class where you teach (did your internship). Then, think about how you could systematically provide specific praise and reward for expected behaviour (choose measures that you think might be functional in this class).
Think about a particular situation in which a pupil or several behaved in a way that breached the agreed rules. How did you respond? What kind of measures responding to the inappropriate behaviour would be helpful to apply in the given situation?
After becoming familiar with PBIS measures, Dana has realised that by only responding to inappropriate behaviour, she was not offering the pupils an opportunity to reinforce the expected behaviour. Instead, she was drawing attention to inappropriate behaviour. As a result, she decided to take more notice of conduct that complies with the agreed rules and positively reinforce it – by praising, expressing thanks, smiling and using other positive gestures.
She focused primarily on the pupils who misbehaved more often – whenever she noticed they were behaving in accordance with the rules, she appreciated it. She tried to follow the recommended ratio of four praises to one reprimand. After a while, the behaviour of pupils got better, and the general atmosphere in the class improved. As a result, Dana does not spend so much time dealing with inappropriate behaviour and therefore has more time for teaching and revising the subject matter.