Behavior Management
I believe that children thrive in a learning environment that prioritizes positive reinforcement. By setting a precedent where students are praised for what they do well, and supported in areas where they struggle, students feel welcomed in the classroom. As a special educator, I anticipate student’s behavior needs and explicitly state behavior expectations prior to engaging in instruction. Then, as a lesson progresses, I utilize verbal praise and token economies to reinforce target behaviors I observe my students displaying.
By continuously utilizing these behavior management techniques my students are well aware of the set routines and expectations in our classroom.
I also frequently employ verbal redirection, behavior contracts, and other techniques to support specific students who struggle with self-regulation and impulse control in the classroom. Through my coursework and student teaching, I have developed a strong belief that every behavior serves a function. As a result, I create behavior plans that account for why students engage in specific behaviors and I provide them socially acceptable alternatives. By instructing students regarding alternative behaviors, they are able to collect tools that help them self-regulate and continue on with their school day.
As I enter into the field, I plan to continue utilizing functional behavior analysis to design successful behavior interventions and supports for my students.
Lesson Plan
In this lesson, I highly scaffold instruction to support the behavioral needs of two primary grade students. I blend several different techniques into this lesson to encourage target behaviors. By using token economies, immediate verbal feedback, and planned breaks I was able to incentivize my students to stay on task and develop their understanding of mathematical concepts.
Artifacts
Token Economies
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In my classroom, I use token economies to reinforce target behaviors among my students. It incentivizes my students to engage in positive behaviors and the movement of tokens onto the board is a visual reminder to provide consistent behavioral feedback to my students. In addition, the use of rewards cards allows students to have personal choice in their reward and increase their buy-in to following behavior expectations. In the classroom,
I have seen students be very receptive to redirection using token economies, and the presence of these visual behavioral cues has been very motivating for students with behavior plans or difficulties maintaining focus. I plan to continue using this form of positive reinforcement as I continue on in the field to encourage students to exhibit target behaviors.
Regulation Station
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To support my students emotion regulation needs, I keep a regulation station in my classroom. It has several fidgets and manipulatives that students can use to calm themselves when they are in a heightened state. They are also allowed to listen to calming music or nature sounds to help focus on balancing their emotions. My students are able to advocate for themselves by asking to use this space to calm down when they are working with me or when they are in the general education environment.
Students who use a Check-In, Check-Out system (as pictured here) are given time to reflect on their self-regulation and their compliance with behavior expectations. In addition, all of my students are given additional support for their social-emotional needs. As it has been such a powerful tool for helping students calm-down and focus I plan to create a larger regulation station so that more students can utilize this tool at the same time.
Awesomeness Notes
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As parents and homeroom teachers are an important member of the IEP team, I utilize positive notes home to communicate student progress. This note, is one way in which I provide written and verbal feedback to students regarding their behavior. As I fill out a note to share with their teacher and family, I discuss what target behaviors they exhibited during our resource block so that they are aware of what they did well.
This note also provides important communication regarding behavior expectations that can be made consistent across environments and help students internalize these academic and social behaviors. Furthermore, my students truly enjoy receiving this praise that they can share with family, friends, and teachers and it incentivizes them to continue displaying these behaviors in the resource room and the general school environment.
