006: Transcript - Behavior Charts
Sarah:
Edyou is a podcast by teachers for teachers. We do the hard work so you don't have to digging through the research, covering the big topics and teaching and finding out what that means for us. In today's classrooms. Hosted by Sarah Gilmore and Katierose Deos edYou brings education research to you and your classroom.
Katierose:
Hi and welcome to today's episode of edYou podcast. In this episode we're discussing clip charts as a classroom behavior management system, what they are, how they work and why do they work. We've been diving deep into the current research related to behavior management in general and the effects of management systems on children and talking a lot about the things I didn't know were happening as I told children to move their clips up and down on the chart. I'm Katierose Deos
Sarah:
And I'm Sarah Gilmore and this is edYou, bringing education research to you and your classroom.
Katierose:
So Sarah, clip charts for me I think is kind of what brain gym was for you. As I read the research and I thought about it, I just thought, Oh my goodness. I was like, I blindly went into this and followed the system requirements. I was in teaching in Maryland at that point and I needed to have this clip chart in my room hanging in in the classroom where everyone could see it and the kids could reach it. I was teaching kindergarten at that time and for those of you who don't know, the clip chart consists of, you know, bits of paper and I thought, okay, I'll give it a go. This is what I need to do. And so I did it and I didn't really think about any of the bigger repercussions of a system like this.
Sarah:
I was really interested to do clip charts just because I've seen a bunch of stuff on social media lately about people kind of getting, getting rid of them. And yeah, like I had no opinion at all whatsoever about it. I have, I have never had a specifically like a clip chart, kind of with clothes pegs and stuff in my classroom. But I've used a bunch of different types of systems where you could, you know, win and lose points, which I feel is pretty similar. Or like in the UK there's a really common one called golden time. Do you do that in the US, do you do golden time?
Katierose:
There is like extra recess. I'm sure there's golden time in places as well. I didn't necessarily call it golden time, but I think, yeah, I feel like golden time, like the name is again, one of these kinds of like mandated. We shall have golden time in all of our schools kind of thing. But what does that say about the rest of the time in the class?
Sarah:
Right. This is a family friendly podcast so I can't say what I was, I was going to say.
Katierose:
That's just, that's just bronze or silver time.
Sarah:
It's just time. But yeah, no, I mean I've done a bunch of stuff like this and I have never ever thought, how is this working? What is the mechanism behind it? How is this making my children feel? I was just like, yes, this is a thing. We must do. Thus I will do it. And so it was really interesting for me to dive into the research as well and it was very eyeopening and also for me maybe for you as well. It was really interesting to read this stuff from the perspective of now a more experienced, you know, older teacher and having kids of my own. Whereas before when I was using some of these systems, I didn't have kids, you know, I was, you know, 24, 25 just kind of open to doing whatever it was I was told now kind of feeling a little bit more in tune with the kids and the kind of the, the larger repercussions of behavior management systems and stuff.
Katierose:
Absolutely. I read the research with my own children in mind and I would like to say my more experienced professional being, but really it was my own children.
Sarah:
Well, I'll be the experienced professional.
Katierose:
Then I'll just be the emotional parent. So anyway, before we dive too far into this, I would just like to share what a clip chart is so that we're all talking about the same thing and who developed the idea and how the clip chart actually works.
Sarah:
Wait, a person developed the idea of clothespins on paper...?
Katierose:
Yes. Hey, people have been known for a lot less. So Rick Morris is the creator of the clip chart management system and this system has been based on research that being positive is more effective than being negative, but he admits that no research has been directly done related to the actual clip chart system, or at least to his knowledge. Now the clip chart system is a behavior system used primarily in elementary school classrooms. And the clip chart is usually set up vertically with connecting laminated pieces of paper. And on these pieces of paper are statements such as let's say from top to bottom, the top would be outstanding, your star. The next one would be nice job or good work. The middle one is usually ready to learn or let's have a great day or or something that kind of symbolizes we're going to get started and it's a fresh day kind of thing. Then after that you have take a break or warning and then below that note to parent and then usually at the bottom is meet with the principal, talk with the principal, something like this. So you can see how up top is where you want to be down-low, not so much, and this chart is publicly displayed in the classroom and in a predominant place in the classroom where all students can access it because each student has a personalized clothes pin with their name on it or the orange, their number also has happened and then each day all students start their day on the ready to learn or we're going to have a great day kind of laminated piece of paper. And then depending on how the day goes, they'll either move up the chart or down the chart and sometimes they move up and then back down and vice versa. And this all depends on the expectations that are set in the classroom and student behaviors and the teachers most often tell the children when and where to move their clip in. It's usually in response to student behaviors.
Sarah:
And the kind of behavior that teachers are using clip charts to manage are those sort of normal day to day disruptive behaviors that we all see, like talking out of turn or being off task. I think Clip charts are not really for things like violence. You know, you're not going to be like "Move your clip Johnny, you stabbed Susie" or whatever. It's more like you're, you're staring out the window. That kind of level of disruptive behavior. And I think a lot of teachers use them and they continue to use them because they feel that their clip charts are useful and effective for that kind of behavior. You just have to take a quick look on Pinterest or teachers pay teachers to see just how widespread and popular the designs and the types of clip charts are. So they are very much out there and they're very much in use. But if they do work, how do they work, was our question.
Katierose:
And so we zoomed out a bit and we just started thinking about behavior management in general and what are some key ideas for us to have in mind as we look at clip charts and one of the things is behavior management can be the hardest aspect of a teacher's job.
Sarah:
Oh absolutely.
Katierose:
Starting teacher, experienced teacher, it doesn't matter. It can be the absolute hardest piece and it's integral to both student and teacher success in the classroom. Walker and Shea in 1999 talk about behavior management is the process of shaping students' behavior in order to create a classroom environment where meaningful learning can take place. Some things that support this are well developed routines which have been shown to directly impact the social and emotional development as well as reduce behavior problems within the classroom. Also related to the routines is us as teachers taking time to actually walk through the exact desired behaviors that we want the students to demonstrate. And that way they know what is expected and it leaves no room for confusion. Routines and procedures should be practiced regularly until they become natural habits within the classroom.
Sarah:
So how do you get there there? There are several approaches to behavior management. And two of the biggest ones that I think everybody's heard of are positive and negative reinforcement. And we have BF Skinner to thank for this and his research on operant conditioning. And positive reinforcement: I think I always thought like positive, like happy, positive, happy things. But what it actually means is addition: positive as in adding a reinforcing stimulus that follows a behavior to make it more likely that that behavior will happen again in the future. So in the most kind of basic level, when your dog sits and you give the dog a treat and say "good sit", then the dog is more likely to sit again because it comes to associate the reward with the action. And therefore it repeats the action. So that's kind of positive conditioning, positive reinforcement.
Sarah:
So negative reinforcement is, is really the opposite. It's, it's not negative like sad or unhappy or bad. It's negative in the sense of taking something away. And that's where our response or behavior is strengthened by stopping, removing or avoiding a negative outcome or what's called an aversive stimulus. So that means behaving well to avoid being punished. Or at least that's what people who use negative reinforcement are generally going for. When BF Skinner was doing it, he was using electric shocks on animals. So a kind of a different sort of approach than we hope we are seeing in classrooms today. But it can also take the form of learning that by misbehaving, a much more unpleasant stimulus - for example, an inappropriate task - can be avoided because when you misbehave, you stop having to work. So negative reinforcement can kind of work both ways that you can in, in the, and I say quote unquote best case scenario of negative on a negative reinforcement, you punish somebody for a behavior and they don't do it again because they want to avoid being punished. But it can also actually increase misbehavior in certain circumstances. Another two sets of terms that everybody's probably heard of in teaching are intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is when you're motivated by things from the outside, like rewards for example. So if you, you know, have a sticker chart and every time you tie to your room you get a sticker and that adds up to pocket money. You know, that's extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation comes from within. So if you tie to your bedroom because you know that's the right thing to do and a clean and tidy space is the best kind of bedroom to have, then that would be an intrinsic motivation. It's coming from inside you. And I think it's a really interesting thing to think about.
Sarah:
I don't know how you feel about it, Katierose, but I don't know if I really believe that intrinsic motivation is something that you can get without having been taught it through extrinsic motivation. You know, I don't think that human beings necessarily come preprogrammed with, you know, right and wrong. A lot of it is social in terms of what we think is right and wrong and we learn by being rewarded and praised - extrinsic motivation - what is acceptable and not acceptable. And over time that becomes internalized and becomes intrinsic motivation. That's what I think. But I have to say, I'm not an expert in psychology and, and motivation. But what do you think?
Katierose:
Well, I mean we've talked about this before and yeah, it's a very interesting it's an interesting thing to consider because even if you look at babies, you know, some would say that their motivation to learn to crawl and walk is intrinsic.
Sarah:
That's a really good point. Cause that's hard to do.
Katierose:
Yes. But, but when you think about babies, when they do start crawling or they do start walking, there's lots of cheering and clapping and happiness happening. And there's people walking next to them and crawling next to them, you know? And so it's, it's hard for me, it's hard to separate the two really when you talk about like the behaviors of young children.
Sarah:
Well also, they're trying to usually try to crawl or walk to something that interests them. Right? Like to get a toy or go and see what that dangerous thing mommy is that left lying in the corner over there. And I speak here as the person whose baby has just begun to crawl. So they're motivated to go get that thing I shouldn't have left on the floor, you know, which is extrinsic and if they swallow it will become intrinsic.
Katierose:
Yes. So it's something, it's something that I that I actually am interested in kind of exploring.
Sarah:
Answers in the comments, please listeners! We want to know.
Sarah:
And then a third kind of form of discipline - and of course there's going to be many, many more - but a big one that people are talking about at the moment in, in our school too is positive discipline. This is based on the work of Alfred Adler and Rudolph Dreikurs and it's designed to teach young people to become responsible, respectful, and resourceful members of their communities. And it's familiar to me and it might be familiar to other parents who follow or they know of the, the RIE parenting approach, which is Resources for Infant Educators or respectful parenting techniques. It has a lot, I think in common with that in terms of trying to understand where kids are coming from and speaking to them and their misbehavior for more of a place of empathy and growth.
Katierose:
So knowing all that, Sarah, so what approaches do clip charts represent?
Sarah:
Well, they're an interesting one because if there's certainly the negative reinforcement for the kids who are moving down the chart, you know, you're trying to avoid the, what is essentially shame and humiliation of being shown up in front of all of your class to have, you know, kind of failed to meet the standard and moving down, but they would therefore also represent positive reinforcement to those kids who are moving up and her doing well. So, you know, avoiding punishment. And gaining rewards. So it definitely results in different experiences for different children. And I think the thing that's difficult about it is it's, I think it's likely to be those same few kids who are always moving down, you know, and also the same majority who never move and therefore don't get any reinforcement one way or the other and do those kids are moving up over and over again every day necessarily need that reinforcement to continue doing what they're doing.
Sarah:
I also have some issues with it because I do think it seems unfair that once you move down, you then have to work twice as hard to get to the same place as somebody else who's just done something positive. You know, you've got to get back up through where you were to actually move, you know, into a positive place. And so it kind of Jangles a little bit for me there that yeah, you get that clean slate the next day. But I feel like with children it's important that the clean slate begins again after every behavior, you know, rather than following them for the whole day that you did this one bad thing in the morning and now you kind of catch up, you know. So there's that. And I, I should tell you as well, my, my father he has a degree in psychology and when I was reading this stuff on BF Skinner, I was getting a little bit confused about negative reinforcement cause it is a little bit tricky to follow. And so I emailed him and I was asking him about operant conditioning and about negative reinforcement. And I described clip charts to him and I was like, so would this be, you know, is it positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement or a combination of the two? He didn't, he didn't fully understand my question. I think he, he thought I was asking how I could make it more negative. So wrote back to me with like a description of how to make clip charts more humiliating and shameful for those children who moved down by like you could have a bottom of the bottom and a top of the top to like further stratify and really hammer home who is failing. And I just, it just made me laugh so much because it came from such a place of like trying to help, but also, it's just so my dad, Oh, it was great. I got it. I was like, that's brilliant. I love it. I mean, I don't love it. Don't do that. No one should do this.
Katierose:
No, don't do it.
Sarah:
But sweet of him to try.
Katierose:
You know, it's funny that you mentioned that because one thing that really jumped out to me as I was reading the research is this idea of the social compliance theory and Festinger found that individuals use groups to evaluate their abilities and opinions and that these comparisons lead to pressures towards uniformity. Yeah. I think we all feel that pressure to conform for sure. And especially in the classroom. Well, absolutely. And the classrooms are really ripe for this kind of social comparison and these comparisons affect how people feel about themselves, which can contribute to academic achievement. These comparisons also create statuses within the classroom and these noticeable variations in statuses can increase the rate of classroom bullying. Crazy isn't it?
Sarah:
That is crazy. Well, I mean I suppose it is but I mean you just have to think about the impact that when I was a kid, if you had the wrong type of tracksuit bottoms, you know you weren't kind of fitting into that group status of who had the proper, like three stripe Adidas's. If you had the two stripe version from Tesco, you definitely did get bullied. So I can, I can remember that this is the case without having necessarily had to read the research. It definitely, I think kids still have an awful lot of that instinct in them too, to try and be the same and to be a part of the pack.
Katierose:
And that very well may be. But for teachers sometimes we play into this unknowingly and and clip charts is one way that that can happen. Whereas if you have a classroom where your students are feeling at equal standing with their peers, it can lead to higher levels of engagement and that feeling of community. And I, and I think it shouldn't go without say that children, yes, our children, but they're also kind of like apprentices to adulthood and we need to support them in that development. And yes, we are that social comparison is always there, but let's not let that social comparison lead to uniformity. And I think there's a difference there between children feeling guilt about inaction versus shame.
Sarah:
There absolutely is a difference. I read a really interesting paper what we were doing the research for this that lays out what the differences because we tend to kind of think about shame and guilt and embarrassment as very similar and they are similar emotions in the sense of the kind of physical feelings that we feel, you know, that kind of sweating and the heart racing and the dry mouth and you know, those, those negative feelings. But they're different in the sense that guilt is something that comes from within. You kind of impose guilt on yourself. You feel guilty about something you've done because you feel you shouldn't have done it. Whereas embarrassment for example, is situation-specific. You can feel embarrassed about something that happened in a specific situation without feeling guilty that you did something wrong. And then shame. Shame is is a really hard damaging emotion because unlike embarrassment and guilt, shame comes from outside. But it is something that's really about you as a person. You feel shame about who you are, not something that you have done. You feel guilt about things you've done and you feel shame about who you are. An in Goodman and Cook, one of the papers that we'll link in the resources, they described, "shame is a painful negative scrutiny of the self, a feeling that I am unworthy, incompetent or bad". And they say in this paper that color coded behavior charts might be classified as shaming-lite, "most commonly applied to young children who are perhaps less cynical and more sensitive to the teacher's disapproval".
Sarah:
And I think that was the big thing for me when I was doing my research was we tend to focus on whether a behavior management intervention, quote unquote works like, does it change the behavior without discussing whether it "fails to pass moral scrutiny"? Like yes it works. But is that always necessarily the point, you know, you can say, for example if my child did something bad and I spanked her, she might not do it again. But is that really the point? You know, I personally would not spank my child because I think that's the wrong thing to do. I don't think that passes moral scrutiny. And so I think we do have to ask ourselves those questions. It's not just does it work, but why does it work? And do I feel comfortable with that? Because another quote from, from this paper said, you know, "We must not forget that discipline, like all other aspects of teaching, is fundamentally moral and moral qualities are not apt to be learned through techniques which are themselves of dubious moral value". And you know, if we are going to talk about working versus not working research has shown that shame does not work to inhibit future misbehavior. And in the longterm shame can have really serious consequences resulting in anger, substance abuse, risk taking and, and externalized blame. And of course, you know, clip charts are, are "shaming-lite", you know, they're not necessarily going to lead you down the path of hard drug use, but they, they do represent a lower level of something that, that I really think we need to be asking ourselves if it has a place in education.
Katierose:
So as I said, I, I did use a clip chart for many years in the beginning of my teaching and as we did this research and all of this was coming out and I realized that this idea that I thought that it was really focusing on the positive recognition, you know, that was completely blown out of the water for me and I, yeah, I was totally like, Oh my goodness, I was so blind to this whole thing that I actually had to go back to the drawing board. And I had to think about, okay, what, what are we actually talking about as far as child development in this time? And I looked back at Eric Erickson's stages of psychosocial development to remind myself of where children actually are. And so before we can really think about the structure of a behavior system within the classroom, let's actually talk about what kind of psychosocial situation they're in.
Katierose:
So Erickson's theory is more of a tool to kind of think through rather than a factual analysis. So let's use it as that a framework in which to consider development. So as the theory goes, children ages six through 12 are at the fourth stage of psychosocial development, which means they're working through industry versus inferiority. And during this stage, children are working to answer that question, am I capable? Now the world grows in this stage so much bigger for the child, from just their home and family to now, including one of the most important milestones within this stage, which is starting school. I want to say play is still becomes so important because it's that precursor to learning how to work and to socialize and interact with their peers. So all of that is still happening, but the child's sense of self concept is now starting to develop and the opinions of others also becomes incredibly important.
Katierose:
So the peers gain a greater significance within the life of the child, which also becomes a major source of the child's self esteem. So all those things made me stop, Sarah, and kind of shake my head and being like, Oh my God, all of that undermines the whole clip chart system.
Sarah:
Definitely. Well, it doesn't undermine it: it is why it works. Right? But it undermines the, the child. Yeah. It shores up the clip chart system, while digging out the foundation of the child.
Katierose:
I guess this is the appropriate time to just send out a sincere apology to all those students that I've flipped up over the years. I did not do you due diligence. But to support students to develop towards industry in this stage, we as teachers have an incredibly important role. And we need to work to create behavior systems within the classroom that do three major things.
Katierose:
One, recognize the students for good quality work, not just good behavior but good quality work, good quality interactions. We need to provide encouragement and we need students to feel unconditional love. We are a huge part of their life. We spend so much time with them during the day that they need to know that we are there for them and that we support them. Because if children are encouraged and we reinforce their initiative, then they begin to feel industrious or competent. They begin to feel confident in their abilities to achieve goals. And success at this stage in the game for children is leading towards that virtue of competence or that sense of being able. So like you said before, needless to say, I was so happy when I saw so many teachers posting videos on YouTube saying how they're ditching their clip charts. And I'm so happy to say that we don't have clip charts in our school or I haven't seen them used since I hung mine in my classroom because I'm, because I think the tides are turning.
Sarah:
Yeah, for sure. And that's the end of the episode! No more clip charts and we're going to leave you just with no tools. That's it. Don't manage behavior. Nah, we're only kidding. We've got ideas.
Katierose:
So if we all agree that okay, clip charts is not where we want to be putting our energy, it's not how we want to be working with students. So then what can we do instead?
Sarah:
Well, so the first thing that I would say is prevent disruptive behavior occurring in the first place. If you can, and I know that that is very easy to say and some of it is out of your control, but I'm going to give a statistic here that people are, are not going to enjoy hearing. They're not going to like it. But according to to OFSTED, 80% of disruptive behavior is caused by quote, "poor classroom organization, planning, and teaching".
Sarah:
Just going to pause a moment and let that one, let that little bomb drop there in the silence. But yeah, I can relate to that. Absolutely can relate to that. Certainly there have been times when I've been confronted with behavior that was absolutely out of my control, but I would say most of the low level misbehavior, which is the kind of thing that clip charts are, are targeted at. I can see my part in that in perhaps not pacing the lesson quite right. Maybe the chunking was off. Maybe my energy was off. You know, maybe it wasn't planned as tightly and if the task isn't appropriate for the children, not appropriately differentiated, that's where a lot of trouble can arise. So it, I think it is worth taking a moment to kind of accept that that may be true and think about the part that we play in, in preventing disruptive behavior as best we can.
Sarah:
And one of the papers that we read that we link to is called "evidence-based classroom behavior management strategies". And some of the, the suggestions they give to, to help you to do this, to prevent the disruptive behavior happening in the first place are to make sure that you have clear and simple rules and expectations which are consistently and fairly applied. So that's kind of the problem with clip charts is it's not really about rules and expectations, it's about behavior. You know, you didn't do everything I wanted, therefore I'm going to move you down. But you have to be really clear about what it is you actually want from the kids in order for them to be able to meet your expectations. Another thing that's important is being really predictable about the events and activities through established routines. Like you said earlier, Katierose routines are so important. Frequent use of praise as we know, positive reinforcement is the most effective type of reinforcement and that can be both verbal and nonverbal because teacher praise has demonstrated effects on not just those earning it, but also those nearby. You know, if you've ever taught a kindergarten class or kind of a lower elementary and you said "Great job, little Susie, you're sitting beautifully!" Because really you wanted, you know Alice to sit beautifully and she sits up straight cause she's heard what you said to Susie, you will have seen that this really works. They make the point that because disruptive behavior is often associated with learning deficits, task difficulty needs to be monitored. So it really is important that the tasks that we're setting in the classroom are appropriate and inclusive of all of the children in the room. It's when students feel like they're being asked to do things that they fundamentally can't do or that you know, they feel unable to do it, that they tend to be more likely to respond with disruptive behavior as part of that negative reinforcement cycle where they're trying to avoid the aversive stimulus, which is the difficult or inappropriate task by demonstrating negative behavior, which will then they hope, whether it's consciously or subconsciously get them out of the task by you having to respond to their behavior. So it really is a negative cycle and it means that task difficulty is something to really take seriously and in order to keep the classroom functioning.
Katierose:
Now they also share some strategies to increase engagement of all students. Some ideas are having everyone write answers to teacher questions rather than just seeking one. Correct response. Seating arrangement is also important, especially for the older students, which are about 10 years old and above. Seating in rows works actually better than group seating and effective instructions or effective commands are also very important. Precise, specific, direct and paced instructions delivered in a calm, quiet voice followed by praise had been found to be most effective. And then as Sarah was saying, as far as the learning tasks that you have in the classroom, another aspect to consider is the sequencing of those learning tasks. So that easy brief tasks are interspersed with longer and more demanding ones. This enhances engagement and learning as well as reduces disruptions Preceding difficult tasks with a few simple ones. A has been found to enhance transitions and you know, always like we talked about earlier, well with brain gym on in that episode, always getting kids to move after they'd been still for awhile is also really helpful.
Sarah:
I also just want to come back to something we've talked about a little bit. Aversive behavior, and negative reinforcement. This adversive behavior is a vicious cycle in a way. So we talked before about how, you know, you can imagine in your classroom you set a task and one of your students feels unable to do it. For example, let's say it's a reading activity and you ask them to read a text and they can't read it. They might respond to that by behaving in some way that you find unacceptable. For example, daydreaming, you know, being off task, chatting to their neighbor or you know, something more extreme like swearing at you or leaving the room. And by doing that, what they are doing is avoiding the task that was the negative stimulus that made them feel bad about themselves. Now the part of that that comes next is the teachers also respond to negative reinforcement in this way. So the child misbehaves. And what research has shown is that when children are being aggressive and students who have, you know, emotional and behavioral difficulties, teachers are more likely to physically avoid those children without knowing that they're doing it. They're likely to avoid proximity to the child. And they're likely most concerningly to avoid instructing that child. They reduce the amount of time that they spend teaching the child because they find the, the child's behavior to be an aversive stimulus in and of itself. And so the other part of this though is that research has shown that the less time you spend in proximity to children who are misbehaving or who are behaving aggressively, the more aggressively they behave. And the less time we spend instructing and teaching children, the less well they do, the less they understand and therefore the more they misbehave to avoid the task. So it's this vicious vicious cycle and the only way out of it is to ensure that you spend more time, not less near children when they're misbehaving and increase your positive interactions. Look for opportunities to be positive to these children to try and break the cycle and increase your instructional directions. Don't decrease them. You really got to lean into it and try and break that cycle of aversion.
Katierose:
And so when you're having disruptive behavior and you are going to address that disruptive behavior, here are some things to think about whenever possible. Discipline should be private, not public with the aim of helping the child understand what they did, why it was inappropriate or wrong, and give them an opportunity to take responsibility for it. This essentially means trying to kind of induce guilt rather than shame. Also avoid discipline techniques that rely on ridicule or public announcements of guilt to control student behavior. Instead, allow for natural consequences if possible, and provide students with privacy when discussing incidents that happen separate the act from the child. Children have behaviors and they are a person. Try and keep those separate rather than attaching the act to the child's worth.
Sarah:
And it's very important that when we do that, that helps the child to keep those things separate because that's the the damaging thing about about shame. You know, the child has behaved badly. That does not mean that they are bad.
Katierose:
That's something that we need sometimes some help to remember and that they definitely need to be able to remember and it needs to be explicitly stated because sometimes we just assume that that was the message that we've sent and this is the parent in me, but it's not always. So it's really important that, that, that that is that it that is explicitly said to the child, I appreciate you. I like you. I'm, I'm your teacher. Whatever it is you want to say and then address, but the behavior was inappropriate. And that's what we need to discuss. That's super important. And also when you as a teacher, make a misjudgment on a situation, use that as an opportunity to model that self evaluation behavior. We want students to be doing that. We need to model it for them. And then as you work through that, you're supporting the students in moving toward being able to feel that guilt, give an apology, give an explanation, model that with, and for them.
Sarah:
One of the papers that we'll link to on our on our blog post is a really accessible one called "Tear down your behavior chart!". I wonder where they're coming from from a perspective, but, but I like what they're saying. They, they do give three suggestions for what to do instead of behavior charts. And the first one is to try and take 10 for each learner on a rotating basis. Meaning try and find 10 minutes to talk to all of your students one-on-one over time. You know, maybe a student a day and just get to know them because there is research to show that these positive student teacher relationships are a big help in, in managing misbehavior and keeping behavior positive. As people already said, they say keep it offstage, don't make punishment public. The aim is to, to be on level with the child and to talk to them about what happened in a way that is not performative and hear student out. Try to understand what happened from their perspective. There are always two sides to every story and it's important not necessarily to excuse that behavior, but to help them to help you to understand how they got there and what happens so that you can help them not to get there again.
Sarah:
Another really great and very, very research evidence-based technique is called the good behavior game. And if you work with kids over the age of about five, you're probably gonna need to give it a different, more catchy name. But there are a lot of papers about the good behavior game and every single one that I read agreed that using it results in increased positive behavior and decrease disruptive behavior. So I'm going to tell you how to play. The first thing you need to do is define broad classroom expectations. And I think we probably all have these in our classroom.
Sarah:
These are the kinds of things like respect others and solve problems responsibly. And that's great. But the next day for that is to define the more specific behaviors that demonstrate this expectation. So it's all very well to say respect others. But what do you expect children to do to demonstrate to you that they're respecting others? That might mean in your room that we don't say unkind things that we, we, we take our turn to speak, we raise our hands, we look at the teacher during instructions, this kind of thing. And these are the rules of the game. Okay. And they post it up in the classroom. Some are very obvious for everybody to see. Then you need to divide your class into at least two teams. It can be more than two. So you know, if you have four or six table groups, they could each be teams for example, and teams get points for following the rules of the game.
Sarah:
You get praised when points are one and the points are written up. Some are really obvious like on a big, you know, flip chart or on the chalkboard or whatever you have available. The, the, you set a goal number of points in advance. So make it something really manageable to start with like three or five. And it could be that every single team gets over the goal number of points and then every single team wins. That's absolutely fine too. And then they get some kind of a reward for meeting the goal. And rewards should always be easy, simple and ideally free. Some examples that I read in papers are access to in class games or activities, maybe early release, a break points towards some bigger special event, like a team winning pizza or a dance party. Even something silly for younger kids, like two minutes to act like your favorite animal can be very motivating or stickers or pencils or whatever it is that, that you think will work for your kids.
Sarah:
Another example of something that is research based as an approach is a token economy, a token economy. It turns out, I've actually done one of these, except I didn't do it properly because I hadn't read the paper, but I did kind of have a token economy and so I'll take it as a win. But the token economy is uwhere you earn tokens through positive behavior and so you could use raffle tickets. That's what I did. You can get them on Amazon, like a roll of a hundred or 200 for, you know, like $2 or something. And what you do is when a child does one of the, the positive behaviors, and again, these should be very specific and very visible in your classroom. Just like in the good behavior game, they get one of the, the raffle tickets, you write their name on it and what they did.
Sarah:
That's what I didn't do. I didn't know that you should write what they did on the ticket too. So it's really, really clear. And then these tickets when they're one go inside, you know, a big box or hat or whatever, and then you draw from the box at intervals. You know, for example, in the beginning if you have a lot of behavior issues, you might want to do this every day until it starts to, to make a difference where more positive interactions you have the more quickly that that behavior is going to shift. But it could be every day, it could be every week, it could be once a term, if you know. And the, the beauty of it is of course the more positive behavior you demonstrate, the more tokens you earn. And so the higher the likelihood of you winning a prize. And again, the prizes, you could use the same ones as, as I mentioned, for the the good behavior game. Best, two examples of things that we very, very easy to implement in the classroom and that the research agrees are highly, highly effective as behavior management strategies in the classroom.
Katierose:
So as we've gone through all this research and had conversations and as you can hear, Sarah already was doing it. Our, our thinking has developed. And so it's, it's really important that you think about the classroom from that community element that'll be really helpful with behaviors. Think about making them positive, personalized and prioritize the behaviors as far as each individual student and what they may need in order to be successful. And also don't take it personally. Think about what's driving the behavior. Think more like a detective rather than a police officer. And I know that's really hard. Having had kids say very harsh things, it's really hard not to take it personally, but try and do that cause that will help you evaluate the situation and then move forward. So as you go into your classroom tomorrow or next week, we encourage you to proceed throughout the day with a critical eye and ear to kind of pick up the visible and maybe somewhat invisible aspects of your behavior management system to decide if your system truly supports your students' holistic development and supports your classroom as a community. And so to help you do this, we've kind of generated some guiding questions or thoughts.
Sarah:
So the first thing you should ask yourself is how does your current behavior management system work? What is the underlying approach to how it modifies your students' behavior? And are you okay with that? Does that approach align with your values and your moral purpose? As an educator? What message does your behavior management system send to kids about your expectations of their behavior? Are they getting from it that you expect compliance or cooperation or that you care?
Katierose:
Be critical about whatever system you're being told or encouraged to implement. Now, sometimes you won't have a choice, but do the research. Think about it. Think critically and use your voice to share any concerns you have as well as using your own agency as a teacher to decide how you implement the system. If you don't have control over actually selecting a system of your own. Also take time to build community within your classroom and have conversations with students. Behaviors are never as simple as you're seeing. All behaviors have a cause and a backstory. And when you have students exhibiting behaviors that need to be addressed and this does happen, there need to be consequences and parents do need to be contacted. But remember to think about this. How can you support a positive interaction between you and the student and how can you make the interaction personalized so that the student understands why they behavior is not acceptable and yet feels that you care for them and knows that the behavior needs to change and that this is not attack on them personally.
Sarah:
So thank you for listening. Next time we're going to be talking about a topic that's actually quite close to our hearts, which is screen time. Now Katierose and I have a deep dark secret which is that when we're not being podcast hosts we are authors and experts in technology integration and our first book is being published at the beginning of March on March 10th from Heinemann. And so we're really, really excited to share that with you and to share the research on screen time, which we also share in, in our book.
Katierose:
And at this point I would love to, to just tap into our listeners head and be like, what do you think we think about screen time?
Sarah:
Yeah, no spoilers. Tune in next time to find out what Sarah and Katierose think about screen time.
Katierose:
All research based, I'll have you know, all research based.
Sarah:
So we can't wait to share that with you and to share news with you about about the publication of our book. You'll be finding out more about that in the next episode. So thank you for joining us. This has been edYou podcast and we have been bringing education research to you and your classroom.
Katierose:
If you've enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to keep up to date with our news, upcoming episodes, and more. Follow us on Twitter. We're like our Facebook page edYoupodcast, and you can also continue this conversation and share your thoughts, ask a question, or connect with likeminded teachers by joining our Facebook group. To learn even more about the research behind today's episode, visit our website edyoupodcast.com. Thank you for listening and we will see you again next week when we bring more education research to you and your classroom.
