In basketball, basic skills like lay ups, passing, free throws, and ball handling may seem to be just that—basic. However, these skills are the foundations for success in a game and set players up for more advanced plays. It’s no wonder a great deal of practice is dedicated to their development. It’s the same in…
Getting students to follow directions consistently is a classic challenge in the classroom. Fortunately, for the vast majority of our kids, explicitly teaching students to follow directions is enough. There will always be some, though, for whom compliance is a challenge. A challenge for them and for us! Research has demonstrated that how we give…
Choice making is one of my favorite practical behavior intervention strategies. It’s so simple, yet remarkably powerful. Perhaps it’s related to what many teachers cite as the reason for student misbehavior—control. Although control may not be a useful function for developing interventions, it’s a concept I run across often when supporting educators. “He does it…
Sometimes it feels like a student is just stuck. Frozen. Nothing we do can get them to move. At least not in the direction we’re trying to go. Non-compliance and defiance from a student are like this. When a student doesn’t follow directions—or just flat out refuses to—we can quickly realize how little control we…
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were a strategy you could always have in your back pocket that worked for improving nearly any appropriate behavior you want to see with almost any student? Wouldn’t that be lovely? Well, there is no silver bullet for behavior, no practice guaranteed to produce positive outcomes. Anyone who tells…
Challenging student behavior can be one of the most exhausting and stressful parts of teaching. Especially when it just keeps happening. Unfortunately most of us didn’t receive much training on what to do in our teacher prep programs. We need classroom and behavior management strategies we can put in place tomorrow. Things that are practical. …