Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Behavior Management

   It has taken me a long time to decide what behavior management system I want to use with my behavior support class. I have came up with a comprehensive system that I hope will work for most of my students.  This system will be easy to differentiate for students who it may seem to complicated for.   My plan is a mix of check in/check out and a classroom economy system.
    At the school I will be teaching at they have a PBIS plan.  This is a schoolwide plan of expectations.  The three major expectations are that students are responsible, respectful and life long learners.  Throughout my management plan, my students will be working to learn exactly what meeting those expectations looks like.  The first part of the plan is the ability to earn Raider Bucks.  My school mascot is the raider and I debated for a while between having a treasure chest or coin or just having a buck with our mascot on it.


The way the economy system will work in my classroom will be that whenever a student is meeting an expectation he/she will get a raider buck.  Before he/she can put the raider buck into his/her own bank, they must check on it which expectation they met.  For example, if a student has a goal to participate more in class and during class they answer a question then I may give them a buck for being a life long learner.  Another example would be if a student has a goal for keeping hands to themselves and they met this goal for a certain amount of time, at the end of the time I will award them with a buck. They would then mark on their buck that they were being respectful.  I am having students check what expectation they met so that they stop and think about why they are being rewarded.  The first month of using this system I will help them think about which to check.  We will have a short discussion about what each expectation means and decide together which to check.  This system will also help by giving me data to see what expectations my students are exceeding at and which my students may need some more practice with. 
The economy system will be used as positive reinforcement. If a student is misbehaving then they will not earn any bucks, but the bucks they have already earned will not be taken away.  Other parts of my behavior plan will address misbehavior but I want students to positively view the economy system.  

Weekly rewards


The second part of the system works with students individually on their behavior goals.  I plan on using a check in/check out system for most of my students.  This is where each student has a sheet with their behavior goals on it and each subject they go to each day. At the end of the subject they give the sheet to their teacher to mark how well they did meeting their goals.  At the end of the day all of their points are tallied up and they earn a prize if it meets the daily goal set for them.  Check in/check out only works when all teachers buy in to the system and works the best when parents buy in as well.  A lot of time has to go in to preparing everyone involved in check in/check out and explaining the benefits of the system.  I haven't made any check in/check out sheets for my new students yet but I did find some on teachers pay teachers for anyone wanting to see what the system is all about. 


I am sure I will tweak my behavior management system some once I get more into my classroom and learn more about my students.  The biggest suggestion I can give anyone is to pick something that you know you can be consistent with.  My management plan is designed for a small amount of students. If I were to implement this whole system with a class of 30 kids it probably wouldn't turn out very well.  I look forward to posting more about my management plan when school starts. It is hard to believe there are only 3 more weeks left of summer! 


1 comment:

  1. Love the bucks! We have a school wide reinforcement system based on money. Students earn and can go to the school store once a month. Unfortunately, that's far too long of a wait for my young learners. I do give them a buck on school store day and they do love getting a prize!

    Erin
    You AUT-a Know

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