Behavioral Tip from Randy Sprick

Task 3: Awareness-Type Misbehaviors

When a student misbehaves because he isn't aware of when or how often he is engaging in an irresponsible behavior, make sure the student understands how he is supposed to behave, then help him learn to recognize when he is misbehaving. To do this, we suggest the following four-phase intervention plan.

1) Make sure the student knows what behavior you expect him to exhibit.

Meet with the student (and his family) to explain and demonstrate the goal behavior. Emphasize the benefits of demonstrating this new behavior. Identify the actions you will take to help him learn the new behavior.

2) Respond to instances of the misbehavior in a manner that lets the student know that he is not meeting the goal.

Do not punish a student for awareness-type misbehaviors. Instead, alert the student to his misbehavior and show him the alternative (goal) behavior using one of these methods.

• Gentle verbal reprimand – Be brief, proximate, respectful, clear, and reasonably quiet.
• Redirection – Guide the student back to what he should be doing.
• Signal – Use a verbal or non-verbal signal to cue the student.
• Precorrection – Before the student has a chance to exhibit the misbehavior in a typically problematic situation, give him information that will increase the probability that he will exhibit a responsible behavior.

3) Monitor the student's particular behavior so that you, the student (and the student's family) will have an objective basis for discussing progress.

Keep a continuous record of the number of incidents that occur each day and meet with the student (and the student's family) periodically to chart incidents and discuss progress.

4) Provide positive feedback when the student is successful (or makes improvements). If positive feedback doesn't seem sufficient to motivate the student to stop exhibiting the behavior, consider using some type of incentive or reward.

— Excerpt fromCHAMPs: A Proactive and Positive Approach to Classroom Management