Seminar 2-8: Behavioral Communication

Dr. Showalter returned yesterday to talk to us about behavioral issues in our future classrooms, and strategies to both prevent and deal with these issues.  A few important notes that I plan to use:

1. To collect data easily on one or more students' behavior while moving around the classroom, wear a lanyard with notecards attached to it.
2. Use Dale's Cone of Experience to keep students engaged and thus prevent behavior issues.
3. Do not negotiate with a student once the misbehavior begins- they learn that misbehaving leads to offers of benefits.
4. Get close to a student and talk to them quietly and individually so they know you respect their privacy.
5. "You must feel good about following directions and sitting properly!" NOT "I like how you are sitting now."
6. Sending a child to the office shows them that you don't have the skills or power to handle their misbehavior by yourself.
7. Resources: 'The Tough Kid Book' and 'The Tough Kid Toolbox', Glasser's Control Theory
8. When they walk in the next day after a meltdown: don't bring it up right away ("I hope you have a better day today.")
9. "Wow!  Why do you think you did so well today?" so they can identify why their behavior improved and repeat it
10. Behavior chart: use picture/ symbol they recognize instead of name to respect privacy?
11. "I see many people are doing the right thing and writing their names first." NOT "I love how Kim is writing her name first like I asked." and definitely NOT "I see that Ryan is not writing his name first like I had asked."