Posts

Time-Outs

Th e time-out, when used appropriately, can be a very useful method of correcting student misbehaviors. When a student behaves inappropriately, the time-out should be used to remove the student from the task, person or event that triggered the misbehavior. Now, the time-out should not be used to punish the student, rather, the student should know exactly why they are taking the time-out and what the behavioral response that would have been appropriate was in the given situation. The time-out should only be for a given amount of time and the student should never be left unsupervised, whether the time-out occurs inside or outside of the learning environment.  

Social Emotional Learning

  Teaching students to identify and control their emotions is crucial to not only a student’s academic success, but also to helping them becoming successful, independent individuals (Domitrovich et al., 2017) . These skills are not ones that a people are born knowing; they must be taught explicitly, modeled, and then practiced over and over again. For example, teaching students when they are mad, instead of hitting, biting or throwing, they should stop, close their eyes and take ten deep breaths. After you have told them this, you should model what it looks like and then have the child practice. Then the next time the child is angry, remind them of this strategy and guide them through it. Over time, their need for you to guide them to it will become less and less, and they will start using this strategy automatically, helping them cope with anger in a healthy way. Reference Domitrovich, C. E., Durlak, J. A., Staley, K. C., & Weissberg, R. P. (2017). Social‐emotional competence:...

The Cause of the Behaviors

When seeking to intervene and correct a child's challenging behaviors, it is first and foremost necessary to identify why the child is acting out. Without understanding why the child is displaying these challenging behaviors, it is hard to find lasting ways to stop the behaviors from happening. Hence, we must first find the root of the problem and try to correct that. Sometimes it may be a simpler, more straightforward fix. For example, I had a student in the past who was placed on a diet with limited sugar intake and the behaviors seemed to be resolved immediately. Other times, it could be something more complex, for example the parents are going through a divorce. While not divorcing for the sake of the child’s behavior is probably not an option, teaching the child coping skills, or seeking counseling for the child may be options to help the child work through their feelings in a healthy way.

Interventions and Why School's Use Them

 Welcome to today’s blog post! I would love to inform you about my new knowledge of supports given to students in school. Recently, I have had a lot of parents come to me and say that they are afraid of their students receiving additional supports in school, because they feel that that is something that needs to be done by outside tutors, etc. and is not the responsibility of the school. However, this actually is not true! The school wants to do whatever they can to ensure each student’s individual success and if that means some additional interventions being put in place to help them succeed, then that is what will be done! This is a system called Response to Intervention and Instruction and is a part of ensuring that if the academic instruction and classroom management techniques given to the whole class are not successful for one or a small group of students, then interventions will be put in place to get the student back on track!