Incorporating High-Leverage Practice 7 in Classroom/Behavior Management Courses

In a joint effort, the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) and the Collaboration for Effective Educator Development, Accountability and Reform (CEEDAR) published instructional practice guides for special educators called High-Leverage Practices (McLeskey et al., 2017). These High Leverage Practices focus on four areas of practice (collaboration, assessment, instruction, and social/emotional/behavioral). High Leverage Practice 7 (HLP 7) is under the social/emotional/behavioral domain and guides teachers to establish positive and constructive learning environments for students. For special education training programs, opportunities to focus on HLP 7 can be presented in classroom/behavior management courses as a function of setting up classroom structure (atmosphere, rules, and procedures) that support developing positive, culturally responsive learning environments and student-teacher relationships. This paper provides support for why topics should focus on HLP 7 and how topics of structure, culturally responsive teaching, student-teacher relationship development, and social emotional learning should be included in classroom/behavior management courses in special education training programs.

Self-Efficacy of Teachers in Managing Inclusive Classroom Behavior: An Analysis

Classroom management, a plaguing aspect of the teaching-learning process over the past century is the single skill that has contributed to self-efficacy of teachers and achievement of students. Self-efficacy, standing at the core of social cognitive theory has contributed in teachers’ ability to achieve desired outcome in the classroom. In the present study, an attempt has been made to analyze the relationship between classroom behavior management and self-efficacy of teachers and to identify the strategies for effective classroom behavior management from the literature. The relationship between teachers’ classroom behavior management and self-efficacy beliefs is cyclic. Teachers with higher self-efficacy are more prone to use effective strategies resulting more student achievement which in turn causes higher self-efficacy of teachers. Identifying behavioral demands of the mainstreamed classroom, school wide discipline, peer- relationship establishment, affective education strategies, problem solving approach, self-management intervention, promoting positive behavior and decreasing inappropriate behavior are some of the effective strategies found in the literature which have effective implications in teacher education program which are still lacking in the revamped teacher education curriculum in our country and most importantly, teachers are to be trained in selecting and implementing respective strategies according to the situational demand and the individual needs of the students.

Managing Behavior or Promoting Engagement?

Classroom behavior management has consistently been recognized as a central issue of importance in staff well-being, student success, and school culture. For decades, theories and models on how best to “manage” the behavior of students for a productive classroom have showed an increasing trend away from teacher-controlled reactive approaches to misbehavior toward more student-centered strategies to prevent misbehavior. Focusing on managing student behavior, either reactively or proactively, is coming at the problem from the wrong direction. The student behaviors that most affect teaching and learning in our classrooms are low-level disruptive, or “disengaged,” behaviors. These disengaged behaviors are best understood as indications of a student’s weakened affective or cognitive engagement with school. Schools wishing to have less disengaged behaviors need to refocus their lens on these behaviors, from how to “manage” them to how to strengthen targeted areas of engagement. This has direct implications for reforming classroom practices as well as school polices on behavior management.