TCHV 3004 - Behavior is Language: Strategies for Managing Disruptive Behavior

Description

This course is designed to give the learner a new perspective on student behavior and effective tools to facilitate positive student change. Taught by Mick R. Jackson MS/ED, this course provides a developmental framework to help the learner understand what students are trying to communicate through the "language" of their behavior. Topics covered include behavioral techniques and intervention strategies that remediate disruptive behaviors, reduce power struggles while increasing classroom control, reduce educator workload, and help prevent burnout. After successfully completing this course, the educator and his/her students will be better equipped to find and implement creative, effective solutions to behavioral problems.

Outline

• Chapter 1: Behavior is Language! – Part I Behavior Is Meaningful – What is meant by this term and why does it matter? World View – How do impaired children view their environment? Self View – What are the underlying beliefs that cause children to react in certain ways? Scripting – How do children script us into playing roles for which we are not prepared? Safety Is Everything – The key to all student intervention and change. How do you build a safe environment? Building Consistency – How do we build classroom consistency to facilitate positive student change? Building Trust – How is trust related to consistency and safety, and what is its importance to remediation? Illusion of Control – Who truly controls a student’s behavior? Power Struggles – What are they and how do you avoid them? Letting Go – Can you maintain classroom control by giving more control to your students? Dead End – How do you keep out of situations that trap you into lose-lose situations? Outside the Classroom – How can you use this information in all parts of your life? Personal Space – Why do students need to be aware of their and other people’s body space?
• Chapter 2: Behavior is Language! – Part II Counter Transference – What is it and how does it affect your work with your students? Family Dynamics – What information is important to know about the family before you attempt to remediate a student’s disruptive classroom behaviors? Sibling Rivalry – How are sibling roles brought into the classroom and played out with peers? Enmeshment – How does this family dysfunction play a part in a student’s classroom behavior? Gathering Information – What information is essential to gather before and during your work with a student, and where do you look for this information? Avoiding the Blame Game – How do you keep from using the family dysfunction as a scapegoat? Ego Tortures – How do we make our own job more difficult by the things we think and say to ourselves?
• Chapter 3: Intervention Strategies (CLUBS) – Part I Reminders – What are these? How and when should they be used? Interruptive Time-Out – How can you make this strategy work more effectively? Time-Out with Verbal Debrief – When should aberrant behavior be discussed with the student? Time-Out with Written Debrief – When should a written debrief be used? Quiet Room with Verbal Debrief – What is this and what is its remedial goal? Quiet Room with Written Debrief – Why and when should verbal and written remediation be used? Quiet Room with Calming Activity – What can be done before a child acts out? Floating Consequences – How do you make sure consequences affect the students and not you? Self Time-Out – What can a student do to monitor his/her own emotional levels? Stop Action – How can you make students accountable for classroom behavioral problems? In-school Suspension – When do you use higher-level consequences for extreme behaviors? Isolation Areas – How do you set up effective isolation areas within your classroom?
• Chapter 4: Intervention Strategies (CLUBS) – Part II Silent Observer – How can a student participate in key classes or activities, even when receiving a consequence for disruptive behavior? Logical Consequences – How do we set consequences so they closely match the negative behavior? Symbolic Consequences – How can you assign consequences that will be meaningful to the student, even when restricted by your environment? Support Groups – How do you use the peer group to help support students in crisis? OSS – What behaviors constitute an out-of-school suspension; what tasks should be assigned to the student while out of school; and how should the student re-enter the classroom? Consequence Ladder – How do you individualize your classroom remediation and discipline strategies to meet the needs of the individual student? Grandma’s Rule – What is it and why is it important in the classroom setting? Individual Program Adjustment – When and how do you adjust a student’s regular program to meet his/her needs when in crisis? Attunement/Claiming – Why is it important that a student feel claimed in your classroom and how do you help a student attune to your program? Working Harder – Do we need to do more as teachers to get better?

Program Objectives

1. Review and discuss how students communicate thoughts, feeling, emotions, issues, and fears through their behavior when they cannot communicate verbally and learn to effectively interpret student behavior.
2. Understand and explain how a child’s World View develops and factors that may cause this view to negatively impact the student behavior both in and out of the classroom.
3. Articulate a child’s Inner World development and factors that may cause this development to negatively impact the student behavior both in and out of the classroom.
4. Discuss how students attempt to script teachers into familiar authority roles that may be counter productive to the student’s education and behavioral adaptation.
5. Learn, discuss and do further research on the affects safety, consistency and trust have on the classroom environment, student behavior and learning outcomes.
6. Describe how to recognize when students are setting up potential power struggles that can negatively impact classroom safety, control, behavior and learning.
7. List and discuss general rules about student-to-student and student-to-staff personal space issues and how to set guidelines and policies around personal space that are effective for all students.
8. Recognize family issues and dynamics that may strongly influence a student’s behavior; causing social, emotional and behavioral issues in the school setting.
9. Review and describe how some parents may become enmeshed with their child and be unable to separate parent needs from the child’s needs and how, in or out of their awareness, parents may actually sabotage the student’s educational experience.
10. Learn how students with siblings may be involved in sibling rivalry issues and how those issues could negatively impact the student’s relationships with peers and disrupt the learning process.
11. Understand and explain how they as teachers may have negative thoughts and feelings about certain students and/or may counter-transfer negative thoughts and feelings onto their students.
12. Use effective and efficient methods to gather information on family dynamics and structure that may be used to plan an effective behavioral intervention plan for the student.
13. Discuss how their own issues and Ego Tortures can influence and impact how they work with certain students and groups.
14. Employ a behavioral intervention system that is individualized; is sensitive to each student’s social, emotional and behavioral issues; and maximizes each student’s chances of correcting and/or effectively monitoring their own behavior so they may achieve positive academic learning outcomes.
15. Practice the most effective methods for giving verbal and non-verbal behavioral reminders to students.
16. Learn and practice the most effective methods for assigning students interruptive time-outs and methods for verbally debriefing students off of these time-outs.
17. Learn and practice the most effective methods for assigning written debriefs to students needing to discuss their behavior and come up with acceptable behavioral alternatives.
18. Learn and practice the use of a quiet area, which students may be assigned to when behavioral intervention is required.
19. Learn and practice when and how to assign In-School-Suspensions to students who exhibit out of control behavior that is threatening, unsafe and/or damages property.
20. Learn and practice when and how to assign Out-of-School-Suspensions, which align with state and district policies, to students who exhibit out of control behavior that is threatening, unsafe and/or damages property.

Notes

This course is offered in partnership with VESi. Learners must earn a minimum of 70% in the course to receive continuing education units.