What to do?

The past week went very well.  I feel as though I finally have a schedule that I am able to follow, as well as organization that facilitates academic instruction.  I have arranged all of the materials used in the Reading Mastery, Distar Arithmetic, and Early Literacy Skill Builders into bins along with lesson plans for each individual (asistants and myself) to follow.

Since recieving the Smartboard I have discovered, through the help of a coworker, that it works with a projector.  The projector has been ordered, but I now realize that I will have to reconfigure the arrangement of my classroom.  More details to follow.

Now to address the name of my post: "What to do?"  My star behavior management plan has been working well, the students are understanding what they need to do in order to earn a star.  We are contantly encouraging and reinforcing the idea of good behavior to the students.  Unfortunatley, I have one student who understands the concept, but does not respond well to unstructured activities.  Because of this, recess is a very difficult senario for him.  Once this week he was sent in from lunch recess early for injuring a fellow student on the playground.  My response was to have the student sit down for a chat with the school principal.  I listened outside the door as the principal explained in a simple yet firm way correct vs. incorrect behavior when playing with friends.  My student was unresponsive, but later apologized to me for his outburst at recess.  This student did not recieve five stars for the day, could not play with his friends, and appeared to be motivated the following day to correct his behavior.  However, the very next day, once again there was trouble at recess.

After numerous talks, constant encouragement, repremands, and the inability to earn his reward at the end of the day, his behavior is still unchanged.  Now, I'm just wondering what I should do.  Hopefully working with the students this week will lead me to a solution.  I'm thinking the possibility of a check list or social story, but we will have to see!

Behavior Management

Although the school year so far has had its ups and downs, I feel as though am on the right track to completing IEP goals, and giving all of my students an appropriate and valuable education experience including authentic and academic skills.

The latest addition to the classroom has been a behavior management system in which my students are required to monitor their own behavior, by means of positive reinforcement for a reward of their choosing.  I, along with the help of my wonderful assistants, have laminated stars, reward cards, and names (sequenced and glued by the students) in preparation of this new idea.  Each student is able to choose their own reward/motivation to have a positive and agreeable attitude throughout the day.  The rewards I chose to make available to them were based on my own observation as to level of motivation and interest.  Some of the rewards availbale to them include:

-Computer Time

-Educational Movie

-Playdough

-Resistance Tunnel

-Puppets

-Swing

-Blocks

-Ball Maze

Each student is able to earn up to five stars per day for various positive behaviors such as:

-Body Control

-Listening Ears

-Hand to Themselves

-Eyes on the Speaker

-Participation

-Use of Gentle Words

-Completion of Work

Each time a student earns a star they are immediatley rewarded with cheers and hugs (if appropriate) from teachers and fellow students.  At the end of the school day, the entire class has a meeting to count the stars each student has earned.  If she or he has collected the required five stars, they are then able to complete the activity they chose at the beginning of the day!

As I have seen this tool in use for three days now, I can report that my stduents seem to be responding well and monitoring their own behavior quite well.  As teachers, we are constantly encouraging all students to remember what they are working toward (stars) and what the desired behaviors are to earn these reinforcers.  I have noted a dramatic change in two of my seven students behaviors just this week, and cannot wait to see more improvement throughout the year!