Breaking the Attention-Seeking Habit: The Power of Random Positive Teacher Attention

Some students misbehave because they are trying to attract teacher attention.

Jim's Hints

Teach Other Instructors to Use Random Attention. After you have experienced success with this strategy, teach other educators who work with the child to use the intervention. Share with them your list of positive ways to show random attention to the student.

Behavior Contracts

The behavior contract is a simple positive-reinforcement intervention that is widely used by teachers to change student behavior.

Jim's Hints

Behavior contracts can be useful when the student has behavioral problems in school locations other than the classroom (e.g., art room, cafeteria). Once a behavior contract has proven effective in the classroom, the instructor can meet with the student to extend the terms of the contract across multiple settings. Adults in these other school locations would then be responsible for rating the student's behaviors during the time that the student is with them.

For example, a goal may be stated in the contract that a student "will participate in class activities, raising his hand, and being recognized by the classroom or specials teacher before offering an answer or comment." Art, gym, or library instructors would then rate the student's behaviors in these out-of-class settings and share these ratings with the classroom teacher.

Teaching Children With Developmental Disabilities: Classroom Ideas

When working with children with developmental disabilities, teachers can accomplish a great deal by managing the learning environment proactively to prevent behavior problems and promote learning

Forced-Choice Reinforcer Assessment: Guidelines

The teacher of a child with severe or profound developmental disabilities may want to motivate the student by rewarding his or her work performance and effort with classroom items, events, or act

Extending Learning

Teachers have every right to celebrate when they finally succeed in teaching struggling students to use academic or behavioral strategies in their classrooms.

Trouble-Shooting Reward Programs: A Teacher's Guide

Q: My reward program worked for a while but now it doesn't seem to be very effective.

Jackpot! Ideas for Classroom Rewards

Read through this list for reward ideas that will motivate your students.

Finding the Spark: More Tips for Building Student Motivation

Teachers can feel overwhelmed when faced with students who are unmotivated to learn.

Encouraging Student Academic Motivation

One of the greatest frustrations mentioned by many teachers is that their students are often not motivated to learn.

Jim's Hints

The ideas presented here to boost student motivation all stem from a single assumption: that people are most likely to learn when they are fully engaged and interested in the learning task.

When planning any academic activity, teachers can follow the useful exercise of (1) imagining that they themselves are going to be the students and (2) brainstorming about ways that an instructor might motivate them to learn. The lesson here is simple: Students are not so different from us: If we become inattentive when listening to an instructor speak from a lectern for 90 minutes straight, our students probably will too!

Strategies to Prepare Classrooms for Substitute Teachers

Substitute teachers have one of the toughest jobs in the world. They are often expected to cover a classroom full of unknown students on very short notice.

Jim's Hints

Create a Classroom Information Binder. One excellent idea to help substitute teachers to exert greater control in the classroom is for every teacher to prepare an information binder designed explicitly for use by substitute instructors. At a minimum, the binder should include:

  • A student seating chart
  • Building floorplan
  • Copies of hall passes and office referral forms
  • Phone numbers that the substitute should know
  • Updated lesson plan
  • Schoolwide emergency procedures

Check in on the Substitute During the Day. With more and more classrooms equipped with telephones, some teachers exert a bit of extra classroom control when a substitute is covering their room by calling in at several points during the day. Substitutes are likely to appreciate these phone calls greatly! If they have questions about the classroom lesson or need to know what school-wide procedures to follow, the teacher can quickly supply this information. The teacher may also be able to advise the substitute about how to deal with a particularly challenging student's behavior or even problem -solve on the phone directly with the student.

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