Tier 1 Effective Classroom Practices

All students thrive from established expectations. For students, who might be affected by trauma, high expectations show the student they are capable and worthy. 

Consistent expectations help students differentiate purposeful and unpredictable expectations that may occur in other areas of their lives.

Consistent classroom expectations create predictable adult behavior across the school for all students. When established upfront, it may help students establish a sense of security.

Clearly defined routines and procedures help students know what to expect.

Reducing the stress of unknown helps students to operate in a state of calm.

Clearly established routines also increases likelihood of adults identifying and prompting students of possible changes, which is likely to prevent or reduce impact the change may have on student behavior.

Multiple opportunities to respond is a way to conduct formative assessments in the classroom, which allows for differentiated responses to allow students who do not want much attention to find a way to engage.  

Allowing frequent opportunities for students to respond provides time to process or apply what they are learning.  This opportunity to process and apply allows neural networks to be strengthened.

Maintaining active supervision provides a sense of safety for students.

When the adult is constantly scanning the environment, it is more likely they will identify a trigger to a problem prior and prevent the problem behavior from occurring, especially known triggers for a student who might be affected by trauma.    

Active supervision creates frequent opportunities to interact with students to develop, strengthen and maintain relationships. 

Setting up a physical environment to allow teacher to monitor all students and activities promotes feeling of safety and predictability for students.  

Considering traffic patterns to avoid disruption supports students to respect personal space of others. 

Specific positive feedback is a powerful tool for building a student’s self-esteem and positive sense of self.

Teaches new skills and the predictability of specific positive feedback allows for a sense of control and promotes brain development. 

The recommended 4:1 ratio is even higher for students who might be affected by trauma, due to the predictability it creates.

Class-wide contingencies establish and maintain expectations. Limit setting and expectations are powerful for students who might be affected by trauma, when they are used for everyone without singling anyone out.

Acknowledging students class wide helps establish and strengthen a community in the classroom. All students are part of the acknowledgement system, which assists teacher in providing higher dosage of acknowledgement for students needing that and benefits everyone. 

Strategies need to empower the student and teach resiliency skills. 

Re-teaching skills will help students replace learned responses which may not be appropriate.

A continuum of responses provides the student help regulating their emotions, provides staff the opportunity to relate to the students’ emotions before reasoning.