Teaching Expected Behaviors

Tiered Fidelity Inventory Item 1.4: Teaching Expectations

Teaching is an efficient process for clarifying what all members of a community should know and be able to do, as well as where, when and to what criteria to demonstrate the behavior. This common knowledge is a cornerstone of an individual’s sense of competence and connectedness, factors necessary for students to move towards self-regulation (Deci & Ryan, 2000). Students’ lack of knowledge and skill demonstrates the need for greater external regulation. Establishing the common language, behaviors and expectations for all students can facilitate the integration of group expectations into students’ personal values and foster students’ desire to be part of the school community.

We also teach social behavior skills because we know there is a close connection between academic and social competence (Algozzine, Wang, & Violette, 2011); (Horner & Sugai, 2005). Just as we consider what to teach and how to structure the content based on what is age and developmentally appropriate for academic subject matter, we determine what is developmentally and age appropriate for teaching social behavior skills.

Teaching expected behavior is a cornerstone because it integrates the notion of what students should know and be able to do (your matrix with how you will be sure they can do it). A solid teaching base at Tier I supports all PBIS/MTSS work.

Sharing Responsibility for Writing Lesson Plans

As your team begins to develop lessons to teach social skills you will want to be purposeful in involving others. Whoever is involved in lesson writing should be instructed to write DRAFT on lessons they develop to indicate feedback will be asked for.

Your team can involve students as well as staff in the development of teaching or training materials to increase the viability and relevancy of the desired behaviors. Family and community members can also be recruited to not only teach expected behaviors in school and community settings, but can also be tremendous resources for providing a compelling rationale for school-wide expectations in the context of life beyond the school setting.

There are a number of ways to get input from others but the most important thing to do is to seek and consider the feedback you get.

Following are a few suggestions:

Ask vertical/grade level/department teams for lesson suggestion.
Ask ALL support staff (cafeteria supervisors, resource officers, secretaries, custodians, bus drivers) for lesson suggestions.
During a designated class period, discuss lesson ideas with all students. Have students turn in their suggestions.
Create a PBIS Advisory Council to both advise the Leadership Team and to gather input from the student body.
Ask for family input at Back to School Night, in school newsletter, and during parent conference.
Build a system of regularly scheduled opportunities to send information home to families
Conduct short surveys to ask staff, students and families to share their questions, ideas and views about PBIS.
Ask drama classes to write, direct and act in video lessons.
Provide information to local newspapers, TV and radio stations.
Ask communication classes to write and broadcast daily/weekly lessons and announcements.

What to Write Lessons About

The PBIS/MTSS Tier I Team will want to ensure you have lessons for all components of your social behavioral curriculum as described previously. Lessons will be needed for specific:

Behaviors/rules on your school’s matrix.
Nonclassroom procedures (arrival, cafeteria, playground rules, dismissal, etc.
Classroom rules
Classroom procedures

Focusing on teaching in non-classroom settings helps all staff practice using common language and learn the steps of directly teaching social behavior skills. Getting everyone involved in teaching in nonclassroom settings can build a sense of unity and common purpose. Full implementation of teaching lessons, starting with lessons for nonclassroom rules and procedures first, will begin to leverage implementation efforts for fidelity and sustainability over time (Mathew, McIntosh, Frank, & May, 2014).

Below are some ideas to help your team prioritize which lessons to write first:

Consider guiding the staff to write lessons for the All Settings behaviors first. Your team and school will have determined those skills as needed throughout the school and therefore, might be considered a good place to start lesson writing.
Non-classroom procedures need to be explicitly taught. An overview of procedures for the most common settings need to be introduced at the beginning of every year (e.g., hallways, cafeteria, etc.). Once introduced, more detailed lessons on specific behaviors (e.g., how to treat cafeteria servers) can be taught.
Review your draft matrix to decide if there are 2-3 behaviors listed that could logically be combined into one lesson. For example, an elementary matrix may list “flush” and “wash hands with soap and water” on the matrix. Both of these could be included in one lesson. A high school matrix may list “walk”, “use quiet voice” and “take care of items in the hallways” which could all be addressed in one lesson.
Review your office discipline referral data. What problem behaviors occur most frequently? What skill from your matrix do you want students to do instead? For example if physical aggression was a frequent problem behavior, the specific behavior of keep hands and feet to self would be an important lesson to write.
Review your office discipline referral data to determine the non-classroom location of problem behaviors. What skill from your matrix do you want students to do instead in that location? If problem behaviors take place in the hallways, do specific lessons need to be written to address getting to class on time.

Resource: Secondary Lesson Plan: Character Traits

Teaching Changes as Students Get Older

In preschool and elementary school the focus is on directly teaching students the expected social behavior through tell, show, practice, monitor and reteaching steps described earlier. Instruction takes place each day, throughout the day, all year long. With consistent and ongoing instruction throughout the year in elementary school, the focus of instruction in middle school and high school may change (Colvin, 2007). The focus of lessons for older students includes the components of Pre-Correct/Remind, Supervise and Feedback and assumes that:

The faculty and staff have agreement on expectations and specific behaviors from their school-wide matrix;
Older students have had an orientation to these commonly held procedures and routines;
For returning students or upperclassman at the beginning of the year, the adult actions of remind, supervise and feedback may well be sufficient for supporting desired student behaviors.

Regardless of the age of students being taught, the critical idea is that consistent, ongoing and planned instruction does indeed take place until students become fluent using the desired social skills. Telling and expecting students to “know it” is insufficient for students to be fluent and competent in performing the social behaviors expected at school.

Lesson Planning and Teaching Considerations

Some primary things to consider when designing a teaching system for your school are the needs of the learners, lesson purpose, format, content and settings. Remember when teaching anything, high teacher expectations, teacher clarity, and feedback are crucial (Hattie, 2009).

Resource: Activity Ideas

Needs of the Learners

When developing lesson plans schools will want to think about the needs of their learners and to differentiate instruction based upon those needs. If students are at the acquisition level of learning social skills, lessons will need to be direct, explicit and taught frequently. Students at the acquisition level do not regularly display use of the skills, they have not had an opportunity to learn or have not had sufficient practice with the new skill. At the preschool and elementary level and for underclassman or students new in a secondary building lessons that include components of direct instruction including tell, show and practice will be most effective. This direct teaching can be done in a way that best fits the unique nature of your building, possibly combining some or all of the following:

Instruction takes place each day, all day throughout the entire school year for young or those students who continue to demonstrate they are at the acquisition level.
Direct instruction the first few weeks of school in the setting where the skills or procedures are used.
Beginning of school year orientation period, such as a day for underclassmen.
Weekly lessons in advisory, homeroom, or classroom.
New Student Orientation using student ambassadors as orientation models for newly enrolled students.
Week long review lessons after school breaks.

Specific focus on a behavior from the school matrix that addresses a problem behavior evident from data (e.g. focus on ‘following directions’ to address ‘noncompliance’ or ‘disrespect’.

When students do show fluency in their use of social behaviors from your matrix, teaching may be periodic maintenance or “booster” lessons. These lessons would consist of reminders of the when, where and how expected behaviors are to be performed. Staff continue to actively supervise giving student’s feedback to maintain skill usage. Maintenance or “boosters” may include:

Beginning of the year focused lessons to teach all schoolwide and classroom expectations, rules and procedures
Quarterly assemblies followed with group practice
Short reminder lessons after school breaks
When your data indicates a need for reteaching
Understanding the skill level of students will ensure staff design lessons that articulate the lesson purpose and use an understandable format to address student needs.

Lesson purpose

The purpose of the lesson is guided by its identified outcome. If you are just introducing a skill you will need to go more in depth than if it is a review of a skill that was previously taught, as described above. Some lessons will be for procedures in a setting, while others will be discrete skills.

Lesson plan format

The first items every lesson should include are:

The Expectation from your schools matrix to help staff see how the lesson ties to the common language.
Specific Behavior(s) and/or Procedures which is a clear description of the skill to be taught.
Context to identify the location(s) where the behavior is expected.

Instruction of social behaviors in initial lessons for acquisition includes tell, show and practice. Tell means introducing the skill or behavior by directly telling the student the definition, the specific steps needed to correctly perform the skill and the location in which the skill will be expected. Show means the teacher demonstrates or models the expected behavior. The teacher clarifies the difference between following the behavior and not following the behavior by providing positive examples and a negative example (nonexample). Remember only an adult should demonstrate the non-example. Students in the class then demonstrate the examples. Guided practice ensures that students can accurately and appropriately demonstrate the skill steps (Lewis & Sugai, 1999). Optimally, practice should occur in the setting(s) to effectively teach expected behaviors and procedures.

Strong positive results for teaching social skills to older students or students who have demonstrated fluency with the skills have been found when adults:

Pre-Correct/Remind

Regularly remind students of behaviors, procedures & routines. Pre-corrects are best used after students have been formally taught and reminded of the correct behavior and procedures for a given setting. When a teacher can anticipate students may have difficulty, a precorrect is given to them about the expected behavior (Colvin, Sugai, & Patching, Precorrection: An Instructional Approach for Managing Predictable Problem Behaviors., 1993) (Lewis, Newcomer, Richter, & Trussell, 2006). A pre-correct is different from a teacher directive. A pre-correct tells the students what to do and how to do it using the behaviors/rules that have already been taught. For example, if a teacher knows students will have trouble moving in the class without bumping into each other, the teacher might pre-correct students of the expected classroom behavior of maintaining personal space. Or before the students are asked to move into groups, the teacher would pre-correct by saying, “Remember to move safely and maintain your personal space.” Just before exiting school for the day, the teacher would pre-correct by saying, “Remember to walk in the hallways and into the parking lot.”

Supervise

Monitor student performance or compliance in all settings. To have a positive impact on student behavior, to prevent problem behaviors from occurring and to monitor student performance, teachers must actively supervise students. Active supervision includes: 1 Moving = constantly, randomly, and targeting problem areas, 2 Scanning = observe all students, make eye contact, look and listen, and 3 Interacting Frequently = positive contact, frequent feedback, correct errors, deliver consequence.

Feedback

Provide feedback, non-contingent and contingent, including specific positive feedback. To help students learn and maintain social behaviors teachers must recognize student effort. The least expensive and readily available way to recognize students is to provide specific verbal feedback and regularly recognize the efforts of students who correctly exhibit the behavior. When giving specific verbal feedback the teacher precisely states the skill the student displays so the student has no doubt about what he or she did correctly. An example would be, “Thank you Bob for being responsible by being on time and having your assignment ready to turn in.”

Re-teach

Providing additional instruction and practice on each of the steps required to correctly exhibit the behavior. As some students struggle to learn the expected social behavior, it is important to provide additional practice and recognition to them as they make progress toward correctly exhibiting the behavior (e.g. “Nice work, Ted, turning in your homework. Let me show you which bin you should place it in as you come in the door of the classroom.”). Re-teaching can also be supported through extension activities using other modalities. For example, if the class has been taught how to follow directions, the instructor could provide independent practice for the students through an art activity or game where they apply the steps in following directions. Sometimes teachers need to recognize “almost there” behavior as an incremental step toward perfect performance of a social behavior.

Lesson content

Lesson content is primarily guided by the age of the students and their prior learning histories. Following are some examples of ways to build social behavior lesson content into the academic curriculum:

Writing activities: Students describe the behaviors or illustrate the benefit of their use through narrative, poetry, plays, songs, etc.
Artistic representation: Performing skits, writing & performing songs, making posters/paintings or studying famous artists and musicians and how their art and lives were influenced by social behavior.
Sports teams, student organizations, etc.: Making connections to guidelines or operational rules for these student groups and the schoolwide expectations.
Laboratory classes: Making connections between safety guidelines and manuals and the schoolwide expectations.
Literature/Language Arts: When studying To Kill A Mockingbird and other books, discuss how characters view expected behaviors and how those expected behaviors are the same or different than your school matrix.

Resource: Sample Lesson Plan on Empathy (3-5)

Teaching Tools

Helpful Tools for Teaching the Expectations of Value Self, Value Others, and Value Learning:

Pre-Teaching: Review the behavior expectation for a particular common area before transitioning to and from that area. Develop a rhyme or song that reinforces the behavior as you transition.
Direct Experience: Take the students to a particular common area and have them “practice” the expected behavior (i.e. walking feet in the halls).
Get the children’s input: Use children’s literature to stimulate a group discussion about a common problem behavior, such as hitting. Have the students identify the problems with this behavior and brainstorm coping strategies or solutions with them. Use the behavior Expectations Matrix for that area to guide your discussion.
Role-Play: Have the students act out scenarios that address the expected behaviors in common areas to ensure their understanding as well as to provide them an opportunity for feedback. Encourage students to use the words on the Behavior Matrix.
Reflection: Have the students talk about any experiences they have had at school and process their responses in relation to the acknowledgement system and Behavior Matrix.
Acknowledgement: Whenever possible positively acknowledge students who are demonstrating school-wide behavior expectations by utilizing the school-wide acknowledgement system.

Using Common Language

Staff using common language with all students helps take advantage of the unexpected and spontaneous opportunities to reinforce skills you’ve already taught. Informal teaching means “teaching all day every day” and includes using the language of your school’s matrix, nonclassroom procedures and classroom rules and procedures. By using common language we ensure consistency for all students which is especially important for students who are at-risk and high-risk of behavior incidents. Common language is one of the cornerstones, along with common experience and common vision/values constitute membership in the social culture we are shaping called school.

There are a number of identified research-based skills that have shown good outcomes in establishing and maintaining the type of environment where teaching and learning can occur (Darch & Kame’enui, 2004) and that can be used in multiple settings. The lesson plan examples and format shared earlier in this chapter emphasize the use of common language that all staff can apply to schoolwide, non-classroom and classroom settings.

To have a deeper meaning of why the use common language is important, we have arranged pre-corrects and feedback in the A-B-C’s of behavior format. Pre-corrects set the stage, or trigger, the students to perform the matrix behaviors that have been taught. If the student indeed performs the skill, the consequence of specific positive feedback helps increase the likelihood that skill will be exhibited again in the future. If the student does not perform the skill with a pre-correct, a redirect or some re-teaching is warranted. The following two examples demonstrate the application of the ABC’s to the use of precorrects, positive feedback and re-teaching corrections.

Resource: Elementary Schoolwide Expectation Example: Be Ready

Resource: Secondary Schoolwide Expectation Example: Be Ready

Gaining Stakeholder Commitment to Teaching

Once you and your staff have created some draft social behavioral lessons, it is essential to get input and feedback from others about them. Remember to write DRAFT on your lessons (to indicate you’re seeking feedback) and date it (to help you keep track of various versions). Consider using the work group process and procedures for gaining consensus outlined in Leadership: PBIS Teams.

Your team can involve students as well as staff in the development of teaching or training materials to increase the viability and relevancy of the desired behaviors. Family and community members can also be recruited to not only teach expected behaviors in school and community settings, but can also be tremendous resources for providing a compelling rationale for schoolwide expectations in the context of life outside or beyond the school setting.

There are a number of ways to get input from others but the most important thing to do is to seek and consider the feedback you get. Following are a few suggestions:

Discuss the draft social behavior lessons with vertical/grade level/department teams
Give a copy of draft social behavior lessons to ALL support staff (cafeteria supervisors, resource officers, secretaries, custodians, bus drivers)
During a designated class period, share and discuss with all students. Have students turn in their suggestions.
Invite students to create their own PBIS Advisory Council to both advise the Leadership Team and to gather input from the student body.
Ask for family input at Back to School Night, in school newsletters, and during parent conference (a task to do while they are waiting).
Build a system of regularly scheduled opportunities to send information home to families (weekly folders, school newsletter with regular feature of “lesson of the week,”) information about how to use lesson content at home, updates from the building administrator, district updates.
Conduct short surveys to ask staff, students and families to share their questions, ideas and views about PBIS.
Conduct presentations about PBIS in your building to your school board and local community groups.
Provide information to local newspapers, TV and radio stations.

How will it work best to get input from your staff, students, families and community? Jot down some ideas that may work. Remember to put your communication ideas about this in your team action plan.

Summary

At first it may seem overwhelming to teach students social behavior. Yet it is hard to deny that social skills are critical for success throughout life (Willingham, 2011). It may be helpful to remember that students learn appropriate behavior in the same way they learn academic skills–through instruction, practice, feedback, re-teaching, and encouragement. It may also be helpful to remember that teaching these proactively can increase the likelihood students will follow the expectations, thereby also increasing academic instructional time (Scheuermann & Hall, 2012).

One of the primary goals of teaching social behavioral skills is to encourage their generalization. This means that the skills taught in the curriculum will be naturally applied to other real life situations where they should be used (McIntosh & MacKay, 2008). Generalization comes more naturally to some than to others. As you are building your systems to support Teaching Expected Behaviors, be sure to include multiple opportunities for students to use them in a variety of situations and settings.

Next Steps

Your tasks for ensuring ongoing teaching of the expected behaviors for your school are listed below. Lesson planning will require planning and a written product; professional development and engagement of all staff is also essential. It is recommended that these tasks be completed prior to your next PBIS training session.

Create lessons for your schoolwide expectations and non-classroom areas.
1. Include: expectation, specific behavior or procedure, context, tell, show, practice, monitor, and re-teach
2. Full staff input; obtain consensus
3. In writing; distributed to staff; included in staff handbook or website
Develop a teaching schedule.
1. Perpetual calendar
2. Beginning of the year or orientation
3. Plan for ongoing teaching and review (e.g., monthly themes, review or booster sessions, etc.)
Assist all staff and stakeholders to understand the importance of and develop the capacity to teach and monitor social behavior.
1. Know how to conduct lessons
2. Use common language

Resource: Sample Preschool Lesson: Following Directions (Initial Acquisition)

Resource: Preschool Lesson Template (Initial Acquisition)

Resource: Sample Elementary Lesson: Following Directions (Initial Acquisition)

Resource: Elementary Lesson Template (Initial Acquisition)

Resource: Sample Middle School Lesson: Following Directions (Initial Acquisition)

Resource: Middle School Lesson Template (Initial Acquisition)

Resource: Sample Middle School Lesson: Following Directions (Maintenance "Booster")

Resource: Middle School Lesson (Maintenance "Booster") Template

Resource: Sample High School Lesson: Following Directions (Initial Acquisition)

Resource: High School Lesson Template (Initial Acquisition)

Resource: Sample High School Lesson: Following Direction (Maintenance "Booster")

Resource: High School Lesson Template (Maintenance "Booster")

Teaching Schedule

Each school determines its own perpetual teaching schedule. A teaching schedule helps keep all staff aware of when lessons are taught and therefore helps keep them accountable and committed to teaching social skill lessons. A teaching schedule should be perpetual, meaning it is sustained throughout the year. It also needs to be flexible enough to allow for lessons to be taught that address student needs when problem behaviors surface. The teaching schedule includes when during the day social skill lessons are taught and when lessons are taught throughout the year.

Teaching in the daily/weekly schedule

Schools need to decide when lessons will be taught during the day or week. Some typical examples of how to arrange time for teaching social behavior skills might include: homeroom, daily class meetings, schoolwide announcement over intercom, daily or weekly web announcements, and embedding in academic subjects.

All teachers should tie lessons to schoolwide expectations when applicable.

Teaching all year

Schools may decide to create a teaching calendar that schedules when lessons are to be taught. When developing a teaching calendar schools may consider devoting a significant amount of teaching at the beginning of the year. Review should be planned throughout the year, particularly following breaks. Teach just prior to needing to use the behavior (e.g., assembly behavior taught right before the first assembly) should also be scheduled.

Based on the grade levels of students in your school, what might be some logical ways to weave initial schoolwide teaching of social behavioral skills into your school day and year? How will you plan initial teaching of social skills at the beginning of the school year? How will you arrange for regular, ongoing teaching throughout the school year?

Here are a few to use as discussion starters:

Use in-house media such as your school’s TV channel or website. Have a “boot camp” the first weeks of school to go over expectations and behaviors in designated settings.
Have a morning announcement followed by a 10-minute schoolwide teaching time.
Develop a PBIS motto, school song, cheer or pledge to start the lessons.
List other ideas that your school or you personally are already using.

There are many, many ways that teaching can be accomplished. Some important considerations are making sure the schedule is: 1) acceptable to stakeholders, 2) capable of being sustained throughout the year, 3) time sensitive in terms of length, and 4) has adequate staff to teach in the identified settings.

Resource: Example Teaching Schedule