Maria Ferlick MS Ed., BCBA, LABA

Responding to Behavioral Challenges in the Classroom

Working to maintain safe and productive schools..

Posted December 14, 2021 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

  • A recent survey shows behavioral issues in schools are on the rise.
  • Increased class size, pandemic-related stressors, and mental health issues are common causes for behavioral issues.
  • The inclusion of special needs students in general classrooms is creating new challenges for teachers.
  • Taking immediate action and focusing on de-escalation are key ways to manage disruptions in the classroom.

Teachers and educators across the country are having to deal with more behavioral challenges in the classroom than ever before, all of which cause a variety of obstacles toward creating and maintaining safe and productive learning environments.

In a recent survey by the Education Advisory Board (EAB), 81% of school administrators indicated the frequency of disruptive behaviors in their schools is either “more” or “significantly more” than during the previous three years. Seventy-one percent of teachers responded the same, also estimating they lose an average of 144 minutes of instructional time per week (14.5 school days per year) due to behavioral disruptions in the classroom.

Reasons for behavioral challenges

There are many factors that can lead to behavioral challenges in the classroom, including increased class size and staffing issues, the inclusion of special needs students in general classrooms, pandemic-related stressors, and an increase in mental health issues driven by conditions in the home such as food and housing insecurities, parent-related problems, and financial difficulties.

No two behavioral challenges are the same in their cause or manifestation. One may be a result of a learning disability or autism and another of lack of sleep or a divorce . One child may express their frustration by acting out and another by remaining unresponsive. All of this leaves school districts, and teachers, with countless behavioral challenges to navigate while at the same time trying to state-mandated teaching curricula and keep students safe.

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A common factor among many students exhibiting behavioral challenges is an inability to communicate effectively. This frustration can escalate quickly and cause significant disruption to a classroom. Reasons for a student’s difficulty in expressing themselves can range from autism or neurological disorders to issues in the home or fear of being mocked by peers. Related to this is a student feeling misunderstood, which can very easily turn into a volcano-waiting-to-erupt situation. Communication and self-expression are fundamental human needs; not being able to meet those needs, or feeling uncomfortable doing so, can create an enormous pressure and preclude a student from being able to learn and cooperate–particularly in a classroom setting where communication is generally controlled and moderated by an instructor.

Understanding and assessing factors

Probably the biggest mistake made in schools when it comes to mitigating behavioral challenges is educators waiting for a situation to escalate before acting. Today’s small problem is tomorrow’s major issue. It is essential for educators to identify specific indicators of impending behavior problems before they escalate into full-scale outbursts that can bring classroom activity to a screeching halt. Offering support, teaching alternative behaviors, and allowing more time or a break from the activity when the student is engaged in disruptive behaviors—like tapping a pen—are likely to prevent situations from escalating.

While there are many different types of behavioral challenges that can arise in the classroom, there are a few that are commonplace and indicative of a child struggling with either a physical, mental, or emotional issue. Complete withdrawal is something most teachers must contend with at one point or another. The student may put their head down on the desk, close their eyes, pull their hood over their head and just shut off. The student may also ignore the teacher’s requests to pay attention and refuse to engage in conversation. Occasionally, the student may just get up and walk out of the classroom.

Another common behavioral challenge is making some sort of distracting noise, such as pen-tapping, knocking on the desk, talking out, or making noises with their mouth. When outbursts occur, common physical behavioral challenges include hitting, punching, kicking, biting, pushing, throwing objects and even self-injurious actions such as cutting , or self-hitting.

Tips for managing behavioral challenges

School districts must provide teachers with the necessary tools and training to handle behavioral challenges in the classroom. Oftentimes this does not happen due to budget cuts, limited staff, and time constraints. There are some basic strategies and approaches teachers can easily implement. Here are a few practical tips and insights for teachers and educators to better understand and manage behavioral challenges in the classroom:

  • Remember your first goal is to de-escalate the situation. Pick your battles. If a student is disrupting the classroom in a major way, it’s not necessarily the right moment to reprimand the student. Do what you need to do to calm the situation and handle the other issues privately and when tensions are not high.
  • Acknowledge good behavior. Look for opportunities to praise students who have presented behavioral challenges when they are following expectations and participating appropriately. It’s important they hear from you not only when they do something wrong but when they do something right. We may forget to focus on the students’ appropriate behavior. Every student does something right every day. Capture those moments, too.
  • Give the student an alternative to their challenging behavior. Don’t just tell the student to “stop,” but rather suggest an acceptable alternative. If the student is banging on the desk with a pen, suggest they take out a piece of paper and draw to keep their hands busy.
  • Reset the situation. Rather than engage in an unproductive back-and-forth with a student, ask the student if they would like to step outside for five minutes and take a breath of fresh air. A pause can be an extremely effective tactic in getting back on track.
  • Ask for help. Don’t be reluctant to use all the resources available at your school. Connect with other teachers, counselors, and administrators even if only to brainstorm ideas. Perhaps ask a colleague to observe your classroom and give a second opinion.
  • Understand school is only one part of a child’s life. Many behavioral challenges in the classroom are driven by issues that have nothing to do with school. As appropriate, work with school counselors and administrators to assist the student with his or her life challenges.
  • Pay attention to your behavior. Remember your behavior (tone and volume of your voice, facial expression, body posture, proximity, etc.), have a significant impact on a situation. It is easy to forget how triggering a disapproving look or raised voice can exacerbate an already contentious interaction. Make sure you are not unintentionally making a bad situation worse.
  • Make sure your response is commensurate with what is happening that moment. It is easy to overreact to a specific situation based on previous history. Make sure there are no straws that break the camel’s back.

Maria Ferlick MS Ed., BCBA, LABA

Maria Ferlick is a licensed teacher certified in Intensive Special Needs Education, as well as a Board Certified Behavior Analyst and a Licensed Applied Behavior Analyst and a Master Trainer with QBS, provider of the Safety-Care behavior management and crisis prevention training program.

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Strategies for Managing Challenging Student Behaviors

Student misbehavior has been particularly agonizing for teachers this year, but there are proactive steps educators can take to remedy it.

High school students whispering in class

In the best of times, disruptive student behaviors are challenging to effectively act on. And now, this is compounded by our current reality: a traumatic time—during which many of us are just trying to hang on and stay in the profession—that has reduced our patience, taxed our energy, and increased our reactivity.

So maybe we can think differently about these behaviors. Maybe we can be proactive.

The first step in being proactive might be the easiest: identify challenging behaviors and their effects on the classroom. You know exactly what I’m talking about. Challenging behaviors can manifest academically: missing deadlines, plagiarism. They can manifest socially: side conversations, defiance. They can manifest emotionally: apathy, negativity. They can manifest quietly or loudly. And more often than not, they can manifest repeatedly.

These manifestations are exhausting—for you, for them, and for their peers.

Taking a Closer Look

While it can be easy to remain stuck in the first step of identification, to be proactive we must move to the second step of reflection. We must treat each behavior as both adaptive and communicative. This reflection is twofold: examining the student and ourselves.

Students act the way they do because it serves them in some capacity. How is their behavior serving them? What is driving their behavior? At times, this can be simple. Much more complicated is the task of examining ourselves as a responsible party in these exchanges. More often than not, I realize: Behaviors that challenge me mirror me .

Again, behaviors are both adaptive and communicative. How is my innate response to this student serving me? What is it about the behavior that grates on me so? What does my response communicate about me? Addressing student behaviors without this important step of reflection—of both parties—is short-sighted at best and ineffective at worst.

Displaying Curiosity and Humility

Once we have hypothesized underlying motives for the behaviors, as well as our own contributions, to be proactive we must approach the student about the behavior. The most important consideration in this regard is our intention. I use restorative practices as a frame, reminding myself that my ultimate goal is relationship. This means I approach students with curiosity and humility.

Curiosity allows for me to ask questions and listen rather than fix or criticize . Humility allows several benefits: One, I can let go of “proving the record” and instead build the relationship; two, I can speak with “I” language that demonstrates I also am taking responsibility; and three, it ensures that I am conversing with the student rather than coming at them.

As in any situation where a human feels threatened, a student backed into a corner with accusations rather than invited into a relationship through curiosity and humility will close up or act out.

Building Connections

After I have reflected and approached the student, the real work begins. This is where my integrity and trustworthiness as a teacher is tested—and rightfully so—by students demonstrating challenging behaviors. Did I really mean what I said about wanting to take responsibility, understand the student, and build a meaningful relationship with them? To walk the talk, the next step in being proactive, here are some practices to connect with students.

Survey students with academic and nonacademic questions: Use the surveys for one-on-one conversations, fun class trivia games, grouping and seating arrangements, sport and club attendance, etc. But most important, use the survey data! Students who are surveyed without ever having that data shared with them and acted upon are just guinea pigs.

Observe more, and talk less: Notice where students demonstrate different behaviors than they do in your class. Watch students interact in peer groups. The biggest mistake we can make when dealing with challenging behaviors is seeing the student who demonstrates them in a vacuum.

Partner with students: The majority of my most successful connections with students have begun with an opening like this: “X, I gotta say, I am really just not feeling like we are vibing lately. I feel like I’m letting you down and that you’re always upset with me. Did I do something to offend you? I really would like to make this right.” Few students, yes even those who display the most challenging behaviors, can resist being truly heard and respected. Explicitly partnering with students to do the repair work, the relationship work, is where the magic happens.

Compliment students: Sometimes a light comment about cool new shoes is the only positive message that a student receives in a day. Compliments communicate to students that they are seen.

Support students: While sometimes the root cause of challenging behaviors lies beyond an educator’s purview, often it is related to some personal struggle with the content. Clear and consistent expectations, easy-to-follow directions, chunked instruction, continued check-ins, just-right scaffolding and differentiation… best pedagogical practices such as these mitigate the worst behaviors.

Elevate students: Often, students act out in order to earn attention. Offering students who display challenging behaviors leadership opportunities in class is a way to reframe their peer influence from class clown to class champion.

Collaborate for students on their behalf: Ask other teachers about how the students are doing in their classes, what effective strategies they’re using, how they’ve connected with the students. Frame these conversations always as proactive and solution-forward—not gripe sessions.

Celebrating Successes

The final step in being proactive when dealing with difficult behaviors is the most important: monitor, adapt, and celebrate. Making progress with students who are displaying challenging behaviors is never one and done. Rather, just as relationship implies, it’s an ongoing dialogue. Pay attention to what’s working and what’s not working. Check in with the student about their perceptions. Celebrate the tiniest of victories. Be willing to admit when something is ineffective and make necessary changes. Commit to the long haul and trust the process.

Some of my favorite memories are when students who struggled during their first year in high school come up to me a few years later to joke about, “Remember when…?” Being proactive, even when we’re tired, allows for these moments of connection and joy. And that makes it all worthwhile.

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Strategies for Teaching Students With Behavioral Problems

This post has been updated as of December 2017.

The average classroom is likely to contain one or more students who demand more attention because of behavioral difficulties. In some cases, hormones, challenges with peers, and home-life problems can make even a “good kid” troublesome. And while some teachers are specially trained to handle special needs children who demand more time, some aren’t. That can hurt both the student and the teacher.

So how do we support these kids while also preserving our own energy, stamina, and patience? Let’s break it down.

First, who needs to learn these strategies?

All teachers need to learn how to teach students with behavior problems. No matter if the child is one student in a classroom with a concern or if the classroom is designed for children with these complex behavioral issues, the methods to teaching and avoiding complications or outbursts are sometimes the same. When teachers learn how to avoid situations that can push the button on these children, it is possible to ensure the classroom’s lesson plan is fully explored and all students get equal attention.

Prior to an occurrence

One of the best strategies for teaching in an environment like this is to learn methods that help to prevent the occurrence of behavioral issues. While every student’s needs are different, there are some simple steps teachers can take to help prevent problems as a group.

  • Increase the amount of supervision present during high-risk periods. When misbehavior is likely to occur, such as during group work sessions or at specific times of the day, adding additional supervision can be a helpful step in preventing problems.
  • Make tasks manageable. To avoid driving stress factors that can cause a child to begin to misbehave, ensure that all the tasks you assign can provide the student with small bits of information at one time. By dividing a lesson in chunks, you’re less likely to overwhelm the student.
  • Offer choices whenever possible. Rather than creating a strict classroom routine, provide the students with choices. For example, let students choose which project they work on rather than having to focus on a specific project.
  • Ensure children reach out for help. In some cases, behavior issues occur because the child does not know how he or she can receive help or does not, for some reason, feel that help is available. Reassure children that they can reach out for the help they need. If they feel comfortable coming to you when they’re lost, upset or overwhelmed, they’re not as likely to have an outburst.

Prevention is always the best step, but of course it’s not always possible to stop every occurrence of poor behavior.

Handling in-the-moment concerns

When behavioral problems begin to occur, it’s important for teachers to react in the right way. Here are some strategies:

  • Apologies . Apologies help to repair the social conflicts between two individuals. Ensure that apologies are encouraged by all offending parties.
  • Ignore . In some cases, the teacher ignores the behavior, meaning he or she does not react to it or reinforce or reward it.
  • Reduce privilege access . After defining the privileges that students have, the teacher sets in place a rule system for taking those away. For example, things like having free time or being able to talk with friends are removed when rules are broken.
  • Praise . Praising positive behavior (not just expected behavior) is also a way of managing negative outcomes. When teachers praise students more readily than scold them, the student learns that to get attention he or she must act positively.

Dealing with conflict in the classroom is never easy. But by getting parents involved, putting time aside to understand the cause of the problem, and by engaging children in positive rewards, it may be possible to reduce some of the risk that behavior problems will get in the way of learning—for you and for your students.

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problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

Handling challenging behavior problems in the classroom

problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

As a teacher, one of the most common things that you’ll come across in your career is dealing with challenging students. In case the behavioral problems that you are required to handle frustrate you, it would do you a lot of good to take some comfort in knowing that other teachers around the globe face the same challenges. The need to handle behavior issues is one of the additional packages that are tied to the teaching profession.

It is of importance for you to note that even the most experienced teachers have their fair share of managing difficult students. From power disputes and struggles among students to too many talkative students, the list of stubborn behaviors that you will have to deal with until you retire is quite lengthy. However, with a framework of how you can tackle all these issues, it is possible for you to have the upper hand over your students and hence assist you in avoiding frustrations in your job.

Luckily enough for you, other than acquiring help from educational technology tools such as flipgrid , Classdojo and insertlearning , below is such in-depth coverage of some of the best ways that you can handle the most common and challenging behavior problems in the classroom.

How to Handle 5 Challenging Behavior Types

1. noise making in class.

Hanlding noise in the classroom

With about 3.8 million kids having attended public school kindergartens in the US, it is quite tricky to lack some students that have a tendency of talking nonstop and in the process distracting their fellow students from concentrating on their studies. These “chatterboxes” are the true definition of a nuisance to you as a teacher and to their classmates hence requiring the best methods to control this annoying behavior.

The best way to handle such students is by giving them positive instructions when trying to correct their endless noise making, while concurrently doing your best to avoid adverse instructions. Instead of using the typical “no talking” strategy, you should direct your instructions to these specific students by instructing them to “remain silent”. You should then follow up your request with a “thank you” for you to indicate that you acknowledge your request’s been adhered to.

In case the talking happens while you’re in the middle of teaching or addressing the class, the best solution is to stop talking. By doing so, you will have brought to life a reminder to your students that you are in charge and should be listening to you rather than talking among themselves.

In addition, there are some edtech apps that can help to indicate the noise in the classroom. Take Too Noisy for example. It shows them how loud the classroom is at that exact moment. Ask you students to stay in the “green” zone. The app visualizes the noise, so it’s easier for students to really understand the problem.

2. Power Struggle

Power struggle in the classroom

Some students intentionally refrain from concentrating on their classwork or even completing it to draw their teachers into a form of power struggle. You should always be keen to identify such students and never fall into their trap at any given time.

The most prudent way to handle such students is by giving them choices that have consequences attached to them. Ensure that they are aware that if they do not finish their classwork within a given time frame, they are bound to miss out on the class’s free time or any other consequences that you find suitable to such a situation. Classcraft can help you with that in a playful way, where students' fantasy comes to life.

This helps to put their behavior’s responsibility on them while also assisting in teaching them the best way to make choices in life. In addition to the above, you should learn always to show your students appreciation when you give them a number of options, and they make the right choice. A simple “thank you,” or even a smile will go a long way in reinforcing this positive behavior. You could also think about setting up a reward system . But be careful with that. We want students to behave good on their own, and not because they get someting out of it.

3. Arguments Galore

Arguments galore in the classroom

Students that have cultivated a culture of challenging everything that their teachers say or do can easily distract the entire class from the teachers' lessons by deviating focus on secondary and meaningless issues. It’s quite hard for you to restrain yourself from reprimanding such defiant students, but it is crucial for you to note that adopting a hostile type of attitude or even getting defensive will not solve such an issue. Instead, you should purpose to remain civil and assertive while focusing on the problem at hand.

Instances such as this that occur recurrently will require you to hold an “after class” meeting with the responsible student(s). In this discussion, you should explain to the student(s) the manner in which the behavior is not acceptable and how it will bring about a problematic relationship between you and him/her as well as how it interferes with the learning time of the entire class.

Handling dificult and confronting conversations need some preparation. Here’s the ultimate conversation guide that helps you tackle 6 different conversations with students or parents.

4. Broading

Broading in the classroom

Sulky behavior is also one of the biggest distractions for teachers in a classroom. This is a behavior that you should nip in the bud as soon as you can before it develops into a much more completed syndrome. 
 Once you’ve observed such action with any of your students, you must call for a private discussion with him/her. Make sure that you’ve demonstrated the mannerisms and brooding behavior to the student so that you can explain this behavior vividly to him/her. The reason behind your need to do this is that in most instances, brooding students have no idea of how their behavior is regarded as being socially unacceptable or being rude.

5. Overdependence

Overdependence in the classroom

Students that tend to always request for assistance with every opportunity that they get may be doing this out of a desire for attention or could only have a genuine inability to accomplish these tasks on their own.

First, assess the main reason behind such a clingy habit so that you can address it. You can try and ignore the student’s persistent calls to look at his/her work for quite a while.

If he/she waits for you patiently, approach and reward him/her by taking a look at the work with more enthusiasm than before. Another strategy that you can use is having students to first ask their peers before approaching you for clarification. Lets students reflect on their work first before asking questions. Here are some creative self assesment ideas that might help.

5 Tips To Get Back in Control of Your Classroom

1. do what your students don’t expect.

problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

However, you can choose to be different and uniquely handle things. You could try and tell them something that will catch them off guard such as, “You children seem too smart to be playing in such a restricted place,” This kind of communication will surprise students and children to the extent of prompting them to change their unwanted behaviors.

2. Find Positive Things about Them

problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

You can step up and go out of your way to look for positive things to say concerning these chronic naughty students. Often, you find that these children lack belief in their abilities and require teachers to assist them in seeing that they have the ability to become constructive.

3. Don’t Act too Bossy or Showcase Bad Modeling

problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

You should always strive to express a strong passion and desire to have significant relationships with your students or children. This will assist you greatly in curbing the growth of possible negative feelings such as loath and revenge from your students, thus making your teaching process much more comfortable.

4. Support Your Students' Sense of Belonging

problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

In such a scenario, you should see to it that you put yourself in their shoes and uplift the affected students' sense of belonging. To get this done, praise the efforts of these students to work in class even in simple tasks or in their social life when they get along with others.

You could also praise the students' attempts to adhere to the set routines or follow the given rules. Also, you may find success by using terms such as “we” in the process of describing a behavior you would prefer. A good example of this is by saying, “We should always be kind when playing with our friends.”

5. Reprimand in a Different Manner

problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

After you’re done reprimanding, you can wind up on a note such as, “I am sure that this mistake will not happen again due to the great student you have been until this moment. My faith in you is great.” You can use any other technique that you think will work out great for you, but ensure that you practice the element of acknowledging the child`s positive behaviors.

Be aware of the many punishment mistakes that are made too often. Take a look at the punishment tips in that post as well.

The teaching profession is excellent in a vast array of ways with the highlight of it all being the power you are given to shape the lives of the students entrusted to you. 


However, it is important to note that it is not always a walk in the park due to the various challenges that you are bound to face especially when dealing with children.

As much as these problems could be overwhelming, you should know that there is always a way to solve them.

5 tips to get beack in control of your classroom

Jake Lester is a real essay writer that is fond of writing about various spheres of life. The most recurring themes he covers are education, writing and marketing. He has his own writing style and this is why he is appreciated by readers. You may look through Facebook , Twitter & Google+ .

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problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

Effective Classroom Management: Proven Techniques for Handling Students with Behavior Problems

Teach Your Heart Out

Teach Your Heart Out

  • June 7, 2023

problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

Educators frequently encounter the demanding task of handling students with behavior problems, as these issues can significantly impact the classroom environment and disrupt the learning process. 

In this enlightening blog post, we will delve into the depths of comprehending, averting, and addressing behavior problems in students. Uncover highly effective strategies to effectively manage these challenges while fostering a positive atmosphere within the classroom. 

Gain valuable insights into refining communication techniques with parents, accessing supplementary support resources, and cultivating an inclusive learning environment that nurtures the growth and success of every student.

Table of Contents:

Common behavior problems in elementary classrooms, the impact of behavior problems on learning, causes of behavior problems, classroom management strategies, establishing expectations and rules, positive reinforcement and rewards, building relationships with students, providing opportunities for movement and breaks, de-escalation strategies, addressing the root cause of behavior problems, consequences for behavior, restorative justice practices, a) regular updates on student progress, b) utilize multiple channels of communication, c) schedule meetings at convenient times for parents/guardians, referral to counseling services, special education resources and support, community resources for families, establish clear expectations and consequences, create a supportive environment, implement positive reinforcement, consistently apply strategies, maintain open communication with parents and guardians, seek additional support if needed, how will you handle children with behavioral problems, what is the best way to manage student behavior, top 12 classroom behavior tips, 1. understanding behavior problems.

Behavior problems in the classroom can significantly impact learning and create a challenging environment for both educators and students. It’s essential to understand common behavior issues, their causes, and how they affect the educational process.

  • Talking out of turn: Students may frequently interrupt or speak without raising their hand.
  • Inattention: Difficulty focusing on tasks or following instructions due to distractions or lack of interest.
  • Disruptive behavior: Actions that disturb the class, such as making noises, throwing objects, or leaving one’s seat without permission.
  • Bullying: Harassing other students verbally or physically; this includes cyberbullying through digital platforms like social media ( StopBullying.gov ) provides resources on identifying and addressing bullying.

Neglecting to address these behaviors can lead to several consequences that hinder academic progress. For example:

  • Reduced instructional time: Teachers must spend valuable time addressing disruptions instead of teaching.
  • Lower student engagement: Disruptions make it difficult for all students to concentrate on learning activities.
  • Hindered development of social skills: Poorly managed classrooms can prevent children from developing healthy relationships with peers.

To effectively handle behavior problems in the classroom, it is crucial first to identify potential causes. Some factors contributing to these issues include:

  • Emotional or psychological factors: Students may be dealing with stress, anxiety, depression, or other mental health challenges that manifest as behavior problems. The National Association of School Psychologists offers resources on promoting positive behavioral and mental health in schools.
  • Learning difficulties: Children with learning disabilities or attention disorders like ADHD may struggle to follow classroom rules and expectations.
  • Social influences: Peer pressure and the desire for social acceptance can lead students to engage in disruptive behaviors.
  • Lack of clear expectations and consequences: Inconsistent enforcement of rules can contribute to confusion about appropriate behavior.

In order to create a productive learning environment, it is essential for educators to understand the root causes of behavior problems. Educators must have an understanding of the underlying causes of behavioral issues in order to devise successful approaches for avoidance and remediation.

Grasping the fundamental reasons behind behavioral issues can arm educators with the knowledge to ward off their occurrence. Having plans for dealing with any issues that may come up is crucial.

Key Lesson: 

Understanding behavior problems in the classroom is crucial for educators to create a productive learning environment. Common behavior issues include talking out of turn, inattention, disruptive behavior, and bullying. Neglecting to address these behaviors can lead to reduced instructional time, lower student engagement, and hindered development of social skills. Causes may include emotional or psychological factors, learning difficulties, social influences and lack of clear expectations and consequences.

2. Strategies for Preventing Behavior Problems

Proactively addressing behavior problems in the classroom is essential to create a positive learning environment. By implementing effective strategies, teachers can prevent many issues before they escalate and disrupt the educational process. Here are some key approaches that educators can use:

Effective classroom management techniques help maintain order and ensure students stay on task. This includes setting clear expectations, organizing materials, using visual cues like seating charts or daily schedules, and consistently enforcing rules.

Taking time at the beginning of the school year to establish clear expectations and rules sets a foundation for appropriate behavior throughout the year. Involve students in creating these guidelines so they feel ownership over their learning environment.

  • Praise: Recognize when students exhibit good behavior by offering verbal praise or written notes of encouragement.
  • Rewards: Implement a system where students earn points or tokens for positive actions that can be exchanged for small rewards (e.g., extra recess time).
  • Positive reinforcement theory suggests that rewarding desired behaviors increases their likelihood of recurring in future situations.

Developing strong relationships with students helps them feel valued and understood, which can reduce behavior problems. Take the time to learn about each student’s individual likes, strengths, and difficulties. Show empathy when they struggle and celebrate their successes.

Research shows that regular movement breaks improve focus, memory retention, and overall well-being. Incorporate short physical activities throughout the day (e.g., stretching exercises or dance breaks) to help students release energy in a controlled manner.

Preventing behavior problems can be achieved by utilizing effective classroom management techniques, such as positive reinforcement and setting clear expectations. Still, when these approaches don’t yield the desired results, it is essential to have a strategy ready for dealing successfully with unruly conduct.

3. Strategies for Responding to Behavior Problems

When behavior problems arise in the classroom, it’s essential to have a plan in place to address them effectively and maintain a positive learning environment. In this section, we will discuss various strategies that can help educators respond appropriately and constructively when faced with challenging behaviors.

De-escalation strategies are techniques used by teachers to calm down students who may be experiencing heightened emotions or acting out aggressively. Some effective de-escalation methods include using a calm voice, giving the student space, validating their feelings, offering choices or compromises, and redirecting their focus towards something more positive.

Creating a designated space within the classroom holds utmost importance. It’s crucial to carefully consider the items present in this area, ensuring they serve the purpose of effectively aiding students rather than being mere Pinterest-worthy decorations. Understanding what truly helps students calm down is essential. 

Additionally, it is necessary to establish clear expectations for these designated locations. They should not serve as an escape from work, but rather as a space for students to regain composure and seamlessly reintegrate into the group when they are ready. Implementing this strategy requires the teacher and student to spend a moment together in this space during times of productive work, discussing its purpose and proper utilization. 

By incorporating these practices, educators can enhance the effectiveness of de-escalation techniques, fostering a positive learning environment for all.

To effectively address behavior issues in the long term, it is crucial to identify and address their root cause(s). This entails observing behavioral patterns and engaging in private conversations with students to uncover the underlying reasons behind their actions. 

Collaborating with other school staff members, such as counselors or special education professionals, becomes necessary if there are emotional or developmental concerns at play. Additionally, establishing open communication with parents is paramount. It is essential for all stakeholders and caregivers to have a well-defined plan and maintain transparent communication channels. 

While discovering the root problem may vary in difficulty, it is important to have a comprehensive plan that extends beyond the classroom, encompassing other school and home settings. Although communication with parents may not always be readily available, when it is, it should be utilized to foster strong relationships with students and their families. Everyone involved must prioritize the best interests and safety of the child. 

This approach ensures a holistic and collaborative approach to effectively manage behavior issues.

  • Natural consequences: These occur as an automatic result of poor choices (e.g., losing recess time due to not completing work).
  • School-based consequences: Implemented by school administration (e.g., detention) according to established policies.
  • In-class consequences: The teacher assigns these based on class rules (e.g., loss of privileges or time-out).

It is essential to guarantee that repercussions are impartial, uniform, and immediately connected to the misbehavior. This helps students understand the connection between their actions and the resulting outcomes.

Restorative justice practices focus on repairing harm caused by negative behavior rather than simply punishing it. These methods encourage students to take responsibility for their actions, empathize with those affected, and work together towards a resolution. Examples of restorative justice techniques include peer mediation, conflict resolution circles, or facilitated conversations between involved parties.

By implementing restorative justice techniques, students are provided with an opportunity to learn accountability and problem-solving while fostering a more respectful environment.

Responding to behavior problems in the classroom requires teachers to have a well-rounded understanding of the problem and be able to apply strategies that are tailored for each student. By having a thorough comprehension of the issue, teachers can communicate with guardians to create an atmosphere where pupils feel encouraged and their necessities are fulfilled.

Teachers can respond to behavior problems by using de-escalation strategies, addressing the root cause of misbehavior, implementing fair consequences, and incorporating restorative justice practices. These techniques help create a positive learning environment where students feel heard and respected while also learning valuable lessons about accountability and problem-solving.

4. Tips for Effective Communication with Parents and Guardians

Establishing open lines of communication with parents and guardians is essential in addressing behavior problems effectively. Involving them in the process can lead to better understanding, support, and collaboration between home and school environments. Here are some strategies to enhance your communication efforts:

Provide parents with updates on their child’s academic progress and any behavioral issues that arise, through parent-teacher conferences, progress reports, or email notifications. This can be done through parent-teacher conferences, progress reports, or regular email updates.

Different families may prefer different methods of communication – phone calls, emails, text messages or even apps like ClassDojo . Be flexible and adapt to their preferences when possible.

To encourage parent involvement in resolving behavior issues, try scheduling meetings during times that work best for them – before or after work hours if necessary.

The Importance of Involving Parents and Guardians in Behavior Problem Resolution

  • Support from Home: When parents understand the challenges faced by educators regarding their child’s behavior problems, they can provide reinforcement at home to help improve classroom conduct.
  • Better Understanding: Parental input offers valuable insights into potential causes behind a student’s misbehavior; this information might not be readily available otherwise.
  • Collaborative Solutions: Working together with parents and guardians can lead to more effective, tailored strategies for addressing behavior problems.

Building a Partnership with Parents and Guardians

To foster strong relationships with parents and guardians, consider the following:

  • Show Empathy: Acknowledge the challenges they face in supporting their child’s education. This helps build trust and understanding between you.
  • Focus on Strengths: Highlighting a student’s strengths can help create a positive atmosphere during conversations about behavior concerns. It also encourages parents to view their child as capable of growth and improvement.
  • Maintain Confidentiality: Respect families’ privacy by discussing sensitive issues privately, avoiding gossip or sharing personal information without consent.
  • Create Opportunities for Involvement: Encourage parent participation in school events or volunteering opportunities – this fosters a sense of community and shared responsibility for students’ success.

The key to successful communication with parents and guardians is establishing a mutual understanding of expectations. To ensure successful interaction with parents/guardians, utilizing available assistance to manage students’ conduct issues should be taken into account.

Establishing open communication with parents and guardians is crucial in addressing behavior problems effectively. Regular updates on student progress, utilizing multiple channels of communication, and scheduling meetings at convenient times for parents are some strategies to enhance your communication efforts. Involving parents can lead to better understanding, support, and collaboration between home and school environments.

5. Resources for Additional Support

When addressing behavior problems in the classroom, it’s essential to recognize that some students may require additional support beyond the strategies and interventions implemented by educators. In these cases, referral to counseling services, special education resources, and community resources can provide invaluable assistance for both students and their families.

School counselors play a crucial role in supporting students with behavioral issues. They can help identify underlying causes of problematic behaviors and work with teachers, parents, and guardians to develop tailored intervention plans. If you suspect that a student might benefit from counseling services, consult your school counselor or visit the American School Counselor Association website for more information on how they can assist.

In some instances, behavior problems may be linked to learning disabilities or other special needs requiring specialized instruction or accommodations. Special education professionals are trained in identifying such needs and providing targeted support through Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) or 504 Plans. To learn more about special education resources available at your school or district level, contact your local Parent Training & Information Center (PTI) .

  • Mental Health Services: Students experiencing emotional difficulties may need access to mental health services outside of school hours. The Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration’s Treatment Locator tool can help locate services in your area.
  • Tutoring Programs: If academic struggles contribute to a student’s behavior problems, tutoring programs, such as those offered by Boys & Girls Clubs of America , can provide additional academic support.
  • Parenting Classes: Parents and guardians may benefit from attending parenting classes or workshops to learn strategies for managing behavior problems at home. Local community centers, hospitals, and Cooperative Extension programs often offer these resources.

Taking advantage of these additional resources can help create a comprehensive approach to addressing behavior problems in the classroom. Educators can collaborate with therapy services, educators specialized in special needs, and local organizations to guarantee that students receive the assistance they need for scholastic and social achievement.

When dealing with behavior problems in the classroom, it’s important to recognize that some students may need additional support beyond what educators can provide. Referral to counseling services, special education resources, and community organizations such as mental health services or tutoring programs can be invaluable for both students and their families. Working together with these resources ensures that students receive comprehensive support needed to succeed academically and socially.

How to Handle Students with Behavior Problems

As a teacher, dealing with students who have behavior problems can be challenging. However, with the right strategies, you can create a supportive environment that helps students learn and grow. Here are some tips to help you handle students with behavior problems:

One of the most important things you can do is to establish clear expectations and consequences for behavior. Make sure your students understand what is expected of them and what will happen if they don’t meet those expectations. Be consistent in enforcing consequences so that students understand that their actions have consequences.

Creating a supportive environment can help students feel safe and valued. This can include things like positive reinforcement, building relationships with students, and providing opportunities for students to share their thoughts and feelings. When students feel supported, they are more likely to behave positively.

Positive reinforcement can be a powerful tool for encouraging good behavior. This can include things like praise, rewards, and recognition for positive behavior. When students feel that their good behavior is noticed and appreciated, they are more likely to continue behaving well.

Consistency is key when it comes to managing behavior. Make sure you consistently apply the strategies you have established, and don’t give up if you don’t see immediate results. It may take time for students to adjust to new expectations and routines.

Parents and guardians can be valuable partners in managing behavior. Make sure you maintain open communication with them, and involve them in the process when appropriate. This can help ensure that everyone is on the same page and working together to support the student.

If you are struggling to manage a student’s behavior, don’t be afraid to seek additional support. This can include talking to school counselors or administrators, or accessing professional development resources on behavior management.

Handling children with behavior problems requires patience, empathy, and consistency. Use preventative measures like setting routines and rules; respond calmly to incidents; provide choices for the child to regain control; involve parents in addressing concerns; collaborate with colleagues for support; access professional development resources on behavior management.

The best way to manage student behavior is through proactive classroom management techniques: establishing clear expectations, creating a positive learning environment, engaging students in meaningful activities that cater to their interests and abilities, using praise effectively as reinforcement for good behavior, involving parents when necessary.

Classroom Management Tips

  • Establish clear expectations and consequences for behavior
  • Be consistent in enforcing consequences
  • Build relationships with students
  • Provide opportunities for students to share their thoughts and feelings
  • Use positive reinforcement to encourage good behavior
  • Respond calmly to incidents
  • Provide choices for the child to regain control
  • Involve parents in addressing concerns
  • Collaborate with colleagues for support
  • Access professional development resources on behavior management
  • Establish routines and rules
  • Create a positive learning environment

In conclusion, understanding behavior problems is key to effectively handling them in the classroom. By implementing preventative strategies and responding appropriately when issues arise, educators can create a positive learning environment for all students. Effective communication with parents and guardians is also crucial in addressing behavior problems.

For additional support, there are resources available such as counseling services and professional development opportunities. At Teach Your Heart Out , we offer workshops specifically designed to help educators learn how to handle students with behavior problems while promoting a positive classroom culture.

Take action today by visiting teachyourheartout.com to learn more about our upcoming workshops and how we can support you in creating a successful learning environment for all students!

problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

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  • J Adv Med Educ Prof
  • v.6(3); 2018 Jul

Conflict management strategies in coping with students’ disruptive behaviors in the classroom: Systematized review

Tayebeh mahvar.

1 Nursing Care Research Center and School of Nursing and Midwifery, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

MANSOUREH ASHGHALI FARAHANI

Aidin aryankhesal.

2 Health Management and Economics Research Center, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

3 Department of Health services Management, School of Health Management and Information Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Introduction:

Classroom management is leading the class by setting the class schedule, organizing the procedures, supervising the learners’ progress, and predicting and solving their problems. Students’ disruptive behaviors and classroom management are the most important challenges and concerns of the teachers. The current review aimed to analyze the classroom management techniques and strategies used to cope with the students’ disruptive behaviors.

The present study was systematic review. The articles in Science Direct, PubMed and Scopus databases and Google Scholar search engine were searched using the keywords of classroom management, students’ disruptive behaviors, difficult students, and confrontation strategies during 2000-2017. A total of 31 articles were included in the study for analysis.

The results showed all the techniques and strategies used and teachers’ challenges in dealing with students’ disruptive behaviors were included in conflict management strategies, which were classified into three categories, i.e. cooperative and problem solving strategies, avoidance strategies and punishment strategies. Moreover, the studies mostly emphasized the use of cooperative and problem solving strategies, and the most highlighted methods were making effective mutual communication with students to correct their negative behavior, training and preparing the teachers for dealing with the students’ disruptive behaviors and using various teaching methods and approaches based on the classroom situation.

Conclusion:

To cope with the challenges of students’ disruptive behaviors, the teachers can use different strategies. Also, sufficient knowledge and skills about teaching, familiarity with the relevant and influential disciplines in dealing with students and making effective communication in the class can be helpful in developing and enjoying more effective skills in classroom management.

Introduction

Disruptive behavior in classrooms is a significant challenge for learning in schools and risk factor for the students' academic achievement and a significant source of teachers' work related stress ( 1 ). In the last two decades, the learners’ behaviors have changed a lot, involving the teachers in educational centers in a significant behavioral challenge ( 2 ). Classroom management is done by the teacher to create discipline and motivation and to attract the students’ cooperation in the learning process. If the teachers cannot manage their class by various teaching techniques, the teaching process will result in failure ( 3 , 4 ). Classroom management is a term that teachers use to guarantee a teaching process free of problems, even with the presence of the students’ disruptive behaviors. This term is defined as prevention of the incidence of behaviors that are probably the most difficult aspects of teaching for the teachers ( 5 ).

On the other hand, teaching is a complicated process in which the teachers have to win the hearts of the students and even feel themselves attached to the unruly students ( 6 ). This winning of the hearts occurs via interpersonal interactions. Studies have shown that the teachers who support the development of such relationships encounter less behavioral problems in their classroom on the part of the students and experience a better academic performance ( 7 ).

The learners’ behavioral problems are challenging in all academic levels. Destructive behavior refers to the repetition and persistence in the behaviors of some students that disrupt the teachers’ teaching and students’ learning ( 8 ).

Most studies have shown that the learners’ misbehaviors and classroom management are one of the biggest challenges and concerns of teachers ( 9 ). Disciplinary problems also cause academic failure in the larners and have a negative impact on the academic atmosphere and learning in the classroom ( 10 ). According to most teachers, if behavioral problems occur frequently in the classroom, making communication during teaching is disturbed ( 11 ), teachers will not be able to teach, and learners will not be able to learn. Nowadays, the educational psychologists believe that effective classroom management can promote the learners’ learning opportunities ( 12 ). Every educator, instead of getting angry, insulting the students and sending them out of class in the face of encountering disruptive behavior, can use effective classroom management strategies ( 13 ). Teachers should learn the claroom managemnet startegeis and apply the most efficient ones based on the conditions ( 14 ).

The vital components of teachers’ preparation are knowledge and skills about the students’ education and familiarity with relevant and effective fields of study to bring about efficient development and familiarity with unconventional cases and classroom management skills ( 5 ).

Moreoevr, teachers need to be fully prepared to confront the challenges inside the classroom ( 15 ). Different studies have sporadically investigated the classroom managemnt techniques and confrontation strategies for the students’ disruptive behaviors ( 16 ). However, few stduies have analyzed these methods. In the last two decades, a global movement by the redsearchers and policymakers has been initiated to stduy the factors involved in making the educational systems more efficient ( 17 ). Hence, the present research aimed to review the techniques and strategies used in classroom managemnt to cope with the stduents’ disruptive behaviors.

The present review employed a systematized, evidence-based approach. This method includes one or more characteristics of a systematic review, but it does no claim to present the same results as a systematic review does. In this study, the articles were not assessed qualitatively ( 18 ). To use the content of articles based on the study objectives, the content of each paper was studied several times and the teachers’ strategies in coping with the stduents’ disruptive behaviors were extracted and classified separately. The Science Direct, PubMed and Scopus databases and Google Scholar search engine were searched using the keywords of classroom management, students’ disruptive behavior, difficult students and confrontation strategies; the articles published from 2000 to 2017 were selected. This period was chosen because ( 19 ) of inevitable changes in education, teaching/learning methods, classroom management and prevalence of electronic equipment like computer and cell phone in the last two decades ( 20 ).

The inclusion criteria of the articles, in addition to the period 2000-2017, consisted of focus of stduy on the problems or challenges proposed in classroom management, access to full-text articles, and papers written in English language. The exclusion criteria comprised of abstracts without the text and articles focusing on course content management instead of classroom managemnet. Searching was performed by two researchers. First, the title and abstract of the articles were studied and irrelevant papers were detected. Then, the full-text artiles focusing on the challenges and problems of classroom managemnt and stdudents’ disruptive behaviors were retrieved and analyzed. The papers whose full-text was not accessible or whose language was other than English were excluded from the study. In the case of contradiction between the two researchers’ viewpoints on one article, a third researcher was asked to make decision about the given paper. The extracted data from the resources were organized and summarized, and the expressions from original articles used by the authors were used ( 19 ). ( Table 1 , Figure 1 )

Search strategy in different databases

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Object name is JAMP-6-102-g001.jpg

Flow diagram of the systematic review

From among 153 articles searched in databases, 31 were included in the final analysis ( Table 2 ). As shown, most of the studies were conducted in the United States and the most frequently used research method was survey. Furthermore, the conflict management strategies that teachers used for the students’ disruptive behaviors were classified into three categories, including cooperative and problem solving strategies, avoidance strategies and punishment strategies, as shown in Table 3 .

Characteristics of the articles included in the study

Teachers’ strategies in coping with students’ disruptive behaviors

The aim of this study was a Review of Conflict Management Strategies Teachers for disturbing behaviors the students use in the classroom.

A factor that disturbed the classroom management was controversial issues between the teacher and students. There are numerous strategies for solving this problem. With respect to the situations and circumstances, the instructor should use the most effective strategy in that position. According to its results, it is one of the strategies which are very effective in eliminating the contradiction, the existence of order in the effectiveness of teacher teaching. A classroom teacher can provide a good learning environment for students.

In cooperative and problem solving strategies, problem solving is a purposeful behavior that requires an appropriate mental manifestation of the problem. Then, appropriate methods and strategies are needed to promote the problem from the initial stage to a desirable and purposeful status, during which the students’ active participation is highly emphasized because the students share and set up the activities. Based on the collected data, the following strategies are indicative of these kinds of strategies ( 21 ). One of the significant strategies in conflict management in the classroom is employing disciplinary strategy. This strategy should be used along with promotion of accountability and its reinforcement in students by involving the students in the subject of class and encouraging them to negotiate and discuss. Discipline is necessary for creating a favorable ground to prevent the students’ misuse and deviation from the learning process ( 22 ). Teachers also need to equip themselves with two aspects of science and skills, especially in the field of classroom education, and get familiar with its principles so that they can pursue learning goals.

Designing a lesson plan with clear expectations adjusted to the course objectives, in addition to creating discipline, is a strategy that can prevent conflicts due to indefinite expectations. Also, making more time for the students and having an intimate relationship with them are techniques that reduce challenging behaviors in students ( 23 ). Using positive reinforcement and encouragement, maintaning proper behaviors, using simple and effective educational methods and clarity of class rules have been suggested to be helpful. In this regard, the use of multiple techniques in appropriate circumstances is an effective way to advance the teaching process ( 24 ). Unity of teachers over classroom mangemnt and educational planning has been suggested to prevent confrontation with the students’ disruptive behaviors ( 25 ).

Factors such as the students being late to class, leaving the class early and using the class time for irrelevant conversation with the teacher can disrupt the classroom process and negatively affect the other students’ satisfaction. In such conditions, teachers are suggested to set attendance rules at the beginning of their class and encourage the students to focus on the course by using their verbal skills ( 26 ). Teachers should also talk to these stduents in a quiet and private environemnt with respect and explain the effect of disruptive behvaiors on the classroom. They also need to mention the rules of disruptive behaviors and provide the stduents with a chance to improve or stop their disruptive behaviors ( 27 ).

Other issues that need to be considered in creating discipline and regulations are culture and gender. Studies have shown a relationship between gender and students’ behavior in the classroom, and boys have been reported to have a more destructive behavior than the girls. Studies have also indicated that the teachers’ behavior in coping with students is different depending on their gender, and boys receive more negative feedback than the girls from their teachers ( 28 ).

The teachers’ report of students’ disruptive behaviors has been found to be associated with the teachers’ gender, their experience and field of work ( 29 ). The female teachers face more students’ misbehavirs than the male counterparts. In this regard, the cooperation of school adminidtators and teachers can be effecive in controlling the students’ disruptive behaviors ( 30 ).

Further, diverse disciplinary strategies are used differently in various cultures and nations, and cultural factors and differences among countries dictate different behaviors in dealing with students. For example, the cultural differences related to respect for men and women, disciplinary strictness and military interventions in various countries affect classroom management ( 31 ). Therefore, familiartity with cultural differences and using cooperative and problem solving strategies depending on the cultural values of every educational institution are of great importance.

Using learning strategies, classroom management by the teacher, creating stronger bonds among the students and establishing an interactive educational environment can be helpful in coping with students’ disruptive behaviors ( 32 , 33 ).

Making a mutual relationship creates a ground for teacher-student interaction during the teaching period, in which the teacher will not spend time on unnecessary issues. The more a teacher’s knowledge of learners, the more he/she will be logical in dealing with their different personality types. Effective claroom management depends on the teacher’s ability in using an appropriate tone and encouraging the learners to cooperate in the classroom ( 22 ). Effecive comminicaion helps to clarify the facts and reduce the chance of conflict. Effective communication means both stduents and teachers need to talk clearly and listen carefully and exchange ideas in order to come to a mutual understanding ( 14 ). If the instructor cannot communicate effectively with learners, one cannot expect to be able to provide classroom conditions for more learning. The observance of this principle will increase the student's psychological safety and will follow the presence of a space with mutual respect of professors and students.

Skills such as emotional intelligence can reduce the negative effects of stress in students. This kind of intelligence helps human beings through the management of interpersonal and intrapersonal communications. Accordingly, a student can better receive help from a teacher by virtue of better communication with him/her ( 34 ).

Studies have sown that some students’ misbehaviors ocuur due to the teacher’s lack of attention to the students’ talks and absence of skill in guiding the class discussion. From the stduents’ viewpoint, these behaviors can disturb the students’ learning and teacher’s teaching ( 35 ).

Some stdueis have indicated that talking out of turn, daydreaming, inanity, disrespect toward teachers and verbal aggression, use of electronic machines like cell phone to send text message, games, surfing the web and listening to music are current classroom problems. These problems are indicative of this reality that stduents do not have proper learning attitudes and values and are tired, lazy and unmotivated. Teachers have to make time to manage the classroom and teach problem solving strategies in various classroom situations. Otherwise, such behaviors will occur more frequently and intensely with the passage of time ( 2 ).

To understand the students’ behaviors, teachers need to put themselves in their shoes and make sure other measures are useless before using punishment methods. Proper use of reward can be a positive controller and can help to restore the students’ self-esteem, solve the problem fundamentally, improve the teacher-student relationship, and reduce the possible occurrence of misbehavior in students. The teacher should adopt a friendly approach in the classroom and try not to apply tough, harsh and parental behaviors ( 36 ).

On the other hand, correct implementation of moralities and sensitivity to the ethical issues of the students play a vital role in making effective communication, interpersonal commitments, and social interactions. Sympathy is one of the essential factors involved in ethical commitment that enhances moral sensitivity ( 37 ). Hence, familiarity with and attention to the concept of sympathy and employment of this skill from the very beginning terms and renforcing it in stduents can be helpful in establishing an efficient teacher-stduent communication, thereby preventing the destructive behaviors.

The findings of Yusoff et al. showed that faculties that were responsible for teacher training did not prepare the novice teachers for the management of problematic classes. This is one of the reasons for quitting the profession, especially among the novice teachers ( 38 ).

For the classroom management, teachers have to know that the students’ misbehavior may be due to physical problems, emotional challenges and environemntal factors. Thus, a teacher’s correct recognition of and attention to these factors and preparing the novice teachers will decrease the disorders ( 39 ). Disrespect in the academic environemnt has a negative impact on the health of the teacher and student, weakens the professional communications and inhibits effective learning-teaching process ( 23 ).

In this regard, the teachers’ favorable psychological condition is important for communication with students. Teaching can be stressful and, therefore, diturb the teacher-stduent relationship. Teachers’ recognition and screening of psychological and educational conditions as well as eliminating the problems prior to the strat of teaching can reduce the incidence of communication problems ( 40 ). One of the methods teachers can make use of to deal with the stduents’ disruptive behaviors is the use of counselling and psychotherapeutic methods to create sympathy and describe attitude and negative behavior ( 5 ).

Some studies have suggested working with disruptive students, making time to solve their problems in the classroom and not coping with them are the best and most constructive strategeis in dealing with students ( 39 ). Creating a sense of belonging to the classroom increases the students’ self-confidence and desire for learning. In contrast, adopting punitive strategies and methods has a negative impact on the students ( 22 ).

Assigning responsibility to students with a proper behavior, expressing the trainer’s expectations from the studnets clearly, encouraging the students’ good and positive behaviors, predicting the learners’ behaviors, establishing mutual interaction with the students to correct their negaive behaviors, rewarding the studnets’ behaviors, encouraging postive behaviors, and returing the question to the students have been recommended to be helpful ( 2 ). Furthermore, by understanding the mechanism of the effect of classroom environemnt on the students’ behaviors, the teachers can use this environment to promote learning and better behaviors in students by encouraging participation and concentrating on interaction rather than punishment ( 41 ).

Some studies have suggested the mediating role of another perosn with more experience in dealing with disruptive studnets such as the university dean in order to resolve the conflicting situations in the classroom. Teachers can also use their recommendations and strategeis to resolve the conflicts ( 42 , 43 ).

Teachers believe that they can have more control over the students and prevent their drowsiness by arranging the chairs in a U-shape manner. Also, they can decrease the stduents’ sleepiness by incraesing the number of practical courses, reducing the class hours and not running classes after lunch ( 42 ). For more student-student and techer-stduent communication and interaction, in addition to arranging the chairs in U-shape, the physical environment of classroom like the color of walls and ventilation, which make the students lively and energetic and prevent lethargy and boredom, should be taken into consideration. Encouraging the students is another method that can be effective in classroom ( 44 ).

To prevent the students’ aggressiveness and disruptive behaviors, teaching techniques such as role-playing, active learning strategies, holding conferences with attendance of students and teachers and promotion of civil behaviors for more student participation in the learning process can be helpful ( 45 ).

Presenting the educational course content using appealing and diverse methods can be a successful strategy in handling the students’ aggression. Teaching strategies along with friendship strategies have also been recommended. Interactive teaching strategies and discovering the students’ learning abilities can improve the teacher-student relationship. Further, social skills can improve the teacher-student relationship and largely lead to a safe educational environment ( 42 , 46 ).

Students’ assessment has always been an educational problem and a challenge between teachers and students ( 40 ). Assessment is a process that requires appropriate and specific criteria and tools. Therefore, subjective evaluation cannot accurately show the abilities of stduents and may cause conflicts in teacher-student relationship ( 47 , 48 ).

Research has shown that providinmg the students with self-assessment and using their pespectives in designing the teaching process and plan can be effective in reducing disruptive behaviors and reactions ( 48 ). In this regard, the teachers’ readiness, experience, slef-confidence and self-efficacy in classroom management are of great significance. The management of disruptive behavior and misbehavior depends on the experience and self-efficacy ( 49 , 50 ). Hence, it is necessary to provide additional trainings and prepare the teachers before starting their classes ( 13 ).

Based on this systematic review, avoidance is another strategy. In this type of strategy, individuals avoid conflict or ignore their will for the benefit of others ( 21 ). The teachers’ attitudes in picking misbehavior management strategeis in the classroom are important. Results have shown that teachers that use avoidance strategeis make more use of agression and punishment strategies ( 51 ).

Some studies have recommended that tachers should avoide reaction against disruptive behaviors, avoid overreaction and not succumb to the stduents’ wishes. Moreover, being unresponsive to the disruptive questions in the classroom on the part of the teachers has been suggested ( 2 ).

Furthermore, studies have reported various classifications for the students’ disruptive behaviors in the classroom, and teachers often behave passively and do not react to the moderate disruptive behaviors ( 41 ).

Every teacher in his/her classroom may confront unruly students with disruptive behaviors. Students’ disruptive behaviors can be such instances as sleeping in the class, talking with classmates, talking on the phone, playing online games or even doing aggressive behaviors which can lead to disturbed learning and teacher’s anger ( 52 ). Some of teacher use punishment strategies such as the meaningful looks of the teacher at a learner who is making noise decreases his/her misbehavior. In addition, looking angrily at the learners who have disrupted the classroom makes them listen to the teacher ( 53 ).

Effective communication can be achieved by using appropriate educational behaviors, listening to the stduents and giving equal attention to the stduents by looking at them similarly. A teacher must be a role model. Some teachers consider themselves superior to the studnets and regularly try to humiliate them by sarcastic language, which consequently leads to inefficient educational atmosphere. The result of such an approach is impolite student and reaction to the teacher’s unfair behaviors ( 25 ).

Behaviors like understimating students, fear of teacher and teacehr’s unrealistic expectation from stduents can bring about disruptive behaviors in students. Thus, respect for a successful teaching is neccesary, and the faculty memebrs or teachers play a vital role in creating a respectful educational environment ( 25 , 42 ).

In rare cases, students may insist on doing their disruptive behaviors. In such cases, administrative and disciplinary measures may be required. Taking actions to stop disruptive behaviors, getting students involved in the learning process and preventing other students’ involvement are some strategies that can help the teachers in this regard ( 54 ).

Teachers’ prejudice about the human nature, especially inherent tendencies of the students in using classroom management strategies, is considered significant. A teacher who has negative assumptions about the student’s nature selects the classroom management strategies aiming to control the student by punishment, coercion and reward. On the other hand, teachers who consider the students inherently good control them by discussion, talk and encouragement to do good behaviors ( 38 ).

Criticisms and punishment for misbehavior are strategies that teachers usually use (Sun 2015). Removing students from classroom, administrative referrals, limiting and inhibiting the student’s activity are behaviors that are performed by inefficient teachers ( 24 ).

Limitation:

In this study, only English-language studies were used and limited databases were searched for articles.

Implications for future research and practice:

According to the results of this study, it is recommended that studies should be carried out aiming at identifying and presenting solutions to interrupt the students' disruptive behaviors to more accurately understand these behaviors and solutions to fix these factors. Also, given that the students’ cultural differences and students’ personality can affect the use of these strategies, considering these factors is important in future studies.

The findings of this research showed that studies mostly focus on using cooperative and problem solving strategies, and most of the methods emphasized establishing mutual communication and interaction with students to correct their negative behaviors, training and preparing the teachers for coping with students’ disruptive behaviors, and using various teaching methods and approaches based on the classroom situation. Punishment and avoidance strategies like removing students from the class and humiliating them are not recommended.

Having knowledge and skills about education and establishing an effective communication in the classroom can bring about effecive development and familiarity with unconventional cases and classroom management skills. Since unrespectful and threatening behaviors, disrespect and violating the teacher's privacy and the classroom, even minimally, can significantly influence the educational environments, it is necessary to have adequate knowledge about such behaviors. Hence, future interventional stdueis are suggested to identify appropriate strategeis for dealing with these behaviors, and by recognizing the behaviors by the advisors and counseling centers, universities need to try to elimnate these challenges. Furthermroe, meetings on reforming the curricula, assessment methods and content of curriculum are required to be held to meet the professional needs and modify professional communications. Group discussions are also advised to attract diferent perspectives, exchange ideas and teach stress control techniques.

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How To: Handle Common Classroom Problem Behaviors Using a Behavior Management Menu

This document groups potential teacher responses to classroom behavior incidents into 8 'menu' categories: (1) Behavior reminder, (2) academic adjustment, (3) environmental adjustment, (4) warning, (5) time-out, (6) response cost, (7) behavior conference, and (8) defusing strategies. Teachers can use these categories as a framework for organizing their own effective strategies for managing student problem behaviors.

1, BEHAVIORAL REMINDER . A behavioral reminder is a brief, neutral prompt to help the student to remember and follow classroom behavioral expectations (Simonsen,  Fairbanks, Briesch, Myers, & Sugai, 2008).

When to Use: This strategy is used when the student appears to be distracted or otherwise requires a simple reminder of expected behaviors.

Examples: Here are examples of behavioral reminders:

  • The teacher makes eye contact with the student who is misbehaving and points to a classroom rules chart.
  • The teacher approaches the off-task student to remind him/her of the specific academic task the student should be doing.
  • The teacher proactively provides behavioral reminders just when the student needs to use them.

2. ACADEMIC ADJUSTMENT. An academic adjustment is a change made to the student's academic task(s) to improve behaviors. Such changes could include the amount of work assigned, provision of support to the student during the work, giving additional time to complete the work, etc. (Kern, Bambara  & Fogt, 2002).

When to Use: Academic adjustments can be useful when the teacher judges that the student's problem behaviors are triggered or exacerbated by the required academic task(s).

Examples: Here are examples of academic adjustments:

  • The teacher pre-teaches challenging vocabulary to the student prior to a large-group discussion.
  • The teacher adjusts the difficulty of the assigned academic work to match the student's abilities ('instructional match').
  • The teacher allows the student additional time to complete an academic task.

3. ENVIRONMENTAL ADJUSTMENT . An environmental adjustment is a change made to some aspect of the student's environment to improve behaviors (Kern & Clemens, 2007). When to Use: This strategy is used when the teacher judges that an environmental element (e.g., distracting activities, proximity of another student) is contributing to the student's problem behavior. Examples: Here are examples of environmental adjustments:

  • The teacher moves the student's seat away from distracting peers.
  • The teacher collects distracting objects from a student (e.g., small toys, paperclips) during a work session.
  • The student is given a schedule of the day to prepare her for upcoming academic activities.

4. WARNING. A warning is a teacher statement informing the student that continued misbehavior will be followed by a specific disciplinary consequence (Simonsen,  Fairbanks, Briesch, Myers, & Sugai, 2008). When to Use: A warning is appropriate when the teacher judges (a) that the student has control over his or her behavior and (b) that a pointed reminder of impending behavioral consequences may improve the student's behavior. Whenever possible, it is recommended that proactive strategies such as providing behavioral reminders or eliminating environmental/academic triggers be tried before using warnings. Examples: Here are examples of warnings:

  • The teacher tells the student that if the problem behavior continues, the student will lose the opportunity for free time later that day.
  • The student is warned that continued misbehavior will result in the teacher's calling the parent.

5. TIME OUT . Time-out (from reinforcement) is a brief removal of the student from the setting due to problem behaviors (Yell, 1994). When to Use: Time-out from reinforcement can be effective in situations when the student would prefer to be in the classroom setting rather than in the time-out setting. Time-out sessions should typically be brief (e.g., 3-10 minutes). Because time-out is a punishment procedure, the teacher should first ensure that appropriate, less intrusive efforts to improve student behavior (e.g., behavior reminders, warnings, elimination of behavioral triggers) have been attempted before using it. If a teacher finds that a student does not improve behaviors despite several repetitions of time-out, other behavior management strategies should be tried instead. Preparation: If time-out is to occur within the classroom, the teacher should identify the time-out location in advance and ensure that students placed there can be easily observed but are sufficiently removed from the current classroom activity. If the time-out location is out of the classroom, the teacher should arrange with other adults in advance (e.g., participating teachers whose classrooms may be time-out locations) to work out details for students to enter and exit time-out and for supervising students during time-out. Examples: Here are examples of time-out from reinforcement:

  • The teacher sends a student to a study carrel  in the corner of the classroom for 5 minutes for misbehavior.
  • The teacher sends a misbehaving student to a neighboring classroom for 10 minutes, where the student is to sit alone and complete classwork.

6. RESPONSE COST. Response cost is the taking away of privileges or other valued elements ('cost') in response to student misbehavior (DuPaul & Stoner, 2002) When to Use: Response cost can be an effective response to misbehavior, provided that the student actually values the privilege or element being taken away. Because response cost is a punishment procedure, the teacher should first ensure that appropriate, less intrusive efforts to improve student behavior (e.g., behavior reminders, warnings, elimination of behavioral triggers) have been attempted before using it. Preparation: Prior to implementing response cost, the teacher may want to create a series of 'privileges' in the classroom that students find motivating and do not want to lose (e.g., point systems for good behavior; free time). Examples: Here are examples of response-cost:

  • Because of misbehavior, a student loses access to classroom free time at the end of the day.
  • A student is given 5 good-behavior points at the start of class--and then has one deducted for each incident of misbehavior.

7. BEHAVIOR CONFERENCE. A behavior conference is a brief meeting between teacher and student to discuss the student's problem behavior(s) (Fields, 2004). While the structure and content of a behavior conference will vary based on circumstances, it will typically include some or all of the following elements:

  • Description of the problem behavior. The teacher describes the student's behavior and explains why it is presenting a problem in the classroom.
  • Open-ended questions and student input. The teacher asks open-ended questions to fully understand what factors are contributing to the problem behavior.
  • Problem-solving. Teacher and student discuss solutions to the problem behavior and agree to a plan.
  • Disciplinary reminder . If appropriate, the teacher concludes the conference by informing the student of the disciplinary consequence that will occur if the problem behavior continues.

When to Use: The behavior conference is a useful tool for the teacher who:

  • wishes to better understand reasons of the student problem behavior before acting.
  • wants to model that it is better for the student to communicate his or her needs to the teacher through discussion than by engaging in acting-out behaviors.

Examples: Here are examples of a behavior conference:

  • A teacher approaches the desk of a student who appears upset to explore what triggered that student's current emotional distress and to figure out how best to respond to the situation.
  • A non-compliant student is taken aside by the teacher for a brief in-class conference, in which the teacher establishes that the student is in control of her behavior, states the behavioral expectations for the classroom, and informs the student that she will be given a disciplinary referral if her behaviors do not improve immediately.

8. DEFUSING TECHNIQUES. Defusing techniques are any teacher actions taken to calm a student or otherwise defuse a situation with the potential for confrontation or emotional escalation (Daly & Sterba, 2011). When to Use: When the teacher judges that the student's negative emotions are a significant contributor to the problem behaviors, defusing techniques are appropriate to stabilize the situation. Examples: Here are examples of defusing techniques:

  • The teacher temporarily removes academic work from a student who is reacting negatively to the assignment.
  • The teacher encourages a student to sit in a quiet corner of the room for a few minutes to collect herself before conferencing with the teacher.
  • The teacher sends a  student to the guidance counselor to discuss the issue(s) causing him anger.

BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT MENU: MIDDLE SCHOOL EXAMPLE

A 7th-grade English teacher, Mrs. Stevenson, decides to develop a behavior management menu to help her to respond more flexibly and effectively to common student misbehaviors in her classroom. Once that menu is in place, Mrs. Stevenson is able to manage two different student situations with success:

Episode 1: Francine. A student, Francine, is in a morning section of class, whispering to two of her friends sitting nearby. Mrs. Stevenson can see that the whispering is beginning to distract students in proximity to Francine.

  • Behavioral Reminder . The teacher makes eye contact with Francine while teaching and puts a finger to her lips to signal that the student should stop talking and attend to instruction.
  • Environmental Adjustment. When Francine continues to talk to peers, the teacher moves her to a seat near the front of the room, away from her friends and close to the teacher.
  • Warning. Francine continues to clown at her desk, making faces and whispering comments to no one in particular.  The teacher approaches her desk and tells Francine quietly that if she continues to talk and distract other students, she will need to stay after class for a teacher conference, which will probably make her late for lunch. Francine’s behaviors improve immediately.

Episode 2: Jay. A student, Jay, walks into English class after lunch one day appearing visibly upset. When Mrs. Stevenson directs the class to pull out a homework assignment for review, Jay sits in his seat looking flushed and angry. He does not take out his work.

  • Behavioral Reminder. The teacher approaches Jay and quietly asks that he pull out his homework. She then returns to the front of the room.
  • Behavior Conference. The teacher sees that Jay is still not getting out his homework. She gives the class a 5-minute assignment to review their homework before submitting and uses that time to meet briefly with Jay in the hallway. She asks open-ended questions and discovers that Jay is angry about an incident that occurred at lunch.
  • Defusing Techniques. Based on information gathered during the behavior conference, the teacher decides that Jay needs to meet with a mental health staff member to talk through and resolve his issue from lunch. She issues Jay a pass. Ultimately, he meets for 20 minutes with the school psychologist, calms down, and is able to return to class.

Attachments

  • Download This Blog Entry in PDF Format: How To: Handle Common Classroom Problem Behaviors Using a Behavior Management Menu
  • Daly, D. L., & Sterba, M. N. (2011). Working with aggressive youth: Positive strategies to teach self-control and prevent violence.  Boys Town, NE: Boys Town Press.
  • DuPaul & Stoner, 2002 DuPaul, G.J., & Stoner, G. (2002). Interventions for attention problems. In M. Shinn, H.M. Walker, & G. Stoner (Eds.) Interventions for academic and behavioral problems II: Preventive and remedial approaches (pp. 913-938). Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists.
  • Fields, B. (2004). Breaking the cycle of office referrals and suspensions: Defensive management. Educational Psychology in Practice, 20, 103-115.
  • Kern, L., Bambara, L., & Fogt, J. (2002). Class-wide curricular modification to improve the behavior of students with emotional or behavioral disorders. Behavioral Disorders, 27,317-326.
  • Kern, L, & Clemens, N.(2007). Antecedent strategies to promote appropriate classroom behavior. Psychology in theSchools, 44(1), 65-75.
  • Marzano, R. J., Marzano, J. S., & Pickering, D. J. (2003). Classroom management that works: Research-based strategies for every teacher. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
  • Simonsen, B., Fairbanks, S., Briesch, A., Myers, D., & Sugai, G. (2008). Evidence-based practices in classroom management: Considerations for research to practice. Evaluation and Treatment of Children, 31(3), 351-380.
  • Sprick, R. S., Borgmeier, C., & Nolet, V. (2002). Prevention and management of behavior problems in secondary schools. In M. A. Shinn, H. M. Walker & G. Stoner (Eds.), Interventions for academic and behavior problems II: Preventive and remedial approaches (pp.373-401). Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists.
  • Yell, M.L. (1994). Timeout and students with behavior disorders: A legal analysis. Education and Treatment of Children, 17, 293-301.

problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

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12 Teacher Strategies to Inspire Listening, Learning and Self-Control

Detention doesn’t work. neither does criticism. or yelling. in fact, they may actually aggravate and encourage a child’s defiance. what does work these strategies for managing negative adhd behavior in the classroom — and teaching students better skills for the long run..

Shari Ghent

Challenging Classroom Behavior

Let’s start with the bad news: Teachers can’t actually control their students’ behavior . That’s because the only behavior a person can control is his or her own. And when teachers try to directly restrict what students say or do, they’re usually left feeling frustrated and helpless.

The good news? Teachers can apply some evidence-based strategies to help students take charge of their own behavior and learn how to interact with their environment in a positive way.

problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

Why Do Kids Misbehave?

Behavior is a form of communication. For kids with ADHD, poor behavior usually blossoms from a skill deficit. A child who’s unable to express his frustration verbally may instead throw his pencil across the room; a child who feels socially ostracized may respond by pushing a classmate on the playground. The only way to prevent these undesirable outcomes is for teachers to identify the root causes of bad behavior — and set up systems that promote greater self-awareness and self-control.

problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

What Can Teachers Do?

Of course, this is easier said than done because each child and situation is unique. But children with ADHD do tend to exhibit certain behavior patterns that stem from common triggers. To avoid these, teachers can use these 12 strategies to create structure, reduce boredom, and help children with ADHD connect causes to effects.

[ 10 Back-to-School Promises from a Very Cool Teacher ]

problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

1. Make expectations clear.

Kids feel more in control when they know exactly what’s expected of them, which is why teachers should begin each new school year by establishing clear behavioral expectations. Begin by asking the class to help you devise a list of rules to keep everyone’s attention focused on learning. Be sure to state the rules in a positive way whenever possible to give children positive behavioral goals. “Raise your hand and wait to be called on before speaking” is better than “Don’t speak unless you’re called on.”

A cartoon schedule to help students manage their behavior

2. Have a predictable daily schedule.

Kids also feel in control when teachers post a clear, easy-to-follow schedule for everyone to see. For younger kids, the schedule may include pictures — an image of a book to represent quiet reading time, for instance. For older kids, it may include homework specifics and main objectives of the day’s lessons. Teachers should check off or erase items as the day progresses to help kids with ADHD learn to manage their time and prepare for upcoming transitions — a common trigger for bad behavior.

A teenager getting things out of his locker to help him manage his behavior in the classroom

3. Explicitly teach routines.

Daily, repeated tasks like lining up for recess, sitting through roll call, or copying down homework assignments don’t always come naturally to students with ADHD. Teachers may interpret the child’s forgetfulness or confusion as defiance, when it’s really just a product of underdeveloped executive functions.

To prevent schedule slip-ups — and the problem behaviors that often come with them — a teacher may need to work one-on-one with some students to explicitly teach the daily routine. If a child repeatedly acts out at certain times of day, for instance, a “cue card” designed especially for those trigger situations can be helpful. An example: If a student struggles to settle into quiet reading time after recess — and instead provokes other children or moves around the room — he may benefit from a small card that spells out all the steps he needs to follow the moment he returns from recess. On days when he successfully completes all the steps, a small reward can help reinforce the correct routine.

A teacher discussing student behavior with the kids in his classroom

4. Be consistent.

When kids with ADHD don’t follow directions, it’s sometimes due to defiance — but more often it’s because they failed to understand or pay attention to each step. Teachers can avoid this by establishing an auditory or visual cue that alerts the entire class that you’re about to give a direction — clapping your hands twice, for instance, or standing in the same spot every time you impart an instruction. Once students become accustomed to the cue, you’ll be amazed at how much better they tune in!

[ Free Handout: ADHD 101 for Teachers ]

A teacher giving directions to two students to help them manage their behavior

5. Give better directions.

Kids are better able to follow the instructions of teachers who do the following:

  • Make eye contact. Of course, you can’t hold eye contact with 25 children at once while you speak. But you can do a quick scan of the room to make sure every child is looking at you before you begin speaking, and make eye contact with the few who are struggling to maintain attention.
  • Break tasks into steps. Chunking large amounts of information into smaller pieces makes it easier for children to digest. Writing each step on the board as you go is also a good idea for children who process information visually.
  • Ask kids to restate. Check for comprehension by asking a few children to repeat back what’s expected of them. Rephrasing instructions in their own words makes it more likely children will understand — and follow — them.

problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

6. Teach emotional regulation.

Kids with ADHD feel emotions more intensely than do their peers. This makes it tough to put on the brakes when a situation triggers feelings of anger or excitement, which can result in aggressive or inappropriate behavior. And since emotions are abstract, many children can’t identify what they’re feeling — and don’t know what they need to do to calm down again.

Teachers can help students regain emotional control by helping them recognize physical signs of strong emotions, and offering strategies for reacting appropriately. There are many different ways to do this, including a structured program called The Zones of Regulation. Teachers can learn more at zonesofregulation.com .

Desks arranged in a way that helps students manage their behavior in the classroom

7. Create external structure in the classroom environment.

Structure is more than a daily routine. It’s also possible to arrange the classroom’s physical environment in ways that make it less likely students will act out. This can be done by positioning the desks in a specific way — a U-shape helps children manage their behavior since they’re all easily accessible by the teacher — or by setting up “stations” around the room for different activities. Group work, for instance, might always take place in the corners of the room, so kids with ADHD are less likely to get distracted or involved in what other groups are doing.

problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

8. Make consequences immediate.

When children do misbehave, consequences should follow swiftly. Kids with ADHD struggle to connect delayed punishments — like after-school detention — to negative behavior during the day. If the child is able to directly associate the punishment with the undesired behavior, she’ll be more likely to change that behavior in the future.

problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

9. Make better behavior a class-wide goal.

Singling out children who act out can backfire and lead to more bad behavior. Instead, set up a systematic behavior management framework — like a token system — that the whole class adheres to, so no one child feels the teacher is fixating specifically on him. If you prefer a more high-tech approach, apps like ClassDojo (for younger kids) or RedCritter Teacher (for older kids) can help you measure and track the behavior of your entire class.

Smiling teacher kneeling beside ADHD student

10. Provide students with options.

One way to avoid oppositional behavior — and help children feel they can control frustrating situations — is to present them with a choice. For instance, if a child is refusing to work on an assignment, ask her, “What would help you get this done: working with a partner or going to a quiet room to finish on your own?” When the scenario is presented this way, completing the assignment isn’t optional — but the student retains some control over exactly how it gets done.

Girl with ADHD high fiving her teacher in classroom

11. Make good behavior a game.

Boredom is a common trigger for kids with ADHD. When the ADHD brain is bored, it seeks stimulation — sometimes in the form of disruptive behavior. Teachers can provide some novelty to a restless brain by turning good behavior into a game. A straightforward point system — where earned points can be exchanged for rewards each day or each week — is an easy way for teachers to encourage good behavior.

Other teachers choose to split students into teams that compete to obtain a desired behavior — which team can read quietly for the longest amount of time? Or who can organize their desks the fastest? A quick behavior game will break up the long school day and plays to the ADHD desire for novelty and competition, while clearly modeling the expected behavior.

Teens exercising outdoors to improve their behavior in the classroom

12. Allow movement.

Decades of research directly link physical movement to mental stamina, improved cognitive ability, and better behavior. All children — but especially those with ADHD — learn and conduct themselves better when they’re given frequent opportunities to move throughout the day. Having children march in place while reciting math facts, for instance, won’t just help them with memorization. It will also burn off excess energy and reduce the chance of outbursts later. And remember: recess should never be taken away as a punishment — doing so only increases the chance that a child will redirect his unused energy in a negative way.

A teacher looking serious about student behavior in the classroom

Teachers Can't Fix Everything

These rules aren’t exhaustive. The goal of each is to teach better behavior over the long-term AND design a classroom environment where students are more likely to behave. But children will still act out. It’s important to remember that, as a teacher, sometimes a child’s behavior will be beyond your ability to correct. If a child is repeatedly engaging in behavior that’s dangerous to himself or others, seek additional help — from a qualified behavioral psychologist, the student’s IEP team, or the child’s parents.

[ Free Resource: How Teachers Can Manage Classroom Behavior ]

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problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

Home » Tips for Teachers » Learn 5 Strategies How to Deal with Behavior Problem Students to Regain Classroom Control

Learn 5 Strategies How to Deal with Behavior Problem Students to Regain Classroom Control

Being a teacher can be a very fulfilling profession. However, it can also be a very challenging on at times, too.

From all the paperwork, grading, planning, and everything else that is needed to serve your class and help them learn. One other thing that can really challenge us as teachers is our students, particularly those with behavior problems.

How to deal with difficult students

Over my years in the classroom, I’ve certainly had my fair share of difficult students. If you feel at a loss about what to do to help your students learn and manage their behaviors, you’re not alone. School-wide behavior programs can help, but there are other things that you as the teacher can be doing with your students.

I decided to put this article together to help share some strategies and tips that have worked for me when working with disruptive students . According to statistical odds, it is likely that approximately 10% of your school’s population is facing serious mental health problems, violence or abuse at home, neglect, food uncertainty, or trauma .

When students are facing severe trauma or stressors, their brains aren’t able to learn. The key is to learn how to reach beyond these stressors that children are facing and help them learn how to regulate their behaviors and emotions. This is when the learning will be able to occur.

Continue reading, and you will know:

  • The different types of difficult students →
  • Common reasons behind the destructive behavior→
  • How to improve communication and prevent challenging situations→
  • Strategies to help you manage behavior problems in the classroom→

4 Types of Difficult Students

If you’ve been in the classroom for even just a few months, you’ve likely had a least a few difficult students. While you many not be familiar with the formal names for the different categories of difficult students, I’m pretty sure some of them will sound familiar as you read.

Types of difficult students

Here are some of the main different types of difficult students:

  • Disruptive students: As their name suggests, disruptive students are those who are frequently disrupting your teaching or the other students in the classroom. The exact behaviors that are displayed, can vary depending on the student, but may include calling out, walking around the room, interrupting others from doing their work, and more.
  • Defiant students: Defiant students are those who refuse to follow your directions. The level of defiance, again, can vary, but may include refusing to complete their work, refusing to follow classroom rules, or just a general refusal to do anything you ask. This level of defiance can also vary throughout the day or week, even for the same student.
  • Inattentive students: Inattentive students are distracted and not engaged in learning. It is probably clear to you that they aren’t paying attention, but you can’t seem to get them to follow along with your lessons.
  • Students displaying apathy: Apathy refers to a lack of caring. Apathetic students may convey to you that they just don’t care how well they do in school, whether they follow the rules, or about any of the consequences you bring up.

7 Common Reasons Behind the Destructive Behavior

Reasons behind problematic behaviour

Unfortunately, there is not just one reason that students are disruptive or destructive in class. Here are some of the potential cause of behavior problems in your students :

  • Processing disorders
  • Learning disorders
  • Past or current trauma

How to Improve Communication in Class and Prevent Difficult Situations

Now that we’ve discussed some of the possible reasons behind the behavior of your students, you may be feeling at a loss for how to regain control of your classroom and help your students focus on the lesson.

Communication in class is important

As a teacher, your job is to coach your students and teaching them how to act responsibly . This is a big task and there is no ‘one’ thing you need to do. Every child is different and will require individual attention and support, but here are a few things you can do that should help improve your classroom and how your students behave:

  • Let your students know that their emotions are important and valid. Help them learn how to talk about and describe their emotions using clear and direct language, and in a calm manner.
  • Understand that you will need to get to the underlying cause of your students’ misbehavior to really address or extinguish negative behaviors, such as bullying, defiance, or aggression.
  • Explicitly teach and model conflict resolution skills to your students. Examples include teaching students to take deep breaths or count to 10 before responding, modeling showing respect and empathy when sharing a problem or concern, and repeating what the other person you’re speaking with said.
  • Focus a lot of your attention on rewarding the students who are doing the right things. Giving them positive attention can help behavior problem students see that they can still get the attention they’re seeking when they too listen and follow the expectations.
  • Set clear expectations for your students and stick to them. Make sure students know what the rules are and be consistent with enforcing them.
  • Make sure that the directions you are giving your students for independent work time are clear and easy to understand. You should also make sure that all the students in your room are able to hear you clearly so they understand what they are doing. A voice amplifier can help you save your voice while also ensuring it travels through the room for all to hear clearly.
  • Make sure that consequences are immediate (or as close to immediate as you can get). This will help ensure that your students associate the consequences with the behavior that you are trying to eliminate. Without a clear connection, it is less likely that their behavior will change.

The video below shares some additional tips that may help you work with and manage the behavior of your students. Watch closely for tips that apply to the students currently in your class that need some additional support.

What tips did you hear that you think will help your students? Are you ready to implement them and see the difference they make?

5 Strategies for Behavior Problems in the Classroom

The strategies below can help you manage and change the more extreme and difficult behaviors that some of your students may be exhibiting. Consider the types of behaviors your students are displaying and choose a few strategies to try that you think will be best in your situation.

Strategies to deal with problem students

  • Keep yourself calm: Despite how challenging it can be to stay calm in the moment, doing so is very important. It can help to de-escalate problem behaviors. Conversely, losing your temper can escalate the situation and cause the behavior to get worse.
  • Be consistent: Develop a plan and communicate consequences to students upfront. Then, when faced with a challenging student, stick with your plan and follow through with the consequences you’ve already communicated to the class. Failing to be consistent will just tell students that they may be able to get away with more.
  • Involve students in creating rules: At the beginning of the school year or semester, have your students work with you to develop the list of classroom rules and expectations. This can help them feel more vested and committed to following the rules. Remember to also periodically review the rules together as a class.
  • Document problematic behaviors: If you have students with more extreme or disruptive behaviors, start a behavior log to document them. Record the date, time, and behavior, as well as what happened before and after the behavior was displayed. This information can be helpful if you need to refer a student for administrative support or an Individualized Education Plan.
  • Reward positive behavior: Another behavior management strategy is to come up with a classroom reward system for students who are exhibiting the positive behaviors you’re looking for. For example, you could consider handing out “Classroom Cash” for students to spend at your class store. This can motivate students to listen and follow directions so that they’ll earn rewards too. You could buy small trinkets for your class store, or consider other rewards, such as extra time to play a game on the computer—don’t forget to pick up some headphones so the students don’t disturb others in the class as they play. 

If you’re looking for more strategies to help you learn how to deal with behavior problem students, I’d recommend watching this video. Amanda, the teacher in the video, has some very helpful tips that you can apply in your classroom.

I also found this video from Tips 4 Teachers to be quite informative. In it, a behavior expert, Sue Cowley, shares 8 different techniques that can help you bring order back into your classroom.

Now that you have more tips and suggestions, does managing your students’ behavior seem more doable? I have confidence in you, make sure that you believe in yourself as well, too!

Useful Resources

  • How To Get A Noisy Classroom’s Attention
  • Emotional Learning For Students
  • How To Improve Discipline
  • Conflict Resolution Techniques

Finding the right strategies to inspire your students and help them learn self-control can go a long way in helping you learn how to deal with behavior problem students. I hope you found the ideas and suggestions that I shared above helpful. Try them out with your students, and remember to be patient. Major change could take time, but you should likely see some smaller changes beginning to occur.

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Simona Johnes

Simona Johnes is the visionary being the creation of our project. Johnes spent much of her career in the classroom working with students. And, after many years in the classroom, Johnes became a principal.

problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

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  • 9 Reasons Why Teachers Should Accept Late Work: Balancing Discipline and Flexibility in Education - January 31, 2024

You wrote about the need to reward students for their succes. Could this have a negative effect on difficult students?

It is very important to treat all students equally, even if they cause problems. I usually praise difficult students even for small achievements because they need to put more effort than others. But try not to overdo it. For reward I always have a bunch of cute and funny stickers. I stick them on the work if the student did a good job. This is an easy way to pay attention to good behavior or grades. My class loves it!

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Improve Student Behavior in 4 Steps: A Problem-Solving Process & Success Story

problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

This post is part of our Social-Emotional Development blog series. Stay tuned for many more posts!

Students are better off in class than they are in the principal’s office. No one would disagree with that statement, and yet office disciplinary referrals are still a common solution for resolving conflicts or correcting student behavior. Today we’ll look at another way to address ongoing social and behavioral problems in schools: a four-step problem-solving process that will help resolve issues and get students back in the classroom as quickly as possible, so they can focus on learning.

Supporting Students with Emotional and Behavioral Problems

An ideal tool for any adult in educational settings—school counselors, educators, classroom aides—this effective problem-solving process is outlined in the new book Supporting Students with Emotional and Behavioral Problems, by Lee Kern, Michael George, & Mark Weist. There are four steps:

1) Problem identi­fication

2) Prevention

3) Action plan

4) Commitment to the plan

Here’s we’ll describe each of the steps briefly below, and then follow up with a case story from the book.

  • Problem Identification. In this step, your student should identify the issue that resulted in the problem behavior, review behavior expectations, and accept responsibility for the behavior. You can help by gently probing for details: “What caused you to become so upset?” Also, you can verbally review behavior expectations with the student, explain the rationale behind them, and clarify how it benefits everyone when students adhere to reasonable behavior expectations.
  • Prevention. Next, your student should identify a replacement behavior she could have used instead. Don’t be surprised if the student has trouble naming a replacement behavior—be patient, and help her brainstorm with questions like “What could you have done to avoid the problem?” Once she identifies a replacement behavior, prompt her to predict how using this behavior could help prevent similar problems in the future. Wrap up this step by asking what you can do differently next time to help your student manage her behavior.
  • Development of an Action Plan. You and your student will then develop a specific, simple, and concise plan to follow next time a similar situation pops up. Your action plan lays out behavioral expectations and be­gins with the words “Next time.” Here’s an example: “Next time I want the iPad and my classmate is using it, I will ask her when she will be finished. I will ask if I can use it after she is finished. I will then find some­thing else to do until she is finished.”
  • Commitment. When the student is calm, review the action plan with him, have him repeat the steps orally, and ask “Are you able to do these steps?” Your student should confirm that he sees the plan you created together as reasonable and do-able, and acknowledge his obligation to follow the plan in the future. Then he can be welcomed back to class to implement the plan when necessary.

So what does this look like in action? Here’s a story (excerpted from Supporting Students with Emotional and Behavioral Problems ) that shows a school counselor and a teacher implementing all four steps of the problem-solving process with a student named Ethan:

Ethan’s Story

Ethan, a student in Mr. Daniels’ math class, became extremely frustrated when a peer, Andrew, would not agree to play the game he chose during free time. Shortly after free time began, Ethan began to take and hide pieces of the game Andrew was playing. As free time continued, Ethan started to destroy toy pieces, eventually leaving the room and slamming the door behind him. When Ethan was located, he was directed to meet with the school counselor, Mrs. Simmons, and engage in problem solving.

Mrs. Simmons began by asking Ethan to explain the problem (problem identification). He had some difficulty at first, stating, “Andrew wasn’t being fair.” Mrs. Simmons guided him to think about how the problem started, and he was able to describe that he and Andrew wanted to play different games. She also led him to describe specifically why this made him angry. He claimed that there weren’t many games he enjoyed and, even though he liked playing with Andrew, Ethan didn’t like the games Andrew chose because he wasn’t good at them.

In the next phase, prevention , Mrs. Simmons and Ethan discussed what he could do in the future, rather than becoming destructive and leaving the room, when a similar situation arose. Ethan suggested that he could ask for the teacher’s help to resolve the problem. Mrs. Simmons agreed this was a good approach for the time being until Ethan could learn to resolve the problem with­out adult assistance.

The next step was to develop an action plan. Ethan’s plan needed to describe the specific actions he could perform when frustrated to help minimize the occurrence of the problem behavior in future similar situations. In Ethan’s situation, his action plan referred to the specific peer and interaction that was problematic, because he rarely had problems with other peers and needed specific guidance on interacting with Andrew. In addition, Mrs. Simmons and Ethan discussed the exact nature of “negotiation or deciding to play with someone else.” For example, they talked about deciding when it would be bet­ter to play alone. Ethan’s action plan was simple and straightforward:

  • Return to class and reenter quietly.
  • Negotiate with Andrew to play a game that I select, watch while Andrew plays with other kids so I can learn the rules of games I do not like, choose to play with another classmate, or play alone at my desk.
  • The next time I get frustrated, I will raise my hand to ask for the teacher’s help to resolve the problem rather than leave the room without permission.

Finally, during the last step, commitment , Ethan agreed that he could follow the steps in the action plan when he and Andrew could not agree on a game to play together. He repeated the plan to Mrs. Simmons and described situations when he might need to use the plan. Mrs. Simmons then escorted him back to class.

Mrs. Simmons communicated Ethan’s action plan to Mr. Daniels. In this situation, it was important for Mr. Daniels to know that Ethan now had a plan that encouraged him to raise his hand for teacher assistance when negotiating difficult social situations, and also to know the courses of action (watch, choose another classmate, or play alone) available to Ethan to resolve the problem. This also allowed Mr. Daniels to look for patterns of social errors, note when Ethan perceived (whether accurately or not) a social situation was not going his way, and prompt Ethan to use his action plan rather than becoming frustrated and attempting to gain control and escape the situation by leaving the room.

There are a number of other preemptive steps that Mr. Daniels could take in the future. Knowing Ethan’s triggers for anger and frustration, Mr. Daniels will say to the whole class prior to free time, “We have a limited number of games to play in the classroom during free time. I expect you to share. If you need help negotiating what to do, please raise your hand and I will help you.” He also will privately say to Ethan, “Free time is sometimes difficult for you. Remember, if you get angry or frustrated, all you have to do is raise your hand and ask for help.”

Initially, Ethan may not be able to independently recognize his mounting anger, and it will be necessary for Mr. Daniels to become more assertive and privately direct Ethan to use his action plan: “Ethan, I would like you to think about your options. If Andrew doesn’t want to play, you can ask another classmate to play or play alone at your desk.” If Ethan is observed following his action plan and does so appropriately, the teacher might say at the end of class, “Ethan, I am very proud of you for following through with your plan. I know free time has been a difficult period for you in the past. I can tell you’re really trying to do well.”

Problem solving has many built-in benefits.

  • Students with a history of behavior issues may feel that they’ve been punished without getting to explain their perceptions and experiences. The respectful, two-way problem-solving process gives them a voice.
  • Using problem-solving allows students to not only have their say, but also participate actively in the development of action plans, which may make students more likely to follow them.
  • Problem-solving is an easy way to embed social skills instruction in your curriculum, since you’re helping students develop alternate social behaviors they can use directly in the classroom.
  • Problem-solving returns students to class as quickly as possible, ready to learn and manage behaviors better.

What do you think? Do you use a similar process in your classroom to improve social skills and behaviors, and has it worked for you? Scroll down to add your comment below!

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Designing for Equity Collaborative Problem-Solving Around Challenging Behaviors in Kindergarten

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Jeff Heyck-Williams and Rachel Owens Two Rivers Public Charter School in Washington, D.C.

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Together, educators are doing the reimagining and reinvention work necessary to make true educational equity possible. Student-centered learning advances equity when it values social and emotional growth alongside academic achievement, takes a cultural lens on strengths and competencies, and equips students with the power and skills to address injustice in their schools and communities.

Providing Agency for Our Most Challenging Students, Part 1

Teachers can employ Collaborative Problem Solving to empower students with persistently challenging behaviors to change.

You may be familiar with the concept of the school-to-prison pipeline. The validity of this concept is built on the fact that overly punitive policies in schools towards misbehavior disproportionately impact the lives of our most disadvantaged students which has resulted in disproportionate rates of incarceration among poor and minority youth.

Simultaneously, if you work in a school, you have likely worked with students who demonstrate persistently challenging behaviors. As educators we need tools to respond to these behaviors. The tendency in the past has been to address these problems with punishments, under the assumption that if we punish kids more they will be inclined to behave in ways that are more productive for themselves and the community. However, as the concept of the school-to-prison pipeline suggests, these methods aren’t working—especially for our most disadvantaged kids.

Over the last several months, Two Rivers , a preschool to eighth grade public charter school in Washington, D.C., has been on a journey to tackle these problems in a different way. Building on the work of Dr. Ross Greene from Lives in the Balance , Caltha Crowe’s Solving Thorny Behavior Problems , and Zaretta Hammond’s Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain , we have developed a simple five step routine to invite students who exhibit persistent challenging behaviors to become partners in finding a solution.

With students from Kindergarten through eighth grade, we used the following steps:

  • Listen : where we listen empathetically to hear the student’s concern about the persistent problem;
  • Share : where we share our concerns about the persistent problem;
  • Problem Solve : where we invite the student to come up with solutions with us that both address their concern and our concern and can realistically be implemented;
  • Implement : where we put the plan into effect;
  • Reflect : where we evaluate the effectiveness of the plan with the student.

collaborative problem-solving notes

Collaborative problem solving notes

Prior to engaging in this work, we identified and surfaced an important underlying belief: student misbehavior was not the result of a willful act to disrupt our classrooms. Instead, students want to do well and will do so if they have the social emotional skills to succeed. By making this idea our starting point, we honor the best in our students and acknowledge them as full human beings trying to get better at emotion management and relationship building just as much as they are trying to improve their reading or math skills.

Through this work, we hope to break the school-to-prison pipeline, but more importantly, to give our students agency in owning their social-emotional learning as well as their academic learning.Examples from kindergarten teacher Rachel Owens and middle school teacher Ama Teasdel are illustrative of the success that we have seen with this work. In today’s piece, we hear from Rachel about what Collaborative Problem Solving can look like in Kindergarten. In our next piece, we will hear from Ama about her experiences with this model in a middle school classroom.

Teacher assisting young learner

Teacher assisting young learner

A Kindergarten Example from Rachel Owens

“ Sometimes my brain tells me to do what I want to do instead of following the group plan ...”

James and I were sitting at my desk in the middle of a discussion about one of his challenging behaviors when he said this and immediately opened my eyes to the power of problem solving conferences. As an early childhood educator for the last four years I was initially skeptical about the effectiveness or appropriateness for problem solving conferences in kindergarten because of the struggle five- and six-year-olds can have with expressive language and emotional awareness. However, for the last two months at Two Rivers PCS, teachers, administration, and instructional leaders have been studying the impact of these problem solving conferences as an intervention for students like James, who exhibit persistent challenging behaviors in the classroom.

Challenging behaviors in classrooms can sometimes be extremely frustrating, bring up undiscovered personal triggers, and even stump the most experienced teachers. After studying the impact problem solving conferences can have..., I would highly recommend using this strategy.

I identified James as a student who might benefit from one of these conferences because he demonstrated a need for more behavioral support than what 80 percent of my classroom was receiving. His conduct was interfering with his learning and his ability to interact appropriately with others. This challenging behavior mainly consisted of him becoming distracted by others or actively distracting others during whole group instruction and whole group activities. I collected some data to better understand the problem, and found that in a period of 10 minutes, James was distracted by or distracting others six times. This data startled me; as I watched him I could see him missing out on discussion questions, targeted learning, and opportunities for both social and academic growth. The biggest shock was knowing that James had been struggling with this behavior since August, and we were only beginning to address it successfully with problem solving conferences the following February.

As we prepared to have problem solving conferences with students, I was still not convinced this was going to be a viable strategy for James. But in thinking this, I had created a limiting story for him based off of undiscovered biases and personal triggers I had as his teacher. Diving into this work required our teachers and instructional leaders to be extremely honest and vulnerable with themselves. Having a professional learning community that was engaging in the same work created a rich, safe environment where accepting our faults became the norm. This was an important step in our professional development cycle, because it prepared us to experience similar emotions our students would soon discover within their problem solving conferences.

Armed with data around James’ challenging behavior and steps to conducting a problem solving conference, I sat down with him one afternoon in February to discuss his distractibility during whole group. The first step of this technique is to listen with empathy; something I had initially thought I’d mastered after the last four years of teaching. James quickly proved me wrong. Instead of interrupting James with preconceived notions or solutions, I forced myself to actively listen to everything he said. Without my help, opinions, or suggestions, James was able to identify his own challenging behavior, give reason behind the cause, and come up with a possible solution he could try.

“Sometimes my brain tells me to do what I want to do instead of following the group plan. But I can look at my friends to see what they are doing and then I can know what the group plan is. Or maybe I could think with my eyes and then do what they do.”

After finishing this problem conference, I noticed an immediate change in the way James managed his challenging behavior. I would normally have felt comfortable stopping the problem solving conference practice here. However, I believe that an important aspect of developing a new practice requires pushing yourself to try the technique, analyze its effectiveness, revise your strategy, and practice it again. Repeating the practice requires you to build and refine new skills for continuous improvement. So I continued with James constantly collecting and analyzing behavioral data to create new strategies to discuss during the follow-up problem solving conferences.

It has been two months since we started this work, and I can confidently say that problem solving conferences have changed my classroom as seen through James’ daily interactions with adults and peers. Challenging behaviors in classrooms can sometimes be extremely frustrating, bring up undiscovered personal triggers, and even stump the most experienced teachers. After studying the impact problem solving conferences can have on students exhibiting persistent challenging classroom behaviors, I would highly recommend using this strategy with other students exhibiting similar behaviors. In a short amount of time, I have seen the power of expressive language develop and grow in James. He is building the skills necessary for learning how to become accountable for his actions all while decreasing the frequency of the identified target behavior.

These methods clearly work, and are contributing to efforts to break the school-to-prison pipeline not by punishing students but inviting them in to solve their most challenging problems. To learn more, check out our next blog entry when we explore what this can look like in middle school.

Read Part 2 of Providing Agency for Our Most Challenging Students: Collaborative Problem Solving around Challenging Behaviors in Middle School .

Jeff Heyck-Williams and Rachel Owens

Two rivers public charter school.

Jeff Heyck-Williams and Rachel Owens are educators at Two Rivers Public Charter School in Washington, D.C.

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problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

Center for Teaching

Teaching problem solving.

Print Version

Tips and Techniques

Expert vs. novice problem solvers, communicate.

  • Have students  identify specific problems, difficulties, or confusions . Don’t waste time working through problems that students already understand.
  • If students are unable to articulate their concerns, determine where they are having trouble by  asking them to identify the specific concepts or principles associated with the problem.
  • In a one-on-one tutoring session, ask the student to  work his/her problem out loud . This slows down the thinking process, making it more accurate and allowing you to access understanding.
  • When working with larger groups you can ask students to provide a written “two-column solution.” Have students write up their solution to a problem by putting all their calculations in one column and all of their reasoning (in complete sentences) in the other column. This helps them to think critically about their own problem solving and helps you to more easily identify where they may be having problems. Two-Column Solution (Math) Two-Column Solution (Physics)

Encourage Independence

  • Model the problem solving process rather than just giving students the answer. As you work through the problem, consider how a novice might struggle with the concepts and make your thinking clear
  • Have students work through problems on their own. Ask directing questions or give helpful suggestions, but  provide only minimal assistance and only when needed to overcome obstacles.
  • Don’t fear  group work ! Students can frequently help each other, and talking about a problem helps them think more critically about the steps needed to solve the problem. Additionally, group work helps students realize that problems often have multiple solution strategies, some that might be more effective than others

Be sensitive

  • Frequently, when working problems, students are unsure of themselves. This lack of confidence may hamper their learning. It is important to recognize this when students come to us for help, and to give each student some feeling of mastery. Do this by providing  positive reinforcement to let students know when they have mastered a new concept or skill.

Encourage Thoroughness and Patience

  • Try to communicate that  the process is more important than the answer so that the student learns that it is OK to not have an instant solution. This is learned through your acceptance of his/her pace of doing things, through your refusal to let anxiety pressure you into giving the right answer, and through your example of problem solving through a step-by step process.

Experts (teachers) in a particular field are often so fluent in solving problems from that field that they can find it difficult to articulate the problem solving principles and strategies they use to novices (students) in their field because these principles and strategies are second nature to the expert. To teach students problem solving skills,  a teacher should be aware of principles and strategies of good problem solving in his or her discipline .

The mathematician George Polya captured the problem solving principles and strategies he used in his discipline in the book  How to Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method (Princeton University Press, 1957). The book includes  a summary of Polya’s problem solving heuristic as well as advice on the teaching of problem solving.

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Navigating student behavior together: the power of collaborative problem solving in schools.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, schools across the country have faced unprecedented challenges. One significant consequence has been a notable decline in student behavior. The disruption caused by the pandemic, including shifts to remote learning, social isolation, and uncertainties about the future, has left an indelible impact on students’ emotional well-being and behavior. As schools continue to navigate these uncharted waters, where the challenges of the post-COVID era have led to a notable decline in student behavior, it becomes increasingly crucial to explore innovative and effective approaches.

Dr. Stuart Ablon’s Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) approach emerges as one such approach, going beyond mere behavior management. It represents a comprehensive method that fosters understanding, empathy, and teamwork, offering a transformative tool to address the evolving dynamics of student behavior in these unprecedented times. Marshalltown began learning about the CPS approach following the tragic circumstances of the tornado in 2018. We wanted to find a way to support our students, staff, and families during the times when they were experiencing heightened feelings, strong emotions, or the traumatic effects of the natural disaster. We also wanted to find a more current way to work with students that was more deeply rooted in the foundations of mental health and mental wellness that any person could utilize successfully. The CPS approach offered an opportunity to support everyone.

Understanding challenging student behavior

Traditional methods often label challenging behavior in students as intentional defiance, leading to punishments in hopes of changing their behavior. However, the CPS approach argues that challenging behavior often comes from skill deficits stemming from placing expectations on someone during a time when they do not have the skills to meet those expectations. This prompts educators to explore the thinking and emotional aspects of a student’s development and then work together with the student to identify ways to build skills so they can regularly meet the expectations placed on them at school and at home. The CPS approach helped Marshalltown educators and administrators become more curious about the reasons behind the students’ actions and use guided questioning to help us understand their perspectives. By growing our understanding of the situations influencing the student’s actions we can better accurately address their behaviors proactively.

Three-step process: Empathy, share, collaborate

At the heart of the CPS method is a simple three-step process: empathize, share, and collaborate. Empathy helps everyone see the situation from the student’s point of view. Sharing makes sure everyone understands things from the adult’s perspective. When everyone gets both sides, it’s much easier to define the problem clearly. Collaborating brings students and educators together to find solutions that work for everyone, considering each student’s unique needs.

Proactive strategies for school well-being

Unlike traditional approaches which focus on reacting to misbehavior, CPS takes a proactive stance. By addressing the reasons behind challenging behavior, schools can prevent issues from getting worse, creating a positive learning environment where challenges become chances for growth and sustainable skill development.

Skills training for lifelong success

Beyond solving immediate problems, CPS actively involves schools in teaching essential thinking skills that are lacking in their students, preparing them for success in various aspects of life. This comprehensive approach not only addresses current challenges but also equips students with the cognitive and emotional tools necessary for navigating the complexities of the future, fostering a foundation for lifelong success.

Ongoing collaboration: Strengthening school bonds

A vital aspect of CPS is its emphasis on continuous collaboration. Far from a one-time fix, CPS encourages ongoing collaboration and teamwork within the school community, supporting the development of essential skills in students, managing challenging behavior, and strengthening positive healthy relationships between students and teachers.

A path to stronger school communities

CPS is rapidly becoming a preferred choice for the Marshalltown schools in addressing challenging student behavior. By prioritizing understanding, empathy, and teamwork, CPS is helping us solve immediate issues while also building stronger, healthier relationships and a more harmonious school community. As we continue to adopt this approach, we also continue to discover a path to brighter and more cooperative futures for both educators and Marshalltown students.

Matt Cretsinger is the Director of Special Services for the Marshalltown Community School District. He can be reached at [email protected]. The district educates over 5,000 students to have the skills for a rapidly changing world. Learn more by visiting www.marshalltown.k12.ia.us.

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Guidance and Challenging Behaviors

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Guiding children.

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Culturally Appropriate Positive Guidance with Young Children

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Standing Together Against Suspension and Expulsion in Early Childhood Education

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Standing Together Against Suspension & Expulsion in Early Childhood: Resources

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Planning for Positive Guidance: Powerful Interactions Make a Difference

Encouraging positive behavior.

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Building Environments That Encourage Positive Behavior: The Preschool Behavior Support Self-Assessment

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Rocking and Rolling—It Takes Two: The Role of Co-Regulation in Building Self-Regulation Skills

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Bullying in Early Childhood

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To Prevent Bullying, Focus on Early Childhood

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Focusing on Families: A Two-Generation Model for Reducing Parents’ Stress and Boosting Preschoolers’ Self-Regulation and Attention

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Creating Trauma-Sensitive Classrooms

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Observation: The Key to Understanding Your Child

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Message in a Backpack™ Guiding Your Child’s Behavior

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Functional Assessment and Positive Behavior Support: The Role of Early Learning Program Leaders and Teachers

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A Three-Step Approach: Promoting Young Children’s Self-Regulation and Language During Conflict

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Tearing Down Silos: A Model for Interagency Collaboration

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Instead of Discipline, Use Guidance

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Summer 2021

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Becoming a Better Behavior Detective: Applying a Developmental and Contextual Lens on Behavior to Promote Social and Emotional Development

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Rocking and Rolling—It Takes Two: The Role of Co-Regulation in Building Self-Regulation Skillsالتناغم والتآزر - يد واحدة لا تص فِّق: دور التنظيم المشترك في بناء مهارات التنظيم الذاتي عند الطفل

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Addressing Challenging Behavior in Young Children: The Leader's Role

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Message in a Backpack™ Helping Your Child through Change

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Supporting Anxious Children in the Preschool Classroom

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Partnering with Families Supporting Social and Emotional Development through Picture Books

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October/November 2020

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Nicole Beurkens

America’s Most Trusted Child Psychologist

Proactive Problem Solving For Your Child’s Behavior Challenges

My guest this week is Dr. Ross Greene, a clinical psychologist, and New York Times bestselling author of the influential books The Explosive Child , Lost At School and Raising Human Beings . He is the originator of the model of care called Collaborative and Proactive Solutions (CPS) . Dr. Greene served on the faculty at Harvard Medical School for over 20 years and is now founding director of the nonprofit Lives in The Balance which provides a vast array of web-based resources on the CPS model. He has appeared in a wide range of media including the Oprah Show, Good Morning America, The Morning Show, National Public Radio, Mother Jones Magazine, and many more. Dr. Greene lectures and consults widely throughout the world and lives in Portland, Maine.

In this episode, Dr. Greene and I discuss his proactive problem-solving method to address children’s behavior challenges at home and in school environments. By introducing his Collaborative and Proactive Solutions model (CPS), Dr. Greene thoroughly walks parents through the steps needed to help uncover underlying issues before an adverse behavioral reaction occurs. This model can be applied to toddlers and beyond, including nonverbal children. Dr. Greene encourages parents to work in a partnership with their child and to shatter the belief that authority, control, rewards, and punishments are the way to influence change. To learn more about Dr. Ross Greene click here .

Need help with improving your child’s behavior naturally?

  • My book Life Will Get Better is available for purchase, click here to learn more.
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  • Interested in becoming a patient? Contact us here .

Episode Highlights

Kids do well if they can.

  • Kids do well if they can
  • Kids do well if they want
  • There are expectations I am having difficulty meeting 

What is the CPS Model? 

  • First, use the Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems to identify the information that has been missing
  • Once the unsolved problems are identified and prioritized, then decide how you are going to solve those problems
  • The problems that you decide will not be addressed in the priority list are removed from expectations
  • Focusing on certain things at a time will reduce stress on both the parent, teacher, and child

Lagging and Unsolved Problems 

  • Difficulty shifting from one mindset or task to another
  • Difficulty persisting on challenging or tedious tasks
  • Difficulty expressing one’s needs, thoughts, or concerns in words
  • Difficulty coming back in the classroom after recess
  • Difficulty completing double-digit division problems on worksheets in math
  • Difficulty sitting next to Billy during circle time
  • Difficulty brushing teeth before going to bed at night
  • Difficulty turning off Xbox before dinner or bed
  • Difficulty waking up to go to school

Rewards and Punishments

  • You must get ahead of the behavior, the behavior is late
  • When using rewards and punishments you are focusing on addressing that late behavior and not the root of why the behavior happened in the first place
  • Crisis prevention happens in a collaborative proactive model
  • Getting information from the child of what is actually hard for them in the situation, what is in their way?
  • “I’ve noticed that… what’s up?”
  • “My concern is…”
  • “I wonder if there is a way…?

Shifting The View of “Control” 

  • If you want your child to benefit from your experience, wisdom, and values you will best achieve that with a partnership 
  • By trying to go about influence collaboratively vs unilaterally you will have influence

Children with Neurological Difficulties 

  • Do not settle for zero improvements or believe a diagnosis is a full stop on certain functions in your child’s life
  • If we count these children out of the process, they never even had the chance to show their abilities to communicate and learn
  • Parents can use this model with children who are non-verbal
  • Communication can be done through assisted technology, pictures, signs, etc

Where to learn more about Dr. Ross Greene …

  • Lives in the Balance Website
  • Dr. Greene’s Books
  • ALSUP Worksheet
  • Plan B Checklist
  • Additional Resources

Episode Timestamps

Proactive Problem Solving Behavior

Episode Intro … 00:00:30 Kids Do Well IF They Can .. 00:06:00 What is the CPS Model? … 00:15:30 Lagging and Unsolved Problems … 00:21:15 Rewards and Punishments … 00:23:25 Shifting The View of “Control” … 00:33:50 Children with Neurological Difficulties … 00:35:50 Episode Wrap Up … 00:38:00

Episode Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Hi everyone, welcome to the show, I am Dr. Nicole, and today we’re going to be talking about a really effective way of thinking about and supporting children with behavioral challenges. Many parents and professionals think that rewards and punishments and those kinds of approaches are what’s needed when a child is struggling or acting out or exhibiting what we would call inappropriate behaviors, but the reality is that these kids lack some fundamental skills that they need to manage situations and manage life more effectively. And what if, instead of consequences, behavior charts and those kinds of things, kids need adults to understand the root of their struggles and provide them with these skills, options, solutions to manage their challenges more effectively. 

That is what we’re going to get into with my guest today, Dr. Ross Greene. Reading his book, ‘The Explosive Child’ many, many years ago now, totally changed how I thought about behavior, how I thought about supporting my students with behavioral challenges back when I was teaching, well before I was a clinical psychologist, and it was such a different approach than what I had learned in my teacher training and the work that I had done. And his work had helped me in countless ways since, as both a parent and a therapist. So let me tell you a bit more about him. 

Dr. Ross Greene is the New York Times bestselling author of the influential books The Explosive Child, Lost at School, Lost & Found and Raising Human Beings. He is the originator of the model of care described in those books, now called Collaborative & Proactive Solutions (CPS). Dr. Greene was on the faculty at Harvard Medical School for over 20 years, and is now founding director of the non-profit Lives in the Balance, which provides a vast array of free, web-based resources on the CPS model. He has appeared in a wide range of media, including The Oprah Show, Good Morning America, The Morning Show, National Public Radio, Mother Jones magazine, and many more. Dr. Greene lectures and consults widely throughout the world and lives in Portland, Maine. As I said, his work has been so influential for me, professionally and personally over the past 20+ years, I can not wait to share this with you, welcome to the show, Dr. Greene!

Dr. Ross Greene:

Thank you for having me!

So I’d like to start out by just having you share a bit about how you came to be doing this kind of work with kids. Were you always working with kids? Did you have a particular situation that got you thinking about these kinds of things with children? What was the starting point for your journey with all this? 

Dr. Ross Greene: 

My starting point was that I was a camp counselor, liked working with kids, it was either going to be kids or animals, and I don’t like blood, so that leaves you with kids. And I started in graduate schools with kids with ADHD, I gravitated to them for whatever reason. If you’re working with a lot of kids with ADHD — mostly, quite frankly, because one of the things I noticed with kids with ADHD is that they looked very different depending on whether they were on medicine or not. And what I had been trained to believe was that challenging behavior was because of passive, permissive, inconsistent, non-contingent, inept parenting. But what happened to all that lousy parenting, if medicine makes the kid look completely different? It just didn’t add up. But if you’re working with kids with ADHD, then you are going to be working with a lot of kids who are diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder. And those were the ones who really intrigued me, because it also became very evident that kids who were oppositional and not doing what we wanted them to and being non-compliant, which is the main ingredient, weren’t non-compliant full time. They were only non-compliant part time, which is when I started calling it part-time oppositional defiant disorder. Otherwise, they were actually quite compliant and were meeting our expectations, and that’s fascinating, that’s a fascinating thing to hang a disorder on. Can you really have a part-time disorder? And so that’s who I began really specializing in, and that’s when I discovered that the way I had been trained to work with them, which was what most folk do, still unfortunately, ways to reward the behaviors you like. So to see more of them, and punish the behaviors you don’t like to see less of them, and focus exclusively on making the kid comply with adult directives. While that worked for some, it didn’t work for a whole bunch more. And that’s when I had to start getting a little bit creative and start thinking about what we really have here, what’s going on with this kid and what, maybe, we should be doing differently. 

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that was my experience too, coming out of my teacher training and going into the classroom, and my first job. I got thrown into a job I was completely unprepared for, but excited about dealing with middle school aged kids with severe emotional and behavioral and learning disorders, which you know, in your early 20s, you feel like you can conquer the world and do anything. It was actually great because it taught me so much, but what I learned right out of the gate was, oh my goodness — how I have been taught to think about this is not going to work, and that actually is what led me to find your work, but that same experience of — we need some different, not only tools, but some different ways of understanding what’s actually going on here, right? 

So let’s get into that because where most people think about behavior as kids choosing not to respond or handle things in an appropriate way, and therefore, if we just reward enough of this and punish enough of that, they’ll make better choices. You really have a different take on that and a different way of conceptualizing what’s happening there, so I’d love for you to talk about that. 

Well, it’s the difference between two mentalities. There is: “kids do well if they can” and there is “kids do well if they want”. Kids do well if they want, basically is the belief that the reason this kid isn’t doing well is that the kid doesn’t want to do well, therefore, our job as adults is to make the kid want to do well. Now why wouldn’t the kid want to do well? Get this: Because doing poorly is working out better for the kid than doing well would. Which is putting it in a certain way, but that is actually a fairly-popular belief system. How would doing poorly be working out better for the kid than doing well would? He’s seeking attention by doing poorly, he’s manipulating us, he’s coercing us into capitulating to his wishes. He’s unmotivated, he is testing limits, right? All things we frequently say about behaviorally-challenged kids, in my opinion, none of which are true, but all flowing from a “Kids do well if they want” mentality and the belief that doing poorly is working out better for the kid than doing well would.

On the other hand, “kids do well if they can” says if this kid could do well, the kid would do well. If the kid’s not doing well, something must be getting in the kids way. Our job: Figure out what’s getting in the kids’ way. And that means two things, and this is what I frequently call the information that’s been missing. We don’t need to have a meeting to figure out what behaviors the kid is exhibiting when he is having difficulty meeting our expectations. We already know, we’re in a meeting for that, right? There are a lot of things we talk about in our meetings that we really shouldn’t be spending a lot of time talking about because they’re not especially productive. 

What do we not spend enough time talking about? The two pieces of information that are frequently missing: What are this kid’s lagging skills? As you mentioned earlier, this is not about lagging motivation, this is about lagging skills, and that’s what the research that has accumulated over the last 40-50 years has been telling us for a very long time, this is not about lagging motivation, it’s about lagging skills. So job one: Figure out what skills this kid is lagging, so we have the right lenses on. Job two: Figure out what expectations this kid is having difficulty reliably meeting. See it’s those unmet expectations or what I refer to as unsolved problems, but those are synonyms, that are causing the challenging behavior that we’ve been so busy rewarding and punishing. 

Now here is the deal: Yes, if you reward and punish a kid’s behavior, you might make a dent in the behavior, but you will not solve the problem that is causing that behavior. But if you’re busy solving the problems that are causing the kid’s behavior, not only does the kid’s behavior improve, the problems get solved. What I refer to frequently as a 2 for 1 sale. All of this, by the way, makes clear this crucial difference between kids do well if they want to and kids do well if they can. 

That phrase, “Kids do well when they can”, when I first heard that in your work, probably over 20 years ago now, that is what struck me so much to say, well — of course it seems so obvious when you say it, and yet it isn’t because so much of what’s taught and how our systems operate both in schools, in therapy and in institutions, it is geared around the opposite of that, which is “Kids do well if they want to.” I mean that’s how my training was, both in the realm of education and in the realm of psychology. 

And it’s taken a very long time for that to change, but you are absolutely right, a lot of the disciplinary structures in schools, a lot of the assessment structures in school are oriented around behavior and around “kids do well if they want to”. Slowly, but surely, boy, this has taken a long to change. Slowly but surely, it is starting to change, but the reality is in most schools, what do we assess when we’re dealing with behaviorally-challenging students? We do behavior checklists, we do behavior observations, we do a functional behavior assessment, all so that we can come up with a behavior plan. All focused on what I’ve simply referred to as “the signal”, you fever. Behavior is just the signal, it’s the means by which the kid is communicating something very important, we wouldn’t want to miss this: “I’m stuck. There are expectations I’m having difficulty meeting.” That’s all behavior is and yet, generally speaking, you don’t get sent to the principal because you’re having difficulty completing the double-digit division on the worksheet at math. You get sent to the principle if 97 times later were that problem still unsolved, you push over a desk. Now you’re going to the principle. 

Yeah, absolutely, and how it really is still so embedded in our educational institutions and elsewhere this punitive model. I mean just the fact that we still use things like detention and suspension, even for little kids, and the fact that a lot of therapies out there, even therapies working with parents to help them do things in the home, it’s all geared around this same thing. And we may use different words for it and whatever, but really at the root, it’s the same thing.

Kids do well if they want to, and if we’re reinforcing the right things and giving unpleasant consequences for the wrong things, then this is going to get better but I think what so many of our listeners can relate to about this is that they know that this doesn’t really make it better. Even if as you said, you get some surface level compliance or, I refer to it as the game of whack-a-mole, you get this one thing taken care of with umpteen meetings and plans and all these things, and you get this one down, and three more pop up over here, because we’ve not actually solved the problem, we haven’t looked at what the real issue is and we haven’t given the kid any additional skills and support in addressing that. 

That is correct. Now, there are some people out there who take great pride in the fact that they don’t punish, they only reward. Those two are cut from the exact same bolt of cloth. But secondly, I have seen just as many kids lose their minds in failing to achieve the anticipated reward, as I have seen kids lose their mind in the midst of being punished. I don’t distinguish between those two. A lot of folks do, that is a false distinction. It’s also archaic. 

Yeah, and we know that it’s just ineffective, especially when we look at the big picture of kids’ lives, and I always say to people: I am much less concerned about getting a kid to do thing A or thing B right now. I’m concerned about helping kids grow into being adults who know how to manage themselves, think about and solve problems that come up. That’s what our goal should be, not just doing this target behavior or thing right now. 

Correct! Plus, a lot of those behavior managing programs, their primary focal point is just compliance. I want you to do what I say. Boy, do we miss a lot that way. The kid has no voice under those circumstances. We don’t learn anything about the kid in terms of why the kid is having difficulty meeting that expectation. It’s largely about power and control. We are not working together, we’re not teammates, we’re not partners, instead, we’re being adversarial, and it’s completely unnecessary. 

Well, it also can be very damaging to the parent-child relationship, the teacher child relationship… those relationships which we know from everything about developmental psychology research, child development research. Those relationships are the foundation for being able to regulate ourselves emotionally and behaviorally, being able to engage in social interactions in an appropriate way. And yet we kind of throw those relationships under the bus with those more behavioral types of approaches, don’t we?

That’s a very good way to put it. Rewarding and punishing, there are people who try to make the case that rewarding and punishing enhances relationships. Not sure where you come up with that. 

So let’s get into really your collaborative and proactive solutions model, and obviously, we don’t have time to get into all the details of it, but you’ve now set the stage for how and why we need to be looking at this differently. Let’s talk about what CPS is, how it really is a different and more helpful model?

Well, there are basically two components to the model. The first thing we’ve got to do is use an instrument that I’ve developed called the Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems to identify the information that’s been missing. What are these kids’ lagging skills? What are his unsolved problems? People can find the Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems on the web, it’s on my non-profit Lives in the Balance. I would say it takes about 45-50 minutes to complete it. The beauty of the assessment of lagging skills and unsolved problems, is as I’ve already mentioned, number one, it helps us get the right lenses on. We’ve got to get the right lenses on with these kids. We lose a lot of kids because we’ve got the wrong lenses on. 

And we’ve got to identify what we’re going to be working on with the kid, unsolved problems. What expectations is the kid having difficulty meeting. And then what the model basically does is once those unsolved problems are identified and once they’re prioritized, because a lot of very behaviorally-challenging kids have accumulated quite a number of unsolved problems over time… you’ve got to prioritize, otherwise you’re working on too many things at once, and then you’ll end up solving no problems at all. And you’ve got to decide how you want to solve those problems. 

And in the real world, I always say that you have three options, and in this model, you are only using two of them. In the real world, those three options are called Plans A, B and C. In this model, you are really only using B and C. Plan C is where you are setting aside a particular expectation, at least for now. Not because you’re giving in, not because you’re giving up, but because you’re prioritizing. As I’ve already said, many kids have a lot of unsolved problems. Once we finally get around to identifying them, we can’t solve them all at once. Plan C are the unsolved problems we have consciously, deliberately, and here is a big word: proactively, we decided we’re not working on this one right now. We’ve got bigger fish to fry. That’s plan C. 

Now, another beautiful thing about plan C besides prioritizing is that it’s also very stabilizing. Any expectation we have removed for now, won’t set in motion a challenging episode because we aren’t even expecting the kid to meet that expectation right now. Now that rubs some people the wrong way, especially those who never want to give up even a fraction of the adult agenda. And also from people who have a very narrow definition of authority. They think authority is when you say “Jump” and the kid says “How high”? What I tell people all the time is, “Boy, are you being an authority figure when you decide that there are certain expectations you are going to remove for now.” Plan C is also useful because it also helps us think to ourselves — can this kid even meet the set expectation right now?

We put a lot of expectations on kids and it causes a lot of challenging episodes on expectations they can not even meet yet. 

And it creates such a tremendous amount of overwhelm, not just for the child but for the adults around the child too. I think it’s such a relief actually, that idea of “I can choose as the adult in the situation, I can choose to have this be a Plan C, because it takes it off the table as something that I need to feel overwhelmed or stressed about that the kid does and so I think that narrowing the field to really just focusing on certain things at a time is not only helpful for the child, I think it’s incredibly helpful for reducing the stress and the anxiety of the parent or the adult. 

Absolutely. A lot of classroom teachers breathe an enormous sigh of relief when you say to them, “You know what? You don’t even have to worry about that right now.” You have not reduced your standards, you have not given up on those expectations, you’ve prioritized. That’s different.” That leaves us with only two other plans, A and B. Both represent a way to solve a problem. For the kid, there’s just one massive difference between them. With Plan A, you are solving the problem unilaterally, with Plan B, you are solving the problem collaboratively. In this model, you are using Plan B. I always like to reassure people, are we allergic to Plan A in this model? No, if a kid is about to dart in front of a speeding car in a parking lot, you’re not doing Plan C. You’re not saying “We’ve got bigger fish to fry here.” You’re not doing Plan B, it’s too late. You’re doing Plan A. You yank on the kids’ arm, you save his life, if he blows up, so be it. But if three weeks later, the kid has now darted in front of a speeding car an additional 15 times and you’ve yanked an additional 15 times — Yes, yanking is working at saving the kid’s life, but now, yanking is not working at solving this problem. You’re going to need a different plan and it’s either going to be Plan C where you are saying, “I don’t think we’re ready for parking lots yet.” Or Plan B, where you are finding out what’s making it so hard for this kid to meet the expectation of staying next to you in a parking lot and solving that problem together. 

Let’s talk a bit about the lagging and unsolved problems. Can you give a few examples of that, just for listeners who are not familiar with that way of thinking about it? What are some of the things that assessment is looking at, or that we’re thinking about when we think about the kinds of root-level issues that kids are having. 

Here are some lagging skills, and you’ll notice that lagging skills are more general, unsolved problems are more specific. Some of the lagging skills on the assessment of lagging skills and unsolved problems are things like difficulties of shifting from one mindset or task to another, difficulty persisting on challenging or tedious tasks, difficulty expressing one’s needs, thoughts or concerns in words. Those are very general, those are our lenses, right? That’s the 10 thousand foot view. Those lagging skills take the place of attention seeking, manipulative, coercive, unmotivated, limit-testing. 

The unsolved problems are more specific. The unsolved problems are these specific expectations the kid is having difficulty meeting: Difficulty coming back into the classroom after recess. Difficulty completing the double-digit division problems on the worksheet in maths. Difficulty sitting next to Billy during circle time, those are school ones. Home ones would be: Difficulty brushing teeth before going to bed at night, difficulty turning off the Xbox to come in for dinner. Difficulty turning off the Xbox to go to bed at night. Difficulty waking up at 7AM to go to school. Those are home unsolved problems. You can see that those are much more specific. The lagging skills give us our lenses, the unsolved problems tell us the unsolved problems that we’re trying to solve with this kid.

Yeah, and I think it’s such a more helpful way of looking at it because out of that, then, can come some actual solutions or ways of working on that that don’t just get compliant behavior in those situations, but actually teach and develop the skills to handle those situations. But also so many more and that’s what I think just makes — in the big picture, makes so much more sense about an approach like this. In a more behavioral or reward and punishment kind of model, every single thing has to be tackled as a separate thing. It’s like that game of whack-a-mole, whereas with this, we’re developing those underlying skills — many things start to improve for the child as a result of that, beyond the just maybe one target that we’re initially working with, right?

That is correct. It doesn’t always work out that way, but yes, it is possible that by helping a kid solve the problem of difficulty coming back into the classroom after recess, we would also take a few giant steps forward in helping the kid come into school in the morning or move from math to English, or — you name it. So yes, by working on one, you are sometimes solving another, but the big difference here is that with reward and punishment programs you are primarily focused on behavior. Behavior is just a signal. But the other thing you know about behavior is that it’s late. And a lot of the worst things we do to kids, with the best of intentions, to “help” them, are late. Restraining a kid is late. Putting a kid in a seclusion room is late. Detention is late, suspension is late, expulsion is late, paddling is late, timeout is late because behavior is late. And those things are all being done in response to behavior. What’s early? The unsolved problems that are causing that behavior. If you identify those problems early and you solve those problems early, now you are in crisis prevention mode, now you’re not in crisis management mode anymore. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

A proactive approach, as opposed to that reactive approach, and that’s such a powerful shift for people to make, whether we are talking about parents, or people in a school setting or wherever else — that shift from thinking about “How do we get ahead of this? How can we help this child navigate this situation before it turns into the explosive behavior” is so important. 

Now to do that, we should probably go through the three steps of Plan B, because to do that, you’re going to need information about what’s making it hard for the kid to meet the expectation you are talking with him or her about. So Plan B consists of three steps. The first step is called “The Empathy Step”, second step is called, “The Defining Adult Concern Step” and the third step is called “The Invitation Step.” The names of the steps don’t matter that much, the ingredients matter a lot. 

The main ingredient of the empathy step is information gathering. Gathering information from the kid about what’s making it hard for the kid to meet the expectation we’re talking with him or her about right now. As I always say, kids have information we badly need. Information about what’s hard, information about what’s getting in the kids’ way. If we do not get that information, we don’t really know what’s getting in the kids’ way, and this problem is going to remain unsolved. We need info — the empathy step is where we’re going to get it. Now, immediately after I say that, a lot of adults think: “What if the kid won’t talk to me?” The kid ain’t talking to you because of Plan A. I’m not talking about Plan A, I’m talking about Plan B. It could take a while, but the kid is going to talk to you. You can gather that information. What if the kid is non-verbal? We do this with non-verbal kids all the time. It’s not that non-verbal kids are not communicating, it’s that non-verbal kids aren’t communicating through our preferred modality: Spoken word. 

That’s the empathy step. Without that information, this problem can’t get solved because the kids’ concerns are not going to get addressed if we don’t know what those concerns are. 

Can you give us an example, thinking about something that might come up at home between a parent and a child, can you just give listeners an example of what that empathy step might sound like?

Sure. It starts with an introduction. The introduction starts with the words, “I’ve noticed that…” And ends with the words “What’s up?” In between, you are inserting an unsolved problem. “I’ve noticed that it’s been difficult for you to brush your teeth before going to bed at night. What’s up?” Now this is a true story, I love telling this story: I was doing a podcast, about a year a go, and the interviewer was telling me about his 3 year-old daughter who was having difficulty brushing her teeth before she went to bed at night, and he didn’t do the empathy step. He thought he knew, and this is one of the biggest mistakes we adults make, we think we know already. So he thought it was the taste of the toothpaste. 15 different flavors of toothpaste later, she was still having difficulty brushing her teeth before going to bed at night, so he finally did Plan B. 

And what did he learn? And this is why I always say the empathy step is where you find out that what you thought was getting in the kid’s way is not what was getting in the kid’s way, I found out that — this was a 3 year-old daughter, by the way. Some people think you can’t do this with a 3 year-old. Yes you can. It turns out that when he was brushing her teeth with the electric toothbrush, it was getting water all over her face. She didn’t like it. So I said to him, “Well, now there is a concern that 15 different flavors of toothpaste would never address.” The solution was that they put a towel around her face when he was brushing her teeth with the electric toothbrush. Then both concerns were addressed. She didn’t want water getting sprayed on her face. He wanted to make sure that her teeth were clean and that she didn’t get cavities. Did he give up any authority in doing that? No. Did he save a lot of time in doing it? Yes. That’s what the empathy step sounds like, but we also then merged into the other two steps. 

The “Defining Adult Concern” step is where the adult is entering his or her concern into consideration. And that usually is — why is it important that this expectation be met? Adult concerns usually follow one or both of just two categories: How the unsolved problem is affecting the kid and/or how the unsolved problem is affecting other people. In the case of the kid with the teeth brushing, he didn’t want her to get cavities, that would be how it affects her, and maybe he didn’t want to have to pay for those cavities, which would be how it affects him. The invitation starts with the words, “I wonder if there’s a way…” Generically, “you’ll want to have a way to solve this problem, and you can say it that way. But if you say it that way, a lot of kids are going to look at you and say, “What problem?” So what you want to do instead is recap the concerns of both parties. Here is what it would have sounded like: “I wonder if there is a way for us to make sure that we don’t get water all over your face when I’m brushing your teeth and also make sure that your teeth get cleaned so you don’t get cavities and I don’t have to pay for them.” You are then giving the kid the first crack at the solution. “Do you have any ideas?” Not because it’s the kid’s job to solve the problem, a child’s job to solve the problem. You all are teammates, but it’s a very good strategy. It let’s the kid know beyond a shadow of a doubt you’re actually interested in his or her ideas. If the kid doesn’t have any ideas, the adult will. That’s the process. And that, by the way, is the process on brushing your teeth with a 3-year-old. It’s the exact same three steps with unsafe sex, the illicit use of substances, truancy, you name it. Three steps.

And what’s so beautiful about that is it not only actually allows for the development of productive solutions, but it also builds this relationship of collaboration and trust that’s so vitally important between kids and the significant adults in their lives. 

And I think it’s important to mention because some people might be thinking: “Well, this kid that I work with won’t respond in that way” or “My kid won’t respond” — this is a process, and especially, as you said, if Plan A has been the plan, what the kids’ experience has been with you as the parent or as the teacher or whoever, it’s going to take some time to build that trust that you truly do want to think with them about this and handle these things in a different way, right?

It can take a while. There are definitely some kids who have had so much Plan A in their life that it’s going to take a while for them to trust you. But I’ve got to tell you: Being heard, finally, which is what’s going on in the empathy step — By the way, let me just reassure adults: Being heard is also going in the “Defining Adult Concerns” step. That’s where the adult is being heard. So the kid is not the only one being heard in this process. But being heard is actually very powerful. These are kids who have been wanting to have a voice and wanting to have their concerns heard for a very long time, and I always tell people: “Listening is the purest form of empathy.” So I actually — most of the Plan B’s that I do with kids these days are with kids that I’ve never met. They don’t trust me, and yet, listening is still the purest form of empathy, and having a voice is very powerful. 

Do you find that one of the challenges for adults in shifting to this mode of approaching these things with kids — let’s even talk about it for parents, is this idea that I think is so ingrained in us, just in one way, shape or form about us needing to be in control, that authority piece? And if we involve the kid in the process of that, if we approach it more as a discussion, a collaborative problem-solving sort of model that somehow that means that we’re not in charge or we’re losing control — do you find that that’s a big barrier to this?

It is, but I also tell people that first of all, control is a delusion. You don’t have control anyways. The best you can shoot for is influence, but maybe even more importantly, generally speaking, I find the more control you shoot for, the less control you have. We adults would be way better off if we were shooting for influence instead of control. We don’t have control. It’s the impossible dream. But you can buy yourself influence, just not through the same methodology that you would have if you were shooting for control. 

Yeah, I like that idea of aiming for influence, as opposed to control, because when we talk about these approaches, even in the clinic with some families, there is this sense on some people’s part of, “Well, but I need to be the parent, I need to be in charge, they need to do what I say when I say it.” And so it is a shift for some people to this idea of “Yes, we can meet the requirements, we can get your needs met and your child’s needs met. This is a more productive way of doing that.”

Yes. But I also think that that’s a very narrow view of authority, a very narrow view of what it means to be a parent, a very narrow view of what it means to be an educator. I’d rather we use the word partner. You are this kid’s partner in life. You want the kid to benefit from your experience, wisdom and values, which is why you have those expectations in the first place. The problem is, if you go about trying to have influence unilaterally, you are not going to have very much influence, and you’re not going to have control either. If you go about trying to have influence collaboratively, you’re going to have influence. 

Yeah, and as you said, control is just the illusion of control, anyway. I want to touch on something that you said, that it occurs to me some of our listeners may be thinking to themselves right now, and that is that you said the child can be non-verbal. There are lots of ways of approaching this because I think some of our listeners, particularly if they have a maybe more impaired child, maybe a child with some cognitive impairment or a child with more significant challenges may think, “Well, that’s all nice if you have a neurotypical kid or a kid who has good communication skills or whatever, but that won’t work for my child. Can you speak to that a little bit? 

Yeah. Don’t sell your kid short. There’s always a way. Your kid is communicating, even if they’re not using words. And people communicate all the time with kids who are non-verbal and kids who are very “low-functioning”. We do it through pictures, we do it through signs, we do it through assisted technology. This is not impossible. And in fact, I’ve got to tell you: Those are the kids who I like working with the most these days because they challenge my skills, you’ve got to get a little bit more creative, but we wouldn’t want to sell those kids short and we wouldn’t count them out on being able to participate in solving the problems that affect their lives. When you count that kid out, you are left with nothing else except being unilateral. It just isn’t so. 

Yeah, I think that’s just such an important point because many parents are told, particularly if their child has a diagnosis of autism or a more significant cognitive impairment, neurodevelopmental disorder, they’re really told from early on, this behavioral approach, this is what we have, this is what works and this is what you need to do, and yet so many parents have misgivings about that. They’re feeling like this doesn’t really seem to be working and yet, they’re told nope, this is what you do for those kids. That’s why I wanted to touch on that because what you’re saying and what I say and what others say — there are other options, that’s not your only option if your child has that diagnosis. 

There are other options and those parents may have noticed already — and teachers, that the option that they were told was the only option, often isn’t working very well. 

Yeah. Absolutely. So helpful to just reframe this for people and to walk through what the approach looks like and just plant the seed in people’s mind for a different way of thinking about and handling these things. I want to make sure that people know where they can find out more about the work you’re doing, the resources you have, this approach?

Well, there are books, obviously, but the website of my non-profit, Lives in the Balance, which is livesinthebalance.org is just filled with a massive amount of free resources to take them beyond what they have just heard. It would take months to get through all of the free resources on that website. That’s the first place that I would start. 

Absolutely, and it is such a wealth of information. Every time I go to the website, there are new things up there, so many, whether it’s things to listen to or watch or download, just a really great variety of things. I really want to encourage people to check that out, and then obviously the books, I’ve got my whole collection here and the others, so just such wonderful resources, whether you are a parent listening or maybe a family member or if you are one of the professionals who listens to the show and is working with kids and schools and therapy settings, child care assistance — all of those, anybody who is spending time with kids can benefit from these resources and from this approach, so I can’t thank you enough for being here with us today, such a helpful conversation!

Thank you, and I want to make sure that we wish everyone to stay safe and be well.

Absolutely, and thanks to all of you for listening to this episode of The Better Behavior show, we’ll catch you back here next week.

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Top 10 Biggest Challenges Teachers Face In The Classroom Today

Teacher supporting a large class of students.

Written by Victoria Hegwood

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  • Teaching Strategies
  • 10 Common challenges teachers face in the classroom

1. Understanding different learning styles

2. lack of effective communication, 3. staying up to date with learning technology, 4. communicating with parents, 5. pressure from school administrators, 6. creating engaging lesson plans that fit the curriculum, 7. behavior and classroom management, 8. time-consuming administrative work, 9. lack of funding, 10. burnout.

  • How Prodigy helps teachers

There are few careers that make a bigger impact than teaching. Teachers are shaping the next generation, those that will decide what the future looks like.

But this noble work doesn’t come without challenges. Many teachers face challenges both inside and outside of the classroom, often making the career feel overwhelming. 

While the rewards often outweigh the negatives, it's still important to understand the daily challenges teachers face . It can help parents and administrators better support teachers and help teachers know that they are not alone in their struggles. 

10 Common challenges teachers are facing in the classroom

These are ten of the most common challenges that teachers face on a day-to-day basis. While that may seem like a lot of bad news, once the issue is understood, it’s easier to find the solution. 

Let’s get started. 

A single classroom most often contains students with a wide set of learning abilities and styles. It is nearly impossible for teachers to simply use one teaching method and have it be effective for all of their learners. 

Teachers are required to think strategically when making lesson plans to cater to all the learning styles in their classroom. They also have to be flexible while actively teaching, as they make adjustments in real time based on student performance.

This can take a lot of time and effort on the teacher’s end, but the benefits for student performance are unbeatable.

Teachers can also face significant challenges when trying to communicate with their students effectively. Not every student, especially at lower grade levels, will know when to ask for help. 

For example, most high school students are able to effectively communicate their needs, struggles, and triumphs. However, teachers with younger grade levels may not have the same experience.

In cases like this, teachers have to find an effective channel of communication so that their classroom can function well.

Now, there’s not one answer to this problem. Teachers may need to use different strategies depending on the age of their students. Particularly for teachers that teach multiple grades, this can be a time-consuming task. 

Finding a system to improve communication in the class can not only help struggling students get support, but it can also help teachers manage multiple students' needs at once.

See below how once teacher implemented a non-verbal signalling system in her classroom that helped students express their needs and thoughts without disrupting the class.

Learning technology is constantly changing. Every year, there are a slew of new apps, websites, and other technology tools created to improve the learning process.

And there is a lot of pressure on teachers to constantly stay up to date with the latest technology. Most believe that the latest and greatest tools will provide the best quality education. 

But there is often a lack of funding, resources, or time to implement every new technology as it's introduced.

One of the most common and pressing classroom challenges for teachers is the fact that some students are not receiving adequate support outside of the classroom. While teachers can work with students while they’re at school, students need support from their parents as well.

When parents take an active part in their children's learning, that student is much more likely to succeed. 

This issue also extends to intrapersonal relationships. Students will often feel comfortable turning to a teacher in their time of need–when it’s emotional support they are looking for instead of academic support.

However, this dynamic can put a lot of pressure on a teacher. The relationship can be tricky to navigate, and teachers often don’t have enough hours in the day to check in and talk with every student. 

Students need to be fully supported both in school and at home in order to have the best chance of success.

Did you know?

When teachers use Prodigy, a game-based learning platform Prodigy that delivers adaptive skill practice in students, they can also invite parents to join. With their free account, parents can keep up on their child's progress with reports and even send them motivational messages as they play.

Teachers are often under a lot of pressure by their school administrators to come up with new teaching strategies and ways in which they can improve student learning. 

School administrators want to remain competitive with other school districts when it comes to performance and test scores. However, teachers are the ones actually in the classroom, teaching students the necessary skills to achieve these outcomes. 

Teachers are seen as exclusively responsible for student achievement, growth indicators, professional development, and discipline.

With so much on a teacher’s plate, a supportive school administration can make a world of a difference to both their success and students’ success.

Creating engaging lesson plans that also align with the state’s outlined curriculum can be a tall task. 

And beyond just being engaging, time-constraints can also be an issue. While there is a syllabus and course schedule to stick to, students will often need additional time to fully grasp a subject.

Oftentimes, the state will outline a detailed curriculum for the school year, giving a jam-packed schedule for all the topics that need to be covered in a particular year. Teachers need to rely heavily on problem-solving skills in order to maximize their time in the classroom.

Additionally, with larger class sizes, it can be difficult to ensure every student is getting the support they need to fully understand a lesson. Teachers may work incredibly hard to create a great lesson plan that just doesn’t resonate with all of their students.

Engage your students in math with Prodigy

If you're teaching math, you'll probably already know how hard it can be to motivate students. Traditional learning materials like worksheets can bore some quickly, especially if they're not feeling confident with the material.

Prodigy Math combines the joy of game-based learning with the benefits of adaptive and targeted skill practice. As students play Prodigy Math, they'll answer questions of your choice, all while having fun exploring a magical world and casting spells. It's a great way to differentiate learning while keeping your class engaged.

One study even showed that students saw their level of math enjoyment significantly increase after just a few months of using Prodigy Math!

Student behavior can be difficult for teachers to manage on top of their other job tasks like administrative work, staying on track with the curriculum, and staying up to date with the most recent classroom trends.

Creating distinct behavioral and academic plans can help teachers stay on track and meet their educational goals as the school year progresses. But this doesn’t happen without a lot of work and support from administrators, parents, and other educational professionals. 

Oftentimes, motivating students with engaging lessons can be enough to manage student behavior in the classroom. But in some cases, students may need more support to manage behavioral issues and create a growth mindset .

The administrative work that comes with teaching takes a lot of time on top of managing students, creating assessments, and actually teaching lessons. Because of this, time management is a vital skill for every teacher.

The overwhelming amount of administrative work on a teacher’s plate can adversely affect their work-life balance, as they are often required to spend time outside of working hours grading assignments, creating lesson plans, filling out reports, and more.

In order to get everything done, some teachers are faced with the question of whether to give up their personal time or their time with students to complete administrative work. While they’re always looking for ways to streamline their administrative work, there often seems to be no good answer.

Teaching hack: Skip the grading with Prodigy!

Did you know that elementary and middle school teachers can use their free Prodigy teacher dashboard to set up engaging assessments in just a few clicks? All you need to do select the standards-aligned content you want your students to practice and have them play Prodigy Math or Prodigy English.

Then as they play, student responses are automatically graded and fed into your reports, helping you uncover hidden learning gaps and insights!

It's no secret that teachers and schools are constantly facing issues in terms of lack of funding.

For most public schools across the country that run into issues with funding, teachers are the ones that are expected to get creative and make do with the resources that they do have.

Beyond just a lack of classroom materials, underfunding can also lead to the inability to hire enough teachers. Oftentimes, this is remedied by increasing class sizes. 

While it may seem like the only solution, large class size can negatively impact the classroom experience for many students. It leaves less time for individualized teaching and one-on-one time with the teacher. 

This can lower the quality of learning and have a negative impact on student learning. It also negatively impacts the teachers, with them always feeling behind and overworked.

Teaching is one of the most demanding professions out there. Teachers are constantly working to juggle all their tasks of educating students, managing behavior, completing administrative tasks, and more.

And there’s an emotional element, as they know that their work is shaping lives and the future. 

With the high demand from all their job responsibilities, teachers commonly experience burnout. Some of the common symptoms of burnout include:

  • Feeling drained after working on lesson plans
  • Dreading going to work
  • Lacking the motivation to be productive

Teachers should try to have the best work-life balance as possible in order to avoid burnout, but this can prove difficult with so many responsibilities on their plate. Administrators and parents need to take an active role in education in order to help prevent teacher burnout.

Fight burnout with these tips!

Burnout can happen to the best of us and knowing how to overcome it can be tricky. But with careful reflection and practice, teachers can get back on track and feel reinvigorated. We identified these tips proven to help combat teacher burnout:

  • Practice self-care, especially when you doubt yourself
  • Create boundaries with work and home where possible
  • Consider adding a new approach to your teaching strategy
  • Put every challenging day in perspective and remind yourself of your progress
  • Share how you're feeling with other teachers, including those outside your school

Find new & unique teaching strategies to create an engaging classroom experience

Teaching is not for the faint of heart. It takes dedication, time, and grit to stick with it through the difficulties and the hard days. 

Teachers face a number of challenges while teaching students and even after students leave the classroom. Understanding what teachers are facing can help all of us provide solutions and support to those teaching our children. 

While demanding, teaching is a very rewarding career choice. Few other people in our society have as much impact as teachers do. There are downsides, but there are even more benefits.

If you're an elementary or middle school teacher looking to support your class, try Prodigy! Prodigy is a game-based learning platform that delivers adaptive skill practice in math and English to students. See how it works below!

The best bit? It's full of time-saving teacher features like reports and is available at no cost to teachers and schools. You can use Prodigy to:

  • Set engaging, fun skill practice in just a few clicks
  • Easily assess students on over 1000 standards-aligned skills
  • Motivate your students with classroom goals, rewards and challenges
  • Monitor and track student performance with automatic grading and reports

Get started with Prodigy today and bring the benefits of game-based learning into your classroom for free!

IMAGES

  1. 15 Things You Can Do Right Now to Prevent Classroom Behavior Challenges

    problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

  2. Improve Student Behavior in 4 Steps: A Problem-Solving Process

    problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

  3. 4 Ways to Deal with Challenging Behaviors in the Classroom

    problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

  4. 5 Behavior Management Strategies for Students With Challenges

    problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

  5. Problem Solving with Little Learners (preschool, pre-k, and

    problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

  6. Ms. Sepp's Counselor Corner: S.T.E.P. Problem Solving Method

    problem solving behavior challenges in the classroom

VIDEO

  1. WEEKLY WEBINAR 2/1/2024: A Visual Guide to Mood and Behavior Challenges in Dementia

  2. Problem Solving in the Classroom

  3. Parents Teach Their Children to Steal

  4. Teaching Kindness in Pre-Kindergarten: Effective Strategies

  5. CLASSROOM RELATED PROBLEMS At Elementary Level

  6. DENDRAL for Dendritic Algorithm

COMMENTS

  1. Responding to Behavioral Challenges in the Classroom

    Key points A recent survey shows behavioral issues in schools are on the rise. Increased class size, pandemic-related stressors, and mental health issues are common causes for behavioral...

  2. Strategies for Managing Challenging Student Behaviors

    Challenging behaviors can manifest academically: missing deadlines, plagiarism. They can manifest socially: side conversations, defiance. They can manifest emotionally: apathy, negativity. They can manifest quietly or loudly. And more often than not, they can manifest repeatedly.

  3. PDF Reducing Behavior Problems in the Elementary School Classroom

    This is a practice guide from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) that provides evidence-based recommendations for reducing behavior problems in the elementary school classroom. The guide covers four main strategies: identifying, modifying, teaching, and reinforcing. It also includes examples, checklists, and tools for teachers and administrators.

  4. How to Solve 8 Common Behavior Problems in the Classroom

    How to Solve 8 Common Behavior Problems in the Classroom Incessant pen clicking. Lashing out when things go wrong. Lying. And other classroom behavior problems common among students with ADHD — solved. By Chris A. Zeigler Dendy, M.S. Verified Updated on October 28, 2022 Click to Read 2 Comments 💬

  5. PDF Managing Classroom Behaviors

    Tier 3—Problem-Solving Team. When students display more severe behavior problems such as physical aggression, chronic non-compliance, or crippling levels of anxiety, they can be referred to the RTI/MTSS Problem-Solving Team.

  6. PDF Managing Challenging Classroom Behaviors: A Toolkit

    RTI/MTSS for behavior helps schools to reduce 'risk'—the risk that instructional time will be lost because of behavioral issues like these… 15 • There is general and prolonged confusion as students enter the classroom. 4 minutes • The teacher stops instruction at several points during a lesson to reprimand problem behaviors. 3 minutes

  7. Strategies for Teaching Students With Behavioral Problems

    One of the best strategies for teaching in an environment like this is to learn methods that help to prevent the occurrence of behavioral issues. While every student's needs are different, there are some simple steps teachers can take to help prevent problems as a group. Increase the amount of supervision present during high-risk periods.

  8. Handling challenging behavior problems in the classroom

    1. Noise Making in Class With about 3.8 million kids having attended public school kindergartens in the US, it is quite tricky to lack some students that have a tendency of talking nonstop and in the process distracting their fellow students from concentrating on their studies.

  9. Reducing Behavior Problems in the Elementary School Classroom

    1 Identify the specifics of the problem behavior and the conditions that prompt and reinforce it. Show More 2 Modify the classroom learning environment to decrease problem behavior. Show More 3 Teach and reinforce new skills to increase appropriate behavior and preserve a positive classroom climate. Show More 4

  10. Solving Behavior Problems Together

    Step 1. Establish rapport. Step 2. Talk about the problem. Step 3. Identify the problem and invite the student to solve it. Step 4. Explore possible causes. Step 5. Articulate a clear, specific goal. Step 6. Choose a solution. Opening the Way to Further Action Far-Reaching Benefits How can teachers stop student misbehavior? Try asking the student.

  11. Collaborative Problem-Solving Around Challenging Behaviors in ...

    The beauty of collaborative problem solving conversations is that they empower both the student and teacher to define what success means. By giving middle school students autonomy to define and solve those problems collaboratively with their teachers, they take ownership and transfer critical skills. Within the past few weeks, Henry's ...

  12. Effective Classroom Management: Proven Techniques for Handling Students

    Causes of Behavior Problems. To effectively handle behavior problems in the classroom, it is crucial first to identify potential causes. Some factors contributing to these issues include: Emotional or psychological factors: Students may be dealing with stress, anxiety, depression, or other mental health challenges that manifest as behavior ...

  13. Cognitive-behavioral Strategies in the Classroom

    A Teacher's Guide to Preventing Behavior Problems in the Elementary Classroom; Social Problem Solving Text Helps Teachers in Classroom; Preventing Problem Behaviors in the Classroom ... Simply put, inner speech (also known as covert self-instruction) consists of talking to oneself to solve a problem or guide behavior. Cognitive strategies can ...

  14. Conflict management strategies in coping with students' disruptive

    Students' disruptive behaviors and classroom management are the most important challenges and concerns of the teachers. The current review aimed to analyze the classroom management techniques and strategies used to cope with the students' disruptive behaviors. Methods: The present study was systematic review.

  15. How To: Handle Common Classroom Problem Behaviors Using a Behavior

    Description of the problem behavior. The teacher describes the student's behavior and explains why it is presenting a problem in the classroom. Open-ended questions and student input. The teacher asks open-ended questions to fully understand what factors are contributing to the problem behavior. Problem-solving.

  16. Student Behavior Problems in the Classroom: Teacher Tips

    1. Make expectations clear. Kids feel more in control when they know exactly what's expected of them, which is why teachers should begin each new school year by establishing clear behavioral expectations. Begin by asking the class to help you devise a list of rules to keep everyone's attention focused on learning.

  17. How to Deal with Behavior Problem Students: 5 Strategies to Try

    According to statistical odds, it is likely that approximately 10% of your school's population is facing serious mental health problems, violence or abuse at home, neglect, food uncertainty, or trauma.

  18. Preventing Problem Behaviors in the Classroom

    Designed for 21st-century school leaders, administrators, behavior specialists, and classroom teachers, this research-based guide offers specific strategies and plans for preventing problem behavior at both the classroom and school level. Based on the premise that early response to problems can lead to better outcomes for students, the book's ...

  19. Improve Student Behavior in 4 Steps: A Problem-Solving Process

    Today we'll look at another way to address ongoing social and behavioral problems in schools: a four-step problem-solving process that will help resolve issues and get students back in the classroom as quickly as possible, so they can focus on learning.

  20. Collaborative Problem-Solving Around Challenging Behaviors in…

    Teachers can employ Collaborative Problem Solving to empower students with persistently challenging behaviors to change. You may be familiar with the concept of the school-to-prison pipeline. The validity of this concept is built on the fact that overly punitive policies in schools towards misbehavior disproportionately impact the lives of our ...

  21. Teaching Problem Solving

    Make students articulate their problem solving process . In a one-on-one tutoring session, ask the student to work his/her problem out loud. This slows down the thinking process, making it more accurate and allowing you to access understanding. When working with larger groups you can ask students to provide a written "two-column solution.".

  22. Navigating student behavior together: The power of collaborative

    In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, schools across the country have faced unprecedented challenges. One significant consequence has been a notable decline in student behavior. The disruption ...

  23. Guidance and Challenging Behaviors

    March 1, 2023 Functional Assessment and Positive Behavior Support: The Role of Early Learning Program Leaders and Teachers Functional analysis is a tool that allows educators to figure out the purpose or function of challenging behavior as well as the events that trigger and maintain it. Authored by:

  24. Proactive Problem Solving For Your Child's Behavior Challenges

    Proactive Problem Solving For Your Child's Behavior Challenges. My guest this week is Dr. Ross Greene, a clinical psychologist, and New York Times bestselling author of the influential books The Explosive Child, Lost At School and Raising Human Beings. He is the originator of the model of care called Collaborative and Proactive Solutions (CPS).

  25. Top 10 Biggest Challenges Teachers Face In The Classroom Today

    1. Understanding different learning styles A single classroom most often contains students with a wide set of learning abilities and styles. It is nearly impossible for teachers to simply use one teaching method and have it be effective for all of their learners.