Instructional Strategies and Classroom Management

1. Instructional Strategies and Classroom Management A Therapeutic Approach

2. A Teacher’s Worst Nightmare • New class • Open defiance • Noisy classroom • Unable to gain control • Feelings of shame, anger and frustration • Need for tools to do the job

3. Why A Therapeutic Approach? DSM-IV* Diagnostic Criteria for Conduct Disorder: • Often bullies, threatens, intimidates others • Is often truant from school • Disturbance in behavior causes clinically significant impairment in social or academic functioning • Often stays out at night despite parental prohibitions • Steals, lies and cons • Has used a weapon that can cause serious physical harm * See the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed. for a complete listing.

4. Classroom Management Begins Before the Student Enters the Class • Intake meeting (Motivational Interview) • Expectations are stated • Power hierarchy is established • Initial relationship bond is begun • Student’s communication and social skills are assessed • Commitment to change is elicited

5. Motivational Enhancement Therapy • Seeks to evoke from clients their own motivation for change, to consolidate a personal decision and plan for change • Directed, student-centered approach • Based on principles of cognitive and social psychology

6. If we can reorientate our thoughts and emotions, and reorder our behavior, not only can we learn to cope with suffering more easily, but we can prevent a great deal of it from starting in the first place.--His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

7. M.E.T. continued • The student is the agent of change • The task is to elicit and strengthen motivation to change • Teacher/counselor seeks to develop a discrepancy in the client’s perceptions between current behavior and significant personal goals

8. Necessary Teacher Traits • High level of therapeutic empathy • High interpersonal warmth • Ability to suspend personal perceptions

9. Necessary Teacher Behaviors • Ask open-ended questions • Listen reflectively • Reframe and support student statements • Non-confrontational response to resistance • Support self-efficacy • Develop discrepancy by eliciting the student’s verbal expression of reasons for change

10. Developing Discrepancy Teacher: So, Duane, how do you think you’ve been doing in school? Duane: Pretty good, I guess. Teacher: You should have 90 credits by now. How many do you have? Duane: I think maybe 40. Teacher: Do you think that’s pretty good? Duane: Hmmm, I guess not.

11. Proscribed Teacher Behaviors • Confrontation • Argumentation • Taking on an “expert” role • Diagnostic labeling • Asking a series of “closed” questions

12. The Confrontation/Denial Trap Teacher: Duane, you’re always late for class. Duane: No, I’m not! Teacher: You are! You were late today. Duane: Well, that’s today. You said always. Teacher: Well, okay, not always. But a lot. (Win for Duane – belief that others’ perceptions are faulty is reinforced.)

13. A Handy Metaphor Imagine that teacher and student are working a jigsaw puzzle together. Rather than putting the pieces in place while the student watches, the teacher helps to construct the frame, then puts pieces on the table for the student to place. -Adapted from William R. Miller’s Motivational Enhancement Therapy: Description of Counseling Approach

14. Stages of Change • Pre-contemplation (an optimistic term for denial) – student doesn’t see a problem • Contemplation – student is unsure if there is a problem, but thinks there might be • Preparation – student knows there is a problem and is almost ready to change

15. Stages of Change, cont. • Action – student makes concrete behavioral changes • Maintenance – student experiences regression and needs reinforcement through elicitation of self-motivational statements • Stages are more cyclical than linear. The student will move backward as well as forward; relapse is part of the disorder.

16. Basic Premise Resistance and poor motivation are not student characteristics, they are student cognitions and behaviors and are subject to interpersonal influence. Teachers can (and do) drive resistance levels up and down dramatically by the behavioral responses they choose in the face of resistance and apathy.

17. Teaching Students With Conduct Disorder • Children with conduct disorder need a high level of structure • Negative behaviors are likely to increase along with punishment • Opportunities for self-efficacy and success must be provided • Appropriate behavior must be modeled

18. Social Learning Theory • Observational learning does not require rewards or punishments • Children learn by observing the actions of people around them • Appropriate modeling can influence student social and academic behaviors

19. Teachers do influence behavior and behavioral change. We must understand how to facilitate behavioral changes in our students and must consciously participate in the process. It won’t “just happen” because we wish it would!