NAVIGATION

Interactive Features

Alternatives to Suspension/Behavior Interventions

Social Skills Instruction

Academic Connection

Law

Organizations

Calendar

Search

PLAN D

Occasionally you may have a situation in which several students in the class are aggressive toward each other. This plan adapts components from PLANS A-C to be used with a group of students.

---

1. Respond consistently to all instances of inappropriate behavior.

a. Have a class meeting during which you define being aggressive and being cooperative, and identify consequences for mild and severe aggressive acts (see PLAN A).

b. Implement appropriate consequences for each mild and severe aggressive act, as necessary (see PLAN A).

2. Develop procedures for publicly monitoring the frequency of aggressive acts.

a. Identify a place, the chalkboard or a wall chart, on which you can record a daily count of aggressive acts.

b. Once you have defined what constitutes an aggressive act, make a tally mark on the chart each time there is an incident. (NOTE: You will not be identifying the individual's responsible for the acts, simply recording the frequency.) At the end of the day, compare that day's total to that of previous days. Discuss with the class whether things are getting better, worse, or staying about the same. If things are better, have the students reflect on the climate of the classroom, does it feel better? if so, how? If not, why not?

3. Encourage the class to set performance goals for the next day.

You may have to help the students identify a reasonable goal, as the students may have the tendency to say they want to reduce the number of incidents from 15 on one day to zero on the next day, for example. You might tell the students that if they set a more realistic goal, such as 12, they significantly increase their chances of success and they can always reduce the number more than that. As the class successfully meets their goal, the number should become progressively lower.

4. Use reinforcement to encourage appropriate behavior.

a. When the class has demonstrated reductions in the total number of aggressive acts, provide class praise. "Class, everyone in the room should be proud of how cooperative they were today. According to our count, we have had a significant reduction in the number of minor aggressive acts, and no major aggression. Excellent work."

b. Occasionally, provide a class-wide reward to celebrate their success. "Class, you've done such a good job of being cooperative today&-; how about if we take the last five minutes of class to have choice time with some music playing?"

c. Alternately, establish a group reinforcement system in which you identify a goal for the whole class. On days when the class is successful in keeping their number of aggressive acts under the goal, the group earns a point toward a reward that they determined beforehand. An alternative is to use a technique like the Mystery Motivator (Rhode, Jenson, & Reavis, 1992), with which on days the group successfully meets their goal, they find out what they win by uncovering the Mystery Motivator space for that day.

Aggression-Verbal and/or Physical

If you have a student who is physically and/or verbally aggressive toward adults or peers, you will want to read this chapter (pg. 31 in book).

Chaos/Classroom Out of Control

If you have many students in your class who frequently engage in a variety of misbehaviors, you will want to read this chapter (pg. 175 in book)

Dr. Randall Sprick graciously has given his permission to post two problem behaviors and all plans listed within these two chapters. We sincerely thank him for providing this resource to the teachers of Kentucky so that they may effectively serve students with challenging behaviors. Please visit the The Teacher's Encyclopedia of Behavior Management Web page.