Читать книгу Behavior:The Forgotten Curriculum - Chris Weber - Страница 8
ОглавлениеIntroduction
Behavior is a form of communication providing clues about what is missing in a young person’s life.
—JOHN SEITA
Jacob is a fourth-grade student in an urban school district. After losing his mom three years earlier, Jacob, his older brother, and younger sister now live in a single-parent home. Their father works two jobs to take care of the family, but he doesn’t earn enough wages to pay all the family’s living expenses. Jacob’s aunt often cares for him and his siblings along with her three younger children. Some days, Jacob’s aunt asks the older children to watch the younger children. Jacob’s role as caregiver means he often makes his brother, sister, and cousins breakfast, helps them get dressed, organizes their lunches and backpacks, and walks them to their classrooms. Jacob is sometimes late to his own class or absent on these mornings.
Jacob and his siblings have witnessed varying degrees of violence and drug use in the community. His dad’s work demands make it hard to have routines, like a set bedtime or homework time. Jacob and his siblings sometimes don’t have meals at home. Jacob is often hungry but feels ashamed to ask for extra food at school, while watching other students waste theirs.
Despite these traumas, Jacob likes school. Jacob enjoys numbers and logic puzzles and has experienced success in mathematics. He has good peer relationships and generally fits in well in classes. When he is attentive, his teachers remark that he is a good contributor and can be seen smiling. When he is not, his teachers become concerned about the impact of Jacob’s inattentiveness on his learning and of his disruptions on others’ learning. When Jacob becomes frustrated, he lashes out verbally, and occasionally, physically. Staff recognize that detentions and other negative consequences that have been assigned are having little impact but don’t know of other strategies. They want a consistent approach for all students, and not separate rules for Jacob. Jacob’s father is busy and has a difficult time committing to school appointments, but when his father has met with staff, he has expressed his respect and support for a good education. He wants a better life for Jacob and his other children.
Jacob wishes his teachers knew that school is important to him. His realities outside of school make it challenging for him to always manage, monitor, and regulate his behaviors. He’s often hungry and tired. He tries to push through these feelings, but it doesn’t always work. His absences and tardies are increasingly contributing to difficulties.
Jacob’s situation is, unfortunately, not unique. There are many, many students in the North American school system facing familial and financial challenges just like Jacob’s—and students with needs that are slightly less dramatic are even more common. In fact, over half of U.S. students live in poverty (Suitts, 2015). Jacob’s story provides critically important context for the causes—loss of a parent, economic struggles, food scarcity, violence, or lack of structure at home—behind what many teachers may simply pass off as troublesome classroom behavior. We should continue to strive for classroom environments in which students are engaged and attentive, complete the work assigned to them, and demonstrate clear progress at the end of the unit compared with the beginning. The truth is, many students around North America experience difficulties displaying such behaviors because their life situations have presented challenges in mastering these skills. When home, health, and hunger are unreliable variables, successful self-regulation may vary too. Let’s continue to expect and recommit to teach and support, and let’s do so with empathy.
Students are inherently and intrinsically creative and curious, but they also long for safe and predictable environments that allow them chances to develop such skills as exercising autonomy, practicing independence, demonstrating competence, growing in learning, and forming relationships and connections (Ryan & Deci, 2000). These behavioral skills foster complex thinking and social-emotional growth (Denton, 2005), which lead to success not only in classrooms but also in life.
All students deserve that we, as educators, nurture their behavioral skills as well as their academic skills. Doing so should not be difficult—both sets of skills require students to learn problem solving, metacognition, and critical thinking, so there should be some degree of overlap in what is taught. However, in an attempt to cover the increasing number of academic state standards and ensure our students are compliant, we have lost sight of our responsibility to consider our students’ fundamental behavioral needs—those skills that form the foundation of an education and a life.
I passionately believe that the most important instructional and behavioral principles and practices for students—differentiation, growth mindset, self-assessment, metacognition, and perseverance, to name a few—are inextricably related. Research finds that these skills are mutually reinforcing concepts that will improve student engagement, nurture noncognitive skills, and lead to greater academic performance (see, for example, Farrington et al., 2012). Instruction in one behavioral skill should positively affect the development of other skills, serving overall to improve school, career, and life outcomes for students.
This book builds on a research-based model of instruction and supports that is already familiar to educators—response to intervention, or RTI. This introduction presents to educators what RTI can be, should be, and truly is—the what and why of RTI, and how it applies to behavioral instruction. It defines behavioral skills and discusses the need for behavioral supports for all students—not just those displaying contrary behavior—since behavioral skills are necessary for any student to be successful in school, college, career, and life. It helps educators apply the latest information from research studies on behavior and its impacts on success to skills they can teach in their classrooms. Finally, it encourages readers to embrace the notion that behavioral skill development is a critical part of the educational experience and that each and every student has the capacity to learn and display positive behavioral skills. As stakeholders in the school community, educators, including administrators, should ensure that their learning spaces reflect an appreciation for and knowledge of behavioral skills, such that students in their classrooms view school as a welcoming environment that teaches, models, and nurtures behavioral skills.
Introducing Behavioral RTI
While educators have appreciated the importance of student behaviors as a necessary foundation on which to complete the “real work” of academics, many now recognize that behavioral skills are as important as, and perhaps more important than, academic skills. Whether we label behavioral skills as noncognitive skills, self-regulation, executive functioning, social-emotional learning, or more specifically as grit, self-control, or social intelligence, student mastery of these behavioral skills better predicts success in school, college, and life than test scores and measures of intellectual ability (Borghans, Golsteyn, Heckman, & Humphries, 2016; Duckworth, Quinn, & Tsukayama, 2012; Duckworth & Seligman, 2005; Heckman & Kautz, 2012; Noftle & Robins, 2007; Poropat, 2009). We as educators must collectively embrace this reality and better nurture these skills within our students. But how? The simplest solution is simply to take what we’ve already been doing with academics and apply the same process to behavior.
One of the most common models for teaching academic skills to students—all students—is RTI. According to RTI experts Austin Buffum, Mike Mattos, Chris Weber, and Tom Hierck (2015):
RTI is a systematic process of tiered support to ensure every student receives the additional time and support needed to learn at high levels. RTI’s underlying premise is that schools should not delay providing help for struggling students until they fall far enough behind to qualify for special education, but instead should provide timely, targeted, systematic interventions to all students who demonstrate the need (Buffum et al., 2012). Traditionally, the RTI process is represented in the shape of a pyramid. (p. 8)
Buffum and colleagues (2015) offer an illustration of that pyramid (figure I.1, page 4) and go on to explain its components:
Source: Buffum et al., 2015, p. 8.
Figure I.1: The RTI pyramid.
The pyramid shape is wide at the bottom to represent the basic instruction that all students receive. As students demonstrate the need for additional support, they move up the pyramid, receiving increasingly more targeted and intensive help. Fewer students should need the services offered at the upper levels, thus creating the tapered shape of a pyramid. The pyramid is also traditionally separated into tiers, with Tier 1 representing grade-level core instruction, Tier 2 supplemental interventions, and Tier 3 intensive student support.
… RTI does not endorse or dictate a specific curriculum, assessment product, or intervention program, but instead creates processes that empower educators to make these critical decisions based on the specific learning needs of their students. While RTI processes are applicable to behavior interventions, RTI implementation efforts have traditionally focused on academic curriculum and instructional practices (Sugai, 2001). (p. 9)
Its process is applicable to behavior interventions. Response to intervention is a research-based set of practices. RTI plans are required within school districts in the United States, and most districts, schools, and educators are familiar with the principles and practices of RTI. Let’s apply the familiar processes that we have applied to academics to the critically important area of behavioral skills.
The Six Steps of Behavioral RTI
Based on extensive research and empirical evidence, RTI is one of the most impactful sets of principles and practices in which schools can engage (Allington, 2011; Bloom, 1968, 1974, 1984; Burns, Appleton, & Stehouwer, 2005; Burns & Symington, 2002; Elbaum, Vaughn, Hughes, & Moody, 2000; Gersten, Beckmann, et al., 2009; Gersten, Compton, et al., 2009; Hattie, 2012; Swanson & Sachse-Lee, 2000; VanDerHeyden, Witt, & Gilbertson, 2007). However, in many schools, educators are applying RTI incorrectly, complicating the process, or misunderstanding the point entirely by focusing only on Tiers 2 and 3. Educators can follow certain steps, or elements, when applying the RTI model to alleviate these complications.
In behavioral RTI, district and school teachers and staff complete the following six core steps.
1. Identify the most critical behavioral skills.
2. Define and make sense of these skills.
3. Model, teach, and nurture these skills.
4. Measure student success in displaying these skills.
5. Provide differentiated supports that respect students’ current levels of readiness.
6. Intervene appropriately and as necessary when evidence reveals the need.
These six essential steps to developing students’ behavioral skills are the very same things that we do (or should do) as we strive to help students develop academic skills. Aligning our efforts and initiatives related to academics and behaviors is likely to decrease anxieties and increase efficacies.
This six-step behavioral RTI process ensures that a system exists for predicting and preventing frustration instead of reacting to students’ behavioral deficits. For example, we can predict students will bring very different, identifiable behavioral needs to our classrooms. We can prevent frustration and delay by being ready to model, teach, and measure these behaviors. We can predict that students will need differentiated supports to successfully access and demonstrate mastery of essential behavioral concepts and skills; we can proactively and positively prepare with varied teaching and learning options for Tier 1. We can predict that some students will learn at different rates and will need more than our first, best instruction; we can then prepare with more time and alternative differentiated supports at regular, planned intervals for students in Tier 2. We can predict that some students will have significant deficits in foundational skills; we can then prepare immediate, intensive, and targeted supports for those in Tier 3. In essence, RTI is actively and systematically anticipating students’ behavioral needs and proactively preparing supports. When we implement the six steps of behavioral RTI correctly, we serve students in a more timely, targeted, and organized manner.
RTI is a self-correcting system. When students are not responding to instruction and intervention, educators following RTI are ready with processes that ensure adjustments to their practices will be made until all students are responding and performing at or above grade level. Timely adjustments to supports are possible when applying the preceding six steps to the teaching and learning of behavioral skills.
For this six-step process to be impactful, RTI must be understood as applying to all students and embraced as the responsibility of all staff. Collective responsibility is a must. When all teachers and teacher teams are working together to apply the steps of behavioral RTI, it can become an effective system of teaching positive and necessary behavioral skills to all students in our classrooms.
Teacher Teams in Behavioral RTI
There is no RTI—whether in support or academic or behavioral skills—without Professional Learning Communities at Work™. RTI can be accurately described as “PLC+.” In a PLC at Work, educators believe that a learning (not teaching) is the point of our supports for students; they believe that evidence-informed results, not opinions, must define the efficacy of our efforts; and they believe that the only way to meet our lofty and important goal of high levels of learning for all students is to work and serve students in collaborative teams (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, Many, & Mattos, 2016).
The four critical questions of PLCs, which are embedded within the preceding six-step process, are well known to most educators (DuFour et al., 2016):
1. What do we want students to learn?
2. How will we know if they have learned it?
3. What will we do if they don’t learn it?
4. How will we extend the learning for students who are already proficient?
Throughout Behavior: The Forgotten Curriculum; An RTI Approach for Nurturing Essential Life Skills, the tools, resources, and guidance provided are aimed at teacher teams working to provide behavioral RTI supports to students within the context of a PLC at Work.
Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports
Many educators interested in teaching behaviors may already be familiar with positive behavior interventions and supports (PBIS) and wonder why this book is focusing on RTI. In truth, a key goal of this book is to combine the elements of both RTI and PBIS. RTI has traditionally focused on proactively preparing and providing targeted supports in a collaborative, organized manner to meet the needs of different students, while PBIS has traditionally focused on the proactive and consistent modeling, reinforcing, and teaching of the behavioral skills that result in productive and positive environments. Both RTI and PBIS necessitate a schoolwide approach, and both provide different levels (tiers) of support to match the types and intensity of student needs.
Throughout this book, we work to incorporate up-to-date research on mindsets, social-emotional learning, and academic behaviors into RTI and PBIS to make them better integrated and more responsive to student needs, because, of course, different students have different behavioral needs. Students’ beliefs about their ability to learn, and their levels of engagement and feelings of belonging, all influence how they act. One of this book’s primary goals is to guide students’ development of more productive behaviors. But which behaviors, both social and academic, are most critical to success? How do we determine which students need which kind of emotional and behavioral supports, and then how do we nurture those behaviors for all students? This book steps you through a process of definition, diagnosis, differentiated implementation, assessment, and culture building to move beyond simple behavior change to building learning dispositions to last students a lifetime.
Defining Behavioral Skills
Up until this point, this book has spoken rather generally about behavioral skills. But what skills exactly does that phrase entail? The work of Camille Farrington, senior research associate at the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research, and her colleagues (2012) influenced my definition of behavioral skills. Farrington et al.’s (2012) research-based framework describes six interrelated categories of behavior—(1) precognitive self-regulation, (2) mindsets, (3) social skills, (4) learning strategies, (5) perseverance, and (6) academic behaviors—all of which interact and influence student learning (academic performance). Figure I.2 shows the interconnectedness of these categories. Please note that the arrows flow in both directions. While positive mindsets foundationally impact positive social skills and learning strategies, which foundationally impact positive perseverance, which foundationally impacts positive academic behaviors and performance, influences can travel in the opposite direction. For example, difficulties with employing learning strategies can negatively impact a student’s mindset.
Source: Adapted from Farrington et al., 2012.
Figure I.2: Interrelated categories of behavior.
Farrington et al.’s (2012) categories fall under the umbrella of noncognitive factors. I prefer to think of them as metacognitive skills because everything in the brain is cognitive. The behaviors commonly associated with metacognitive skills include everything from attention and focus to grit and perseverance to empathy and engagement. Far from being noncognitive, these behaviors are considered part of the brain’s executive functioning (Duckworth & Carlson, 2013; Dweck, Walton, & Cohen, 2014; Martens & Meller, 1990; Tough, 2012, 2016). Executive functions are processes that have to do with managing oneself (for example, emotions, thinking, and schedules) and one’s resources (for example, notes, supports, and environments) in order to be successful. The term, in many ways, captures the preceding categories and may be considered as synonymous with the behavioral skills that we describe in the book and that students need to learn to succeed in school, college, career, and life. Each of Farrington et al.’s (2012) six categories contains what this book defines under the broad label of behavioral skills. Let’s define the behaviors within each category individually.
1. Precognitive self-regulation: Students can attain, maintain, regulate, and change their level of arousal for a task or situation. Educators may observe that students have difficulty coping emotionally and may determine that these difficulties are impacted by poor health, nutrition, and sleep; or lack of exercise; or sensitivity to sensory inputs; or an ability to process inputs. These abilities are dependent on, and related to, physiological and safety needs as defined within Maslow’s (1943, 1954) five-tiered theory of motivation.
2. Mindsets: Students feel a sense of belonging, belief, and engagement. Affirmative responses to the following statements represent a positive, growth mindset—
■ “I belong in this academic community.” Educators know that students are connected to someone and something within the school environment.
■ “My ability and competence grow with my effort.” Educators observe that students believe that they can improve with effort; that smart is something that you become, not something that you are.
■ “I can succeed at this.” Educators know that success breeds success and that meeting students where they are and nudging them toward greater levels of proficiency are key; students draw on a sense of self-efficacy to persist in learning.
■ “This work has value for me.” Educators know that motivation is dependent on the relevance that students see in classrooms; students have opportunities to explore passions, they see the purpose in learning, and they experience personalized supports and opportunities for personalized paths.
3. Social skills: Students have respectful interactions with others and demonstrate respect for themselves. Educators observe students cooperating and collaborating in socially appropriate ways and behaving with empathy for others in both academic and social circumstances.
4. Learning strategies: Students can regulate, monitor, and reflect on their learning. Educators see students employing effective study and organizational skills, behaving metacognitively, tracking their own progress, and responding appropriately when faced with a task, whether the task is completing an in-class assignment, completing a long-term project, or preparing for a test. Learning strategies can be thought of as cognitive self-regulation: students regulate the level of their learning frequently and make the necessary adjustments.
5. Perseverance: Students maintain effort and adapt to setbacks; they exercise self-discipline and self-control; they delay gratification; and they advocate for one’s needs. Educators observe that students stick with tasks, typically because they are drawing on positive mindsets, social skills, and learning strategies.
6. Academic behaviors: Students are physically, emotionally, and cognitively present and attentive within learning and learning environments. Educators note that students consistently complete tasks of high quality; that they actively participate in learning; and that they appear motivated to learn, succeed, and grow. Again, educators’ observations of academic behaviors typically draw on and depend on positive mindsets, social skills, learning strategies, and perseverance, the companion behavioral skills in figure I.2 (page 7).
Defining behavioral skills within the context of Farrington et al.’s (2012) framework is helpful because the framework then becomes an action plan. We can operationalize the research, putting the best thinking of these experts into action and proactively supporting students in developing skills when difficulties exist. For example, let’s say a student is labeled as unmotivated—he or she doesn’t seem to care about school or his or her grades, or his or her future. This is perhaps the most common concern that educators identify, particularly as students get older. A lack of motivation would appear as a deficit in the category of academic behaviors within the framework. While we will describe how we can teach students to behave in more motivated ways, the sequential nature of the framework reveals that there are predictable antecedents to poor academic behaviors, or more specifically, a lack of motivation.
Considering the framework from top to bottom, a student who is hungry, is tired, has difficulties modulating emotions, or has some combination of these, may appear unmotivated, and more immediately, may not display positive, growth mindsets. A student without positive, growth mindsets may appear unmotivated, and more immediately, may not display positive social skills. A lack of social skills makes cooperating and collaborating with adults and students a challenge. Additionally, a student without positive, growth mindsets may not see the point or the payoff in practicing and improving learning strategies. A student without productive learning strategies may appear unmotivated, and more immediately, may not regularly persevere. Finally, a student who does not persevere will likely appear unmotivated. Essentially, the point of these examples is to illustrate that there are reasons—explanations, causes, antecedents—to a student’s lack of motivation. When we as educators consider behavioral skills within the context of Farrington et al.’s (2012) framework, we can identify these reasons and do something about it. As John Seita (2014), associate professor of social work at Michigan State University, says, “Behavior is a form of communication providing clues about what is missing in a young person’s life” (p. 29).
Identifying the Importance of Behavioral Skills
Research suggests that metacognitive behavioral skills matter a lot to students’ long-term life success. For example, a long-term analysis of subjects from Walter Mischel’s (2014) famous marshmallow study shows that children with strong self-regulation skills (who were able to resist the temptation of eating a second marshmallow) had greater academic and life success than their less strong-willed peers. Research further suggests that executive functioning and self-regulation are better predictors of school success than intelligence tests. (See Duckworth and Carlson, 2013, for one review of this research.) Education economist David Deming (2015) reveals that skill knowledge mastery and empathy—in this case, the ability to work with others to solve complex problems—are the critical combination for high-value jobs in the workplace. While definitions and tools for monitoring these learning characteristics are still emerging (for example, the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning [www.casel.org], or CASEL, is working with a consortium of states to define common objectives), we should start incorporating them into our mix of measures now (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, 2018).
Despite the research indicating the importance of behavioral skills to life, the literature indicates that student readiness is lower than ever. While graduation rates are at an all-time high, ACT (2012) reports that less than 40 percent of students are ready for college. Why might this be? One possible explanation, revealed through an examination of the Lexile levels of texts, shows that while the complexity of text required in college, skilled careers, and the military has steadily increased, the text complexities within K–12 have not similarly increased. Another explanation is that the K–12 curriculum continues to be a mile wide and an inch deep—the curriculum covers a lot of material but doesn’t examine it in depth.
It is my belief, and the belief of other pioneers of behavioral RTI, that a particularly significant explanation is that educators have not sufficiently focused on developing behavioral skills (Boynton & Boynton, 2005; Mullet, 2014; Sprick, Borgmeier, & Nolet, 2002; Sugai, 2001; Sugai & Horner, 2002; Walton & Cohen, 2011; Zimmerman, Bandura, & Martinez-Pons, 1992). We as educators may teach academic skills, but we have not prioritized the development of behavioral, or noncognitive, skills to the same extent. And to be clear, behavioral skills matter.
Several research studies investigating readiness for college and career paths indicate that behavioral preparedness is as important as, if not more so than, academics. The Partnership for 21st Century Learning (2016) organizes next-generation skills into the following ten categories.
1. Creativity and innovation
2. Critical thinking and problem solving
3. Communication and collaboration
4. Information and media literacy
5. Technological literacy
6. Flexibility and adaptability
7. Initiative and self-direction
8. Social and cross-cultural skills
9. Productivity and accountability
10. Leadership and responsibility
The skills within these categories are all more behavioral (or metacognitive) than academic. However, very few of these are explicitly taught by educators. It seems clear that these skills must be more prioritized within the work of classrooms and schools.
Further, David Conley’s (2014) research investigates college- and career-readiness skills. His research, drawn from analyses of the skills required by colleges and careers, as well as the skills that students leave high schools possessing, led to his development of a framework for necessary 21st century learning. Among his findings are that the skills required for college and skilled careers are no longer distinct; success in either college or a skilled career requires the same competencies. Conley (2014) defines four categories of these skills, which table I.1 summarizes.
A simple analysis of these skills reveals the following: only one of the categories, Know, relates to academic knowledge. The other three categories define self-regulatory skills, metacognitive skills, and executive skills; in other words, the behavioral skills that were defined earlier in this introduction. This review of Conley’s (2014) categories of college and career readiness leads to an undeniable conclusion: success in life is about more than academic knowledge. Behaviors matter, both in college and in the workplace.
TABLE I.1: FOUR CATEGORIES OF COLLEGE- AND CAREER-READINESS SKILLS
| Skill Category | Definition |
| 1. Think | Beyond retaining and applying, students process, manipulate, assemble, reassemble, examine, question, look for patterns, organize, and present.Students develop and employ strategies for problem solving when encountering a challenge. Strategies include:• Problem formulation• Research• Interpretation• Communication• Precision and accuracy |
| 2. Know | Students possess foundational knowledge in core academic subjects and an understanding of:• Connections and structures between and within subjects• The necessity for, and implications of, effort and a growth mindset• The organization of content• Identification of key ideas• The inherent value of learning |
| 3. Act | Students employ skills and techniques to enable them to exercise agency and ownership as they successfully manage their learning.Students gain expertise through the regular and integrated application and practice of key learning skills and techniques. Agency rests on the following:• Goal setting• Persistence• Self-awareness• Motivation• Self-advocacy• Progress monitoring• Self-efficacyStudents develop habits that allow them to succeed in demanding situations:• Time management• Study skills• Test taking and note taking• Memorization• Strategic reading• Collaborative learning• Technological proficiencies |
| 4. Go | Students preparing for a career or additional education develop skills to navigate potential challenges, including:• Contextual—Motivations and options for educational programs after high school• Procedural—The logistics of admissions and application processes• Financial—The costs of further education and financial aid options• Cultural—Differences between cultural norms in school and the workplace or postsecondary settings• Interpersonal—Advocating for oneself in complex situations |
Source: Adapted from Conley, 2014.
The Economist Group and Google’s (Tabary, 2015) survey of business executives to assess the skills workers most need in 21st century workplaces reinforces this reality. The ten skills they identify most are:
1. Problem solving (50 percent)
2. Team working (35 percent)
3. Communication (32 percent)
4. Critical thinking (27 percent)
5. Creativity (21 percent)
6. Leadership (18 percent)
7. Literacy (17 percent)
8. Digital literacy (16 percent)
9. Foreign language ability (15 percent)
10. Emotional intelligence (12 percent)
These skills are critical in all content areas and across all grades. They are not, however, sufficiently present within academic curricula.
Finally, research from the Hamilton Project and the Brookings Institution analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, with cognitive skills measured by the Armed Forces Qualification Test and noncognitive skills measured by the Rotter Locus of Control scale, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale, and Deming’s (2015) social skills index. These multiple measures were compiled to measure attitudes about work and reward, self-esteem, and general social skills. The research drew the following seven conclusions.
1. The U.S. economy is demanding more noncognitive skills.
2. There are strong labor-market payoffs to both cognitive and noncognitive skills.
3. The labor market is increasingly rewarding noncognitive skills.
4. Those in the bottom quartile of noncognitive skills are only about one-third as likely to complete a postsecondary degree as are those in the top quartile.
5. Noncognitive skill development interventions improve student achievement and reduce behavior-related problems.
6. Preschool interventions emphasizing cognitive and noncognitive skill development have long-term economic benefits for participants.
7. A teacher’s ability to improve noncognitive skills has more effect on graduation rates than does his or her ability to raise test scores.
The conclusions of this research are clear: noncognitive skills matter during and after a student’s schooling, and behavioral skills are as important as academic skills. Research confirms that behavioral skills are the product of the interaction between students and educational contexts, rather than being predetermined characteristics of individual students (Deci, 1992; Ericsson & Pool, 2016; Farrington et al., 2012; Hattie, Biggs, & Purdie, 1996; Masten & Coatsworth, 1998; Stipek, 1988; Wang, Haertel, & Wahlberg, 1994; Yair, 2000).
Student behavior is neither innate nor fixed. We as educators can influence student behaviors—and we must. Many of the preceding studies aim to identify skills students need to develop now for use in the future. Because society and systems are continually evolving, it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what the schools of the future will look like. In many ways, we’re in the process of retrofitting our schools, enhancing established structures with new principles and practices. As we continually question better ways of doing things, implement those ideas, and reflect on evidence of student success, more students will leave high schools ready for college and a skilled career. Schools will continue down a path of more innovation, inquiry, and integration of concepts, ideas, and processes. They will continue to find new ways of blending academic learning, behavioral skill development, and authentic student engagement into a rich and meaningful experience. Education holds the greatest promise to positively impact students’ futures, and we as educators must be inspired to fulfill this promise. It is my hope that Behavior: The Forgotten Curriculum; An RTI Approach for Nurturing Essential Life Skills will support schools’ continuous improvements.
In This Book
Behavior: The Forgotten Curriculum; An RTI Approach for Nurturing Essential Life Skills provides practical assistance, ideas, and resources for K–12 educators, administrators, teacher teams, and educational leaders as they strive to help students develop behavioral skills and self-regulation, with the ultimate goal of achieving better student outcomes. It provides administrators and teacher teams with both background and practical knowledge about how to design and implement comprehensive, RTI-based behavioral supports within their schools. Teachers who read this book on their own will gain insights into the most recent research in the area of behavioral skills and the best practices that they can use in their classrooms. Throughout the book, you’ll also learn from educators—some researchers, some practitioners—who are pioneering behavioral RTI across North America and making the ideas presented within this book come to life.
This book is a doing book, chock-full of templates and tools for staff. There is a great need for behavioral supports for students, and an equally great need to build the capacities of staff to support student needs. As educators, we are simply less well-equipped and prepared to support students’ behavioral needs and to help students develop mastery of critical behavioral skills than we are to support their academic needs. If best student outcomes are to occur, educators need to develop skills in teaching and supporting learning behaviors—and that is exactly what the tools in this book aim to do.
chapter 1 provides tools for assessing your staff’s readiness for behavioral RTI before introducing readers to the first two steps of the behavioral RTI model—identifying and defining and making sense of behavioral skill priorities. This chapter emphasizes the power of high expectations, the importance of proactively preparing supports, and the need to plan for core behavioral curricula in the same ways that we educators plan for academic units. After first discussing the collaborative culture of commitment and foundational beliefs required to implement behavioral RTI in schools and providing tools to measure such mindsets in staff, chapter 1 then provides tools to identify and define key essential student behaviors and describes how educators can establish both overarching and content-area-specific curricula to prepare them for consistently, comprehensively, and explicitly teaching these critical behavioral skills.
Next, chapter 2 delves into the effective modeling, teaching, and nurturing of behavioral skills within a Tier 1 environment. Within this chapter, readers will find a compelling rationale and specific suggestions for screening students; explicitly and comprehensively modeling, instructing, and reinforcing specific behaviors within the classroom; and nurturing these skills through supportive teacher-student relationships. Just as we incorporate sound instructional pedagogies and high-yield strategies for academics, we must apply sound instructional design to the learning of behavioral skills.
Chapter 3 focuses on assessment, differentiation, and intervention. It provides examples of formative assessments teachers can use to gather evidence of student success in displaying positive and productive behavioral skills, allowing educators to analyze performances, provide immediate and specific feedback, provide differentiated supports, and intervene appropriately, when necessary.
Anticipating that some students will need more time and alternative supports to confidently and consistently display the behaviors that we model, teach, and reinforce within Tier 1, chapter 4 thoroughly defines the Tier 2 and Tier 3 supports that educators can proactively prepare and provide when a student needs intervention. It provides tools for determining the causes or antecedents of student difficulties and suggests a set of research-based intervention strategies for use with students in Tiers 2 and 3.
The book concludes in chapter 5 with the challenges that practitioners of behavioral RTI have encountered (and that you might experience as well) along with the strategies that we employed to address them.
I and many other educators have experienced the impact that a greater focus on behaviors can have on schools, staff, and, most importantly, student outcomes. I hope the resources in this book will equip your schools to experience similar successes.
Next Steps
The following are next steps in introducing behavioral RTI to your school or team.
■ With your staff or teacher teams, have open and honest conversations about the current state of behavioral supports for all students at all tiers.
■ Build consensus among your staff or teacher team on the role of schools and educators in developing the habits and attributes associated with behavioral skills.
■ Read, share, and synthesize information on the specific behavioral skills that students must develop to be successful students and citizens.
