Students who are actively engaged in learning have a higher probability of academic and behavioral success in the classroom. One effective teaching practice that increases student engagement is providing students with frequent opportunities to respond (OTR). This article provides practitioners with a range of OTR strategies that include verbal,…

The current body of research on classroom environments identifies key proactive instructional strategies that when implemented effectively can reduce the likelihood of problematic behavioral incidents by students. One strategy known as active supervision has demonstrated positive outcomes across school settings, including classrooms, hallways,…

Academics and behavior are inextricably linked, and as such, management of behavior should be considered not as an addition to the teacher's repertoire of skills but as an integral foundational component of effective instruction. Paradoxically, teachers report that students with challenging behavior are both their greatest challenge and that…

When dealing with children who exhibit challenging behaviors there are no known interventions that work for all students or at all times. Thus, intervention for these students is often implemented in a trial and error manner. This article provides a logic for considering probability as a factor in selecting strategies. Understanding that some…

Students in alternative, residential, and correctional settings present challenges in the classroom and facility due to the complexity and intensity of their behaviors. In addition, the factors typically associated with these settings including crowding, inconsistency, and conflicting staff perspectives on education and discipline present…

Teachers report that the behaviors that they are forced to deal with on a daily basis are not typically violent or intense but are frequent and usurp great amounts of instructional time. Office discipline referrals provide a well-established method of tracking student behavior problems across the school, allowing for deeper analysis of contextual…

Functional behavior assessment (FBA), although mandated by federal law in situations involving students with emotional and behavioral disorders, is not well defined in the literature in terms of how it should best be undertaken in widespread practice in schools. Functional behavior assessment can be defined as a process for determining the reason…

The management of a large number of children in a nonclassroom or common setting (e.g., gymnasium, auditorium) can present a challenge to school staff. This article describes a set of commonsense solutions that were implemented with 400 elementary students in a before-school common setting. The solutions are described and the results of the…

Dealing with difficult behavior is a matter of awareness of the factors involved in prediction, prevention, and instruction. This means three things: Teachers know, or can be assisted in thinking through the environmental events and contexts that are associated with higher probabilities of problem behavior. Second, teachers can actively manipulate…

Although the federal government recently mandated the use of functional behavior assessment (FBA) and positive behavioral interventions for students, this legislation has not defined the key features of FBA and has provided little guidance for how such procedures should be completed in a public school setting. As a result, recent evidence suggests…

Functional behavior assessment (FBA) is an integral component of a positive behavior support approach to preventing problem behavior across all students in the school. As primary prevention, FBA is a collaborative school-wide practice to predict common problems and to develop school-wide interventions. As secondary prevention, FBA involves simple…

This article presents a detailed example of how faculty and staff at one middle school implemented team-based functional behavioral assessment (FBA) planning procedures with a student exhibiting recurring minor problems. Insets list tasks and considerations for an FBA, a sample formatted antecedent-behavior-consequence summary of team member…

Although functional behavior assessment (FBA) has been widely recognized as a promising practice for providing proactive interventions with students exhibiting challenging behaviors in typical schools, questions persist as to how FBA should best be trained and used in such public settings. Debate has balanced the issue of what is practical for…