Behaviour Expectations and Acknowledging the Good (Doug Lemov)

Summary: 

If want students to demonstrate certain behaviours, we need to communicate expectations clearly and ensure that we take every opportunity to monitor and reinforce that behaviour.  

To create a positive environment for learning, teachers need to reinforce constructive and correct destructive student behaviour when they see it. 

Hattie Check: 

  • Teacher-student relationships = 0.72
  • Classroom behavioural = 0.68 
  • Classroom management = 0.52
While the overall effect size for classroom management is 0.52, it should be noted that in classrooms where there is a great need for management strategies, the impact could be much higher. 
What's the point: 

  • If teachers do not clarify and teach expectations, students will be unclear on how they are to act, talk and move.
  • Teaching expectations should be taken just as seriously as teaching content.
  • Clear expectations increase the psychological safety of the classroom.
  • If teachers inconsistently correct and reinforce behaviour, students will not know what learning is acceptable or encouraged, and that may lead to off-task student behaviour and a psychologically unsafe classroom environment. 
  • Teacher attention is a significant motivator for students, and if teachers direct their attention only to inappropriate behaviour by correcting students, they may unintentionally reinforce the behaviour they are trying to extinguish.
Acknowledging the good (Doug Lemov):

  • Taking the time to see and comment on student actions that foster personal or group learning. 
  • Strive for a 5:1 ratio of reinforcing attention (verbal and non-verbal) v correcting attention. 
  • One strategy is for teachers to make a list of behaviours they especially want to see and then reinforce students when they demonstrate them.
Fluent Correction (Doug Lemov):

  • Identify the behaviours that must be corrected. 
  • Identify how the behaviour will be corrected: first, second, third time? 
  • Video lessons to see whether or not you correct the behaviour when you see it. 
  • Work on one behaviour at a time until it is consistently seen and corrected. 
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