Implementation Plan for a Chaotic Classroom

Sometimes the entire class falls into a pattern of misbehaving because their behavior has become habitual or because many students are emulating a few influential students who misbehave and are perceived as cool or tough.

Goal: implement a structured system of reinforcement (rewards and consequences) based on student behavior. A reinforcement system creates mild peer pressure to motivate the students to behave appropriately. This plan includes a basic reinforcement system and several alternatives.

1. Publicly monitor how often incidents of misbehavior occur.

a. To help students become more aware of their own behavior, create a wall chart on which to record a daily class wide total or rule violations. Post the chart in a visible place in the room.

2. Encourage the class to sets daily performance goals for themselves.

a. Set realistic goals ex: reducing number of incidents from 40 to 32. As the class experiences success, the goal should become progressively lower until there are zero incidents of misbehavior on most days.

3. Establish a group reinforcement system.

a. Have students brainstorm a list of reinforcement ideas for the entire class, then eliminate any items that are not possible (too expensive)

b. Assign prices (dojo points) to the remaining items on the list. The more expensive items the more points required. (15 minutes extra recess time; 15 minutes of having music play in the classroom…)

c. On days the group successfully keeps the number of misbehavior incidents under their goal, they earn specified points toward the agreed upon reward. Establish a sliding point scale such as the