From this beginning, a grade-level team volunteered to embrace the idea that behavioral skills needed to be taught and time needed to be embedded within the day to do so. The staff members were empowered and supported, and results in the first year, as measured by a reduction in behavioral infractions and increases in attendance, work completion, and reading levels, were dramatic. The momentum and excitement generated from this success inspired other teams to initiate shifts in their practices and a corner had truly been turned; the school now feels different, and student outcomes continue to improve.
Figure 1.1: Survey of expectations, readiness, strengths, and needs of staff and stakeholders.
Visit go.SolutionTree.com/RTI for a free reproducible version of this figure.
A commitment to ensuring that all students possess the behavioral skills necessary for readiness in college, a skilled career, and life cannot be fully achieved without providing scaffolded core instruction for every single student, and supplemental interventions for students who do not come to school with a mastery of behaviors. We must define, teach, model, and measure mastery of the behavioral skills of all students as part of a core curriculum, both as a distinct and critical part of Tier 1 and integrated into the academic instruction that has far too long represented the totality of a student’s school experience. Within the remainder of this chapter, we will describe the process for identifying and defining the behaviors that all students must develop, and give examples of behavioral priorities that schools may consider.
Identifying and Prioritizing Essential Behavioral Skills
Education should have always been about more than academics. Students may earn acceptance into universities and skilled careers through academic achievement, but college is successfully completed and careers are sustained only through the application of behaviors that are too infrequently prioritized and taught in our schools.
Thus, once you have established in your staff a collective belief that behavioral skills are essential to teach and a commitment to make that happen, you must ask two questions: (1) What are the most essential behavioral outcomes that students must master, in order to give them the best possible social and academic outcomes? and (2) What does your team collaboratively agree it will look and sound like when students master these most essential outcomes? These questions are simple to answer in the academic realm, but have not been considered frequently or systematically enough in the context of behavior. We cannot teach behavioral skills without first clearly identifying, prioritizing, and defining those skills that students must possess.
When it comes to academic content, educators are making a renewed commitment to defining a viable curriculum within a grade level or course that all students will master (Larson & Kanold, 2016; Udelhofen, 2014). Next-generation standards and commitments to deeper learning in states and provinces are, in many ways, providing the motivation and opportunity for these endeavors. Depth is increasingly favored over breadth; quality over quantity; mastery over coverage. Educators are prioritizing the concepts and skills that all students must master, ensuring the most critical learning that students must possess receives adequate time and attention. Teams are also more clearly defining what mastery of prioritized content and skills looks like and sounds like. The work of teachers in my district related to these tasks—in kindergarten through twelfth grade, in mathematics, English language arts, science, and history–social science—is innovative and impactful; both teaching and learning are improving. When articulated horizontally and vertically, this collaboration allows for collective professional preparation and ensures that all students are optimally prepared for the next grade level or course.
These processes are not new. From Understanding by Design (Wiggins, McTighe, Kiernan, & Frost, 1998) to curriculum mapping (Jacobs, 2004) to Rigorous Curriculum Design (Ainsworth, 2010), schools have long recognized that a guaranteed, viable curriculum (Scherer, 2001) is one of the most critical factors contributing to high levels of student learning. In light of next-generation standards, the collaborative staff processes of scoping and sequencing prioritized learning outcomes are more important than ever.
We must apply this very same thinking, and complete this very same work, for the behaviors that we want all students to exhibit. Jim Wright, an RTI trainer and consultant to schools and educational organizations, notes that the “communal initial step of defining community behavior norms actually brings educators into alignment about the conduct they want to foster in their classrooms” (J. Wright, personal communication, May 23, 2017). We must identify, prioritize, describe and define, and scope and sequence these behaviors in our teams and with all staff across the school. In fact, defining and teaching behaviors will require even more consistency and collaboration than defining and teaching academic expectations. Here’s why: while collaboration within the third-grade team or high school mathematics department is vital when defining academic priorities for that team, behavioral skills will be expected and practiced within all classrooms on campus. Consistent expectations for appropriate behavioral skills are absolutely critical, no matter a student’s grade, no matter the staff member with whom a student is working, and no matter the environment within the school (Buffum, Mattos, & Weber, 2009, 2010, 2012).
So, how do teachers identify these key behaviors? As a first step, form a representative team from across grade levels and departments to identify your school’s behavioral priorities using the template in figure 1.2. The prioritization, defining, and teaching of behavioral skills must be consistent across the school; student and staff will be frustrated, confused, and less-than-ideally successful if this is not the case. While all sta must ultimately have a voice in the behavioral skills that are identified, this representative team can guide the process, communicating to and gathering feedback from the colleagues with whom they work.
Figure 1.2: Template to identify behavioral priorities.
Visit go.SolutionTree.com/RTI for a free reproducible version of this table.
To help you identify behavioral priorities, table 1.1 compiles an extensive list of behavioral skills and attributes based on our definition in the introduction, popular educational frameworks, research studies, and models from schools that have successfully implemented RTI. You can use any of these, a combination, or make up your own priorities based on your school’s individual needs.
TABLE 1.1: BEHAVIORAL SKILLS AND ATTRIBUTES
| Social Behaviors (and Their Opposites): Label and define the behaviors you want to see, not the misbehaviors that you do not want to see. |
| Social behaviors include: • Cooperation (Disruption)—Interacting positively within learning environment and with others • Social respect (Defiance)—Complying with expectations • Physical respect (Aggression)—Demonstrating care and concern for physical being and space of others • Verbal respect (Inappropriate language)—Using kind, positive, and supportive words • Attention (Inattention)—Ability to focus • Self-control (Impulsivity)—Ability to control oneself physically and verbally • Attendance (Absences)—Physical, cognitive, and emotional presence at school • Honesty (Lying, cheating, or stealing)—Truthfulness in relationships and learning • Empathy (Harassment or bullying)—Consideration of others’ situations |
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Academic Behaviors (and Their Opposites): Label and define the behaviors you want to see, not the misbehaviors that you do not want
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