Positive Behavior Planning      

This discussion is your opportunity to demonstrate your understanding of the objective: Compare positive proactive classroom behavior strategies.  The discussion represents an introduction to Course Learning Outcome 3 and the MASE Program Learning Outcome 1.

In an authentic classroom environment, discipline procedures can either be proactive or reactive.  Proactive discipline focuses on classroom management that is “designed to promote student self-control by focusing teacher intervention as the cause of discipline problems…” (Henley, Ramsey & Algozzine, 2009, p. 288).  Reactive discipline, on the other hand, is where the teacher is responding to discipline problems instead of proactively predicting potential situations.  Teachers who anticipate and plan for student behaviors have long-term classroom management success.

You notice that when Mr. Franklin tells the class it is time to stop their work and move to the next activity, it takes a long time for the class to complete their current activities, gather their materials, and transition to the next class.  Because of this lag time, the students are often late to their next class, which makes Mr. Franklin feel frustrated.  Responding to this ongoing issue, Mr. Franklin tells the class they will miss 5 minutes of their lunch time to make up for their lateness. 

Initial Post: Create an initial response that explains how Mr. Franklin’s response was reactive instead of proactive.  Describe at least three proactive strategies Mr. Franklin can use for a smoother transition process.  Include in your description how this strategy would be implemented with supporting evidence from the readings and Week Four’s Instructor Guidance. 

Guided Response: Review the posts of your classmates and that of your instructor.  Respond, using support from our assigned reading and the Instructor Guidance, to the following questions with careful attention to the details presented by your peers in the selected posts.  You must respond to at least two peers.

• Summarize what proactive discipline strategies means to you.
• Compare your peers’ response to your initial ideas of proactive discipline strategies. 
• Explain how they are the same or different to your own ideas presented in your initial post.

Though two replies is the basic expectation, for deeper engagement and learning, you are encouraged to provide responses to any comments or questions others have given to you (including the instructor) before the last day of the discussion.  This will further the conversation while also giving you opportunities to demonstrate your content expertise, critical thinking, and real work experiences with this topic.