Chapel Hill School:
PBL (Positive Behavior Leadership) and Profiling:
PBL: I had the opportunity to meet with the music teacher, who is part of the schools Positive Behavior Leadership Team (which is like our PBiS in Vermont). The school is in the first year of their school wide positive behavior system and they are celebrating "crazy hair" day this week on Friday because they have meet a positive behavior goal. I saw signs of this system in all the classroom areas I visited (general classroom, physical education classroom and the support services small group classroom). They have a stair step system which goes like this:
Step 1: Verbal reminder
Step 2: Name on the board
Step 3: Peg on blue and five minute time out
Step 4: Peg on pink and go to another classroom for time out
Step 5: Peg on purple and go to the office
The peg and color system was a little confusing and has just been established, but not really taught to student's yet. The teachers also have in their classrooms a visual guide to help direct them on how to handle behaviors and it also is based on a 5 step system. It is a picture of a hand with the following words written on the fingers of the hand.
Thumb: Ignore
Pointer Finger: Talk friendly
Middle Finger: Talk firmly
Ring Finger: Walk away
Pinky: Report
This is very similar to TBPS PBiS system. We have our school codes and our school wide reminder, warning, time away in classroom, time away in buddy room, write up.
Profiling: This is also a new system in their school. From the name, I thought it was going to be tracking for students, but it has nothing to do with students really, it deals with peer assessment and feedback for teachers. The music teacher spends one day a week observing teachers in their classroom. She can observe for things they are wanting feedback and input on around classroom management, student interactions, anything the teacher wants some suggestions for. If the teacher has nothing they are looking for specifically, she has an observation checklist she marks off and then gives to them with comments and suggestions they might consider.
I like this idea. My "Integrated Arts" team at TBPS (Thatcher Brook Primary School) and the "AA" teachers at CBMS (Crossett Brook Middle School) meet together once weekly and might discuss student concerns (how to work with individual students and what works for each teacher) or a class they are having difficulty with and share ideas and suggestion, but to have someone actually come in to your classroom and observe and share their thoughts and ideas sounds refreshing and really helpful. It is ongoing formative assessment for teachers around their classroom environment and their teaching practice. We do not get that enough as teachers.
Things I Learned:
PBL (Positive Behavior Leadership) and Profiling:
Step 1: Verbal reminder
Step 2: Name on the board
Step 3: Peg on blue and five minute time out
Step 4: Peg on pink and go to another classroom for time out
Step 5: Peg on purple and go to the office
The peg and color system was a little confusing and has just been established, but not really taught to student's yet. The teachers also have in their classrooms a visual guide to help direct them on how to handle behaviors and it also is based on a 5 step system. It is a picture of a hand with the following words written on the fingers of the hand.
Thumb: Ignore
Pointer Finger: Talk friendly
Middle Finger: Talk firmly
Ring Finger: Walk away
Pinky: Report
This is very similar to TBPS PBiS system. We have our school codes and our school wide reminder, warning, time away in classroom, time away in buddy room, write up.
Profiling: This is also a new system in their school. From the name, I thought it was going to be tracking for students, but it has nothing to do with students really, it deals with peer assessment and feedback for teachers. The music teacher spends one day a week observing teachers in their classroom. She can observe for things they are wanting feedback and input on around classroom management, student interactions, anything the teacher wants some suggestions for. If the teacher has nothing they are looking for specifically, she has an observation checklist she marks off and then gives to them with comments and suggestions they might consider.
I like this idea. My "Integrated Arts" team at TBPS (Thatcher Brook Primary School) and the "AA" teachers at CBMS (Crossett Brook Middle School) meet together once weekly and might discuss student concerns (how to work with individual students and what works for each teacher) or a class they are having difficulty with and share ideas and suggestion, but to have someone actually come in to your classroom and observe and share their thoughts and ideas sounds refreshing and really helpful. It is ongoing formative assessment for teachers around their classroom environment and their teaching practice. We do not get that enough as teachers.
Things I Learned:
- This school is looking to the United States for ideas around positive school behavior systems. Which is pretty cool. Here I am looking to schools in Australia for educational ideas and they look to us as well.
- I already know that teacher's can benefit from peer observation and feedback on classroom environment, management, instruction, etc., but it can be done more frequently than it now is. This school is doing it and has a system to ensure this happens. The U.S. could learn from this system of feedback and peer evaluation.
- I never thought about it, but positive behavior systems are in a sense a form of assessment. Students are getting feedback and changing their behavior to meet the assessment criteria. For example: if we talk about what our school codes look like and sound like in a classroom, and then we reward students for following those, or move them along a sequence of consequences based on their behaviors, we are really giving them formative assessments to guide their behavior and classroom participation practices. Never, until I looked at this with my assessment lenses on, did I see it as a form of assessment for students. It can also be quantitative feedback in that they are looking for a number of positive behaviors to meet a goal (like at TBPS: fill your fish bowl "X" amount of times and you get a celebration) or they are moving along a consequence scale and they know that when they get to end of the scale, their behavior gets reported. This reported behavior becomes data and can be used to help support the student's needs. Wow, the more I think about it, the more my brain takes this information in many directions.
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