Positive Behavioral Supports for the Classroom

Book excerpt: For courses in Behavior Management, Behavior Analysis, and Positive Behavioral Supports. Despite all that is known about keeping schools and classrooms safe, orderly, positive, and productive, teachers continue to cite discipline as a major concern. Positive Behavioral Supports for the Classroom helps prepare teachers to sufficiently manage even the most minor behavioral challenges facing teachers in today's educational system. Drawing upon research in the field of positive behavior supports, this text presents an array of research-based strategies and techniques for strengthening appropriate behaviors and reducing challenging ones in students. The authors help to bridge the gap between theory and practice by presenting both the theoretical foundations of behavior and behavioral interventions, as well as the actual "how to" apply the strategies for effective behavior management. To help educators and other professionals be better prepared to assess challenging classroom and individual student behavior problems, this text not only describes what to do for behavior management, but why. Readers will also gain understanding of how both undesirable behavior and desirable behavior are directly related to the contexts in which they occur; the multitude of varied functions that undesirable behaviors serve for students; and how to best use this information to design effective preventative and management interventions for use in the classroom. The authors' passion for using effective behavioral intervention strategies and teaching others to do so drives this text's ambition in helping to make behavior management easier and more effective for future and current teachers.