An Educator's Guide to Schoolwide Positive Behavioral Inteventions and Supports. Jason E. Harlacher
monitor student progress (for example, lesson impact).
To teach expectations, schools typically have some sort of kickoff event during which they introduce the expectations and SWPBIS model to students (McKevitt & Braaksma, 2008). Following an introductory assembly, the staff teach the expectations in the actual setting and involve the adults who are naturally part of the setting (for example, cafeteria staff teaching lunchroom expectations). Susan Taylor-Greene and colleagues (1997) described an efficient method in which an assembly is held to introduce the program to students, and then fifteen- to thirty-minute lessons are held at each of six common locations: (1) classroom, (2) hallway, (3) gym, (4) cafeteria, (5) commons area, and (6) bus. Students rotate through in groups of thirty to sixty and received minilessons on what the expectations looked like for that setting. In the study, the staff was able to teach all 530 students all of the expectations in just one half-day. In addition to assemblies or a rotating schedule described previously, schools can create videos, skits, songs, or poems to teach and illustrate the expectations to students (George, 2009).
Once teachers initially teach the expectations, the school will want to ensure that the expectations are embedded within the school’s daily routine through a variety of methods (George, 2009; McKevitt & Braaksma, 2008). For example, the expectations should be physically visible at the school—for instance, on classroom posters, T-shirts for staff and students, bumper stickers for cars, or hallway banners. School teams can also design ways to embed the expectations into the school’s subjects and curricula. Students can read stories in literature and identify the extent to which the characters engage in their school’s expectations (George, 2009). Students in a civics class can write letters to the community about how they are learning and displaying their expectations. Mathematics classes can incorporate how many PBIS tickets students earn or develop ways to estimate how many tickets are given out per day or week. The fine arts department can create a play or skit about the expectations or develop artwork depicting the expectations to display around the school.
School teams can partner with local businesses to extend the expectations outside the school; for example, store owners can hand out PBIS tickets or display a PBIS matrix for the store in their business (George, 2009). For example, imagine that a store owner near a small rural high school was having difficulty with high school students loitering and engaging in disruptive behaviors in his store. After learning about the behavioral expectations and the SWPBIS system at the local high school, the owner adopted the same behavioral expectations and SWPBIS system. Not only did he hand out the tickets, but he also provided certain items for sale in exchange for the tickets. This resulted in an increase in appropriate behavior at the store and also increased buy-in for the tickets in the school setting since items at the store were often highly preferred by the students (and often unobtainable since many of the students did not have money to purchase items in the store).
Additionally, schools may have a monthly focus lesson based on one of their expectations (George, 2009; PBIS Maryland, n.d.). For example, if Be Respectful is one of the expectations, schools can tease apart the expectation of respect into other behavioral qualities, such as cooperation, empathy, and understanding culture. A lesson can be created for each of those qualities, and students can receive monthly lessons on those qualities. Finally, schools will want to hold data-driven booster sessions on the expectations as another way to ensure ongoing instruction (George, 2009). For example, looking at data on referral rates can indicate to staff when students will need refreshers on the expectations (for example, after winter break) as well as what expectations, and in which locations, may need reteaching.
Because expectations are taught at the start of a year, school teams will have to consider how to handle new students who enter the school midyear. Teachers can take time to teach the new students the expectations and other aspects of SWPBIS, or the teacher can assign a student or school office staff member to teach the expectations to the new student. Schools can also deal with this issue by planning regular times to review and reteach the expectations (for example, a school may review expectations monthly, so new students will be exposed to the expectations at that time). Capturing all of the creative ways schools embed and extend the expectations is beyond the scope of this chapter. However, school teams should create the expectations with the goal of making them part of the school’s culture and ensuring ongoing instruction.
Reinforcing Expectations
After being introduced to the expectations, students will need ongoing acknowledgment and feedback by school staff to facilitate learning of the expectations. Ongoing acknowledgment for adhering to the expectations is an important practice in SWPBIS because it strengthens the prosocial skills and expectations being taught to students (George et al., 2009; Horner, Sugai, et al., 2005). Staff members will provide acknowledgment for students who engage in the expectations at the individual and group level, but they will also host events that reinforce the school culture and climate for all students. The school will create a comprehensive acknowledgment system that includes high-frequency acknowledgment, long-term acknowledgment, group recognition, and noncontingent acknowledgments. First, we describe behavior-specific praise, which is paired with high-frequency acknowledgment.
Behavior-Specific Praise
To provide feedback and acknowledge students’ appropriate behaviors, teachers and staff should give behavior-specific praise. Behavior-specific praise is instructional because it involves specific feedback about a particular behavior that is provided contingent on performing the behavior (Lewis, Hudson, Richter, & Johnson, 2004; Simonsen, Fairbanks, Briesch, Myers, & Sugai, 2008; Sutherland, Wehby, & Copeland, 2000). Whereas general praise is vague and not attached to a specific behavior (for example, “Good job!” “Way to go!”), behavior-specific praise consists of stating the behavior that the student is displaying and providing feedback that the behavior is desirable: “You did a wonderful job facilitating your group’s discussion and making sure everyone contributed. That’s a great example of being responsible!” See table 2.6 for examples of specific versus vague praise.
Table 2.6: General Versus Behavior-Specific Praise
| General Praise | Behavior-Specific Praise |
| Wow! You did such a good job! | John, thank you for raising your hand and waiting to be called on before answering. |
| Marianne, that is great! You’re a hard worker! | Marianne, you worked really hard and stayed focused on that assignment. I can tell you put a lot of work into it. |
| Super! | Everyone contributed, and you all found a way to cooperate. Excellent. |
| Incredible! Yes! | You’re looking at me and following along. That tells me you’re listening and that you’re ready to work. That’s appreciated. |
| You’re so nice! | It’s really respectful of you to hold the door for others as we come into the classroom. |
| Good job! | Thank you for walking in the hall. That is a great way to demonstrate safety. |
| Thanks! | Wow! You showed responsibility by arriving to class on time with all your materials. |
Source: Harlacher, 2015.
Behavior-specific praise is very powerful for changing behavior and increasing rates of prosocial behavior. For example, Kevin Sutherland, Joseph Wehby, and Susan Copeland (2000) studied an increase in behavior-specific praise from once every ten minutes to once every two minutes in a self-contained fifth-grade classroom. This resulted in almost twice as much on-task behavior, rising from 48 percent to 86 percent. Other studies have found increases in on-task behavior and decreases in problem behavior as a result of using more behavior-specific praise in elementary and secondary settings, as well as regular education and special education settings (Allday et al., 2012; Hawkins & Heflin, 2011; Pisacreta Tincani, Connell, & Axelrod, 2011; Rathel, Drasgow, Brown, & Marshall, 2014; Sutherland & Wehby, 2001). Behavior-specific praise serves as a positive, meaningful connection as well as a reminder for expectations (saying, “I love that you were responsible and finished your work neatly and completely” reminds all students who hear this praise of what is expected). Behavior-specific praise can be paired with tangible acknowledgments, which we discuss next.
High-Frequency Acknowledgment