Positive behavioral strategies to prevent off-task behaviors

Chayne Garma
EDSE 492
Action Research Paper
3/28/2017
Abstract
Most teachers experience some sort of off-task behaviors from their students in

their teaching careers. In most cases, off-task behaviors appear when students are doing

independent class work. This action research paper discusses three different strategies

that keep off-task behaviors to a minimum during the majority of the class time when

students are doing independent work for their project.

Introduction
As a student teacher, we tend to ask ourselves, "How can I help my students be on

task when they are doing work?" I believe all teachers in some way or form experienced

a time when students were off-task doing independent work. The work could have been

for a project, note taking, an assignment or even watching a movie. Teachers experience

these off-task behaviors in a multitude of ways. These behaviors can be in the form of a

distracting student(s) who would be talking off subject, looking through social media on

their phones, not motivated to do their work and so on. During student teaching, I had

experienced these behaviors multiple times from the students. These off-task behaviors

were seen in the examples given and I wanted to research this further. The off-task

behaviors were most prominent when the students were working in groups. These groups

took form in three ways: student chosen, teacher chosen and randomly chosen. All three

groups do have their strengths and their weaknesses. The student chosen groups tend to

pick their "friends" or peers that they worked well with previously. However, they must

now change their roles; instead of being social they must also have on-task roles as well.

Teacher chosen groups, which is based on the students skills, and making each group

balanced according to the experience the teacher has with the students. However, this

grouping can suffer from not working well with one another and tends to lead to off-task

behaviors. Randomly formed grouping is good to get a diverse grouping but there is no

guarantee of that diversity in each group (Weimer, 2013). The classroom environment

also plays a role in off-task behaviors. With no or little classroom management and

engagement, students tend to be more off-task and continue down that path until

corrected (Pas, Cash, Brennan, Debnam & Bradshaw, 2014). These two factors of

grouping and management with no clear strategy in place can lead the students to off-task
behaviors and can lead to wasted class time and little learning taking place. Having

groups be on task for an entire class period is an overwhelming task. However, with the

right strategies for the right students, they will be motivated and be on-task for their

independent work time. This led me to my research question, "What are some positive

behavioral strategies to keep students on task during group work activities?"

Upon researching this question, there was an abundance of information and

strategies that I could have used. The focus of the strategies is that it needed to be a

positive strategy. Promoting positive and preventing negative behaviors in the classroom

can lead to productive work and reduce distracting behaviors from students. The Positive

Behavioral Intervention System (PBIS) is a noncurricular model that improves school

systems and procedures for promoting positive behavior (Sugai & Horner, 2006; Pas,

et.al, 2014). Using and understanding positive strategies could have a more profound

impact on off-task behaviors compared to negative based strategies. I have found out

through the experience that negative strategies do work, however, most of these strategies

are temporary. Negative strategies included verbal redirection, verbal warnings, and

levying consequences. These strategies normally work to get students back on task but

used too much the effectiveness of the negative strategies diminishes. According to Sugai

(2006), "evidence indicates that students with the most severe problem behaviors are the

least likely to be responsive to these consequences and the intensity and frequency of

their behavior are likely to get worse instead of better." (p.246) Positive behavioral

strategies tend to be more long term and can prevent problem behaviors from happening

in the first place (Pas, et. al, 2014).

 The next part of the research took place in which strategies I could use to help

students be more on-task in-group work. The three positive strategies I used dealt with

two components: engagement and spatial awareness of the classroom. The first was to

engage with students to make sure they are on task and receive and give feedback on their

progress by going group to group and keeping an eye on the classroom (Cox, 2016). The

second was to create expectations before independent work began and continue to engage

the students and to chunk the time for the students to check if they are on-task or not

(Fronderville, 2009). The third strategy was to use engagement techniques and to have

each group come up with a plan for the day of what they needed to get done (Saphier,

Haley-Speca & Gower, 2008). Using these three positive strategies could help students in

being more engaged and motivated to do their work and to lessen off-task behaviors

while working in groups.

The desired outcome of these strategies is to learn which strategy works best in

general when it comes to preventing off-task behaviors, although there could be some

potential obstacles that could prevent these strategies from being successful. I have to

take account each student's learning style and how they do their work. Some students do

work in different ways. Such as one student is quieter and focused on the task while

others talk it out and plan instead of writing down. I have to make sure that I know each

student is on task with their work in the form they choose to do work. Another obstacle

that I may run into is my interpretation of on-task behavior compared to the student's on-

task behaviors. Students might be thinking they are on-task and doing quality work while

in my eyes and observations they might not be. These obstacles I will take into

consideration into my method and data gathering.

Method
Before introducing the project to the students. I arranged the desk into eight

clusters. Normally the classroom is arranged in a "chalkboard" style. This arrangement

allowed the students to get an idea or a mentality that they will be working in groups

(Saphier, et.al, 2008). The clusters were spread out in a circular formation so it gave

enough room for the students to work and collaborate in the groups as well as me to

monitor the student's progression while keeping an eye on the room at all times.

The project the students would be working on was a presentation of a product

created or introduced to the public in the 1920's such as a refrigerator, vacuum cleaner,

automobile etc. The students would be required to create a video ad, a PowerPoint and a

data sheet that included information about the product that they would be presenting

about. However, the project required them to place themselves in the shoes of the

inventor and the students were required to "sell" their product to a board of investors

(who were chosen students by the teacher). Having the students present their project in

this way allowed them to look at products they take for granted and show how it

impacted society at the time. With the introduction of the project, the method of using the

three strategies was in independent group work the students needed to accomplish. The

students had a total of four class days to work on their project. One of these class days

was required for them to rehearse their presentations and have all the components already

completed.

Group selection came in the form of both teacher selected and student-selected

groups. This selection allowed the students to be paired with someone who they believe

they can work with and my selection on which pairs would work the best. It also helped
with me selecting certain focus groups that I can monitor closely to see how well they

are working and on-task. One group had a balance of students who were strong leaders

and those who worked well with others. Another group was made with students who had

behavioral problems and paired with students who tended to be off-task. This group was

considered to be my focus group to see how well the strategy was being effective with

these types of students. Along with this focus group, many of the groups were balanced

out to work well with one another and to be productive.

On each workday, one of the three strategies would be used and to see how well

they were on-task is what they got accomplished in that day. The data gathering would be

in the form of an exit ticket. Each group would complete one exit ticket and time was

given for them to discuss the questions. On the exit ticket contained three questions. The

first question was, "On the scale of 1-10 (10 being the highest), how much of the class

was your group on task?" The second question was, "What did your group accomplish or

get done in today's work time?" The third question would be, "What do you think you

could do for the next workday to be more productive?" These questions would tell me on

how effective was each strategy. The way the exit ticket system worked was that the

students were told to answer honestly and they would not be deducted anything if they

did. The responses aligned with what I had observed during the workdays.

On the first workday, the students needed to complete research and start on their

fact sheets. Research could have been in any form of their choosing, either through the

text or online research. The fact sheet was put in place to focus their research. The

strategy put in place in this workday was the engagement strategy; to give feedback and

receive feedback and to go group-to-group to make sure each is on task (Cox, 2016). I
would start with the focus group to make sure they understood what to do and to find out

what they were planning to do today. They responded to find information about their

product and to start on the fact sheet and possibly the video. Each group had similar

responses and I gave appropriate feedback on their research to help them focus on what

they needed to know about their product. Throughout the workday I would follow this

routine and ended it with a wrap up on what they learned about their product and for the

students to fill out the exit ticket.

The second workday, the strategy put in place was to create workday

expectations and to chunk their work time along with the engagement I did the previous

workday. The expectations for the workday were that they would all work equally, that no

one should be going group to group and to not have off subject discussions, and that

everyone should be doing something and no one should be doing nothing. Along with

these expectations, the work time was chunked in 20-minute intervals and after every 20

minutes a "temperature check" was used to check if students were on task with their

work. If they were not a consequence would be levied. Consequences included a friendly

reminder, a verbal warning and finally a quiz on each of the product. However, if the

students were on task with their work, the remainder time would be given and to improve

on some behaviors and praise the good behaviors they have shown (Frondeville, 2009).

The third workday instead of expectations being set, the teacher would facilitate

goal setting for the work day and have each group come up with a list of goals they

needed to get accomplished for the work day (Saphier, et.al, 2008). Along with the goal

setting, I gave back the exit tickets to each group so they may reflect on the last question

on how they can be more on-task. The students would use the exit tickets along with their
own goals to create a plan for the workday. I also continued to monitor and engage when

needed. Since this workday was the final workday they had to complete the components

on their project, most of the groups had goals to get their components for the project

completed and ready for the presentation. The goals would be written down on a piece of

paper and be out at all times to ensure the students would be motivated and knew what

they needed to accomplish for the day.

Data/Results
After each workday, the exit tickets would be discussed and completed by each

group. The exit tickets would be the way I chose to collect data on how effective each

strategy was done for each workday. The numerical data took place in the form of the

first question. That question was a 1-10 scale on how much the class time they were on-

task during the workday. (Refer to table 1 for data)

Table 1
The scales of how long the students were on task during the
workday.
On

day 1, the strategy with just the normal engagement allowed students to be on-task.

However, not all students were on-task for the entire work period. There were reports of

some side non-project conversations going on and confusion of what to research. These

numbers went along with what I observed for the first workday. After engaging with

those students who were off-task, either by being in proximity or giving them further

instruction and guiding them they were more motivated to do their work and continued to

be on-task for the remainder of the class. The focus group I engaged with the most on this
workday to ensure they are on-task with their project because they were the most likely to

be off task without engagement from the teacher.

On day 2, the strategy with normal engagement with workday expectations along

with chunking of work time worked better with just the regular engagement. However,

there were some groups who were off-task due to not having any technology available for

them to use, such as a laptop to create their PowerPoint. In this situation, I had the

students write down what they were going to put on the PowerPoint so they could just

type it into the PowerPoint when they have technology available to them at home. I also

gave them the option to create a poster board of their information if they do not have any

technology available. This wasn't the case because at least two or all students had

technology for them to use.

On day 3, the strategy with normal engagement but instead of expectations, the

students would create their own goals for the workday. This strategy worked the best of

all the workdays. Due to the fact the students created their own goals, most students were

on task for the entire period and continued to work hard and with minimal engagement

with me because the students knew what they had to do and how to do it (Saphier, et.al,

2008). However, on this day one group had half the team missing due to an outside

school event for their class council. This was hard for the group to remain on task

because not all of the members were present and tried to do the work. However, some

aspects of the project were tied to the absent members and they did not know what to

accomplish. This is the group I worked closely with on this workday and helped them

rehearse what they were going to say in the presentation.

 Of all the workdays, the best strategy that worked generally with the students is

the goal setting strategy and engagement throughout. This could account for the students

knowing what they have to do by creating their own goals and the way they can

accomplish those goals. Also by following their own advice for being on-task from the

previous exit tickets, they know now what to do to continue to be on-task and avoid off-

task behaviors. The focus of this strategy is that it is more student-centered because the

goals and the advice are created by the students and if they "own it" the students will

follow it better compared to if the teacher gives them goals and expectations (Saphier, et.

al, 2008; Pas, et. al, 2014).

Overall, the projects and presentations went as expected and the majority of the

students achieved a 2.5(approaching) to a 3.5(meets to almost exceeds) for the projects.

They were able to answer all questions given and gave a decent presentation. The reason

for not getting perfect is because some of the groups missed some information they had

to give and for those missing information, I gave in a mini-lecture and allowed the

students to create and share those missing information for the class. Aside from that the

students worked diligently on their projects and created decent work and understood and

met my learner objectives.

Implications
There are many different ways these strategies can be improved upon. Better

engagement and feedback from the teacher would allow the students to be more invested

into their project, in turn, keep them motivated to do their work instead of doing off-task

behaviors. Expectations could have been more student oriented by having them create the

expectations and consequences of the workday. With the expectations being student
created, I believe the strategy would work like the goal setting and following their own

advice. If the students create it and own it they will follow it better. However, student

created things needs to be facilitated by the teacher and some enforcement of the goals

and expectations needs to be grounded and real for the students.

There were any factors as well that hindered some of the strategies from working

properly. One of them was the use of technology. To understand the demographics of the

school and the socioeconomic status of the students, a teacher must be prepared to

differentiate and accommodate for those students. I did try to accommodate by giving my

own laptop to students and that is for me to trust the students with my property. However,

there are more ways to accommodate by giving the students an option on how they want

to present their project without the use of technology. As a teacher, I must be open to the

idea of that accommodation.

Finally, on-task behaviors can be instilled into the students in the beginning of the

year with procedures and expectations put in place on how the students do their work.

Investment into their work also plays a part in the motivational aspect of the work and

how it is relevant to them. Moving on, I will continue to work on creating projects and

lessons that the students will have relevance and investment in. If the lesson and work

can do that, then off-task behaviors will be kept down to a minimum and work time in

class will be used effectively and wisely. Of course, not all students will be on task no

matter what the assignment is or how engaging it is. That is where the strategies and

management play a factor into keeps these students engaged and on-task. Overall the

strategies did play its role in helping minimize those off-task behaviors but not for the

entire class period. Looking forward, as a teacher there are more lessons to be learned
and strategies to try. Not all students will be the same and can differ year to year. I must

be able to accommodate and engage all students so student learning can be gained and

maximized.
 References

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http://www.teachhub.com/teaching-strategies-redirect-task-students

Fronderville, T. (2009, March 11) Ten steps to better student engagement. Edutopia.
Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/project-learning-teaching-strategies

Pas, E.T, Cash, A.H, OBrennan, L., Debnam, K. J., & Bradshaw, C. P. (2014). Profiles of
classroom behavior in high schools: Associations with teacher behavior
management strategies andclassroom composition. Journal of School Psychology,
53, 137-148.

Saphier, J., Gower, R., & Haley-Speca, M. A. (2008). The skillful teacher: Building your
teaching skills. Acton, Mass: Research for Better Teaching.

Sugai, G., & Horner R.R. (2006) A promising approach for expanding and sustaining
school-wide positive behavior support. School Psychology Review, 35(2), 245-259.

Weimer, M. (2013, July 31) Better group work experiences begin with how the groups
are formed. Faculty Focus. Retrieved from
http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-professor-blog/better-group-work-
experiences-begin-with-how-the-groups-are-formed/