Providing Behavioral Feedback to Students in an Alternative High School Setting

Alternative High Schools

PBIS leadership teams are critical for successful adoption and implementation of tiered support systems. The PBIS team is often representative of the school community and is charged with using a data-based process for identifying schoolwide needs and developing systems and practices that enhance teacher practices and student engagement (Mathews, McIntosh, Frank, & May, 2014).

In the illustrative case described here, the school employed 13 professional staff, including a school adjustment counselor, a behavioral interventionist, a school nurse, and paraprofessional support staff. Over the course of the case analysis there were anywhere from 20 to 28 students enrolled in the school. A PBIS team was developed and consisted of the (a) school principal, (b) program coordinator, (c) school counselor, and (d) behavioral interventionist (i.e., a university faculty member and a school psychology graduate student, who provided external coaching support and technical assistance).

Conducting a Needs Assessment

Within a PBIS model, the leadership team can engage in a process to identify schoolwide needs as opposed to individual student needs. A needs assessment allows the team to solicit feedback from school community members about strengths and weaknesses related to social-emotional behaviors and environmental support features in school. One way to engage faculty in this process is by asking them to complete a survey, such as the Self-Assessment Survey (SAS; Sugai, Horner, & Todd, 2009). This survey enables faculty to identify features of behavioral support that are or are not in place within their building and determine how high a priority it is to address features not in place. The SAS can be completed and summarized online, for free, at www.pbisapps.org.

In this case example, the SAS survey was useful for planning. Faculty identified several areas that were rated as low in implementation and high in priority for improvement, including their current method of communicating with students about their behavior. Despite their current use of a daily behavioral points system, teachers did not perceive that they consistently provided useful feedback to students based on their point totals. In thinking about how to focus their intervention and approach, the team members identified homeroom as an appropriate venue for students to receive feedback on the previous day’s behavior and set a daily goal before beginning academic work.

In addition to the staff survey, it may be useful to solicit student feedback. In this case, a short voluntary paper-and-pencil survey is appropriate. In this case example, questions were asked related to students’ arrival at school and entry into homeroom, and current use of the homeroom period. This information was summarized and graphed for ease of interpretation by the PBIS team. Students most frequently named the announcement of the previous day’s behavioral points totals as the most useful thing about homeroom.

Certifying the Problem of Practice

Using the results from a needs assessment, PBIS leadership teams can identify a problem of practice and consider if further data are needed to certify the problem and better understand the context in which the problem exists. During this phase of program planning, observational data can be helpful. In the case described here, an adapted version of the Classroom Management Self-Assessment (Sugai, Todd, & Horner, 2004) was developed and used as an observation tool that measured the implementation of desired practices in a sample of three homeroom classrooms (see Figure 1). The five domains of observation were (a) acknowledgment of students (e.g., teacher verbally greets each individual student on entry), (b) positive environment in classroom (e.g., more positive comments than corrective are issued), (c) provision of behavioral feedback to students (e.g., teacher has access to student behavior data; teacher checks in with each student regarding point totals from the previous day), (d) constructiveness of feedback (e.g., teacher provides a formal opportunity for the student to verbally process and reflect on areas of strength and weakness from the previous day’s recorded behaviors), and (e) goal setting (e.g., teacher and student collaboratively identify one or more measureable goals for the current day). Observers included members of the PBIS team and university consultants (faculty and doctoral level graduate students). They rated the implementation of each of the items within each category using a 3-point scale. No points were scored if the behavior was not observed, 1 point was scored if the behavior was inconsistently or partially observed, and 2 points were scored if the behavior was consistently observed. A summary score was computed for each observation by dividing the total number of points attained by 18 (the total possible number of points) and then converting that number to a percentage of features present for the duration of the observation.

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Figure 1.

Homeroom observation tool.

How Build Routines to Improve Positive Feedback

After collecting observational data, a team member can assume the responsibility of summarizing the data in a useful way. This may include developing a line graph, which plots each observation over time for each person observed, or it might be useful to aggregate the data to obtain a snapshot of current practice. Here, data were summarized in both formats and team members developed a plan for presenting the data to faculty. Data were presented at a general staff meeting. The summary data from the student survey and homeroom observations were shared, and the staff were invited to share their reflections on the findings. In this case, most teachers regularly offered some sort of behavioral feedback, but it was often vague. Following a group conversation, the staff was presented with a framework for improving the implementation of the desired practices during homeroom and a suggested protocol for the consistent provision of specific behavioral feedback to students. The teachers worked together to refine this protocol, which included a checklist of activities to be completed during homeroom that included each of the five domains that were referenced above (see Table 1). Informed by the results presented to them, the protocol focused on the domains related to behavioral feedback and goal setting.

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Table 1.

Behavioral Feedback Checklist.

Step	Completed with all students?
Acknowledge students individually.
Review point totals with each student and compare to previous week’s average point total.
Review individual target goal.
Discuss why points were lost and link to target goal if appropriate.
Set a goal for current day. Link to target goal as much as needed.
Share relevant school announcements with students.

While closely tied to the findings of the Homeroom Observation Tool, this homeroom routine was designed to incorporate aspects of the “Check In/Check Out” and “Check and Connect” models (Anderson, Christenson, Sinclair, & Lehr, 2004; Crone, Horner, & Hawken, 2004), which emphasize the importance of connecting with students at the beginning and end of every day to promote student engagement and school attachment. The principal spoke with teachers about the importance of greeting students by name, acknowledging their attendance, and providing daily “boosters” to remind students of school expectations. The teachers also planned to share student behavioral point totals from the previous day and encourage the development of a clearly defined behavioral goal for the current day.

How to Evaluate Implementation

Oftentimes, even if faculty are accepting of a new routine or practice, it can be hard to change without additional support. Performance feedback, when delivered in a positive and collegial manner, has been found to be effective in changing teacher behavior (Reinke, Lewis-Palmer, & Merrell, 2008). In this case example, the new homeroom checklist was initially implemented following the faculty meeting. During the first week of implementation, the school principal provided informal performance feedback to teachers.

In addition to providing performance feedback, it can be helpful to continue taking observational data in the same way that it was gathered prior to implementing the new routine. This will enable the team to determine if the key strategies are being implemented more consistently than they were prior to intervening. It can be helpful to summarize the data in a line graph or aggregate form again.

After the teachers in this case example had been using the new homeroom system for 3 weeks, four follow-up observations were conducted in each of the three original homeroom classes. The same observation rating scale was used for the follow up observations. One team member summarized the data in a graph. The team noted that with the additional support of a standardized protocol, positive changes were observed with regard to the frequency of behavioral feedback provided to students, the constructive nature of the feedback issued to students, and the extent to which teachers helped students to set goals for the day.

Summary

This column discussed how school PBIS leadership teams can use a data-based problem-solving process to develop and implement a schoolwide intervention in an alternative school setting. In this example of an alternative high school, a new routine was created that aimed to improve the amount and quality of behavioral feedback students received during homeroom period.

Teachers were able to increase their provision of behavioral feedback and improve their goal setting with students through the use of a simple standardized protocol and with support from their building administration via informal performance feedback. As with all interventions, there are a few important limitations that need to be considered when adopting a new method of practice. While the teachers in the case example received only informal feedback, at inconsistent intervals, the case data suggest that perhaps more changes in behavior might have been possible were more frequent feedback provided. School administrators will need to keep this important factor in mind when adopting this strategy in their own settings. Furthermore, teachers received only minimal additional training and supporting consultation regarding the importance of effective behavioral feedback, which was the primary purpose of addressing homeroom routines. Schools considering adopting the techniques described above would be well advised to provide their staff with more substantial professional development in these domains. The process described above offers promise to educators looking to establish or improve on current practices related to the provision of behavioral feedback to students. Through a collaborative process of problem identification, problem certification and analysis, intervention, and evaluation, the PBIS leadership team was able to facilitate the implementation of a system for improving the provision of specific behavioral feedback to students.