Lesson Planning With Engagement in Mind: Proactive Classroom Management Strategies for Curriculum Instruction

Abstract

Teacher success is critical to student success, yet teachers are challenged daily to meet their students’ diverse learning and behavioral needs. Of major concern is the time many teachers spend managing student behaviors, which takes time away from instruction. One way to reduce time spent managing student behavior and increase student engagement is to use proactive classroom management strategies. Teachers can embed proactive research-based strategies within their lesson plans to reduce behavior problems and improve achievement for all students, including students with disabilities. This article highlights four research-based proactive strategy categories including whole-group response systems, movement integration, visual supports, and student choice. This article illustrates how teachers can embed strategies from these categories in their lesson planning and includes a lesson plan template with teacher-created examples.

Keywords

classroom management inclusion lesson planning proactive behavior strategies student engagement

Teachers are arguably one of the most important factors in a student’s success (Darling-Hammond, 2000). Yet too many teachers report they are unprepared and feel stunned by the expectations of the profession (Dicke, Elling, Schmeck, & Leutner, 2015). It can be a daunting task providing students with disabilities access to the general education curriculum because individualized student needs require specialized teaching expertise in assessing, planning, collaborating, and delivering research-based interventions. In particular, teachers feel unprepared to manage classrooms that include students with disabilities, specifically preventing off-task behaviors from becoming ongoing distractions and increasing the participation and interaction of all students with a range of individual needs (Coalition for Psychology in Schools and Education, 2006; B. G. Cook, Tankersley, & Cook, 2000). Teachers report feeling unsuccessful when faced with managing the most challenging student behaviors that tend to dominate the classroom environment (Baker, 2005).

The classroom environment is composed of routines, schedules, and the physical arrangement, but teacher-student relationships also play a critical role in shaping learning dynamics (Cooper & Scott, 2017). Teachers tend to have more frequent negative interactions such as reprimands and redirections with disengaged students or students exhibiting challenging behaviors, which can snowball into negative teacher-student relationships and, more globally, a negative classroom environment impacting all students (Nelson & Roberts, 2000). It is not surprising that classroom management is such a major teacher concern because teachers understand the negative outcomes facing students who are disengaged (Archambault, Janosz, Jean-Sebastian, & Pagani, 2009). Students who are disengaged and exhibit the most challenging learning and behavioral needs often have lower academic achievement, increased absences, more frequent office referrals, fewer friends, higher rates of school dropout and incarceration, less chance of employment, and poor social adjustment (Carter, Lane, Crnobori, Bruhn, & Oakes, 2011).

Simonsen, Fairbanks, Briesch, Myers, and Sugai (2008) identified 20 evidence-based general classroom management strategies through a systematic review and categorized the strategies into five essential features of effective classroom management: (a) physical and instructional predictability, (b) clear expectations that are posted, explicitly taught, reviewed, and enforced, (c) active observable engagement, (d) a continuum of strategies for responding to appropriate behaviors, and (e) a continuum of strategies for responding to inappropriate behaviors. Many students benefit from teachers who implement classwide, evidence-based classroom management strategies, but some students require additional supports to engage fully in the learning process.

Contributing to the low self-efficacy facing teachers who serve students with disabilities is the perception that behavior management strategies and instructional strategies are two separate entities within the classroom typically addressed in isolation of one another (Cooper & Scott, 2017). Viewing behavior management and instructional approaches in isolation can reinforce the perception that teaching students with disabilities, who often require a range of research-based interventions, is overwhelming (Belknap & Taymans, 2015). Even viewing classroom management as an add-on to instruction does not adequately capture the necessary integration of effective planning and in-the-moment decision making that promotes engagement and student growth. Research substantiates behavior management and instructional approaches are indistinguishably linked (Siperstein, Wiley, & Forness, 2011). The reciprocal relationship between behavior management and instruction seems logical given that ineffective instruction contributes to problematic behavior (Gest & Gest, 2005; McEvoy & Welker, 2000) and ineffective behavior management is associated with poor academic outcomes for students (Cameron, Connor, Morrison, & Jewkes, 2008). Teachers are challenged daily with engaging diverse populations of students with varied individual needs to sustain learning and promote positive student outcomes.

Taking a proactive approach to classroom management by planning instruction with engagement in mind is one way to provide additional behavioral supports while keeping the focus on accessing the general curriculum. Proactive strategies require planning that targets student engagement during a lesson, before inappropriate or off-task student behaviors occur and/or escalate. Commonly, proactive strategies are associated with encouraging students to demonstrate appropriate behaviors rather than focusing on behavior redirections or consequences (Reglin, Akpo-Sanni, & Losike-Sedimo, 2010). A proactive approach can help students with disabilities feel valued in the learning community as well as provide opportunities for peer interaction and active participation (McLaughlin & Allen, 2009). Proactive research-based strategies that integrate behavior management and instructional approaches can be organized in four categories: (a) whole-group systematic implementation of student responses to increase opportunities for responding (Schnorr, Freeman-Green, & Test, 2016), (b) embedding movement into instruction to increase learning endurance (Bartholomew & Jowers, 2011), (c) incorporating visual supports to increase structure and improve comprehension (Lequia, Machalicek, & Rispoli, 2012), and (d) including opportunities for student choice while meeting learning objectives to promote self-determination, independence, and confidence (Flowerday & Schraw, 2003). This article explains proactive engagement strategies from these four categories that can be incorporated in daily lesson plans to keep the focus on students’ academic achievement rather than managing off-task student behaviors. A proactive lesson plan template including teacher created examples is provided.

Research-Based Strategies

Whole-Group Response Systems

Traditionally, the number of opportunities to respond for each student is limited during whole-group instruction because prompting techniques rely on individual student responses (Maheady, Michielli-Pendl, Harper, & Mallette, 2006). Whole-group questioning and response systems use high rates of opportunities to respond and high-probability requests where all students participate through varied modes of responding (Nagro, Hooks, Fraser, & Cornelius, 2016). Teachers can use whole-group response systems to promote engagement, activate prior knowledge, and improve comprehension (Maheady et al., 2006). Overall, the goal of this type of proactive strategy is to create a positive learning environment where all students, including hard-to-reach students, have frequent opportunities to respond and actively learn. Evidence supports that employing whole-group response systems in various ways improve academic and behavioral outcomes for students with and without disabilities, including but not limited to students with learning disabilities (LD; Randolph, 2007), students with moderate to severe disabilities (Berrong, Schuster, Morse, & Collins, 2007), students with intellectual disabilities (ID; Cakiroglu, 2014), and students who are English language learners (ELL; Davis & O’Neil, 2004).

Specific examples of whole-group responding strategies that have been linked to positive student achievement and behaviors include choral responding, where all students respond in unison to a teacher prompt (Haydon, Marsicano, & Scott, 2013), and response cards, which involve students holding up cards to respond to a teacher initiated prompt (Schnorr et al., 2016). These strategies can include verbal responses or nonverbal responses using flash cards on a ring with close-ended answers, written responses using dry-erase boards, and digital responses using live polling or clickers (Nagro et al., 2016). Response cards can be specific to the lesson being taught such as biomes, names of states or presidents, or plot elements or the response cards can be more general such as agree/disagree, true/false, or multiple choice. Teachers can structure whole-group prompts to increase learning predictability by displaying icons linked to types of questions to cue students or always prompting students to stand during choral responding to set it apart from other points of the lesson. Figures 1 and 2 include strategies such as choral responding and whole-group written responses to demonstrate how teachers included whole-group response activities in their lesson plans.

Figure 1.

Lesson-specific proactive lesson planning.

Figure 2.

Nonspecific cross-curricular proactive lesson planning.

When teachers plan accordingly, whole-group response systems can be used to track student participation, current performance, or levels of understanding for all students at the same time through formative assessment (Nagro et al., 2016). Formative assessment allows teachers to measure active student engagement by tracking students’ opportunities for and successes in answering questions, working with peers, and completing tasks (Maheady et al., 2006). Tracking students in this manner can be done with simple tally marks or checklists. To download whole-group formative assessment templates, visit www.trackstudentlearning.weebly.com. Tracking the rate and accuracy of student responses can help teachers to modify instruction quickly if needed so that students do not become frustrated, which can lead to problematic behaviors. Capturing key student participation and performance information using formative assessment charts allows teachers to make decisions about future lessons through data-based decision making. For example, information collected might help identify portions of the lesson where specific students need greater levels of support and which students will benefit from differentiation, preteaching, or remediation, and can also be used to track progress toward individualized education program goals (Nagro et al., 2016).

Movement Integration

Embedding movement into instruction is a well-documented approach for increasing learning endurance, improving student behaviors, and promoting student achievement (Bartholomew & Jowers, 2011; Kirk, Vizcarra, Looney, & Kirk, 2014). Embedded movement improves academic and behavioral outcomes for students with and without disabilities, including students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; Miramontez & Schwartz, 2016), students with cerebral palsy (Maltais et al., 2016), and students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; Azrin, Vinas, & Ehle, 2007). Purposeful movement during instruction can help students who are inattentive and/or hyperactive sustain attention and remain on task by fulfilling their need to move in structured and meaningful ways (Mahar et al., 2006). When planned for, movement strategies can be incorporated within curricular activities and transitions for the entire class or specific students (Azrin et al., 2007). For example, children who are developing phonemic awareness skills can do a jumping jack each time they hear a certain phoneme or rhyme, or older children might walk along a number line to demonstrate adding and subtracting of integers. Figures 1 and 3 illustrate additional examples and demonstrate how teachers can account for movement for the whole class and for specific students during lesson planning.

Figure 3.

Continuation of nonspecific cross-curricular proactive lesson planning.

Movement strategies, such as gesturing, can also be used for instructional delivery and student responding to reinforce the content through concrete representations of information (Novack & Goldin-Meadow, 2015). Gestures include but are not limited to pointing, tracing in the air with one’s finger, or using hand motions to represent a concept (e.g., over/under or big/small). Seated gestures can be implemented with minimal support for all students, including students with mobility devices (e.g., wheelchair or Kid Kart). Implementing gestures during instruction is associated with improved clarity of expectations, increased language comprehension, learning of abstract concepts, and deeper understanding of the content (S. W. Cook, Duffy, & Fenn, 2013). There is also emerging evidence to support using gestures to improve understanding for students who are ELL (Smotrova & Lantolf, 2013). To implement gestures during instruction, students first watch the teacher model the gesture, then turn to a peer to practice the gesture from a seated or standing position. Gestures as a form of movement can be used to help students remember steps or a concept (e.g., creating an arm gesture for each step in the math orders of operations) or communicate their level of understanding by acting out a response (e.g., acting out sight words; Brookes & Goldin-Meadow, 2016).

Proactive teachers should consider the unique cognitive and physical needs of their students such as ability to follow multistep directions or peer-to-peer dynamics to plan developmentally appropriate movement strategies for individual students. Teachers can identify which students might benefit from movement to sustain engagement during informal observations and data collection during instruction. Then, teachers can plan for additional movement activities for targeted students. For example, teachers can plan which students will be chosen to (a) write or select answers on the dry-erase board or interactive whiteboard at the front of the classroom, (b) model examples and nonexamples of teacher directions for other students, or (c) walk to another location in the classroom to check off completed activities on a visual schedule, reference key points on an anchor chart for their peers, or collect words from the word wall. Figure 1 demonstrates how movement can be incorporated for all students during a math lesson with additional opportunities for a targeted student.

Students with physical needs may require setting modifications to fully participate in movement activities. For example, the teacher may put words from the word wall at a level that the student can reach from a seated position or allow students to use a pointer to point to the anchor chart or visual schedule. A student with mobility needs may also require varying levels of physical support (e.g., hand-over-hand assistance) to fully engage in the experience. Teachers should consult with related service providers, such as physical or occupational therapists, for guidance on safe implementation of movement strategies. With thoughtful consideration of all students’ needs, movement integration is one type of proactive strategy that can be implemented across grade levels and content areas with minimal additional resources.

Visual Strategies

Teachers who use visual strategies increase learning structure and predictability and improve comprehension for students with and without disabilities when accessing the general curriculum, including students with ASD (Lequia et al., 2012), students with ADHD (Taylor & Villanueva, 2014), students with LD (Swanson, Lussier, & Orosco, 2015), students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD; Taylor & Villanueva, 2014), and students with ID (Jaime & Knowlton, 2007). Employing visual strategies during instruction can lead to positive student outcomes in the areas of social, communication, behavior, play, cognitive, school readiness, academic, motor, and adaptive skills (Wong et al., 2014). By planning using this proactive approach, teachers can implement visual strategies systematically to enhance student understanding and independence, communicate expectations, promote smooth transitions, and encourage self-monitoring and self-regulation (Swanson et al., 2015; Tobin & Simpson, 2012). Visual strategies serve as a proactive prompt that students can access independent of an adult and encompass a multitude of visual displays. These displays can be static so students always know where to look when they need to use the prompt (e.g., front wall of the classroom, left corner of a student’s desk), or they can be portable, allowing students to take the support with them (e.g., front of a folder, ring affixed to a student’s belt loop). Visual strategies can be implemented to proactively establish classroom expectations for all students or can be individualized based on student needs.

One specific type of visual strategy is the use of visual schedules. Visual schedules provide students with predictability, organization, and ultimately alleviate student anxiety by helping to answer the question, “What’s next?” These schedules provide a visual representation of the major events scheduled for the day and can be used classwide (e.g., morning meeting, math, literacy, lunch, etc.) and/or individualized to represent a student’s personal schedule (e.g., by adding the student’s speech session and social skills group). Students should be actively involved in monitoring the schedule by removing, turning over, or checking off the activities as they are completed. Similar to visual schedules, activity schedules are a second visual strategy that can make larger tasks seem more manageable by dividing assignments into smaller tasks. Specifically, an activity schedule represents the smaller activities/steps a student will engage in during a specific assignment or period of time (e.g., 1. complete the graphic organizer, 2. write a topic sentence, 3. write three detail sentences, 4. write a concluding sentence). As specific activities vary frequently, these schedules can be written on dry-erase boards so students can erase or check off each activity upon completion to help self-regulate their engagement.

Additional visual strategy examples include first/then boards, labels, organization systems, environmental arrangement, and consequence maps. First/then boards visually display a two-step sequence where a preferred activity follows a less-preferred activity, thus providing motivation for the student to complete the first, less-preferred activity (e.g., first math, then iPad). To create a reusable board, use icons with Velcro to indicate the specific activities, affixing them to a piece of laminated cardstock that has the labels “First” and “Then.” Labels, organization systems, and environmental arrangement visually provide students with structure and boundaries. Visual strategies that provide structure can range from labeling bins on a shelf to using color tape to make a square around a student’s chair to define his or her personal area and using a color folder system for independent activities (e.g., students always complete the activity in the green folder first). Consequence maps, or contingency maps, help students make appropriate choices by visually displaying the consequences of their choices (Tobin & Simpson, 2012). Regardless of the type of visual strategies considered while planning lessons, these research-based proactive strategies will promote sustained engagement throughout a lesson and even throughout the school day (Bennett, Reichow, & Wolery, 2011; O’Hara & Hall, 2014).

Student Choice

Choice making requires critical decision making when selecting from several options and ultimately accepting the consequences of that choice (Shevin & Klein, 2004). Choice making is a skill that spans well beyond classroom contexts as individuals are required to make choices on a daily basis. Embedding student choice into learning creates an authentic learning experience similar to what students face when problem solving in the real world (Berry, 2012). Ultimately, students who engage in choice making while in school have demonstrated increased graduation and postsecondary successes including better employment (Trainor, 2007). In the short term, students who engage in choice making while meeting learning objectives have demonstrated greater independence and confidence, reduced disruptive behavior (Flowerday & Schraw, 2003), accelerated skill acquisition (Toussaint, Kodak, & Vladescu, 2016), and increased task engagement and skill generalization (Shevin & Klein, 2004). These positive outcomes have been observed in students with and without disabilities, including students with ASD (Toussaint et al., 2016), students with LD (Trainor, 2007), students with EBD (Benitez, Lattimore, & Wehmeyer, 2005), and students with ID (Shevin & Klein, 2004).

Within carefully planned learning activities, students can express their choices (verbally, through gesturing, or in writing) and follow sequential steps to persevere in learning. Teachers can provide students with opportunities to make choices about the learning process (i.e., how students engage) and products (i.e., what students do). Teachers can create a learning menu or tic-tac-toe board to display choices. For example, the lesson objective may require students to reread the class story and identify story elements (comprehension). In this example, students review their learning menu and choose their process: (a) go to the classroom library, reread the story silently, and add Post-it notes to pages to point out the story elements; (b) go to the listening area and reread the story while following along with the audio recording; or (c) go to the computer area, click and drag the paragraphs into the correct order, and reread the story. Students then choose from the learning menu to choose their product: (a) complete the story elements graphic organizer using the iPad, (b) rewrite/retell the key story elements in their own words with illustration, or (c) create a PowerPoint with Google images and record themselves explaining the story elements. All students work toward the same learning objectives but choose different methods for accessing the content and expressing their thoughts. Similar student choice opportunities can be embedded across grade level and content areas with careful planning.

Proactive teachers can also embed choice making opportunities in daily routines and peer interactions. Similar to the learning activity examples above, teachers should limit the number of available options and provide specific choices. For example, students can choose the order for morning arrival tasks (e.g., mark attendance, make lunch choice, turn in homework, and sharpen pencils) or their daily job (e.g., paper passer, messenger, door holder). Regarding peer interactions, students can select the peer(s) they want to work with, their role within their peer group (i.e., questioner, summarizer, or connector) or where they will engage in the activity (e.g., their desk or the table). Teachers can vary choice activities and the actual choices themselves. Individual students may need a reduced number of choices or concrete examples (i.e., models or exemplars) of the possible options to be successful.

Lesson Planning and Engagement

Once teachers realize there is a continuum of proactive research-based strategies at their disposal, they will likely need to plan how to use such strategies across content areas. Embedding these engagement strategies into instruction should be thoughtful and systematic, which is why teachers should decide on proactive strategies as part of the lesson planning process. Figures 1, 2, and 3 illustrate two teacher versions of a completed lesson planning template that includes a method for regularly embedding a combination of the four proactive strategy types in a lesson. This free template is available for download and use at www.trackstudentlearning.weebly.com.

Figure 1 illustrates a lesson-specific example in math. In this example, the teacher printed the blank proactive lesson planning template and noted specific components of the lesson that would include proactive strategies. For example, the teacher planned out specific math probes to use during the lesson and noted when whole-group responding via choral responding would be used. In addition, this teacher specifically planned for all students to stand and use gestures as a whole group and even planned extra movement for “Eric” who would come to the front of the room to reference specific points on the anchor chart (a visual reminder of the math strategy) for his classmates. This teacher also planned to allow students to choose between one of two wrap-up probes when summarizing their learning. This is one method for using the proactive lesson planning template to prepare an engaging math lesson supported in research.

Figures 2 and 3 illustrate a different approach (i.e., one plan broken into two pieces) to using the proactive lesson planning template. This example is a nonspecific cross-curricular lesson planning guide that can be quickly filled out with a few specifics to customize each lesson. This universal plan includes multiple options for embedding a combination of all four proactive strategy categories into every lesson. Teachers can select a combination of the proactive research-based strategies from Figures 2 and 3 to help students get accustomed to this type of active engagement. The template follows a well-rounded lesson structure with a beginning, middle, and end to make it feasible for teachers to fill in the necessary details (blanks) within the template to individualize each lesson throughout the day, unit, content area, and so on. Over time, the proactive research-based strategies become second nature to both teacher and students.

Conclusion

Four categories of proactive research-based strategies that integrate behavior management and instruction, including (a) whole-group systematic implementation of student responses (Schnorr et al., 2016), (b) embedding movement into instruction (Bartholomew & Jowers, 2011), (c) incorporating visual supports (Lequia et al., 2012), and (d) including opportunities for student choice (Flowerday & Schraw, 2003), have the potential to proactively engage students in the learning process and decrease problematic behaviors. The strategies described offer teachers options to engage students with disabilities in general education settings. Teacher can easily embed proactive strategies within their lesson plans to improve implementation and reduce the need for in-the-moment decisions regarding strategies with which they have minimal experience. By incorporating proactive strategies with lesson planning, teachers are able to consider which strategies will be most beneficial to students given the specific context of a lesson as well as their students’ ever-changing needs. The goal is to promote an integrated approach to active student learning with sustained engagement versus redirection of behavior problems (Reglin et al., 2010). In addition to sustaining student engagement during instruction, embedding research-based proactive strategies can increase the quality of instructional time by promoting active rather than passive learning. Benefits of proactive strategy implementation such as increased instructional time and positive student-teacher interactions can even contribute to teacher confidence and job satisfaction (Cooper & Scott, 2017). With careful planning, these strategies can be easily implemented in classrooms with minimal need for additional resources and are applicable across grade levels and content areas.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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