The Unteachables Podcast

#79: 1 simple tool to tackle low-level behaviours, increase engagement, and bust dysregulation.

September 09, 2024 • Claire English • Season 5 • Episode 79

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Classroom management is more than just the behaviour, and dealing with low-level disruptive behaviours NEEDS to be more than this to be effective!

In this episode, I'll be exploring (well... more like nerding out on) a simple yet incredibly effective tool to help manage and reduce low-level behaviours in the classroom: the humble task card. I know, I know, but stay with me here.

Many factors contribute to disruptive behaviours, but by using task cards, you can provide clarity, structure, and support that helps students stay on task and reduce stress.

IN THIS EPISODE, I DISCUSS:

  • The common reasons behind low-level behaviours, such as students being in a fight, flight, or freeze state, lack of clarity, or low confidence.
  • How task cards can reduce these behaviours by providing clear expectations, breaking tasks into manageable steps, and offering scaffolding for students.
  • Key components of a well-presented task card, including success criteria, checklists, time frames, and prompts.
  • How task cards promote student autonomy and reduce teacher input while boosting engagement.
  • The benefits for both students and teachers when task cards are used effectively.
  • Resources and templates available for Behaviour Club members to easily implement task cards in their classrooms.

By the end of this episode, you'll understand how task cards can transform your classroom management and why they are such a game-changer in addressing low-level behaviours.

Have a question, comment, or just want to say hello? Drop us a text!

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Speaker 1:

Oh, hi teachers. Welcome to Unteachable's podcast Congratulations. You have just stumbled across the best free professional development and support you could ask for. I'm Claire English, a passionate secondary teacher, author, teacher mentor and generally just a big behavior nerd, and I created the Unteachable's podcast to demystify and simplify classroom management. I want this podcast to be the tangible support, community validation, mentorship all those pretty important things that we need as teachers to be able to walk into our classrooms feeling empowered and, dare I say it, happy and thrive, especially in the face of these really tough behaviors. So ready for some no-nonsense, judgment-free and realistic classroom management support? I've got your teacher friend. Let's do this. Hello there, wonderful teacher, happy Tuesday, or whenever you're listening to this, on the way to work, on a walk maybe you're brushing your teeth, I don't know. Whatever you're doing at the moment, welcome. I'm so happy to have you here.

Speaker 1:

I've been thinking a lot lately about how often teachers are told and I say it as well that you know there are reasons for the behaviors that happen in our classroom and to get curious about those and I say it all the time. The fact of the matter is right that there are so many potential reasons for the challenging behaviors that pop up in front of us in our classrooms, and the reality for teachers is that we actually don't have the time or capacity or ability to stand there in front of the room and diagnose and react to each one in the moment. I think it's really important to be curious about the behaviors, to understand that there is something going on beneath the behaviors. However, when people say that what they're not saying or maybe they are maybe they do think this, but what I'm definitely not saying is that we need to spend time on actually understanding every single behavior that is in front of us. If that's not effective teaching, nor is it sustainable classroom management. And if you were to even ask the students why they're behaving in certain ways, they probably wouldn't be able to tell you anyway, like they're probably not cognizant of it. If you asked 23 year old Claire, while she was incredibly angry and you know like behaving in ways that I'm not proud of, I wouldn't have been able to tell you back then what was actually going on for me. So and we're expecting we can't expect students to do that either.

Speaker 1:

So when we're saying understanding the why beneath the behavior, it is more about getting curious and us being able to know that it's coming from a place of whatever it's coming from. Luckily for us, we actually don't need to know every single individual issue in our classroom. We don't have to know what is beneath every single behavior to be able to effectively use strategies to mitigate them and address them. Actually, the reason why it's important to know what's going on beneath the behavior is more about being able to say, okay, this tool or this strategy is working because of X, y and Z, not that student is behaving in this way because of that reason. So I'm going to do X, y and Z. That would take a hell of a long time.

Speaker 1:

It is very unsustainable for us, so that two minute introduction was just a bit of a way for me to explain what we're talking about this episode, and in this episode I want to talk about low-level behaviors, but I want to talk about one specific tool that I know is one of the most powerful tools to reduce low-level behaviors and address some of the causes beneath low-level behaviors. And address some of the causes beneath low-level behaviors. By the way, over the next six weeks, I'm going to be talking a lot about low-level behaviors and disruptions here on the podcast. I'm going to be going deep into a lot of different things. So if you do need support around low-level behaviors and I know a lot of you do it's one of those things that we all can, you know, really connect with over. Be sure to follow this podcast so you get them automatically. I think that Apple podcasts, specifically, I think something changed with the way that they do things and I think people who used to follow me it would have dropped off. So if you would like to be sure you get those episodes, make sure you subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you do listen on. So for us to understand how this one tool and I'll talk about the tool in a bit how this one tool can shift behaviors. We need to know what drives the behavior themselves, because, again, it's not something that we need to understand for each individual in the room. It's something we need to get curious about, and when we understand the driving forces beneath them, we can then understand how the strategies and the tools that we're using can be really effective in mitigating them and addressing them.

Speaker 1:

The first reason why we might be seeing low-level behaviors in our classroom is that that student could be in fight, flight or freeze All of the behaviors that you see that are kind of low-level disruptions, all of them can be seen as manifestations of the stress response. What I'm not saying is that every single low level behavior that you see in your room is the stress response, because it could be a number of things. But those low level behaviors are something that we could attribute to the stress response. Like students putting their head on their desk and not engaging with us, like students throwing a piece of paper around the room, students ignoring our requests, students being silly calling out, wanting to be provocative with their friends, like all of those things could be a manifestation of the stress response. Or they could be a student meeting their needs, or they could be a student just being, you know, a child and you know their behaviors are developmentally appropriate. But it's really important for us to understand that the low level behaviors that we do see in our room could be a manifestation of that fight, flight or freeze for our students.

Speaker 1:

Another reason that we could be seeing a lot of low level behaviors in our classroom could be that there's not enough clarity. This could be around expectations. It could be that we're sending mixed messages to our students about what we expect. It could be that there's not enough clarity. This could be around expectations. It could be that we're sending mixed messages to our students about what we expect. It could be that we're delivering the material or the task in a way that isn't accessible. It could be that things are a bit confusing for them.

Speaker 1:

All of these things could be driving the low-level behaviors that we're seeing in the classroom. It could be a reason behind them. I'm not just going to, you know, leave you out to hang with that one as well. I will do an episode around that particular, that particular issue, and I do dig really deep into that in a couple of things that I do in this, in this space. But that could be another reason. The lack of clarity, the expectations that we're setting, the mixed messages that we're sending, the way that we're delivering a task, preparing a task all of those things could be a particular reason why we're seeing low-level behaviors.

Speaker 1:

And the third thing I want to talk about that could be driving low-level behaviors is that students might be struggling with their confidence. They might have anxiety around a task. They might have anxiety around a particular subject and not be able to overcome that barrier to engage in it, and when that happens, it's easier for them to act out. It's easier for them to throw a book at their classmate. It's easier for them to chat over you than to face what feels difficult. For them, it is much, much easier to opt out. It takes a lot of bravery and a lot of confidence and a lot of support for us to overcome that barrier and actually engage with what's in front of us. If that's how we're feeling and that's how we're thinking and there are countless other reasons why you might be seeing low-level behaviors that are really popping up in your classroom but the good news is is that this one tool that I'm going to be talking about today can address those three issues all at once.

Speaker 1:

The best classroom management is classroom management that is happening on a proactive level, and that is something that we can do before the students come into the room. That really takes that burden off. What we're doing in the classroom, that is sustainable, that is something that is going to transform, you know everything for us as teachers. A quick caveat to this, though we are dealing with human beings, so there is absolutely no overnight magic solution that is instantly going to resolve all classroom management issues. There is a lot of nuance in how we approach using this tool. There is a lot of nuance in how we present it. A lot of that kind of pedagogical stuff is, you know, how we show up as teachers, how we deliver it with our pedagogy. It's holistic, but if it's done right, this tool can be incredibly powerful.

Speaker 1:

And the tool dun dun, dun God, I'm such a dork the tool is a well-developed, a well-presented, a masterful Task card. And you might be thinking what that's? It A task card? Yes, and please let me explain.

Speaker 1:

Task cards are the holy grail of being able to communicate things with absolute clarity, to break things down, to non-verbally reinforce expectations, to step students through things in a way that is chunked down and digestibleible, and to communicate what a successful task looks like. Getting a little bit too over the top here, so just focus on a single clear task or question. It breaks down complex activities into manageable steps, it promotes autonomy, it increases engagement and task completion and the best part is that it naturally differentiates for all of your learners. And if you're sitting there thinking what the heck Claire, that it naturally differentiates for all of your learners, and if you're sitting there thinking what the heck Claire, it is just a task card. Calm down, let me step you through what mine has on it and what it looks like, because I'm telling you it is not just a sheet that you give them.

Speaker 1:

The pedagogy behind this, the power behind this is so great and I really, really am passionate about teachers having access to information that makes them realize that, oh my gosh, like I'm not just giving them this task card. What I'm doing is I am actively, you know, reducing the level of behaviors through reducing their stress response, through increasing their clarity, through increasing my expectations and the way that I'm communicating those non-verbally and all of the rest of the things that we're doing through these tools that we use. So the goal is, through an effective task card is to make the task crystal clear so you can more or less remove yourself from the process during the lesson. The best test of whether or not a task card is doing the job is it should make your life easier as a teacher, but it should be something that you could give a student and if they ask you a question about the task, most of the time you'll be able to point to something on the task card and they'll be able to go oh, okay, sweet. So it not only makes your life easier as a teacher, but it also significantly reduces common behavior issues. It also gives you your time back, so you're not answering 30 questions at a time, but again, it needs to be done right.

Speaker 1:

So these are the kinds of things you can include and, yes, I put all of these on a single sheet to act as a map to their learning, to act as a scaffold, to act as everything they need in that one place to look at. You know you do three before me, right? And very often I've seen three before me done in lessons and it's like okay, you know, the first thing is use your brain, like look around, what is what is there for you to grasp onto, to be able to answer this question yourself. And if I look around the room myself, like observing a lesson, I'm like actually I don't know like what, what this student could look at. It's not clear for that student. If that student's feeling overwhelmed, if that student's feeling stressed, if that student's not quite sure what to do for a task, them looking around and trying to find it, at the moment it's not very clear to me. So this is the perfect way for you to hit all those marks and increase your autonomy and all of those things. So here are the things to include.

Speaker 1:

The first thing is a success criteria. A success criteria is just a list of things that clarifies the expectations. Students know exactly what a successful task looks like. They can self-assess their progress. They can go back to it and tick it off and see if they've gotten all of those things on there that they need. So what does success look like? If you were to, you know, if you were to create, if you were to answer this question, if you were to, you know do this task and it's successful. What do you need to do to be able to get there? That's really clear. It's beneficial for all students to be able to go okay. Well, I've got all these things in there, so I must have done the right thing. I must've done it right.

Speaker 1:

The next thing is a checklist breaking down the lesson into manageable steps. I call it the to-do list, like on the task card, I call it my to-do list, and it just breaks the lesson or the task into manageable steps and it just allows students to work autonomously. They can see what comes next and it can be broken down as fine detail as you want it, depending on the needs of your students, or it could just be a general overview. If you have students that need a lot of direction, it could literally be write your name on the page, step one, tick it off. Okay, sweet, I've done that. You know, do your introduction, or write the title down, or, you know, go back to your success criteria, whatever you want to put on there, but the point is to have a tick box next to it and students can work through it. It's also really great because, as a teacher, you can walk around the room and you can see exactly what students are up to and where they might need a little bit of support, where students might be falling behind on.

Speaker 1:

The next thing to put on your task card is a time. Set a boundary for how long a task should have and how long it should take to keep students on track. What I very often see and what I've experienced a lot of times in my lessons is like, as an English teacher, I'll give them an extended response task and then a student will put their hand up five minutes into a 30 minute task and go I'm done. And they would have done a short answer response and it took me a long time to realize. Oh okay, I'm not very, very clear here. Like, I'm going to be putting a timer on the page. I'm going to be telling them exactly how long they have. I'm going to be telling them you know how many paragraphs they need to be putting on there If they need that level of support in order to you know, like, if they need to be successful at this task. How can I guide them towards that? How can I reduce the amount of times in that lesson that I'm going around going no, you need to write more. So it's really taking the guesswork out of it for students. So if it says 20 minutes, students know that you know if they do two sentences, that's not actually what is expected of them. What is expected is 20 minutes worth of work.

Speaker 1:

The next thing I put directly onto my task card are prompts or sentence starters, providing clues any way that you can. That reduce that anxiety. It builds confidence. It helps students expand their skills. It helps students get started. If they're not wanting that blank page, you can use anything here. I use sentence starters if I'm doing an extended response. If you're a math teacher, you can put like a formula on there. If you are doing report writing, you can put down the steps of report. Right, you can do anything. Anything you think students will need to prompt them to be successful. If there are any barriers, like I just asked myself, okay, where might the barriers be here for students?

Speaker 1:

A lot of the time for English, for the type of students that I teach, it is them getting started and actually being able to structure a response that you know is going to be a quality response. So I provide them that scaffolding and I know that in a year's time they won't need. Just like when we're building a house, you have the scaffolding up when you're building it, but then you can take that scaffolding away. The whole point is to be able to create something where you can then remove the scaffolding for them as their skills expand, and then on there as well, I just do a little overview of what they're doing and outcome they're meeting. When students understand why they're doing what they're doing, it gives them a sense of purpose, it gives them some buy-in. I think you know outcomes are really learning objectives.

Speaker 1:

Outcomes whatever we want to call them are really misunderstood in teaching and they're often seen as something that is imposed upon us, by administration, by our leaders, by our principal, that we need to put up on the board. But it is not superfluous. It is something that is a massive, massive tool for clarity for our students. It just needs to be done right. It just needs to be in student-friendly language and it needs to be purposeful. It needs to be a goal that they're meeting for that lesson that they can feel accomplished.

Speaker 1:

In those reasons for low-level behaviors that I mentioned at All of these things actively work to reduce it. Because when we are really clear about a task, when we give students the tools to be successful, when students get what's going on and they feel like they can be successful when they see that tool in front of them, that is familiar. So that's why I suggest that you do the same kind of template for every single task card you use and I'll talk about that in a minute. But when there is, when there's somewhere they can look so they don't feel lost, all of these things reduce the stress response and all of those behaviors that you can associate with the stress response. But, as we know, not all behaviors are due to the stress response. There may be due to expectations not being clear.

Speaker 1:

A task card that is well put together, non-verbally and very explicitly communicates your expectations to students. Here's what we're doing, here's how you'll do it, here's how long it will take. Here are the steps to success. And if the cause of a student not engaging is that they struggle with their confidence, if they feel like they can't achieve, having a task card that embeds scaffolding and support is automatically differentiating for those students. It's promoting autonomy by giving them a tangible reference point. So whether the student is A not engaged at all or B trying to, you know like, really get the task. But they need a lot of teacher input that you just can't give to all of your students. This is the perfect way to have them take action, take charge and feel so much more confident in what they're doing, with what's in front of them.

Speaker 1:

I don't know whether you're probably sitting there slightly concerned by my excitement over a task card, or maybe you're totally inspired by it, but I stand by the fact every day of the week that a task card that is well presented, that is, you know, delivered with all the pedagogy behind it, is a freaking game changer for reducing low level behaviors, and it also excites me like this because it is a freaking game changer for reducing low-level behaviors and it also excites me like this because it is the prime example of how classroom management and behavior management is so much more than just the behavior. It is absolutely everything we do as teachers. By the way, if you are listening and you are one of my behavior clubbers with your September training and all the resources you get with that about students getting on task without the disruption or the million questions I have got all of the things you need to go deeper with task cards. So I've recorded you a step-by-step, along with a Canva template that you can just click on. You can make it yours. You can keep editing and using with your students day on day.

Speaker 1:

As I was putting together the training and all the pieces, I just figured me doing that once and making like a really quality task card for you to edit would be so much easier and take the guesswork out of it for you. So take that, it's yours, use it as you want, change it up, but it's there for you and I encourage you to use it and just see how it can transform the behaviors in your classroom. And if you're not a behavior clubber and you want to be a part of this incredible community and nerd out with me around all things like task cards. You can join by heading to the dash on teachablescom, forward, slash TBC and that'll give you immediate access to all of the training from this month which is around, you know, giving instructions that students get and follow without all the disruptions and all the questions, as well as all the past month's training and resources. And guess what? You just get to see the fruits of my nerdy labor each month, as I get way too excited about resource creation and training, and it is really an incredible community.

Speaker 1:

So if it sounds like a bit of you, then I would love to have you join me and you can always reach out if you have any questions. Okay, fabulous teacher, I might leave it there because I've been talking about task cards for the last 20 minutes and I was going to say I'll make a coffee, but maybe that's not the best idea. Maybe I need a chamomile tea or something. Okay, I hope you have a fabulous week ahead and I'll see you next Tuesday.

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Claire English

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