Mr. Boyle’s Rules

Mr. Boyle has been frustrated with his fourth grade students’ behavior since returning from winter break. More and more students have become loud and distracting during whole-class lessons. When working with small groups, Mr. Boyle is interrupted by students wanting help on their individual assignments. Other students wander around the room, talk with their seat-mates, and make little progress on their own work.

The class may benefit from Mr. Boyle’s re-stating and posting instructions and expectations for behavior during group and individual assignments and providing additional practice and praise for expected behaviors while withholding reinforcers for inappropriate behaviors. Mr. Boyle also can consider implementing individual contingencies (for example, a token system in which individual students who follow a specific expectation earn points or tokens that can be exchanged for a reward of choice, such as a preferred activity) or group contingencies (in which rewards are contingent on individual student behavior or the behavior displayed by the whole class) to increase student motivation and compliance with classroom rules and routines.