Self-management strategies involve teaching students how to manage their own behaviors. Students actively participate in the selection of the target behavior for improvement and the behavioral goals, in the antecedent and consequent events, and in the recording and evaluation of the behavioral changes. External or teacher control is minimal.
Rationale
Students are rational. They can learn to select internal over external control and to control behavior in socially acceptable ways. All students need to feel control over their destiny in order to be educationally successful. Furthermore, self-management leads to generalized behavior in all situations, since no other person – parent or teacher – is exerting external control.
Implementation Phases
Self-management is implemented in the following ways:
- Teach behavioral observation and the counting of the behavior of others. Students are taught to identify problem behaviors and to count the number of times a behavior occurs. Often this is accomplished through the use of a videotape recording of inappropriate behavior; the students are directed to identify the behavior and to count the number of times it occurs.
- Guide the student in the selection of personal behavior for improvement. Teach the student to choose the behavior that interferes most with learning performance and to describe that behavior in observable terms. Two of the many ways students commonly count behaviors are by marking tally marks, or placing chips into paper cups. Sometimes the mere counting of the behavior acts as a behavioral change technique. One teacher reported that, by requiring a student to count the number of hand raises, the student’s hand raising automatically increased before any formal intervention.
- Teach students to evaluate their self-counting. Although research demonstrates that self counting does not have to be accurate to produce behavioral change, it is a common practice to require students to match their count to a teacher’s count of the same behavior (Rosenbaum & Drabman, 1979). In fact, some teachers reward students with bonus points when the students’ count deviates by only a few points. These external rewards and matching criteria are gradually eliminated until the students feel total responsibility.
- Guide the students in the selection of appropriate goals or acceptable levels of behavior performance. Research has shown that students have a tendency to select less stringent performance standards than teachers, and that stricter performance standards produce greater performance (Rosenbaum & Drabman, 1979). This is not a surprising finding in light of much of expectancy research that suggests that people live up to expectations. Remember to guide the students to choose strict but realistic goals.
- Guide the students in the selection of antecedent events, that is, events that precede the behavioral movement. In a self-management program the student may select instructional materials or even the seating arrangement that will best assist in obtaining the behavioral goals.
- Guide the students in the selection of consequent events. These events, occurring after the movement, most frequently consist of reinforcing events. A selection simply involves either letting the student make a forced choice from a variety of options or asking what the student would like to earn. The student may even select the time schedule for reinforcement, such as after ten problems are completed or at the end of four days.
- Teach the students how to evaluate their performances. The evaluation is easier when the behavioral goals are stated in objective terms, such as writing 20 words a minute with only 2 errors. One teacher used a proofreading sheet in the initial stages of teaching evaluation to second grade students. The teacher was disgusted with the lack of neatness and the many errors in student papers and decided to teach the second graders how to evaluate or proofread their work before turning it in. At a class meeting the teacher and students listed criteria to check before a paper was turned in to the teacher for grading. For the next few weeks proofreading sheets (see Exhibit 3-6) accompanied all papers submitted to the teacher. Each student checked the standards of the proofreading sheet before submitting the paper. The teacher also checked the proofreading sheet before grading the paper. If a student’s evaluation differed by more than one mark from the teacher’s, the teacher and student met to reevaluate the paper together. The students also had the option of selecting another student to mark the proofreading sheet before the assignment was turned in. The teacher found that, even when the proofreading sheet was no longer in common use, the students turned in neater looking papers.
- Remember to ignore inappropriate behavior and to socially reward appropriate behavior throughout the self-management program.
How much control to give the students is dependent on the personality of each student, the group personality, and the teacher’s feelings of security. It is usually necessary to proceed from very structured to less structured choices if there are many students with problem behaviors in one classroom. Therefore, a teacher who plans to establish a self-management program in the classroom should allow choices within the teacher’s current management system, such as “Jim, you have a choice to sit down or lose points; it is entirely up to you”. Such choices make the student feel in control and give the student fewer opportunities to blame others.
Practical Application
While tutoring a 13-year-old student, a practicum student decided to incorporate self-management strategies into the tutoring program. The tutor shared all test results and reasons for the program with the student. The tutor asked the Student to list three objectives that the student thought should be worked on, with the stipulation that at least one of the areas involve an affective problem.
The tutor and student reworked the three objectives together until the objectives were measurable and understood by both the student and the tutor. The student, assisted by the tutor, selected a realistic performance goal for each objective. One effective objective was to reduce, to two a day, the number of sassy comments that the student made to the science teacher.
The tutor and the student selected materials and teaching strategies for the academic objectives. The student did not select any reinforcers as part of the strategies, even though the tutor suggested a soda break. The tutor instructed the student in how to count and chart behaviors.
At the beginning of each weekly session the student, with teacher assistance, planned the schedule and selected materials for the objectives. The tutor essentially provided information about which materials would improve which skills (objectives). The student also shared with the tutor a chart of the number of self-recorded daily sassy comments made to the science teacher. A short time was spent discussing the improvement and describing the incidents that precipitated the sassy comments. Then the student role-played what the science teacher had done and said; and the tutor, acting as the student, responded in appropriate ways other than with sassy comments.
The goals were reviewed and the performance evaluated at the end of each weekly session. Any changes in materials or other aspects were made at this time. The student conducted the parent conference at the end of the ten-week period.
A total change in the student’s behavior occurred compared with that in the previous session. Previously the student constantly complained about the tutoring program, frequently skipped sessions and verbally attacked all the teachers. As a result of the self-management program, the student never missed tutoring, never complained, and amazingly asked to be re-enrolled for the next term.
Lovitt (1977) describes a pupil who selected his own remedial technique. The boy was having difficulty reading vowels with long and short markings on probe sheets. The student noticed he was missing the short ‘e’ sound most frequently and decided to write the word ‘ten’ on each sheet as a cue. Lovitt notes that the accuracy and speed of saying sounds continued to improve even upon removal of the self-selected strategy of using a cue word.
Advantages
The advantages of self-management are:
- Because the students control their own behavior, self-management frees teachers to work with others and to teach academic skills.
- Through the self-charting component students learn to evaluate their own progress without the need of group comparison.
- Since the students are in control, self-management provides more opportunity for behavior to generalize to other situations.
- Self-management teaches decision making and independence – two skills valued and expected in our culture.
- Self-management does not require constant parent or teacher supervision.
Disadvantages
The disadvantages of self-management are:
- The amount of time needed to teach students to manage is often greater than that required by external teacher controls.
- The learning of decision making requires much teacher patience: it is a slow process for emotionally handicapped (EH) students who often function better in a structured environment.
- Because self-management often promotes questioning of the authoritative teacher role, the granting of so much freedom to students requires a very secure teacher.
- It is difficult to incorporate all the components of the self-management program for an entire class.
Summary
The purpose of a self-management program is to teach students how to manage their own academic or affective behaviors without constant teacher supervision. The students must be taught how to observe behavior and how to evaluate self-counting and behavioral performance. The students must also learn to make choices. Teaching self-management is a slow process for those students who exhibit poor judgement skills. Although it may be difficult to incorporate all of the self-management components of self charting, self-counting, self-evaluating, and self-selecting behaviors, goals, antecedents and consequences, the inclusion of even one or two areas of student management in a program makes teacher management easier.