A TaSDi-PBS workshop delivered by CARDET
Within the framework of the European Conference of the ComBus project, CARDET conducted an in-service teacher workshop on school discipline and social skills instruction. Participants included teachers, school leaders, parents, academic faculty, and university students. The event took place on the 22nd September 2017 at the University of Nicosia and attracted the interest of many stakeholders.
The purpose of the workshop was to present the school-wide positive behavior supports framework (SWPBS). Participants learned that designing positive and preventative learning environments to meet student diverse needs entails a school-wide three-tiered approach. Specifically, the first tier of prevention focuses on building common language among staff on the schoolwide expectations across different settings, teaching those expectations systematically and directly, reinforcing student behavioral performance and correcting student social errors. The second tier targets students, who are still exhibiting behavioral problems and would benefit from an additional layer of intervention.
The three tier focuses on students with chronic behavioral issues, whose need have not been met sufficiently at the previous tiers and thus, they would need intensive individualized instruction. Teacher participants were provided examples of lesson plans for teaching schoolwide behavioral expectations and worked in pairs to develop a lesson plan with related objectives and activities. Additionally, participants learned about positive specific feedback, which consists of behavior specific praise and an error correction procedure. Main message from this workshop was that in order to prevent and/or decrease behavioral problems in schools, emphasis should be placed on teaching students social skills and providing them immediate positive corrective feedback.
