Key Concepts in Education and Classroom Management

Posted on Mar 14, 2025 in Psychology and Sociology

Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP)

BICS: Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) are skills used in conversational, social language. It’s everyday language used in social interactions.

CALP: Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) is language used in academic situations. It refers to academic language.

Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT)

Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) involves using cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning encounters more relevant and effective for them. CRT is particularly important in implementing the RTI model.

Three Key Elements of CRT:

High expectations for all students.
Active teaching that is engaging and responsive.
Use of language that reflects sensitivity when responding to students.

Classroom Design Accommodations

Accommodations for diverse learners:

Students from diverse cultural or linguistic backgrounds: Label work areas and objects around the room in multiple languages.
Deaf and hard of hearing students: Place desks in a central location, ensure adequate lighting for lip reading, use swivel chairs, and consider noise levels.
Students with visual impairments: Provide a glare-free and well-lighted work area, seat away from windows and in a quiet place, and provide visual descriptions of the room and routes.

Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS)

PBIS – Strategies for Managing Student Behavior

Universal Strategies:

Look for, and recognize, positive behaviors.
Provide specific feedback.
Use reinforcers to encourage positive behaviors.
- Examples include positive and negative reinforcement and a token economy system.
Establish clear rules with known consequences.
Help students to change inappropriate behaviors.
Use planned ignoring.
Promote self-regulation strategies (monitoring their own behavior).
Recognize students’ mistaken goals.

Considerations for Consequence-Based Interventions

Positive reinforcers should be something desired by students and age-appropriate.
Examples of reinforcers include self-reinforcers, adult approval, peer recognition, privileges, activities, tokens, tangibles, and consumables.
Administering reinforcement and preference surveys will help teachers understand what students want.
Deliver reinforcers immediately following target behavior.
Contracts reduce ambiguity when rewarding students.

Behavior Reduction Interventions

Redirection: Making comments or using behaviors to interrupt misbehavior.

Examples of Redirection Strategies:

Introducing a new stimulus to recapture the student’s attention.
Signaling the student verbally or nonverbally to stop the behavior.
Engaging the student in conversation.
Reminding the student to focus on the assignment.
Giving the student a choice between positive behavior and a minor punishment.
Precision requests (using a polite and calm voice to state the student’s name and a concise description of a desired behavior; “I need…”).
Choice statements (prompt students to choose between positive behavior and accepting the consequence): “When you______, then you can______.”