Students and educators spend the majority of their school time inside classrooms, which makes classrooms a critical context for their success. Across decades, researchers have demonstrated that implementing positive and proactive classroom practices contributes to a positive learning environment, enhanced educator wellness, and student social-emotional-behavioral (SEB) growth. Plus, when classroom PBIS practices are implemented within a school-wide PBIS framework, schools are more likely to sustain their PBIS implementation. Educators who center their classroom PBIS practices, systems, and data in equity are better able to support their students through a continuum of SEB needs.
What is Classroom PBIS?
You might know classroom PBIS as positive classroom behavior support, positive and proactive classroom management, or by some other similar sounding name. Regardless of what it is called, classroom PBIS refers to educators utilizing evidence-based practices to establish predictable, positive, effective, and equitable teaching and learning environments where all students can receive the level of support (Tier 1: universal, Tier 2: targeted, or Tier 3:individualized) they need to experience positive SEB and academic outcomes. Systems are developed to support the educator’s implementation and use of data to inform decision-making about their students’ academic and SEB support needs. Educators implementing classroom PBIS focus on preventative strategies to maximize the efficiency of resources and promote a classroom climate where students experience a sense of belonging, connection, and value.
Why Address Classroom PBIS?
Prioritizing both students’ SEB and academic growth is critical to students and the educators who work with them.
What is Classroom PBIS?
You might know classroom PBIS as positive classroom behavior support, positive and proactive classroom management, or by some other similar sounding name. Regardless of what it is called, classroom PBIS refers to educators utilizing evidence-based practices to establish predictable, positive, effective, and equitable teaching and learning environments where all students can receive the level of support (Tier 1: universal, Tier 2: targeted, or Tier 3: individualized) they need to experience positive SEB and academic outcomes. Systems are developed to support the educator’s implementation and use of data to inform decision-making about their students’ academic and SEB support needs. Educators implementing classroom PBIS focus on preventative strategies to maximize the efficiency of resources and promote a classroom climate where students experience a sense of belonging, connection, and value.
Why Address Classroom PBIS?
Prioritizing both students’ SEB and academic growth is critical to students and the educators who work with them.
Student Benefit
Educator Benefit
When educators implement classroom PBIS practices with fidelity, students may experience:
improved on-task behavior and academic engagement,
increased correct academic responding, and
decreased off-task and disruptive behavior.
For supporting research see, for example, Long et al. (2019), Oliver et al. (2011), Simonsen et al. (2008), and Sutherland et al. (2019).
When educators implement classroom PBIS practices with fidelity, educators may experience:
improved perceptions of self-efficacy and self-competence,
reduced stress, and
less burnout.
For supporting research see, for example, Herman et al. (2020) and Reinke et al. (2013).
Critical Features of Classroom PBIS
Just like school-wide PBIS, classroom PBIS uses the critical features of PBIS to:
Promote equitable access to differentiated supports among all relevant groups
Prioritize positive outcomes as the basis for all decision-making
Leverage evidence-based practices to achieve desired outcomes
Strengthen implementation by developing systems
Use data to guide decision-making
How to Implement Classroom PBIS
Classroom PBIS includes what educators do to support students and what school and district leadership teams do to support educators. Resources below offer implementation guidance to both educators and school/district leadership teams.
Classroom educators support a wide-range of student SEB and academic needs. The MTSS in the Classroom guide offers educators guidance on how to prevent, teach, and respond to students’ SEB needs as wellas how to decide when to intensify or fade support.
Educators will have varying levels of knowledge, fluency, and experience with implementing Classroom PBIS practices. Using a MTSS framework to organize a system of support for educators is an efficient and effective way to meet the continuum of needs for all educators.
This practice guide is an updated version of Supporting and Responding to Student Behavior (Office of Special Education Programs, 2015). "Supporting and Responding" summarizes evidence-based, positive, and proactive practices that support and respond to students’ social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) needs in classrooms and similar teaching and learning environments (e.g., small-group activity).
This guide is intended to be used in conjunction with the practices guide: Supporting and Responding to Students’ Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Needs: Evidence-Based Practices for Educators (Center on PBIS, 2022). It provides updated guidance on how to (a) develop systems to support educators’ implementation of evidence-based classroom practices and (b) use data to guide the development of implementation supports.
This guide provides guidance to educators implementing positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) in the classroom across the continuum of student need. Educators regularly provide a range of supports for students in the classroom—from universal supports for all students to intensive and individualized supports for a few students. This guide will help educators familiar with PBIS organize classroom supports for preventing, teaching, and responding to students’ social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) needs across the continuum.
Acknowledging students for showing positive behaviors is a powerful core practice of PBIS. But do we do it equitably across student groups, and are our systems culturally responsive? The presenters in this video share strategies for making acknowledgment systems more equitable.
This practice brief provides practical, research-based strategies educators can use to de-escalate challenging student behavior in the classroom. Despite the development of supportive, safe, and predictable school environments, students may, at times,become agitated, and their behavior may escalate to unsafe levels. With some advance planning, educators can reduce reliance on reactive strategies, such as punitive or exclusionary practices (e.g., restraint, seclusion, suspension,expulsion) in favor of safer, more instructive, and inclusive approaches.
Students with disabilities are more likely to experience exclusionary and reactive discipline practices than students without disabilities. Fortunately, when educators implement positive, proactive, and evidence-based practices within a Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) framework, students with disabilities benefit. In this practice brief, we describe the “top ten” intervention strategies effective educators implement to support all students, including students with disabilities, in their classroom.
References
Herman, K. C., Reinke, W. M., & Eddy, C. L.(2020). Advances in understanding and intervening in teacher stress and coping:The Coping-Competence-Context Theory. Journal of School Psychology, 78,69-74.
Long, A. C., Miller, F. G., & Upright, J.J. (2019). Classroom management for ethnic–racial minority students: Ameta-analysis of single-case design studies. School Psychology, 34(1),1.
Oliver, R. M., Wehby, J. H., & Reschly, D.J. (2011). Teacher classroom management practices: Effects on disruptive oraggressive student behavior. Campbell Systematic Reviews, 4, 1–55.https://doi.org/10.4073/csr.2011.4
Reinke, W. M., Herman, K. C., & Stormont,M. (2013). Classroom-level positive behavior supports in schools implementingSW-PBIS: Identifying areas for enhancement. Journal of Positive BehaviorInterventions, 15(1), 39-50.
Simonsen, B., Fairbanks, S., Briesch, A.,Myers, D., & Sugai, G. (2008). Evidence-based practices in classroommanagement: Considerations for research to practice. Education andtreatment of children, 351-380
Sutherland, K. S., Conroy, M. A., McLeod, B.D., Kunemund, R., & McKnight, K. (2019). Common practice elements forimproving social, emotional, and behavioral outcomes of young elementary schoolstudents. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 27(2),76-85.
