Creating Success with Difficult Students, Part Two

Creating Success with Difficult Students

By Troy L Parrish MA LCPC

PART TWO: Teacher Interventions for the Classroom.

     Enlisting the help of a teacher in dealing with a challenging student can be invaluable. As a teacher, finding the resources to deal with difficult students and still be available for the remaining students can be a significant challenge. The purpose of this article is to present some ideas that may be helpful in dealing with this challenge.

        A simple start to dealing with difficult students is to move the child close to the teacher (typically close to the front). This will allow the child to pay better attention to the teacher without the distraction of other students around them. It will also allow the teacher to attend more frequently to the student and as will be seen in part three, teacher attention can be used to modify behavior. It will also allow the teacher to intervene more rapidly with either positive reinforcement or with consequences or redirection.

        Students who are difficult to engage, particularly those with attention problems will benefit from classrooms that are well organized, and fairly structured schedule. Well organized means that the classroom is neat, with visual material orderly placed and learning materials in a determined, easily identified location. A structured schedule is self explanatory in that it is clear what is going to happen. Predictability is a good addition to a structured schedule in that students that have learning difficulties or are difficult to engage do not tolerate well changes in expectations.

        Changes in the presentation format may also help to keep students engaged. There are certainly subjects and topics that are of low interest to students and others that are of higher interest. Assuming that a teacher is attempting to make most material as interesting as possible there is still some utility in rotating the presentation of low interest material then high interest material then low interest material and so on.

        It can also be useful with challenging students to keep academic assignment brief. This will increase the likelihood that students will complete the assignment and be successful. This is important for several reasons. Increased success will increase the likelihood that the student will feel good about their work and receive this internal reward for their work, increasing the chances they will be willing to make efforts in the future. This success will also allow the teacher and parents to give positive reinforcement for the work that is being completed. Lastly, with a brief assignment is easier to maintain attention for the length of the assignment. Some recent research is suggesting that brief assignments can be just as effective in producing success as longer assignments.

        It can also be useful to intersperse seat work with physical activity or with supplemental, direct work such as drills.   As with the variation with low interest and high interest material, this variation will help to maintain engagement and interest which will assist with attention and reduce resistance to the work.
        Allowing students that are having trouble with completing homework to have a second set of books at home will remove a potential barrier to compliance with expectations. This may have to be arranged with administrators of if the student has special needs for accommodations this can be written into that plan.

Part Three of this article will continue to look at teacher interventions.