Neoliberalism, after decades of reform, continues to steer educational policies around the world. As private enterprise encroaches public education, schools are held accountable, tangled up in an internationally competitive culture of achieving benchmarks that meet technically managed standards. Not only is it academic performance that is audited…

Students are often placed in alternative education schools or settings (AES) for behavioral issues that cannot be effectively supported in a general education setting. A large portion of students educated in AES have a diagnosed emotional and behavioral disorder (EBD). An AES teacher is required to provide students with the most effective behavior…

Concurrent operant assessments (COAs) offer a flexible model for evaluating instructional preferences for students with persistent, escape-motivated interfering behavior. In this article, we define the critical features of COAs and review what types of questions they can address for classroom educators. We then identify and describe a series of…

This paper provides an extensive literature review of current approaches to sexual consent and demonstrates their insufficiency for teaching higher education students about healthy sex. Their overemphasis on the giving of consent to the detriment of attention to the process of gaining consent, as well as their inappropriate utilisation of…

Special educators who teach students with significant behavioral challenges may encounter frequent classroom crises. In these moments, they may feel overwhelmed, drained, or even reactive, as they navigate environments that may trigger a fight or flight response. Humble and compassionate approaches can lay the foundation for meaningful…

TikTok has gained in popularity across teachers. One TikTok trend related to classroom management is called "Secret Student." Secret Student aims to improve classroom behavior by rewarding an anonymous, randomly chosen student. In this article, I describe common practices and variations of the Secret Student intervention as well as…

Use of high-probability request sequences is a low-intensity intervention for increasing student compliance. There are several subtleties in implementing high-probability request sequences that make the process more complex. Review of supporting research raises concerns about how well the intervention translates into practice. This article…

Academic incivility is a serious concern for higher education. The continuum of incivility to bullying is not agreed upon, but the behaviors associated with these constructs disrupt education at every level. Unaddressed, these behaviors can significantly complicate teaching and learning conditions for students, faculty, and institutions. Acts of…

Premack principle, often referred to as Grandma's law, describes how individuals will perform an arduous or undesirable activity if given access to a desirable activity after the completion of the original task. Premack discovered that highly preferred restricted activities in and of themselves can be reinforcing when preceded by activities that…

Challenging behavior can impact the learning environment and prevent educators and students from demonstrating behavioral and academic success. Schools and districts may implore a framework of tiered systems of support to respond to students struggling behaviorally or academically. These systems provide a decision-making process to aid educators'…

Many of the youth with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) who are served within alternative education settings experience behavioral challenges including displaying behaviors of concern while having difficulty demonstrating the expected behaviors. Through the low-intensity behavioral strategy of precorrection, staff in alternative education…

This article is intended to provide educators with recommendations for maintaining safety and protecting student dignity when writing and implementing crisis response plans. These recommendations include reducing student agitation by recognizing and responding to early signs of escalated student behaviors, embedding choice-making opportunities,…

This article presents a structured blueprint for school psychologists to assess and intervene in cases of automatically maintained self-injurious behavior (SIB) while adhering to the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) mandate. We outline a six-step process for conducting Functional Behavior Assessments (FBAs) of automatically maintained SIB,…

Early adolescents entering middle school are at a pivotal developmental phase as they become less dependent on parents/guardians and seek greater autonomy while encountering a complexity of social demands requiring them to regulate their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors to achieve academic and social success. Yet, students who receive services…

Problem behavior disrupts classrooms across the United States, impacting student learning. Despite the adverse consequences, teachers often exclude disruptive students from school as a punitive and default response to problem behavior. Alternatives to exclusion are becoming increasingly popular in many school districts to improve behavior and keep…