In this professional development course, you'll get the teacher training you need to deal effectively with serious discipline problems and help even the most challenging students you're teaching make more responsible choices. You'll discover how to use a new research-based six-step approach to solve severe and chronic discipline problems, including bullying, fighting, using abusive language, stealing, and refusing to work.

You'll learn how to deal with the special problem of attention deficit disorder, find out how to use time-outs effectively, and see how class meetings can help solve class-wide discipline problems.

We'll cover numerous preventative strategies, including 12 actions you and your colleagues can take to prevent problems from occurring in the common areas of your school, and six practical strategies that can prevent student violence.

You'll gain a new understanding of what motivates severe and chronic misbehavior and, more important, what actions will help you effectively find solutions. We'll look at numerous real-life examples set in elementary, middle, and high school classrooms so you can see how to put the ideas into action in your own teaching situation.

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Syllabus:

All courses run for six weeks, with a two-week grace period at the end. Two lessons are released each week for the six-week duration of the course. You do not have to be present when the lesson is released, but you must complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.

A new section of each course starts on the second or third Wednesday of each month. If enrolling in a series of two or more courses, please be sure to space the start date for each course at least two months apart.

Week One

Wednesday - Lesson 01

What makes some classroom discipline problems so difficult? Students who present severe and chronic discipline problems have reasons behind their misbehavior. They're desperate to find ways to stop the pain of unfilled needs—pain that's driving them to behaviors that hurt themselves or others. In this first lesson, you'll learn exactly what the five basic needs are and how they motivate your students. We'll also step into a few classrooms and learn how creating a needs-fulfilling environment can stop many problems before they begin.

Friday - Lesson 02

As teachers, it's critical for us to come to a better understanding of students and their innermost drives. We'll begin this lesson by introducing a new six-step approach for reaching out to students to help get their needs met. You'll learn how using these steps will keep you and your students' focus on the future instead of the past, on positives instead of punishment, and on hope instead of despair. By the end of this lesson, you'll know what tactics don't work with students. And you'll have a good understanding of what does work, including the critical actions you must take when dealing with serious discipline problems.

Week Two

Wednesday - Lesson 03

If your goal is to have an effective way of dealing with discipline problems, then you have to have a plan for achieving that goal. Without a plan, you'll most likely react to problems without thinking, making a bad situation worse rather than better. In this lesson, we'll focus on practical steps for creating a classroom discipline plan. We'll compare ineffective plans with ones that work. You'll see how using positives, boundaries, and natural consequences can go a long way to establishing harmony in your classroom.

Friday - Lesson 04

Punitive time-outs are rarely effective when you're dealing with serious discipline problems. But there's a version of time-out—called a teaching time-out—that teaches children to become problem solvers and to take responsibility for improving their behavior. Today's lesson is devoted to the teaching time-out. You'll learn that you can't force students to behave; you must get their cooperation. By the end of the lesson, you'll have added teaching time-outs to your teachers' toolkit to help you get your students' cooperation.

Week Three

Wednesday - Lesson 05

Just as teaching time-outs can help you solve individual problems, class meetings can help you solve problems that involve groups of students or even a whole class. In this lesson, you'll learn how class meetings allow students to discover that their class is a working, problem-solving unit. You'll see that within the class meeting, each student has both individual and group responsibilities. At the conclusion of the lesson, you'll understand that class meetings serve a variety of educational and social purposes, not the least of which is teaching students how to work together to find solutions to problems. Class meetings can also prevent discipline problems by building a trusting, respectful, and productive classroom atmosphere.

Friday - Lesson 06

High school students can present special discipline problems. But children who threaten, intimidate, or bully another person engage in this behavior only to satisfy their basic needs. In today's lesson, you'll learn how responsible teachers can connect with these students to address their unfulfilled needs. And you'll gain the necessary tools to solve problems of verbal abuse, stealing, and fighting.

Week Four

Wednesday - Lesson 07

The middle school years can be a challenging experience for both teachers and students. Why? It can be a time of terrible uncertainty and trepidation for children. For many of them, it seems that every aspect of their lives is in flux. In this lesson, you'll learn how to help middle school students when their behavior gets out of hand. You'll see specifically how to effectively deal with students who do no school work, students who talk back, and students who engage in vandalism.

Friday - Lesson 08

Students in grades 4, 5, and 6 experience many emotional ups and downs in their lives, which can impact their performance and behavior in school. In this lesson, you'll find out how to help these children deal with emotions such as insecurity, fear, resentment, and anger. You'll also learn how to use the six-step approach to solve problems involving bullying, constant talking, and cheating.

Week Five

Wednesday - Lesson 09

Kindergarten through third grade can an exciting, fun time for both students and teachers. It can also be extremely frustrating and stressful when you have to deal with discipline problems. In this lesson, you'll learn why solving problems quickly and efficiently at this age level is critical. Problems left unchecked can easily escalate into situations that can put a stop to teaching and learning. In addition, you'll learn step-by-step solutions to some specific problems: not sharing, temper tantrums, and throwing things.

Friday - Lesson 10

In today's world, violence can occur in any school. Being prepared and knowing what to do in these intense situations can prevent serious injury to you and to students. In this very important lesson, you'll learn about the causes of violent behavior and how to recognize warning signs. Then you'll examine three scenarios based on actual events and learn what to do when confronted with potentially violent situations at the elementary, middle, and high school levels.

Week Six

Wednesday - Lesson 11

In this lesson, we'll examine aspects of school discipline that are integral to classroom management. First, you'll learn about the special problems substitute teachers encounter and what steps they can take to deal effectively with classroom discipline. Next, we'll focus on Attention Deficit Disorder and learn 35 actions you can take to help students improve their attention spans. Finally, you'll learn how academic problems can lead to discipline problems, along with steps to help students who are struggling academically.

Friday - Lesson 12

It's time to get practical! In this lesson, you'll take what you've learned in the first 11 lessons to create strategies for preventing severe and chronic discipline problems. You'll learn nine measures to prevent severe and chronic problems from occurring in your classroom. Then you'll see 12 actions you and your colleagues can take to prevent problems from occurring in the common areas of your school. To wrap things up, we'll cover six practical ways to prevent violence from occurring at your school. This lesson echoes the key point in this course: The best way to deal with chronic and severe discipline problems is to prevent them from happening in the first place!

This course includes a knowledgeable and caring instructor who will guide you through your lessons, facilitate discussions, and answer your questions. The instructor for this course will be James Thompson.

Dr. James Thompson holds a Ph.D. in Instructional Communications and has over 25 years of experience as a teacher. His distance learning courses, workbooks, and videotapes have been used to train more than 250,000 educators in the art of student discipline. His works include: Teaching Students Responsibility, Dealing With Discipline Problems, Human Relations and School Discipline, Assertive Discipline and Beyond, and Dealing With Difficult Students.

Requirements:

Internet access, e-mail, the Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox Web browser, and the Adobe Flash and PDF plug-ins (two free and simple downloads you obtain at http://www.adobe.com/downloads by clicking Get Adobe Flash Player and Get Adobe Reader).

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