When I engage with students about their behaviour, it’s often just a conversation between us. But sometimes, having a structured reflection task can make a huge difference.
Reflection is a skill that needs to be taught, modelled, and practised. These tasks help students problem-solve, build self-awareness, and develop emotional regulation. In this episode, I’m sharing five different reflection strategies that can guide students through conflict, help them process their behaviour, and encourage meaningful change.
Listen in as I discuss:
- Why reflection is an essential skill in behaviour conversations. Helping students take ownership of their actions.
- Five practical reflection tasks to use in your classroom. Simple but powerful tools to support student growth.
- How to embed these strategies into everyday behaviour chats. Encouraging accountability and problem-solving.
Mentioned resources:
MASTERCLASS: REAL CONSEQUENCES, REAL CHANGE
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to your weekly Classroom Management
Quick Win Challenge.
True classroom management isnot how we address behavior when
it pops up.
Instead, it is a compoundingeffect of many, many micro
decisions we make in ourteaching practice before the
behavior even pops up.
In these Quick Win episodes,I'm handing over one actionable,
small but mighty tool to helpyou move the needle every single
(00:24):
week to stop crowd controllingand to start calmly classroom
managing like a pro.
Let's dive into this week'sgame-changing challenge.
Hey, wonderful teacher, welcometo this week's quick win
episode.
And today I wanted to talk toyou about five different ways to
get students thinking abouttheir behavior.
So when I'm engaging withstudents around their behavior
and talk to you about fivedifferent ways to get students
thinking about their behavior.
(00:45):
So when I'm engaging withstudents around their behavior
and talking to them about theirbehavior, it's very often just
me chatting with the student.
You know nothing too fancy.
However, sometimes it is greatto have something a little bit
more to guide the conversation.
Hardwire the skill ofreflection, and reflection is a
skill.
So here are five reflectiontasks that I use to help get
(01:08):
students thinking about conflictand behavior and their feelings
and just encourage problemsolving and equip students with
those skills.
So the first reflection toolthat I use is something called
problem solving baseball, andyou can do this with a student
to help them work through aproblem or a conflict they're
having.
They can then do that alone orwork through it with a teacher,
like it's a really great thingfor students to then have under
(01:30):
their belts to be able to useindependently once they have the
skills to do so.
But the way that it works isyou do the home base, which is
pitching the problem.
So what's going on?
What's the problem you'refacing?
Then they move to first basewhat are some options to resolve
this problem?
From there you can talk to thestudent about what the best
option is.
So on second base they writethe best option that they have
(01:52):
and then on the third base theyhave to decide what they need to
do to action the plan.
So I love problem solvingbaseball because it gets us
thinking about problems in a waythat is a little bit different.
So students will pitch aproblem to us and rather than us
trying to, you know, talkthrough things without structure
.
It just allows us to developthose skills in our students to
(02:13):
get them thinking aboutdifferent options, to get them
thinking about the best optionfor them.
It keeps them in their thinkingbrain rather than their
emotional brain, and gets themto action a plan that is going
to work for them and is the bestoption at the time.
The second reflective task thatI use with my students is what I
can control.
So often we get hung up on thethings that we can't control not
(02:35):
just our students, but us too.
So when students are havingdifficulty, it's really great to
go through an exercise wherethey can identify the things
that they can control in thatsituation and that they can
change, and, of course, thethings that aren't in their
control and that they can'tchange.
Another reflective tool that Iuse all of the time is
storyboarding.
I love to use this withstudents who they might be a
little bit younger, so theymight not have the skills yet to
(02:58):
really explain and explorewhat's happened.
Or students with additionalspeech, language and
communication needs who, again,might just not have the language
or the skills they need toexplore conflict or unpack the
challenges that they'veexperienced.
The way they do it is just havestudents, you know, as they're
talking through their stories, Imight draw a very simple
storyboard of the narrative thatthey're explaining to me.
(03:19):
I might stop and clarify.
You know I show them thepictures and ask if I've gotten
the story right, if itrepresents accurately what
happened.
I might get them to say, okay,well, what happened before this
scene here?
Because there seems to be ascene missing.
And you know I'll get them toThen use that storyboard to
retell and explain the narrativeif they need to, for example in
a conflict resolution.
(03:40):
I just keep it really minimal,with as few words as possible.
I might label with names andsimple explanations, and I just
love to use it when I'mpreparing them for a conflict
resolution or after an incidenthas occurred and I'm really
trying to get to the heart ofthe real conflict, the real
problem.
What happened?
What triggered the behavior tobegin with?
(04:00):
Another one that I love to useare just visuals.
So I have some postersavailable where students can
identify their emotions visually.
I use a poster where there's athermometer and lots of emojis
around it, so when I'm talkingto them about their behavior I
can use that flexibly toencourage students to identify
the feelings behind the behavior.
It just embeds the language ofemotional regulation and helps
(04:21):
us to reinforce that.
The feelings are okay, but theway they behave and how they
deal with it is what they needto work on.
So really kind of bringing inthat emotional literacy and just
getting them to try to attachthe feelings with the behaviors.
Before I created these resourcesthat I'm talking about, I also
used to use blob tree people.
I don't know if you're familiarwith that, but I used to love
(04:41):
blob tree people.
That was also another reallylovely visual to get students to
identify, like if they were oneof the blobs, what would they
be and why?
I used to use it in learningand behavior.
So you know, how did you feelabout the lesson?
Where do you think you're atwith your learning?
So visuals in general are justso powerful.
But yeah, I use posters wherethere's a thermometer, lots of
emojis and just trying to embedthe language of feelings around
(05:05):
the behaviors we're talkingabout.
The next thing is a behaviorthink sheet.
I always have this to hand.
I always have a scaffold ofsome kind that helps to guide
the conversation around theirbehavior.
It's really helpful forstudents who need that little
bit more support and it can beused like a visual reminder.
It can be used then whencommunicating with parents.
(05:26):
It can be used as a behavioragreement and it does all of
these things while stillembedding the language around
what's beneath the behavior andthinking more restoratively
around what can be done to makethings right.
It also encouragesaccountability, which is what we
want for our students, becausethen they can make plans and
move forward and make thingsright and repair, and it
reinforces the idea that we aremaking choices and we can learn
(05:48):
to make better choices.
So I always have to hand ascaffold, a behavior think sheet
.
Usually mine will look like youknow what happened at the time,
what were the feelings, andI'll have like some visuals they
can choose from.
I'll go through something likeyou know what actually happened,
what choice did we make, whatwould be a better choice and
what skills do I need or whathelp do I need to get there.
(06:09):
So something like that.
What I want you to know aboutthe last five tools that I've
said, most of these can just bedone by getting a blank piece of
paper and writing it down onthose pieces of paper.
Like it doesn't have to beflashy.
For most things you can justuse a pen, a paper and yourself.
I don't want you to feel likethere's any barriers to you
starting this immediately inyour practice.
(06:30):
Sit down with a student, getout a pen and paper, draw a
couple of circles on a page whatI can control, what I can't
control, or you know, do acouple of faces, or you know,
split the page up into four anddo four bases and, you know, go
through the problem solvingbaseball Like you can do this
with very little resourcesexcept for a pen and a paper.
(06:50):
So please don't feel like it'sblocking you.
Go out and try it immediately.
Even just having that as avisual tool can be so wonderful
in your behavior chats with yourstudents.
However, if you would just liketo grab my reflection scaffolds
that I use in my day-to-daypractice, if you just want that
all done for you, and if youwant to bank just to grab and
use whenever you need to, all ofthose that I've spoken about,
(07:11):
plus many, many more, areincluded inside of the behavior
club this month.
It's it's also included withreal consequences, real change,
the masterclass.
If you are a part of that,that's a part of your resource
pack, um, and you can also grabthem separately.
So I'll pop the note, the linksfor all of those in the show
notes so you can explore those,but it's also good if you want
to click on that and then youcan actually just see what mine
(07:32):
look like and it gives you a bitof an idea about what the
actual visual like layout ofthose might be, because I love a
bit of a visual.
So go there, check it out, letme do the work if you want me to
do the work for you.
Or, again, as I said, just graba piece of paper and a pen and
put that action, step intopractice this week and I can't
wait to hear how it all goes.
(07:52):
So please always drop me amessage on Instagram I'm
theunteachables or you can sendme an email at claire, at the
unteachablesthe-unteachablescom.
I am always so happy to hearwhat you're doing in your
classroom, doing in yourpractice, and how you are just
making incredible change.
(08:13):
So that's that and until nexttime, wonderful teacher, have a
fabulous week.
Welcome to your weekly Classroom Management
Quick Win Challenge.
True classroom management isnot how we address behavior when
it pops up.
Instead, it is a compoundingeffect of many, many micro
decisions we make in ourteaching practice before the
behavior even pops up.
In these Quick Win episodes,I'm handing over one actionable,
small but mighty tool to helpyou move the needle every single
(00:24):
week to stop crowd controllingand to start calmly classroom
managing like a pro.
Let's dive into this week'sgame-changing challenge.
Hey, wonderful teacher, welcometo this week's quick win
episode.
And today I wanted to talk toyou about five different ways to
get students thinking abouttheir behavior.
So when I'm engaging withstudents around their behavior
and talk to you about fivedifferent ways to get students
thinking about their behavior.
(00:45):
So when I'm engaging withstudents around their behavior
and talking to them about theirbehavior, it's very often just
me chatting with the student.
You know nothing too fancy.
However, sometimes it is greatto have something a little bit
more to guide the conversation.
Hardwire the skill ofreflection, and reflection is a
skill.
So here are five reflectiontasks that I use to help get
(01:08):
students thinking about conflictand behavior and their feelings
and just encourage problemsolving and equip students with
those skills.
So the first reflection toolthat I use is something called
problem solving baseball, andyou can do this with a student
to help them work through aproblem or a conflict they're
having.
They can then do that alone orwork through it with a teacher,
like it's a really great thingfor students to then have under
(01:30):
their belts to be able to useindependently once they have the
skills to do so.
But the way that it works isyou do the home base, which is
pitching the problem.
So what's going on?
What's the problem you'refacing?
Then they move to first basewhat are some options to resolve
this problem?
From there you can talk to thestudent about what the best
option is.
So on second base they writethe best option that they have
(01:52):
and then on the third base theyhave to decide what they need to
do to action the plan.
So I love problem solvingbaseball because it gets us
thinking about problems in a waythat is a little bit different.
So students will pitch aproblem to us and rather than us
trying to, you know, talkthrough things without structure
.
It just allows us to developthose skills in our students to
(02:13):
get them thinking aboutdifferent options, to get them
thinking about the best optionfor them.
It keeps them in their thinkingbrain rather than their
emotional brain, and gets themto action a plan that is going
to work for them and is the bestoption at the time.
The second reflective task thatI use with my students is what I
can control.
So often we get hung up on thethings that we can't control not
(02:35):
just our students, but us too.
So when students are havingdifficulty, it's really great to
go through an exercise wherethey can identify the things
that they can control in thatsituation and that they can
change, and, of course, thethings that aren't in their
control and that they can'tchange.
Another reflective tool that Iuse all of the time is
storyboarding.
I love to use this withstudents who they might be a
little bit younger, so theymight not have the skills yet to
(02:58):
really explain and explorewhat's happened.
Or students with additionalspeech, language and
communication needs who, again,might just not have the language
or the skills they need toexplore conflict or unpack the
challenges that they'veexperienced.
The way they do it is just havestudents, you know, as they're
talking through their stories, Imight draw a very simple
storyboard of the narrative thatthey're explaining to me.
(03:19):
I might stop and clarify.
You know I show them thepictures and ask if I've gotten
the story right, if itrepresents accurately what
happened.
I might get them to say, okay,well, what happened before this
scene here?
Because there seems to be ascene missing.
And you know I'll get them toThen use that storyboard to
retell and explain the narrativeif they need to, for example in
a conflict resolution.
(03:40):
I just keep it really minimal,with as few words as possible.
I might label with names andsimple explanations, and I just
love to use it when I'mpreparing them for a conflict
resolution or after an incidenthas occurred and I'm really
trying to get to the heart ofthe real conflict, the real
problem.
What happened?
What triggered the behavior tobegin with?
(04:00):
Another one that I love to useare just visuals.
So I have some postersavailable where students can
identify their emotions visually.
I use a poster where there's athermometer and lots of emojis
around it, so when I'm talkingto them about their behavior I
can use that flexibly toencourage students to identify
the feelings behind the behavior.
It just embeds the language ofemotional regulation and helps
(04:21):
us to reinforce that.
The feelings are okay, but theway they behave and how they
deal with it is what they needto work on.
So really kind of bringing inthat emotional literacy and just
getting them to try to attachthe feelings with the behaviors.
Before I created these resourcesthat I'm talking about, I also
used to use blob tree people.
I don't know if you're familiarwith that, but I used to love
(04:41):
blob tree people.
That was also another reallylovely visual to get students to
identify, like if they were oneof the blobs, what would they
be and why?
I used to use it in learningand behavior.
So you know, how did you feelabout the lesson?
Where do you think you're atwith your learning?
So visuals in general are justso powerful.
But yeah, I use posters wherethere's a thermometer, lots of
emojis and just trying to embedthe language of feelings around
(05:05):
the behaviors we're talkingabout.
The next thing is a behaviorthink sheet.
I always have this to hand.
I always have a scaffold ofsome kind that helps to guide
the conversation around theirbehavior.
It's really helpful forstudents who need that little
bit more support and it can beused like a visual reminder.
It can be used then whencommunicating with parents.
(05:26):
It can be used as a behavioragreement and it does all of
these things while stillembedding the language around
what's beneath the behavior andthinking more restoratively
around what can be done to makethings right.
It also encouragesaccountability, which is what we
want for our students, becausethen they can make plans and
move forward and make thingsright and repair, and it
reinforces the idea that we aremaking choices and we can learn
(05:48):
to make better choices.
So I always have to hand ascaffold, a behavior think sheet
.
Usually mine will look like youknow what happened at the time,
what were the feelings, andI'll have like some visuals they
can choose from.
I'll go through something likeyou know what actually happened,
what choice did we make, whatwould be a better choice and
what skills do I need or whathelp do I need to get there.
(06:09):
So something like that.
What I want you to know aboutthe last five tools that I've
said, most of these can just bedone by getting a blank piece of
paper and writing it down onthose pieces of paper.
Like it doesn't have to beflashy.
For most things you can justuse a pen, a paper and yourself.
I don't want you to feel likethere's any barriers to you
starting this immediately inyour practice.
(06:30):
Sit down with a student, getout a pen and paper, draw a
couple of circles on a page whatI can control, what I can't
control, or you know, do acouple of faces, or you know,
split the page up into four anddo four bases and, you know, go
through the problem solvingbaseball Like you can do this
with very little resourcesexcept for a pen and a paper.
(06:50):
So please don't feel like it'sblocking you.
Go out and try it immediately.
Even just having that as avisual tool can be so wonderful
in your behavior chats with yourstudents.
However, if you would just liketo grab my reflection scaffolds
that I use in my day-to-daypractice, if you just want that
all done for you, and if youwant to bank just to grab and
use whenever you need to, all ofthose that I've spoken about,
(07:11):
plus many, many more, areincluded inside of the behavior
club this month.
It's it's also included withreal consequences, real change,
the masterclass.
If you are a part of that,that's a part of your resource
pack, um, and you can also grabthem separately.
So I'll pop the note, the linksfor all of those in the show
notes so you can explore those,but it's also good if you want
to click on that and then youcan actually just see what mine
(07:32):
look like and it gives you a bitof an idea about what the
actual visual like layout ofthose might be, because I love a
bit of a visual.
So go there, check it out, letme do the work if you want me to
do the work for you.
Or, again, as I said, just graba piece of paper and a pen and
put that action, step intopractice this week and I can't
wait to hear how it all goes.
(07:52):
So please always drop me amessage on Instagram I'm
theunteachables or you can sendme an email at claire, at the
unteachablesthe-unteachablescom.
I am always so happy to hearwhat you're doing in your
classroom, doing in yourpractice, and how you are just
making incredible change.
(08:13):
So that's that and until nexttime, wonderful teacher, have a
fabulous week.
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