Strategy Instruction on Problem Solving

In order to use removal effectively as a part of classroom management, students need tools and strategies that they can use to calm themselves and think through why they have been removed from an activity. This allows them to learn what to do the next time something happens so that they are not removed. In their article, “Stop, Think, Proceed: Solving Problems in the Real World,” Isbell and Jolivette (2011) describe how strategy instruction on problem solving has proven helpful for students with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (HFASD). They write, “Learning how to solve problems that occur in their everyday lives may help these students increase socially appropriate behavior” (Isbell & Jolivette, 2011, p. 32). I believe that this is true for all students, not just students with HFASD.

Often, students are sent to the safe seat because they are misbehaving; they are not behaving in a socially appropriate way for that current classroom context. This creates a problem that needs to be solved. With the safe seat, the solution for the teacher is to send the student away. However, as Readdick and Chapman (2000) discussed in their article on students’ perspectives, often times they want to be sent away because students do not want to participate in the current activity. Teaching students strategies of how to problem solve can help them think about ways to deal with disliking the learning activity.

The strategy outlined by Isbell and Jolivette (2011) is called Stop, Think, Proceed. In this strategy, students are taught how to recognize when they are feeling frustrated, sad, angry, or overwhelmed. When they feel this way, students should stop and calm themselves down first. The second step they need to take is to identify what the problem is. Third, students should think of possible solutions to the problem and choose the solution they will be most successful. Lastly, students should enact that solution.

Teachers can explicitly share this strategy with their students to help reduce behavior incidents that would result in sending students to the safe seat. If students are unable to use this strategy on their own, teachers can also use it as a thinking tool for when students are at the safe seat, asking them to calm down, identify the problem, and ways that it could have been solved as they sit. This ensures that students are not sitting and doing nothing at the safe seat. Older students can write out their thoughts and younger students could be given paper to draw a picture of what they could have done instead to solve the problem.