Self-Management Strategies: Theory, Curriculum, and Teaching Procedures

Before students are taught the SM system strategies, they must be able to behave appropriately within an existing set of classroom activities. The SM behaviors required of these activities need to be carefully planned so they can be quickly taught and reinforced. This chapter illustrates how to plan classroom activities and their activity SM behaviors. Within these activities students first apply the SM system strategies and later plan and implement activities to solve their own or curriculum-related problems.

Activity SM behaviors are part of a classroom plan. A classroom plan outlines the identification, organization, and functioning of activities. ¹

Activities are those classroom events in which students participate and which contribute to their instruction. For example, Figure 4.1 presents a list of activities for a typical first-grade classroom. Each activity involves students and contributes in some way to their instruction. Figure 4.1 identifies the activities and their overall organization. It does not indicate the organization of individual activities or how they function.

There are two types of classroom activities. Regular activities, like those in Figure 4.1, are events that the classroom regularly cycles through. Special activities are those events that occur when there is a sudden or uncommon change in conditions. Besides events such as fire drills, assemblies,

-35-