Classroom Behavior Strategies for K–5 Teachers
Learn evidence-based, teacher-delivered strategies for improving classroom engagement, supporting expected behavior, and solving everyday behavior challenges, organized around the seven recommendations in the What Works Clearinghouse practice guide.
- 7CE hours
- 9 lessons
- 42-question assessment
- Online self-paced
Course Overview
This course follows the Institute of Education Sciences What Works Clearinghouse practice guide Teacher-Delivered Behavioral Interventions in Grades K–5 (Lane et al., 2024) and is organized around its evidence-based recommendations for classroom behavior support.
Each lesson connects one recommendation to your daily classroom practice: defining concerns in observable terms, selecting and adapting strategies, checking how consistently you use them, and using classroom data to decide whether to continue, adjust, or seek more support.
Learning Objectives
After completing this course, participants will be able to:
- Describehow teachers can use the Teacher-Delivered Behavioral Interventions in Grades K–5 practice guide to plan and evaluate classroom behavior supports.
- Explain how to co-establish, model, and teach behavioral expectations that are consistent with schoolwide expectations.
- Identify effective uses of reminders and precorrections to prompt expected behavior.
- Describe how to deliver positive attention, behavior-specific praise, and rewards contingent on expected behavior.
- Explain how offering instructional choices and frequent opportunities to respond increases student engagement.
- Describe procedures for teaching students to monitor their own behavior and for using behavior ratings to provide feedback.
- Applythe practice guide’s recommendations to classroom scenarios, including checking implementation consistency and using classroom data to continue, adjust, or seek more intensive support.
The Seven Recommendations
- Co-establish, model, and teach clear expectations for student behavior consistent with schoolwide expectations
- Remind students to engage in expected behaviors
- Acknowledge students for demonstrating expected behaviors through positive attention, praise, and rewards
- Offer instructional choices to students to increase engagement and agency
- Provide students frequent and varying opportunities to respond to and engage in activities
- Teach students to monitor and reflect on their own behavior
- Use behavior ratings to provide feedback to students
Course lessons
Every lesson is open as a free preview. Each one moves through short sections with knowledge checks and ends with an applied case that gives AI feedback on your response.
Required Reading
Lane, K. L., Baldy, T., Becker, T., Bradshaw, C., Dolan, V., Dymnicki, A., Freeman, B., Holian, L., Lemire, S., McIntosh, K., Moulton, S., Nese, R., Payno-Simmons, R., Porowski, A., & Sutherland, K. (2024). Teacher-delivered behavioral interventions in grades K–5 (WWC 2025001). National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Assigned reading: Recommendations 1–7, printed pages 8–71.
Course Format and Requirements
This independent home-study course lets you work through the assigned reading, instructional content, and applied learning activities at your own pace.
To earn credit, complete all nine lessons and pass the final assessment. Credit hours are documented with the Mergener formula in the credit-hour determination (PDF).
Instructor
Dr. Flowers is a school psychologist and behavior analyst who creates practical, self-paced continuing education for educators.
CE Program Information & Disclosures
- Instructional level: Introductory
- Target audience:K–5 teachers, special education teachers, paraprofessionals, and other educators who support student behavior in elementary classrooms.
- Format and schedule: Asynchronous, self-paced online home study. No live sessions; complete the course at any time during your access period.
- Access period: 1 year from enrollment.
- Cost and refunds: Full refund within 30 days of purchase if the course has not been started. See our refund policy.
- Instructor / content developer: Jaime Flowers, Ph.D., NCSP, LEP, BCBA
- Conflict of interest:Dr. Flowers is the owner of Educator CE and receives revenue from course sales. No other relevant financial or nonfinancial relationships are reported.
- Commercial support: This program receives no commercial support.
- Accessibility: Need an accommodation? See our Accessibility & Accommodations page.
- Questions or complaints: See our CE Complaint & Grievance Procedure.
Limitations and Risks
Limitations of the content. The practice guide rates the evidence for its seven recommendations at different levels. Much of the underlying research uses single-case designs or small samples focused on particular students, settings, or implementers, so results may not generalize to every K–5 classroom. Outcomes were usually short-term measures of engagement or disruptive behavior; less is known about long-term academic effects or effectiveness across cultural and linguistic contexts, and effects depend heavily on implementation fidelity, which was not always measured.
Risks. The most common risk is applying the strategies inconsistently or punitively, such as praise that is not contingent on behavior, rewards used as threats, or behavior ratings shared publicly in ways that shame students. Relying only on teacher-delivered Tier 1 strategies can delay referral for students who need functional behavioral assessment or individualized intervention. Behavior ratings collected without attention to rater bias can misrepresent student behavior and contribute to inequitable discipline.
References
Primary reading
- Lane, K. L., Baldy, T., Becker, T., Bradshaw, C., Dolan, V., Dymnicki, A., Freeman, B., Holian, L., Lemire, S., McIntosh, K., Moulton, S., Nese, R., Payno-Simmons, R., Porowski, A., & Sutherland, K. (2024). Teacher-delivered behavioral interventions in grades K–5 (WWC 2025001). National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. https://whatworks.ed.gov/
Supporting references
- Ennis, R. P., Royer, D. J., Lane, K. L., & Dunlap, K. D. (2020). Behavior-specific praise in Pre-K–12 settings: Mapping the 50-year knowledge base. Behavioral Disorders, 45(3), 131–147. https://doi.org/10.1177/0198742919843075
- Ennis, R. P., Royer, D. J., Lane, K. L., & Griffith, C. E. (2017). A systematic review of precorrection in PK–12 settings. Education and Treatment of Children, 40(4), 465–496. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/675614
- Iznardo, M., Rogers, M. A., Volpe, R. J., Labelle, P. R., & Robaey, P. (2020). The effectiveness of daily behavior report cards for children with ADHD: A meta-analysis. Journal of Attention Disorders, 24(12), 1623–1636. https://doi.org/10.1177/1087054717734646
- Royer, D. J., Lane, K. L., Dunlap, K. D., & Ennis, R. P. (2019). A systematic review of teacher-delivered behavior-specific praise on K–12 student performance. Remedial and Special Education, 40(2), 112–128. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741932517751054