Student Contributor: A LaFrance
If a student is being disruptive and misbehaving, this is an option to stop this behavior. You need to calmly and politely ask the student to stop the antisocial behavior they are performing. The key here is to be calm and polite.
Direct appeal interference is not the most ideal corrective tool to use based on the fact that it is fairly disruptive. You need to stop class and speak to the student in order to stop the behavior. Additionally, it is fairly far down the list of what you should do when a child is acting up in class with verbal intervention. You will want to do this in private if at all possible because it can be seen as embarrassing or shaming if done in front of the class. The best suggestion is to pull the student aside soon after the incident (perhaps during student worktime) and have an honest conversation with the student. The student needs to know that the behavior is not acceptable.
Direct Appeal is corrective because this tool comes into place AFTER the misbehavior has occurred. The tool is designed to correct the antisocial behavior, not prevent it from happening all together. You are actively seeking to change behavior in the moment. It could become preventative if the behavior stops after having a conversation. Direct Appeal is mostly teacher directed. With this tool, the teacher is imploring legitimate authority by telling the student he or she is boss and expects certain behavior. There is really no student voice, but the teacher laying down the law to enforce rules/behaviors. Unless you are having an engaging conversation with the student about the misbehavior, seeking change together, it is teacher directed. This conversation can label it collaborative partially.
More Information –
Tool Source: Levin and Nolan
Direct Appeal Interference (Corrective)
Kindergarten/ 16 Students/ Suburban Area
Direct appeal interference is a tool to use when a student is being disruptive or misbehaving in the classroom. Having to talk to a student about their disruptive behavior is never fun nor easy. However, it must happen in order to stop the anti-social behavior they are performing. Instead of preparing for direct appeal interference, it just happens as if a student were to misbehave. When using direct appeal interference, I made sure to stay very calm and collected. During independent work time, I sat by the disruptive student and had a private talk about the actions he made in class. I mentioned how disruptive behavior is not acceptable in our classroom and we need to find ways to calm down if we are feeling overwhelmed. A couple hours later, all students are walking in from lunch- recess. This is when my class is starting to feel tired and ready to be done for the day. As my mentor teacher started teaching, the disruptive student from earlier almost blurted but then stopped himself and looked at me. He quietly got up and sat in “Australia” for a couple minutes and quietly walked back to his spot and became engaged in the lesson again. I feel our talk helped as this student didn’t disrupt the class again for the rest of the day. His actions almost set the tone for the rest of the class as every student was very engaged and participated in our class discussions. Depending on student behaviors in the classroom will adjust the direct appeal interference in order to stop the anti- social behavior they are performing.
This tool worked great with my students! I am placed in a 5th grade class with 16 students in a rural school. My students’ teacher uses this tool a lot and recommended I use; it took me a couple lessons to get comfortable with it because I had never used it before (really because I hadn’t taught in a class before). My students understand their roll well with this tool, most of them quickly stop the misbehavior right away when I use this. There are a couple students in my class who don’t respond to this tool, but my mentor teacher and I will then use proximity interference with these students are they respond better to that tool. I plan to keep using this tool in future lessons but I also want to use this tool to do more one-on-one conferences with students when misbehavior occurs so I can check in with the student and they can check in with me.