Making mountains out of molehills can be some of our biggest battles as teachers in behavior focused special education settings. Situations as small as a student getting the wrong pencil can start an enormous battle when we are working alongside children with limited coping and problem solving skills. Teaching students to determine and accept the size of the situations they face is a crucial step in the process of problem solving on a daily (hourly!) basis. Here are 5 steps (and a few tried-and-true support products!) to help you figure out how to best tackle this essential skill!
5.) Focused Practice
Students need ample time to practice this skill in non-crisis situations. As we know, teaching skills during the apex of crisis is essentially a lost cause, and these skills should be focused on when students are at their baseline. I love scenario based practice using frequently experienced situations as a guide. Having your students problem solve through common situations when they’re ready to learn is an important way to build their skills so they can see clearer when they face those uncomfortable situations in the future.
I created a set of 100 scenarios that I used every day during our morning meeting time. I projected these and together, as a group, we talked them out. This allowed students to role-play, problem solve, and think through situations that they faced all of the time! I wrote these scenarios with my students in our therapeutic behavior setting in mind. You can grab them here!
4.) Independent practice
I hear teachers all the time sharing that their days are too full, their students only see them for academic resource, or they’re stuck using a scripted curriculum that does not include Size of the Problem as a focus. What to do?! Get creative! Classrooms always need early finisher activities because in every classroom, students move at different paces in their learning. I love using worksheets and clip cards that are simple in nature that students can engage in more independently. Students can then be pulled for a few minutes daily to just chat with their teacher, counselor, paraprofessional (whoever!) about their activity so it can be debriefed and then further solidified. Working on this skill minimally is better than not working on it at all, right?
I created these clip cards to be used independently in work stations or during center rotations at school. These would be perfect for early finisher bins and can be used with clothespins, paper clips, or dry erase markers! You can grab them here.
I also created these simple puzzles that could work perfectly as early finishers, too! They are very little prep – just laminate, cut them out, and use forever! To make them more “errorless”, puzzles can be printed on colored paper to designate the size of the problem which would in turn make the activity still meaningful, but more able to be completed independently. Grab them here!
3.) Debriefing
After a problem or a crisis, having a restorative conversation/debrief with adults that were involved is such an integral part in relationship building/maintaining and moving forward. I would engage students in discussing about and writing about what size their problem was, and if they responded with a reaction that matched the size of their problem. Ensuring that we always debriefed using that language helped students tremendously in building this skill and their emotional understanding of how they tend to naturally respond to life’s problems. You can build in size of the problem questions when using think sheets to help debrief, too.
2.) Centers
If you have more immediate control over your classroom programming, add in a center of direct instruction weekly (or more!) on this skill area. Having direct instruction from a teacher, paraprofessional, or therapist is an ideal way to hone in on lagging skills and address the needs of each individual student.
As I ran centers in this skill area, I liked using my Size of the Problem activity pack. It has interactive worksheets (highlighting different colors, cut and paste, coloring glyphs, spinner games), writing prompts, sorting activities, and more. Not only does each activity specifically target this skill, but it keeps the topic engaging and different with the variety of activities it includes. You can grab it here!
1.) Common language across settings
How many times have you watched a related service provider, PE teacher, or parent use totally different language than each other to address a behavior concern? It is so crucial that we keep everyone on the same page on language, because it matters for student progress! If some people use language of “What size is this problem?” while other people say, “That’s not a big deal!” while other people say “Don’t cry over split milk!” The student is going to struggle to not only make sense of their own behavior, but struggle to generalize the skills across multiple settings. Keep everyone on the same page! Have regular means of communication to ensure that all staff and stakeholders are using common language, as well as creating a culture of gentle reminders so that everyone feels comfortable reminding each other about the agreed upon language involved.
All of the materials that I have shared on this blog post are also available in a bundle! You can grab all of these products at a reduced price if you snag them in bundle form. Check it out here!
BONUS!
Who doesn’t love a freebie extra? While we know this is such a needed skill to teach kids, it’s often super abstract and doesn’t align fully with adult thinking. Sometimes what us adults believe is a small problem is actually a big one in the life of a student. This flowchart helps students and adults walk through the process of determining problem size together. Grab it here!
How do you address this crucial skill with your students? Comment below!
Love,
Allie
