Positive Behaviour Support Strategy

This workshop focuses on a Positive Behaviour Support strategy called Opportunities to Respond (OTR). The workshop is to educate teachers in a Lower Secondary School, Brannfjell skole, in Oslo what the strategy is, why and when they should use it, and how to use it. In addition the staff will have time to create lesson plans where they use OTR. The participants are already qualified general teachers and special education teachers. The school has not officially used OTR as a strategy, and this workshop will therefore provide basic ideas and information about how to use OTR as a tier 1 (universal) strategy. Before the workshop the staff has seen a video of non-academic use of OTR, as a teaser of how the strategy works, and read a research paper by MacSuga-Gage and Gage (2015).

Recent student surveys at Brannfjell skole reveal that students are disruptive during classes, where some classes experience more disruptive behaviour than others. In addition, some students express that they are bored in

Managing students` behaviour is essential for the students` learning (Menzies, Lane, Oakes & Ennis, 2016). Many schools and teachers manage students` misbehaviours by removing students with unwanted behaviour from the classroom, or even the school. OTR aims to use other means than punishment, consequences and reprimands. Research has shown that such means does not teach the students to behave appropriately, as they are left out of situations to learn new behaviours (Menzies et al., 2016). Therefore there is a need for other classroom management styles, such as OTR. Not only does OTR aim to lessen classroom disruption, it also aims to increase classroom participation and engagement, on-task behaviour and academic