Self-monitoring
Benefits for All Students
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Self-monitoring provides more immediate feedback to students than is possible when
teachers evaluate the behavior.
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The strategy clearly depicts improvement over time in behavior for both the student and
the teacher.
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The self-monitoring process engages students.
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Self-monitoring facilitates communication between students and their parents.
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Students can avoid competition because of the individual nature of the strategy.
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Self-monitoring incorporates academic and social skills (e.g., counting, reading,
classifying, cooperating).
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The strategy increases students’ awareness of their own behavior.
Definition of Behaviors:
Follow directions - the student executes the teacher’s instruction (both to the classroom or directly
to the student) within 30 seconds and with no extra instruction given. If more details are needed,
count when all the information are gathered.
On task - the student is actively listening to the teacher (all body listening) and/or working at the
assigned work at the desk by himself or in a small group in accordingly with the teacher’s specific
instructions.
The first period will be used as collection of the baseline: we will also use it to teach the students
how to correctly use the self-monitoring tool.
TBD: Graph: do you want to ask the student to do it? A graph is a potent tool for really seeing the
change in behavior. I will do it for Jack anyway as we need to have those data but unfortunately I
cannot do it for all the students. If you are interested in it, I will provide an easy graph to use in the
classroom.
TBD: interval for checking and how to signal. I suggest to start at the end of every assignment or any
30 minutes. A noise signal as a bell or ring (different from the school ones) could be used. Also a
recorded voice who says “check” or something similar could be used.
Teaching: explanation - modeling desired and undesired behaviors - role play using the selfmonitoring tool (having one child check on other children for increasing awareness).
TBD: choosing reward. What is available at school? At the beginning it would be better to choose
something that the students can access daily or maximum at the end of the week. And a super
reward if 80% of more of the classroom achieves the goal (set a goal to achieve: it will be
determined after the baseline has been collected. Usually it will start with a little above the baseline
and then it will be gradually increased weekly or biweekly if achieved).
We can create a Contingency Map as following: