Challenging student behavior can be one of the most exhausting and stressful parts of teaching. Especially when it just keeps happening. Unfortunately most of us didn’t receive much training on what to do in our teacher prep programs.
We need classroom and behavior management strategies we can put in place tomorrow. Things that are practical. Straightforward. Simple. And especially effective.
Behavior Contracts are a strong fit for that need. They’re a low-effort, proactive, positive intervention that’s pretty much as simple as laying out a clear-cut agreement with students up front and then following through on it.
At its simplest, a behavior contract is a written agreement between a student and teacher to work toward a common goal of student success. The teacher spells out specific expectations for the student’s behavior, focusing on positive behavior that the teacher wants to see more.
And no contract is complete without terms that benefit both parties, so the agreement also includes some sort of reward the student will earn for improved behavior. It’s a collaborative process and meant to be mutually beneficial.
Among behavioral folks and in research articles, you might hear these called contingency contracts. Rest assured, contingency contracting is the same thing.
A great thing about behavior contracts is they can be used to address virtually any problem behavior that shows up in your school. As long as your student has the skills to communicate with you and understand the contract itself, the sky’s pretty much the limit.
For example, behavior contracts have been used to improve things like students talking out, leaving their seat, being off-task, disrupting the class, and so on. They can also help increase the positive behaviors you want to see more of like class participation and appropriate interactions with peers.
The researchers synthesized results from 18 studies of behavior contracts for 58 children. They found an overall positive impact (specifically, a moderately strong effect size) on a variety of targeted outcomes, such as reducing problem behaviors (e.g., destructiveness, disengagement) and improving desired behaviors (e.g., engagement, appropriate social interactions, task completion, correct academic responses).
Behavior contracts include three main components: behavior, reward, and recording method. Contracts can be implemented in a few simple steps:
In my post on behavior contract templates, I provide 28 ready-to-go options for different student groups and needs along with multiple sample behavior contracts addressing different student behaviors. The templates include interactive, fillable PDFs and editable Google & Word documents that all include key components for successful contracts. 12 of the templates are my own and include features like clickable checklists of common behaviors, connections to PBIS schoolwide expectations, and school-home collaboration components.
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Here are a few template and example resources from other sites:
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Kansas TASN Secondary Behavior Contract Example
It’s helpful to maintain a positive and collaborative tone throughout the meeting with the student. Encourage them that you’ll both be working together to figure out terms of the agreement that can work for both of you.
You both may come up with ideas that the other doesn’t want to incorporate in the contract, so it’s best to prepare the student for that possibility up front and that you will guide them through the negotiation. In a friendly way, you can express that you won’t be able to provide the particular reward suggested and offer a more reasonable alternative (ideally, one that’s at least conceptually similar to what the student asked for) or ask the student for a few ideas. You might also suggest possible rewards, starting with things you’ve seen the student choose to do on their own during free times.
If the contract is working well, what should I do next?We have a lot to be thankful for when a simple intervention like this bears fruit. Celebrate the success with the student, then choose your next steps carefully. It may not be best to just end the contract. Instead, you might want to slowly fade out this support by increasing the amount of expected behavior from the student before the reward is earned or slowly reducing the reward to something more natural.
