De-escalating Challenging Student Behavior

Can you use trauma-informed practices to de-escalate behavior in the classroom?

I designed this concept scenario-based eLearning project to support educators in using trauma-informed practices to de-escalate challenging student behavior in the classroom.

Audience: Grade 3-12 educators that want to shift to using trauma-informed practices to de-escalate challenging student behavior.
Responsibilities: instructional design, action mapping, storyboarding, graphic design
Tools Used: Articulate Storyline 360, Adobe XD, Adobe Illustrator, Mindmeister

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The Problem

The Covid-19 pandemic is a collective trauma. Loss, stress, and social isolation experienced by students during this time has caused a dramatic increase in challenging behaviors in schools nationwide.

A school district, in a large, urban public school system noticed this uptick in challenging behaviors when students returned to in-person instruction after school shutdowns in March 2020 during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Despite the delicate emotional and mental state of the returning students, many teachers continue to engage in commonly used punitive behavior management practices, such as loss of privileges, detention, and removal from class.

These non trauma-informed practices worsen student behavior, and consequently, has increased the number of incident reports filed district-wide.

The Solution

After analyzing behavioral outcomes of punitive behavior management practices, I determined that the dramatic increase in district-wide incident reports could be due to gaps in teacher knowledge and skill with using trauma-informed practices to de-escalate student behavior.

For this reason, I proposed a no-risk, scenario-based eLearning experience for teachers to try using trauma-informed techniques to support students.

Screenshot of classroom background with white rectangular text box placed on top. Bold text is written in the text box that says, " De-escalating Challenging Student Behavior"

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My Process

I drew on the ADDIE framework to design and develop this scenario-based eLearning experience. I developed this experience around colleague observations and personal experience of behavioral outcomes of trauma-informed versus non-trauma-informed responses used to de-escalate challenging student behavior in a classroom. I used action mapping, storyboarding, and Articulate Storyline 360 to bring this eLearning experience to life.

Action Map

For this project, I acted as the subject matter expert, drawing upon my experience using trauma-informed practices to de-escalate student’s emotions. The main goal of the eLearning experience is in the center of the action map, which branches to three high priority actions. I used the goal and actions to chart the user journey while developing this eLearning experience.

Text-based Storyboard

I researched phases of acting out behavior and centered the storyboard around three common scenarios that could cause a student’s behavior to escalate through the phases of acting out behavior: (1) Student arriving to school in an agitated state (2) Student triggered by a peer in the classroom (3) Language and actions used by the teacher in post-escalation

Phases of acting out behavior chart. The y-axis says intensity and the x-axis says time. on the graph, there is a bell curve numbered from 1 to 7. The bell curve starts at calm and progresses through to recovery. — Phases of Acting-Out Behavior

In the storyboard, Coral, the student, moves through various phases of acting-out behavior and the learner has to select a trauma-informed option to de-escalate her behavior.

Selecting a punitive consequence moves Coral up the arc of acting out behavior into an escalated state, bringing the learner back to the question to try again. Selecting a trauma-informed consequence moves Coral down the arc of acting out behavior into a de-escalated state, advancing the user on to the next scenario.

Storyboard excerpt that describes the consequence of the first question in the scenario-based eLearning project — Storyboard Excerpt

Visual Mockups

I designed visual mockups in Adobe XD to get a better sense of the layout before developing the experience in Articulate Storyline 360.

I began the visual design process by creating wireframes for each type of slide. Then, I edited backgrounds and created the student and mentor characters in Adobe Illustrator. Throughout every step of this process, I received and applied feedback from instructional designer peers and practitioners to iterate on the visual mockups. Finally, these slide templates were used to develop the full eLearning experience in Articulate Storyline 360.

I created a custom color palette for the backgrounds in this experience. I chose bright colors to draw the user in and prominently positioned the turquoise blue color in the backgrounds to prompt calm feelings in the learner as they moved through potentially triggering scenarios.

Mock-ups that show the entire creative process I went through prior to programming out the learning experience in Articulate Storyline 360. — Adobe XD Visual Mockups

Interactive Prototype

I created Adobe XD mockups as a guide to develop my interactive prototype in Articulate Storyline 360. I developed all of the slides through the first scenario to test the functionality, look, and feel of the project, and then talked with instructional design practitioners to gather real-world feedback.

A rectangular text box on a classroom background. The text box says, " Hello! My name is Mr. Thompson. I am a social emotional learning specialist, and I'm here to help you create a trauma-informed classroom. — Mentor Slide

Full Development

I developed the rest of the experience in Articulate Storyline 360 after several rounds of receiving and applying feedback and iterating on the interactive prototype.

One development element I’m particularly proud of is the mood meter. The visuals and sounds further reinforce the importance of utilizing trauma-informed practices and hopefully prompts a behavior shift or, at the very least, a consideration of engaging in these practices to de-escalate student behavior.

Coral Escalation

Coral De-escalation

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Results and Takeaways

This eLearning experience was shared on LinkedIn with an online network of transitioning teachers and instructional design professionals and the response was overwhelmingly positive.

Some feedback users shared was that the experience was:

“Intentional and engaging”
“...mood meter addition- such a moment of delight”
“... the correct path affirms scholars and offers them choices and tools to be successful in the classroom”
“... the scenario and choices help the user experience what trauma-informed care can feel like on the teacher’s end”

After going through the experience myself, and sharing it with others, this project accomplished its goal of giving educators opportunities to shift their behavior around and/or develop a curiosity about using trauma-informed practices to de-escalate student behavior in the classroom.

A takeaway about the content of this project is that educators found this subject matter to be useful and want more scenario-based experiences like this.

One takeaway about the development of this project is that to negotiate different sized text boxes from slide to slide I had to orient the text and text boxes on the same x and y axis to create a seamless transition for the user while advancing through the eLearning experience. Moving forward, this is something that I will use in projects that contain different sized text boxes.

Both text boxes are different sizes, but the boxes, text, and buttons are aligned across slides.

Overall, this project was rewarding and I was able to use my instructional design skills to serve a real-world need. I was able to collect a lot of feedback and determine which feedback would help make my project better and which feedback may bring it off course, which I realized was a skill in and of itself. Going forward, I look forward to working on more projects with this scenario-based, story-driven approach.