Colorful wheels
What is it?
The Color Wheel is a classroom management tool designed to reduce inappropriate behaviors and help students make efficient transitions from one activity to another.
Why use it?
This intervention has shown positive results in second-grade classes to address transition behaviors, and in fourth-grade classrooms with additional expectations aimed at cooperative learning (Blondin et al., 2012; Fudge et al., 2008).
What does it consist of?
Create Color Wheel (a circle with 3 sets of color-coded rules) Green = more liberal (for example, use a quiet voice, respect others, and keep feet in place); Yellow = intermediate: stay in your seat, raise your hand to speak or get up from your seat, look at the teacher, hands and feet in place; Red = more strict and used for short periods of time (for example, stay in your seat, clear desk, no talking, no raising hands, ready to work, look at the teacher)
Hang the Color Wheel
Demonstrate how the Color Wheel can be rotated to show each color and that each color represents different rules
Tell the students the typical activities for each set of rules (for example, Red is for transitions between activities).
Adjust the Color Wheel to indicate the behavior expectations for the activity.
Provide frequent specific positive feedback for following the rules of the Color Wheel
Variations: different environments and behaviors (for example, transition behaviors, cooperative learning)
You can collect data to see if your students are improving or to improve your activity:
Data Collection: Record the number of inappropriate behaviors in the classroom
Progress Monitoring: Graph the number of annotations per day Integrity of
Treatment: Review the rules corresponding to each color daily, spin the wheel to represent the correct color for the activity
Evidence
Blondin, C., Skinner, C., Parkhurst, J., Wood, A., & Snyder, J.(2012). Enhancing on-task behavior in fourth-grade students using a modified color wheel system. Journal of Applied School Psychology, 28(1), 37–58. https://doi.org/10.1080/15377903.2012.643756
Fudge, D. L., Skinner, C. H., Williams, J. L., Cowden, D., Clark, J., & Bliss, S. L. (2008). Increasing on-task behavior in every student in a second-grade classroom during transitions: Validating the color wheel system. Journal of School Psychology, 46(5), 575–592. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2008.06.003
Traducción libre de Zoder-Martell, K. A., Floress, M. T., Skriba, H. A., & Taber, T. A. (2023). Classroom management systems to address student disruptive behavior. Intervention in School and Clinic, 58(5), 361-370.
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