Fundamental Skill Sheet
Active Supervision
What Is It?
Active supervision, a strategy for preventing challenging behaviors from occurring (or escalating) while simultaneously encouraging desired behaviors, requires educators to frequently and intentionally:
- Move around the room
- Scan and monitor student behavior
- Interact with students
What Do We Know About This Skill/Practice?
Active supervision has been proven effective through many years of research and practical application. Research indicates:
For Your Information
Active supervision is often confused with proximity control. Although proximity control is an important element of active supervision, it is a stand-alone strategy in which the teacher moves within close proximity (within three feet) of the student(s) for a few seconds to remind student(s) of behavioral expectations. When doing so, the teacher continues to provide instruction. Proximity control, unlike active supervision, does not involve student interaction.
- Active supervision is an efficient and effective strategy to reduce a variety of challenging behaviors and increase positive and on-task behaviors:
- In classroom and nonclassroom settings
- During transitions to different activities or settings
- Across age groups
- The use of active supervision in combination with precorrection (e.g., a reminder of behavioral expectations, a change to the environment) and explicit timing (i.e., informing students of the amount of time they have to complete a task) can reduce the number of disruptions and redirections during class.
- Active supervision requires a minimal amount of time and resources to effectively implement. It involves using proximity, interacting with students, and providing feedback.
Procedures
Following are four easy-to-implement steps for using this practice.
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- Identify an activity or setting (e.g., independent practice, transition) to use active supervision. To prevent challenging behavior from occurring, identify when or where students are commonly off task or likely to engage in challenging behaviors.
- Provide a prompt. Provide a prompt for students to begin or engage in an activity.
- Scan and monitor. Once students begin the activity, walk around the room, frequently and intentionally scanning the room and monitoring student behavior.
- Interact with students. While walking around the room, interact with students, making sure to:
- Reinforce desired behaviors: Use non-verbal (e.g., eye contact, thumbs-up) as well as verbal cues (e.g., behavior-specific praise) to indicate to students that they are following expectations.
- Address challenging behaviors: Redirect behavior quickly, calmly, respectfully, and in a neutral tone. As soon as students get back on track and begin to follow expectations, acknowledge their behavior and offer positive reinforcement.
Tips for Implementation
In addition to the four steps listed above, the three actions below can be helpful when implementing this practice.
- Ensure students understand behavior expectations. Students may not be aware of the behavioral expectations for a particular activity or setting. For example, some students may need to be given explicit directions on how to ask for help if they have a question or feel that the activity is too difficult.
- Use proximity. Walking around the classroom facilitates close physical proximity (e.g., within three feet) to all students, which can prevent challenging behavior and increase student engagement (i.e., proximity control).
- Offer opportunities for feedback. Students can provide useful feedback on whether prompts or reinforcement are helpful. For example, it may be that they prefer verbal reinforcement rather than non-verbal reinforcement. Because active supervision may be new or unfamiliar to students, they may find constant monitoring to be intrusive. If so, reminding students that the purpose is to support them and help them succeed may help address this issue.
Things to Keep in Mind
- To effectively use active supervision, arrange your classroom in ways that allow you to quickly and efficiently scan, monitor, and physically access all areas.
- Be sure to circulate throughout the entire classroom, making sure you vary pathways.
- Even in large open spaces, like playgrounds and cafeterias, actively walk around the area and maintain an appropriate level of proximity to interact with students and prevent challenging behaviors from occurring.
- When interacting with students, reinforce positive behaviors and immediately address undesired behaviors. Ensure at least a 4:1 ratio of praise to corrective statements.
- Use active supervision in combination with other strategies:
- Precorrection: Although behavior expectations may be clearly established for some activities, reminding students of the behavior expectations before they get started (i.e., precorrection) may help prevent challenging behaviors. For example, the teacher may state, “Please complete your journal entry for today by responding to the question on the board with three to five sentences.” Although the prompt is to complete the daily journal entry, the teacher reminds students of a well-established routine, which is to respond to the question on the board by writing three to five sentences. Other students may need more help or reminders to understand what’s expected during transitions, including what to do if they have not finished one activity before it is time to move on to the next.
- Explicit timing: Informing students of the amount of time they have to complete a task may also help prevent challenging behaviors. For example, at the beginning of an activity, the teacher may say, “You have three minutes to turn and talk to your partner.” During the activity, the teacher may say, “You have one more minute.”
- Use active supervision as a Tier 1 support or as a Tier 2 support for students who consistently display challenging behaviors. The steps are the same, but for Tier 2, engage in active supervision with greater intensity (e.g., monitor and interact with the student more often).
Implementation Examples
The table below provides examples of active supervision.
| Identify an activity or setting | Provide a prompt | Scan and monitor | Interact with students |
| Context: Peer editing during language arts class
Challenging Behavior: A couple of students often argue with their partners while working on peer editing. |
Prompt: “Please take out the persuasive essay you worked on yesterday and work with your partner to peer edit.”
Precorrection: “Remember to work quietly and be respectful when offering feedback.” |
The teacher walks around the classroom observing students as they work with a partner. She more frequently scans and monitors partners who tend to argue. | The teacher offers non-verbal cues to students who are respectfully working with their partner. She notices that two partners begin to argue and quickly redirects them back to the task by asking a question about their paper. She reinforces them once they begin working collaboratively again. |
| Context: Working on projects during art class
Challenging Behavior: A few students refuse to share markers, paint, and other art supplies with students at their table. This has led to arguments, spilled paint, and even destruction of artwork. |
Prompt: “As we discussed yesterday, today we will be creating self-portraits. Please get started.”
Note: The teacher did not remind the students about sharing art supplies because this is a well-established expectation. |
The teacher walks around the classroom observing students as they begin to work on their art project. She more frequently scans and monitors tables that often argue over certain paint and marker colors. | The teacher smiles and gives a thumbs-up to students who are sharing art supplies. She notices that one student has pulled the bin of markers right next to him and is refusing to share them with the table. She quickly walks over to the student, kneels down at eye level, and quietly reminds him of the behavior expectation. The student moves the marker bin back to the center of the table where all students can access them. The teacher provides behavior-specific praise to reinforce the student’s behavior. |
| Context: Cafeteria
Challenging Behavior: Students frequently get into heated arguments, which can quickly escalate to physical altercations. |
Prompt: The teacher walks with the students to the cafeteria and releases them for lunch.
Precorrection: Before going to lunch, the teacher reminds the students of behavioral expectations for lunch. Additionally, reminders about behavioral expectations are posted in the cafeteria. |
The cafeteria monitors walk around the cafeteria observing students during lunch. They scan and monitor, paying close attention to students who seem to have challenging behavior during this unstructured time. | The monitors offer non-verbal cues to students who are eating lunch and talking quietly to reinforce positive behaviors. One monitor notices two students who begin to argue and quickly walks toward them. Once the monitor is in close proximity, the students stop arguing. Later, the monitor notices two students who are standing and yelling at each other. Again, the monitor moves within close proximity, but this time she verbally addresses the issue in a quiet and respectful manner. |
Elementary Video Example
In the video below, Mr. Santini engages in active supervision as students work independently. Note how in the example Mr. Santini correctly implements the procedure for active supervision, but in the non-example, he does so unsuccessfully.
Transcript: Active Supervison (Elementary Example and Non-example)
Narrator: Active supervision, elementary school example and non-example. In this example, Mr. Santini implements active supervision to prevent challenging behaviors from occurring while at the same time encouraging on-task behaviors. Prior to the beginning of this video, Mr. Santini identified independent practice as a context in which students commonly engage in challenging behaviors. Additionally, he provided a prompt for the students to check their work. As you will see in the video, Mr. Santini scans and monitors while walking around the room and interacts with the students. Note how he also incorporates precorrection by reminding the students to continue checking their work.
Teacher: All right, let’s see, Colin. Nice, you got it.
Teacher: [To class] All right, friends, you guys can keep checking your work, and I’ll come around and circulate.
Teacher: [To another student] Nice penmanship.
Teacher: [To another student] That’s good.
Teacher: Nice job, Nora.
Teacher: [To Hailey] [Points to Hailey’s paper] Nice work.
Hailey: Thanks.
Narrator: To review, Mr. Santini implemented active supervision correctly. Prior to the video, Mr. Santini identified the context in which students commonly engage in challenging behaviors and provided a prompt for the students to check their work. As you saw in the video, he walked around the room while scanning and monitoring the students’ behavior, and he interacted with them, making sure to reinforce desired behaviors. Additionally, Mr. Santini incorporated precorrection, reminding students to check their work.
Narrator: In this non-example, Mr. Santini attempts to implement active supervision, but his efforts fall short. Prior to the beginning of this video, Mr. Santini identified independent practice as a context in which students commonly engage in challenging behaviors. He also provided a prompt for the students to check their work. However, as you will see in the video, although Mr. Santini moves around the room, scanning and monitoring student behavior, he fails to interact with the students.
Teacher: All right, friends, you guys can keep checking your work and I’ll come around and circulate.
[Mr. Santini walks around the classroom observing students as they work independently.]
Narrator: To review, Mr. Santini attempted to implement active supervision. Prior to the video, Mr. Santini identified the context in which students commonly engage in challenging behaviors and provided a prompt for the students to check their work. As you saw in the video, he walked around the room while scanning and monitoring the students’ behavior. Yet he did not implement this strategy correctly because he failed to interact with the students. However, to his credit, Mr. Santini incorporated precorrection to reduce the likelihood of challenging behaviors.
High School Video Example
In the video below, Ms. Harris wants to implement active supervision to encourage on-task behaviors, first during a partner activity and next during independent practice. Note the procedures Ms. Harris uses to implement active supervision in the example and where her implementation falls short in the non-example.
Transcript: Active Supervison (Secondary School Example and Non-example)
Narrator: Active supervision, secondary school example and non-example. In this example, Ms. Harris implements active supervision to prevent challenging behaviors from occurring while at the same time encouraging on-task behaviors. Prior to the beginning of the video, Ms. Harris identified partner activities as a context in which her students commonly engage in off-topic conversation. As you will see in the video, Ms. Harris provides a prompt for students to turn and talk with their partners about their predictions. In addition, she scans and monitors while walking around the room, and she interacts with students. Note how Ms. Harris also incorporates explicit timing by informing students that they have 30 seconds for the partner activity.
Teacher: Okay. Today we are going to read an informational text. Before we read the text, I want you all to make predictions about the central idea. Take about 30 seconds and turn and talk with your partner about your predictions.
[Students discuss their predictions about the text with their partners.]
[Teacher scans and monitors while walking around the room.]
Teacher: Great predictions, guys! I’m hearing a lot of good predictions.
[Teacher continues to scan and monitor while walking around the room.]
Teacher: Alrighty. Let’s bring it back to the front in five, four, three, two, one. Let’s hear some predictions!
Narrator: To review, Ms. Harris implemented active supervision correctly. Prior to the video, she identified the context in which students commonly engage in challenging behaviors. Then, as you saw in the video, she provided a prompt; she walked around the room, scanning and monitoring student behavior; and she interacted with students, reinforcing desired behaviors. Additionally, Ms. Harris used explicit timing to proactively reduce the number of disruptions.
Narrator: In this non-example, Ms. Harris attempts to implement active supervision, but her efforts fall short. Prior to the beginning of this video, Ms. Harris identified independent practice as another context in which challenging behaviors occur. She also provided a prompt for the students to take notes. As you will see in the video, Ms. Harris moves around the room, scanning and monitoring student behavior. However, she does not interact with students, thus failing to implement a key step of active supervision. To her credit, though, Ms. Harris incorporates precorrection and explicit timing.
Teacher: Okay, everyone, please continue working. We have about 10 more minutes of independent work, and I’m seeing a lot of great note-taking going on so far.
[Ms. Harris walks around the room observing students as they work independently.]
[Ms. Harris picks up phone.]
[Ms. Harris picks up book.]
[Ms. Harris places phone on desk.]
Narrator: To review, Ms. Harris attempted to implement active supervision. Prior to the video, Ms. Harris identified the context in which students commonly engage in challenging behaviors and provided a prompt for the students to take notes. As you saw in the video, she walked around the room while scanning and monitoring the students’ behavior. Yet she did not implement this strategy correctly because she failed to interact with students. However, to her credit, Ms. Harris incorporated precorrection by reminding students to continue working. She also implemented explicit timing, letting the students know they had 10 more minutes to work.
Download an Implementation Fidelity Checklist.
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Hunter, W.C., & Haydon, T. (2019). Implementing a classroom management package in an urban middle school: A case study. Preventing School Failure: Alternative Education for Children and Youth, 63(1), 68–76. doi:10.1080/1045988X.2018.1504740
ibestt. (2017). Intervention guide: Active supervision. University of Washington. https://ibestt.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Active-Supervision.pdf
Lane, K. L., Menzies, H. M., Ennis, R. P., & Oakes, W. P. (2015). Supporting behavior for school success: A step-by-step guide to key strategies. Guilford Press.
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Van der Mars, H., Vogler, B., Darst, P., & Cusimano, B. (1994). Active supervision patterns of physical education teachers and their relationship with student behaviors. Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, 14(1), 99–112.
