Blueprints Promising Programs FACT SHEET FS-BPP06 1999 (Updated 12/2004) Good Behavior Game

The Good Behavior Game (GBG) is a classroom management strategy designed to improve aggressive/disruptive classroom behavior and prevent later criminality. It is implemented when children are in early elementary grades in order to provide students with the skills they need to respond to later, possibly negative, life experiences and societal influences. Program Targets: The program is universal and can be applied to general populations of early elementary school children, although the most significant results have been found for children demonstrating early high-risk behavior. Program Content: The Good Behavior Game is primarily a behavior modification program that involves students and teachers. It improves teachers ' ability to define tasks, set rules, and discipline students, and allows students to work in teams in which each individual is responsible to the rest of the group. Before the game begins, teachers clearly specify those disruptive behaviors (e.g., verbal and physical disruptions, noncompliance, etc.) which, ir displayed, will result in a team's receiving a checkmark on the board. By the end of the game, teams that have not exceeded the maximum number of marks are rewarded, while teams that exceed this standard receive no rewards. Eventually, the teacher begins the game with no warning and at different periods durin