Forming Positive Classroom Environments Through the Use of a Culturally Responsive Sustaining Mixed Reality Intervention Package

As classrooms become more diverse and inclusive, classroom management is a consistent issue that new teachers, in particular, special education teachers report being ill-prepared for. The enactment of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015) and continued punishment referral patterns have given rise to concerns regarding the overuse of exclusionary disciplinary practices and their harmful effects. ESSA (2015) now mandates the use of positive behavior interventions by schools. Given this mandate and the education department's push to restructure discipline systems, the growing special education teacher shortages, and voiced struggles expressed by teachers for working in diverse inclusive settings, an investigation of classroom management training during pre-service years is warranted. Using a pre-test post-test randomized controlled design this study explored the efficacy of a culturally responsive-sustaining classroom management (CRCM) training package on preservice teachers' culturally responsive self-efficacy scores and positive/negative interactions within a mixed reality classroom setting. Eight pre-service special education teachers were randomized to either an intervention or control group. The intervention group participated in a one hour culturally responsive classroom management training and received performance feedback after observations. Culturally responsive classroom management training covered the following topics: positive framing, communicating in culturally consistent ways, behavior-specific praise, cultivating relationships, discipline gap, recognizing ethnocentrism and implicit biases in classroom management approaches. Each pre-service teacher in the intervention and control group was recorded teaching a lesson in a mixed reality classroom prior to intervention and post-intervention. Findings indicate that pre-service teachers who received the CRCM training on average had higher culturally responsive classroom management self-efficacy scores post-test than those in the control group. Findings also indicated a significant change in positive verbal interactions between pre-test and post-test. Pre-service teachers who participated in the study reported feeling more prepared to work with diverse learners and better able to respond to student behaviors