Are you looking for ways to motivate students to interact with their peers? If so, keep reading.
1. Select an outgoing, non-menacing peer to help the learner interact more properly with peers.
2. Organize their surroundings so that the learner has many chances to interact with peers.
3. Get the learner to run errands with a peer to enable interaction.
4. Organize a sociometric learning experience with the class to ascertain the peer who would most prefer to interact with the learner.
5. Make sure the learner knows that interacting with a peer is contingent upon appropriate interactions.
6. Teach the learner appropriate ways to interact with another learner (e.g., how to greet another learner, suggest learning activities, share learning materials, problem-solving, taking turns, converse, etc.).
7. Observe interaction closely, so the peer with whom the learner interacts does not encourage the learner’s unacceptable behavior.
8. Make sure that the interaction is not so stimulating as to make successful interaction with another learner complicated.
9. Include the learner in extracurricular learning activities to urge interactions with peers.
10. Select an older peer with desirable social skills to interact with the learner (e.g., in the play area, cafeteria, hallways, etc.).
11. Minimize the emphasis on competition. Failure may cause the learner to be reluctant to interact with peers.
12. Teach the learner problem-solving skills so they may better deal with problems that happen in interactions with another peer (e.g., talking, walking away, calling upon an arbitrator, compromising, etc.).
13. Select a peer with whom the learner is most likely to be able to interact successfully (e.g., a learner with similar interests, background, classes, behavior patterns, nonacademic schedule, etc.).
14. Organize interactions (e.g., create rules, limit the stimulation of the learning experience, limit the length of the learning experience, consider time of day, etc.) according to the needs/abilities of the learner.
15. Restrict chances for interaction on those occasions when the learner is not likely to be successful (e.g., when the learner has experienced academic or social failure prior to the scheduled nonacademic learning experience).
16. Consider using an adaptive behavior management app. Click here to view a list of apps that we recommend.
17. Click here to learn about six bonus strategies for challenging problem behaviors and mastering classroom management.
