Running head: Effectively Control the Class

Effectively Control the Class

Zheng Lu Jia

Universitas Pelita Harapan

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Summary

In the article of Helping Young Children Follow Their Teachers' Directions: The Utility

of High Probability Command Sequences in Pre-K and Kindergarten Classrooms written by

Jennifer L. Austin and Graydon Agar, the authors claim that for increasing childrens

compliance, teacher should use a positive strategy, which is high-probability command sequence

(HPCS). The goals of this study are two-fold. On the one hand, they evaluate the effects of

HPCS procedures on the compliance of typically developing prekindergarten and kindergarten

students in general education classrooms (AUSTIN and AGAR, page 224). On the other hand,

they wanted to train teachers to use a non-aversive behavior management strategy, thus

providing increased opportunities for maintenance of behavior change through non-coercive

means (AUSTIN and AGAR, page 224).

Firstly, the authors explain what the meaning of the term HPCS. The HPCS referred to

as "behavioral momentum" (Mace et al., 1988; Nevin, Mandell, & Atak, 1983) involves the

presentation of a sequence of requests to which a person is likely to comply (i.e., high-

probability requests) followed by a request for a behavior with a lower likelihood of compliance

(i.e., low-probability request) (AUSTIN and AGAR, page 223). And they chose 2 boys from a

prekindergarten and 2 boys from a kindergarten for the test.

The result of study was to confirm that using HPCS within the context of normally

occurring classroom activities can be effective in increasing the compliance of young, typically

developing children (AUSTIN and AGAR, page 231).

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Reflection

There are two opposite terms in the article, high probability request (high-p request)

and low probability request (low-p request) (AUSTIN and AGAR, page 231). When teacher

manage the classroom, they would like to start from using high-p request to low-p request. In

fact, this concept can be used not only in prekindergarten and kindergarten stage, but also can be

applied to entire teaching process.

In my two weeks teaching practicum in SPH Kemang, I had the chance to teach several

9th Grade students Mandarin. In the couple of beginning classes, I did not know which level they

are. Unfortunately, they were not as good as I thought. Therefore, when I gave them some

assessments, they felt hard, and were lack of motivation to do it. And when I realized the

problem, I chose to give them some easy works to do. It went well. After that, if I taught them

some new words or sentences, I would start with some easy works or funny games. These funny

activities helped students engaged to the class.

As Jesus said in the Bible, For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matthew

11:30). God will not give something that we cannot carry on. He knows who we are, cares about

who we will be. Therefore, we should learn from this best teacher. And we should lead student

step by step from the low stage to the high stage actively.

On the other hand, this article did not use the samples as much as possible. There were

only 4 boys in the test. These boys hardly represent all children and all genders in a proper way.

Furthermore, there are some very special kids, who are hard to deal with. The authors of the

article did not test the possibility of using HPCS among those kids. That is quite sad, because

those kids are the real trouble for many new teachers.
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All in all, this is a good article. And the idea is interesting and useful. Absolutely, it is

worthy to read and read again.

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References

Austin, J. L., & Agar, G. (2005). Helping Young Children Follow Their Teachers' Directions: The

Utility of High Probability Command Sequences in Pre-K and Kindergarten Classrooms.

Education & Treatment Of Children, 28(3), 222-236.