How To Talk To That Tardy Student

You may have thought out your expectations and communicated these in class, but everything hinges on how you deal with those students who ignore your policies, whether aggressively or passively. 

One method for addressing behavioral issues is the DESC model (Bower and Bower).

D.  Describe the situation.  Be specific as to time, place, and frequency and describe the student's behavior as clearly as possible.  Use incidents or examples whenever possible.

E.  Express your feelings relevant to the behavior or conflict.  Let the student know clearly that the problem is not acceptable and must be resolved. 

S.  Specify what you want to happen.  Be specific about the changes you expect in the student’s behavior. 

C.  Consequences.  Clearly and concisely let the student know the expected result if their behavior does not change to meet expectations.  Emphasize the positive results as well if the requested changes are made.

Guidelines for using the DESC model:

1. Give feedback as soon as possible after the undesired behavior occurs (before the behavior becomes a habit). 

2. Focus on specific behavior that the student can change, not on the person.

3. Don’t generalize (you must be lazy since you are late to class); instead describe the specific behavior (you have been 10 minutes late to class 2 days in a row)

4. Explain why the behavior is a problem (Other students will come in late also.  Or they will resent that you do not have to follow the same rules as they do.

EXAMPLE:  Jeff has come to class tardy twice in the last two weeks.  Today he is once again late to class.  What do you do?

Jeff, I need to see you for a minute right after class.

Describe.  Jeff, one of the expectations in this class is that students will be in class, seated, and ready to participate at the beginning of the class time.  You have been late to class twice in the last two weeks. 

Express.  Your coming in tardy is distracting to me as I begin the day's lecture.  It is also not fair to your classmates as they have made the effort to get to class on time.  They find it disruptive as they stop listening to me and look at you when you come in.

Specify.  I will expect you to make every effort to get to class on time from now on. 

Consequences.  I am concerned as you are losing participation points which will make it harder for you to get a good grade in the class.  If you find it is not possible to get here on time, I can sign your drop slip and perhaps you could take the class at another time.  However, I hope you can work this out as when you are here, I find your comments very insightful and you are a great addition to the class discussion.

The most effective teachers are aware of what is going on in their classrooms and enforce their policies quickly and fairly.  If a student is coming in tardy and you do not address the problem, he or she will not suddenly decide to come to class on time.  If you do not say anything, you have essentially rewarded the wrong behavior.  In addition, the rest of the class is looking to see whether you enforce your own policies.  In order to handle inappropriate student behaviors, you need to be proactive in addressing issues that come up in the classroom. 

Comments

[Starbucker]

I was reading this and was thinking I could substitute "Manager" and "Staff" for teacher and student, and still get some very good business advice. This is a model I should be teaching my supervisors (In the service business tardiness can become a problem too). Thanks, and all the best!

[Delaney Kirk]

Thanks for the comment--absolutely this would work in business. I tell my management students that you can't make anyone do anything...you can only communicate your expectations and then set up consequences. I think too many teachers (and supervisors!) avoid communicating what they expect and then following up with those who don't follow the policies and then they wonder why students (and employees) don't behave appropriately.

[Marika]

I am a High School student in one of Schools here in the Philippines. I was surfing the internet for our research problem about the tardiness of the students. I opened your website and I read the topic " How to talk to that tardy student".

I just want to ask if there is a significant relationship between the student's grade and his tardiness.

Thank you very much!