Shmoop Releases PBIS Resources

Everyone's a critic-especially when it comes to education. When's the last time there was a consensus about standardized testing, charter schools, or that pesky little controversy we know as Common Core? But there's one thing everyone can agree on: educators should expect certain behavioral conducts from students. Unfortunately, lessons on behavior usually go in one ear and out the other, with a few eye rolls in between.

That's where Shmoop comes in. Shmoop (http://www.shmoop.com), a digital publisher known for its award-winning Test Prep and certified Online Courses, is bringing its no-nonsense style to the Positive Behavioral Interventions & Supports (PBIS) framework. PBIS is a school-wide system that gets teachers and staff involved in teaching students what good behavior looks like and then focusing on and rewarding that good behavior. Sound cheesy? It is. But Shmoop isn't about to sugarcoat things and cheer from the sidelines.

"We take the tell-it-like-it-is approach, which is why our official PBIS motto is 'don't be a jerk,'" says David Siminoff, founder of Shmoop. "It applies in every situation."

No matter which behavioral expectations a school puts in place, Shmoop has a PBIS Teacher Guide and Online Course for the occasion. They've covered 16 different expectations-including everything from respect to leadership to commitment-each in two easy-to-use formats.

For teachers looking to incorporate the PBIS framework into their classrooms as a preventive tool, Shmoop's Teacher Guides offer full, scripted curriculum to use in a live-class environment. They include an introduction to PBIS, including an overview of the framework and an FAQ; a full outline to prepare teachers for the unit; lesson plans and instructions for homework; and a fancy PBIS matrix for the relevant behavioral expectation.

If a particular student has decided to ignore all rules of human decency, teachers can send them to Shmoop's Online Courses, which the student can complete on their own. Each course includes lesson intros, readings, and auto-graded quizzes; real-world examples of what happens when people don't follow through on the expectation (answer: bad things); and engaging and honest videos to pique student interest. Plus, there are teacher notes for extension, discussion questions, and differentiation techniques, if a teacher wants to turn the self-guided course into in-class curriculum.

The material in the Teacher Guides and Online Courses is complementary but not identical, which means schools can use one or both, depending on their goals. Individual users get access to both sets of guides-a total of 32 unique products-with a Shmoop subscription, and schools and districts can contact sales(at)shmoop(dot)com for major discounts.

About Shmoop

Shmoop offers hundreds of thousands of pages of original content. Their Online Courses, Test Prep, Teaching Guides, Learning Guides, and interactive Study Tools are written by teachers and experts and balance a teen-friendly, approachable style with academically rigorous concepts. Shmoop sees 11 million unique visitors a month across desktop and mobile. The company has won numerous awards from EdTech Digest, Tech & Learning, and the Association of Educational Publishers. Launched in 2008, Shmoop makes the magic happen from a labradoodle-patrolled office in Mountain View, California.

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