The Honeycomb Matrix

Like it or not, part of being a teacher inevitably involves some kind of behaviour management. There are many ways to approach this, and every experienced teacher will have strong views on the best ways to administer this part of the job. It shouldn't be a surprise that, like most other teachers, I have my own strong views on this subject. I tend to use this blog to primarily focus on content-specific resources but I would like to take a moment here to share a resource that is applicable to all KLAs and all year groups.

But firstly, a few things I consider when it comes to behaviour management:

They're Kids

As adults, it's an inconvenient truth that we have to deal with issues that arise from dealing with people who are yet to reach adulthood themselves. That is to say, we're adults and our students are not. A lot of friction can arise from expecting students to behave in ways that we might expect adults to behave. Or we might even just expect our students to behave as an 'ideal' type of child that we have in our head.

The students who present the biggest challenges do not fit into this paradigm. They often come to us unequipped for the mental marathons we want them to run. And, honestly, so they should - the entire basis for our profession is to assist the next generation in reaching some kind of adult actualisation in terms of emotional, mental and physical development. If they came to us fully-formed then we wouldn't be needed, would we?

Difficult Students are Difficult for a Reason

If a student is unable to behave in the way that we expect, for whatever reason, then that's something we should be compassionate about. The stories behind some of these students are absolutely devastating and, if we knew the full details behind why they behave the way they do, we would wonder how it is that they might be able to focus in class at all.

Some of these students are going to be defiant, and oppositional, and this can be because they are afraid and angry about things that really have nothing to do with us. So we should do our best not to take it personally, to disengage from the instinct to respond in opposition, and to remind ourselves that we're the adults in these situations. No matter how hard it might get in a particular lesson for us, at the end of the day we can walk away from the problems these students have - and they can't.

Behaviour isn't Straightforward

Behaviour is always a reflection of context, and a student's personal context is inevitably going to be complex. The problems exhibited by a challenging student are not simple in origin - they can be the result of multiple things. A student may have a learning difficulty, compounded by instability in their home environment, and further reinforced by issues that have arisen in social interaction over a sustained amount of time due to the other aforementioned problems. This in turn has probably led to friction with some teachers in the past, gaps in learning, and ongoing attendance issues due to said student aiming to avoid further conflict as much as possible.

It's not something that can be solved with a detention.

If I give this hypothetical student a detention is it going to change their behaviour the next time I have them in my class? The answer is no, so the only real consequence is that it would drive a wedge between myself and the student in question - a wedge that will make it difficult to continue working with said young individual. I've seen this happen; punishment for punishment's sake can lead to ongoing grudges between teachers and students that can last for years and are impossible to mediate. For the teacher it sometimes becomes about asserting authority and teaching the value of following rules. I cannot think of a single time that this approach actually resulted in a student adopting those values and responding to this authority in a supplicant and respectful way. For some teachers it slots into a metanarrative about "what's wrong with the world today"... I'm not saying that it's incorrect to criticially analyse the malaise one may perceive as having descended upon modern society, but what I am saying is that tying behaviour management practice to a theoretical idealised worldview won't actually get the kind of results that will make you and your students have a less stressful time in the classroom.

Would you rather be right, or would you rather just have the student learning something? Sometimes we can't have both, and being right (and authoritative) shouldn't be the cornerstone of education. Education should be the cornerstone of education.

But hey, don't just take my word for it, here is some supporting evidence:

• Annette Breaux - Positive Teaching Practice 
• The Demographic Approach - Regional Context s
• Beyond Bullying - Positive Behaviour-based Anti-Bullying program  
• Dr Roberto Parada - Dealing with Ill-Structured problems

Blank Honeycomb Matrix

The Honeycomb Matrix

Anyway! I honestly did not intend to write that much, but I am very passionate about Positive Behaviour for Learning.

The Honeycomb Matrix is a quantitative assessment tool that aims to assist students in engaging with their class work. Nothing more, nothing less. Firstly, here is what it is not:

• It is not used to generate marks or data for assessment of ability.
• It is not used to assess thinking skills or the ability of a student to understand certain domains of knowledge.

What it does do is this:

• It allows students to see how well they work while they are present in class.
• It allows the teacher to build a culture of student engagement with classwork.
• It makes it clear to students that the most important thing is, and always will be, how hard they try in regards to the work set during class time - thus promoting a growth mind-set. 

I have been using and developing this matrix for three years now and I can give you some feedback on its impact in the classroom. Back in 2014 I introduced a version of this matrix to a mixed ability Year 7 class where 40% of the students were only completing 10-40% of the set classwork. After a term of transparently judging student engagement against the matrix, student work levels got to the point where all students in this class were completing 40% of set activities (or higher). The top end of the class improved too, with a third of these students achieving 85% of completed classwork or higher.

How it Works

The matrix is good for 10 lessons at a time. Each column has two boxes per student - one to note down if they are present in class or not (this way you can use it as your roll and avoid double-handling if your school is not on electronic rolls), and one to note down a score that equates to the amount of work completed. The scores run as thus:

0 = no work.

1 = some work.

2 = most work.

3 = all work.

4 = exemplar work (more work than the teacher expected in their wildest dreams*)

*It should be noted here that 4s are only given out in exceptional circumstances.

Make it clear to the students that 3 is the normal maximum, and that it works out as 3 out of 3. If they should get a 4 then this is actually a 4 out of 3. It's at this point that I like to remind students that I can do this because I'm not a Maths teacher.

At the end of the topic, add up all the scores and divide it by the amount of lessons that the student was present for, with each lesson worth 3 points in total.

Sample Honeycomb Matrix (with fake students)

Here's an example of how it would work:

Jane Rice has been present for ten lessons. This means that her possible total is 30. Her actual work score is about 21 out of 30, which means she has completed 70% of the work for the term.

Let's say a student gets an exemplar score at some point, or completes work that they missed out on due to absence (thus earning points for lessons in which they weren't present - which is encouraged). They can theoretically get 100+%. Well, it's not really theoretical, because this does happen - usually with one or two students per class.

At the end of each topic the percentages are equated to grades, and I keep a sign up in the classroom that explains the system:

• 100+% = A+ (getting the student two Bronze Awards)
• 85-100% = A (getting the student one Bronze Award)
• 70-84% = B 
• 45-69% = C
• 25-44% = D
• 0-24% = E (and a call home to express concern to their parents)

Since introducing this system to all of my classes, I haven't had to call home about unacceptable levels of class work once.

Another positive byproduct of this system is that it doubles as an efficient way to mark books. By filling in the Honeycomb Matrix once at the end of every lesson after observing the students working, and then calculating totals at the end of each topic, I have a handy percentage that can be typed up and handed to each student. I don't even need to collect books (which can often be problematic anyway as students who haven't done any work often actively avoid handing their book over to you).

[I'll note here that every now and again I do collect books to do some close-up marking on the quality of a written paragraph or something like that, but that's not what this blog post is about].

After a while the students get used to the system. A good example of this has been my senior English Studies classes. By transferring my expectations for behaviour primarily onto classwork, it assists in building a positive working relationship with the students, and they will often be quite honest in telling me if they've only done a 1 out of 3 for the lesson. For reluctant workers, knowing that I'm explicitly keeping track of what they do every lesson ensures that they do put some effort in occasionally and are able to meet the expected minimum. 

Also included at the front of the sheet are an optional two columns for diagnosis. Students can be informally pre-assessed at the start of the topic (or 10 lesson cycle) and then broken into three streams of ability to allow for occasional differentiation of tasks.

In short, the sheet becomes an all-in-one organisation tool for each of my classes.

Resource - Honeycomb Matrix

Resource - Honeycomb Matrix Completed Example