Coaching teachers in detection and intervention related to bullying

Statement of the Problem: Bullying is highly prevalent, particularly in urban settings, and negatively impacts individuals directly involved, bystanders, and the broader school climate. Given the majority of bullying occurs in the classroom context, classroom teachers are crucial for prevention programing, yet they often struggle to correctly identify bullying and effectively intervene. This proposal seeks to assist teachers by integrating an evidence-based teacher coaching model called the Classroom Check-Up (CCU) with an innovative, highly transportable training simulator (TeachLivE). The ultimate goals of this strategy are to increase teachers’ detection and effective intervention with bullying behaviors, in turn reducing the overall levels of bullying and improving safety and school climate. This adapted strategy will be specifically tailored to meet the needs of urban, minority youth living in low-SES communities. Subjects: We will work with 95 teachers (i.e., 15 for development and 80 for piloting) in middle schools serving urban, low-SES communities outside of Baltimore, Maryland (i.e., Anne Arundel County). Partnerships: This proposal builds upon a 15-year partnership between the University of Virginia, Johns Hopkins University, Sheppard Pratt Health System, and the Maryland State Department of Education. Through this partnership, the researchers have adapted the CCU and integrated it with TeachLivE in other Maryland schools. Research Design and Methods: The primary objectives are to 1) Develop, through an iterative process, the Bullying Classroom Check-Up (BCCU) integrated coaching and guided practice strategy that will aid teachers in detecting and effectively intervening with bullying behaviors; 2) Determine the feasibility and acceptability of the BCCU; and 3) Pilot test the BCCU using a small-scale randomized controlled trial (RCT) to determine its promise as an evidence-based strategy for reducing bullying and increasing safety in the classroom. Outcomes will be assessed through classroom and teacher observations, teacher survey reports, and students’ survey reports of bullying and safety using previously-validated measures. Analysis: Objective 1 uses teacher and student focus groups and rapid prototyping to adapt and modify the approach. Objective 2 uses mixed methods to ensure that the BCCU is valid, feasible, and acceptable to urban, minority youth and their teachers. Objective 3 uses multilevel modeling to assess impacts on a range of student- and teacher-level outcomes. Products: Products include a CCU implementation manual with all adapted materials (e.g., interviews, classroom ecology checklist, feedback forms); peer-reviewed and practitioner-oriented research summaries; and the NIJ required reporting and archived data files (e.g., surveys, observations). This project contains a research and/or development component, as defined in applicable law. ca/ncf