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Promoting positive school outcomes requires thoughtful consideration of the research in resilience. Resilience is a foundation to applied practice in schools showing that children can succeed despite growing up in very adverse living conditions (Doll & Cummings, 2007; Werner, 1992). The actual application of resilience research to school practice, however, has remained elusive (Prince-Embury & Saklofske, 2013). A pioneering effort to translate resilience research into applied practice in schools effectively and efficiently is the ClassMaps Consultation (CMC) framework (Song, Doll, & Marth, 2013). The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate how the CMC is implemented in schools by describing its theoretical model of resilience together with the consultation model, and then presenting a case study example. The areas of implementation and professional development are also discussed.

ClassMaps Consultation Model

The CMC model is based on an ecological framework of resilience and focuses on empirically-supported classroom resilience characteristics. CMC also provides a process for implementing and evaluating resilience-enhancing strategies in classrooms. These areas of CMC are discussed below.

Model of Resilience

CMC was designed to be used in schools by practitioners who are employed by schools and are considered “in house” professionals (e.g., school psychologists, school social workers, and teachers). As such, rather than conceptualizing resilience as “within the person,” CMC views resilience as “within the context” because that conceptualization is more consistent with the practical realities of school practice (Song et al., 2013).

An ecological theoretical framework has been helpful in providing a broader and deeper understanding of resilience. Ecological theory underscores that resilience emerges from complex interactions between social, physical, institutional, and community environments and the individual characteristics of the students (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Doll & Brehm, 2010; Pianta & Walsh, 1996). Resilience in classrooms is viewed as various ecological or setting factors interacting together to promote strengths (or protective factors) in classrooms and resulting in student outcomes over time (Doll & Brehm, 2010). In practice, identifying resilience primarily as a set of ecological factors (or setting factors of the context) is more common and useful in schools (Song et al., 2013). Therefore, CMC has focused on ecological factors that promote resilience in classrooms and operationalized these factors based on developmental and educational research.

Over 50 years of developmental resilience research (Doll, Brehm, & Zucker, in press) was used to operationalize resilience as two sets of ecological factors—relatedness and autonomy—that comprise the ecology of school classrooms, and can be assessed and enhanced through intervention strategies. Relatedness and autonomy consist of three characteristics each totaling the six ecological factors of CMC: (a) three specific aspects of relatedness (students’ relationships with their teachers, students’ relationships with their classmates, and families’ involvement in students’ schooling); and (b) three specific aspects supporting student autonomy (students’ efficacy for their own academic success, students’ self-determination for goals and decisions related to their schooling, and their self-control of their own goal-directed behaviors).

In order to be effective in navigating educational environments, students must be able to demonstrate educational competencies and adaptive behaviors. The CMC model focuses on increasing the positive skills of students through enhancing classroom resilience rather than addressing inappropriate behavior. This positive focus has been proven effective in promoting positive school and classroom environments (Caldarella, Shatzer, Gray, Young, & Young, 2011; Masten & Coatsworth, 1998; Rusby, Crowley, Sprague, & Biglan, 2011). Positive school and classroom environments increase the academic engagement and outcomes of students (Christenson et al., 2008; Jacob, 2008).

ClassMaps Survey

The ClassMaps Survey (CMS) is used to measure student perceptions of their classroom environment. The CMS is a reliable and accurate measure of school climate and has been based on 20 years of school climate research (Doll, Brehm et al., in press). The CMS is a 55-item measure that asks students to rate perceptions of classroom factors on 4-point Likert scale (never, sometimes, often, and almost always). The scale has been tested and shown reliable for participants in elementary, middle, high school, and college students with Cronbach alpha scores ranging α = .70 to .84 (Doll, Brehm et al., in press). For more information on technical properties of the CMS, see Doll, Spies, LeClair, Kurien, and Foley (2010).

The CMS’s eight subscales can be divided into three critical aspects of school engagement: developing strong relationships; building self-regulatory behaviors, and student perceptions of peer aggression. The first critical area, quality of relationships in the classroom is assessed by four CMS subscales. The My Teacher subscale measures the quality and degree of teacher–student relationship (MT, 7 items); My Classmates subscale measures student perceptions of peer relationships and connectedness (MC, 6 items); Talking with Parents measures student perceptions of home–school relationships and home–school collaboration (TWP, 7 items); and the Kids in this Class measures students perceptions of peer conflict within the classroom (KITC, five items). Relational aspects of classroom environment are particularly important when working with students from disadvantaged backgrounds (Doll, Brehm et al., in press). Specifically, fostering strong teacher–student relationships can make the difference between at-risk students succeeding or failing (Masten & Coatsworth, 1998). The CMS has been shown to be an effective tool in measuring the relational aspects of classrooms and identifying positive protective supports for students.

Three other CMS subscales tap the second critical area, student self-regulatory behaviors. The Believing in Me subscale is a measure of student self-efficacy and confidence in their academic abilities (BIM, 8 items); Taking Charge subscale measures student ratings of self-determination and persistence in academics (TC, 8 items); and Following Classroom Rules measures student’s behavioral self-control and regulation (FCR, 5 items).

An eighth subscale, I Worry That, assesses the third critical area, student perceptions and fears of peer aggression (IWT, 9 items). These subscales are important in measuring student perceptions of their ability to succeed and thrive within the classroom. Students are most successful when they can engage in classroom curriculum, set goals for their learning, and feel safe within the classroom (Doll et al., 2011).

An advantage of using the CMS is that it addresses a serious limitation of traditional individually focused consultation models that may mask students who are passively disengaged from the classroom (Doll, Brehm, et al., in press). The CMC model relies on collecting aggregated data from students within a classroom who remain anonymous at the individual level. This allows teachers and data experts to collect broad information of student perceptions of climate, saving time, and school resources (Doll et al., 2011). Aggregated student data of CMS subscale scores are useful in measuring the overall effectiveness of classroom interventions. Collected data are analyzed through a framework that targets building classroom level supports and micro-changes, and uses continuous assessment to guide intervention implementation. The eight CMS subscales can be examined individually as pre-/post-effect measures of classroom-based interventions.

Consultation and Intervention Process

The CMC model uses a four-step problem-solving process that incorporates the six ecological resilience factors described earlier. This four-step problem-solving model incorporates components of the CMS to increase the overall resilience of classrooms. The four steps of CMC include: (1) Conducting a classroom assessment, (2), Making sense of classroom data, (3) Planning and implementing classroom changes, and (4) Evaluating the classroom changes and refining them based on the data.

Conducting a needs assessment is the first step of the CMC process. In the CMC model, the CMS is used to identify or highlight strengths and problems in a classroom. Research in conducting needs assessment has shown that teachers are often undertrained in data collection and management strategies (Doll, Brehm, et al., in press). However, in CMC, the CMS is a useful tool in measuring the six critical components of resilient classrooms. The CMS has been shown to be effective for measuring the resiliency of students with acceptable internal consistency and factor structure (see Doll, Jones, et al., 2011; Doll, Spies, Champion et al., 2010; Doll, Spies, LeClair et al., 2010). The classroom assessment process is cyclical and encourages teachers and students to reevaluate data, make goals, and collect additional data.

The second component of the CMC model is making sense of classroom data. Needs assessment data are collated, aggregated, and graphed in order to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the classroom (Doll, Jones, et al., 2011). In some classrooms, a school psychologist or special educator may act as a consultant who assembles the data for teachers. Alternatively, with targeted coaching in data use, teachers can become experts in collating and graphing their own classroom data. Empowering teachers and students to analyze and interpret classroom data increases teacher and student buy-in and reduces resistance to intervention strategies (Council for Exceptional Children, 2008; Lohrmann, Forman, Martin, & Palmieri, 2008).

The third component of CMC is planning and implementing classroom changes. Implementation research has stressed the importance of balancing academic rigor and practical considerations to increase implementation fidelity (Doll, Brehm, et al., in press). Interventions that are implemented need to be within the skill level of the practitioner and address the weaknesses identified from the needs assessment (Doll, Brehm, et al., in press). In collaboration with colleagues or the school psychologist, teachers choose practical interventions for classroom change based on how well they fit classroom culture, values, and scale with an understanding that there are multiple ways to collect meaningful data (Caldarella et al., 2011; Doll, Brehm, et al., in press; Doll et al., 2011).

Finally, the last component of the CMC model is evaluating and refining the intervention. In this critical component, teachers work with their colleagues to monitor the progress of classroom change in response to the intervention. Key questions that they ask are: Does the data show positive change in the classroom? Is the change large enough to make a meaningful difference for students? And is the change large enough that the classroom will meet the goal that the teacher has set (Fuchs, 2003; Safer & Fleischman, 2005). Intervention and routines are established that have been shown to be effective in achieving goals outlined in the classroom needs assessment. If an intervention is not effective in addressing the classroom problem, or if the effect is too small to be meaningful, teachers and their colleagues discuss the intervention, review the data describing its effect, and make plans to strengthen the intervention or to replace it with an alternative intervention that is more likely to be effective. Reevaluating interventions and making adjustments based off of data is an effective component of data-based decision making and increases the positive outcomes of students (Caldarella et al., 2011).

CMC Case Study

Now that CMC has been described, a case study is presented to help illustrate the intervention model more concretely. The case study highlights how peer resilience was enhanced in this classroom by encouraging students to work together to solve the classroom’s problems.

Background Information

The setting was a third-grade Spanish Immersion classroom (n = 22) in a public suburban elementary school in a large Midwestern city. In immersion classrooms, the students’ home language is English; however, at least 90 % of instruction throughout the school day is in Spanish, including math, science, social studies, and language arts. After winter break, the classroom teacher noticed that students were approaching her multiple times a day to tattle or report peer conflicts. Conflicts appeared to be particularly frequent during unstructured times at school: (a) after arriving and getting off of the bus, (b) after lunch/recess, and (c) after gym class. Students would often approach the teacher to report how they perceived other students were mistreating them during these times. These conflicts and complaints began to spill over into the general education classroom, interrupted instructional time, and increased peer conflict in the classroom.

The teacher felt overwhelmed and annoyed by the deficits in her students’ problem solving and social resilience. She was concerned that the students’ increasing dependence on her to resolve and mediate peer conflicts was consuming valuable instructional time, and was detrimental to the classroom’s overall climate and community. She was already implementing many aspects of the social curriculum outlined in the Responsive Classroom (Brock et al., 2008) intervention including: whole class rule creation to produce student ownership; daily “morning meetings” consisting of a greeting, a sharing activity, a group building activity, and letter with the daily news to aid in decreasing peer conflicts.

Conducting a Classroom Assessment

The teacher administered the CMS in February due to perceived increase in peer conflict after winter break. The teacher planned a classroom meeting after scoring and graphing the CMSs. After analyzing the data, she decided to focus on the My Classmates subscale (effective peer relationships) because it focused on perceptions of peer conflict. She believed that peer conflicts were negatively impacting students’ learning opportunities, and she did not see evidence of her students’ skills or confidence to resolve conflicts autonomously. Her hope was to empower her students to resolve peer conflicts independently, and, in turn, strengthen the classroom community. The classroom meeting was held shortly after recess, a common time when students reported the day’s conflicts to her, to measure their experiences from the day. She used the “Goal-Setting Worksheet” from Resilient Classrooms to guide her discussion. Additionally, she decided to create some measures to collect further data about students’ abilities to confidently resolve conflicts on their own.

Making Sense of Classroom Data

During the problem-solving meeting, the teacher shared a PowerPoint Presentation of six graphs depicting the class’s answers to each of the survey’s subscales measuring academic efficacy, behavioral self-control, effective teacher–student relationships, effective peer relationship, and effective home–school relationships. After reviewing the six CMS subscales, she asked her students if they believed that the data were accurate. The students overwhelmingly agreed that the graphs were accurate and were motivated to help resolve the problems together.

The subscale, My Classmates, had the highest percentage of students answering “never” or “sometimes” to the largest number of questions indicating having lower friendships and contact with peers (Fig. 10.1). Twelve students put a rating of “no” on the three “My Classmates” questions related to conflict among classmates: Kids won’t argue with me; Kids won’t hit or hurt me; Classmates won’t tease me, call me names, or make fun of me. Also, 11 students rated “no” on the “Kids will not argue with me” question. These results indicated that over half of the students struggled with arguing, teasing, name calling, making fun of others, hitting, and pushing. At the same time, students reported more positive responses to the four questions about having friends in class and having fun with their friends.

Fig. 10.1
figure 1

Graph of data for My Classmates scale pre-intervention

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Together, the teacher and students focused on identifying causes of peer conflict by brainstorming “Conflicts We Have” on a large poster board in the classroom. To gain further information and insight into the culture of the peer relationships, students were asked to raise their hand and give real-life examples of conflicts they had shared. The students identified 15 different types of conflicts that corresponded with questions on the “My Classmates” subscale that included accusing someone of stealing, lying, cheating, not sharing, abandoning activities and/or friends, yelling, hurting others’ feelings, leaving others out, fighting, name calling, talking inappropriately, gossiping, and destroying other’s property.

Then, the teacher gathered additional information using a “dot survey” by giving each student three stickers to vote on which conflict areas listed on the poster board were most frequent and problematic. The dot survey data showed that yelling/screaming, arguing, and lying were the highest priority concerns for students. However, through group discussion, students indicated that yelling/screaming, lying, gossiping, bullying, and being left out happened most often to them. Finally, students stated that talking about peers inappropriately and physical fighting happened the least often in the classroom. This highlighted a discrepancy in data regarding physical fighting on the “dot survey” and the hitting/pushing question on the ClassMaps subscale. Through discussion, students were able to state that though physical altercations did happen at school, they were not severe and could be related to age-appropriate play.

Planning and Implementing Classroom Changes

The students concluded that many of their perceived problems resulted from not having a class friend to help them feel better when they had a “hard day” or conflict with their peers. The students also thought that conflict occurred more often because some students felt “left out” from the classroom community. To resolve this issue and increase peer connectedness, the students and teacher decided to assign “amigos felices” (happy friends) as a micro-strategy. These classroom buddies were chosen by the teacher in order to avoid future peer conflict that could have occurred if some students felt left out when no one selected them as an “amigo feliz.” They defined “amigo feliz” as a classroom buddy who helped a classmate feel better if the “amigo feliz” was having a hard day or a lot of conflict with other classmates. This strategy particularly centered around one young boy who frequently cried during class when he felt left out, but was also the frequent instigator of teasing and name calling in the classroom, as expressed by his peers.

Still, the teacher did not feel that the “amigo feliz” strategy would be sufficient to overcome the skill deficits in resolving peer conflicts autonomously. After brainstorming with her students, she identified further micro-strategies by consulting her fellow teachers and reviewing material in The First Six Weeks of School (Denton & Kriete, 2000). These materials reminded her of the usefulness of “I” Messages. The teacher modeled for students how to independently resolve conflicts by implementing the four steps of “I” Messages. The four “I” Message steps included these statements: “I feel (emotion identified) when you (action of other student) because (identify how it affects you ). I need you to (identify the action you need from the other student).” She created a mini-poster for each student’s desk that outlined the four steps to serve as a quick reference when students had conflicts. The mini-posters also included small graphics next to each step as a way to help students visualize the steps (Fig. 10.2). The four steps included:

Fig. 10.2
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Four “I” Message steps mini-poster in Spanish

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  1. 1.

    Para. Calma a su mismo. (Stop. Calm yourself.)

  2. 2.

    Habla y escuche. Usa el mensaje de yo. “Yo me siento ____________, cuando tu ____________, porque_____________. Yo necesito que _____________. (Talk and listen. Use an “I” Message. “I feel _______________ when you _______________ because _______________. I need _______________.”)

  3. 3.

    Piensa en maneras de resolver la problema. (Think of ways to resolve the problem.)

  4. 4.

    Escoge la idea que ambos les gustan. (Choose the idea that both people like.)

In the following week, each time students approached the teacher to complain about a conflict with a peer (particularly after lunch and recess), she would listen and then ask them what strategies they had tried to resolve the current conflict. More often than not, students could not describe any strategies that they used. She then asked if they had communicated using an “I” Message. If they answered no, she recommended they use an “I” Message and sent them away from her to independently practice and directly communicate with their peers involved in the conflict. If the students answered that yes, they had tried communicating what they needed through an “I” Message and with no success; she offered to accompany the students as a mediator while the student expressed their needs using an “I” Message and practiced the four steps on the conflict resolution mini-poster.

Evaluating and Refining Classroom Data

After 1 week of modeling, role-playing, and prompting students to use “I” Messages, she asked how many students had been able to resolve a conflict independently through the use of an “I” Message in the previous week. Six students raised their hands to confirm that they had successfully, confidently, and independently resolved a peer conflict using the newly learned strategies. The teacher discovered that by implementing micro-strategies and making data-driven decisions based on student perceptions and input, there was a decrease in overall peer conflict in the classroom. Students were able to pinpoint classroom problems, identify areas of skill deficits and community bonds, and create a strategy for change. Additionally, the teacher was impressed with the results of the micro-strategies because they focused on promoting problem-solving skills and not just decreasing negative behavior.

Two months later, the teacher readministered the CMS to see the overall effect and maintenance of classroom changes. The My Classmates subscale indicated an overall improvement in student perceptions in peer conflict. Specifically, it indicated more feelings of having a peer stick up for them, fewer incidents of physical altercations, less frequent peer arguments, and more reports of having friends to play with them during lunch and recess (Fig. 10.3). The teacher had hoped for even more significant change in the My Classmates subscale scores. In a follow-up classroom meeting, students reported having less peer conflicts, greater ability to identify areas of conflict, and were better able to solve problems without teacher support. The teacher reported having direct involvement in resolving peer conflicts with a decline in teacher interventions from seven-to-ten reports per day before the ClassMaps problem-solving meeting to three-to-five reports a day 2 months later. The micro-strategies implemented from the ClassMaps classroom meetings proved to be valuable in increasing the pro-social skills of the students.

Fig. 10.3
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Graph of My Classmates scale post-intervention

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Together the teacher and students brainstormed further strategies to deter peer conflicts. The strategies generated from the collaborative class brainstorming activity generated a number of potential interventions: creating a safe area of the classroom dedicated to conflict resolution, increasing the frequency of modeling, role-playing conflict resolution skills by students, and celebrating successes during the morning meetings. Because the students and teacher were well versed in having a daily routine Morning Meeting as outlined in, The Morning Meeting Book (Kriete, 2002), they decided to identify and reinforce incidences of students resolving conflicts independently of teacher support during the “Share” portion of the daily Morning Meeting.

Overall, the CMS proved to be a useful tool in increasing student and teacher perceptions of peer conflict, and provided a medium for the teacher and students to collaborate and solve problems together. The teacher enjoyed the student-driven ideas to resolve classroom issues, and students perceived the classroom changes as more authentic and meaningful.

Implementation and Professional Development

Collaborating for positive and meaningful change as illustrated in the case study above takes leadership. Leaders in schools will need to attend to two key areas of CMC implementation: skills in data usage and school integration. In most cases, CMC occurs within school-based problem-solving teams and prior research has established that such teams can be highly effective in prompting lasting and important changes in school behaviors. Still, an important challenge is that school-based teams very often struggle to implement all the important steps of a data-based problem solving with good fidelity. Therefore, the CMC leader will need to attend to this problem by supporting the professional development of educators in data use. A typical professional development program might use strategies such as teaming, coaching, and guided practice focusing on the six pragmatic data-use skills: (1) Knowledge of diverse data collection protocols; (2) Selecting protocols that are best suited to answer questions; (3) Collating and graphing data; (4) Discerning trends and differences in data; (5) Using data and data trends to make decisions; and (6) Planning interventions to match the data.

The second key CMC implementation issue is how to integrate CMC into an entire school efficiently and effectively. The most common scenario is one in which a school professional such as a school psychologist decides to adopt CMC into their own individual practice. The school psychologist should identify a single teacher who is willing to try CMC in the classroom and support this teacher well, so that there is some improvement as determined by the teacher. The ideal teacher candidate is someone who is influential in the school (e.g., perceived leader by others), eager to try CMC, a highly motivated teacher, and one with whom there is a positive professional working relationship. Once there is success with this teacher’s classroom, the news will spread and other teachers will likely want to try CMC. The result of this initial work will be a number of teachers “on the ground” who already accept CMC, which will be important for the next phase of CMC integration at the school level.

The next phase is focused on integrating CMC in the entire school. Continuing on with the same example, the school psychologist should meet with the gatekeepers of the school who have decision-making power and authority to make changes, which always includes the principal but also highly influential teachers, school board members, and community leaders. Next, it will be important to identify the stakeholders who will be affected by such school-wide changes, e.g., parents, teachers, students; and, include them in the planning and decisions from the beginning. An initial task will be to determine the purpose and concrete goals of implementing CMC at the school level, e.g., improving school success. Another task will be to consider other ripple effects that school-wide CMC implementation may have on teachers, students, families, and community such as overloading teachers’ work day; and, how to address them. This type of collaborative decision-making is critical for the successful implementation and sustainability of CMC in schools.

Teachers, other school personnel, and mental health workers are encouraged to learn more about CMC and develop skills in implementing them. Two manuals including copy ready forms are highly recommended: The second edition of Resilient Classrooms (Doll, Brehm et al., in press) will be published in spring 2014 and Resilient Playgrounds (Doll & Brehm, 2010) extends CMC to playgrounds and contains the surveys for resilient classrooms. Additional information about the CMS can be found in Doll, Jones, et al., (2011). For up-to-date information on CMC including consultation and support, please contact the principal investigator, Dr. Beth Doll at bjdoll2@unl.edu.

Conclusion

This chapter has provided a description of CMC, a resilient classroom framework. Theoretical and empirical work supporting the use of CMC was discussed briefly, an applied case study was presented as an illustration of the model, and implementation and professional development were discussed. We hope that the reader has a deeper understanding of how CMC might be used to enhance resilience in schools. Translating resilience research to clinical practice is challenging and continued efforts in expanding and extending this model as well as adaptations of it are crucial. Although CMC has not been examined in alternative youth-serving settings (e.g., after-school programs, churches, correctional institutions, residential settings), future work in these settings is critical to the accumulation of resilience evidence that documents its usefulness to help all children succeed despite daily obstacles.