About the Project

The Maximize Project is intended to develop and evaluate innovative resources that help teachers use equitable positive behavioral supports in classrooms to meet the diverse needs of their students. In an effort to make teacher support more individualized, the Maximize project will develop and test two main resources: interactive technology and peer coaches.

One goal of the Maximize project is to expand a previously developed interactive platform to facilitate teachers’ high-quality use of universal and targeted positive behavioral support strategies for elementary school students. The expanded platform includes interactive tools for teachers’ self-assessment, goal setting, and strategy planning. It also includes self-reflection activities, screening tools, progress monitoring tools, and data-driven algorithms to guide intervention modification. As previous studies have shown, interactive technologies help teachers select and use practices that enhance student engagement. 

A second way the Maximize project supports teachers in their implementation of equity-focused universal and targeted behavioral support strategies is through peer coaches. While some teachers benefit from online tools, others prefer face-to-face in-house support. Thus, the Maximize project assesses the school social network for the existing advice connections among educators in the building. After the individuals who teachers naturally go to for advice are identified, advanced training is offered to these educators to maximize how they support teachers’ adoption and use of equitable universal and targeted strategies with their students.