EDU 6657- Behavior Intervention Plan

A behavior intervention plan is the outcome of the FBA. The behavior intervention plan is tied to a specific student and specific behaviors. Carrying out this plan is how the support team intends on improving the student’s behavior. “Because an FBA focuses on causes of behavior that can be found in the context in which the behavior occurs, results of an FBA are used for developing interventions” (Scott, Anderson, & Spaulding, 2008).

Once an FBA is conducted and a behavior has been identified, the behavior support team can make a behavior plan to match the FBA. The goal, as we learned in class is to make the antecedent irrelevant, the behavior inefficient and the consequence ineffective. By doing this the student won’t want to engage in the negative behavior. The idea is to find an alternative behavior that is more socially acceptable for the student, but gets them the same consequence. Eventually, you hope to get the student to engage in the desired behavior.

Once the BIP has been developed and implemented it is imperative that data be taken at regular intervals to make sure the plan is working and to adjust the plan as it does work to get towards the desired behavior. “…data must be used to evaluate the success of instruction. When the data indicate success, the plan should stay in place (or be faded), and when the data indicate failure, the plan must be changed” (Scott, Anderson, & Spaulding, 2008). The BIP should be thought of as a fluid document that can be or should be changed based on the changing needs of the student. Just like an IEP is to academic success of a struggling student, a BIP is to behavioral success of a struggling student.

Scott, T. M., Anderson, C. M., & Spaulding, S. A. (2008). Strategies for developing and carrying out functional assessment and behavior intervention planning. Preventing school failure, 52, 39-49.

 

EDU 6657- Functional Behavior Assessments

If a child has a behavior that is so prevalent that it disturbs his learning and the learning of others on a regular basis, there needs to be an intervention. An FBA is the best way to approach a situation like this since it looks for the root of the problem, the “why?” to the students’ behavior.

“Functional Behavior assessment has advanced techniques to assess the motivating consequences and the antecedent conditions that set the occasion for many of these problematic behaviors” (Jensen, Olympia, Farley, & Clark, 2004). An FBA is a systemic way to approach a problem behavior situation. What is so great about this is that it is not complicated, it does take time, but it is something that anyone with some training can do. An FBA looks at the environment that the student is in and takes into account several factors, what is the antecedent, the behavior and the consequences? Basically what is the setting? What is the child doing? And what happens as a reaction to it? It is important to categorize these details in order to figure out the real reason or function of the behavior. This is important if you want your behavior plan to be successful.

We learned in class that once you have the function figured out you can move onto making the antecedent irrelevant, the behavior inefficient and the consequence ineffective. This will become your behavior plan.

Jensen, W.R., Olympia, D., Farley, M., & Clark, E. (2004). Positive psychology and externalizing students in a sea of negativity. Psychology in the Schools, 41(1), 67-79. Doi: 10.1002/pits.10139.

EDU 6657-Effective Classroom Design and Academic Instruction

Effective classroom design and academic instruction does improve behavior. It is likely that if a student is not engaged in a lesson, or does not have something given to them to complete, that they will engage in negative behavior. We, as teachers, need to come up with how will keep the students attention. According to what we learned in class there are five evidence based strategies for effective classroom management, which in turn will lower the negative behavior in a classroom. They are:

1. Make the most of your classroom space

2. Continually review and practice posted behavior expectations

3. Student should be actively engaged in class in a way that an observer would notice

4. Have a positive reinforcement system in place

5. Have a negative reinforcement or punishment system in place

By having these systems in place you help decrease the chance of problem behaviors in the classroom. These structures help keep students busy in a meaningful way. It also means that the teacher has in place a plan to try to redirect problem behaviors or give consequences for problem behaviors. This short list really gives classroom teachers a lot of tools.

According to the Article, Instructional Adaptation in the Management of Escape Maintained Behavior in a Classroom, “ Disruptive classroom behavior is a major factor contributing to teacher stress and discontent and significantly affects teachers’ capacity to maintain productive and orderly learning environment (Hawe, Tuck, Manthei, Adair, & Moore, 2000).” (Moore, Anderson, & Kumar, 2005). We can empower teachers with strategies to avoid having disruptive behavior, and using the above mentioned strategies is a great start to effective classroom management.

Moore, D. W., Anderson, A., & Kumar, K. (2005). Instructional adaptation in the management of escape-maintained behavior in a classroom. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 7, 216-223.

 

EDU 6657 How can we improve behavior outcomes for students?

The first step in setting up a situation where students can be behaviorally successful is to have clear expectations. I think the School-Wide Positive Behavior Support s (SWPBS) system is an excellent program that sets students up for success and understands that there will be students at different behavior levels. SWPBS uses a tiered system. In class we learned that the idea is that most kids (about 80%) will fall in Tier 1. If the school has clear and easy to remember expectations that are practice and are routine. As well as positive reinforcement built in, most students will see success. There is also a tier 2 and 3. Tier 2 typically represents 10%-15% of the student body and tier 3 about 5%-10%. What makes SWPBS unique, I think, is that there is still a SWPBS plan for the tier 2 and 3 students. They do not just get thrown into a different program. The program is for everyone, it just may need to be adjusted according to the needs of those students. “Within an SWPBS framework, these evidence-based interventions are organized further into a continuum that first considers what all students require for behavior support and then sequences interventions into an array of increasingly specialized intensity to accommodate students whose behaviors are not responsive to a given intervention (Sugai and Horner, 2009, p.229).

Another way to improve behavior outcomes is to look at an Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) approach. In this approach there are four ways of explaining behavior. These are:

1. Escape- This is where students try to avoid a difficult task

2. Wants attention – This can be from peers or adults

3. Access to a Tangible-Which is seeking monetary or social reinforcements

4. Self-reinforcement- Giving self a reward, like you get to go for a walk if you do this

By using this approach and explaining why students are engaging in certain behaviors, the circumstances can be modified to get better behavior outcomes.

Sugai, G., & Horner, R. H. (2009). Responsiveness-to-intervention and school-wide positive behavior supports: Integration of multi-tiered system approaches. Exceptionality, 17, 223-237.

EDU 6150- Goal Setting

In the article we read at, http://www.netc.org/focus/strategies/sett.php  it says, “Instructional goals should not be too specific. When goals are too narrowly focused they can limit learning (Fraser, 1987; Walberg, 1999).” I found this so interesting. I never thought about goal setting as being too limiting. We spend so much time learning about and enforcing the idea of goal writing, I had not thought much about it actually hindering the learning process. Basically everything we do with students is a result of objectives and goal settings. Either ones we pull from State standards or ones we create as standards in our own classroom. Even teachers set their own personal goals, they are all around us!

This is why the idea of making goals too narrow is such an interesting and important discussion point. If the goal is too specific it might make it difficult for the student to generalize the information to other scenarios. I think a great way to deal with this is to set goals often and to go over how you (the teacher) made the goal and why. It would also be helpful to set individual goals with each student. By making it personal for them you can give them feedback on how they are doing and they can really internalize the process of goal setting.

EDU 6150- The Great Homework Debate

Last year I watched a movie called Race to Nowhere. It was awesome. And it tackled this exact question. The movie was about more in that it talked about too much pressure in schools across America, not just in HW, but in classwork, getting into college etc. But HW is a prevalent question amongst educators across the country.

When I was a classroom teacher I constantly struggled with this concept. I did not like or do much HW when I was in elementary or middle school. When I got to high school I realized I needed to do HW and as I got to college I realized I needed even more discipline in getting HW done and done on time. So I realized that as much as I did not want to assign HW to my students, I had to assign some in order to give them the HW skills they would need to succeed in high school and college.

That being said I had to figure out how to give the HW so I was making it worth their while. I spent time talking with my Principal and other teachers in the school. I decided that each night they would be required to do reading. This was of utmost importance to me. There is reading in every subject all the time so developing and maintain their reading skills is imperative. It shouldn’t be just reading, but reading for meaning. So each night there was some form of a question or two that went along with either a specific reading, or whatever book the student’s had chosen to read. (This is also a form of differentiation, in that it is an open ended question so there is not one right answer, but students can answer it at their level). I also usually gave some math practice. The material would be something that was being reinforced from classroom learning and I would have different HW for students. Then a couple times a week there would be a social studies or science activity as well. The HW however would never exceed 40-50 minutes for a fifth grader. The importance of the HW was to learn not only the content but the discipline of HW as a skill. It is really hard to be motivated after an 8 hour school day plus after school activates to then sit down and do HW. Besides dinner this left little time for the students to play. The more efficient they could learn to be at HW, the more extra time they would have as well!

In the article we read at, http://www.netc.org/focus/strategies/home.php, it references the same issues that I had to think through, and more. I enjoyed getting some validation from that article and being left with more to think about.

EDU 6150 – Recognition of Student Achievement

In the beginning of my second year of teaching I cried ALL THE TIME. I was teaching a seventh grade science class. The students were so challenging. I did not know how I was going to get through the year. There was a veteran teacher who worked in the English department. She was amazing; she was really supportive of me. She told me she had similar experiences early in her teaching and that at the beginning of every year she would re-read a book called, Liberated Parents, Liberated Children by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlisch. She told me that although it was a parenting book, it was completely applicable to teaching. I read the book, and it changed my life!

Although the book was published in 1974, the concepts and scenarios are similar to ones we still encounter today. The book was based on the parenting classes of Dr. Haim Ginott. The two women who wrote the book took his classes, and then wrote a book using his teaching. The book reads like a novel, not a textbook, so it is an easy read and easy to understand the points. The biggest lesson I got out of the book was about praising or being critical of the behaviors not of the child themselves. If a child does something good, they are not a “good boy”, but they did a good deed, or on the flipside, if a child does something bad, they are not a “bad boy”, but the behavior they engaged in was bad. This is a simplified version, but it comes back around to the idea of praising students’ accomplishments in the classroom.

In the article we read for class, Recommendations for classroom practice: providing recognition, it says, “Recognition should be given for legitimate achievement; otherwise, it can have negative effects on student achievement and motivation”. This is the same concept, it is about what the student has accomplished; that is what makes the praise legitimate. If teachers went around saying “good girl” or “good boy” for everything students did, it would have little meaning and in turn have a negative effect on the students’ performance.

 

 

 

EDU 6198- Reflection on Articles

Teachers have a hard job. There is a lot of planning and a lot of hours that go into a successful classroom. The job does not only constitute the time spent in the classroom, but several hours outside of the classroom as well. In the article “What’s My Job? Defining the Role of the Classroom Teacher” the author feels passionately that the role of a teacher is not defined, and in fact this makes the job even harder. At the end of the article he says, “And once we focus on outcomes instead of just inputs and good intentions, we will be more effective, and so will students. That will, ironically, make us feel far less stressed, but also more challenged with important goals that we must stretch to reach so there is always more to be done” (Wiggins, 2010). So now what? How can we help define the role for teachers so that the students get a better and more useful education and the teachers feel less stressed?

According to Wiggins, the first step in this process would be to make it clear what the teacher needs to accomplish, as opposed to what they need to do. So looking more at the results, not just what has to get done.  It is also important that this is all clearly stated when teachers are hired. It is true that when a teacher is hired, they are told what they will do and what they are responsible for, it is more of a list.

In recent years at my school we have put together teacher standards. When we hire someone new we show them these standards. They include all aspects of teaching. Over time teachers place themselves on a continuum and are evaluated for making progress in all different sections. The state of Washington is also working on a better teacher evaluation system (TPEP- Teacher and Principal Evaluation Pilot). Having these in place will not only benefit the evaluation process, but it will also lead to better job description, which will lead to clarity in the job, which will lead to better less stressed teachers.

As we learned above, being a good teacher is more than the doing. But it is even more than accomplishing academic goals as well. Part of what makes us a good teacher is fostering and nurturing children. To do this we need to know a lot about how we operate in order to relate well and deal well with children. In the article “The inner game of teaching” by Marzano and Marzano, the authors talk about a “game” that people play when making decisions. Basically there are several factors taken into account when a teacher or person makes a decision. It is not always conscious, but it is happening. Marzano and Marzano suggest that it is important for a teacher to bring this game to a conscious level. This way when they are reacting to children they have better understanding of their feelings and what they really want to get out of the situation.

No matter how prepared a teacher is, the first time they walk into his/her own classroom, something will surprise them. It is imperative that teachers are prepared from the beginning. The best way to prepare them is to make sure that their job description is clear. Exactly what are his/her responsibilities and what he/she is expected to accomplish. Having beginning teachers check themselves before reacting to a behavioral problem would be helpful in training them on how to play the inner game.

The best way to provide a place for teachers to check themselves and reflect on their teaching is if schools have a mentor program of some kind. So when a teacher is hired he/she is not just given their materials and told teach this, but that the new teachers meet with a mentor on a weekly basis and the mentor has specific goals in mind with each new teacher. This will help the new teacher acclimate and give them more immediate useful feedback. Having a mentor program in place will help with job clarity, in that it is tied to using the teacher’s standards, which in turn helps guide what the teacher is supposed to accomplish.

I have in fact, been part of a mentor program as a mentor and teacher leader. It has been very successful. The new teachers that have come to our school feel very much supported. They feel like they have somewhere to go when they need advice, but they also know they have weekly check in meetings where they are working on a piece of themselves to make a better teacher. We are at our best when we are learning and growing, so why should it stop once we have a job? Isn’t there always more to learn?

Wiggins, G. (2010). “What’s my job? Defining the role of the classroom teacher.” R. Marzano (Ed.) On excellence in teaching (op. 7-29). Bloomington, IN : Solution Tree.

Marzano, R. J., & Marzano, J. S. (2010). “The inner game of teaching.” In R. Marzano (Ed .) On excellence in teaching (pp. 345-367). Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree.

EDU 6134-Daily Reflection- Getting the best educators to the students who need them the most

Today in class we talked about several big ideas from to readings. The overarching theme was about reforming our current education system in looking at it from the teacher’s perspective. We elaborated on the ideas that were presented in the RESPECT project article put out by the Board of Education.

Our group discussed getting the best educators to the students who need them the most. We came up with several ideas and several questions!

• There should be incentives to keep good teachers as teachers, as opposed to having them move onto administrative positions. Ideas include higher salaries, more planning time, additional paras…)
• There should be compensation for continuing education. Meaning if you have an ELL teacher, he/she may have gone to a special ed certification program, but they may not speak the languages of their students. Wouldn’t it be great if at least one teacher in an ELL environment spoke the language of, or had familiarity with each of the children in the room?
• Where is the money going to come from?
• What are the criteria for a school to receive additional funding?
• Who are the best educators and principals, what are the criteria to define them?
• Providing additional resources to poverty schools
• Additional funding for technology in special ed classrooms
• Allowing additional planning time for de-briefing/implementing training into the classroom- possibly by having more paras
• Training for the paras

EDU 6134- Child Abuse/Neglect/Eating Disorders

Going into teaching is not just about teaching students facts or learning related skills, but about helping develop students as intricate beings. We spend time fostering their social skills as well as academic skills. We are there for them if they need to talk after class about social or academic issues. But there is more, we are there to help them if they need it in ANY way. Today in class we learned about reporting abuse or neglect. We may be the students’ only advocate! If we suspect abuse or neglect it is our responsibility legally and morally to report it.

In addition to that we learned about eating disorders. If a student has an eating disorder, whatever the reason, it will negatively impact his/her life. Although we are not legally responsible to report eating disorders, it is our moral responsibility to help each child and isn’t the reason we go into teaching because of our care for each child’s intellectual, and physical well –being?