Chapter 8

This chapter gives the facts: if the students are engaged in the learning process, they are less likely to act out. I know that is not possible 100% of the time but some educators have not figured it out for 1% of their teaching. Sure does get the students excited about coming to schooland gets you excited too. Again they say that you have to teach academic and behavioral skills simultaneously. Always: differentiated instruction is a given. Provide choices for the students. THIS ONE IS GOOD: Embed interests and preferences in the learning. I tutored one boy in 5th grade that knew about 10 sight words. I found out that he loved Star Wars and he learned more words from those Star Wars books than the 3 previous months. He wouldn't even open a book before that. It doesn't have to be the content that is an interest. It could be the final finished product that motives the students such as creating a video from the information learned. Technology will get the students going in about every instance. It also says to evaluate them through oral questioning, asking the student for ideas and welcoming their thoughts. You can enjoy the students' communication through teacher-created blogs. They love those. I have found some very literate students embedded in alternative forms of evaluation! The authors give a few tips on writing and handwriting engagement. They help but you need a week-long seminar on writing anxiety and making it work. Is cursive writing still taught in public schools? Knowing that failure is not an option we need to remember that includes correctly their work in a timely fashion and allowing the students to learn from it.

Chapter 7

Man! I'm getting so educated! I learned another new phrase: Executive functioning! Doesn't that sound impressive? Do you know what it means? In my opinion, they are life skills the students learn as they take part in life. And you know, the more that I look at the skills involved, I suppose that those skills are more for folks that normally run their own business, plan events, and go in there, get the job done, and get on out. These are tasks that I love to do and now come naturally: plan and organize, identifying what needs to be done, determining the sequences to accomplish this, carrying out the steps and even beginning the tasks, evaluating and getting feedback. I did not learn these skills at school or even at home. Hmmmmmm. I actually was blessed to be in a profession to where I wanted to make things happen and knew I had to have a sequence of events, perfectly timed out to make them work. So I would say that in my case I do have checklists or organizational helpers like they have in the book but mine are called webbings and outlines. (At this point I don't have to have clip-art or visual supports with my planning!) I like the transition helpers: five minute countdown and timers. Let's the students know to wind it up and paces the students. I know that it helps to give the students a 5-minute thumbs up and visual timers are good. I used an egg timer at the student's desk. I do not like transition objects. Maybe you can educate me on this one. If you have used transition objects, please let me know how that was workin' for you. This strategy is a good one for anyone young or old: break down long projects into smaller steps. It doesn't seem so impossible if this in practiced...from lesson plans to housework! ANOTHER NEW TOOL! (Atleast to me!) A cuing system such as a beep tape or MotivAider which helps the student self-monitor himself when the beep goes off to see if he is still on tack. If he is on task, he connects the dots. Then earns a small or quick reinforcer for each dot. I'm going to look up The Tough Kid Toolbox and see what that is all about. It helps with students that need to stay on task.

Chapter 6

Chapter 6 is the basics! Know what the students' previous setting events are and the triggering antecedents. One example is not having unexpected changes in the routine. Another thing that I thought of while reading this chapter is to have the teaching ready to go the minute the student walks in the classroom. Also, don't let other folks in the building interrupt your teaching if at all possible. The students don't deserve that and they can't handle it. Just know that if the setting and triggers happen try to: 1. Prepare the student 2. Provide emotional support, accomodations, modifications 3. Provide levels of reinforcement I have to remember: THE STUDENTS WILL NOT LEARN COPING AND PROBLEM-SOLVING SKILLS without providing support. Some ways I can do this are: Remove or modify the influence of setting events Validate a student's frustration (Domineering all the time over a student) (No valid reason for following a behavior) (Too easy or too hard of tasks) (Lack of understanding of expectations) Provide increased levels of support I needed to hear the portion again about being consistent. Yes, we put the limits in place but students test those limits to SEE IF YOU TRULY MEAN WHAT YOU SAY. I learned a new term: behavioral burst. That just means that they are acting out to see how consistent I will be with consequences. ..they are testing me. I do find that it does help to have the student be your partner when it comes to power struggles and to let them ultimately know that they are in charge of what happens to them and not blame anyone else. When it seems necessary, give them real-life adult examples of choices and the undesirable consequences. Since reading this book, I have taken to heart the 4 positives to every negative. I make sure and bring them back to a positive relationship with me before I leave the classroom. Consistency breeds trust. Ask students to identify what they want and show them how their behavior choices will bring them to that outcome while developing personal responsibility.

Chapter 5

The phrase "including teaching replacement behavior" caught my attention. It is one thing to acknowledge the problem, to define which of the three from Chapter 4 (can't do, won't do, or unpolished) the student falls under, but the hardest thing for me is finding a replacement behavior that the student will buy into and meet his/her needs. I suppose if these students were actually at the tip of the 3-tiered social instruction pyramid, that would be do-able. Our students at Tulsa Public need to have that ol' pyramid flipped, knowing that the tip of the pyramid would be instruction for the masses and the largest group in our classroom is actually the individualized social instruction group. We are pretty top-heavy at TPS. Individualized instruction conventional wisdom says "Choose your battles. Sometimes the behavior is more about power struggles, etc. and not behavior that is harmful to the other students. (socially physically, emotionally, and academically)They give unnessessary battles in the book that would waste more time to address than continue to teach, without hurting a soul. If a behavior is a something that invites the other students to pick on them, help them with social norms and how he/she could fit in a little easier. Identifying replacement behavior includes: 1. Being positive in what postitive behavior you want them to do as an action. Don't use negatives. 2. The Fair Pair replacement behaviors on page 61 are kind of common sense to any educator I would hope. 3. Acknowledge a child before he/she has to act out negatively because he/she has been ignored. Hey, dig this! Some schools are hiring and training extra personnel who function as individual student mentors. It is called Check and Connect. The website is in the book. Would that not be awesome?????? I'll start the fundraiser to allocate some funds! Their main job would be providing intervention that involves problem solving and social skills development. Do you think that this is what Mr. Adams does? Do you think that another member of the staff would be as effective as the teacher they spend the whole day with or perhaps be better? I think if the person is trained in the human service field, they will know what they are doing and be of great help to free you up to teach. I think many of us already practice the individualized instruction but we never put a name to it. Maybe I need to make sure and use them EVERY time. Look and see. Most of these will look familiar. 1. Individual therapies with the professionally trained: speech, occupational, and counseling. 2. Check-in meetings first thing and throughout the day to establish trust with the child and find out what is going on with the child. 3. Precorrect a behavior or predict that a behavior will occur and practice expected behaviors with the child 4. Tutoring sessions on your own time with the child 5. Teachable moments when the behavior naturally occurs 6. Video modeling - Watching a video of the student engaging in the problem behavior and then evaluating and discussing the behavior. I don't know that I would do this with the whole class. Would you? Would the child be stigmatized or learn from it? I learned of another resource again...go figure. Social Stories. Never heard of them BY THAT NAME. Maybe I used them by another name. Basically they are narratives in the 1st or 3rd person that teach social environments and how to respond in them. You can find one at the back of this book or at www.thegraycenter.org. They were created by Carol Grey in the 1990s for this purpose. 7. I think the key to this next one is not taking breaks but TEACHING the student when it is time to take a break. 8. Use differentiated instruction. Duh!

Chapter 4

This chapter gives examples of group social skills examples. One is class meetings. I love Tribes groups for different reasons. I always had one at the beginning of the week, after the long weekend. Then I ended the week with one. I know a teacher last year that had a class meeting every day. Whatever the regularity, make sure there is a structure for your class meetings and thetopic of the meeing is determined at the beginning. I LIKE THIS ONE and to tell you the truth, have not practiced it like this my whole teaching career with any regularity. During your daily lesson, each lesson should be two-fold. They should include one academic objectives AND ONE SOCIAL SKILL objective. i.e. appopriately raising a hand, modeling it, why it is important, and then providing positive reinforcemnt to students that show exhibit that behavior. Frequent positive feedback should always be countered with atleast 4 positive feedbacks if you give a negative feedback. Pay attention to that ratio so they do not get beaten down. Be specific with your praise: "I like the way you are standing patiently in line." HERE'S A DOOZY: THE SAME EXPECTATIONS SHOULD BE USED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE SCHOOL TO SEND THE MESSAGE THAT ALL OF THE ADULTS HAVE THE SAME EXPECTATIONS AND ARE IN AGREEMENT ON THE RULES. Think of how many problems could be prevented or avoided (and how much time would be saved) if every adult in the environment (including office, lunch, and recess staff) consistenly expected, reinforced, and helf students accountable for the same behaviors. There is an awesome table on page 41, Table 4.1 that is titled Common Classroom Routines. It tells about the basic behaviors that all teachers MUST cover to have a successful classroom. Give it a look at. The authors give you PD books if you want to delve further into Social Skills Resources. It also have a list of books that each library should have to open up discussion with the students. I will make sure to have atleast one of those books in each of the categories. I can also get them from other schools in the district if needed. Let me know your thoughts as your read this chapter!

Chapter 3

This chapter discusses how important behavioral skills are which the term is also referred to as social skills instruction. The problem we have is not being able to individualize specific student deficits and teaching the social skills to new situations and environments. To be successful with social skills we have to find the need or want behind the behavior. Because of those specific students the authors introduce a triangular three-tiered approach. Pretty much the first tier covers school and classroom expectations. Tier 2 is small group instruction and Tier 3 is systematic individualized REPLACEMENT BEHAVIOR TRAINING which, of course, is the most challenging to implement. With all three models we have learned to do the following: 1. Provide direct instruction of the skill 2. Opportunities to see modeling of the skill 3. Practicing the skill through role playing and other activities 4. Receiving correct feedback 5. Practice skill in a variety of settings Students with skill deficits can use the skill appropriately in one sttting but have difficulty knowing how and when to use it in other settings. These children are not behaving correctly because they CAN'T DO it until they learn otherwise. These are the students we need to teach. Then there are the students that know better but fail to do so for a variety of reasons. Could be they are internalizing anxiety or depression, competing behavior. This is where we need to find a desired scoial skill or replacement behavior.This is the WON'T DO group. The third group is the unpolished group. This group is unpolished and awkward when exhibiting the skill. These students we need to immerse in environments where they have appropriate models, have opportunities to practice, and are reinforced consistently at a high rate. The other peers are involved in improving his or her deficits. Of course, self-management is the ultimate goal. This will give them a sense of ownership and self-control. This stage is the focus of the book and the last and largest part of the book will address strategies to get them to this stage.

Chapter 2

The authors thought that the phrases: positive behavior support and functional behavioral assessment were common terms in maintaining order in our classroom. I guess I just used positive reinforcement all these years. AND I suspect that most special ed teachers have heard these terms but now these are not exclusive terms. Of course, we have known for years that positive behavior support should be proactive and not reactive. The difference I surmised between positive reinforcemnt that I have known and the PBS (above) is the the latter includes effective environments and research-validated practices. Some of the ideal environments fall on us, the educators, to increase the prevention and early intervention skills for the students.Did I say that out loud? If falls first on ME to invervene before the problem behavior is even occuring. They break down the intervention to cover the whole class. The entie positive behavior support pyramid needs to be built from the ground up, including everyone in the class. The other 5 to 15 percent will receive more intensive intervention. There are a good handful of teachers at McClure that already practice PBS and it would do well to observe them if possible. Then we get to my new term. (I have gone all these years without officially knowing this term!) I actually practiced it as I'm sure you have, but maybe you didn't know there was an official title for it: Functional Behavioral Assessment. Basically this is becoming proficient in knowing the funcions of a student's behavior when it happens and why it is happening. They break it down into three concepts: Setting events: What happened in the setting of the student's life that disrupts his education such as visitation with Dad, going on a field trip, coming back from a holiday, etc. Triggering Antecedents: In a sentence it is "the straw that broke the camel's back" The student is already suffering anxiety, etc. and you give him/her one more thing that makes him/her go off the deep end. It could be an an assignment that is too impossible for him, change in the schedule, negative memory, etc. These events will be harder to identify with nonverbals or ESL students. Maintaining Consequences: This one was new to me. This is not giving the student some type of punishment for their bad behavior. I learned that maintaining consequences means what naturally happens after the behavior to what the STUDENT gets out of that bad behavior: Could be attention, something monetary, power, sensory need, communicate feelings, not understanding or to avoid something. The authors explained each of these student consequences in the book. I found out that I have Prader-Willi syndrome...a chromosomal disorder partially characterized by a chronic feeling of hunger. (I'm glad they finally put a name to my affiction) I also found a new-fangled word for not understanding social mores: pragmatics. I used to hear that word all the time when I was young but didn't know it in context. Pragmatics is one of the biggest hurdles in cooperative learning groups and even working in whole class sessions for the student. They want us to think of Functional Behavioral Assessment simply as teachers being the detectives in decifering why the student is acting out and build up the communication code. Considering the function of the behavior will lead to more effective responses. This reminds me a little bit of Ruby Payne's Understanding Poverty. Regarding interventions by the teacher, there are four steps by the educator: Instruction Prevention Reinforcement Undesirable consequences The undesirable consequences cannot be the first step in positive behavior support in our classrooms anymore. These are the basics to the whole book. The authors will get into all of this in the following chapters. Please let me know what new terms you have learned and what best practices you are already using and what has been working. Tell me what is on your mind.