How did you act in school?

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How did you act in school?
Margaret Gessler Werts, Ph.D. Appalachian State
University Boone, NC National Resource Center
for Paraeducators Salt Lake City, Utah April
28, 2005
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Why do we care about management of behaviors?

• Purpose
• Maintain pleasant environment
• Reduce stress
• Be conducive to learning

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Terms

• Behavior is what you do-
• Good or bad
• Right or wrong
• Helpful or useless
• Purposeful or useless
• Misbehavior is a behavior that is considered
  inappropriate.

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Prevention

• Getting attention from the class
• Dont talk over them
• Give a signal
• Establish a signal for the classroom o
• Use an established signal
• Announce your readiness to start and wait
• Wait is 3 to 5 seconds (not minutes)
• Waiting can involve a signal
• Have your materials ready so students are NOT
  waiting for you

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Reductive techniques for inappropriate behaviors

• Request vs. reprimand
• Only use a question when you will accept No as
  a response!
• Get up close

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Reductive techniques for inappropriate behaviors

• Use a quiet voice
• Look em in the eyes
• Give them time

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Reductive techniques for inappropriate behaviors

• Ask only twice
• Give one request at a time
• Describe the request

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Reductive techniques for inappropriate behaviors

• Be non-emotional
• Make more Start requests than Stop requests
• Verbally reinforce compliance

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• Have extra materials for student use
• (Contrary to popular opinion, this is not
  heresy.)
• Have materials for students who may need them
• Pencils break
• Paper becomes used in another class
• People forget

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Floor space

• Spaces to sit that provide enough personal space
• Space to fit instructional style
• Whole group instruction (consider the size of
  whole group)
• Small group instruction
• Individual instruction
• Independent work

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• Reduce distance and barriers between you and the
  students
• Furniture arrangement should allow motion around
  the room
• Seat students so they can see you and you can see
  all of them.
• Proximity controlstudy shows the proximity of
  adult in classroom resulted in increased time on
  task with academic behaviors

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Needs

• Privacy of instruction vs. need for observational
  learning
• Talking among class members vs. cooperative
  learning
• Acoustic properties of room (noise considerations)

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Learning centers

• Are students able to benefit for independent work
  time?
• Adequate space for working
• Space to access materials
• Space to spread out

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Methods for maintaining attention

• Pace of the instruction
• To increase academic learning time,
• Begin class on time
• Minimize housekeeping tasks
• Minimize transition times
• Have follow up assignments ready
• Have re-teaching plans ready

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Motivation

• Assign some part of the sessions as a
  reviewbuilding in praise opportunities
• Direct instruction when needed
• Give directions on steps to be taken
• Model but do not complete work for a student

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Reinforcement

• Golden Rule for Reinforcements
• Any selected reinforcers should
• Not cost a lot
• Not take a lot of time
• Should be a natural consequence
• A reinforcer must be important to the student.
• An artificial reinforcer must be faded

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IFEED-AV

• I Immediately
• F Frequently
• E Enthusiasm
• E Eye contact
• D Describe the behavior
• A Anticipation
• V Variety

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Behavior Modification Primer

• Behavior is controlled by consequences.
• Antecedent events foretell consequences.
• Reinforcement increases the likelihood of the
  behavior.
• Immediacy of application of the reinforcer is
  important.
• Extinction takes time.

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• Intermittent reinforcement strengthens the
  possibility of having the behavior reoccur.
• Cessation of reinforcement leads to extinction.
• Immediately following cessation of a reinforcer,
  the behavior escalates.

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• Behaviors can act as their own reinforcers or
  there can be unknown reinforcers acting in
  concert with the assigned and given reinforcer.
• Punishment of behavior will weaken the schedule
  of occurrence.
• Punishment is the removal of positive stimuli or
  the application of aversive stimuli.

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• A conditioned reinforcer is one that becomes
  associated with a previously established
  reinforcer.
• An aversive stimulus decreases the probability of
  a behaviors recurrence.
• Negative reinforcement is relief from aversive
  stimuli.
• Response cost is procedure for the reduction of
  inappropriate behavior through the withdrawal of
  reinforcers contingent on the behaviors
  occurrence (a fine or penalty).

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• A contingency is the relationship between a
  behavior and its consequences.
• Differential reinforcement of other behavior is a
  procedure in which reinforcement is delivered
  when a target behavior is not emitted for a
  specified period of time.
• Overcorrection or exaggeration of experience of
  appropriate behavior can result in decrease of
  inappropriate behavior

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• A reinforcer can satiate.
• A reinforcer must be reinforcing.