Using Behavior Systems Technology in Teacher Education Programming: Principles, Practice, and Hands-On Applications

1. Using Behavior Systems Technology in Teacher Education Programming: Principles, Practice, and Hands-On Applications TOM SHARPE, M.S., Ed.D., BCBA, ESE Spalding University John Koperwas Educational Consulting, Inc.

2. Traditions in Teacher Education: Lots of Perspectives • Quantitative Methods • --- Descriptive (Anderson & Barrette, 1978) • --- Correlational (Sweeting & Rink, 1999) • --- Experimental (Goldberger & Gerney, 1986, 1990) • Qualitative Methods • --- Interpretive (Behets, 2001; Chen, 2001; Cothran & Ennis, 1999) • --- Critical Theory (Hickey, 2001) • Applied Behavior Analysis • --- Teaching Practices (Ingham & Greer, 1992; Witt, et. al., 1997) • --- Curriculum Models (Sharpe, et. al., 1995; 1996) • --- Teacher-Training (Sharpe, Balderson, & So, 2004)

3. The Non-Application Challenge:Research Data Non-Use in Professional Practice The traditional SRC Skinnerian lens may be too narrow for meaningful application in interactive settings. • There is simply too much data from too many methodological sources to absorb. • There is a wealth of “bad” data; with the “good” data ignored or distrusted as a result. • Positivism and objectivity (e.g., ABA methods) have, until recently, been pushed aside by a relativist and constructivist epistemology. • Landrum, 1997; Sharpe & Koperwas, 2003

4. A Longstanding Pedagogical or “Teacher Training” Conundrum: Do We: Talk About How to Teach Effectively? 2. Engage in Deliberate Practice Learn-How-To-Teach Activities?

5. Two Appealing Answers We Have for Increasing Data Use and Recommending Question #2 • --1-- Interagency Collaboration • --- University and teaching professionals working together • --- Shared leadership roles in teacher-training and classroom teaching • --- Collective research and development work products • --- Mutual problem solving and mutual accountability • Co-Answering the Questions of: • --- What do we want educational settings to be like? • --- How do we get them to be that way? • Co-working Toward: • --- A co-developed knowledge base for professional preparation • --- A co-implementation of data-supported classroom practice

6. The Second Answer …As If You Didn’t Know   • --2 -- Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) • --- Repeated measures over periods of time, facilitating trend analysis • --- Treatment exposure to all participants using alternative design strategies to • control for internal validity concerns • --- Rigorous data reliability and treatment fidelity procedures • --- Multiple method compatibility (e.g., ABAQualitative Methods) • --- User friendly data analysis techniques yielding immediate application • Some Important Features • --- Based on positivism and universal truth theory of science • --- Emphasis on reliable direct observation • --- Emphasis on testability and quantitative measurement • --- Encourages careful and systematic replication • --- Private events are verbally reported through social validation • Sharpe & Koperwas, 2003; Sharpe, Balderson, & So, 2004

7. ABA Compatible Trends with Mainstream Education/Social Science(They Don’t Say What They Mean, But?) • Emphasis on procedural fidelity (i.e., treatment implementation accuracy) issues are receiving increasing attention. Complex human interaction is being more thoroughly described. • Ecological description (i.e., setting events) is becoming a central concern. • Emphasis is being placed on the scientific understanding of time-based transactional relationships among caregiver and clientele. • Interest is in developing behavioral interactions for effective therapeutic practice and for developing predictive knowledge from which to choose in specific situations. • In education, performance- and competency-based measures (i.e., behavior) are being prioritized from a daily teacher and student practice perspective.

8. What are our Ongoing Applications? • Establish select Professional Development Site relationships with public, private, and non-traditional educational and therapeutic agencies. • Logically sequence academic program coursework to include data driven guided practice and closely supervised observation, professional assisting, and professional practice activities connected to each core training course. • Develop and implement a collaboratively applied research agenda to include subject-matter content and professional implementation components, and to be sensitive to caregiver, clientele, and content characteristics. • Collect quantitative behavioral data to determine immediate and long-range effects of professional practice within and across a variety of professional settings. • Establish a data-driven technology of effective professional practice by establishing a professional preparation  professional practice  research & development feedback loop, with each activity informing and improving upon the others.

9. Toward A Residency-Based, Deliberate Practice, Behavioral Research-Bonded Approach to Teacher Education A Model from Closet Behavioral Technologists Trying to Survive Within the Mainstream Professional Education Culture  

10. Implications That Direct our Behavior Systems Approach • Increasing Innovation in Data Collection and Analysis Techniques Toward More Complete Functional Analysis of Complex Interactive Education Settings • Facilitating Laboratory Simulation Activities for Professional Training • Demonstrating that Data Matter a Great Deal in Professional Practice Decision-Making through Feedback and Goal-Setting Experiences in Applied Professional Settings • Basing Professional Practice on the Need to Know What Works in Schools Rather than the Need to Believe • Documenting and Disseminating More Meaningful and More Relevant Professional Practices for Therapeutic Benefit

11. Some Notes That Go To OurCore Philosophy • 1. It is the daily practices and related interactions of caregiver and clientele, in this case teacher and student, that matter most to an effective therapeutic environment. • 2. Most daily practices (i.e., behavior and setting events) may be strongly correlated with long-term measures of skill acquisition and learning. • 3. We want to know RIGHT NOW how effective a particular educational environment may be, and if not optimal, FIX IT behaviorally, in the near and long term.

12. A Recommended Teacher Education Progression • 1. Learn a common behavioral language designed to discuss operationally daily educational practice in ecological and situational context. • 2. Provide a wealth of laboratory simulations of effective and not-so-effective situationally specific daily educational practice. • 3. Provide a variety of residency-based, deliberate practice teaching opportunities under the collaborative guidance of trained University and practicing professionals. • 4. Disseminate current research and development information to professionals in training.

13. Once we Develop Collaborative Professional Relationships, How Do We Do All This??? • -- Incorporating a Consistent Set of: • Instructional, • Feedback and Goal Setting, and • Assessment Tool / Research and Development • Procedures into a Teacher Education Program. • -- Providing a Set of University Class Activities as Preparation for the Above Teacher Training Experiences.

14. Lineal Mechanics Rule Governed Demonstration Limited Variables Context Free Causal Connects Focus on Behavior Characteristics Field Theory Contingency Managed Discovery Multiple Variables Context-Bound and Ecologically Valid Conditional Probabilities Focus on Transactional Characteristics How to Implement our Core Philosophy From a Scientific Perspective - Unpacking ABA Through Behavior Systems Analysis

15. The Old: SRC How does behavior ‘A’ effect behavior ‘B’…how can we make related causal assumptions across these isolated discrete variables…how can we stipulate a theoretically context-free relationship? Demonstration 1-n 1-n 1-n The New: SRC How do participants stimulate or respond to particular therapeutic situations over time ... and were the particular actions effective in terms of the probability of altering certain behaviors toward desired outcomes – within and outside of the primary training setting? Discovery The Questions as Related to Methodological Capability

16. Computer Technology Really HelpsKahng & Iwata, JABA, 1998, 31(2); Sharpe, 2004, Encyclopedia of Behavior Modification and Cognitive Behavior Therapy • BEST System (7.0 & 7.1) -- Sharpe & Koperwas • Behavior Observer System -- Martin • DATACAP -- Emerson & Adrian • Data Collection Assistant -- Saunders • Direct Observation Data System -- Johnson • Ecobehavioral Assessment -- Greenwood • Event-PC -- Ha

17. Computer Technology Really Helps - Continued - • The Observer -- Noldus Information Tech. • Multi-Option Observation System -- Tapp • Observational Data Acquisition -- Hetrick • Observational Data Collection -- Oliver • Portable Computer Systems -- Williams • Professional Behavior Evaluation -- Ricketts • Virtual Behavior Analyst -- Winston

18. Lineal Mechanics Number Rate Duration Percent Discrete Recording Interval Recording Time Sampling Systems Theory First, Last, Longest, Shortest, Span Inter-Response Time Conditional Probability Multiple, Overlapping Event Recording Recording in Real Time Combining Measurement and Description Capabilities

19. Exploring Additional Measurement Lenses • Complexity: The number of different behaviors and events necessary to complete description of behavior transactions. • Rhythm: Regularity of behavior transactions with the probability of temporal occurrence the main analysis. • Coherence: Actual versus possible number of different behavioral transactions, determining the predictability of the total behavior-event system. • Velocity: Rate of behavior change. • Fluency: Correlation among rhythm, coherence, and velocity.

20. A Professional and Scientific Challenge • Overcoming the mainstream education and social science mischaracterization of the analysis of behavior as a mechanistic, linear, rule-governed, exclusionary, and largely technocratic enterprise. • Presenting the applied analysis of behavior as compatible with contemporary performance- and outcomes-based education and social science reform initiatives. • Operating from a framework of more complete analysis through: • --- Linguistic description (talk about what occurs) • --- Topographic representation (display what occurs) • --- Transactional modeling (quantify what occurs) • of complex interactive settings.

21. Again, Computer Technology Really Helps! • More complete and readily understandable data descriptions • New and alternative data lens capabilities • Immediacy of data-driven goal-directed feedback • Immediacy of across educational episode comparisons • Facilitates multiple form data collection • Facilitates multiple method data analysis • Increased data management capability for long-range portfolio construction • Facilitates data-support of professional training methods • Encourages new and alternative educational experiences designed for more effective professional preparation

22. Some Short-Term Teacher- Training Data Illustrating How a Behavior Systems Analysis Lens Operates

26. Some Long-Term Professional Teacher Data Illustrating Behavior Systems Training Effects When Used as a Long-Term Feedback Plus Goal-Setting Instrument

32. Some Long-Term Positive Social Behavior Systems Data Illustrating Behavior Systems as a Method for Documenting Effects of Innovative K-12 Curricula

38. Collection Platforms Obs. System Construction Keyboarding Collection Methods Multi-Tasking for Experimental Research Video Synchronization and File Merging Functions On-Line Data Viewing Pause and Editing Capabilities Ease of Use Analysis Platforms Discrete Measures Time-Based Measures Sequential Data Sophisticated Behavior Graph + Statistical Capabilities Individual- or Across-Data File Analyses Reliability Analysis for Staff Training and Interobserver Agreement Windows Applications Compatibility - Lets Look at the BEST Data Tools -

39. Preface and Focus Developing A Common Language Video Laboratory Experiences Feedback Strategy Examples Textbook Help (Sharpe & Koperwas, 2003) Internet Help (tsharpe@spalding.edu ) Software Tool Assistance (www.skware.com; or tsharpe@spalding.edu ) - Lets Also Look at / Make Our Own Hands on Teacher Training Applications