Behavior Case Study: Working Towards a Goal

1. Behavior Case Study: Working Towards a Goal By: Amanda Wrench

2. Philosophy of Classroom Management • Classrooms should be managed in a way that is fair for all students. • Teachers have the right to teach and students have the right to learn. We know that classroom management is important because behavior should never be something that hinders these two rights. • Prevention is key when it comes to classroom management. If a teacher is able to prevent a child from disobeying the classroom guidelines then he or she will be better able to control the classroom.

3. Philosophy Continued… • It is not always possible to prevent the breaking of rules in a classroom so a clear set of consequences should be explained in detail from the very beginning. • It is extremely important for the children to understand the expectations, rules, and procedures. • The learning environment in the classroom should be caring, warm, safe, and supportive. • Some techniques to counter misbehavior in the classroom are redirection, appropriate reinforcers, and contracting with the student. • Use positive reinforcement as much as possible.

4. Classroom Community • A classroom community is all about creating a classroom of equal learners. • Creating a positive environment for your classroom community is imperative. The children should feel wanted and supported by everyone in the classroom. • In order for students to be successful in the classroom setting the students’ behavior must be consistent with the rules, routines, and procedures. • The diversity of each child should also be understood and accepted within the classroom. • The curriculum should be meaningful and interactive. Also providing individual instructional strategies for each child will make them feel more valuable within the classroom community. • Embedding social skills and self-control in the instructional strategies will also promote community.

5. Who’s the boy behind the BIP? • Jake is ten years old and in the 3rd grade at Cameron Park Elementary School. • He has a sister that is also in 3rd grade. • Jake repeated the 1st grade, so he is a year older than the other children in the classroom. • His mother is Caucasian and his father is Hispanic. • The father is no longer part of Jake’s life, so it is just his mother, sister, and him in the household. • He was referred for services in November of 2005 (Kindergarten) for speech therapy and occupational therapy. (A pseudonym was used for the purposes of this powerpoint.)

6. The Boy Behind the BIP Continued… • His area of eligibility for services was later changed to developmental delay. • Jake has no problems in math and would rather focus on math more than reading or writing. Reading and writing are very frustrating subjects for Jake, so he does not like to do them. • Jake tends to very easily become frustrated and then his frustration quickly turns into anger. When this happens what one would call a tantrum soon follows. The tantrums are hard for Jake to control. In the past he has broken objects, self-injured his self by biting his arm, and made self-injuring statements.

7. The Boy Behind the BIP Continued… • Some areas of concern are behavior, attention problems, and academic concern with reading and writing. • In the IEP written in Kindergarten it was said that Jake struggled to work or play with peers. He as difficulty staying in his area and often threatens others. He needs to work on getting along with others. Swearing at school is also an issue every time he becomes frustrated. Transitions also prove to be difficult. • The OT evaluation in Kindergarten showed that Jake could not grasp a pencil which explained why he would do absolutely no writing in the classroom.

8. Jake’s Strengths • Jake really likes toys from McDonald’s, candy, and Pokemon cards or Pokemon books. • He dislikes crowded areas, change of schedule, being disciplined, or accidentally being bumped into. • He is most of the time a good listener and likes to help. • Jake does an excellent job of trying to include everyone in our classroom. • Jake is always trying to share or give something of his away to someone that he thinks would like it. So, he has a giving heart.

9. Jake’s Strengths Continued… • Jake loves puzzles as long as they are not too complicated. • He thinks bugs are “really cool.” • He is amazing academically in math. He has the ability to work out problems mentally in his head without showing any work. • Jake also has a wonderful memory. Very rarely does he forget things he has been told. • Jake always does all of his homework, so he is very responsible.

10. Data Collection Method • Before the BIP began, I mostly used the A-B-C Behavior Analysis to collect my data. With this method I was able to determine the antecedent, the behavior he would show, and the consequences from it. I also included many of my own comments throughout this time. • Through the A-B-C Behavior Analysis, I found that Jake would usually have the tantrums when he was not allowed to tell us how he was feeling. For Jake, he feels better when he is able to get it off his chest so to speak. The consequences that occur when Jake shows this behavior are teacher and peer attention and he is allowed to express himself. From this data I concluded that what Jake needed was a way to still receive attention from his teachers but also a way to learn to cope with things that are bothering him on his own.

11. Data Collection Method Continued… • Right before the BIP started I began collecting data with the frequency record. This way I would be able to count the number of times he would approach his teachers. • I found just with the frequency record that Jake would approach his teachers on average 3 times during an hour during inappropriate times. After 2 weeks of the BIP being implemented, the frequency record showed that Jake only was approaching his teachers 3 times a day total. He was also beginning to learn when was appropriate to talk to the teachers and when was not. During instructional time is not the time to approach the teacher, so Jake was beginning to learn to wait during a transition period to approach us. • According to my notes, I also began seeing Jake work on his self-coping skills. So instead of Jake constantly needing to tell his teachers about what was going on, he began to learn to deal with them himself without having an emotional breakdown.

12. Behavioral Intervention Plan • The Behavioral Intervention Plan (BIP) put in place for Jake was a simple ticket system. The goal in this was to get Jake to rely on his self more to solve problems. • Before the BIP was implemented Jake wanted to constantly throughout the school day approach my CT and I to tell us what was bothering him. If one of his teachers could not listen to him right away and fix whatever was wrong, his anger would usually escalate into a tantrum. • Jake is given 4 tickets for the day. Three of the tickets are red. On the red tickets are the words ‘Jake is feeling: angry, confused, or sad.’ These are Jake’s tickets to talk to his teachers. He should circle how he is feeling with an expo marker then take it to a teacher. The teacher will take the ticket and say, ‘Okay Jake I see that you are angry. Why are you feeling angry?’ Then Jake will proceed to tell why he is angry or whatever the feeling is at the time. The fourth ticket is green, and the words on it read ‘Jake is having a good day.’ Jake is allowed to hold the green ticket up whenever he would like, and when the teacher notices that he is having a good day they usually acknowledge it with a smile and a thumbs up.

13. Behavioral Intervention Plan Continued… • This plan was implemented because Jake felt that he needed to tell his teachers every time he was having a bad day or a good day. This seems reasonable that the teacher would listen to the student to see how their day is going, but the amount of times Jake was coming up were inappropriate and starting to interrupt instruction time. We had to find a way to keep him in his seat more and how to learn to self-cope with some of the smaller things that happen. • Jake and I went over some self-coping strategies to help calm him down and deal with the little things on his own before coming to his teachers. He has to learn to choose which things he can deal with and what he needs to come to us about. • The green ticket can be used as much as needed, but if Jake can go throughout the day having to only use the three red tickets to tell us how he is feeling he will receive a piece of candy. If it gets to the point where Jake has used all of his tickets but still wants to tell us what is wrong, we allow it he just will not get his candy at the end of the day.

14. Behavioral Intervention Plan Continued… • After the BIP was implemented, we found that another issue was occurring. When Jake would have an outburst of anger, he would use curse words. To hopefully encourage him, we promise him a special blue raspberry blow-pop sucker if he can make it through the day without a breakdown emotionally or using curse words. • Other approaches were tried with Jake before this particular one was implemented but none of them worked. The hope is that you can create a plan where you wouldn’t have to bribe a child to do as they are supposed to, but with this particular child material items work. • The responsibility is placed on Jake to turn in his tickets, and he does an excellent job with this. There are times when he has a sudden tantrum. After the tantrum is over, he will bring a ticket to us and say ‘I think I need to use a ticket for earlier.’ It took a while for Jake to understand how to use the tickets, but he fully understands the concept now.

15. Progress Jake Has Made • Student Progress: How did you monitor your student’s progress? What were the results of the intervention? Where would you go from here? • Jake’s progress was monitored throughout this whole process. Before the BIP was put into place, I mostly took anecdotal notes and frequency records. The frequency records before the BIP showed that in an hour time span Jake would approach his teachers on average at least three times. The anecdotal notes showed that if at any point Jake was not allowed to talk to his teachers and to go back to his seat a tantrum would soon follow. • When the BIP was first implemented the records did not show much of a change in the frequency of Jake’s approaches to the teacher.

16. Progress Jake Has Made Continued… • After a week of the BIP being in place, the records showed a slight difference. Where as the first frequency record showed three approaches in an hour, now we were counting on average one approach an hour. • After two weeks with the BIP we were only having about three approaches a day. This is exactly what we were hoping for. Of course not everyday is perfect. We sometimes have more than three tantrums a day, but when this does occur we explain that tomorrow is a new day and we can try for a candy again. • One aspect that is encouraging for with this BIP is that we can tell Jake is trying his best and this is all we can ask.

17. Technology • The biggest task for me was to find ways to get Jake to calm his self down. It was specifically for these reason, I searched the internet. The main websites used to find excellent strategies were: • http://www.allforkidsindia.com/allforkids/Resources/stress.aspx • http://www.ldsuccess.org/parent_guide/how_can/emotional.html • http://notquitecrunchyparent.blogspot.com/2007/07/self-calming.html • http://www.nncc.org/Parent/ga.angry.html

18. Looking Back… • Working closely with just one student really can open yours eyes to just how much influences their lives. I feel that sometimes we as educators do what I would call teach on the surface. Because there is so much to teach and so many children to teach it to, we do not always get close enough to our students to learn what makes them who they are and why they operate the way they do. I found through this case study that getting to know the children in your classroom is vital. From getting to know one student closely through this case study, I can see that it must be very difficult to know all of the children at the same deep level, but it is necessary. Also just showing you care can go a long way in the eyes of your students.

19. Looking Back Continued… • After reflecting back I can also see where I could come up with a BIP for all of my students. A BIP for all students would be beneficial for the classroom but it is just not realistic. The maintenance of a BIP is tedious work. The important thing to remember with a BIP is keeping a lot of records and taking the time to analyze the data. A BIP is not helpful if you do not do these things. There is no way to know if it is working or not if you do not keep records. • Although making and implementing a BIP may be a lot of work, the BIP for Jake was very helpful for the whole classroom. He can now focus better in class and the community of the classroom is more accepting of him because he is having less tantrums. Also the teacher is allowed more time for instruction because they are being interrupted a lot less. • Because of this experience I now feel comfortable creating a BIP for anyone of my students.