Web conference archive: Managing and improving behavior in inclusive educational environments

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December 2010

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51:43

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In the classroom

Archive of the web conference “Managing and Improving Behavior of Students in Inclusive Educational Environments,” which took place Dec. 6, 2010. This web conference accompanies the article by the same name.

Transcript

Automated Voice (00:00)

Recording started.

Bobby Hobgood (00:04)

Good afternoon and welcome to this, the third in a series of web conferences corresponding to the Learn North Carolina series, “Reaching Every Learner: Differentiating Instruction in Theory and Practice.” This afternoon we are pleased to have with us Dr. Edward Sabornie from NC State University, who is the author of the article that we will be discussing this afternoon.

(00:30)

Dr. Sabornie is in the College of Education of NC State University and it was our privilege to meet with him, to ask him some questions about his work there related to this article, and, in addition, we’re very grateful to Dr. Sabornie for sharing with us, some video, that he uses in an online course and some animations that were created related to this topic this afternoon. So would you all join me in a virtual round of applause and welcome Dr. Edward Sabornie from North Carolina State University, Dr. Sabornie.

Edward Sabornie (01:07)

Thank you, thank you very much Bobby, thank you everyone for the applause. Welcome to today’s session. I hope you can learn something from what I’m about to discuss and — and answer some of your questions. I would just like this to be a very informal discussion if that’s possible. So be relaxed. Grab a beverage of choice. I have my decaf coffee here in front of me. Enjoy the presentation and I’ll, I will attempt to answer any of your questions that come up at the end.

(01:46)

I hope that you can see my pointer on the screen on the white board. I’m pointing at the title of the presentation this afternoon. Excuse me. This material that I will be discussing is from the Scheuermann & Hall text called Positive Behavior Supports for the Classroom. The complete citation for this text is at the bottom of the article that I submitted to the Learn NC website that you all, I hope, have read.

(02:19)

Another good text is also cited in that list of references. It’s the Alberto Chartman text, titled Applied Behavioral Analysis for Teachers. That’s also very good, related to this topic today. In one other article by John Meg, cited, the complete citation of the Meg article in 2001, about the disuse of punishment in the classroom. That’s also another good source for you to broaden your knowledge about this particular topic. So those are all included in the article, and you can look at those at your leisure, those citations.

(03:06)

Here’s the introduction that Dr. Hobgood provided with regard to today’s session, don’t need to belabor that. Here’s a picture of who I am. I’ve been on the faculty of NC State since 1989. I love it here. It’s the best place in the world, as far as I’m concerned, for a faculty member. You can see that I have all three of my degrees in Special Education, all from the University of Virginia. I like to say that that’s the only place that would have me. But Special Education really is my only area of professional interest that has existed for quite some time.

(03:52)

And you see some other things. I’m the Editor of Exceptionality. This is the peer review journal of special education. I’m the Senior Author of this textbook, and as you can see, there are and I’ve written quite a few other things, peer-review journal articles, textbook chapters, and so on. And presently, in on the contract to create another textbook in classroom behavioral management that should be coming out in 2010 — or, I’m sorry, in 2011 or 2012.

(04:29)

So let’s talk about some of these guiding principles that I have related to creating your own personal behavioral management system in the classroom. You’ve read the article, I hope, and in that article I gave you some very technical things to keep in mind to create a positive classroom climate, to organize the classroom well, to set the rules properly, and to engage in effective instruction and behavioral management by keeping in mind certain practices that were — that are related to specific research.

(05:09)

These guiding principles are sort of like the personal side. There are other additional things that are related to some of my own classroom teaching experience. I was — I spent five years in the public schools of Virginia teaching special education in a self-contained classroom at an elementary school and then for three years in a cross-categorical research room classroom at a high school. Some of my comments that I’ll be providing with regard to this personal aspects of classroom management come from my own experience. But a lot of this comes from the Scheuermann & Hall text and they are the ones who provided these guided principles.

(05:50)

And so we see the first slide here: Changing inappropriate student behavior requires changing teacher behavior. So here’s what I’d like to say about that. These guiding principles are worthy of your consideration, simply because they add a little personal side to your instruction. They add something beyond the recommended procedures, they add your own personal way of doing things.

(06:20)

And as teachers, we all have our own personal way of doing things. We all inject our personality and our way of doing things into how we teach. And so these can help you in addition to the already mentioned researched-based or evidence-based literature in the article. Changing inappropriate student behavior requires changing teacher behavior. That’s pretty obvious when you think about this, but, typically, many teachers’ responses to challenging behavior in the classroom are related to how they blame others for what a student does in the classroom.

(07:08)

Teachers frequently blame the student. They look for student-centered explanations when the teachers encounter inappropriate behavior in the classroom. For example, teachers may attribute a student’s non-compliance to the student’s family, not enforcing limits on the family, not teaching the student that he or she must follow teacher instructions. Given this, it might be sobering to many of you to realize that as teachers, we are often the catalysts for the escalation of undesirable classroom behavior. Of course, the opposite is also true; teachers’ behavior also facilitates appropriate behavior among students.

(07:58)

The little things that we say to our students or we do not say, what we acknowledge or ignore in the classroom, the behaviors that we smile at or frown at, how we encourage or discourage, and so on, in the classroom. All of these things have an impact on students’ behavior. Therefore, your personal behavior as the teacher plays a central role in shaping students’ responses.

(08:32)

Next, you see the caveat. What I just mentioned is related to some good news and some bad news. The bad news, unfortunately, is that it is likely that the teacher’s actions are contributing directly, in some way, to students’ misbehavior. Teachers often do things typically with good intentions that actually serve to foster a reinforced, undesirable behavior.

(09:05)

A good example, I mentioned in the article, where teacher attention is directed toward student misbehavior. When students look to be noticed when they want teacher attention, often times they will misbehave. That’s the bad news. But the good news is that the knowledge that you have as the teacher that undesirable behavior is related to something that you are doing gives you an edge, gives you an advantage.

(09:40)

When we understand and we can identify our own teaching behaviors and how those contribute to the escalation of problem behavior, we can change it, we can change our own behavior. And I think that’s good news by the fact that we — the fact that we as teachers can change our own behavior, and in doing so, that affects in a positive direction student behavior, that’s good news, that’s a good thing. That’s a good thing.

(10:12)

Next we have guiding principle two. Some students require more time, more attention, and structure than others.  Everyone knows that who’s been in the classroom. All teachers know this. Students, individual students are different, right? Because of this, some students require considerably more resources than others. Some students need more teaching time and attention than their peers. Some students need more on the way of external control and support, more structure, or more frequent feedback about their behavior in order to regulate their own behavior.

(10:55)

What this all means is really quite simple. What works for most students is often not effective or is insufficient for students who exhibit chronic behavioral challenges in the classroom. Students with behavior challenges require differential management techniques, more structure, and possibly more individualized instruction. So the individualized instruction would be above and beyond what is effective with the majority of students.

(11:31)

Most data suggest that from one to ten percent of the student population in all classrooms across all levels fall into this category where they need some more time, attention, and structure than others in order to perform behaviorally the way you, the teacher, would want in the classroom. So, I talk about that in the LEARN NC article, and there’s quite a bit of instruction and direction for you, the teacher, to use if you have students who need more time, more attention, more structure, more techniques from your toolbox that allows you to be successful with these students.

(12:27)

Now here’s the caveat. Keep in mind the difference between classroom management and behavioral interventions for individual students. I want to differentiate between classroom management and behavior interventions for individual students, if I may. Effective teachers need to understand and need to know how to use both types of management systems. You need to include your personal touches, and you need to include the evidence-based procedures and techniques that allow for effective classroom behavioral management.

(13:04)

For most situations, especially for students who have behavior problems, in all types of classrooms, a positive, proactive classroom management system will be sufficient for maintaining an orderly, safe, and productive classroom environment. However, some students, because of their behavioral challenges, will need more intensive, individualized interventions above and beyond what is used for the group.

(13:38)

If you recall reading the article that I submitted, I talk about classroom rules there, a little bit. Students who cannot follow classroom rules consistently will need more intensive, individualized interventions. Those classroom rules work well for most of the group, but there’ll be individual students who will need more assistance. And for these students, the group classroom rule system is insufficient to encourage appropriate behavior and discourage inappropriate behavior.

(14:10)

For these situations, and for these students, you will need functional, behavioral assessments; you will need behavioral support plans, behavior intervention plans. I discussed those briefly in the article. Guiding principle three, which is students exhibit both desirable and undesirable behaviors for a reason. It’s called, in other words the reason is the function of a behavior.

(14:43)

There are usually one or more reasons for a child’s undesirable behavior in any classroom. If you are able to ascertain the reason or the reasons for the behavior, you are more likely to design intervention strategies to address that reason, increasing the likelihood of effective intervention. As a simple illustration of this principle, that — the principle that a behavior occurs for a reason, consider Ralph, one of my favorite students, who’s a fourth grader who makes noises as if he were passing gas during classroom transition times.

(15:29)

You know what I’m talking about. Students carry on, do this, do this type of inappropriate behavior from time to time. Every time that Ralph makes these sounds, his classmates laugh, think it’s funny. They think it’s great, and Ralph is reinforced for that. Ralph’s teacher told him numerous times to stop making those noises, and even sometimes sent him to the principal for disciplinary purposes.

(16:03)

However, Ralph persisted in exhibiting the misbehavior largely because he liked being the center of attention from his peers. He liked them laughing at what he was doing. He liked being a comedian, and their laughter was very reinforcing to him. Because of this, he would continue to make those sounds. And as long as his peers continued to laugh, he would continue to make the sounds even though there were negative consequences associated with that, that the teacher used to attempt to eliminate his behavior.

(16:41)

Well, what needs to be done for Ralph with this particular behavior — and this is, again, is an application of personal, a personal ** in addition to the evidence-based techniques and approaches — what you need to do is show Ralph there are more appropriate ways or replacement behaviors that can be used, and he can still receive his peers’ attention.

(17:11)

Teaching replacement behaviors was mentioned in the article that I submitted. It’s not enough just to eliminate an inappropriate behavior, what you also need to do is to show the student there’s a replacement behavior that is available that is likely to result in the same kind of reinforcement. The example with Ralph making those noises would be where a teacher showed Ralph, let’s say, a book of jokes and he said, “Ralph, take a look at these jokes and whenever you feel the need to have your peers pay attention to you, why don’t you tell some jokes instead of making that noise?”

(17:51)

That’s just one simple example, I know, it’s not very complicated, but, as I said previously, it’s not just, it’s not enough just to eliminate inappropriate behavior, you have to show the student the value of replacement behaviors that serve the same function as the inappropriate behavior and that meet with an equal amount of reinforcement for him or her.

(18:20)

Moving on to guiding principle four now, many behavior challenges reflect learning difficulties. Most students look to please, and they generally do the best they can. Research has clearly shown that students who exhibit high levels of challenging behavior respond positively when provided appropriate interventions, including interventions designed to aggressively alleviate deficits in basic academic skills and interventions to teach students more appropriate alternatives for their misbehavior.

(18:55)

It’s important for you to understand that the more academic failure that exists in any classroom at any level, the greater the likelihood of undesirable behavior in that classroom will exist. Of course, the reverse is also true. The greater the level of academic success, the fewer the undesirable behaviors will occur. So, I want you to keep in mind, too, this caveat: that the vast majority of students with high-incidence disabilities, those that create real behavioral problems in regular education classes in addition to special education classes, these students have learning difficulties. And many of their learning difficulties lead to inappropriate, overt behavior in the classroom that you find troubling as the teacher.

(19:52)

I want you to also keep in mind this: The majority of behaviors that students who misbehave demonstrate are not inappropriate, but they are appropriate. In other words, most of the time, students who misbehave are engaged in displaying and demonstrating appropriate behavior. So remember — I talk about this in the article — remember to reinforce those students pos — with positive reinforcement when they behave appropriately, and don’t hold a grudge against them, as I talk about in the article. Don’t hold a grudge against them just because they misbehave once in a while, and you have to remind them of the appropriate behavior that they should display. Most students who misbehave show appropriate behavior most of the time. There are a few exceptions of course with some severe behavioral problems that exist in some students, but they are certainly in the very small minority of all students in every classroom.

(21:02)

Here’s guiding principle five now. Students seldom misbehave out of, out of the blue. So most inappropriate behavior is predictably linked to specific contexts and activities. Consistent, challenging behavior is not a random act that just happens. It typically occurs in the presence of certain, predictable environmental events that you, the teacher, have control over.

(21:34)

These events may be examples such as working in small groups — that doesn’t work with some students — the transitions between one activity, one academic activity and another, those transitions are typically filled with behavior problems if the teacher does not control those adequately, or when students are asked to work independently, that sets the stage for inappropriate behavior that is linked to that particular type of activity.

(22:10)

So keep in mind that certain activities, if you are — if you have teacher with-it-ness, we talked about that earlier, if you have teacher with-it-ness and you understand what you are doing and how that affects student behavior, you can do what you can to control the antecedents and the consequences that lead to misbehavior. And that’s the caveat here. The informed teacher knows about the triggers, those are the antecedents, and the maintainers, those are the consequences, that lead to misbehavior. And if you, the teacher can have better control over your triggers and maintainers that are associated with inappropriate behavior, you can control, consistently, most inappropriate behavior and misconduct that is demonstrated in the classroom. It’s as simple as that. It’s not rocket science. If you know when problems occur, and you go — you plan instruction in the classroom to eliminate those triggers and maintainers, appropriate behavior will result.

(23:29)

Lastly, guiding principle six. It’s more efficient and more effective to change student behavior by using positive strategies rather than punitive ones. I talked about this in the article and I’m going to just briefly reiterate that results of research indicate that focusing on school and classroom management strategies that promote positive social behavior and academic success for all students is essential to preventing discipline problems. Responding to inappropriate behavior requires a lot of your teaching time and attention. The extent to which inappropriate behavior can be prevented gives you more time to teach and students more time to learn.  What you have to do is rely on proactive management approaches — I talked about those in the article — so that prevention is more likely to occur and greater success follow.

(24:39)

It’s easier for a lot of teachers, unfortunately, to use punitive approaches, particularly for students with chronic, undesired behavior. We know that punishment that works. Teachers realize that and they use it. And they also find teacher — teachers also find that using punishment is much easier than catching kids being good and reinforcing them for doing so. Unfortunately, we have to change the perspective of many teachers to understand, and if you read that John Meg 2001 article, you’ll see what I mean. We have to change the perspective of many teachers to understand that punishment should not be the first intervention that is used to interrupt or eliminate inappropriate behavior. That should be the — punishment should be the last intervention. And if you read the article, you saw what should precede the use of punishment.

(25:50)

And this also, this also falls into place with the zero-tolerance issues. The notion of zero tolerance in schools — you know all about I’m sure — this originally referred to applying uniform suspension and expulsion policies for serious school-based disciplinary infractions involving weapons, drugs, violence, you know what I’m talking about here. Over the years, zero-tolerance policies have expanded to mandate harsh, harsh punishments for a wide range of rule infractions, sometimes even encompassing minor behaviors that are clearly not dangerous. And you can see this on the nightly news shows. Zero-tolerance laws and policies require educators to administer these prescribed consequences regardless of the effectiveness of those consequences in remediating the problem.

(26:55)

So here’s the caveat: The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA, 1997, changed the thinking of intervention to a more proactive, positive remedy. And IDEA was re-authorized in 2004, too. And this was brought to the attention of me, again, in 2004. Given the ever-increasing knowledge base about the efficacy of positive, proactive approaches, there is now a steady trend towards greater reliance on positive behavior supports and school-wide positive behavior supports as the preferred method for school discipline.

(27:39)

That’s a big improvement over the days when I was in the classroom for those five years. With the re-authorization of IDEA in 1997 and then in 2004 again, there — what was associated with the re-authorization was this increased awareness of the concept of positive behavior support and requiring that behavioral intervention plans based on positive behavior supports and school-wide — and school-wide positive behavior support programs need to be developed for students who exhibit behaviors that interfere with their own learning or the learning of others. And so this new thinking and understanding how successful positive behavior support programs are school-wide and in individual classrooms, teachers now have other tools that can be used and work more so as a team to eliminate individual students’ inappropriate behavior, and that’s a good thing.

(28:45)

So, in closing, if you can understand that all of these things that were mentioned in the article — and these personal touches that add to or serve as an addendum to that article — if you can keep these in mind and if you use, as I mentioned in the article, the COP principle: “C” means consistent behavior on your part as the teacher, the “O” means setting up an orderly classroom environment, and the “P” means predictable, your actions are predictable when you see students’ behavior. If you keep the COP principle in mind, keep your own personal philosophy, that I hope is related to what I just mentioned in this, in these six principles, and understand the notions and the various techniques and interventions I mentioned in the article, classroom behavior management need not be a nightmare for you, and effect — and effective — and with these, with this knowledge you can be more effective. Without having success or classroom management, behavioral management, it’s hard to be a very successful academic teacher in any content area.

(30:08)

Okay? Thanks for your interest folks, and your attention. You see my email address here? If you wanna contact via that method, that’s fine. You see my voicemail phone number, feel free to contact me with anything. Let’s turn now to the questions.

Bobby Hobgood (30:31)

Okay, Dr. Sabornie. Thank you so much. It was nice to have this complement to the article this afternoon to deepen our understanding of the article. We’ve been receiving a number of questions here in Chapel Hill, and I’m going to turn the mic over to Emily Jack. Who’s going to get us started with some questions this afternoon. Emily.

Emily Jack (30:50)

Hi Dr. Sabornie. The first question comes from a teacher who writes, “Please advise on how to help a child who cannot sit still during circle time. His body has to move, and he cannot seem to control himself. Right now I have him hop out — I have him hop up and down in the classroom ramp, and that helps. But with snow and cold weather, what can I do in a classroom to help this child’s body become still? I have a disk he could sit on, but I feel he’d play with it.”

Edward Sabornie (31:22)

Very good question and a common, let’s say, behavioral problem in many classrooms, especially with very young kids. Here’s what I would suggest from the behaviorist’s perspective. What you have to do is use what I always consider a procedure similar to the differential reinforcement for lower rates of behavior that I talk about in the article, and reinforce the student with a strong enough reinforcer for shorter — for a short period of time when they are not being physically active. Reinforce them with something that the student really likes. Ask the student what he or she would like to work toward. Reinforce them for staying reasonably inactive for a short period of time, and then gradually increase the period of time where the student is still working for the reinforcement, but has to remain inactive, physically inactive for longer and longer and longer periods of time.

(32:34)

Now, keep this in mind, too. Don’t lose patience with this approach. This is new to the student. He’s trying to do what he likes, that is, be physically active, and it’s going to take some time. This will not happen overnight, but if you tell the student, “Here’s what I’d like you to do. I would like you to sit still in your place in circle time just like this.” And you model for him what you mean by sitting still in place during circle time. And say to him, “Okay, if I stay like this for one minute, I will receive this reinforcement. I will receive this thing that I like. I will receive some extra time playing with my friends during recess,” or whenever. And what you do is have the student understand that something good will occur after he stays physically inactive for a short period of time. Initially, take some baseline observations and see how long he can stay still and use that for the first level of reinforcement.

(33:43)

And, then, after the student gets the hang of receiving the reinforcement for those short periods of time, lengthen the time period and say, “Okay,” let’s call him Ralph, “Ralph, you can get the same level of reinforcement you got before, but now, instead of one minute, it has to be a little bit longer,” here, and then a little bit longer, and then a little bit longer over time, so that eventually he understands that it’s good for me to stay physically inactive because I will get what I want if I follow the teacher’s directions and she or he follows up with reinforcement. That’s how I would do it.

Emily Jack (34:24)

Thank you. A follow up question: What do you tell other students who want to know why this student is getting a reward and they are not?

Edward Sabornie (34:34)

Good question. Again, this comes up every time. I teach two classroom management courses, both at the graduate level here at NC State, and this question comes up every time I teach the course. It’s no surprise that someone would mention this now. And here’s what I tell the students in my courses and what I will reiterate here: We have different environments, different places, different things that we do require different behaviors. And we see, in every environment in which we frequent, students or people engaging in various inappropriate and appropriate behaviors. For some people who are in the same environment — I mentioned this previously, just a little while ago in the presentation — for some people in the same environment, they may need extra assistance. They may need — they may need extra attention. They may need extra reinforcement.

(35:40)

And because all of us are different, one student needs a different amount of reinforcement, a different type of reinforcement, a different amount of teacher attention in order for that person to be successful. And, in various environments, some students don’t need assistance, other students do. Well, for the student who’s misbehaving and needs reinforcement to behave appropriately, other students have to realize that that’s what this student needs — needs to be, to be successful. I don’t personally need that to be successful. I would like to have that reinforcement, yes, but it’s not absolutely necessary because I can be successful on my own without teacher attention. And teachers need to reinforce other students that are not receiving the extra attention and that are not receiving the extra reinforcement. The teacher has to be ** to reinforce those students, too, when they are behaving appropriately, when they are following the rules, when they are doing what the teacher expects.

(36:52)

And what the teacher’s doing in this situation, in essence, is spreading the wealth. Catch kids being good. Some kids will do anything for teacher attention, and if they’re doing things that are good, by all means, reinforce them. Don’t ignore someone else. Just because someone is getting something extra, doesn’t mean that you ignore all the other students when they are behaving appropriately. Some students need extra help, others don’t. All students need to realize this in the same classroom. And the teacher has to direct similar attention toward the other students who are not receiving the extra help when they are behaving appropriately so that they can see and experience the kind of teacher attention that’s being directed to the student who needs something extra. I hope that answers your question. That’s really a very simple situation if you remember to catch all students being good, reinforce them. They — they don’t get something extra that this one particular student may, but you tailor-make it for each, individual student. And effective teachers know how to juggle this, and get teacher — get students to respond by directing attention to students when necessary, even though it may be unfair because one other student is receiving something extra.

Emily Jack (38:26)

Thanks Dr. Sabornie. Another teacher writes, “In kindergarten and first grade, I see behaviors that I feel like have an underlying psychological purpose, that I have a hard time teasing it out from young children, especially when families can’t give me more insight. Do you have any developmentally appropriate ways to ask the question, “Why do you do that?”

Edward Sabornie (38:51)

Another good question. I’ve heard this one before. Let me answer your — let me answer this question from the behaviorist’s perspective. It’s not necessary for an effective teacher to know why someone does something in a particular classroom that’s inappropriate. The behaviorist’s perspective means that we’re not concerned about “why.” We’re concerned about manipulating the environment, changing the environment so that the behavior itself doesn’t occur, or it occurs less frequently, or doesn’t occur at all. The “why” is not important. The “why,” I mentioned this earlier, the function of the behavior is related to, from the behaviorist’s perspective, the environment that you, the teacher, set up. It’s, by having effective classroom physical organization — I talked about that in the article — by setting the classroom rules and being consis — following them consistently, setting up the orderly environment and having your behavior be predictable. You must not be — don’t spend so much time trying to psychoanalyze why things happen.

(40:13)

Take that time spent at analyzing “why” to think about rearranging the environment to eliminate the inappropriate behavior, whether it’s your behavior that needs to be changed — oftentimes it is, as the teacher — or the physical environment that needs to be rearranged, or the schedule needs to be rearranged. I would say, as the teacher, we don’t know enough about the psychological underpinnings of inappropriate behavior. We don’t know enough about the “why.” There may be some deep-rooted psychological problems in existence in some children.  But as teachers, we’re not psychiatrists. We can choose students’ behavior by taking control of the environment in which the student resides; that is, the classroom.  And by changing, by manipulating the environment to eliminate some of the triggers and eliminate some of those maintainers of inappropriate behavior, you can be successful.

(41:19) 

I know through my own five years of experience in the public school classroom, I asked myself the same question, why these things happen all the time.  And I remember someone told me the same thing I just told you. I remembered that, you know, it’s wise to think about what you have under your control. You cannot control a student’s underlying psychological difficulty. What you can control is classroom environment, so manipulate that so the inappropriate behavior is less pronounced or eliminated.

Emily Jack (42:03)

Thanks Dr. Sabornie. We’re going to move away from specific case questions now and pose the question: Given the various techniques for positive reinforcement and differential reinforcement, what suggestions would you offer for keeping track of what techniques you use and how frequently you use them with a particular student? Is it a good idea to keep that level of record for individual students?

Edward Sabornie (42:29)

Another fine question. Teaching in the classroom today, at any level, with any type of student, with any content area, is very difficult. There are a lot of records to be kept. You have to worry about annual progress in your students, end-of-grade tests, end-of-course tests, and student performance. I would say don’t bombard yourself with record-keeping in terms of what works or what doesn’t work. Find — what you need to do in changing any student’s behavior is take some baseline-level measurement. Baseline-level measurement is simply observing and recording the behavior to see, at the naturally occurring state, how frequently the behavior occurs, how long it lasts, how intense it is. Take note of that. There’s a whole another lecture that could go along with this particular paper and presentation related to defining and measuring behavior. If you get the baseline measurement, and you look at how frequently or how long a particular behavior lasts, that’s a good starting point in keeping a very small amount of record or records, to keep in mind, or keep in hand to determine the effect of any intervention, that would be subsequent to taking baseline level measurement.

(43:58)

What you would then do is try something that you think might work to increase or decrease a particular behavior, you’re going to increase appropriate academic behavior and decrease classroom inappropriate behavior, obviously. So, take baseline measurement, see how frequently it occurs, how long it lasts, intervene. Give the intervention a chance work. Don’t just do it once and say, "Oh this doesn’t work, I’m going to try something else." With problem inappropriate behavior, you have to be patient, you have to let things run their course. And I would say at least a week of this particular intervention you were thinking of applying, see how it works after one week, then decide to keep going with that same intervention, or go to plan B. Have a back-up intervention or treatment that you would want to use to either increase the academic appropriate behavior or decrease the inappropriate overt behavior.

(45:09)

Give them enough time, see what effect it has on the behavior in comparison to what it was like in baseline and then go from there. It’s not necessary to have an extensive Excel worksheet and graph to supplement your record-keeping for student behavior. It’s nice to keep track with as minimal hassle as possible but still be effective. I would be much — I would recommend much strong — well, let me say this: I would recommend that teachers spend much more time looking at the actual implementation or the fidelity of implementation of the intervention rather than the paperwork or the record-keeping. It’s necessary to keep some records, but don’t get so overwhelmed with that, that that becomes the end, rather than your attempt to change a student’s behavior.

Emily Jack (46:17)

Thanks Dr. Sabornie. We have time for one more question, and it’s another question about a specific case. A teacher writes, “What about a child who will tell you flat-out that he’s not going to do the work? No matter what I do, he won’t do it.”

Edward Sabornie (46:36)

Another fine question. They all, my gosh, these have been great. Another fine question. The student is total — is a totally non-compliant student. Teacher hands the student work, he says, “I’m not going to do it.” Well, again, if you remember what I said in the article, don’t jump to punishment immediately. Start out with differential reinforcement. Say to the student, “Okay, in the past you’ve been not so eager to do the work I assigned. But today, let’s try something new, let’s try something different. If you do the first third of what I assign to you, what would you like as a reward?” Ask the student what he or she would like to work towards that is easily applied in your classroom. You don’t have to buy them a new BMW. Just ask them, “what would you like to work toward? If you just finish the first third of what I have assigned for you, I’ll give you this reinforcement if you finish the first third.”

(47:47)

Again, keeping in mind that you want the student to pick what they would like to work toward. If you make your reinforcement strong enough, the student is likely to work for your reward. Okay, so the student does the first third. He says, "Okay, I did the first third! Where’s my reward?" You immediately reinforce the student and say, "Okay, now you’ve got the first third done and I’ve reinforced you, let’s try the second third. Now if you do the second third, you’ll get the same reinforcement that you got after the first third.” Finishes that, deliver the reinforcement immediately thereafter, say, "Okay, now let’s do the third, the last third." Hopefully, he does the same thing. You deliver the reinforcement.

(48:37)

What you have to show is if you break an entire, lengthy assignment into smaller parts, and you reinforce the student, it’s called reinforcement successive approximations. You’re not reinforcing for the entire product, you’re reinforcing the first third of the product, then the second third, then the last third, or you could do it in quarters. Don’t say, "Here’s the whole thing, you have to finish this whole thing in order to get reinforcement." Start small and work into bigger and bigger or larger and larger sections of the work that you are trying to assign. That’s, I have students who have constantly said, "I’m not going to do this," they would throw it back in my face, say "You’re crazy if you think I’m going to do this," especially with the secondary level students that I taught.

(49:34)

But I simply said, okay, what’s more likely to occur here, the student doing a little bit, or the student doing a lot? And I was able to — with many, not with all, but with many — I was able to help them complete some work by breaking it into smaller parts for completion, reinforcing after those smaller parts were completed, and then working from there. Again, you have to be patient with this. It won’t work overnight. Because the student has a history of noncompliance, you have to keep in mind its long history has been very satisfying to the student. He or she gets out of doing work. But what you have to do is show them a little bit is all you need to do in order to get reinforcement that you like and then build from there. Make the little bits larger and larger and larger over time. With strong enough reinforcement, it can work.

Bobby Hobgood (50:36)

Thank you Dr. Sabornie. I’m going to ask everyone if you would join me in a virtual round of applause for Dr. Ed Sabornie from North Carolina State University, the Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Counselor Education in the College of Education. We really appreciate, Dr. Sabornie, your thoughts, your expertise, in the article, in the videos, and in your remarks this afternoon, including the responses to the questions that were asked. There were other questions asked, and I’m sure that there are many more. Unfortunately, we are out of time. However, Dr. Sabornie has graciously agreed to accept your questions via email and phone, you notice his email address and phone there on the slide, so please take advantage of his offer to respond to those questions. We thank you so much for participating this afternoon, and I’m going to stop the recording.