Day 4 began with Behavior Management and ended with Groups
and Group Process. I was feeling particularly overwhelmed by day four, thinking
about all the things I wanted to do in my class and not knowing what my day
will look like and with no information about my students. Only three weeks
until the first kid day of school!
The Behavior Management training looked closely at stage
two, limit testing, and stage three, active resistance. We brainstormed
antecedent, behavior (in the moment), and consequence interventions. I thought
about applying the ABC interventions to my formal lesson plans and classroom
norms so that I am thinking and planning for the behaviors that complicate
learning. Antecedent interventions are things like cues, prompts, and self-management
strategies (including data collection that the student collects themselves).
Behavior, or during the behavior interventions include things like teaching
replacement behaviors and self-monitoring. The application of positive
reinforcement through praise, group contingencies, and differential
reinforcements (token economies, contracts, etc.) are examples of consequence
interventions.
One of the principles of Re-Ed is that the group is
important. Students classified with emotional and behavioral disabilities have
often experienced life on the outside of groups because they have been removed
or kicked out. Re-ED philosophy looks at problematic behavior like we would
look at an academic or learning roadblock. The assumption is that the student
is not successful because they haven’t learned the skill (the social skill or
school skill) and they can be taught self-control. The group and learning how
to be part of a group is essential to this instruction.
During the training we discussed group development; the
forming, storming, norming, and performing process. We looked at full value
participation contracts, and various types of meetings and their structures
(goal-setting, check-in, goal review, planning, problem solving, and “positives”
meetings). The experiential activities that teachers provide, as part of the
Re-ED approach, help develop group cohesion, collaboration, and provide
students with protected environments where they can practice how to negotiate
conflict. The Groups and Group Process section of the training helped me to
contextualize the experimental education aspect of Re-ED. Before I was looking
experimental education in terms of hands-on learning, however, its really about
building groups and providing opportunities for students to practice social
skills, problem-solving strategies, and cooperative learning.
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