Behavior Management Project



BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT PROJECT

DESCRIPTION AND GUIDELINES

SPED 818

John W. Maag, Ph.D.

Instructor

Department of Special Education and

Communication Disorders

University of Nebraska-Lincoln

The purpose of this project is to give students practice targeting behaviors to change, recording their occurrence, graphing them, and developing and implementing a reinforcement program (i.e., intervention) for increasing a student’s appropriate behavior. The following steps and guidelines should be followed when developing, implementing, and writing up your behavior management project.

Projects should be submitted to the instructor as a .pdf document. Please take a picture of the “Checklist” with your initials under each area for which you followed. Also take a picture of all materials used. You should scan into the .pdf document your original recording sheets, graph, materials, and original lists of reinforcers.

Practicum

Students must concurrently be enrolled in a university-placed practicum in order to successfully complete this project. The practicum must be with students with a minimum age of 4 ½ to 5 years old through high school aged students. The setting in which the project is conducted must be at a school and consist of planned, structured academic-related lessons or activities. The only exception to being in a practicum is if the student is already teaching or is a paraeducator at a school.

Instructor Feedback

I will provide feedback to students on the operational definition of the target behavior selected, correctness of the proposed recording technique, and appropriateness of the intervention up until two weeks before the official due date specified in the syllabus. Students may e-mail me anytime throughout the semester with questions on the project up until one week before the official due date. I do not read rough drafts.

Verification

On a separate piece of paper, students should include the name of the school at which their behavior management project was conducted, the name of the teacher in whose class the project was conducted, and the phone number of the school. Please scan this paper and include it with the behavior management .pdf document. The instructor will be calling each teacher to verify the authenticity of the project. No projects will be graded until this information is provided. Failure to provide verification information will result in the loss of ten (10) points.

Permission

Very rarely will you need parental permission to conduct the project. The reason is that you will be engaging in activities that may be typical to those in certain school routines and activities. However, you can access the parental permission if required by your cooperating teacher or school administrator. Even more rare is requiring teacher permission; although in the unlikely event you may access that form as well.

OVERVIEW OF THE STEPS

Here are the five steps involved in completing the behavior management project. A more detailed description of each step follows.

1. Select a student for the project.

2. Select a target behavior.

3. Select a recording technique.

4. Develop an intervention (i.e., reinforcement program) using a method described in Chapter 9 of your textbook.

5. Graph the behavior—5 consecutive sessions of baseline followed by 5 consecutive sessions of intervention.

Selecting a Student

Select one student from your practicum site for intervention. You may select a student either with or without disabilities. Do not use the student’s real name—make one up! Your must target a behavior to increase for the selected student.

You must select a student between a minimum age of 4 ½ or 5 years of age up to students who are high school aged. The student must be in a school classroom where planned structured academic lessons or activities are being conducted. You may not use children who are in after school programs or non-academic preschool programs or daycares. Try to select a student who regularly attends school. You do not want to be placed in a position where you have to switch students repeatedly because he or she is not regularly attending class. You may observe the student in a variety of contexts: during independent seatwork activities (e.g., writing answers), during a cooperative learning activity, during lunch, during recess, or while the teacher is presenting information to the class. Where you observe the student will depend on the behavior(s) you target for intervention. The description of the student should be two paragraphs long.

The first paragraph should start with the sentence: “The student I selected for this project is . . .” Then make up a name for the student. You should provide the age and grade the student is in and the school he or she attends. Also give the name of the student’s primary general education teacher and special education teacher—or which ever apply and their impressions of the major areas the student you selected needs to work on.

The second paragraph should start with the sentence: “The reason I selected (student’s pseudonym) was because . . .” Then give the primary reasons for selecting the student. Include a brief description of the student’s strengths and weaknesses and what interventions (if any) had been tried and their relative effectiveness/ineffectiveness.

WARNING: Sometimes students enrolled in SPED 818 are in the same classroom for practicum but perhaps on different days. For this project, students cannot do their project on the same student for any reason!

Select a Target Behavior

Selecting a target behavior is extremely important. You may select either an academic or social behavior. Either way, you must target a behavior to INCREASE!

Here are some examples of academic behaviors:

• Number of correct answers written

• Number of sentences written

• Number of words correctly spelled on a piece of paper

Here are some examples of social behaviors:

• Raises hand before talking

• Smiling

• Asking questions

• Answering questions

• Following directions

• Saying please and/or thank you

• Words spoken aloud

You may be tempted to target “on-task” as the behavior to increase. However, remember that “on-task” is not a behavior but rather a student’s status. Therefore, “on-task” would have to be operationally defined such as:

• Writing answers

• Gluing and cutting with scissors

• Asking/answering questions

• Drawing or painting

• Putting together puzzles

If you select “on task” do not target “eyes on teacher/materials.” The reason is because “eyes” on anything is a passive behavior. Furthermore, simply because a student is looking at a teacher doesn’t mean he or she is paying attention—he or she could be thinking about anything unrelated to the lesson or activity.

Do not make the mistake of targeting subjective cognitive states as behavior. For example, “listening,” “attentiveness,” “engaged,” and “reading” are not behaviors but rather cognitive states that we cannot directly observe. Do not target these for intervention.

Also, it is extremely important that you select a target behavior that will give you continuous data. For example, “number of correct answers written” will yield you either a number or percentage to be graphed. Therefore, it is an appropriate target behavior. Conversely, targeting number of assignments turned in for math won’t work. The reason is because, for each day, you will only be able to record either a “0” or “1”. The same problem exists for “number of times the student is on time to math class.” In this case, you do not even have a number to graph but rather “yes” (on time) or “no” (tardy).

Only provide the definition of the target behavior in this section. Your definition should be one sentence long. The exception is if you are targeting a behavior that requires defining the movement cycle such as in “raising hand” and “following directions.” In these instances, you may use three to four sentences to cover all aspects of the movement cycle. Any other background information should go in the one paragraph description of the student. However, after defining the target behavior, you should provide one paragraph containing a description of how your target behavior passes the Stranger test, So what test, Dead man’s test, and is a fair pair. Here are some guidelines:

Stranger test: If the behavior is operationally defined using objective instead of subjective words, it passes the stranger test.

So what test: If the behavior to increase will specifically enhance the student’s academic or social well-being, it passes the so what test.

Dead man’s test: If a dead man cannot do the behavior, it passes the dead man’s test.

Fair pair: If the behavior targeted to increase results in an incompatible inappropriate behavior decreasing, then it is a fair pair.

Recording the Target Behavior

After operationally defining your target behavior (and ensuring it passes the tests stated above), you are ready to observe and record it. The recording technique you select will depend on the target behavior. Please access the sample recording sheets. You should make a .pdf of all original recording sheets used for the project and include them in the final .pdf of your project. Here are some general guidelines for the type of recording technique to select:

Frequency recording: Behaviors that can be defined with a specific movement cycle such as hand raising, saying words (e.g., please, thank you), and asking a question. Do not use frequency recording for behaviors that occur infrequently but go on for a long period of time (e.g., writing an essay) or that cannot be defined with a movement cycle (e.g., on-task).

Duration recording: Behaviors that can be defined with a specific movement cycle but do not occur often such as writing an essay, giving a speech, or writing answers to story problems. But when they do occur, they last for longer periods of time.

Latency recording: The only behavior that lends itself to latency is targeting the speed with which a student follows directions. For this behavior, you need to consider two factors: (a) establishing a ceiling effect and (b) dealing with teachers who repeat the same direction in a short period of time. Students should download the “Criterion” document from Bb to obtain this information. NOTE: The information on how the ceiling for following directions was established should appear in the recoding section of the project.

Permanent product recording: Academic behaviors such as number of correct answers written, number of words or sentence written, or number of spelling words written correctly on a piece of paper. Students’ worksheets become the permanent product recording that you will copy and attach with your project. If worksheets have the same number of problems or questions, then the number of answers written may be graphed. However, if the number of problems or questions varies from worksheet to worksheet, then the percentage of answers written should be graphed.

Interval recording: Behaviors that cannot be defined with a movement cycle (e.g., writing an essay) or the behaviors reflecting “on-task.” You must state in your project whether you used partial, whole, or time sample interval recording and the reason for selecting it.

You should state which recording technique you used and provide a rationale for why you selected the specific recording technique. You should also state the length you selected for the recording sessions. You want your recording sessions to be long enough that, during intervention, you are able to capture at least 10 times the target behavior occurs or 70% of the intervals. In addition, you should scan and attach all your recording sheets, and label them as baseline and intervention phases, to your completed behavior management project pdf. You will first be recording 5 consecutive observations of baseline followed by recording 5 consecutive observations of intervention. Be sure each recording sheet has the dates(s), time(s), and settings observations took place as well as being marked “baseline” and “intervention” corresponding to the two phases.

Regardless of the recording technique, be sure that the length of your recording sessions stays constant. For example, if you choose to record for 20 minutes, then each recording session must be 20 minutes long. You can’t have a recording session for 15 minutes, then 10 minutes, and then 20 minutes. That would be misleading. For behaviors that occur infrequently, you’ll want longer recording sessions. You may have more than one recording session per day.

Developing an Intervention

An “intervention” is simply a way to administer positive reinforcement. You may ONLY select an intervention described in chapter 9 of the textbook. You may modify one of the interventions upon first getting approval from the instructor for doing so. Here are some guidelines for selecting the type of intervention program:

Token economy: Use this intervention only if you have more than one behavior targeted for intervention. For example, if you targeted “on-task” as involving (a) cutting and pasting, (b) writing answers, and (c) asking/answering questions, then you may use a token economy. Be sure to follow the guidelines that appear in the handout entitled “A Token Economy for Nancy Miller”. If you only have one behavior targeted (e.g., hand raising), then use one of the novel approaches such as a chart move or compliance matrix.

Behavioral contract: Use this intervention if you are targeting older students (i.e., middle school or high school) who may find the other techniques too “childish.” You may also want to use a contract if the most powerful reinforcers are those which the student would only have access to at home. If you use this technique, you must involve the student in all aspects of the contract’s development and implementation and be able to describe in your paper the nature and extent of the student’s involvement.

Group-oriented contingency: Use this technique if you wish to involve the other students either to engage in the same target behavior as the one selected for your student or want other students to be involved in the delivery of reinforcement. Either way, you will only record and graph for your student.

Novel applications: Use one of these techniques if you only have one target behavior. Students who want to modify any of the novel applications must first consult with the instructor and get his approval. Most students will be using one of the novel approaches such as a chart move. Do NOT start the intervention section of your project with “The intervention I used was a novel . . .” Instead, state the specific novel technique you used (e.g., “The intervention I used was a chart move.”). Take a picture of all materials used, make a .pdf the same size as the paper (i.e., 8” x 10”) and include it as the last page (before the scoring summary).

Regardless of the intervention, you will go through the same five-step process to obtain reinforcers:

1. Ask the student what he or she would like as reinforcers and write them down. If the student says “I don’t know,” then access one of the reinforcement surveys online.

2. Observe the student to see what he or she likes to do when he or she has free time and write those things down.

3. Ask other teachers/adults what they think the student likes and write them down.

4. Combine the lists into one and omit any redundancies.

5. Have the student rank order which reinforcers he likes with one being his favorite, two his next favorite, and so on.

You must include all three original lists and the student’s rank ordering of the reinforcement list in your project. Failure to include these lists will result in the loss of points. However, students can type the final list into the body of their paper in the intervention section. They should be scanned and included in the final .pdf project submitted.

Here are the steps for describing your intervention.

1. The first sentence should state which specific intervention you used. If you used a novel application, state which one you used, such as a chart move. Do not just say “Novel application.”

2. Provide a reason for selecting the intervention (the reason should tie back to the target behavior).

3. Give the time(s) and day(s) the intervention was in effect.

4. Describe how you generated reinforcers and attach all lists.

5. Provide the day(s) and time(s) the student received the reinforcers.

6. Describe how you developed the criterion for the student to receive reinforcement (use the “Criterion” document and follow its guidelines for the type of behavior you targeted).

7. Describe the process you went through explaining the intervention to the student and soliciting his or her input where appropriate.

8. State what materials you used and attach them. Take a picture of all materials, scan it, and attach it to the final .pdf version of your project.

IMPORTANT: You want to describe your intervention (the procedures, steps, materials, etc.) with enough detail so that a teacher unfamiliar with what you did could implement the intervention correctly just from reading your description. Put another way, you want to describe what you did in as much detail as an instructional manual for setting up an entertainment center. Therefore, your intervention description should be six short paragraphs long—on paragraph each for numbers 2 – 7 above. Number 1 can be combined in the paragraph with number 2 as can number 8 be combined in the paragraph with number 7.

Graphing the Target Behavior

You should graph at least 5 consecutive sessions of baseline followed by 5 consecutive sessions of intervention. Remember, you may record more than one session per day if you have selected a target behavior that reoccurs during the time you are at your practicum. For example, you could run three 15-minute observations back-to-back taking no more than a 10 second break between observation sessions. Or, you could have 20 to 30 minute frequency recording sessions back-to-back to observe the target behavior of “hand raising.”

You should re-read the information on pages 128 and 129 of your textbook as well as examining Figure 6.2 to familiarize yourself with all components of a graph that must be included. Obviously, Figure 6.2 has the four phases of a reversal design. You will only be using an AB design. However, the essential components of constructing a graph and correctly marking and labeling it are the same. Here is a helpful hint if you are using interval or time sample recording procedures: The vertical axis should begin with the words “Percentage of Intervals . . .” followed by the target behavior. I have provided you with a blank graph toward the end of this document. You may want to make several copies of this graph in case you make a mistake. Some students are tempted to use a computer graph program. That is fine as long at the computer print out of the graph is identical to the one appearing in Figure 6.7 of the textbook. I have included a file on Bb on making Excel graphs. If you draw the graph by hand, make sure all lines are drawn with a ruler and words are printed neatly. Points will be deducted for sloppily put together graphs. You should scan your graph and include it in the final .pdf behavior management project document submitted.

Conclusion

Each student should write a two paragraph conclusion. The first paragraph should include a summary of your findings, reactions your student and cooperating teacher had to the implementation and results of the project, and road blocks you encountered. The second paragraph should contain your reflections on what you believe to have implemented well and what you would have done differently, in retrospect, to have improved the project.

Grammar

Students will be awarded points for proper grammar and lose points for improper grammar. Proper grammar involves the following:

• Use of all complete sentences with noun-verb agreement

• Correct use of prepositional phrases

• Correct punctuation and spelling

• Avoiding run-on sentences

• Using all objective terms throughout the project and not just when describing the target behavior

• Proper use of headings (see use of headings in this document)

• Proofing the paper for typos

Checklist

I have provided a checklist. This checklist will ensure all the essential features of the behavior management project are followed. Students should initial each area and include the checklist with their behavior management project. It should be scanned and included in the final .pdf of the submitted project. Students will receive 3 points if everything initialed on the check sheet has been incorporated into the final submitted project. Each area that students initial but does not correctly appear in the paper will result in the loss of one point. If one area is incorrectly initialed, then 1 point will be lost, two incorrectly initialed areas results in the loss of 2 points, and three incorrectly initial areas will result in the loss of all 3 points. Students who do not include all contact information (name of teacher, school, and phone number) will lost 10 points from their final score.

Bonus Points

Students may be awarded between 1 and 3 bonus points (at my discretion) for developing and implementing a highly creative, visually appealing chart move. You should take a picture of the entire chart and corresponding materials and include it in the final .pdf of the submitted project. Failure to provide a picture of the chart move and related materials will result in no bonus points being awarded and also points being deducted from the “Intervention” section for not including materials

Scoring Summary

A scoring summary appears at the end of this document. Please include the scoring summary in the final .pdf document of your project. It also summarizes the categories and criteria for which students receive points.

USE OF HEADINGS

You should organize your paper using headings. A heading is the title to the different sections of your paper. Headings should appear in bold and be flush against the left margin. Your written description for each section will begin below each heading and the first sentence of each paragraph should be indented. Your entire paper should be double spaced. Students should use the following headings to organize their paper:

Student Selected for Intervention (2 paragraphs)

Target Behavior (1 – 4 sentences and 1 paragraph on the behavior passing the tests)

Recording Technique (1 paragraph)

Intervention (6 short paragraphs or as many paragraphs as needed to cover all areas)

Conclusion (2 paragraphs)

In addition, the following information should be included:

• Recording sheets (respectively labeled “baseline” and “intervention”)

• Graph

• Checklist

• Scoring sheet

• All materials related to the intervention

Checklist

This checklist will make sure you have included the necessary information in your behavior management project.

Information Student’s Initials

1. Paper is double-spaced in 12 pt. “Times New Roman”

font.

2. Pages numbered (typed) in upper right corners

3. Include a cover sheet with the student’s name,

course number, and course title.

4. Headings are used for each section

5. Student description is two paragraphs

6. Target behavior section begins with

“The behavior I targeted was . . .”

7. Recording sheets included and each are

labeled baseline and intervention

8. Intervention selected was one described

in Chapter 9 of the textbook—no exceptions!

9. Intervention section begins with the sentence:

“The intervention I selected was …”

10. Intervention includes all information described

in this document.

11. Graph is neatly printed and drawn using a ruler.

12. Conclusion is two paragraphs.

13. Scoring summary is attached.

14. Contact information included.

Scoring Summary

Description of Student (3 points) points

Description is 2 paragraphs long: (1) student’s

pseudonym, age, grade, school, primary general

education and special education teachers’ names,

and their impressions of areas student needs to

work on and (2) reasons student was selected

and his/her strengths/weaknesses, interventions

tried and their effectiveness/ineffectiveness.

Operational Definition (3 points) points

The target behavior(s) should be operationally

defined using objective rather than subjective

terms. Behaviors that were recorded using

either frequency, duration, or latency recording

techniques should include a movement cycle.

Tests (4 points) points

You should describe how your target

behavior passed the Stranger test,

So what test, and Dead man’s test

and is a fair pair.

Recording Sheets (3 points) points

All original recording sheets attached and tallied

correctly (e.g., interval sheets should included the

percentage of intervals). Include a rationale for

recording technique selected, and length of time

target behavior was recorded, and marked

either “baseline” and “intervention.”

Intervention Description (15 points) points

A description of the intervention should include

the steps listed in this document and copies

of all materials. The original list of rank

ordered reinforcers must be included.

Accurately Graphing Behavior (4 points) points

All parts of the graph should be correctly marked

and drawn neatly.

Scoring Summary (con’t.)

Conclusion (3 points) points

Two paragraphs long: (1) summary of

findings, reactions of both target student

and your cooperating teacher, road

blocks and (2) reflections on what

you implemented well and what you

would have done differently -- do not

say you would start the project earlier

Grammar (2 points) points

Complete sentence with non-verb

agreement, correct use of prepositional

phrases, punctuation, and spelling; run-on

sentences avoided, objective terms used

throughout project, proper use of headings

Checklist (3 points) points

The checklist is attached and all information

from the checklist is included in the final

project.

Total Points Possible: 40

Bonus Points (1 – 3 points) points

Development and use of creative,

visually appealing chart move,

picture of chart move and

materials provided.

Total Points Earned points

Graph

[pic]

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