Reinforcement to Increase Appropriate Behaviors Case

Reinforcement to Increase Appropriate Behaviors Case essay assignment

Reinforcement to Increase Appropriate Behaviors Case essay assignment

Amaury Perez is a veteran adapted physical education (PE) specialist at Everglades High School in the Collier County Public School District located on the southwest coast of Florida near Naples. A typical school day starts around 7:15 a.m. for Amaury as he parks his car in the parking lot at the school building. Amaury enters the spacious gym and is comforted by the still quietness of the warm early morning. He enters the PE office and sits down at the computer to make a few edits to his lesson plans and to quickly check his e-mail messages. At 8:07 a.m. each morning, like clockwork, Ms. Marjorie peeks her head in the office door to speak and offer a smile. Marjorie is a paraeducator who works with Amaury throughout the school day. She is attending evening classes at the local university to earn a K–12 PE teaching certificate.

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Everglades High School was opened in the late 1990s. If you were to spend some time there, you would notice how teachers at Everglades High demonstrate consistent teamwork and collaboration across subject areas. This spirit of community and teamwork is due primarily to the excellent motivational and leadership skills of the school principal, Mr. Holmes. The school has a culturally diverse student body, faculty, and staff. The student population is 12% African American/Black, 3% Asian, 14% Latinx and Latin American immigrants, 68% White, and 3% others. The community is made up of mostly low- to middle-class families and has a dependable parental support base regarding the school’s academic mission and athletics.

Under Mr. Holmes’s leadership, Everglades High has established several community-focused after-school programs, such as the popular English courses designed for adults for whom English is a second language. In addition, Mr. Holmes has convinced his faculty and staff of the benefits and importance of including students with disabilities in the general education curriculum. Ms. Pity, the general PE teacher at the school, is supportive of inclusion and depends heavily on Amaury’s expertise in teaching the children with disabilities. In fact, Amaury was hired to help ensure effective inclusion practices took place in the general PE classes at the school. They usually divide the classes by gender, with Ms. Pity taking responsibility for the girls and Amaury taking the boys. He has students with various disabilities included in his classes, such as those with asthma, autism spectrum disorder, diabetes, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, hearing impairments, learning disabilities, intellectual disabilities, speech and language impairments, and physical disabilities such as cerebral palsy and spina bifida.

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Amaury has the assistance of Ms. Marjorie and periodic visits from Stephanie, the speech pathologist. Amaury is a 34-year-old male who is originally from Puerto Rico. He earned a master’s degree in adapted PE at a flagship university in Ohio. He is finishing his seventh year at the school and enjoys teaching physical education and coaching for Special Olympics. Amaury is very organized and seems to be a motivated worker. His knowledge of sports and fitness is impressive. Amaury’s enthusiasm and charming personality shows when he teaches. He enjoys talking and interacting with the students, and he gives lots of praise to students who behave in appropriate ways. However, if a student does misbehave, Amaury quickly intervenes to stop the misbehavior using a firm voice and expressions of genuine disappointment in the inappropriate behaviors. Yet Amaury is careful that he never criticizes the student; rather, he identifies very explicitly what the inappropriate behavior was and what the student should do as an alternative. In his classes, although he seldom raises his voice, Amaury is the dominant force. He uses his professional training, knowledge, and charm to get the most out of his students. He is always in charge and has remarkable self-control. At times he is direct and assertive, whereas at other times he can be caring and sensitive to the needs, interests, and abilities of his students.

Although Amaury leads the class sessions, he invites Ms. Marjorie’s input and comments. She is willing to assistant in any way she can and will add her comments now and then. But for the most part, she gathers the equipment to set up for the lesson, assists those students with disabilities who need hands-on help, and helps train and direct the peer tutors in their roles. Amaury and Ms. Marjorie work well together.

The ninth-grade students change into their PE uniforms in the locker room. They are required to wear an Everglades Eagles’ short-sleeve shirt and black shorts or sweatpants. For various reasons, changing clothes can become a very difficult time for these ninth-grade boys. For example, Shawn has cerebral palsy and sometimes needs help unbuttoning his shirt. Carl, a boy with autism spectrum disorder, sits and stares at the wall, and the other boys without disabilities are busy screaming and yelling as they are geared up for the sports games they hope to play. When class is over, and it is time to change back into their regular school clothes, the locker room experience can get even more hectic. The boys argue about having bad attitudes or even about a particular sequence of events that occurred in one of the games they were playing.

Amaury knows that the daily arguments, teasing, and chatter that occur in the boys’ locker room must be handled in an effective and thoughtful manner. So, he decides to have an awareness talk1 with all the ninth-grade boys. He explains to them that their locker room behavior is completely unacceptable and that because many of them have not listened to his warnings, he will implement the “quick change and no talking rule” (Hodge, Lieberman, & Murata, 2012). For all students, he then went on to explain what the “quick change and no talking rule” was all about.

1. No talking in the locker rooms, unless it is to help a peer. If you do help a peer, you can earn one point on the tally sheet.

2. If you talk, then you lose at least one point from the tally sheet. However, if you do not talk while changing in the locker room, you can earn one point.

3. If you quickly change your clothes and find your position on home base within three to five minutes, you earn one point.

4. If you show enthusiasm and team spirit by cheering and demonstrating good sports behavior throughout the class period, you can earn up to three points.

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5. If you participate fully in the planned activities without need for a warning from Mr. Perez or Ms. Marjorie for any type of inappropriate behaviors throughout the class period, you can earn up to three points.

6. If you have earned less than five points by the end of the week then you will visit the talking bench2 with Mr. Perez or Ms. Marjorie for a 1:1 conference; students earning less than three points will have a conference with Mr. Perez, and he will call their parents to discuss any inappropriate behaviors or lack of participation, enthusiasm, or other concerns.

7. If you have earned ten or more points by the end of the week, you earn a chance to get one item out of the prize bag. Prize bag items included gift certificates to the local bowling alley, gift certificates to local fast food restaurants, movie passes, and other things teens like.

Amaury randomly but regularly monitors the locker room during changing times. He records students’ behaviors as he walks around with a pen and a tally sheet on a clipboard. Marjorie keeps track of the tallies for the girls’ locker room and also tallies behaviors during the class period. The students all know how they can receive or lose points, and most of them go out of their way to make sure that they earn a prize by the end of the week. The tally sheet consists of several categories: quick change and no talking, helping others, enthusiasm, participation, team spirit such as cheering for a peer, and good sports behavior.

This token economy system,3 combined with a response costs strategy, was implemented to encourage the ninth-grade students to change clothes in the locker room quickly without arguing and unnecessary talk. In addition, all students could earn prizes for appropriate behaviors such as participating in planned activities and showing enthusiasm, good sports behavior, and team spirit. The strategy is working very well, as there are fewer arguments and more time for actual game play. In the days ahead, Amaury plans to make fewer random checks contingent on the boys’ continuing to show that they can behave appropriately while in the locker room and change clothes quickly and quietly.

Facilitation Questions

1. What was the most critical issue in this case? What were the related issues?

2. What were some of the specific elements that contribute to these issues?

3. Who were the characters in the case? What role did the characters play in creating and solving these issues?

4. How would you deal with the issues that Amaury identified in this case?

5. What would you do to address the locker room concerns? What were the specific inappropriate behaviors? What strategies would you have used?

6. Why is it important to create a positive relationship with students, as well as fellow coworkers? How might Amaury’s relationship with Ms. Marjorie impact his inclusion pedagogy and behavior management strategies?

7. How do you go about creating positive relationships with students and coworkers? Is this more or less difficult to do with those who may be viewed as similar or different from yourself (i.e., students with disabilities or ethnically, culturally, or linguistically diverse groups)?