Curriculum Guides for Academic Interventions

Running head: CURRICULUM

Curriculum Guides for Academic Interventions Meghan Powell Grand Canyon University <SPE 558> March 27, 2013 Strategies used: Student Engagement & Peer-Assisted Learning (Center for Innovations in Education, 2006) Educational Purpose: Student Engagement: To keep the student actively engaged will keep them away from having time to behave inappropriately (CISE, 2006). . It will also keep them from wanting to veer away from the educational activity. The key word here is actively.

The goal or objective here is to engage the student actively, meaning we aren’t just keeping him/her busy, we are talking to them, asking questions, getting them to participate in the educational activity, as well as getting them to want to participate in the activity. Keeping the student with EBD actively engaged throughout an entire activity can be done. It’s not easy, but can be done. Peer-Assisted Learning: With peer-assisted Learning, the student with EBD proves to be showing high levels of engagement.

The goal or objective here is to use peer-assisted learning strategies (PALS) to put together a reader and a coach to practice skills needed to complete the tasks. In many cases, positive effects were shown when using PALS but in some cases, the results were mixed (CISE, 2006). Mixed results were found when PALS was used with reading and students with EBD demonstrated that there were only moderate gains in reading achievement, slight improvements for some in time spent attending, and no improvement in inappropriate behavior during instruction CISE, 2006). Task Analysis:

Survival sign matching with flashcards: The students will come into class and see their orange folders out on the main tables. They know their orange folders have their indoor, outdoor, and workplace survival signs in them. We will start with the outdoor signs. The game we usually play is where the students first lay out all of their cards on the table; keeping them separate from other student’s cards. The next thing we do is the teacher holds up one card at a time. The students have to say which sign it is and then find the corresponding sign in their pile of flashcards.

Whoever is the first one to find the card gets to put a tally mark up by their name on the board. Whoever has the most tally marks gets to pick out of the treasure box after the game is over. We will do this with the indoor and workplace signs too. The tally marks start over with each change in signs; indoor-outdoor-workplace. This task is great because you get the students interacting with their movements, their words, and it keeps them from thinking about inappropriate behaviors.

This is also great for when a student can’t find the sign, another student helps them locate it. Sign language with flashcards: We will do this with all of the students sitting around the large table. The teacher has a big pile of laminated pictures with a picture of someone signing the picture. The teacher will hold one up at a time while the students sign what it is. Some students are taking a little bit longer to learn them than other students are so there is a lot of peer-assistance going on in this activity.

The teacher will go through the whole pile and keep the ones where most students showed difficulty, to the side so those will be the focus for next time. This engaging activity again, gets the students moving, and checking with each other to make sure they are doing the right sign. The kinesthetic learning keeps students with EBD too occupied to think about inappropriate behavior. With the teacher responding correctly to the students actions is key (Yell, Meadows, Drasgow, & Shriner pg. 325, 2009).

Possible Interventions: We try to stay away from a reactive management style but sometimes things don’t go as planned. Rules need to be set right away in order for students to follow them and stay actively engaged. If there are ground rules set in place in the beginning and students are held to high expectations of following those rules, there should be no problem. But sometimes, there still is. If you have to change or stop the behavior after it has already started, make sure you and the other students stay safe. Get the other students out of the room or in nother area where they cannot be harmed if this is the case. Talk calmly with the student who is acting inappropriately and ask them what they are feeling and how we can make it better. Once the student has calmed down and the environment is safe again, the other students may come back in. Giving them space and time to cool down is a great idea. Student Assessment Procedures: To assess the students with the two flashcard tasks, keep a little notepad with you and mark down who seems to be getting all of the survival signs and sign language movements and which ones are struggling with what.

This would be a great thing for a paraprofessional to do. Data collection is key information on what to teach the students next and who can move on or not. For the students who are having a harder time, with the survival signs especially, they may need to have a little bit of one on one time either with the teacher or with a paraprofessional to get a more focused work session in. sometimes the struggling student does better in a one on one setting and sometimes students prosper in a group setting. Without trying both, we will never know how they like to learn.

References Center for Innovations in Education (CISE) (2006). Teaching Reading to Students with Emotional Behavioral Disorders. Students with Reading and Behavioral Needs. Retrieved on March 26, 2013 from http://www. studentprogress. org/doc/ReadingandEmotionalBehavioralDisorders. pdf Yell, Mitchell L. , Meadows, Nancy B. , Drasgow, Erik, Shriner, James G. (2009). Evidenced-Based Practices for Educating Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders. Chapters 14 & 16. Pearson Education, Inc.