Htravisunc's Blog

BIP powerpoint

BIP powerpoint presentation

EDUC 517- BIP UPDATE

After looking through several of my anecdotal notes, I am realizing that I do not have that many. I believe this has a lot to do with the fact that my situation is completely and the make-up of my EC cluster. If I was not teaching, I was dealing with one of the many meltdowns that could have been taking place at that given time. Sometimes these meltdowns from other children required teachers including myself to conference with administration personnel. Sometimes this would happen for several hours and so I tried my hardest to take notes, but it was more of the mental observations as well as in the form on photographs. I was able to almost focus on the group of EC children as well as the individual. This provided me with the unique opportunity to observer several EC children, and not just one. My BIP child has had a major change in one of his behavior intervention plans which I believe has helped tremendously. He was doing very well for part of the second quarter into the beginning of the third quarter, and now he is taking a step backwards. I think that this has a lot to do with the new material that is being taught. He was doing pretty well during the second quarter in math and writing, however the topics began to change and my class transitioned into new topics. These new topics are bringing his self confidence down a bit. For example, we moved from fractions, geometry, and probability directly to number sense.

I don’t think he understands that he is not the only student having a difficult time with the new math topics because the children have not really seen two digit numbers since the second quarter. It is asking a lot of them to not really do this for about two months, and then to expect them to jump right into working with three digit numbers and be able to regroup as well. Overall, his behavior began to spiral down again because he is not as confident and becomes easily frustrated during these blocks of the day.  I have been watching this more closely as the semester is coming to a quick end. I find it interesting that something as simple as self-confidence has such an impact on this child, and his overall impact on learning. I think finding new behavior intervention plans is a constant struggle with this child, and simply adjusting and finding one that works is a good strategy for him. I feel like once he gets used to something, and understands what is expected of him we have to adjust something! I wish I was able to be here for the rest of the semester to really see the progression.

To me it is frustrating to watch him while he is not controlling himself because he is such a smart child and is capable of meeting expectations in second grade. If he continues to try has hard as he can he will reach his full potential and be able to accomplish great things. I hope after I leave he will continue to be a friendly child and reach his goals.

EDUC 517 Reading Response

After reading the article “Intervention in School and Clinic” I feel that I have a larger perspective on what rules work and what rules may not work as well in a classroom.  I think that all classroom teachers need to establish classroom rules in order to have an effective learning-based classroom. I would do this the very first day of school by allowing the students to actually create some of their own rules.  I think that it is very important to include verbal and nonverbal praise to students because a balance must be present. I believe that students need to have established rules that are predictable and fair for everyone, or else it will not work. Rules also need to be appropriate for the grade-level one is teaching otherwise they will not be able to follow them fairly.  If teachers do not fairly enforce rules then they should not be in place as a policy for the students to follow. As long as the teachers are able to enforce their created classroom management things should be effective.  There are several examples of classroom praise that are proven to be more effective than other examples. An example I use in my classroom is, “thank you So-and-so” this seems to be very effective and when the students hear the teacher calling out their name for something positive they are going to try and follow the rules because they want to be praised. There are several instances in my EC cluster where I chose to ignore students on purpose. This happens when a student who has an intervention is acting up during class and we chose to prevent a meltdown. In the end I will choose to have a minimal number of rules because it will be easier to keep track of and easier to enforce once I start teaching.  I think if children are aware, know, and understand the classroom rules they will hopefully have a better chance of following the rules. I am just excited to get my own classroom and start making rules because the ones that my classroom uses now seem to really work well! I plan to enforce many of the same rules in mys own classroom.

March 22nd BIP update…

My case study child has come such a far way since August and I am so proud of him. However, his behavior is still a major problem. He does not act like the typical second grade as far as behavior is concerned. He is still working really hard in reaching his goals each day of going home one green-which is incorporated through our PBS system in the classroom.

I have noticed so many different things that have caught my attention over the past few months. My case study child is so off and on with behavior that it makes things difficult to know when he is doing well and when he is not. Right when I believe he is improving his behavior, he’ll have a major melt down, over nothing at all.  I find it interesting that he takes everything I say to heart. I will make a reminder TO THE WHOLE CLASS and my student will automatically shut down and think it is being directed at him, which is usually not even the case. He has started this new thing where he flips his own cards, and turns his own color to yellow or red without being asked. Then he will pout and cry or sit under a desk.  It is interesting because this does not always happen, and I am still working to figure out ways so this does not happen. He is a very smart child and everyone on our team is trying to find new ways for him to succeed even when he may become frustrated.  I have had a hard time tracking behavior of this child because it is so random and he really does not follow the same patterns as he was. He used to suck his thumb and slouch his shoulders a lot more than he is currently doing which is fine, however it is not that he doesn’t do these things anymore, it is that he does them more sporadically now. That is my update and this project has been very hard to conduct because he has his own behavior plans that are so different from what I was going to try and do, and so implementing more than one is just almost impossible and would be confusing and unfair to my case study child, but I am making the best of what I am able to work with! I am thankful for such a supportive staff of special educators at my school though! They are all amazing and work so well with my PLC that I don’t know what I would do without their constant advice and genuine support.