Madison Strong
TE 405
2/19/14
Dear Mrs. Potter,
I
am very sorry to hear about your troubled students in your class. While looking at one particular student’s
case, Eddie, I noticed most of the issues explained were behavioral
problems. It seems Eddie has a very
difficult time staying on task and focusing.
He is very fidgety, as well. These
issues may be the reason behind why Eddie is not completing his assignments in
school. After going over some options, I
found a few that might really make a difference for you.
The
first option I looked at is called a STAIR assessment, which stands for System
for Teaching and Assessing Interactively and Reflectively. The purpose of completing a STAIR assessment
is so that a teacher can record and use what they observe and know about their
students. By using this tool, you will
be able to observe and record information about Eddie, which will allow you to
form a hypothesis for why he is acting out in the way that he is. Once a hypothesis is made, it can be tested
to see if that is the true reason behind his behavior. If your hypothesis is tested correctly, you
will be able to take action in order to improve Eddie’s behavior so he can
start learning more and start getting his work completed.
Once the
assessment is completed, a step needs to be taken towards having an
intervention for the student to prevent these behaviors from happening again. An idea I recently learned about is called a
mystery motivator. Like the mystery
motivator, there are many other motivational options to choose from as well,
such as a contract or other types of scheduled positive reinforcement as well. For the mystery motivator, a certain number
of days will be marked on a Monday through Friday calendar. If Eddie performs a certain behavior, such as
completing all homework assignments for that day, he will be able to look at
his weekly calendar to see if that is a day that is marked. If that day is marked, then Eddie will receive
a certain prize for behaving in the correct way. If Eddie does not complete all of his
homework assignments, he does not get to see if that day is marked or not, and
he does not receive the designated prize that day.
It is important to
stick with the form of motivation that you choose and to make sure that method
works for this student. If you do not
notice a change in Eddie’s behavior, a new form of motivation should be tried
instead. I hope this is helpful for you,
Mrs. Potter. Good luck with your class,
and I hope all goes well!
Sincerely,
Madison Strong
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