What I Learned

As I was analyzing baseline data of positive social interactions with peers and adults, I constantly was questioning what I could do to increase positive interactions. I was observing the student I was making notes of when the unexpected behavior was occurring. I found this was due to peer disagreements, as well as during academic times. Students would respond with inappropriate language, leading to negative interactions when told no, during unstructured social time, academic activities, and when the teacher would redirect them. Therefore, I chose the social skills of accepting no, getting a teachers attention, and expressing frustrations. As I began teaching this social skill, the student really liked being able to participate in reading the story and eventually create his own. I noticed week 8 dropped almost 8 percentage points. I would continue this intervention to ensure the student did not continue to drop percentage points and he was back on track to increasing and stabilizing the percentage.

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I have changed my intervention in order to better aid my students in the acquisition of social skills. All the research has shown me how important social skills training is and how important explicit teaching is. Social stories are a great way to explicitly teach students skills. The social story breaks down the skill into small pieces that are easy for the students to comprehend and apply. This social story also give a rationale for why we are learning, and why it is important to use this social skill in everyday situations

Changes

The data has shown me how incredibly important social skills training it. Originally I had planned on coming into contact with the students daily for a 15-20 minute period including explicit instruction, small groups, and one on one conversations. As I continued with my interventions and general education curriculum. This deemed to not be feasible in my classroom with the population of my students. I had to cut back my interactions to every two or three days in order to discuss how students are applying their knowledge and acquisition of the skill in their everyday life.
I would change the progression of the social skills. I think every two weeks was a good timeline, but there ended up to be less meeting in the middle between initial presentation of the new skill and the final evaluation and self reflection. I would continue this intervention and also align it with what other social skills are being taught by the behavior consultant during the week. Another aspect I would like to incorporate would be having the student creating their own social story. I had the students video tape and were able to watch themselves in action, but I think if they develop a social story based on a particular social skill, they will be more involved in the social skill training. Another weakness I see would be providing a rationale. I think it would be important for the student to create their own rationale and reasoning for a social skill and why we should show those expected behaviors.

Impact

The increase in positive interactions between both teacher and students meant a more positive classroom environment and better relationships within the classroom for everyone. When students are expressing their own frustrations, students feed safer around the students. Prior to the intervention, students would respond with inappropriate language, threats, and screaming at one another. As a student is growing and becoming more confident in their coping skills and utilizing them unprompted by the teacher, everyone is positively impacted. As the weeks progress, I can see relationships between the students all building and becoming stronger. We are able to engage in more activities involving team work and less teacher directed lesson. 

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This intervention has impacted me greatly as the classroom teacher because I am able to teach more content and curriculum everyday. In the past I would have to stop teaching in order to redirect students and to facilitate sensory breaks when a student was becoming agitated and upset. The students are now using those skills they have learned to remove themselves from situations that may lead to conflict. I also feel I have a more positive relationship with my students and we have built the trust up and the culture of error in my classroom to make it okay to make mistakes and learn from them not only in social situations but in academics as well. 

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