Chapter 13: Learning Environments

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I think the most important component of an environment conducive to learning is organization. Students (especially students with disabilities) are often more productive, more efficient, and better behaved when a classroom has clear expectations & defined routines. I want students to feel safe, respected, and valued. I want to create a safe and comfortable place for discussion and learning.

As far as the classroom environment itself, lots of natural light and soft colors will help to create a calm environment. Eliminating unnecessary clutter and teaching students to take care of their environment will create a learning space we can all be proud of. Relying on a combination of group tables and "safe space" seating can not only facilitate student collaboration, but also provide opportunities for personal space when needed. For parents, a separate "parent only"space would help define an even area for parents to discuss their child with me, deepening parent-teacher relationships.

Case Study
For this case study, a relatively small seventh-grade resource classroom will be examined. The majority of the students in this classroom are served through the Specific Learning Disability (SLD) eligibility category under IDEIA 2004. One student in particular, Cherie, who has an Emotional-Behavioral Disorder (EBD), seems to be at the root of the problems this class faces:

You are particularly frustrated with a seventh grade group of students that appears to engage less and less with learning and more and more with one of your highly amusing leaders of the class.  Cherie is really funny, but does not show good judgment in choosing appropriate times and ways to be funny.  Yesterday she tripped Carmen as she passed her desk on the way to get a chair for a guest in our class.  The day before, Cherie made rude noises throughout small group presentations.  Today Cherie jumped up while Tommy was reading a poem about a battle, a poem that appeared engaging to the majority of the students; she started pretending she was shooting a gun at other students.  Several joined in the pretend battle and disrupted the class to the point that Tommy could not finish reading the poem.

Evaluation of Case
The primary components that will be addressed in this case study are Cherie's social development as evidenced by Erikson's psychosocial stages and the classroom environment itself influenced by Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Understanding Cherie's social development will help predict her behavior in social settings and allow appropriate interventions to be planned & implemented. According to Erikson, her basic conflict at this stage of adolescence is "identity vs. role confusion," or the solidifying of a sense of self. Students with EBD often have trouble finding this sense of self and can face significant difficulty in this stage manifested through aberrant behaviors. Providing ample opportunity to express & discover in healthy, non-disruptive manners can help Cherie accomplish this conflict. On the other hand, the classroom environment can influence behavior in very direct ways. In Maslow's hierarchy of needs, certain basic needs must be met before others higher in the hierarchy. For instance, one must accomplish breathing before feeling secure in a relationship. This translates in the classroom as finding the antecedent of aberrant behavior and satisfying the need before such behavior occurs. In this case study, other students' behavior is preceded by Cherie's behavior; Cherie may be acting from a motive of attention, which corresponds to the "love/belonging" stage in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. In short, this need must be met before she can accomplish respect for others, a need in the next stage.

Description of Intervention Plan
With this theoretical framework in place, a tiered intervention plan involving guided choice & reinforcement for positive, healthy behaviors and functional behavioral assessment to determine antecedents & needs would most likely be effective. The first tier involves collecting data through a functional behavior assessment of Cherie during class, recording a consequence of her behavior (e.g. making a joke so the class will laugh), and inferring the need that must be met to avoid such behavior. If her behavior seeks to get attention, which it often does, providing descriptive feedback and praise for modeling appropriate behavior as well as frequent informal assessment through direct questioning during instruction could meet this need. As the least intrusive, this tier seeks to restore harmony to the classroom environment and retain engagement during instruction for all learners. The second tier provides targeted intervention for Cherie when she exhibits specific disruptive behaviors. Relaying classroom expectations as a controlled choice, such as by saying, "What I need you to do is make a decision: you can stop making rude noises and pay attention to the lesson, meaning later you can sit with your friends at lunch, or you can continue to make rude noises and sit alone at lunch," presents expectations, consequences, and self-regulation in a very clear and efficient manner. Because the student has the "choice" to behave or not to behave, knowing the outcome to expect for either choice, he or she will be more likely to self-regulate behavior. Phrasing a command this way also depersonalizes a statement, so students may not feel as singled-out. In students with EBD, this feeling is often accompanied by an increase in aberrant behavior, so guided choice gives them a sense of control while preserving ultimate control by the teacher.