INTASC Standards Reflection

(Behavior Management)

The first objective in the course, Behavior Management, stated that students would be examining incidences and case studies of behavior management and investigating possible causes and solutions. This statement coincided with the first principle in the INTASC standards. This standard states that beginning teachers should create learning experiences to make them meaningful to students. In our Behavior Management classroom, we discussed different situations and case studies to attempt to discover causes of those situations as well as solutions for them. Doing these kinds of activities helped prepare me as a student teacher to incorporate real life situations into my lessons so that my students would have a better understanding of what I taught them.

In this class, I also worked with different types of assessments, including teacher-made assessments, state assessments, and functional behavior assessments (FBA). A functional behavior assessment is a process of gathering and analyzing information about a student’s behavior and finding ways to determine the purpose of his or her actions. These assessments coincided with the eighth INTASC principle, which states that beginning teachers should understand and use formal and informal assessments.

While doing my student teaching, I have had the opportunity to be involved in each kind of assessment. For example, I assisted my supervising teacher in developing several teacher-made assessments. I made sure that the information on the test matched my objectives and correlated with the information that I taught my students in the classroom. I also became familiar with state assessments while doing my student teaching. All of my students were assessed in some way.

After learning of FBAs in my Behavior Management class, I was able to gain confidence in completing one on my own. In fact, I had that opportunity during my student teaching experience to do just that. I participated in a functional behavior assessment (FBA) for one of my students. After the behavior specialist presented me with the boy’s targeted objectives, I kept track of his daily behaviors. Each day, for six weeks, I observed this student and recorded his behaviors. Then, I rated him based on if he had met his objectives or not.

I even provided interventions for this student. For example, because this student had attention deficit disorder (ADD), I constantly re-directed him, I stood close to him when I spoke to keep his attention, and I provided movement activities such as cleaning an area of the classroom and distributing papers.  

I also used preventative strategies and even rewarded him when he met his objectives. For example, I provided work that was interesting to this student and allowed him to participate in discussions as much as possible in order to keep his attention. In addition, I acknowledged him for displaying appropriate behaviors. As a reward, I set up a positive behavior system in which he was rewarded for meeting his objectives. This was a great success. In the end, the student had drastically improved and had met the majority of his objectives. Learning about FBAs was very beneficial for me.