Tag Archives: group play

Tip of the Week: Measure Group Behavior in the Classroom

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Many classroom teachers are required to take data on the behavior of their students. However, this can feel like a daunting task given the many things teachers are trying to do simultaneously throughout the day! PLACHECK is a simple way to measure group behavior in the classroom for engagement or attention.

PLACHECK is short for Planned Activity Check. Let’s say that Ms. Esterman is using a partner activity for a math lesson for the first time in her fourth grade classroom. She wants to see if the kids remain engaged with the content during the partner activity. Here is how she can implement PLACHECK to collect data on engagement.

  1. Measure Group Behavior in the ClassroomSet a MotivAider for a predetermined interval (learn more about the MotivAider). The partner activity Ms. Esterman has organized will take a total of ten minutes. She decides to set the MotivAider for 2 minute intervals.
  2. At the start of the lesson, set the MotivAider to run and clip it to your waistband. For Ms. Esterman, the MotivAider will vibrate every two minutes to signal her to observe her students.
  3. When the MotivAider vibrates, collect tally data. Ms. Esterman feels the MotivAider vibrate, then quickly counts the number of students who are engaged in the partner activity.
  4. Continue to do this for each interval.
  5. Graph your data.

Ms. Esterman’s graph looks like this for her 24 students:

PLACHECK Graph 1

The next day, Ms. Esterman does a similar activity with her students, but uses an independent activity instead of a partner activity. She uses the same 5 steps to use PLACHECK to measure student engagement in the independent activity. Now she can easily compare engagement between the two types of activities. You can see both days graphed below:

PLACHECK Graph 2

When she compares the two days, she finds these results, and it allows her to make better decisions about what types of activities might work best for the individuals in her classroom. Here, it is clear that between these two activities, her students were more likely to be on task during partner work. However, Ms. Esterman would attain better results by taking more data.

PLACHECK is simple to implement. Ms. Esterman is able to collect this data in less than two minutes each day and can learn a lot from just that brief time.

WRITTEN BY SAM BLANCO, MSED, BCBA

Sam is an ABA provider for students ages 3-15 in NYC. Working in education for twelve years with students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and other developmental delays, Sam utilizes strategies for achieving a multitude of academic, behavior, and social goals. Sam is currently a PhD candidate in Applied Behavior Analysis at Endicott College. She is also a lecturer in the ABA program at The Sage Colleges.

Pick of the Week: NEW! Cooperative Games — Teach teamwork and group problem-solving

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NEW to our catalog are a set of cooperative games that foster teamwork, shared decision-making, and many more valuable skills, as learners work together to solve a common obstacle in the games. This week, you can save 15% on these cooperative games by using our promo code TEAMWORK at check-out.

Cooperative Games Subheader

In cooperative games, everyone plays together, no one is left out, and everyone has fun! Players work together as a team against a common obstacle, not against each other. Cooperative games emphasize play, not competition. Kids work together, they help each other and, most importantly, they play for fun! Cooperative games teach:

  • Emotional development
  • Shared decision making
  • Creative problem solving
  • A sense of community
  • Positive self-esteem
  • Playfulness
  • Cooperation

For kids who love dinosaurs, the Dinosaur Escape Game is a perfect way to teach strategy, memory, problem-solving, and following directions, as players work together to move all three dinosaurs safely to Dinosaur Island before the volcano erupts. Roll the die, move the dinosaurs around the board, uncover the matching dinosaurs under the fern tokens. But if you turn over the T-Rex, run! If players can find and help all three lost dinosaurs escape to Dinosaur Island before completing the 3-D volcano puzzle, everyone wins!

DRG_014_Dinosaur_Escape_Game_Board

The game comes with 1 game board, 3 dinosaur movers, 1 die, 12 fern tokens, 5 volcano puzzle pieces and volcano stand.

Younger learners will have an enjoyable time with the Friends and Neighbors Helping Game, as they work together to make matches between characters in distress and ways to help them!  Can players help a little girl who’s sad because she’s standing out in the rain, or a boy who’s afraid of the dark? Children encounter characters with a problem and reach into the Helping Bag to pull out a token — can the token help someone on the game board? If so, it’s a match!

In playing the game and reading about the feelings and needs of the characters, parents can help their children recognize feelings in others — the first step to building empathy. The game comes with 4 game boards, 14 tokens, 1 Helping Bag, 1 Stop Sign board, parent guide, and a Friends and Neighbors book.

Don’t forget! You can take 15% off either of these new cooperative games by applying our promo code TEAMWORK when you place your order online or over the phone with us at (800) 853-1057.

*Promotion is valid until July 5, 2016 at 11:59pm ET. Offer cannot be applied to previous purchases, combined with any other offers, transferred, refunded, or redeemed and/or exchanged for cash or credit. Different Roads to Learning reserves the right to change or cancel this promotion at any time. To redeem offer at differentroads.com, enter promo code TEAMWORK at checkout.