Class+13+Wednesday,+February+20+Kelvin+Friesen+and+Nate+Kahn

=  __Challenging Behaviour__= **Kelvin Friesen and Nathan Khan** The class started off with cooperative activities. First we lined up according to our birthdays and got divided into groups of four. Each group then took a piece of paper and drew a box in the middle, then three other lines so that the paper had four sections on it. Each section was numbered, and then we asked questions within our groups to determine what we all had in common. If only two of us in the group had a point in common, then that point was written down in the #2 box. If we all had the point in common then it was written in the #4 box. We then took the ideas from box #4 and created our own group names, and a group handshake. This idea works for making interesting groups in a classroom, which can be used for group work that might go for a longer period of time.
 * February 20th 2008**

Then we talked about the final assignment. When you are doing your assignment make sure you describe the class at the beginning of the paper, outline the criteria, and make it inclusive. Plan your paper so that it covers a range of academic abilities, even if the practicum class that you were in did not have any special needs students. You do not have to include lesson adaptations for every type of disability but do have a few. Use the four building blocks spoken of in the text. Chapter 6 and 8 are the two chapters that you may want to read and incorporate into this assignment. P.161 is a key page. You should have a few lesson plans (3ish) with your paper but **they are not part of the 10 pages**, they must be included with your appendix.

Then we did a class activity that focused on the topic challenging behaviour. We stayed in our groups that were created from the beginning of the class. Two groups were sent out of the class and each given a different role. The groups that remained in the class were all given the same roles, but each group individually. One of the groups in the hall were the observers who did not know what was happening, they merely came in when it was time and tried to figure out what was going on by what was being played out and the reactions that accompanied it. The second group in the hall was given the role of experts who represented a team that would come into a classroom and teach the students how to evacuate the classroom in case of a bomb scare. Those who had stayed in the classroom were to avoid eye contact with these “outsiders”, only one from every group of four could speak out loud, and the head movements for saying yes and no were switched around. So when the “bomb experts” came in to try and talk to us it was difficult for them cause no one looked at them.

This was to represent challenging behaviour because some students may not be keen with keeping eye contact and it may be more so with some special needs students. Eye contact is a big part of communication, but we have to remember that it’s a cultural thing. Not every culture uses eye contact during communication. However eye contact is important for many cultures because of the non-verbal gestures that are used to bring full meaning from the speaker to the hearer.

A Lack of eye contact from students may be demonstrating three things:

1) an unmet need 2) a lack of skill 3) a lack of fit

The first one, an unmet need, could be a large number of things from the physiological level. Ex. lack of sleep or lack of food. Think of Maslow’s pyramid, with physiological on the bottom, then going up there is safety, belonging, esteem, cognitive, and self-actualization. If the bottom need isn’t met then it affects the upper levels.

The second one, lack of skill, could be the child’s lack of thinking skills, social skills, motor skills, problem solving skills, anger management skills, etc.

The third, lack of fit, could be the child’s lacking in that the level of work may be to hard or too easy, socially doesn’t fit in, learning style isn’t right, cultural differences, intelligence, or even classroom set-up might not be right.

These three points may be elaborated on further in the next class.

"//I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesteday//" Abraham Lincoln