A classwide peer-assisted self-management program: Adaptations, implications, and a step-by-step guide for rural educators

Rural Special Education Quarterly, Spring 2002 by Mitchem, Katherine J, Wells, Deborah L

Introduce rating system. The rating system is designed to allow students to quickly rate their own behavior and their partner's behavior. Appendix B provides the rating system used during field-testing of CWPASM. The three levels provide teachers with a built-in fade mechanism. When initially implementing CWPASM, the teacher should allow for four peer matches. As the students begin to self-manage behaviors accurately and the teacher notes an increase in desired behaviors, level two, or two matches per period should be implemented. Again, as improvement is noted, the teacher may fade to one match per period. This gradual fade allows for students to realize early success and can strengthen the procedure allowing for an easy fade procedure while still maintaining desired behaviors.

The rating system presents students with the point value associated with differing ranks of behaviors. If the student complies completely with expected behaviors, the student receives the highest point value associated with a happy face. When the student requires minimal prompting to maintain expected behaviors, a straight face is awarded along with the middle number of points. Students who do not adhere to the expected behaviors receive a sad face and the lowest number of points.

Evaluate behavior. To teach self-evaluation of behavior, students should role-play behaviors for each point value of the rating system using the classroom rules as antecedents. The teacher should allow appropriate and inappropriate response examples and demonstrate prompting or reminding. To assist in later CWPASM steps, students should practice assigning ratings to their own behavior and the behavior of peers.

Post rules and rating system. Teachers should again review the classroom rules making sure that each rule is completely understood. It may be helpful to demonstrate what it "looks like" when each rule is followed as expected. Rules should be posted in a highly visible place. It may also be helpful to post the CWPASM rating system (See Appendix B).

Assign partners and teams. To help make CWPASM an enjoyable and beneficial intervention, students should be allowed to choose their partner. However, to make the intervention effective, some teacher selection may be necessary. An efficient partnership scheme may be to ask students to list three peers they would choose for a partner. The teacher may then pair students as needed to create beneficial partnerships. The teacher should include a brief discussion explaining that partnerships are long-term as long as the partnership is successful. Unsuccessful partnerships will require reassignment based on teacher discretion. Partnerships should be assigned numbers, which are helpful when recording scores and partners should be seated next to each other.

Each week partnerships are randomly assigned to two teams. Teams are designated by color, blue or white, and partnerships are indicated using their previously assigned number. To assist in the random assignment to teams, the point cards (See Appendix C) are color coded blue and white, put into bundles of ten, and placed in a bag. Each Monday partnerships pick a bundle of point cards from the bag and are assigned to the matching color team. Teachers must remember to choose the appropriate point card depending on the number of matches being used to maintain desired behavior. To decrease material costs and time, cards may be laminated and reused. This reduces the colored bundles to two cards, allowing partnership to reuse the same card for the week.