KENNICKER MASTER PORTFOLIO: DEVELOPMENT

Master’s Portfolio Project: Development

6/19/2020
Brenna Kennicker
University of Alaska Southeast
Beth Hartley
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Abstract

A teacher understands how students learn and develop and applies that knowledge in the

teacher’s practice. Candidates demonstrate understanding of how children learn and develop,

recognizing that patterns of learning and development vary individually within and across the

cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional, and physical areas, and designs and implements

developmentally appropriate and challenging learning experiences

Development Statement

As I looked back through the collected assignments and student artifacts, I have collected

over the years I was at a bit of a loss of what to discuss for development. I felt I was both

drowning in possibilities and yet had nothing to show. After much deliberation I have decided to

discuss the behavior intervention project I did as part of ED 619 in the spring of 2014. This

project involved working with a student chosen by the host teacher and working with that student

to improve a perceived behavioral issue. After completing my first year of teaching, I feel like

this project stands out as being one of the most beneficial projects I did and really served to help

prepare me for behaviors in my classroom.

D was a great kid with a blurt problem. In this case, we identified blurting as speaking

out of turn, or without raising a hand. His blurting was so extreme and excessive not only could

most of his classmates not get a word in edgewise, but he was more often than not in recovery,

the term my host school used for “time out”. Using the framework the school used for behavioral

504 plans, we identified two goals for D to work on during the remainder of the spring semester.

Since the school used the Love and Logic (1995) framework extensively as their school and
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classroom management system, I felt it was important to include that framework, primarily the

suggestion that students be an active part of their own behavior plans into my project. Together

with D, we came up with two hand gestures that could be used by the adult in the room to help

him identify when he was blurting, or when he needed to practice patience.

Within a few days of implementing our gestures I came in to find D in recovery and

realized upon speaking with him that he never really understood why he was being sent away

from the group. Instead of being able to see that his behavior was the cause for his being sent

away, he believed his teacher didn’t like him and he made her angry. From a developmental

standpoint, D’s inability to view his behavior through his teacher’s point of view makes sense.

According to Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory D, a seven-year-old second grader, was

only just coming out of the Pre-Operational phase of development (Piaget, 1936). His brain

simply couldn’t take into account another person’s point of view. I explained to him using

explicit and child friendly terms why his teacher was sending him away. I noticed after this

explanation that blurted less.

I noticed D often needed explanations in regards to his behavior. In our meetings, or if I

was substitute teaching in his class, he would ask me a lot of why style questions. Examples

were things like, “Why didn’t the teacher call on me, even though I raised my hand?” or “Why

did you send me to the recovery spot?” For D, he was trying to understand the connection

between his actions, and the consequences. To me, this shows D was moving from the pre-

operational stage of development to the concrete operational stage. He needed to be able to see

the logic of if A behavior is done, B consequence will occur.

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As we continued through the semester, D responded more and more to the hand gestures and

subsequently his blurting decreased dramatically. By the time spring break rolled around, D was

only being sent to recovery on average once a day, meeting one of his behavioral goals.

However, there was some backsliding after spring break, and it took several weeks of

review and discussion before he was back to where he was before the break. I often wondered

why that had occurred, and I now suspect it has to do with the philosophy of behaviorism, which

states that it is our interactions with our environment that shape behavior (Krapfl, 2016). The use

of the hand gestures also harkens to Ivan Pavlov’s discovery of classical conditioning, where

exposure to a stimulus over time forms a behavior (Cherry, 2019). While in the environment of

the classroom, being exposed to the stimulus of the hand gestures over and over D was able to

slowly alter his behavior. When removed from the environment, and no longer exposed to the

stimulus the behaviors slowly returned as per the concept of extinction, the idea that learned

behaviors will gradually decrease without reinforcement (Slavin, 2006). I saw this backsliding

in my fifth-grade class after the several week long winter break both behaviorally and

academically. Knowing that a large part of it is environmental and a natural response allowed me

to not take it personally when student s misbehaved and instead reminded me of the importance

of repetition and review in the classroom.

Backsliding aside, by the end of the semester, D had reached both of his behavioral goals.

During our final meeting his teacher reported that D had not been sent to recovery once in two

days. Not only was this beneficial for his teacher, who was no longer having to use her time and

energy to constantly redirect him, but also and perhaps more importantly it meant that D was

able to be a full a participant in his class. The project wasn’t perfect, I noted that we did not

include specials teachers or any other adults who D worked with in the building, so the use of the
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hand gestures was not universal. I now know just how essential it is when working on

developing positive student behavior to have as many school staff on board as possible.

While growth in academics is a key goal of any classroom teacher, it has also been

important for me to focus on the behavioral and emotional growth of my students as well. I plan

to continue to prioritize my student’s dignity, and work with them to set and achieve goals in our

classroom environment.
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References

Cherry, K. (2019, September 05). How classical conditioning works: An overview with
examples. Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/classical-conditioning-
2794859

Fay, J., & Fay, C. (1995). Teaching with love and logic: Taking control of the classroom (1st
ed.). Golden, CO: Love and Logic Institute.

Krapfl, J.E. (2016) Behaviorism and Society. BEHAV ANALYST 39, 123–129

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40614-016-0063-8

Piaget, J. (1936). Origins of intelligence in the child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Slavin, Robert E. Educational Psychology: Theory and Practice. Pearson, 2006.