Case Study - Kate Goodin

EDUC 474 - Dr. Heins

1st Period: Chamber Orchestra
 Case Study

Background Information
Description of the Student Population
For my Case Study, I am using the first period orchestra which is the highest level intermediate
class. The student population is made up of 21 students and there are nine males and twelve
females. All four grade levels are represented in this class, with nine seniors, seven juniors, four
sophomores, and one freshman. The age of students range from 14-18 years old.
Race: 21 Students

Hispanic Asian African-American Caucasian

11 6 2 2

Socio-economic background: Most of these students are middle class, or lower middle
class
Esol distribution: There is one student with Spanish as his first language.
IEP/504 plan: There are two students with a 504 plan.
Health Indicators: There are seven students with a health indicator. This can range from
needing glasses, to allergies, to a serious health concern.

Behavior Background: This first period meets every day from 7:20-8:14 am and they are the
second highest-level orchestra. Overall, this class is pretty well-behaved but I chose this class
because I believe behavior management is especially important because of the early start time.
There is a wide variety in how the students behave in the morning, and I thought it would be
interesting to collect data at this particular time of day.
This class has at least one student in every grade, but the majority of the class are juniors (7/21
students) and seniors (9/21 students). The specific behavior I am observing is the amount of
times that a student (or students) play(s) after the conductor has cut off the music making. This is
a common misbehavior that occurs even in the professional level orchestras. Playing after the
conductor has stopped conducting wastes valuable instructional time in the classroom. It also
inhibits other students from being able to hear my feedback and my instructions.
My goal is to implement an intervention to lower the number of occurrences over the course of
four weeks.
 Statement of Problem/Target Behavior: I will be observing the amount of times a student (or
students) play(s) after the conductor has cut off the music making.

Date Collection:
Baseline Data: 1/23-1/26

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4

1/23 1/24 1/25 1/26

55 57 57 54

I gathered four days of baseline data which showed an average of 55 occurrences of a student
playing after the conductor had cut off the music making in one class period (7:20-8:14am).

Intervention Data:
Week 1: 1/30, 1/31, 2/1, 2/2, 2/3
Week 2: 2/6, 2/7, 2/8, 2/9, 2/10
Week 3: 2/13, 2/14, 2/15, 2/16, 2/17
Week 4: 2/20, 2/21, 2/22, 2/23, 2/24

Days of Intervention

Day 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

# of 49 48 44 42 37 35 30 28 28 23 15 9 8 8 7 7 6 7 9 4
Occurrences
 Display of Baseline Data and Intervention Data

This line graph shows the first four data points that I collected as baseline data, followed by the
20 days (4 school weeks) of intervention that followed. As shown in the graph, the problem
behavior decreased significantly over the course of my case study. Addressing the problem in a
mature and respectful way immediately helped to decrease the number of occurrences.
Adding in my second form of intervention, described below, helped to decrease the number of
occurrences to four by the end of the fourth week.
Description of intervention
My first form of intervention was verbally communicating to the students the cons to
the specific misbehavior. I clearly explained that by playing after the conductor has cut
off the music making, instructional time that could have been spent fixing problems is
now spent correcting the misbehavior. Additionally, I informed them that by continuing
to play against the conductor’s wishes, they inhibit themselves from being able to hear
valuable feedback and further instructions. If they do not hear my instructions for how to
proceed, then that is more time wasted repeating information.

Starting on the fourth day of the first week, February 2nd, I implemented my other form
of intervention: keeping track of the amount of students that continued to play after the
conductor cut off the music making on the SMARTBoard at the front of the classroom. I
would track the number of occurrences every day (M-F), and at the end of each week, I
would average the amount and put that mean under the title of “Week 1.” I did this for all
four weeks in order to track the progress with the students. I told the students that if we
could get the number of occurrences to under 4 by the last day of the case study, I would
bring in candy of their choosing, for the whole class.

This intervention strategy was quite subtle, but it worked. The students did not like
looking at a high number of misbehavior on the board, so they worked together to lower
that number as the days went on.
Results and Conclusions
As I was collecting the baseline data, I noticed that this specific behavior was
consistently inhibiting the amount of progress made in each rehearsal. Each director,
myself included, would have to use valuable time to repeat instructions and feedback.
Once I started my intervention process, the behavior decreased immediately. We did not
go from the baseline number to zero, but the number of disturbances definitely decreased
over the course of the four weeks. After I verbally addressed the misbehavior, the
students responded immediately by paying closer attention to each conductor. When I
started keeping track on the SMARTBoard, that’s when there was consistent progress in
lowering the number of misbehaviors. I believe that the students disliked seeing a
misbehavior indicator in the front of the classroom, frankly because it hurt their ego.
Keeping track week by week helped them to track their progress. Additionally, keeping
the “score” on the front of the board encouraged the students to work with each other to
lower the number. Additionally, I think that the students wanted the reward (candy) at the
end of the four weeks, so they reminded each other to watch the conductor and to cut off
together.

Future Recommendations
Overall, this Case Study was beneficial. I chose a behavior that was consistently causing
problems and wasting time, and I was able to execute an intervention plan that was
successful in lowering the amount of misbehavior over the course of four weeks. Even
though I was strict with keeping track of the misbehavior on the board, I was never
malicious and I made sure to approach this entire study from the point of view of helping
the students maximize their rehearsal time to help make them the best ensemble they
could be. My only future recommendation would be to keep track of ALL the classes on
the same SMARTBoard page, so that students could track each other's progress. I think
this could encourage some friendly competition between the classes, and work to bond
each class period. I think it would also be fun to integrate a class reward for the class with
the lowest amount of misbehavior (number of times the students play after the conductor
stops the music making) at the end of each month. This would encourage each class
period to work together to hopefully eliminate the behavior over time.