Post by Admin on Apr 14, 2014 22:50:32 GMT -6
One of our brilliant school psychologists, Dr. Karen Pain, made the news today. Here is the article.
The Portage la Prairie School Division is seeing students learn better self-control through a program that focuses on rewarding positive behaviour.
For the 2013-14 school year, Dr. Karen Pain, the division’s psychologist, brought the PAX program to nine interested teachers. The program is a behaviour program run in classrooms to teach students self-regulation and self-control skills. It focuses on appropriate learning behaviours, called PAX, and also on eliminating behaviours that interfere with learning and instruction, called spleems.
Examples of spleems are bullying, talking while the teacher is instructing, throwing something across the classroom, not completing homework and not paying attention.
Pain said a great partnership was formed between the teachers, students and her to see great results.
“The way we set it up in this division was that teachers volunteered, so it didn’t come top down, it was an opportunity,” Pain said.
The teachers had some basic group instruction before Pain went in and worked with individual teachers and the classes
“We worked on it as a group so as a group we wanted to increase PAX in the classroom and decrease the spleems so they had their goals and we monitored it and we celebrated their successes and talked about the challenges and they worked very, very hard, everyone did,” she said.
Pain explained the program is simple to implement. She has the class talk about and identify spleems and then count them.
“PAX counteracts the spleems so you’re trying to top heavy the good behaviours, the PAX behaviours, and minimize the spleems,” she said.
Classes using the PAX program have three games or activities throughout the day. The games can be anywhere from 30 seconds to an hour.
“(Teachers) can run them anywhere, you can do it walking down the hallway to the library, you can do it during math class, the teachers can run two minute ones they can run 30 second runs, they can run an hour one, it all depends,” Pain said. “We always start it out with 30 second or 60 second and then we build fairly quickly but you can’t start kids at an hour and then have them fail there’s no motivation, so it’s built on positive reinforcement and rewards and self-efficacy.”
In the beginning, most classes had approximately 220 spleems per hour. After one month of instruction, most classes saw an 80-90 per cent drop in spleems.
“We had huge dramatic changes, I don’t think anyone could believe them, so on the average it was an 80 per cent change, that’s an 80 per cent swing towards positive behaviour and behaviour that’s good for instruction,” she said.
“The changes were so dramatic that after those first one or two months the spleem counts are so small, I mean you can’t have a perfect class it’s just not going to happen, but five spleems in an hour is nothing, it’s nothing compared to 300, because the work gets done.”
She said the program has been very well researched and there have been studies done on students who have participated in the program.
“Thirty to 40 years later they follow the same kids who did this program in kindergarten and Grade 1 and they have found reductions in suicide rates, in addiction, in drug use, in crime, and it makes sense, because it teaches self-regulation. You don’t need those other things if you’ve learned how to be an individual who can regulate their behaviour and their emotions.”
Pain is not only happy to see the amount of spleems reduced in the classes she’s been working with, but to see how excited the students get about the program.
“I’ve kind of been stunned, it’s been very rewarding and it’s nice to share that with kids,” she said. “It’s mostly the kids, they are just so excited about their successes and they’re pointing out how they changed, that’s what’s so inspiring about it and it becomes infectious, it’s the teachers excited the kids are excited they can’t wait to share, it’s just a good feeling.”
For the 2013-14 school year, Dr. Karen Pain, the division’s psychologist, brought the PAX program to nine interested teachers. The program is a behaviour program run in classrooms to teach students self-regulation and self-control skills. It focuses on appropriate learning behaviours, called PAX, and also on eliminating behaviours that interfere with learning and instruction, called spleems.
Examples of spleems are bullying, talking while the teacher is instructing, throwing something across the classroom, not completing homework and not paying attention.
Pain said a great partnership was formed between the teachers, students and her to see great results.
“The way we set it up in this division was that teachers volunteered, so it didn’t come top down, it was an opportunity,” Pain said.
The teachers had some basic group instruction before Pain went in and worked with individual teachers and the classes
“We worked on it as a group so as a group we wanted to increase PAX in the classroom and decrease the spleems so they had their goals and we monitored it and we celebrated their successes and talked about the challenges and they worked very, very hard, everyone did,” she said.
Pain explained the program is simple to implement. She has the class talk about and identify spleems and then count them.
“PAX counteracts the spleems so you’re trying to top heavy the good behaviours, the PAX behaviours, and minimize the spleems,” she said.
Classes using the PAX program have three games or activities throughout the day. The games can be anywhere from 30 seconds to an hour.
“(Teachers) can run them anywhere, you can do it walking down the hallway to the library, you can do it during math class, the teachers can run two minute ones they can run 30 second runs, they can run an hour one, it all depends,” Pain said. “We always start it out with 30 second or 60 second and then we build fairly quickly but you can’t start kids at an hour and then have them fail there’s no motivation, so it’s built on positive reinforcement and rewards and self-efficacy.”
In the beginning, most classes had approximately 220 spleems per hour. After one month of instruction, most classes saw an 80-90 per cent drop in spleems.
“We had huge dramatic changes, I don’t think anyone could believe them, so on the average it was an 80 per cent change, that’s an 80 per cent swing towards positive behaviour and behaviour that’s good for instruction,” she said.
“The changes were so dramatic that after those first one or two months the spleem counts are so small, I mean you can’t have a perfect class it’s just not going to happen, but five spleems in an hour is nothing, it’s nothing compared to 300, because the work gets done.”
She said the program has been very well researched and there have been studies done on students who have participated in the program.
“Thirty to 40 years later they follow the same kids who did this program in kindergarten and Grade 1 and they have found reductions in suicide rates, in addiction, in drug use, in crime, and it makes sense, because it teaches self-regulation. You don’t need those other things if you’ve learned how to be an individual who can regulate their behaviour and their emotions.”
Pain is not only happy to see the amount of spleems reduced in the classes she’s been working with, but to see how excited the students get about the program.
“I’ve kind of been stunned, it’s been very rewarding and it’s nice to share that with kids,” she said. “It’s mostly the kids, they are just so excited about their successes and they’re pointing out how they changed, that’s what’s so inspiring about it and it becomes infectious, it’s the teachers excited the kids are excited they can’t wait to share, it’s just a good feeling.”