Behavior Skills Training to Build Professional Capacity

Presentation Abstract

Ongoing professional learning is one of the critical elements to promote professional capacity. Administrators and intervention staff need a way to systematically and efficiently build capacity across all school staff as educators are trained in PBIS for all students and individualized behavioral strategies for students. Behavior Skills Training (BST) (Breidenbach, 1984) is an evidence-based training approach that is effective and efficient, and more importantly, that is generally accepted by trainees because of high engagement and follow up coaching. This systematic procedure provides participants the opportunity to engage in instruction, watch the trainer model a skill, practice and increase their own skills, and then receive feedback from the trainer on both correct and incorrect responses related to the skills. In a typical professional learning session it is difficult to conduct BST due to time limitations, time-consuming procedures, and the individual comfort level of participants when they receive constructive feedback in a group setting. Many professional learning sessions in schools may only be 40-60 minutes long due to teacher schedules. These may be some of the reasons that many trainers avoid implementing this effective training approach. We propose that BST procedures can be modified to occur over several days or weeks by implementing a systematic procedure to instruct, model, provide practice opportunities and feedback using a systematic feedback protocol to reap the benefits and efficiency of BST. Implementation of these BST procedures to train staff in both GNETS and district wide professional learning settings will be discussed.

Breidenbach, D. C. (1984). Behavioral skills training for students: a preventive program. Children and Schools, 6, 231–240.

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Behavior Skills Training to Build Professional Capacity

Ongoing professional learning is one of the critical elements to promote professional capacity. Administrators and intervention staff need a way to systematically and efficiently build capacity across all school staff as educators are trained in PBIS for all students and individualized behavioral strategies for students. Behavior Skills Training (BST) (Breidenbach, 1984) is an evidence-based training approach that is effective and efficient, and more importantly, that is generally accepted by trainees because of high engagement and follow up coaching. This systematic procedure provides participants the opportunity to engage in instruction, watch the trainer model a skill, practice and increase their own skills, and then receive feedback from the trainer on both correct and incorrect responses related to the skills. In a typical professional learning session it is difficult to conduct BST due to time limitations, time-consuming procedures, and the individual comfort level of participants when they receive constructive feedback in a group setting. Many professional learning sessions in schools may only be 40-60 minutes long due to teacher schedules. These may be some of the reasons that many trainers avoid implementing this effective training approach. We propose that BST procedures can be modified to occur over several days or weeks by implementing a systematic procedure to instruct, model, provide practice opportunities and feedback using a systematic feedback protocol to reap the benefits and efficiency of BST. Implementation of these BST procedures to train staff in both GNETS and district wide professional learning settings will be discussed.

Breidenbach, D. C. (1984). Behavioral skills training for students: a preventive program. Children and Schools, 6, 231–240.