What’s Data Got to Do with It? Let’s talk about Video 3 from The Behavior Change Masterclass!

Hi everyone, happy Wednesday, happy Let's Talk About Data night. So I hope everyone watched video 3 of the masterclass, What's Data Got to Do with It, and is ready to talk all about data. If you have not watched video 3 yet, you have to check it out, and there are some awesome downloads included that I'm going to talk about and specifically talk about how to utilize them in that are attached to the videos. After you click on the video, there's some downloads right under there, and there's zip files, so you have the editable version and the PDF, because if I ever am selling or giving or sharing a data sheet, I always give people the editable version, because data sheets work when we can customize them and individualize them. So don't forget to grab those data sheets, and we'll be talking a little bit more about them later tonight. So if you're just jumping in, We're talking about video 3 from the Behavior Change Masterclass. And if you haven't signed up yet, it's not too late. We're almost done, but you can still sneak in. If you are behind on the videos because life happens, I get it, you wanna make sure to catch these last few videos before they expire. So the videos are going to expire at the end of the month. For those in my professional development membership, we'll be moving them over to the membership. So if you are a member, you can have access to them there. But for everyone else, they will be expiring at the end of the month. So if you still want to join, you can click, have your email, and all of the videos will get sent to you right away. And you can watch all 3. They're less than 15 minutes each. You can watch them tonight if you wanted. So go crazy. So let's talk data. So you know, if I'm talking behavior, I had to sneak some data in for you guys. Not as exciting as mindset, not as exciting as starve it, replace it framework, but this is how we know everything is working. I use the analogy, this is like the frosting to the, to the behavior change cake, right? And frosting is what makes a birthday cake a birthday cake. We need the frosting. We need data so we know if things are working and if things are going in the right direction. Behavior change comes from a series of decisions. I want those decisions to be based on data, not on opinion. So think about this. I use this analogy in the video, so I'm gonna repeat it if you watched the video already. Let's say your car broke and your car is brand new, so you're real mad, right? So your car breaks and it just stops working and you have 2 mechanics you can take it to. One is a family friend and he's old school. He's good at what he does, but he's old school. He pops open the hood, he looks around, he tries different things. Or you can take it back to the dealership and they're gonna plug in a computer and they're gonna tell you right away exactly what's wrong with your car. Where are you gonna take your car? Probably the new place, right? You want that data, you wanna know right away what's going on. Those two mechanics might have gotten to the same results in the end, but it's probably gonna be more efficient when we have the data to back up our choices. So I wanna hear from you guys. When it comes to behavior data specifically, What is the hardest part? What is the biggest obstacle? What is your biggest challenge? Why is it hard to do? Why is it inconsistent? What is the struggle here? So while you guys are typing in your answers about why behavior data is hard to take, and I know there's a lot of different reasons, I am going to talk about why— I'm not gonna tell you my reasons yet. I'll tell you my reasons in a minute, but start adding yours in. So in the video, we talked about two types of behavior data. And so this might get your wheels turning while we think about what's hard to take behavior data on within the classroom. So the two types of data that we talked about are ABC data, so that antecedent, behavior, consequence, and ongoing behavior data. So we have two kinds. And we need those two different types of data for very specific reasons. And with ABC data, I get, I get this from teachers a lot, you know, if I go to a school consult or for an in-home client, people will hand me spiral notebooks filled with anecdotal ABC data, anecdotal ABC data, and they're very proud of it. But to be honest, it's not helpful for me, and it's not helpful for you, and it probably took a long time to do. So instead of that anecdotal data, which is not helpful, takes a long time, I would much rather use something like the checklist ABC data that I gave. So this was the data sheet that I shared in the download of the video. Super easy. You're not writing diary entries. You're not writing pages and pages of what you think happened. You're check, check, check, check, check, right? So much faster. Much more efficient, and this is going to give you some real information. The whole point of collecting data is to utilize it, and you can easily select when a behavior happens, the common antecedents, the common consequences, and see those trends right away. So let's hear what some of you guys are saying and continue to add. What are your biggest struggles with behavior data? And those of you that are not answering, It's not because there are no struggles, because taking data on behavior is hard. Behaviors happen all times of day. They happen, you know, sometimes we're not ready for it. We don't have that data sheet right in front of us. And we're not in the middle of an aggressive episode being like, hold on, don't punch me, let me write that down. No, we are trying to keep everyone safe, right? So Haley said, trying to decide which antecedents, consequences, and behaviors to focus on. Yes. Great point. Roxanne said, attempting to determine the actual function, and I like that you put actual in all caps, because when we select what we think the function is, it's our best guess, right? Kids don't sprint out of our classroom saying, this is an attention-maintained behavior. We have to make our best guess on what we think is going on. So that's hard to do. And both of these things that you guys have mentioned kind of can come back to what we were just talking about, this ABC data checklist, because this can help us see those common trends. What are the most common antecedents? What are the most common consequences? That will give us a lot of information about what the actual function is. Mariah said, I just have no idea where to start. Totally get it, right? When things are— when there are extreme behaviors, when Behaviors are frequent. We don't even know where to jump in. When do we take data? How do we draw those conclusions from it? So again, this is gonna help us draw those conclusions from the data. And what I added to this that was new, that you might have noticed if you've had this data form from me in other places, is on the bottom I added a summary here. So the number of instances that we counted. So let's say we took data on 30 different instances that the behavior happened, the number one most common antecedent, the number one most— second most common antecedent, the first most common consequence, and the second most common consequence. So this will be a nice place for you to summarize what you did. So we want to really focus on being that behavior detective and getting that best guess at function, because from our video to the Starve It and Replace It framework, we need to know the function to be able to starve it and then to be able to replace it. So when I say data is important, if we don't have the data, we can't do the starve it and replace it framework. It's so essential. Paige said, "It's so hard to focus on just one behavior when they all seem equally important." That's a great point. It's hard to prioritize when there's a lot going on. And I like that you brought that up because we should be prioritizing. We can't change everything at once. We can't work on major behaviors with every single student at one time. So we do have to focus on one thing and really prioritize what is the most disruptive, what is the most dangerous, what has the biggest impact, and target those behaviors first. So I'm gonna answer this question, 'cause I haven't heard some of these answers yet, my answers. Biggest struggles with taking data are having the staff to do it, having the time to do it, and then being consistent. So as I said, you know, behaviors happen all times of day. And if it's in the middle of the lunch period, we might not have our data sheet with us. If it's in the middle of the afternoon, even if those data sheets are there, we're trying to keep everyone safe. We're trying to implement the behavior plan. We're not thinking about writing data down in that moment. So it's finding the time right after behaviors happen to collect data. So that's why— does anyone else struggle with that? I'm kind of having the time to, after a behavior happens, be consistent and find a few minutes to take data. So it needs to be really quick and really efficient. So we really want to think about ways that we can be efficient with what our data system looks like, and then what the data sheet looks like. Another reason why I love this, because after a major behavioral episode, writing diary entries of anecdotal ABC data takes a lot of time. So instead, if we can do a checklist, check, check, check what's going on, then we can one, get it done, and then we'll be able to utilize it more. Good question here. How do you schedule and organize your data collection so you're consistent? So some suggestions you can do within your team and within your day could be to maybe assign specific data times to different staff members. So especially for ABC data when we want to be really consistent and really on top of it. Remember, you're not taking ABC data forever. You're taking it for a certain time period until you can get your best guess on the function. So during that time, so to set up a timing schedule, you can decide, okay, from if a behavior happens between 8 AM and 10 AM, I'm the one that's gonna take ABC data. If it happens between 10 and noon, Miss Thomas is. If it happens between noon and 2, Mr. Johnson is. So you're not kind of on duty all day. You can almost take a break from that pressure of having to collect data. And you want to keep it really organized and consistent where you want maybe this on a clipboard, you want this passed around. Your staff training here needs to be on point because you want to be all taking data on the same thing. Then within your schedule, schedule in time to sit down and utilize this. The point of collecting data is to use it, so put in your phone calendar, put in your lesson plans, put in your teacher planner, you know, Friday at 1 o'clock I'm gonna review Johnny's ABC data to make sure it's getting done. I'm gonna read some of these other questions. Oh, Christina said she shared this with the teacher and it was a great success. You know, this to me also is a big one, when, as, because as special education education teachers, you have to collaborate a lot with gen ed teachers, special teachers, administrators, and sometimes we might be asking them to take data, which we know is a big sell and a big thing to ask. This checklist is a lot more doable than something more complicated. So really think about utilizing this with people in your school, people in your school community that you might be working collaboratively with on collecting data. We want it to be really easy for everyone, so everyone actually does it. My mantra with data is, if it's too, you know, if it's, if it's too hard, we're not going to do it. So we've got to make it easy. We have to make it accessible. So once we do ABC data, check, check, check, checklist, and again, it's editable, so you can put in the antecedents that apply to your student, the behaviors that apply to your students. I really want you to be able to make this sheet something that works for you. After we take ABC data and we have our best guess on function, then we're gonna implement the Starve It and Replace It framework from video 2. We're gonna starve that negative behavior and we're gonna replace it with something new and positive and pro-social. Then we go to our ongoing data. You guys, these data sheets, I really like them a lot. I made these specifically for this training. There is nowhere else you can get them except on this video. And the reason I like them is because it's gonna differentiate between baseline, before the intervention, and then after the intervention. So it's gonna hopefully help highlight if your intervention is working, and it has a graphing component on the bottom. So you can, after you take some data, graph right here and be able to see those trends. I mean, if that's not easy, right? And I think showing someone a visual representation of data can be so helpful, whether it's an administrator or a parent, So you can right here be able to collect your data and graph it on the same page. And I gave you two different versions. I gave you one for an ongoing behavior that you're taking the duration of the behavior. So maybe out of seat, off task, tantruming. And then the other one is the number of behaviors. So how many total behaviors versus how many total minutes of the behavior. So those are the two versions. And again, You also have editable versions. If anyone's having trouble finding those data sheets, let me know and I'll make sure we get you to those data sheets. So once you implement the Starve It or Replace It framework, our data is not done. We want to take ongoing data to see if progress has been made. And I know we think, oh, we'll know if progress has been made, but I wanna know for sure. I want the numbers to tell me We used to be at 15 times a day and now we are only at 10 times a day. Yep, we still have 10 things, but we are making progress. We are moving in the right direction. I want the numbers that are going to tell me that. I don't want to just rely on my assumptions, my casual observations. I want to know for sure what is going on because a lot of these strategies are hard to implement and we are not sure if we are correct on function or not. So, I want to know if I need to make a change. That's the point of doing this. I want to know if I'm making progress, and if I'm not making progress, it's almost just as helpful information because we know we have to do something differently. In the video from yesterday, I talked about, again, that mindset. You might be listening to me talk about this and me showing data sheets, and you're like, "Data is just not my thing. I am not good at taking data." My staff is not good at taking data. We don't have a good system for this. And you have to then add that magic word, yet. I am not good at taking data yet. My team does not know how to take data yet. We don't have a good system for this yet. You'll get there. We get to, we're so hard on ourselves sometimes. You know, we set up a data system and it doesn't work and we're just like, done, we're over it. Learn from those mistakes. Try something different. It's okay. You know, it's that progress, not perfection. Do I have that right over there? Yeah, progress, not perfection. If it doesn't work right away, figure out another system that will. Get off my soapbox on that. Let me check a few of these questions. Oh, I have a question with the ongoing behavior data form. Wouldn't all the entries be after the intervention except for the first one, or am I using this wrong? So we might be taking our, you know, our baseline data with this ABC data checklist, But we might want to also start, that's why I gave you the option here to circle baseline before the intervention, to put it on here as well. So let's, let's use a little hypothetical example here. Let's say you start taking behavior data on Johnny on February 1st, okay? And we're not adding any intervention in yet. It's business as usual. We're doing the same, the exact same things we've always done. So for the first 2 weeks of February, because this behavior doesn't happen every single day, so I need enough data to see a trend. I'm gonna take ABC data for the first 2 weeks in February to see what are the common antecedents, the common consequences, and let's say his behavior is hitting. I wanna know about how often each of these times, how often we're seeing hitting. I'm gonna also put it on this data sheet. So I'm gonna have my dates here for the first 2 weeks of February, I'm gonna put before intervention and I'm put how many hits there were each day. So on my ABC data sheet, I might have to count up some of the instances because it could be that multiple, you know, hits happened in one day. So I'm gonna say, okay, well, on February 1st, there were 4 times I took ABC data. And, you know, one of those times he hit like 3 times. So on February 1st, it was 7. So before intervention, and then you're gonna put all the data you take before the intervention here. You wanna do this because then when you take data on February 15th, on February 27th, on March 2nd, on March 3rd, all after that, you wanna be able to easily compare that to where you were at before your intervention was put into place. So, you know, today we only had 2 hits, yesterday we had 1, this day we only had 4, well compared to the 7 we had, we're making some progress. So hopefully that answers that question, and again, If this whole setup doesn't work for you, you can go in on that data sheet and just take out that whole column and not even utilize that component. But I like to add that in because I like to really compare what things were like before the intervention. So I'm gonna have a few more, um, while I'm kind of answering the next few questions, please feel free to add your questions in. I'm gonna take a few more tonight, not gonna take a ton, um, because I'm kind of losing my voice here, guys. I've just been talking about data too much. and I will come back later and make sure all your questions get answered. A lot of the data questions I have videos or blog posts for, and I'd be happy to point you in the right direction. So if you have a behavior data question, please drop it in, and I will get to a few right now. Um, so, oh, I got a question earlier about how we utilize in the ABC data data sheet how we utilize this behavior section. So someone was asking me like, okay, well, what if they do these things multiple times? Or what if they're doing a bunch of these things and I just can't keep track of how many times my child is hitting or calling out or doing something? So because we're really just scratching the surface in today's video, you know, there's a ton I can talk about behavior data. I actually did an 8-hour training on behavior data last week. One thing to think about when you are approaching taking data on your challenging behaviors is that you want to decide, are you going to track how many behaviors there are or how long the behaviors are happening for? So, do we want to count or do we want to count the duration? So, this might be in the ABC data sheet where we, if we're just doing a count, we could put tallies, is a great way to do it. You could use a click counter. And put that number in there. And if you're using duration, you can have a timer and put that time of exactly how long it was. Like, I started my timer, by the time it was done, it was 4 minutes. Or I looked at the clock, it started at 1:05, it ended at 1:40, and just write that right in there. So that's a nice way that you can kind of still get that baseline data we've been talking about to be able to see that change, but not necessarily need a whole separate data sheet for it. Again, Because you can edit this and customize this, you can make sure that it fits, you know, your student. Your student might not engage in any of the sample behaviors I put in here, so go ahead and switch them out, no problem, right? That's the beauty of the editable data sheet. Really, my overall goal anytime I talk about data is that I want it to be something approachable and something that's not scary. Because I think we get intimidated by data. There's so much on our plate, there's so much to do. The thought of doing one more thing is a lot. And when it comes especially to behavior, especially to our kids that really, really need us and really, really need this behavior change, we really need the data to get us there. And like I said in the start of this video and in video 3, it's the frosting on the behavior change cake. It's what makes behavior change, behavior change, long-lasting, generalizing to other settings, that is going to really last this child and make a real impact on their life. And how we get there is by taking data, because data is gonna help us get to the right function. Data is going to let us know if our interventions are working, and if they're not working, it's gonna let us know that too, which is just as helpful because we need to do something different. If data has not been your thing before, that's okay. It doesn't have to be your thing. You don't have to be perfect at it. You just have to try, and then keep trying, and keep trying, and keep trying, and figure out a system that works for you. What works for me might not work for your classroom. You might be like, "I have a really great way of doing anecdotal that I can find the trends and blah, blah, blah." Cool, do that. I want you to find a system that works for you that not only is easy and something you can consistently take, but also something that you can utilize and learn from, 'cause that's the whole point of taking data. Got a lot of soapboxes tonight. Well, I'm gonna wrap it up there. I will pop back in for some other data questions later tonight. Tomorrow's video is really touching on how we tie this all together and talks about once you have that behavior change transformation where your classroom is no longer being run by massive episodes or massive negative behaviors, what do we do with that extra time, right? It's so exciting to think about what, what are the other things we're going to do. And if you liked this training, if you liked the format of it, you liked these kind of short videos, you liked having the downloads that go with it and the editable templates, if you liked the content, you liked learning about behavior and ABA and things that we can apply in our classrooms or in our homes or in our clinical settings, in this user-friendly way. So if you liked this Behavior Change Master Class, I have a great next step for you that I think you're going to love. So for those of you that went through the Behavior Change Master Class, we have a special invitation coming tomorrow to really take it to the next level because in this video series, I, I think I gave you a lot of great information, at least I hope I did, that was action-packed but we still kind of scratched the surface. We're just touching on behavior data. We're just touching on Starve It and Replace It. If you are really ready to kind of level up and continue to improve your skill set as an educator, as a clinician, as a parent, I have a great next step for you to help you make that happen. Check your email tomorrow. Check back in tomorrow. I'll be popping on Facebook tomorrow to chat more about it. Hope you all have a great night and I will talk soon.