What’s Data Got to Do With It?: The Positive Behavior Change Bootcamp Episode 3

To all of my fellow data nerds, welcome! If you aren't a data nerd yet— see what I did there— and were thinking about skipping this video, I am happy you didn't. Data is the frosting on our behavior change cake. Data may sound like it's extra and unnecessary, but actually it's not. Frosting is what makes a cake a cake. Without frosting, it's basically a big muffin. I mean, do you really want a big muffin on your birthday? No, you want a cake. Well, data is what makes our positive behavior change actually a change. It's what makes this change long-lasting and significant, meaning it makes a real impact. It gives the students new opportunities. Johnny gets to go play basketball with the 5th graders. Sarah gets to go to Home Depot with her dad on the weekend. Ashley gets to learn new spelling words. All of this is possible when data is used in real behavior change. So if this seems like a leap for you, or like I'm overselling the importance of data, let me connect the dots. Real behavior change comes from a series of decisions you need to make. You need to decide the intervention, how to implement it. You need to decide if it's working or not. You need to decide when to fade. If you are basing all of these decisions on your opinion and perceptions, you are way less likely to be as effective as when data is supporting those decisions. Imagine you take your car to two mechanics. One mechanic is real old school. He turns your car on, he pops the hood, and he just watches and listens to see where the problems are. The other mechanic has more technology available to him. He plugs your car in and a screen instantly pulls up exactly what is wrong with your car and exactly where the issues are. Now, who do you want fixing your car? Probably Mechanic Number 2. He has data to support his plan for your car, so he's likely to be more efficient and more successful when fixing it. Now, even if both mechanics are capable of fixing the car, which one is going to do it more quickly and with less mistakes? The same goes for data and behavior change. We need data to support our decisions when creating a plan. Now, data sometimes has a stigma of being overwhelming and complicated. You feel like you don't even know where to start. Sometimes there are so many different ways you can take data that we remain on Indecision Island. I talk a lot about Special Ed Island. Here's another island we can live on, Indecision Island, and we just never make a decision and jump in and get started. So today, let's get rid of that, and we're going to keep it simple. ABC data is how we figure out that special sauce in the Starve It, Replace It framework. We need this data because we need to know what to starve the negative behavior from and what the replacement behavior is giving access to. You may think that some casual observation or just knowing your student is going to really result in you figuring it all out. If it were that easy, you probably wouldn't be here at a behavior change boot camp. We're talking about complicated behaviors. We're talking about behaviors that have potentially been working for our students for years and years. Also, you're involved in this. You might be part of the problem. So we need data to clear out that murkiness to really see what's going on. The ABC data is based on our antecedent, our behavior, and our consequence. Antecedent means anything before, and consequence means anything after the behavior. You gotta look at the whole situation to see what is going on. This gives you valuable information on a possible reason why this behavior is occurring. Now, before you run and collect a whole bunch of ABC data, let's chat about how to do this the wrong way and the right way, in my opinion. The wrong way is writing down absolutely everything, filling spiral notebook after spiral notebook after spiral notebook with what happened before and after the behavior. Now, first off, that takes forever. But second, and more importantly, it's not helpful. When are you reading through this all and actually finding a trend? Never. The point of this data is to find a pattern. I prefer a checklist-style ABC data sheet, and I am sharing one of my most absolute favorite data sheets with you today, and it's fully editable. In this version, you can check all the antecedents and consequences that apply each time a behavior happens. Over time, you're now able to easily see those most common variables. I even have a space at the bottom of this data sheet to summarize. And one of the most common questions I get about ABC data I want to answer: how long should I do this for? My answer is to collect ABC data until you have an educated guess on why— on the why of the behavior. So for example, my student I've been telling you about in the last video, Chris, I told you he had a lot of extreme behaviors. So we were anxious to get started with interventions right away, but instead we waited and we took some ABC data. Since his behaviors were really frequent and happened on a daily basis, we really only needed to take ABC data for a few days until a pattern emerged. And we saw that his negative behaviors were really consistently followed by peer and adult attention. The other type of data that you're going to be taking is ongoing behavior data. This is ACE— this is simple data throughout the whole process. First, we want to know where we started to see if progress has been made. So before you add in the Starve It and Replace It framework, you got to know where you are. So collect that data there at the start, and then as you add in the Starve It and Replace It framework, continue tracking data. It doesn't need to be every day, it doesn't need to be all day. For now, keep it simple but consistent. You can track how many times a behavior happens for things like hitting or shouting out, or you can track how long a behavior happens for, for things like tantrums or being off task. The purpose of your data is to make sure you're making progress and to really know how much progress you've made. I have another set of free downloads for you within this video, and I actually typically only share these data sheets within my membership and when I do live behavior change workshops. I have two versions of an ongoing behavior data sheet. This sheet also has a super simple graphing component on the bottom, and as I said, I have two versions for you: one if you're working on counting the behavior and one if working on tracking the time of a behavior. Now, if data is new to you, this may all seem kind of uncomfortable, but guess what? Growth is uncomfortable. It's not okay to not do something only because it's a little bit hard. We ask our students to do hard things every day. And remember, it's uncomfortable now because you aren't familiar with it yet. It's okay to think, I am not confident in my data-taking skills yet. Add some of that growth mindset magic to your data. If you start taking data and it doesn't go well, who cares? Change it, fix it, learn from it. It's okay. But refusing to even start collecting data because you may mess it up is just silly. When your students' safety and quality education is on the line, data collection really isn't a choice. Be that mechanic number 2 that uses all the tools available and get the job, job done accurately and quickly. Data is how you create positive, long-lasting, and effective change. So get at it. All right, do you have data questions? If you do, I would love to answer them because obviously I love talking about data. Drop your comments below or questions below. We've already covered a lot in the Positive Behavior Change Bootcamp. We talked about mindset, we talked about the Starve It and Replace It framework, and we talked about data. Now let's put it all together and see how positive behavior change can transform form your classroom.