Promoting Positive Freedoms for Secondary Students

Viewpoints on Interventions for Learners with Disabilities Promot ing Posit ive Freedoms f or Secondary St udent s wit h Emot ional and Behavioral Disorders: The Role of Inst ruct ion Downloaded by George Mason University, Mr Carlos Lavin At 17:23 09 May 2018 (PT) Frederick J. Brigham, John William McKenna, Carlos E. Lavin, Michele M. Brigham, Lindsay Zurawski, Article information: To cite this document: Frederick J. Brigham, John William McKenna, Carlos E. Lavin, Michele M. Brigham, Lindsay Zurawski, "Promoting Positive Freedoms for Secondary Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders: The Role of Instruction" In Viewpoints on Interventions for Learners with Disabilities. Published online: 03 May 2018; 31-53. Permanent link t o t his document : https://doi.org/10.1108/S0270-401320180000033003 Downloaded on: 09 May 2018, At : 17: 23 (PT) Ref erences: t his document cont ains ref erences t o 0 ot her document s. To copy t his document : permissions@emeraldinsight . com Access t o t his document was grant ed t hrough an Emerald subscript ion provided by Token: BookSeriesAut hor: 9E1CE52D-09D3-42CF-BF87-E07B0ABC7F57: For Authors If you would like t o writ e f or t his, or any ot her Emerald publicat ion, t hen please use our Emerald f or Aut hors service inf ormat ion about how t o choose which publicat ion t o writ e f or and submission guidelines are available f or all. Please visit www. emeraldinsight . com/ aut hors f or more inf ormat ion. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com Emerald is a global publisher linking research and pract ice t o t he benef it of societ y. The company manages a port f olio of more t han 290 j ournals and over 2, 350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an ext ensive range of online product s and addit ional cust omer resources and services. Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. *Relat ed cont ent and download inf ormat ion correct at t ime of download. Chapter 2 Downloaded by George Mason University, Mr Carlos Lavin At 17:23 09 May 2018 (PT) Promoting Positive Freedoms for Secondary Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders: The Role of Instruction Frederick J. Brigham, John William McKenna, Carlos E. Lavin, Michele M. Brigham and Lindsay Zurawski Abstract Secondary-level students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) have significant academic and behavioral difficulties that require expert instruction to improve school and transition outcomes. Tensions between free and appropriate public education (FAPE) and least restrictive environment (LRE) mandates occur in the planning and delivery of specialized instruction and supports to these students. In this chapter, we consider alternate conceptions of freedoms as they may relate to the provision of special education services. However, a recent Supreme Court ruling highlighted the importance of FAPE in consideration of the student’s individual circumstances. This emphasis on FAPE poses a significant challenge for teachers, who may be unprepared and insufficiently supported to be effective. As a result, it may be advantageous to organize effective practices according to a taxonomy that is based on the types of performance demands that are placed on students in secondary classrooms. The taxonomy we propose provides a framework to support teacher training and decision making. We provide an overview of the performance demands placed upon students with EBD in secondary grades. Examples of Viewpoints on Interventions for Learners with Disabilities Advances in Special Education, Volume 33, 31–53 Copyright © 2018 by Emerald Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0270-4013/doi:10.1108/S0270-401320180000033003 32 Frederick J. Brigham et al. effective practices to improve student performance for each type of demand are provided. Downloaded by George Mason University, Mr Carlos Lavin At 17:23 09 May 2018 (PT) Keywords: Students with emotional and behavioral disorders; FAPE; secondary students; teacher training Public school teachers are agents of the state and, by virtue of that agency, bound by restrictions and duties as is the state. The state in this case includes the federal government as well as state and local governments. It is common for philosophers, legal scholars, political activists, and others to debate the authority of the state and its agents to influence the activities of individuals. Anyone who has worked with students with emotional and/or behavioral disorders (EBD) has heard students claim that their teachers have no right to require them do something or to stop them from doing something. Sometimes, these assertions from students are correct. There are restrictions on the authority of school personnel to take certain actions. The principle of least restrictive environment (LRE) is based, in part, on the presumption that removing an individual from an environment shared by his or her peers is intrusive enough to require the protections of due process. Discussions of rights that focus on the limits of authorities to take actions relative to individuals or groups, however, fail to capture the full range of rights. Power versus Duties Garvey (1989) suggested that there are two kinds of rights embedded in the understanding of the U.S. Constitution, negative rights and positive rights. Negative rights are essentially limits on what the government can compel its citizens to do. Negative rights, therefore, are checks on authority. Garvey suggested that positive rights are a more recent development in constitutional thinking. Positive rights refer to the duties the government has toward its citizens. We suggest that Garvey’s analysis provides a useful tool for framing decisions about special education services for students with EBD. Negative Freedoms The limitations of school officials to take certain actions are related to conceptions of negative freedoms, Garvey described negative freedoms as those restraints upon the government that prevent interference with Promoting Positive Freedoms for Secondary Students 33 Downloaded by George Mason University, Mr Carlos Lavin At 17:23 09 May 2018 (PT) an individual’s ability to live as freely as possible. In essence, negative freedoms are “freedoms from.” According to Garvey and a number of other legal scholars and philosophers, the conception of liberty in terms of negative freedoms, the freedom from government intervention was the dominant conception of liberty throughout the nineteenth and much of the twentieth century. However, Garvey suggested that after 1960,1 considerations of freedoms began to take on a different perspective that he describes as “positive freedoms.” Positive Freedoms Positive freedoms refer to government’s obligations to provide assistance so that individuals can do things that they are unable to do on their own. The requirement that public education systems provide students with disabilities a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) is an example of such a positive freedom. Garvey noted that the U.S. Constitution is vague with regard to which kind of freedom it endorses. Although much of the rhetoric about constitutional issues appears to have been in regard to the right to be free of government intervention (negative freedoms), “the Constitution says point blank that the government must provide certain benefits, like jury trials and compulsory due process” (Garvey, 1989, pp. 219–220). Thus, the existence of the positive freedom is embedded, at least in limited form, in the U.S. Constitution. Interaction of Positive and Negative Freedoms There is some degree of reciprocity between the citizen and the government, and the government can, in the interest of protecting a citizen’s other freedoms, limit rights or freedoms in some way. For example, Garvey noted that trading jobs for freedom of speech is wrong. Even though an individual may willingly resign from a political activity for a job or other benefit, the suggestion is that allowing this to happen, at least in a systematic manner, is problematic. Garvey noted: 1 Historians (e.g., Brinkley, 1996) often suggest that the rise of belief in government’s responsibility to assist its citizens can be traced to the Roosevelt administration and the New Deal when the government became committed to providing at least minimal assistance to the poor and unemployed. 34 Frederick J. Brigham et al. Downloaded by George Mason University, Mr Carlos Lavin At 17:23 09 May 2018 (PT) One explanation the Court has given is that your speech may benefit other people. The government harms them by getting you to trade your speech for a job. Another possibility is that speech – especially political speech – plays an important part in our ideal of human excellence. We should not let people degrade themselves into silence even if they do so willingly. (p. 219) LRE versus FAPE We suggest that the same logic regarding negative and positive freedoms applies to the education of individuals with EBD. Brigham, Ahn, Stride, and McKenna (2016) provided an example that contrasts these two types of freedom. They noted that some schools were willing to allow students with EBD to leave the classroom when they believed that they were unable to deal with the demands of instruction. Brigham et al. referred to this practice as “vagabond therapy” and pointed out that the pursuit of inclusion in a general education setting (a negative freedom to not be moved from one’s peers) was undermining the attainment of FAPE (the positive freedom to attain an education). They asserted that LRE cannot be judged unless one has convincing evidence that FAPE is being delivered. Thus, the reason that the students were allowed to remove themselves from instruction matters. Students’ pursuit of FAPE is likely to “benefit us all” because educated students will be more productive and require less support in the future. However, allowing students to excuse themselves from instruction because it serves some purpose other than providing FAPE (i.e., inflating numbers of students served in general education settings) may be questionable.2 Purpose of Action Garvey’s (1989) essay described the role of purpose in judging government actions that are harmful in some way. Wrongful behavior, in this 2 Some may argue that students afforded this treatment may need it to avoid some sort of explosive outburst that would disrupt instruction for themselves or others, but Brigham et al. (2016) argued that too often, such treatment was provided without evidence of such need and without any formal attempt to teach students to maintain themselves in class for longer periods of time. As a result, the practice, was counter-productive in too many cases. Promoting Positive Freedoms for Secondary Students 35 Downloaded by George Mason University, Mr Carlos Lavin At 17:23 09 May 2018 (PT) sense, must be intentional not accidental. Garvey provided the following illustration: As applied to complex actions, this is the principle of the double effect. Suppose I am an oncologist. I know that morphine will relieve the suffering of my patient, but it will also hasten her death. It is not wrong to administer the drug to relieve her present suffering. But it would be wrong if my purpose was to shorten her agony by shortening her life. My actions in the two cases are identical. The rightness and wrongness of my behavior depends on my intentions. (p. 227) Mapping Garvey’s analogy onto students with EBD yields the following logic: I know that allowing students to excuse themselves from instruction will relieve their present discomfort, but it will limit the benefits of FaPE and enhance the appearance of LRE. It is not wrong to allow students to excuse themselves to relieve their present discomfort. But it would be wrong if the purpose was to simply enhance the appearance of LRE or to limit FAPE. Thus, one type of freedom can conflict with another type of freedom. Implications of the Endrew F. Case The analogy in the preceding paragraph does not hold as directly as it may appear. In that analogy, IEP teams are left to balance the negative and positive rights with little guidance as to which type of rights to emphasize. Is it better to maintain an individual in a classroom setting that is similar to his/her peers if the outcomes are quite dissimilar to the peers or should one focus on making the outcomes more similar to peers, even if the setting becomes more dissimilar to the peers? Recent developments in case law now require schools to provide more evidence of direct benefit from education programs. Chief Justice John Roberts remarked in the opinion delivered in the Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District case that the standard set by the court was markedly more demanding than the “merely more than de minimis” test applied in previous cases. Roberts continued that for many children with disabilities, “receiving an instruction that aims so low would be tantamount to sitting idly … awaiting the time when they were old enough to drop out” (Howe, “Opinion analysis,” para 7). The Endrew F. opinion suggests that the emphasis upon negative freedoms related to LRE may be shifting toward emphasis upon positive Downloaded by George Mason University, Mr Carlos Lavin At 17:23 09 May 2018 (PT) 36 Frederick J. Brigham et al. freedoms of receiving FAPE. It is doubtful that emphasis upon LRE will be or even should be eliminated, but it is clear that the responsibility for school personnel to demonstrate FAPE is on the rise. Thus, our authority to alter behavior of students with EBD is dependent upon which rights, negative or positive, that are most valued. We conclude that the authority to affect the negative freedoms of our students derives from our responsibility to promote their positive freedoms. Without demonstrable evidence of FAPE, the claims of school personnel regarding promotion of positive freedoms are doubtful, regardless of the environment in which they are carried out. In other words, making only de minimus progress while remaining in a general education setting is as unacceptable as it would be in a setting more dedicated to students with disabilities. Achievement and Services Provided to Students with EBD Students with EBD present particular problems among groups of individuals with higher-incidence disabilities. They receive lower academic grades than do many students in other disability categories (i.e., learning disabilities, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders, and other health impairments) despite evidence that their scores on standardized assessments are comparable to other individuals with disabilities (Anderson, Kutash, & Duchnowski, 2001; Benner, Nelson, Ralston, & Mooney, 2010; Bradley, Doolittle, & Bartolotta, 2008; Sutherland & Wehby, 2001). Further, Bradley et al. (2008) reported data indicating that 97% of adolescent students with EBD were performing below grade level. This is not surprising, given that the first element of the federal definition of students who are emotionally disturbed (EBD in current discussions) describes inability to learn that cannot be explained by other factors. Thus, underachievement is a prominent preexisting condition for students with EBD. Disappointing Outcomes. It appears that simply having an IEP does not always confer sufficient benefit to many students with disabilities. Chesmore, Ou, and Reynolds (2016) examined the outcomes for students receiving special education services for at least four years in grades one through eight in the Chicago City Schools. They reported that children who had, at any time, received Downloaded by George Mason University, Mr Carlos Lavin At 17:23 09 May 2018 (PT) Promoting Positive Freedoms for Secondary Students 37 special education services had significantly lower rates of high school completion, as well as higher rates of crime, depression, and substance abuse. Chesmore et al. (2016) suggested that special education itself may not be the problem. Rather, they suggested that what is happening in special education may be related to the disappointing outcomes noted in their study. We agree with these authors in this conclusion. If schools were able to deliver evidence-based practices to students with EBD and we still saw disappointing outcomes, there may be more reason to question the legitimacy of special education services. However, wholesale elimination or the dramatic reduction of special education services before such a demonstration would be premature and, in our opinion, destructive to the individuals whom advocates purport to help. Why Aren’t We Doing Better? Other studies (e.g., Morgan, Frisco, Farkas, & Hibel, 2017) have reported similar disappointing outcomes despite the existence of a robust set of evidence-based practices that reliably improve the performance of individuals with disabilities. Some authors (e.g., Boardman, Argüelles, Vaughn, Hughes, & Klingner, 2005; Burns & Ysseldyke, 2009; McKenna & Ciullo, 2016) have observed that evidence-based practices are rarely reported or observed in the classrooms of many students with disabilities. Other authors (e.g., McLeskey & Billingsley, 2008) describe the lack of adequate preparation of well-qualified teachers as well as the instability of special education teachers in teaching positions (i.e., attrition and migration), and inadequate work conditions as reasons that instructional practices often fail to reflect what is known about effectiveness. Additionally, Bradley et al. (2008) noted that students with EBD were less likely to have fully trained teachers and more likely to receive instruction from paraprofessionals than were other students. Exacerbating the problems related to underpreparation is the pressure upon schools and teachers to make student placements as close to the regular education setting as possible regardless of the effectiveness of the placement (Brigham et al., 2016). Bradley et al. (2008) also noted that “students with EBD are likely to receive accommodations, but are unlikely to receive academic support services” (p. 9). Thus, the evidence suggests that current practices in special education for students with EBD lean heavily upon the negative freedom to be left in a setting that is similar to one’s peers and provide limited attention to the positive freedom of delivering FAPE that leads to increasing the academic competence of 38 Frederick J. Brigham et al. these students.3 The alignment of Individuals with Disabilities Improvement Act (2005) with the No Child Left Behind Act (2002) provided a strong link between FAPE and academic competence as manifested in the general education curriculum no matter how or where it is delivered (Huefner, 2008). Downloaded by George Mason University, Mr Carlos Lavin At 17:23 09 May 2018 (PT) Providing instruction of Students with EBD in Secondary Schools The data reviewed thus far paints a relatively bleak picture of the preparation of teachers of students with EBD and the effectiveness of the instruction that they provide. Many of the foregoing observations were made across the entire range of ages and grades of students served in the schools. Teachers of students with EBD in secondary settings face particular difficulties that may not be as prominent for teachers of younger students. Secondary teachers are required to master more specialized academic content than are teachers of younger children. This content mastery requirement co-occurs with the need to provide remediation in basic skills to students who lack such fundamental preparation. Additionally, special education teachers may be required to provide instruction in settings dedicated to serving individuals with disabilities as well as in coteaching and/or consultative arrangements. These requirements are all in addition to carrying out behavior intervention plans and other classroom management duties. This suggests that teachers of students with EBD are faced with significant and varied responsibilities for which they may lack both adequate preparation before assuming the role and adequate support after assuming the role. Billingsley (2004) summarized the literature regarding teacher attrition, and reported that younger and inexperienced special educators as well as uncertified teachers are more likely to leave than their older, more experienced and fully credentialed counterparts. Special education teachers of students with EBD are more likely to be younger and uncertified than are other teachers (Bradley et al., 2008). Consequently, special education teachers who serve students with EBD are more likely to leave the profession or to transfer to other roles within education. As a result, 3 We note that Henderson, Klein, Gonzalez, and Bradley (2005) reported that students with EBD are more likely than students with other disabilities to be served in classrooms comprised, primarily, of students with similar disabilities. Rather than condemning the placement model, we suggest that these findings refer back to what is being done within the classrooms. Downloaded by George Mason University, Mr Carlos Lavin At 17:23 09 May 2018 (PT) Promoting Positive Freedoms for Secondary Students 39 the individuals who are most likely to be teaching students with EBD are least likely to have a well-elaborated and organized understanding of their role. That is, these individuals lack the kind of expertise necessary for effective functioning in their roles (Sternberg & Horvath, 1995). Thus, teachers of students with EBD may need effective instructional supports as much as their students. In response to the need for clear support and structure for special education teachers of students with EBD, Brigham and Wiley (2017) suggested that beginning teachers be trained with a standard treatment protocol and be required to master the basics contained therein before being promoted to make complex decisions regarding individualization. Other reviews (e.g., Benner et al., 2010; McKenna, Kim, Shin, & Pfannenstiel, 2017; Mooney, Ryan, Uhing, Reid, & Epstein, 2005; Weiss, 2015) have addressed various aspects of basic skills instruction, behavior management, and co-teaching for students with EBD. Some authors have focused upon teaching specific content domains to students with disabilities (e.g., Scruggs, Mastropieri, Brigham, & Marshak, in press; Therrien, Taylor, Watt, & Kaldenberg, 2014). We commend the interested reader to these publications for detailed descriptions of specific instructional procedures that are supported for students with disabilities. However, understanding, selecting, and justifying instructional strategies can be as challenging for teachers as is cooperation with these instructional strategies for individuals with EBD. Providing some sort of structure to justify and organize instructional interventions that are different from those provided to other students can help students with EBD understand why the strategies are needed as well as how the strategies are intended to help them. Four Challenges for Completing a Secondary Education We suggest that after addressing the needs for basic skills and aside from content-specific skills and knowledge, four overarching areas of concern remain for completing a secondary education. These areas are the following: a. Discriminating essential from nonessential information. b. Recalling target information quickly and accurately. c. Organizing target information into a coherent representation of the to-be-learned material. d. Expressing one’s learning in forms that can be understood by others. Downloaded by George Mason University, Mr Carlos Lavin At 17:23 09 May 2018 (PT) 40 Frederick J. Brigham et al. Considering instructional interventions from this perspective has the potential to reduce the cognitive load for both students and teachers because it provides a superordinate set of categories to organize our approach and, also, includes justification of why strategies in each area should be employed. The first part of this chapter discussed special educators’ obligation to provide instruction (i.e., why we need to do these things). The remainder describes a way of organizing and justifying approaches to instruction (i.e., why we are going to do it this way). It is clear that these areas are far from mutually exclusive. People who can discriminate the essential from the nonessential are more likely to recall the information, and it is clear that one can neither organize nor express understanding of things that cannot be recalled. However, there are tools that can be deployed to specifically address each of these potential problem areas. Additionally, many interventions employ tools that address more than one problem area. Teachers who understand which areas are being addressed and which areas are left unaddressed in a multistep intervention are in a better position to augment instruction with additional interventions. We next describe the problems and a general approach that is available for dealing with problems in each of these four areas. Discriminating Essential from Nonessential Information Learners who approach domains with which they have little experience or background knowledge are quickly overwhelmed by the amount of information that they encounter. When every new term is equally meaningful or meaningless, it is difficult to perceive any way to organize the experience. Students with EBD have poor academic development. One of the results of poor development is limited reading experience. Individuals with limited reading experience fail to perceive the structure of texts or to note various cues that authors provide to signal important elements of the text (Brigham, Berkley, Simpson, & Brigham, 2007). Graphic organizers (Novak & Gowin, 1984) are a group of techniques that can greatly enhance students’ ability to discriminate important from nonessential information. Graphic organizers visually depict interrelationships of superordinate and subordinate ideas, using spatial arrangements, geometric shapes, lines, and arrows to portray the content structure and to demonstrate key relationships between concepts (DiCecco & Gleason, 2002). A variety of graphic organizers have been developed for specific text formats (e.g., Promoting Positive Freedoms for Secondary Students 41 Downloaded by George Mason University, Mr Carlos Lavin At 17:23 09 May 2018 (PT) causal relationships, compare and contrast, and hierarchical organization; Ellis & Howard, 2007; Gallavan & Kottler, 2007). Hall, Kent, McCulley, Davis, and Wanzek (2013) suggested five steps for using graphic organizers during instruction: 1. Identify the structure of the text that students are reading and choose a graphic organizer that matches this text structure.4 2. Provide students with a brief explanation as to how this type of graphic organizer can aid in their comprehension of the text. 3. Model how to enter information into the graphic organizer, giving opportunities for student participation. 4. Transfer responsibility for the completion of the graphic organizer to students. 5. Encourage students to explain the conceptual relations represented in their graphic organizers. (p. 51) We suggest that in addition to providing structure to the lesson, the provision of a graphic organizer helps students by encouraging them to consider how each unit of information that they encounter is related to the larger theme of their reading or other instructional medium. Additionally, a graphic organizer is a more concrete and enduring representation than is the claim on the part of the learner that she has mastered the material. Claims that one has mastered the material without some sort of validation (optimally, a test) are really nothing more than the learner’s sense of familiarity or having seen the material before (Brown, Roediger, & McDaniel, 2014). There are other supports for this area of challenge for secondary students, but, in the end, each of them will have some component for making the structure of the material more explicit and forcing decisions as to the importance of a unit of information in relation to other units of information. Information that is well structured and deeply processed is more likely to be recalled than is information receiving only superficial consideration. This is particularly true of information that can be expressed in common language; however, it is often necessary to use terminology that is unfamiliar to the learner and, because of its unfamiliarity, quite abstract (Scruggs & Mastropieri, 1989). We next describe a strong method for supporting recall of this kind of information. 4 Examples of two different graphic organizers are presented in Appendix A of this document. 42 Frederick J. Brigham et al. Downloaded by George Mason University, Mr Carlos Lavin At 17:23 09 May 2018 (PT) Recalling Target Information Quickly and Accurately Students with learning and behavior problems have consistently demonstrated problems with recall of factual information. As a consequence of this difficulty, these students often fail academic tests, both classroom and state-level minimum competency tests, thereby, limiting their access to the general education curriculum (Scruggs & Mastropieri, 2000). Mnemonic strategies are tools to improve recall of verbal factual information, particularly, vocabulary, through the creation of links that effectively connect familiar with unfamiliar information. Several different varieties of mnemonic strategies have been created, including the first letter strategies and the keyword method (Brigham & Brigham, 2001). Letter Strategies. Many readers will be familiar with first-letter strategies where the first-letters of the target information are selected to create an acronym to aid in recall of the information. For example, the acronym “HOMES” is often used to prompt recall of the names of the great lakes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior). Teachers tell us that they like this method because it is relatively easy to use as is the similar technique using sentences, where the first letters of a series of words are used to prompts recall of target information. For example, the spelling of the word geography can be prompted by the phrase, “George’s Elderly Old Grandfather Rode a Pig Home Yesterday” or by the phrase, “George Eats Old Grey Rats and Paints Houses Yellow.” For this method to be effective, it is necessary that the learner already have the to-be-recalled information committed to memory. Without knowledge of the names of the great lakes, the acronym, HOMES, is of little value. The mnemonic tool, “Ten Zebras Bought My Car” provides an example of the limitation of letter mnemonics. Medical students often rely on this mnemonic to aid in the recall of the branches of the facial nerve (superior to inferior) as they exit the anterior border of the parotid gland (T: temporal, Z: zygomatic, B: buccal, M: mandibular, C: cervical). Few readers of the present text are likely to have studied human anatomy at a level where such information was emphasized, so the terms represented by the first letter of each word are unavailable to them. Consequently, the zebra mnemonic, like any first letter mnemonic can be very effective, but only under the circumstances where the learner already possesses the target information and needs only a small prompt to be successful. Secondary education, however, requires learners to recall associations of information that, like the branches of the facial nerve are outside of their repertoire of experience and are, therefore quite abstract and difficult to recall. Keyword mnemonics have great power for such tasks. Downloaded by George Mason University, Mr Carlos Lavin At 17:23 09 May 2018 (PT) Promoting Positive Freedoms for Secondary Students 43 The Keyword Method. When using the keyword method, a concrete, acoustically similar word is created for the unfamiliar information to be learned. Scruggs et al. (in press) provided an example to promote recall that Canidae is the scientific name of the biological family of dogs. First, a familiar acoustically similar keyword is created to represent the new word (e.g., “candy”). Next, an interactive picture is created in which the keyword (“candy”) is shown interacting with the meaning (dog), in this case, a picture of a dog eating or begging for candy. The last step is to teach the learners the process for retrieval. When learners are asked what does canidae mean? Learners should first think of the keyword (“candy”), think of the picture with the candy in it (a dog eating candy), and retrieve the correct answer, dogs. In a recent application to teaching our own students, we (Michele Brigham and Frederick Brigham) created a keyword mnemonic to help U.S. history students recall that a tariff is a tax placed on a good (or product) entering the United States (or any other country). We selected “tear off ” as the acoustically similar keyword, and then created an interactive image with a large tag attached to a shipping container. The keyword, “tear off ” appeared on the tag as the instruction “Pay tax, then TEAR OFF and ship to USA.” When students took the state end, of course, examine for U.S. history, several of them reported that a question regarding tariffs was on the test and that they used the image from class to help them remember what a tariff was. Keyword mnemonics are associated with one of the largest positive effect sizes in all of special education literature. The technique is, admittedly, a little tricky to master. It also takes several repetitions of the associations for students to master them, but once mastered, these memories are persistent and available for the learner to use in a variety of situations. Knowing facts is important, but educational goals shoot higher than simply having a set of unrelated facts at hand. Learners must be supported in organizing their store of factual information into a meaningful whole. Organizing Target Information We previously described graphic organizers as a useful tool to help students discriminate meaningful from nonessential information. As the name of the tool implies, information that has been placed in a graphic organizer is far more organized and elaborated than it would be if a learner simply read about the topic or listened to a lecture or discussion of the topic. A well-organized body of knowledge needs to Downloaded by George Mason University, Mr Carlos Lavin At 17:23 09 May 2018 (PT) 44 Frederick J. Brigham et al. be internalized in a coherent fashion in order for it to function as the basis for further learning in the domain (Brigham, 2009). Although completing a graphic organizer is an important first step, it is probably insufficient to creating the kind of cognitive structures that enable individuals with learning and behavioral problems to become independent in a domain and to use their learning to address complex questions. We describe two techniques, the “Question Exploration Routine” (QER) and “Coached Elaboration” that hold promise for actively promoting organization and interrelation of ideas. Both of these techniques involve the use of structured, active questioning by teachers to promote active information processing. The QER. The “QER” (Bulgren, Marquis, Lenz, Deshler, & Schumaker, 2011) is designed to support thinking about and answering complex questions for students with disabilities. QER employs a graphic organizer with six thinking steps posed as questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. What is the critical question? What are the key terms? What are the supporting questions and answers? What is the main idea answer? How can we use the main idea? Is there an overall idea? Is there a real-world use? Teachers employing QER provide an advance organizer, give the topic of the lesson, and explicitly inform the students of the importance of target information. The teacher distributes the graphic organizer and prompts students to take notes on the organizer and participate in the discussion. The teacher and students then work together to address the questions in the graphic organizer. Finally, the students review the information they recorded and use that information to answer questions. Students tested on content where instruction employed QER performed substantially better than students receiving the same content through lectures. Coached Elaboration. Coached elaboration (Scruggs, Mastropieri, & Sullivan, 1994; Scruggs, Mastropieri, Sullivan, & Hesser, 1993; Sullivan, Mastropieri, & Scruggs, 1995) is an extension of practices developed in educational psychology (e.g., Pressley, Johnson, & Symons, 1987) for typical learners to individuals with learning and behavioral problems. Sullivan et al. (1995) structured the elaboration process to assist learners with disabilities to create their own precise elaborations. We have found that skilled teachers, particularly skilled co-teachers, employ this technique in their day-to-day teaching. However, coached elaboration takes both Downloaded by George Mason University, Mr Carlos Lavin At 17:23 09 May 2018 (PT) Promoting Positive Freedoms for Secondary Students 45 practice in carrying out the steps and a clear understanding of when it is likely to benefit students. Understanding when the process is likely to be beneficial to students has proven to be a difficult challenge for teachers-in-training with whom we have worked. The difficulty comes in discriminating between associations that are arbitrary (e.g., Thomas Edison invented the light bulb) and associations that can be explained logically, given sufficient prior knowledge and reasoning skills (e.g., Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone).5 The first step that we suggest is practice in identifying statements of fact and the logical associations and background knowledge that would be necessary for a meaningful elaboration. In cases where the association is more arbitrary, keyword mnemonics are the method of choice. Once the target information and logically related necessary background information is selected, the coaching technique is relatively straightforward. We provide an example of the procedure in Table 1. The point of each step is for the student to produce a reasonable elaboration. If the student produces such an elaboration at any step, the coaching is ended. If not, the teacher moves to next level of coaching. The first step, Coaching One, is always the statement of a fact, followed by the general prompt, “Why would that make sense?” In Coaching Two, the teacher provides a more focused prompt to help the student produce an appropriate elaboration. The Coaching Two prompt is usually in the form of “What else do you know about___?” In Coaching Three, the teacher provides additional context for the elaboration to prompt the student to produce the link between the fact and necessary prior knowledge. In Coaching Four, the teacher presents the elaboration between the factual statement and its explanation, asking the student to verify whether or not it makes sense. Students provided with coached elaborations performed substantially and significantly better on recall tasks than did students who were instructed through direct practice. However, the research demonstrates that students require very explicit questioning that is targeted directly to student construction of an appropriate response. Additionally, it appears that students have a great deal of difficulty implementing this strategy independently (Mastropieri et al., 1996), so teacher support is a critical element to its success. 5 Edison invented lots of things. The light bulb was one of them, but he had no personal interest that drove him to making the light bulb. Bell, however, was the son of a deaf person as well as the husband of another deaf person. Knowing those facts can help make the elaboration of Bell’s work on the telephone meaningful. 46 Frederick J. Brigham et al. Downloaded by George Mason University, Mr Carlos Lavin At 17:23 09 May 2018 (PT) Table 1: Example of Coached Elaboration Steps. Statement of Fact Logically Related Necessary Prior Knowledge Large, single crop bonanza farms were wiped out by the drought but smaller farms often survived. The large farms were set up to grow only one crop, but smaller farms could be more flexible in the crops they grew. Coaching one Coaching two Coaching three Coaching four Coaching levelsa Large, single crop bonanza farms were wiped out by the drought, but smaller farms often survived. Why would that make sense? Think, what were the large bonanza farms like? Remember, bonanza farms were set up to grow only one kind of crop; so why would it make sense that the drought would affect those farmers more than those with smaller farms? The large farms were set up to grow only one crop, but smaller farms, could be more flexible in the crops they grew, so would it make sense that the drought affected the large farms more than the small ones? a The italicized parts of the coaching prompts will be the same for every example. It is the non-italicized parts that change. Expressing One’s Learning Even if one has carried out all of the general learning tasks in the previous sections successfully, demonstrating one’s knowledge by expressing it to others is a major challenge. Gage, Wilson, and MacSuga-Gage (2014) noted that writing done in educational and workplace settings requires recursive processes of planning, drafting, reviewing, revising, and editing to produce several drafts of a text. This work is cognitively demanding and requires persistence on the part of the writers. As can be expected from Downloaded by George Mason University, Mr Carlos Lavin At 17:23 09 May 2018 (PT) Promoting Positive Freedoms for Secondary Students 47 the foregoing discussions of academic achievement, students with EBD perform at levels that are far below those needed for adequate writing. Mastropieri and Scruggs (2014) noted that there has been a great deal of progress in understanding how to teach strategies for planning, organizing, revising, and writing using graphic organizers and instruction in self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) for students with or at risk for EBD. However, mastering complex skills such as written expression requires a great deal of practice, and we know far less about the intensity and practice necessary for accomplishment in this domain. “The importance of providing sufficient, intensive, explicit instruction and the relevant practice necessary for developing writing competence has been underemphasized in recent literature” (Mastropieri & Scruggs, 2014, p. 80). Most approaches to supporting development of writing skills employ a combination of graphic organizers, discussed earlier, and SRSD. In general, SRSD for writing integrates three areas: (a) six stages of explicit writing instruction across a variety of genres; (b) explicit instruction in self-regulation strategies, including goal setting, self-monitoring, and self-instruction; and (c) development of positive student attitudes and self-efficacy about writing (Regan & Mastropieri, 2009). SRSD approaches employ teacher modeling of recursive stages of instruction (develop background knowledge, discuss it, model it, memorize it, support it, and provide independent practice). These stages are used in SRSD to develop genre specific and general writing strategies. Self-regulation is emphasized through goal setting, selfinstructions, self-monitoring, and self-reinforcement (Mason, Harris, & Graham, 2011). Strategies for specific tasks have been developed; however, Mason et al. (2011) suggest that a general writing strategy that can be used across several genres may be the better approach to instruction for writers who have serious difficulties. One such approach is called, POW plus TREE. POW, A General Approach to Improving Writing Abilities. One of the most studied approaches to writing for students who have serious writing difficulties is POW (Regan & Mastropieri, 2009). POW (Pick my idea, Organize my notes, Write and say more) guides students to (a) think about, brainstorm, and pick ideas prior to writing; (b) select a planning strategy to help with organizing notes; and (c) write from a plan and remember to add new information while writing. POW can be combined with other supportive strategies to extend and improve student performance. In each extension, a different second strategy is added to POW, yielding a two-part strategy name, POW plus ______. 48 Frederick J. Brigham et al. Downloaded by George Mason University, Mr Carlos Lavin At 17:23 09 May 2018 (PT) One strategy that research consistently supports for opinion writing is POW plus TREE. The TREE element of the strategy (Topic sentence, 3 or more Reasons, Ending to wrap it up, Examine for all parts) supports opinion-writing. Additional elements are available to augment the POW strategy. We suggest that mastering the basics through POW plus TREE would result in a substantial improvement in the writing performance of students with EBD. Conclusion Much of the discussion of the rights of students with EBD in special education has focused upon the negative rights associated with LRE; however, recent developments including a case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court suggest that positive rights to acquire an education are becoming more dominant. Students with EBD not only are characterized by behavioral problems but also by serious levels of academic underachievement. Thus, students with EBD are very difficult to teach. The difficulties experienced by these students are exacerbated by the tendency of schools to utilize untrained and inexperienced teachers or paraprofessionals to provide instruction. As a result, interventions may lack organization and clear justification. We suggest that in addition to basic skills instruction and discipline-specific tasks, four major challenges face students with disabilities in completing secondary education. Considering instruction according to these four challenges: (a) discriminating essential from nonessential information, (b) recalling target information quickly and accurately, (c) organizing target information into a coherent representation of the to-be-learned material, and (d) expressing one’s learning in forms that can be understood by others can provide a more effective approach to student support. We also provided examples of tools in each of these areas. Given that novice and untrained personnel are often responsible for instruction of students with EBD, it makes sense that a basic set of tools such as those suggested here would benefit the students as well as the teachers who labor to help them. References Anderson, J. A., Kutash, K., & Duchnowski, A. J. (2001). A comparison of the academic progress of students with EBD and students with LD. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 9(2), 106–115. doi:10.1177/106342660100900205 Downloaded by George Mason University, Mr Carlos Lavin At 17:23 09 May 2018 (PT) Promoting Positive Freedoms for Secondary Students 49 Benner, G. J., Nelson, J. R., Ralston, N. C., & Mooney, P. (2010). A meta-analysis of the effects of reading instruction on the reading skills of students with or at risk of behavioral disorders. Behavioral Disorders, 35(2), 86–102. Billingsley, B. S. (2004). Special education teacher retention and attrition: A critical analysis of the research literature. The Journal of Special Education, 38(1), 39–55. doi:10.1177/00224669040380010401 Boardman, A. G., Argüelles, M. E., Vaughn, S., Hughes, M. T., & Klingner, J. (2005). Special education teachers’ views of research-based practices. The Journal of Special Education, 39(3), 168–180. doi:10.1177/002246690503900 30401 Bradley, R., Doolittle, J., & Bartolotta, R. (2008). Building on the data and adding to the discussion: The experiences and outcomes of students with emotional disturbance. Journal of Behavioral Education, 17(1), 4–23. doi:10.1007/ s10864-007-9058-6 Brigham, F. J. (2009). Confusing the momentary and the monumental. Focus on Research, 22(2), 1–2. Brigham, F. J., Ahn, S. Y., Stride, A. N., & McKenna, J. W. (2016). FAPE-Accompli: Misapplication of the principles of inclusion and students with EBD. In J. P. Bakken (Ed.), General and special education inclusion in an age of change: Impact on students with disabilities (pp. 31–47). Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Brigham, F. J., Berkley, S., Simpson, P., & Brigham, M. M. (2007). Comprehension strategy instruction. Current Practice alerts #12. Reston, VA: Division for Learning Disabilities & Division for Research of the Council for Exceptional Children. Brigham, F. J., & Brigham, M. M. (2001). Mnemonic instruction. Current Practice alerts #5. Reston, VA: Division for Learning Disabilities & Division for Research of the Council for Exceptional Children. Brigham, F. J., & Wiley, A. L. (2017, October). Enhancement or individualization? Reconsidering a tradition adrift. Paper presented at the annual meeting of Teacher Educators for Children with Behavioral Disorders, Tempe, AZ. Brinkley, A. (1996). The new deal: An overview. Social Education, 60(5), 255. Brown, P. C., Roediger, H. L., III, & McDaniel, M. A. (2014). Make it stick: The science of successful learning. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Bulgren, J. A., Marquis, J. G., Lenz, B. K., Deshler, D. D., & Schumaker, J. B. (2011). The effectiveness of a question-exploration routine for enhancing the content learning of secondary students. Journal of Educational Psychology, 103(3), 578–593. doi:10.1037/a0023930 Burns, M. K., & Ysseldyke, J. E. (2009). Reported prevalence of evidence-based instructional practices in special education. Journal of Special Education, 43(1), 3–11. doi:10.1177/0022466908315563 Carnine, D. W., Miller, S., Bean, R. M., & Zigmond, N. (1994). Social studies: Educational tools for diverse learners. School Psychology Review, 23(3), 428–441. Downloaded by George Mason University, Mr Carlos Lavin At 17:23 09 May 2018 (PT) 50 Frederick J. Brigham et al. Chesmore, A. A., Ou, S.-R., & Reynolds, A. J. (2016). Childhood placement in special education and adult well-being. The Journal of Special Education, 50(2), 109–120. doi:10.1177/0022466915624413 DiCecco, V. M., & Gleason, M. M. (2002). Using graphic organizers to attain relational knowledge from expository text. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 35(4), 306–320. Ellis, E. S., & Howard, P. S. (2007). Graphic organizers: Power tools for teaching students with learning disabilities. Current Practice alerts #13. Reston, VA: Division for Learning Disabilities & Division for Research of the Council for Exceptional Children. Gage, N. A., Wilson, J., & MacSuga-Gage, A. S. (2014). Writing performance of students with emotional and/or behavioral disabilities. Behavioral Disorders, 40(1), 3–14. Gallavan, N. P., & Kottler, E. (2007). Eight types of graphic organizers for empowering social studies students and teachers. The Social Studies, 98(3), 117–128. doi:10.3200/TSSS.98.3.117-128 Garvey, J. H. (1989). The powers and the duties of government. San Diego Law Review, 26(2), 209–228. Hall, C., Kent, S. C., McCulley, L., Davis, A., & Wanzek, J. (2013). A new look at mnemonics and graphic organizers in the secondary social studies classroom. Teaching Exceptional Children, 46(1), 47–55. doi:10.1177/004005991304600106 Henderson, K., Klein, S., Gonzalez, P., & Bradley, R. (2005). Teachers of children with emotional disturbance: A national look at preparation, teaching conditions, and practices. Behavioral Disorders, 31(1), 6–17. Howe, A. (2017, March 23). Opinion analysis: Court’s decision rejecting low bar for students with disabilities, under the spotlight. SCOTUSblog. Retrieved from http://www.scotusblog.com/2017/03/opinion-analysis-courts-decisionrejecting-low-bar-students-disabilities-spotlight/ Huefner, D. S. (2008). Updating the FAPE standard under IDEA. Journal of Law & Education, 37(3), 367–379. Individuals with Disabilities Improvement Act of 2004. (2005). 20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq. Mason, L. H., Harris, K. R., & Graham, S. (2011). Self-regulated strategy development for students with writing difficulties. Theory Into Practice, 50(1), 20–27. Mastropieri, M. A., & Scruggs, T. E. (2014). Intensive instruction to improve writing for students with emotional and behavioral disorders. Behavioral Disorders, 40(1), 78–83. Mastropieri, M. A., Scruggs, T. E., Hamilton, S. L., Wolfe, S., Whedon, C., & Canevaro, A. (1996). Promoting thinking skills of students with learning disabilities: Effects on recall and comprehension of expository prose. Exceptionality, 6(1), 1–11. McKenna, J. W., & Ciullo, S. (2016). Typical reading instructional practices provided to students with emotional and behavioral disorders in a residential and day treatment setting: A mixed methods study. Residential Treatment for Children & Youth, 33(3–4), 225–246. doi:10.1080/0886571X.2016.1207217 Downloaded by George Mason University, Mr Carlos Lavin At 17:23 09 May 2018 (PT) Promoting Positive Freedoms for Secondary Students 51 McKenna, J., Kim, K., Shin, M., & Pfannenstiel, K. (2017). An evaluation of single-case reading intervention study quality for students with and at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders. Behavior Modification, 41(6), 868–906. McLeskey, J., & Billingsley, B. S. (2008). How does the quality and stability of the teaching force influence the research-to-practice gap? Remedial and Special Education, 29(5), 293–305. doi:10.1177/0741932507312010 Mooney, P., Ryan, J. B., Uhing, B. M., Reid, R., & Epstein, M. H. (2005). A review of self-management interventions targeting academic outcomes for students with emotional and behavioral disorders. Journal of Behavioral Education, 14(3), 203–221. doi:10.1007/s10864-005-6298-1 Morgan, P. L., Frisco, M. L., Farkas, G., & Hibel, J. (2017). Republication of “A propensity score matching analysis of the effects of special education services”. The Journal of Special Education, 50(4), 197–214. doi:10.1177/0022466916686105 No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. (2002). 20 U.S.C § 6301 et seq. Novak, J. D., & Gowin, D. B. (1984). Learning how to learn. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Pressley, M., Johnson, C. J., & Symons, S. (1987). Elaborating to learn and learning to elaborate. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 20(2), 76–91. Regan, K., & Mastropieri, M. A. (2009). Self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) for writing. Current Practice alerts #17. Reston, VA: Division for Learning Disabilities & Division for Research of the Council for Exceptional Children. Scruggs, T. E., & Mastropieri, M. A. (1989). Reconstructive elaborations: A model for content area learning. american Educational Research Journal, 26(2), 311–327. doi:10.3102/00028312026002311 Scruggs, T. E., & Mastropieri, M. A. (2000). The effectiveness of mnemonic instruction for students with learning and behavior problems: An update and research synthesis. Journal of Behavioral Education, 10(2), 163–173. doi:10.1023/a:1016640214368 Scruggs, T. E., Mastropieri, M. A., Brigham, F. J., & Marshak, L. (2017). Science and social studies. In J. M. Kauffman, D. P. Hallahan & P. C. Pullen (Eds.), Handbook of special education (2nd ed., pp. 571–581). New York, NY: Taylor and Francis. Scruggs, T. E., Mastropieri, M. A., & Sullivan, G. S. (1994). Promoting relational thinking: Elaborative interrogation for students with mild disabilities. Exceptional Children, 60(5), 450–457. Scruggs, T. E., Mastropieri, M. A., Sullivan, G. S., & Hesser, L. S. (1993). Improving reasoning and recall: The differential effects of elaborative interrogation and mnemonic elaboration. Learning Disability Quarterly, 16(3), 233–240. doi:10.2307/1511329 Sternberg, R. J., & Horvath, J. A. (1995). A prototype view of expert teaching. Educational Researcher, 24(6), 9–17. Sullivan, G. S., Mastropieri, M. A., & Scruggs, T. E. (1995). Reasoning and remembering: Coaching students with learning disabilites to think. The Journal of Special Education, 29(3), 310–322. doi:10.1177/002246699502900304 52 Frederick J. Brigham et al. Downloaded by George Mason University, Mr Carlos Lavin At 17:23 09 May 2018 (PT) Sutherland, K. S., & Wehby, J. H. (2001). Exploring the relationship between increased opportunities to respond to academic requests and the academic and behavioral outcomes of students with EBD. Remedial and Special Education, 22(2), 113–121. doi:10.1177/074193250102200205 Therrien, W. J., Taylor, J. C., Watt, S., & Kaldenberg, E. R. (2014). Science instruction for students with emotional and behavioral disorders. Remedial and Special Education, 35(1), 15–27. doi:10.1177/0741932513503557 Weiss, M. P. (2015). Co-teaching: Not all special educators should dance. In B. Bateman, J. W. Lloyd, & M. Tankersley (Eds.), Enduring issues in special education: Personal perspectives (pp. 155–165). New York, NY: Routledge. Appendix A. Examples of two different graphic organizers Group and Organize Graphic Organizer Gallavan and Kottler (2007) provided suggestions for eight different forms of graphic organizers. Each serves a different purpose. Here, we provide an adaptation of a “Gropup and Organize” graphic organizer. The purpose of this organizer is to show type, category, or classification. It is best employed with objectives that use verbs such as, arrange, categorize, classify, group, etc. Classify the Features of the Economies of the North and the South before the American Civil War Northern economy Southern economy Problem-Solution-Effect Graphic Organizer. Carnine, Miller, Bean, and Zigmond (1994) provided a graphic organizer for a more interactive Promoting Positive Freedoms for Secondary Students 53 relationship among ideas. The problem-solution-effect organizer is intended to help students perceive multiple perspectives on an issue. It is best employed with objectives that use verbs such as, compare, contrast, evaluate, or group. The following example is adapted from Carnine et al. (1994, p. 436). Problem Downloaded by George Mason University, Mr Carlos Lavin At 17:23 09 May 2018 (PT) Not enough jobs. Solution Problem Build a new airport with lots of planes landing and taking off. Effect Solution People get jobs at the new airport. People try to sell their houses because of the noise. Effect The airplane noise makes it difficult for people to sell their houses and they lose money.