Fostering Learning, Fun, and Friendship Among Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders and their Peers: The SO (Service-Learning Opportunities) Prepared for Citizenship program

It’s like a colored cube. You try to put it together, you get so frustrated you want to throw it at the wall and smash it. But you have to take time; you have to cooperate with it. You have to make it go the way it needs to go. When you finally do it, you’re like, man, I’m kind of glad I didn’t throw it at the wall and smash it. So I know how to do what I need to do now. I know what I need to do to make this cube work. And sometimes life is like that. And you need to be patient. You need to get all your anger out and cooperate with this cube- with the cube of life… yea. You need to stay in control. You need to cooperate. You need to have fun and see if they (others) will have fun with you. Just like this cube, and you can try. You could throw the cube at the wall; you can break the cube, but it won’t get you anywhere. You won’t learn anything. You won’t make new friends. You won’t have fun. Comments of a 5th grade boy with ADD and LD

Teaching Character Education to Students with Behavioral and Learning Disabilities through Mentoring Relationships

Despite nation-wide efforts to implement character education programs in schools, there is no research that specifically examines the effectiveness of these programs on students with behavioral and learning disabilities. SO (Service-Learning Opportunities) prepared for citizenship, an inclusive after school program, was designed to enhance the character development of elementary students by teaching specific character traits including: (1) responsibility and self-control; (2) cooperation and teamwork; and (3) respect and appreciation of diversity through language arts and other activities. The program relies on high school and college mentors to introduce the curriculum to the children and build friendships. In this ethnographic study, we examine participants’ knowledge of the curriculum and perceptions of the program. Data gathered from in-depth ethnographic interviews of 19 students with behavioral and other learning and language disabilities were coded through domain analysis. Descriptive statistics are included. Results indicate that students with disabilities: (1) expressed responsibilities for their actions; (2) responded to the ideas of cooperation and teamwork and respect and appreciation of diversity; (3) learned to make new friends; and (4) found learning about character to be fun and rewarding

Setting Sail for Early Learning Success: Using a Data-based Decision Making Process to Measure and Monitor Outcomes in Early Childhood Programs

The use of data to inform decision-making and monitor individual student progress is recognized as an important, yet elusive practice in early childhood programs. In this article, Data-based Navigation is presented as a five step data-based decision making process designed to help early childhood professionals measure and monitor desired programmatic outcomes. A case study that focuses on the reduction of challenging behaviors is provided to illustrate the process