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JJPA (Jamey, Jennie, Paula, April)
The JJPA Blog is designed to provide educators and parents with information and resources they need to help better serve students/children with behavior problems. Many sites were screened and evaluated using our rating system to ensure the comprehensive list of websites that are available. The screening process excluded sites that were too personal, too commercial, too topic specific and/or lacked sufficient content.
JJPA (Jamey, Jennie, Paula, April)
Rating System
The rating systems for the website are on a scale using the terms weak, acceptable, and strong across 4 dimensions; content, navigation, accessibility and design. For more details please visit the Rating System section below.
6 comments:
Web address:
http://specialed.about.com/od/behavioremotiona1/Behavior_and_Emotional_Disabilities.htm
Rating:
Content: STRONG
Navigation: ACCEPTABLE
Accessibility: STRONG
Design: WEAK
About.com: Special Education is part of a larger website which encompasses a wide range of subjects. When you enter this specific web address, you will be directed to their section on behavior and emotional disabilities. This is a very thorough, comprehensive source of valuable information and resources for providing instruction and behavior management to people with EBD. You can then click on a link to find out more about behavior exceptionality/disorder, conduct disorder, or oppositional defiant disorder. For all 3 of these links, this website provides logical, straightforward lists of the primary characteristics of these disorders, diagnostic criteria and treatment options, academic implications, best practices and accommodations in the classroom, and an abundance of outside resources such as suggested readings. Included in these resources are many highly practical worksheets, behavior contracts, behavior checklists, and other “printables” which can be downloaded from the website for free. For example, there is an entire section devoted to classroom management and discipline strategies, which includes a useful daily teacher checklist designed to manage problem behaviors. However, its emphasis on the inclusional model could be considered a drawback to some. This website earned a “weak” design rating since the advertisements distract from the material being presented. Overall, About.com: Special Education is very informative, helpful, and current. The information is presented mostly by Sue Watson, an 18 year veteran of special education, reinforcing the credibility of the source. The greatest advantage of visiting this website is the wealth of resources and free, convenient checklists and other printouts available for teachers and parents alike.
See Behavior Contracts for a comprehensive list of Printables for Your Students/Children.
http://specialed.about.com/cs/behaviordisorders/a/behaviorcontrac.htm
Web address:
http://www.ccbd.net
Rating:
Content: STRONG
Navigation: STRONG
Accessibility: STRONG
Design: ACCEPTABLE
According to their website, the Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders “is dedicated to supporting the professional development and enhancing the expertise of those who work on behalf of children with challenging behavior and their families.” This site is an example of superior content as well as easy navigation unobscured by excessive advertisements. Teachers and family members of children with EBD may find up-to-the-minute news, legislation, events, links, and resources. Of particular value are the practical and easily implemented suggestions listed under “Teacher Resources.” In one neatly organized page, you can find various links to academic, behavioral, and emotional interventions. Areas covered are wide-ranging and include reading, math, peer tutoring, ODD, ADHD, reducing teacher stress, and passive-aggressive children. These are all presented as articles in the pdf format. Although the design is lackluster, its uncluttered appearance makes the website all the more user-friendly. Along with abundance of practical, how-to instructional techniques for teachers of children with EBD, the CCBD website provides beneficial resources (including a quarterly publication) which reflect the latest trends and developments in the field of EBD. All visitors to the website can find appropriate support and an abundance of specific, manageable information. One caveat: the website had a prompt at the top of each page for a CEC Member No. and Password; however, this did not prevent me from viewing all of the pages.
Web address:
http://challengingbehavior.fmhi.usf.edu/index.html
Rating:
Content: STRONG
Navigation: ACCEPTABLE
Accessibility: ACCEPTABLE
Design: STRONG
The Center for Evidence-Based Practice: Young Children with Challenging Behavior provides a well-organized, helpful, and informative website free from advertisements due to their funding by the U.S. Department of Education. One major advantage of the website is its free access to materials and presentations on the topic. “Creating Teaching Tools for Young Children with Challenging Behavior (TTYC)” is one such resource, but it requires unzipping software. This website presents a well-rounded approach to providing education and support to professionals who are working with the EBD population. Namely, it contains clear and concise information on resources, research, training opportunities, presentations and workshops, and effective policies/systems. The link to Positive Behavior Support is most relevant to instructional techniques, and it is further divided into links for Building a Behavior Support Team, Person-Centered Planning, Functional Behavioral Assessment, Hypotheses Development, Behavior Support Plan Development, and Monitoring Outcomes. A brief description of each of the components for Positive Behavior Support follows its link. Once you have clicked on one of the links, many more links await, making the navigation process somewhat cumbersome. However, there is much to be learned from exploring the various levels of information, such as a handy “Do’s and Don’ts of Functional Assessment” chart. A potential disadvantage to this website is that it is targeted toward young children, although the information seems to apply to children of all ages. It also promotes a very specific approach to behavior management, which may actually attract a larger audience considering our current educational belief systems which tend to favor evidence-based approaches to learning. In general, this website can be extremely useful for educators and family members who wish to broaden their concepts of appropriate behavior management of children with EBD while taking advantage of numerous free and useful, well-researched techniques.
Web address:
http://www.behavioradvisor.com/
Rating:
Content: STRONG
Navigation: STRONG
Accessibility: STRONG
Design: STRONG
Dr. Mac’s Amazing Behavior Management Advice Site boasts literally thousands of tips on managing student behavior, and also provides step-by-step directions for how to implement a vast number of standard classroom interventions. This website offers a bulletin board where you can post your disciplinary concerns and receive advice from teachers from around the world. BehaviorAdvisor.com wins the creativity award for its innovative use of fun, intelligent, and helpful graphics. One such graphic involves possible classroom configurations, a highly useful and effective way to assist teachers with a key component of behavior management. The website is highly navigatable as well. If you need a quick and easy way to get back to where you started, simply click on “Fetch Dr. Mac’s Home Page” with the running dog graphic at the bottom of any link page. A sampling of the broad headings that contain a plethora of subtopics on this website: Basics of Behavior Management, Tips for Becoming an Effective and Well-Liked Behavior Manager, Strategies for Addressing Common Behaviors & Conditions, Step-by-Step “How to Do It” Pages for…, and Interesting and/or Humorous Readings. In addition, there is an abundance of practical and up-to-date resources (readings and websites), including Dr. Mac’s book, The Behavior Survival Guide for Kids. The website covers approaches from both the Applied Behavior Analysis (e.g., Self-monitoring, Token Economies) and Psycho Educational (e.g., “I Messages,” Social Skills Training) Models. Dr. Mac often cites real-life examples to illustrate his points. The United Federation of Teachers praised this website as "a wild, witty and highly practical site for educators challenged by student (mis)behavior. A definite mental health destination for teachers at their wits end in managing challenging behavior. Also provides online opportunities for teachers to help other teachers with student behavior issues!” BehaviorAdvisor.com scores high across our rating system for its enjoyable, informative, and comprehensive method of information dissemination. Plus, the behavior management cartoons are hysterical!
Web address:
http://www.cec.sped.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Behavior_Disorders_Emotional_Disturbance&Template=/TaggedPage/TaggedPageDisplay.cfm&TPLID=37&ContentID=5624
Rating:
Content: STRONG
Navigation: ACCEPTABLE
Accessibility: STRONG
Design: STRONG
The Council for Exceptional Children is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving educational outcomes for children. The CEC targets teachers, administrators, parents, or anyone interested in all aspects of education of students with disabilities. One can navigate through the website fairly easily, but the amount of information can occasionally hamper this process. Although the website is immense, you can learn more about instructional techniques for children with EBD by using the link above which will take you to the Behavior Disorders/Emotional Disturbances section in the Exceptionality Area of the Teaching and Learning Center. This page provides a considerable amount of information on the subject, including a long list of detailed articles pertaining to various EBD topics. These articles range in subject matter from successful interventions/accommodations to preventing school violence. For more in-depth discussion of specific disorders, you can click on the links to ADHD and ASD, among many others. Additionally, the website offers professional development for teachers and administrators, a special interest section dedicated to various specific aspects of special education, current news on issues and news in special education, policies, and a store where books and curricula related to special education are recommended and sold. One shortcoming is that some articles can only be viewed if you are a member; however, there are sufficient articles available to all which mainly consist of how-to’s for instruction and step-by-step teaching approaches. All audiences should visit the CEC if they are interested in a vast yet accessible website which can thoroughly respond to almost every imaginable special education question or concern.
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