IRIS CASE STUDY 1
Iris Case Study Assignment
Crystal Scotch
School of Education, Liberty University
IRIS CASE STUDY 2
Email: [email protected]
Case Study Level A, Case 1-Kunj
Behavior Specific Praise
Behavior specific praise is a positive statement towards a student or group of students that
acknowledges a desired behavior such as observation, and measurable terms (Curan & Iris,
2021). When teachers praise a student, they learn to identify correct behaviors and are more
likely to engage in those behaviors again. Teacher praise is a powerful tool to prevent and reduce
behaviors in the classroom (DeFlitch, 2023). Praise must be given immediately after the
behavior, and the teacher must recognize the student by name to be effective. In the situation
with Kunj, providing specific praise would encourage him to complete his work. Praising Kunj
after he completes work would let him know that the teacher is seeing all his hard work and
efforts. These positive or praise statements should be more often than correcting Kunj (Curan &
Iris, 2021). Kunj’s teacher should make sure to watch overusing the same praise and mix praise
up with other types of reinforcements or rewards.
Criterion-Specific Rewards
Criterion-specific rewards are a positive consequence also known as a reinforcement and should
be given after an identified target behavior has been displayed (Curan & Iris, 2021). Criterion
rewards should be used as an intervention to help build appropriate social, behavioral and
academic skills (Curan & Iris, 2021). These rewards will help teachers decrease unwanted
behaviors. The rewards need to be given as soon as the desired behaviors are noticed. Teachers
also need to ensure their rewards system does not lose its value and should consider changing it
up sometimes. There are three types of awards teachers should use: social, activity or privilege
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rewards, and tangible/ material rewards. A social reward allows students to interact with a peer
of their choice during class time or unstructured time such as recess. Teachers need to ensure that
students will not be showing undesirable behaviors together. Activity/privilege rewards can be
given during class or unstructured times, the activity can be something school appropriate that
the student finds motivating. The privilege rewards can be something like free time or computer
time, being a classroom helper or listening to music. The problem with privilege rewards is that
it is not often given right after the behavior and can be difficult to schedule and it needs to be
consistent. The escape reward is allowing the student to miss an activity they do not like;
however, this may mean they could miss understanding the assignment.
Kunj shows off task behaviors by talking to his friends, reading books and magazines, drawing
and day dreaming. Kunj would benefit from allowing him to talk to his friends during
noninstructional time. Another reward could be to allow him to work with a student that is close
to him to help him complete his work. Kunj likes to draw so he could benefit from free time
drawing with a friend of his choice.
Choice Making
Choice making is when a teacher offers a structured choice to a student to get the student
to comply and allowing the student to choose the ownership of their learning (Curan & Iris,
2021). Choice making can prevent undesirable behavior and increase desirable behaviors (Curan
& Iris, 2021). Choice making has been shown to increase student engagement, reduced unwanted
behaviors and increase academic skills (Curan & Iris, 2021). Teachers need to understand when
to use choice making and how to use it.
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Kunj would benefit from choice making. Kunj is typically off task during social studies, and his
teacher believes he can complete grade level work. Allowing Kunj to make choices like choosing
history topics he is interested in as he wants to read. The teacher could also allow Kunj to
illustrate a concept instead of having to write since Kunj likes to draw. Kunj would benefit from
their choice-making decisions in the classroom, and the teacher would see Kunj completing his
work on time without off-task behaviors because the teacher has motivated him with his
interests.
Case Study A, Case 2-Heather
Rules
Rules are statements that define appropriate behaviors that teachers want students to exhibit
(Curan & Iris, 2021). Rules are important not only in the classroom but everywhere because they
keep people safe. Classroom rules also motivate students to behave appropriately, make for a
predictable learning environment, and allow students to monitor their own behavior (Curan &
Iris, 2021). Classroom rules should clearly define what is expected and should be short and to the
point.
Heather is having difficulty in the whole group, she is talking out, interrupting others during
class discussions and talking to her friends during independent work. Heather is not displaying
this behavior in small group when she is pulled with the Intervention Specialist for math
intervention. Heather may not have a clear understanding of the rules in the classroom, and she
may need to go over them with the teacher. The teacher should ignore Heathers disruptive
behavior during class discussion until she has time to privately discuss Heathers behaviors with
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her. The teacher could also address Heathers undesired behaviors quietly so others cannot hear,
and teacher should make sure Heather understands why her behavior is inappropriate.
Contingent Instructions
Contingent instructions are directions used to identify unwanted behaviors that students need to
stop doing and students need to be told the appropriate behaviors to use (Curan & Iris, 2021).
There are 6 criteria to use when using contingent instructions: specific, nonjudgemental, private,
neutral resolute and followed by reinforcements. When using specific, the teacher needs to
clearly tell the student what behavior they would like them to stop and what would be an
appropriate behavior they should exhibit. A nonjudgmental approach should be a precise
statement, so the student is clear on what they are to do, for example A’Keem please close your
Chromebook and get out your reading book A. A private instruction would be when the teacher
is near the student and addresses the student's name before given the instruction. A neutral
instruction would be when a teacher uses a calm, firm voice and has no emotion in their voice or
body language (Curan & Iris, 2021). A resolute instruction is stern, and the teacher means what
they say, and the student is unable to try and make a deal. Reinforcement is when the teacher
gives praise immediately after the student has used the correct behavior.
Heather would benefit from contingent instructions in the classroom. The teacher should give
Heather clear instructions on what she is doing wrong. Since Heather likes to talk to her friends
during independent work, it would be appropriate for the teacher to address her by name and tell
her to stop talking to her friends and begin her assignment. When Heather is disrupting the class
by shouting out, the teacher should stand close to Heather and calmly and politely ask her to stop
shouting out answers and explain that others are working. Heather could also receive praise after
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a core discussion when she appropriately contributed to the discussion without shouting out.
These instructions should have a positive effect on Heathers behaviors.
Group Contingency
Group contingency is a reinforcement strategy that uses peer influence by setting a group goal
and performing a positive group consequence for a desired behavior (Curan & Iris, 2021). There
are three types of contingencies strategies dependent, independent and interdependent.
Dependent is when an individual or group of students receive an award or privilege. Dependent
reinforcement can be positive as a student can help earn rewards for a group and can support the
class, however it can be negative if the student does not earn rewards for the group, or they do
not have interests in earning rewards for a group (Curan & Iris, 2021). Independent
reinforcement is when a group of students achieve a set goal, and the same reward is given to all
students and one student's behavior does not impact the group (Curan & Iris, 2021). The positive
of this is there is not any peer pressure, however, students may not want to follow the behaviors
as they may not be interested in the rewards. Interdependent reinforcement is when every student
in the group or class achieves a goal and can give positive peer influence (Curan & Iris, 2021).
The negative to interdependent reinforcement is students may not feel they can meet a goal, or
they may intentionally try to ensure the rest of the group does not get the reward.
Heather would benefit from dependent group contingencies because of her talking out, the class
would receive an award when she follows class rules. If the whole class would recieve an award,
it is likely that Heather’s peers would encourage her to remain quiet and follow classroom rules.
The reward should be something that Heather is interested in, that way she is more likely to
follow the desired behavior.
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Case Study Level B, Case 1-Garrison
Choice Making
Choice making would be beneficial to Garrison as he does not like to complete writing
assignments in any subject. If the teacher were to give him a choice on his writing assignments,
allowing him to write about subjects of interest such as dinosaurs or robots, Garrison would be
more likely to work on and complete the assignment. Garrison also likes to being on the
computer for games, he may like the choice to do his writing assignment on the computer rather
than writing it with paper and pencil. Since Garrison likes games on his computer, his teacher
could allow him to play math games on his computer that is equivalent to the topic they are
working on in class.
Why is this best
I believe choice making would be most beneficial to Garrison because he is doing task avoidance
and by giving him choices, he will be more likely to complete his work. Garrison has many
interests and if one of his interests were included in the task or work, he would be more
interested in the subject and complete the assignment. He is also into computers and computer
gaming. This opens a lot of choices for Garrison to complete work to assess his knowledge of a
given topic. Garrison does not like writing because he is not good at it and sees the intervention
specialist for help. Garrison could use his computer for writing tasks and use the speech to text
option to help him write his assignment. Using this option would give Garrison some self
confidence in his writing and he may eventually like to write.
Implementation
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I chose this strategy because I have many students like Garrison on my caseload. Many students
that I work with struggle with writing for multiple reasons. Garrison struggles with written
expression, which many of my students do as well. My students like it when I give them topics
that they are interested in and many of my students need to you the speech to text options to help
them write sentences. These students hate writing using paper and pencil because they cannot
spell the words they want to write, and it makes them frustrated. They feel more confident in
their writing with the text to speech option.
Case Study Level B, Case 2-Ellie
Dependent Group Contingency Strategy
Ellie is a 9th grade student that completes her independent work on time and does not have any
behavioral issues. Her teacher reports that she does not like to do group work and her peers do
not like working in groups with her because she does not do any work and brings the group
down. Ellie does not appear to have made many friends as she sits alone in the back of the
classroom. Dependent group contingency strategy would be best for Ellie because she is a newer
student, and this would give her the opportunity to work and interact with her peers which would
allow her to become comfortable with some of the other students in class and get her to open up.
Why is this best
This strategy is best for Ellie because it will allow her to work cooperatively with her
assigned group of peers and to become more comfortable with them since Ellie is very shy. This
would encourage Ellie to work with her peers because she could earn rewards for the desired
behaviors of completing group work. For completing her group work, Ellie could earn free time
or passes to work alone during free time, if she earns 15 passes, she could decide to work alone
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instead of working with a group. This strategy should only be known to Ellie and the teacher as
other students may feel that the teacher is giving Ellie some sort of favoritism or think it is not
fair that they cannot make a deal with the teacher.
Implementation
I use this strategy in my classroom with a behavioral student as this is a part of his
behavior intervention plan. For my students, he does not like to follow directions from adults,
and he does not complete any classwork especially when it comes to mathematics. So, he is on a
token economy system in his general education class. He gets one token for each assignment he
finishes in the classroom once he fills his jar and has 35 tokens, he can cash those tokens in for
two Takis. He has recently lost his recess for the year so he has asked if he could trade his 35
tokens for one recess and one Taki, his general education teacher and I feel it is allowable for
him to do this. Since then, he has been completing more class assignments.
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Reference
Curran, C., & the IRIS Center. (2003, 2021). Encouraging appropriate behavior. Retrieved from
https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/wpcontent/uploads/pdf_case_studies/
ics_encappbeh.pdf
DeFlitch, S. (2023, September 7). Behavior-specific praise in the classroom: The Complete
Guide. Panorama Education. https://www.panoramaed.com/blog/guide-to-
behavior-specific-praise-in-the-classroom
