Case Study (EDUC 474)

Aidan Dixon – Music Education

Jackson Heights Middle School – Mr. Jeremy Williamson (CT)
Craig Uppercue (Supervisor)
Class/Period/Group: Period 5 – Percussion Ensemble

Subject:
Decreasing the number of Students playing out of turn while instruction is being
given or without permission and increasing student engagement across the
class/ensemble. (Even more so keeping the level of engagement constant through
the class period.)

Description of Student Behavior:

This Percussion Ensemble class is the only one we have at the school. Its purpose
is to give our percussion students more time to hone their skills and largely
increase their playing ability through focused class time centered around technique
and fundamentals. This is a group of 15 students (4 females, 11 males) and they
meet four times every week.
This was also the first group that I took over during my internship and when
starting with this group there were many issues with people playing while I was
either giving instruction or while I was helping another student (or group of
students). As percussionists there is a more eagerness to play the instruments and
there is more opportunity for them to be off task because of the varying focuses on
different parts of the class. This off-task behavior can be seen as conversations
being had either with the person next to them or across the room. In the Pre-Data
Table shown below, you will that there were more occurrences of a lack of
engagement from students rather than playing out of turn overall. Playing out of
turn is usually the effect of students not being engaged during learning time.
*One of the students in this class is on the spectrum and has a disability status.
That student’s name is marked with an * to indicate who it is. His disability is a
prominent factor in how much he is engaged and how many times he plays out, but
it is possible to mitigate and when prompted this student can change his behavior
and regain focus with only minimal corrections or management from me.
Pre-Data:
(This data is collected while I taught during the second week. Nothing was implemented to
change behavior yet. This data is recorded across three different class periods all in the same
week.)

Number of times student

Student Name (first Number of times student is asked to be engaged
only): plays out of turn: and/or times student is
found not being engaged:

Ava 1 3

Nevin 6 7

Colton 4 6

Glenn 7 8

Gabby 1 4

Luke 1 0

Evan 3 6

Nathan 2 5

Max 1 1

Lillian 1 5

Devyn 1 0

Josh 2 0

Tommy* 3 3

Colby 2 7

Grayson 2 4
Total: 37 59
Behavior Intervention Plan (BIP):

The plan I will be implementing includes the following:

- Clearly stating the negative consequences for playing out of turn and fully
following through with those consequences
o This is to maintain the validity of my instruction when correcting
behavior as well as to decrease the amount of play outs that happen
initially and after a warning is given to whichever student
o My goal is to use students as examples when correcting behavior (in
terms of play outs) so that more are motivated to stay engaged and
follow directions
o The negative consequences that I will be presenting when correcting
behavior are below:
§ Putting their sticks on the floor so that they cannot touch them
at all
• Result of Offense #1
§ Packing up their instrument and sitting out of the activity for a
period of time determined by me
• Result of Offense #2 (or for multiple or severe instances)
§ Packing up their instrument and/or moving from their chair (if
they’re sitting out already) to go sit in the hallway until they are
spoken to by the teacher (either Mr. Williamson or myself)
• Result of Offense #3 (or for multiple or severe instances)
§ Packing up their instrument and/or moving from their chair (if
they’re sitting out already) and sending them directly to student
services
• Result of Offense #3 or #4 (or for multiple or severe
instances)
- Vocally praise students that are following directions, staying engaged, and
not playing out of turn
o This is to motivate students to want to be one of the students that is
getting praised for their good behavior and to do so they must be
always engaged in the lesson, following directions, and not playing
out of turn at any point in time
- Use a vocal phrase to call attention back to me and keep them from playing
their instruments when they are not supposed to be
o By saying the phrase “Shoulders!” to the students, that will imply that
I want their full attention and that they should not be playing their
instruments until instructed to do so
 o This strategy is something that I learned from my elementary school
field work where younger students (who are more prone to being
restless) are kept from banging on things, hitting other students, or
playing their instruments by either putting their sticks on their
shoulders or out on their heads like antlers
o Iterations of this phrase that will be used can be seen below:
§ “Shoulders!”
§ “Sticks on our shoulders please”
§ “Shoulders please!”
§ Can also be done by silently demonstrating what I want them to
do (putting my sticks on my shoulders and waiting for them to
see me and do the same)
- Utilizing Brisk Pacing during my instructional learning time to keep them
engaged as much as possible
o Brisk Pacing is a teaching strategy that increases engagement by
increasing the speed of how you give instruction and ask questions
during your lesson
o When teaching a concept with Brisk Pacing, you must ask concise,
low-level, and high-level questions that students are able to follow,
but understand that if they aren’t paying attention that they can miss
out on key information of the lesson or concept being taught
o When doing this strategy, you can also implement cold calling to
catch students that are straying from engagement during your lesson
§ When you call on a student in this way, it forces them to regain
focus and clue back into the lesson so that it doesn’t happen
again

By implementing this BIP, I believe that I can greatly decrease the amount of play
outs in this class period overall and increase engagement during my instructional
learning time.
Post-Data:
(This data was collected during the tenth week of my internship. All aspects of the BIP have
been implemented into my teaching and procedures. This data is recorded across three different
class periods all in the same week.)

Number of times student

Student Name (first Number of times student is asked to be engaged
only): plays out of turn: and/or times student is
found not being engaged:

Ava 0 1

Nevin 1 2

Colton 0 0

Glenn 2 4

Gabby 0 0

Luke 0 0

Evan 0 1

Nathan 0 0

Max 0 0

Lillian 0 2

Devyn 0 0

Josh 0 0

Tommy* 1 4

Colby 1 1

Grayson 0 1

Total: 5 16
 Number of Play Outs and Students Engaged overtime with the
implemented Behavioral Intervention Plan (BIP)
70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0
Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 Week 9 Week 10

Number of times students played out of turn in span of one week

Number of times student is asked to be engaged and/or times student is found not being engaged in span of one week

Post-Data Reflection:
From the data collected across three different class periods (like the data collected
initially), it can be seen that there was an 87% decrease in play outs after the BIP
had been implemented into the class. That data is directly correlated to the
decrease in students found not engaged during instructional learning time. This
data correlation can be seen from the data graph above which shows the impact of
the BIP overtime. After the BIP was implemented, there was a 73% decrease in the
number of students either asked to be engaged or found to not be engaged.
Although the decrease in play outs was larger than the decrease in students not
engaged over the course of three class periods during Week 10, there was still an
overall increase in engagement from the students during class time. The data
collected also shows that there are still a few individuals that still have at least 2
occurrences in each area of focus during this case study. Said individuals are
known to have either recurring behavior issues and/or difficulty staying focused
over short and long periods of time in class.
Post-BIP Implementation Reflection:

After implementing this BIP, there was a lot of growth in the students’ playing
abilities and their ability to stay engaged with me during class time. Even several
days after the post-data was collected, the things implemented were still being
reinforced by me and were still being demonstrated by the students (either in
behavior or in motivation).

This BIP provided a bit more structure and known procedures to this class and it
was strongly needed because this class sits outside of the same structure that the
other band classes receive in terms of how the students come into the classroom,
warm-up, and perform activities. This BIP created more room for said structure to
be implemented into the classroom procedures because by showing some level of
proficiency in engagement and the lack of play outs more things could be asked of
them to add into their procedures. Simply put by showing that most of the students
can do one thing continuously with or without being asked to do so, we (Mr.
Williamson and I) were able to implement and trust them with more procedures or
tasks.

Going forward with this BIP, the one area I struggled with was consistently
following through with the negative consequences stated in the BIP above. The
first or second offence consequences were able to be enacted, but I am still
working on following through with some of the more severe consequences without
feeling emotionally involved or feeling like I am being a bad person by correcting
behavior on that level.

With that in mind, my suggestions to follow-up with this Case Study that will
improve the effectiveness of the implemented BIP are to follow through
completely and prepare yourself mentally to give instruction when correcting
behavior on such a severe level. Now the things that happened because of this were
not severe, but there were multiple warnings given for each offense and by not
following through this shows the students how malleable your validity as a teacher
is. Once that lack of validity is seen by students, it become harder and harder to
correct behavior effectively because of their lack of respect for you as a teacher
and as a figure of authority. Of course, this concept does not just apply to this
class, but in all classes where behavior management can be a hard battle between
teacher and students. By preparing for these things initially and showing the
strength of your validity as a teacher by following through consistently with your
stated and expected consequences in the classroom, you will decrease the amount
of behavior problems you have in the classroom and will allow there to be only
little (or virtually no) room for behavior issues.

I believe that this BIP was effective overall, but still has room to go if it were to be
done by me in the future. This Case Study shows in great detail how you can
increase and maintain engagement and decrease playing out in the music classroom
on the secondary level.