Jessica Minahan, MEd, BCBA, is a licensed and board-certified behavior analyst, special educator, as well as a consultant to schools internationally (www.jessicaminahan.com). Jessica has over seventeen years of experience supporting students who exhibit challenging behavior in urban public-school systems.
She is the co-author of The Behavior Code: A Practical Guide to Understanding and Teaching the Most Challenging Students (Harvard Education Press, 2012) and author of The Behavior Code Companion: Strategies, Tools, and Interventions for Supporting Students with Anxiety-Related or Oppositional Behaviors (Harvard Education Press, 2014).
Sessions:
Keynote: Practical strategies for reducing anxiety and challenging behaviour in the classroom
With up to one in four children struggling with anxiety in this country, overwhelmed adults are in need of a new approach as well as an effective and easy-to-implement toolkit of strategies that work.
Through the use of case studies, humorous stories, and examples of common challenging situations, participants will learn easy-to-implement preventive tools, strategies, and interventions for reducing anxiety, increasing self-regulation, accurate thinking, and self-monitoring in students.
Practical strategies for reducing anxiety and challenging behaviour in the classroom - part 2
When a student is misbehaving, our focus should be on determining what skill the student is lacking and using interventions to build the requisite skills. What's more, you cannot change your behavior unless you are aware of it! Without the often-overlooked skill of self-monitoring, students remain reliant on adults to monitor and manage their behavior. Learn how to teach behavior instead of managing it by explicitly teaching requisite skills including self-monitoring.
Increasing student engagement and reducing oppositional behaviour
Among the many reasons new teachers leave the field within their first five years, disruptive students are on the top of the list. Without intervention, these children are at risk for poor performance, diminished learning, and social/behavior problems in school. Overwhelming, negative, and inaccurate thoughts can contribute to student disengagement. When this is the case, traditional suggestions such as incentives, offering breaks, graphic organizers, or even checklists will not help the student initiate an activity. As a result of this workshop, participants will be able to easily implement preventive tools, strategies, and interventions for reducing oppositional behavior, increasing work engagement, initiation, persistence, and self-monitoring.
Increasing Student Engagement and Reducing Oppositional Behaviour (Session to be repeated)
Among the many reasons new teachers leave the field within their first five years, disruptive students are on the top of the list. Without intervention, these children are at risk for poor performance, diminished learning, and social/behavior problems in school. Overwhelming, negative, and inaccurate thoughts can contribute to student disengagement. When this is the case, traditional suggestions such as incentives, offering breaks, graphic organizers, or even checklists will not help the student initiate an activity. As a result of this workshop, participants will be able to easily implement preventive tools, strategies, and interventions for reducing oppositional behaviour, increasing work engagement, initiation, persistence, and self-monitoring.