Mr. Watkins decided to focus on generalization across settings. He wanted Jolene to use the skills she’d learned in VOISS to change the topic by asking different questions. Mr. Watkins decided he could best measure Jolene’s understanding of gossip by teaching her to respond to gossip in appropriate ways. Specifically, Jolene would indicate her discomfort with gossip and change the topic by asking the peer a question about something else.

Mr. Watkins operationally defined one outcome that indicated his generalization lessons were effective:

 

• Across at least 10 different conversations, when a peer gossips about another student, Jolene will respond with, “I understand how you feel, but I don’t feel comfortable talking about [person’s name] when they’re not around” (or a similar statement), and she will ask the peer one of 10 unique questions on three given opportunities.

Because a small group setting might provide insufficient practice opportunities, Mr. Watkins opted for direct instruction, which would provide Jolene frequent opportunities to respond. Mr. Watkins decided to work with Jolene in a 1-1 setting during study hall over several brief sessions to teach the generalization lessons.

 

• Instructional Setting: 1-1
• Instructional Method: Direct instruction

Mr. Watkins understood he must explicitly teach Jolene different questions, and opted for the generalization tactic of teaching multiple examples. Mr. Watkins believed it might be difficult for staff to support Jolene during a particular moment of gossip, and knew that Jolene already had a self-monitoring system for on-task behavior. He decided he would expand Jolene’s self-monitoring system: Jolene would note the question she asked a peer and gain access to her reinforcement menu for every group of five unique questions asked. The support strategy, reinforcement, would be easy to employ and would also encourage Jolene to reflect on the ways she responded to gossip.

• Generalization Tactic: Teach multiple examples
• Support Strategy: Reinforcement

Mr. Watkins’ Lesson on “Understanding Gossip”

 

Developing an Individualized Lesson Plan

Mr. Watkins prepared for his lesson by watching several Youtube clips of people changing topics by asking questions, and also by reading examples of questions online. Through this research, he generated a list of 30 possible questions to change the conversation topic. He printed these out in a list and gave the list to Jolene.

During the 1-1 direct instruction lesson, Mr. Watkins began by making a specific gossippy comment that a peer could make, and responded with Jolene’s learned response (i.e., “I understand how you feel, but…”) and one of the 30 possible questions. To teach Jolene multiple examples, he then made another gossippy comment, and he and Jolene looked at the list together to find a question to use to change the topic. They talked about why they might ask that specific question in that situation. Finally, Mr. Watkins made several gossippy comments to Jolene and asked her to practice dismissing the gossip (“I understand how you feel, but…”). He then asked her to choose a question from the printed list.

When Jolene selected the same question multiple times in a row, Mr. Watkins corrected her and prompted her to choose another question from the list. When Jolene successfully chose 10 unique questions from the list over 10 consecutive practice trials, Mr. Watkins asked Jolene to practice without the list. If Jolene hesitated or started to repeat a previous question, Mr. Watkins prompted her with a unique question.

Reinforcing Skills with Jolene

After Jolene independently responded with 10 unique questions, Mr. Watkins decided to review her self-monitoring system with her. He provided Jolene a small notebook, and told her that after each instance of gossip, she would check either “yes” or “no” if she deflected the gossip by reminding peers that she didn’t want to talk about people when they were not present. Then, Jolene would note what question she posed to change to the topic and check “yes” or “no” if the question was unique (i.e., had not been one of the previous 10 questions).  Mr. Watkins told Jolene they’d meet at the end of each school day to review her notes and provide her with reinforcement.