How can you connect this new skill to the student’s priorities? How can you assure ownership by making the development of this skill the student’s goal rather than just your goal for the student?
You will have great difficulty getting student agreement to use a plan if the student has been repeatedly unsuccessful in working as a part of a team. However, if you have worked on self-management strategies as noted, you already have agreement from the student to use certain visual supports for self-management. Make this simple enough for the student to experience success.
Be aware of the student’s anxiety level around the use of his self-management systems. Be aware of his anxiety around carrying out a collaborative plan. Does he need controlled practice in using a plan on a simple level first?
As always, consider what reinforcers to provide as a result of concrete performance objectives. It is a new skill and it is not easy; your preference survey may help you negotiate with the student so that he will try your plan and your strategies.
*In some cases, the student may display such heightened social anxiety and/or anger-regulation problems that collaborative project completion is not yet an appropriate instructional goal. Classroom accommodations can and should be made to allow some students to work on projects alone, rather than in groups.
As you introduce this skill, how will you incorporate (visually, thematically) the student’s unique interests?
Can you make it visually clear to the student who is resistant to change that his assumption is only one way of looking at things? Can your use of visual supports and self-assessments help get agreement that there is a problem, get agreement on the solution, and create the motivation for change?
Identifying the problem from the student’s point of view is crucial to getting agreement. Oftentimes, avoidance of using a collaborative plan is due to previous failures or to overestimation of what the student can handle. Working with someone else adds an element of over-stimulation for many . Watch for evidence of increased anxiety due to unpredictable and confusing interactions with peers.
If the instructor can define the problems in terms the student would use, it will be easier to get student performance. We get agreement by not choosing a goal that is too hard, by devising and teaching visual supports that aid in independent performance, and by having very strong reinforcement for the performance of targeted organizational, self-regulation and social communication behaviors that underlie effective collaboration.
Priming is a form of negotiation that can reframe and sharpen a student’s assessment of self. Below are the self-assessment tools related to organization and self-direction that align with this intervention topic:
"Organization and Self Direction - Task Completion 1"
Interspersal is a proven technique involving the presentation of familiar, higher success tasks with the new, more challenging task. When it is appropriate, are you varying the activities to maintain the student’s confidence and focus?
The instructor must monitor the level of anxiety and the ongoing success level of the student in using the strategies and the plan. Using a collaborative plan is naturally interspersed with independent work. Does the independent work focus the student, possibly calming him? At least, the independent work should be predictable and provide limited frustration.
Imagine being frustrated by your separate tasks and then having to deal with the anxiety-provoking process of working with someone else? It sounds like a recipe for outbursts or, at least, poor problem solving. *If you are working on a collaborative process, pick a collaborative project in which the student has demonstrated skill.
Before the student encounters a situation where he will need to perform this skill, how do you orient the student to the upcoming situation? How do you orient him to the materials he will use?