2BEHMOD
Overall, our programme met our objective of teaching the children about impulse control. It was evident that they learnt what we intended as during the first session which was targeted at letting them understand the importance of impulse control, all of them managed to answer ‘follow the angel’ during the verbal evaluation at the end of the session, indicating that they know that it is important and know to make the right decision of not giving in to their impulses. In second session, all of them also managed to correctly list two ways to focus in the questionnaire that we taught them at the start of the session. All of them also managed to tick the correct boxes in the checklist about ways to avoid distractions that was given at the end of session three. Other indicators of their learning were when they were still able to answer our recap questions correctly, and in session two when they identified us distracting them and told each other “ignore them, they are trying to distract you”, successfully completing the obstacle course within the time limit. During the roleplay on the third session, the students knew how to identify distractions, manage distractions from the planted distractors by calmly telling them to stop, and focused on their tasks despite the continuous distractions.
​
Modeling
Modeling was a behavioural principle that we used for sessions one and three, and it was effective to a certain extent. Its effectiveness could be seen in sessions two and three, the students calmly told the distractors ‘stop’ and refocused their attention onto their task, just like the character did for the ‘angel’ option when her friend tried to distract her in the skit. Perhaps due to our poor application of modeling, there were no other clear indicators of the children modeling the other ways that we acted out like telling the distractor that they have an important task at hand, and we cannot be sure that peer modeling occurred for the last session’s roleplay as there was no post-programme observation. Our roleplay in session three also made it hard for modeling to happen as it was quite boring and confusing judging from how students were just zoning out when it was the other group’s turn. However, there is still a possibility that the taught ways to manage distractions are modelled after the programme.
Angel
Devil
Session 1 Skit
Puzzle task
Reading task
Session 2 roleplay
Token economy
The token economy was another principle applied in session two and was particularly effective in encouraging participation and attention. The children were awarded tokens for answering questions correctly and for every level of the obstacle course that they complete within the time given. At the end of the session, the child with the greatest number of tokens was given the priority of choosing the stickers first. When one of the girls was very reluctant to participate in our obstacle course in our second session, she ended up participating upon knowing that completion of the activities can earn her tokens that can be exchanged for stickers at the end of the session. The children also actively tried to answer our questions even if they were unsure of their answers because they were encouraged by the promised reward. It also made them pay more attention when we were teaching them the ways to focus, and this allowed them to effectively learn the intended lesson. All of them were also able to write out at least two ways to focus in the questionnaire given at the end of the session. Even when we did a recap on the third session, they were still able to recall all three ways to focus.
Future programmes
Tokens
Stickers as rewards
For future programmes, I would apply the token economy throughout the programme instead of only one session as that seemed to decrease their motivations to pay attention and participate for sessions after the token economy was used. Applying the token economy throughout the programme might encourage greater participation and hence more effective learning. If I were to use modeling again, I will make sure that there are specific behaviours to be modelled and make it more explicit in the skit. I will also use roleplay scenarios that are more engaging for both the actors and the audience.
(698 words)