Quick Wins and Tough Talks... 239 Show 📝's

Anika Costa and Dr. Paulie Gavoni joined me in Session 239 to discuss their latest book, Quick Wins: Using Behavior Science to Accelerate and Sustain School Improvement. 

In our conversation we talk about why they felt this book was necessary, who represents their ideal reader, and whether we ask too much of school leaders. That last point is something I've been thinking about a lot recently, as we oftentimes ask people with no background in behavior analysis to engage in complex activities like pinpointing performance indicators, diagnosing performance problems, and so on.

We also talk about the distinction between leading and lagging indicators, viewing relationships as accomplishments, their Quick Walk protocol, and what things leaders should do before providing corrective feedback to staff members.

Paulie and Anika are presenting what sounds like a great talk at this year's Stone Soup Conference, which by the way, if you decide to attend, you can save on your registration by using the promo code, PODCAST.

Lastly, the three of us engaged in a little shameless self-promotion by talking about the project we've been working on called The Behavioral Toolbox, which is essentially an e-learning site we built for school-based professionals who are interested in learning how to improve student behavior in educational settings. 

We just launched our first course, Ready, Set, Consult! and we have many more in various stages of development. 

If you work in these types of settings, please check it out. I should also note that the courses we're designing aren't just for Behavior Analysts. We've done our best to communicate in plain English rather than behavioral jargon so that the content is as accessible as possible. To stay up to date on all things toolbox related, be sure to sign up for The Behavioral Toolbox's newsletter on LinkedIn.

Last but not least, the three of us will be at this year's Florida Association for Behavior Analysis conference. I haven't attended FABA in over 20 years, so I'm really excited to see what it's all about. I'll also be on the hotseat for the last event of the conference. Andrew Houvouras is going to turn the tables and interview me on Saturday morning. If you're at the event, please say hello! 

Finally, to close on a random programming note, my website, behavioralobservations.com, is temporarily unavailable as my friends at Flyte New Media are taking a sledgehammer to the existing site, and rebuilding it with something much more functional and aesthetically pleasing. 

I'll have more to say on this later, but if you're need anything related to the site, please sit tight until next week, or shoot me an email. 

Fortunately, as an email subscriber, you're not missing out on the shownotes just because my website is down for maintenance. If you have friends and colleagues whom you think would also like to get the shownotes in this format, feel free to forward this email to them, and encourage them to sign up (and be sure to let them know it's a spam-free experience that doesn't blow up one's inbox ;-)

That's it for now. I hope you enjoy this conversation with my friends Paulie and Anika!

All the best,

Matt