Position: Paraprofessional Educator
District: Prince George’s County Public Schools (Maryland)
Clifton G. Jones III is a Paraprofessional Educator at Prince George’s County Public Schools in Maryland. He has used RethinkEd in his classroom for the last two years, and it has become part of the classroom’s daily schedule. He considers RethinkEd as a “great resource for staff at the school.”
Mr. Jones uses RethinkEd to help with Individual Education Plans (IEP) goals, objectives and data collection. For paraprofessionals, the program is helpful when working with special needs students because of its detailed information pertaining to goals and objectives which help in producing positive outcomes in students. Also, RethinkEd improves the teaching of new skills. When one of Mr. Jones’ students was not progressing in a newly presented skill, he was able to compare his own lesson plans and materials to RethinkEd’s materials and gain new ways to implement the lessons and support the student.
“(I would) just document the behavior, the setting, time of day and the frequency of the behavior,” Mr. Jones states of his tactics, before using RethinkEd. Now, Mr. Jones documents all the same things as before but also focuses on what happens before and after the behavior, as well as the possible function for it. Understanding the problem behavior allows him to implement strategies to reduce it.
The RethinkEd Basic and Advanced Training series is the most valuable aspect of the program for Mr. Jones and his classroom. The training series has helped him prepare for the Registered Behavior Technician Exam (RBT), and has taught him how to use the skill of reinforcing to motivate students and increase their instructional participation. Excited to pursue his RBT Certification, Mr. Jones believes, “the basic and advanced ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) training’s are great for professional growth and development.”
RethinkEd has helped Mr. Jones realize the necessity of the RBT certification for his future career development. He trusts that the certification will help “paraprofessionals to articulate what we do in the classroom when working with our students with special needs and how we teach and help them to learn and progress with new skills.” RethinkEd has also taught Mr. Jones the necessary terminology to help explain exactly how he supports his students in the classroom.
RethinkEd has proven to assist Mr. Jones in his role as a paraprofessional, and it will continue to support him in the next stages of his career.
