Joe Bower - collaborative problem solving - drilling down for concerns

Drilling down for concerns so we have the kid's concerns which are accurate and relevant is vital for successful problem solving. Kids often shut down because they don't have the words to express their concerns or they have not given much thought to define them  or simply they don't trust the collaborative problem solving process and feel it is just a new way of only care givers have their concerns addressed .

Below is a blog post that describes the questions we may ask in the drilling down process ,  and  2 blog posts by a teacher Joe Bower who shares his cps experience with 2 kids. Joe Bower's teaching philosophy fits in well with the CPS approach to discipline and socio-moral learning.  As Deborah Meier says – teaching is more about listening, learning is more about talking. We need input from our kids so we can identify their concerns and hear about the meaning they make about the world around   them.

http://allankatz-parentingislearning.blogspot.co.il/2011/04/i-dont-know-drilling-down-for-concerns.html

http://www.joebower.org/2012/06/collaborative-problem-solving-with.html

                         

 http://www.joebower.org/2012/05/collaborative-problem-solving-in.html

http://allankatz-parentingislearning.blogspot.co.il/2012/01/collaborative-problem-solving-drilling.html    - drilling down by tabling 

Allan

Collaborative problem solving - Drilling down by ' tabling'

One of the biggest challenges of collaborative problem solving – Plan B is to gather information from the child so we have a clear picture of his concerns. Kids have difficulty in articulating their concerns. Often they don't know, have not given it much thought or don't have the words to express their concerns. We need to use probing questions and drill down to their concerns. Kids have usually more than one concern and their major concerns usually surface well into the conversation.

Sales people -  not those who try to pressure one into buying something - do the same thing. Selling by attraction, means that the sales person helps the customer identify his needs and concerns and then shows how the product can meet those needs and concerns. Along the way , there are usually  'objections' such as price. The way to deal with ' objections ' is called tabling. You take the objection – the price is too high and ask '  if we found a solution that made the price acceptable to you, not a problem , would you be comfortable in buying the product ?  If the answer is No , we carry on drilling down for concerns.

Here is a great example of tabling used by a school psychologist Dr Rebecca Branstetter to drill down concerns of a student.

' I have totally changed the way I consult about and frame discussions about kids with challenging behaviors. I have changed the way I interact with students. Here’s just one example of a technique that I got from the conference, called “tabling.” It is used in the Plan B “Empathy” step, to really try to understand the student’s perspective of the unsolved problem. In the case of my student, it was a middle school girl who refused to write during journal time. We had set up a behavior plan in which she got points for doing the journal and the points were tallied and sent home to parents, etc etc, and there was no change in her behavior. After the conference and my new framework for understanding the problem, I  interviewed her.

Me: I notice that during journal time, you are not writing.

What’s up? I’m not mad, I’m just noticing this. 

Girl: I don't know

Me: Hm. What do you think is the reason if you had to guess?

Girl: I don't have pencils.

Me: Great! So lets say your teacher went to Office Depot and got you tons of pencils. Then would you write during journal time?

[note: here is the “tabling” part—you table their first reason, because its usually not the only thing going on] 

Girl: No. 

Me: What else is getting in your way of writing? 

Girl: It’s too noisy because my friends distract me. 

Me: Okay, what else is keeping you from writing? 

Girl: I don’t like it [okay, this went on and on for about 10 minutes, and we tabled other ideas too, like she doesn’t like writing fiction, she doesn’t have paper, the room is too hot…and so on and so on. We finally got to the “aha!” moment at the end] 

Me: Okay, so lets say you had pencils and paper, all your friends have the flu, you get to write non-fiction, and the room is 68 degrees, then would you write at journal time? 

Girl: No, because the teacher has us read what we wrote out loud and my heart starts to beat fast and I think everyone is looking at me and that they all are thinking I’m a bad writer. 

AHA. So if we had continued down our current theory that she had a lack of motivation, she would have likely continued to balk at writing, because it wasn’t a motivation issue at all. It was a performance anxiety issue, and the lagging skill was her actual writing skills, or she wasn’t confident in her writing skills, or she was not able to regulate her anxiety about presenting her work. This changes the intervention, right? We teach writing skills and coping skills for anxiety. '

The intervention would be find a mutually satisfying solution that would address both the teacher and kid's concerns and also giving her more resources so to improve her writing skills and deal with anxiety.

What would have happened if behavior plan would have worked and the kid despite her anxiety and lack of confidence managed to pull herself together and write during journal time.?

We are still left with an unsolved problem. The unsolved problem is the anxiety and lack of confidence. The unsolved problem is not the ' behavior '.  Plan A  or behavioral plans deal with behavior with rewards,praise, consequences  , hijack the problem , but don't deal with the underlying problem. 

We also have not solved the motivational problem. As educators , we should be trying to help kids be intrinsically motivated and enjoy ' journal writing '.  Extrinsic motivators may get short –term behavior but undermine intrinsic motivation in the long term with kids losing interest in what they are doing.

According to the Self Determination theory of motivation -  when kids needs for autonomy , competence and relatedness are being addressed and met , the stage is set for kids becoming more intrinsically motivated.

Collaborative problem solving addresses the problems- not behaviors- that are getting in the way of kids in a supportive way  -  and thereby addressing the motivational issue.

 We need to remember    - Even if the motivators get rid of the behavior and the student manages to pull himself together and perform , it is usually despite an existing problem. The problem or unmet concerns are still not being met. This of course has a negative impact on intrinsic motivation. Not only because extrinsic motivators undermine intrinsic motivation,  but also underlying problems are not being solved

check the archives for posts on drilling down 

It is what it is - A show stopper

Kids can really end any discussion with show stoppers like - I don't care, I don't want to talk about it , it is what it is - this is who I am. Don't be caught off guard by these statements - just reset your GPS and try get an understanding of his concerns - why he doesn't care, does not wnat to talk about it or nees no point in talking about a problem.

I have talked about the factors that make getting good quality concerns of the kid on the table  a difficult task.  It could be we are trying to do plan b ' in the moment '  instead of proactive plan B , our opening statement presenting the problem is too vague , or not neutral enough , sounding more like Plan A , the kid thinks that plan B will end up as Plan A – plan B is Plan A in disguise - just another tactic. The kid could be lacking the language skills or in truth does not have the answers on the tip of his done as he has not given much thought to this in the past.

In discussions kids can be vague , generalize and not be specific about the details of a problem or the identities of other people involved – these or those people.

What is even more difficult is when kids use

 a show stopper , a cliché or phrase which seems to be putting an end to the conversation.

When I kid says I don't want to talk about it ,  we can shift the plan B discussion to why he does not want to talk about it , try to address his concerns and take it further.

Kids often answer   -  What ! I don’t do that , it is not true !  I don’t deal with such people.

We may need to first to reassure the kid that we are not talking about blame , we are not mad at them , we are fond of them , we just want their side of the story , their perspective so we can solve problems.

They may answer – 'It is what it is – this is what I do – this is who I am .'

It is a show stopper, they are saying there is nothing we can do about it , so why talk about it.  It won't get better so we don't need to talk about it.

The reason for this type of talk , could be as we said above in the beginning of this post , they don't have the answers , we have not talked about this before , they could be not very optimistic about the possible success of Plan B .

We need to challenge the truth of clichés and move away from them.

It is what it is – this is what I do – this is who I am.  – Well ,yes that is what it has been , the question is what is going on with it  and if there is something that we could do that we have not done before ?

This is who I am is the type of remark that a kid with a fixed mindset will say.  I remind kids that we are not smart or stupid but depending on how we apply ourselves and benefit from the guidance of others we can grow.  Actually people are dynamic beings , we never remain in the same place , we either can be moving forward or not so good backwards , we never remain in the same place.

Kids say – It is just too hard , I just don't want to do it !    and it seems that they have just ended the discussion.

We need to keep the conversation going and drill down further using the components of drilling down list .  We can choose the appropriate strategy from the list.

1 Asking the wh questions – who, what, why, with whom , over what , when , how

2 Conditions – under what conditions does the kid do well with this challenge and under what conditions does he struggle

3 Break the unsolved problem into the component parts.

4 What were you thinking in the midst of the problem.

5 Clarifying statements

How so , I am confused or don't understand , can you tell me more , what do you mean, can you say more,

here ae some  more detailed posts on 

 Drilling down for concerns

Allan

I don't know - Drilling down for concerns 2

I have previously discussed the importance of  drilling down with questions to get accurate and good quality concerns on the table

 Drilling down concerns 1

The quality of our solutions using the collaborative problem solving ' Plan B ' will depend on the quality of the kid's concerns we manage to put on the table. This will depend on how clear  ( not vague )  the empathy step is. If the empathy step is too vague or contains too much information that needs to be processed kids will answer ' I don't know'.

Kids may answer ' I don't know '  because they don't trust the  process and see plan B as Plan A in the guise of plan B or that Plan A is around the corner , something which they have come to expect.

We need to drill down with questions to get really good quality concerns.

1  We can ask the the wh – questions  to learn more about the situational factors   -  what,  where, with whom, over what , why , how  

                                  

2 asking yes/no questions and then taking the answers further

3  Different conditions and situations -   under certain conditions the kid does not have a problem, while under others he has difficulty

4   what was the kid thinking during the problem ?   this helps to get their view and perspective on the table. Asking about feelings - how did you feel  etc does not contribute directly to gathering information about concerns.

5  Breaking down the problem situation into different parts or components

6   Using clarifying statements to help the kid do more talking and so give more input

-            Can you tell me more -  I don't understand or I am a bit confused can you explain, how so ,  - there could be more than one concern –so if we can deal with your concern = need a quiet place for homework , would homework then be no longer a problem ?  so the kid may come up with another concern . We would need to prioritize concerns when working on a solution.

7 Making tentative suggestions  - when a kid shuts down or has difficulty identifying or expressing his concerns , we can have in mind 5-6 tentative suggestions of what his concerns might be and express them in a tentative way

INGREDIENTS FOR EMPATHY AND DRILLING FOR INFORMATION   by http://joebower.org 

• questions that focus on the who, what, where and when about the conditions of the unsolved problem

• differentiate between why the problem occurs under some circumstances and not others

• breaking down the problem into its components. For example, if it looks like the child has problems during English class, ask questions to clarify which part of English class is problematic (reading, writing, group work, individual work) If it's reading, then ask questions that clarify what part of reading (out loud, silent)

• reflective listening and clarifying statements: "How so?" "I don't understand" "I'm confused" "Can you say more about that?" "What's hard about that?"

• asking the child what s/he's thinking in the midst of the unsolved problem

• summarizing what's been learned so far

• "tabling" some concerns so as to permit considerations of others. "What if the floor wasn't dirty, could you then sit on the floor with the class?" "If we removed Elijah from group, would that solve the problem?" "Would that make it easier for you?"

  Cps - tabling -  

We may need to have a Plan B discussion about why a kid is answering all the time '  I don't know '. Instead of trying to clarify concerns about a particular problem, we would focus why the kid has difficulty in answering problems.

Plan B is not a technique but a process . When we engage in Plan B , every step on the way , we and the kid are involved in learning.  It takes lots of Plan B experiences for both parent and kid to get good at Plan b and come to trust the process. General chatting and perspective taking can also help with the learning.