SAN BENITO COUNTY school teacher Logan Shankle has unintentionally raised a small group of aspiring counterfeiters in his class for students with mild to moderate learning disabilities. The system he has created for his K-8 students, which rewards them with play money based on achieving set daily goals, is so popular that they have taken to making their own versions of the bills, with one even attempting to pass off a fake Bitcoin.
Shankle proudly displays these creations on the side of a plastic bin that holds the prizes: snacks, stickers, juice boxes and tickets redeemable for items such as a few minutes with an iPad, a round at the basketball hoops, or, in one student’s case, the chance to help vacuum the classroom.
For Shankle, who teaches at Aromas School, it is a sign his students are connecting with the idea of learning, the start of a tangible understanding of what are often intangible goals of a grade system that eludes them. In teaching special education, he said, this progress is sometimes measured in small and subtle increments.
“It’s engineering a balance between the learner and the instructor,” he said, “to get the most independence with the least amount of high input. If you’re not celebrating it in some way while it’s happening, you’re losing those connections.”
Shankle’s core approach to teaching is influenced by his 16 years with Tucci Learning Solutions, a company that specializes in training parents and educators to address the challenges of teaching special needs children in home and school settings.
Shankle works with Tucci’s Competent Learner Model, which comprises seven “repertoires” used to gauge student progress: talker, observer, listener, problem solver, reader, writer, and participator.
Each student is assessed to identify gaps in their abilities, and Shankle also consults closely with the parents, sometimes visiting their homes to gain a better understanding of the child’s environment and establish the trust necessary to make difficult conversations easier.
“The secret sauce is having the time with the families,” he said. “You need that moment when you say, ‘This is your child, this is my student. At the end of the day, we’re both doing our best to help this student be better.’”
Rewarding incremental progress
The expectations for each student vary: one student might be expected to point to an object in a picture after a verbal prompt, while another might be shown the object and have to identify it verbally. One student may need to complete a math problem, while another may only be asked to draw a given number.
Shankle’s play money is an integral part of the positive reinforcement students receive throughout every lesson. It’s an approach that he developed from memories of his mother’s training work with Guide Dogs for the Blind.
“I saw her being able to shape and teach with this kind of operant conditioning,” he said. “That part clicked with me and made me think, ‘this is something real that will work in the human world.’”
“The secret sauce is having the time with the families. You need that moment when you say, ‘This is your child, this is my student. At the end of the day, we’re both doing our best to help this student be better.’” Logan Shankle, special education teacher
As they complete tasks, successfully or not, positive reinforcement is given verbally, with corrections provided gently when necessary. A few play dollars are also awarded, on a scale that depends on the student’s performance.
For example, the student watches Shankle draw an “X,” starting the first stroke at the upper right of the page, then following with one from the left. If the student makes the mark but neglects the exact order of the lines, Shankle still rewards them but explains the error.
“I’d say, ‘I like the way you did your lines,’” he said, “‘Next time, let’s start at the right and go down.’ When they try again, I’d say, ‘Oh, I love it. There’s a dollar.’ So, we’re celebrating and I’m rewarding the specific behavior with a little error correction.”
As students become accustomed to a task, Shankle might adjust the goalposts slightly. A student might be instructed to use scissors to cut out a circle of paper and glue it to another sheet. The glue and scissors are initially within easy reach. However, if the student accomplishes this task regularly with minimal prompting, they might be relocated to a counter a short distance away, presenting a problem that the student must resolve.
“I’ll indicate that something is missing that we are looking for,” he said. “I’ll indicate, ‘What are we going to do?’ I’m looking for that moment when they jump through the hoop, think, ‘I know what this dummy wants,’ and they go get the scissors.”
As the lessons progress, Shankle keeps the student informed of their current balance and desired goals, saying, “You’ve got $20! Way to go! You only need five more for a juice box!”
The reinforcement includes rewarding improvements in life skills, such as a student remembering to take care of essentials like their glasses, which they need for their work.
“If we don’t find them,” Shankle said, “what are we going to do? We have to have them. We reinforce that they should be there, but they’re not. And that’s a missed opportunity for them to have another dollar.”
Fostering trust with pupils and parents
Michelle Dougherty, the district’s director of special education, said that Shankle’s approach to teaching has been instrumental in making its mild to moderate disability program successful, due in part to his ability to see and respond quickly to what the student needs from him in the moment.
“With the close relationships he makes with the students,” she said, “he can keep them on track and find things that are motivating for them. And he communicates well with the parents, which fosters trust between the family and the school.”
In the case of Adon Diaz’s non-verbal son Gabriel, Shankle worked directly with the family to provide some of his teaching tools for home use. This includes a set of printed icons he uses when training Gabriel to express his wants or needs.
“Before Gabriel learned to use them,” Diaz said, “he would get angry and grab us because we didn’t know what he wanted. Now he approaches things differently: he can go to his icon board and tell us what is wrong.
Adon Diaz said that he was also impressed by Shankle’s willingness to be available whenever the family needed him, which has helped ease some of the pressure of raising his son.
“He was always telling us to call him,” Diaz said, “even on the weekends. Sometimes we would do it just so Gabriel could hear his voice, which calms him and stimulates his mind. He always goes beyond to help.”