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Make Every Second Count! Using SAFMEDS to Promote Fluency in Learning

Michelle P. Kelly1* and Clodagh M. Murray2
  • 1 Emirates College for Advanced Education, United Arab Emirates
  • 2 National University of Ireland Galway, Ireland

Introduction During Say-All-Fast-Minute-Every-Day-Shuffled (SAFMEDS), information to be learned is displayed on both sides of a stack of cards. For example, the neuroscientific definition, “Brain’s ability to change and adapt throughout life” could be written in blue on the front of one card, and the corresponding term “Neuroplasticity” could be written in black on the back. When using SAFMEDS, the student holds the entire deck of cards, starts the timer (typically for 1-minute), “sees” the front of the card silently and “says” the response out loud (Kelly, 2017). The student then turns the card over and checks the answer for immediate feedback and places the card into the “correct” or “not yet/incorrect” pile. Once the timer signals the end of the counting period, the student counts the number of responses in both piles of cards. Both correct and incorrect performance is charted for review and instructional changes are made. It is recommended that the Standard Celeration Chart (SCC) be used as it “has no equal in education” as a tool to effectively measure and assess behavior and make data-driven decisions (Kubina & Yurich, 2012, p. 4). The student then engages in various strategies for additional practice/instruction (before and/or after the charted timings). Teachers can tailor this procedure to suit the needs of their students. For example, a computerized version of SAFMEDS could be used (Fox & Ghezzi, 2003; Tucci Learning Solution, Inc., n.d.) SAFMEDS should be completed at least once every day and the deck of cards should be shuffled prior to beginning the timing to avoid serial learning (Meindl, Ivy, Miller, Neef & Williamson, 2013). SAFMEDS is a strategy that increases fluency, a measure of both the speed and accuracy of student responses (Binder, 1996: Johnson & Layng, 1992). Focusing on fluent performance is one of the foundation principles of precision teaching and should result in improved outcomes such as increased maintenance, endurance, stability, application and generativity (Johnson & Street, 2013; McTiernan, Holloway, Healy & Hogan, 2016; McTiernan, Holloway, Leonard & Healy, 2018). To reliably predict these five outcomes, students need to reach predetermined, empirically-tested performance standards (Fabrizio & Moors, 2003; Johnson et al., 2013). SAFMEDS has been employed to increase fluent performance with a variety of topics, in different settings with different individuals (e.g., Beverly, Hughes, & Hastings, 2009; Casey, McLaughlin, & Everson, 2003; Greene, McTiernan & Holloway, 2018; Hunter, Beverley, Parkinson, & Hughes, 2016; Kelly, 2012; Mannion & Griffin, 2018). The current research study was a replication of Stockwell and Eshleman (2010) with the aim of establishing a fluent verbal repertoire with academic terminology in an undergraduate student. Method The participant was a female student in an undergraduate course in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) in a university in Saudi Arabia. The participant spoke and wrote English fluently as a second-language learner. One 60-card set of SAFMEDS related to key ABA terms taken from the glossary of Cooper, Heron and Heward (2014) was used for this project, as well as a smart phone timer, a data sheet, and a Daily per Minute SCC. The dependent variables were the number of correct and incorrect responses the student emitted during a 1- minute timing. A correct response was defined as an occasion when the student said the term out loud as it was listed on the back of a SAFMEDS card. An incorrect response was defined as an occasion when the student did not respond or stated a response that did not closely match what was printed on the back of the card. The independent variable was the performance aim of 40 or more correct responses and 2 or fewer incorrects during a 1-minute timing (Stockwell et al., 2010). The participant conducted 1 to 3 SAFMEDS timings independently and charted daily progress by plotting frequency data on a SCC. Practice timings typically occurred in the student’s home or on the college campus in a quiet classroom. When multiple timings were conducted on the same date, the best timing with the highest number of corrects and lowest number of incorrects was charted (Stockwell et al., 2010). Results and Discussion The data showed a “jaws” behavior change picture learning picture on the SCC (Kubina et al. 2012), indicating an improvement in performance – an increase in corrects and a decrease in incorrects over time. The number of corrects achieved during timings ranged from 3-50 per minute and the number of incorrects ranged from 0-4 per minute. Data showed that the aim for this project (40 or more corrects and 2 or fewer incorrects in 1 minute) was achieved in 23 days. The student continued for 7 more days following reaching aim and reached a maximum of 50 corrects for the last 2 days of recording. The participant had zero incorrect responses from Day 6 until the end of the study. Conclusion Following the use of SAFMEDS across a period of 23 days for 1-3 minutes per day, the participant acquired a fluent repertoire on seeing an ABA definition and correcting labelling its corresponding term. SAFMEDS was an effective tool for this participant to acquire essential academic terminology.

References

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Keywords: SAFMEDS;, Precision Teaching, learning tool, fluency, Celeration, SCC, Saudi Arabia

Conference: 3rd International Conference on Educational Neuroscience, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 11 Mar - 12 Mar, 2018.

Presentation Type: Poster Presentation

Topic: Educational Neuroscience

Citation: Kelly MP and Murray CM (2018). Make Every Second Count! Using SAFMEDS to Promote Fluency in Learning. Conference Abstract: 3rd International Conference on Educational Neuroscience. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2018.225.00019

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Received: 25 Feb 2018; Published Online: 14 Dec 2018.

* Correspondence: Dr. Michelle P Kelly, Emirates College for Advanced Education, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, michellepatriciakelly@gmail.com