The programs in this section are recorded from Dr. Greene's weekly web-based radio program for educators, Collaborative Problem Solving at School.  They're filled with great information to help you implement the CPS model in your classroom and school, and you can listen to any program that interests you at your convenience...just click!  

But there are a lot of programs to choose from, so we've organized of them by topic. For example, some of the most informative programs are from Dr. Greene's work with Anytown High School, a real high school with real staff and real challenging students with real unsolved problems.  There are 19 sessions with Anytown from the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 school years, and they're a great way to learn about the process, sequence, and hurdles of implementing the CPS model in a school.  CLICK HERE to listen to any of the the Anytown High School sessions.

And Dr. Greene gets together with the Educators Panel -- two school principals and a school counselor -- every month to discuss any variety of topics related to implementing CPS in their schools and classrooms. Those programs are definitely worth a listen as well. CLICK HERE to listen to any of the Educators Panel programs.

The rest are listed below, organized by topic.  Enjoy!

RECENT PROGRAMS

Anytown High School #19:  Did I Drill Far Enough? (program aired live on May 14, 2012)
In this, our final Anytown High School program for this school year, one of our core group members asked about whether she drilled far enough on the unsolved problem (skipping class) of one of her students. Both Dr. Greene and the other core group members were happy to pitch in on that. (By the way, Dr. Greene unknowingly had himself muted at the beginning of the program, so you'll need to wait a minute after the introduction before the program begins.) CLICK HERE

May Educators Panel:  How'd They Do It? (program aired live on May 7, 2012)
Central School in South Berwick, Maine, has been implementing Collaborative Problem Solving as part of a study funded by the Maine Juvenile Justice Advisory Group. School Counselor Nina D'Aran, one of our Educators Panel members, talks about the hurdles they faced (and overcame), the kids they've helped, and the work left to be done. CLICK HERE

Anytown High School #18: Time Well Spent (program aired live on April 30, 2012)
Which takes more time? Applying "uninformed" solutions to students' behavior problems, based on little or no information about the factors truly underlying the behavior...or spen ding the time to gather that information so as to work toward "informed" solutions? CLICK HERE

Handcuffed (program aired live on April 23, 2012)
The magic isn't in what schools do after a student is sent to the office...that's reactive intervention.  The magic is in what schools do before a student is sent to the office in the first place...that's proactive, and it works a lot better. CLICK HERE

Start Small (program aired live on April 9, 2012)
Effective implementation of Collaborative Problem Solving in a school usually starts with a core group of staff who are mastering the model first...school-wide implementation comes later. Which kids should you start with? Your frequent flyers, of course. CLICK HERE  

April Educators Panel: It's Always Something (program aired live on April 2, 2012)
Another great discussion, highlighted by the fact that a student called into the program and received an unexpected orientation to Collaborative Problem Solving. CLICK HERE 

The Empathy Step of Plan B (program aired live on March 26, 2012)
By request, Dr. Greene devoted this program to providing an overview of the Empathy step of Plan B. A good review for the already-familiar...a good introduction for those new to the CPS model. CLICK HERE 

Anytown High School #17: I'm Glad I Know That Now (program aired live on March 9, 2012)
Amazing what adults learn about kids in the Empathy step...especially when the adults leave their preconceived notions at the door. CLICK HERE

March Educators Panel: School Violence and CPS (program aired live on March 5, 2012)
It was a tough topic for the Educators Panel, but a discussion worth having...and listening to. CLICK HERE 

CPS and FBAs, IEPs, RTI, NCLB, ETC. (program aired live on February 27, 2012)
Dr. Greene's guest today on CPS at School was Julie Benay, prinicpal at Mallets Bay School in Colchester, Vermont. A great discussion about...well, the title pretty much tells the tale... CLICK HERE

Anytown High School #16 (program aired live on February 13, 2012)
On today's program, one of the educators at Anytown told us about a Plan B she'd attempted with a student in which the Empathy step became contentious. It turns out she had entered the Empathy step with a theory about the unsolved problem she was discussing...and that theory made it hard for her to achieve the primary goal of the Empathy step: information gathering (rather than theory verification). CLICK HERE

February Educators Panel (program aired live on February 6, 2012)
Implementation of CPS is coming along rather nicely in the schools of the members of our Educators Panel...of course, there's still more work to be done. CLICK HERE

Anytown High School #15 (program aired live on January 30, 2012)
A very interesting, informative discussion today about "clumping" versus "splitting" unsolved problems. Listen in to see what that means! CLICK HERE

Using the Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems (program aired live on January 23, 2012)
Dr. Greene promised to do an entire program on how to use the Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems, and here it is! CLICK HERE

Individual At-Risk Plans (program aired live on December 19, 2011)
Is is a good idea to identify and track at-risk students? Of course! And the CPS model provides schools with the paperwork to help schools do it: the ALSUP, the Plan B Flowchart, and the Plan B Cheat Sheet. CLICK HERE

Anytown High School #14 (program aired live on December 12, 2011)
Our friends at Anytown High School have been doing a lot more Plan B lately...and that means they're gathering a lot of information about what's making it hard for their students to learn and behave appopriately, and getting a lot of problems solved. That's about as exciting as it gets in the CPS Territories. CLICK HERE

Troubleshooting (program aired live on November 28, 2011)
Thanks to a caller, this program focused on the difficulties that can pop up when Collaborative Problem Solving is being implemented in a school.  A very informative program! CLICK HERE

"Therapeutic Restraint" is a Contradiction in Terms (program aired live on October 31, 2011)
The title of the program pretty much says it all, though it's not the only topic Dr. Greene covered. CLICK HERE

The Good, the Bad, and... (program aired live on September 12, 2011)
On this program, Dr. Greene highlighted some of the stories about school discipline practices that made the news over the summer. There's bad news...and good news. How's your school doing in its efforts to transform school discipline? CLICK HERE

HIGHLIGHTED PROGRAMS FROM 2010-2011:

Leading the Way (program aired live on April 18, 2011)
Can a new principal get a school moving toward a more humane, compassionate, effective approach to understanding and helping students with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges?  On this program, you'll hear about how Carol Davison -- Principal at Forsyth Road Elementary in Surrey, British Columbia -- is doing just that. CLICK HERE 

Should Kids Be Rewarded for Participating in Collaborative Problem Solving?  (program aired live on January 10, 2011)
The title pretty much says it all.  But you'll have to listen to hear the answer! CLICK HERE

Why Kids Don't Talk (and other topics) (program aired live on December 13, 2010)
The title pretty much says it all...do listen! CLICK HERE 

Your Definition of the F Word (program aired live on November 29, 2010)
What's the difference between a popular school intervention -- Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) -- and Collaborative Problem Solving?  The biggest difference begins with your definition of the "function" of challenging behavior, and that definition has tremendous implications for how you go about trying to help. CLICK HERE 

What Problems Can Be Solved Collaboratively?(program aired live on November 22, 2010)
To what problems can Collaborative Problem Solving be productively applied? (Hint:  it would be easier to identify the unsolved problems to which CPS can't be applied.)  How do you help colleagues at school embrace the CPS model? CLICK HERE

Lenses and Collaboration at All Ages (program aired live on November 15, 2010)
At what age is it appropriate to try to solve problems collaboratively with kids?  Can you really solve a problem collaboratively with a student if s/he doesn't think there's a problem to solve?  How do you organize the effort within a school building?  CLICK HERE

No Turning Back Now (program aired live on October 25, 2010) 
Today's program aired live from the Child Assessment Unit at Cambridge City Hospital, an inpatient psychiatry unit that has eliminated its use of locked-door seclusion and virtually eliminated the use of physical and chemical restraint. What's been accomplished on this inpatient unit has implications for what can be accomplished in schools as well. (CLICK HERE)

Pointless Consequences (program aired live on October 4, 2010) 
Should adult-imposed consequences still be given when problems are being solved collaboratively? What do such consequences accomplish? How are they counterproductive? (CLICK HERE)

Can We Help This Student? (program aired live on September 27, 2010)
In this program, Dr. Greene responded to an email he received from an educator who'd done her best to help a challenging student, against some tall odds. He also discussed how solving problems (collaboratively) teaches kids many of the skills they're lacking. (CLICK HERE)

Welcome Back! (program aired live on September 20, 2010) 
Alright, summer's over and it's time to get back to the challenge of implementing Collaborative Problem Solving at school so as to understand and help behaviorally challenging students (and help their classmates and caregivers at the same time). Implementing the CPS model is hard work...but nowhere near as hard as not implementing the CPS model! Why do challenging kids respond adaptively in some frustrating situations but not in others? Are diagnoses useful? Are formal evaluations helpful? Is it realistic to have 12 staff in a school system of 55,000 students be the ones solely responsible for handling behavior problems...and in only 2-3 weeks time? (CLICK HERE)

 

THE BASICS OF COLLABORATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING

All Beginnings Are Hard (program aired live on November 9, 2009) This was Dr. Greene's first radio program, so be prepared for some pauses as he adjusts to new technology! But this program provides a nice overview of the Collaborative Problem Solving approach and what it takes to implement CPS in a school. (CLICK HERE)

Landfill (program aired live on May 10, 2010)
This program featured a caller who had questions about a variety of aspects of the CPS model, including: How does working on unsolved problems teach lagging skills? What do we do about the other 28 kids in a classroom when a challenging student is shutting down/acting out? How can we justify spending that much time with one student? How can we justify giving one student exemptions for assignments or making concessions for disruptions when we need to set a precident for other students? (CLICK HERE)

What's Up with This Student? (program aired live on March 29, 2010)
On this program, a special education teacher called in to try to get a better handle on the behavioral challenges being presented by one of her middle school students. Ultimately, the discussion turned in the usual direction: toward consideration of the student's lagging skills and unsolved problems and how to "drill" for information so we understand students' concerns. (CLICK HERE)

 

ORGANIZING THE EFFORT

Key Ingredients for Getting the CPS Ball Rolling (program aired live on November 16, 2009)
How do you get the ball rolling on implementing Collaborative Problem Solving in your school? That depends on where your school is at in terms of recognizing that the students with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges -- and their teachers and classmates -- aren't being well-served by disciplinary programs that rely heavily on rewarding and punishing. (CLICK HERE)

A Vision for School Discipline (program aired live on November 23, 2009)
In this program, Dr. Greene talks about the importance of having a "vision" for what discipline should look like in a school building. Having a vision starts with understanding that challenging behavior is a form of developmental delay...continues with using the Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems (ALSUP) in a school's assessment procedures...and continues with creating mechanisms for school staff to become skilled at using Plan B. (CLICK HERE)

Getting Buy-In (program aired live on January 4, 2010)
How do we help school staff who are having trouble "buying into" CPS?  What misconceptions and concerns do people have about both the conceptualization of challenging behavior as a developmental delay and the idea of solving problems collaboratively with students? (CLICK HERE)

The Who, When, and What of Plan B (program aired live on January 11, 2010)
Who's supposed to do Plan B with a behaviorally challenging student? Should it be a person -- like the assistant principal -- who is totally removed from the unsolved problem that set a student's challenging behavior in motion? Or should it be someone with whom the student has a good relationship and/or the adult who's part of the unsolved problem? Should Plan B take place in the heat of the moment or should it be proactive? What do we need to do in our schools to ensure that Plan B takes place at the right time and with the right people? (CLICK HERE)

 

WORKING WITH PARENTS

Collaboration Between Parents and Teachers (program aired live on December 14, 2009)
Why do interactions between teachers and parents have a high potential for going awry?  What does it take to help things go better. It turns out that collaboration between parents and educators involves the same ingredients as collaboration between adults and kids: making sure that the concerns of both parties are well-clarified and understood (before generating solutions) and working toward solutions that are realistic and mutually satisfactory. (CLICK HERE)

Working Collaboratively with Parents (program aired live on February 15, 2010)
Educators often blame parents for students' behavior problems at school, and often feel that a student's difficulties at school can't be resolved without parental involvement. While working collaboratively with parents is certainly a goal, some unsolved problems don't require parental involvement...and some parents aren't available to help anyway. (CLICK HERE)

 

ASSESSMENT/USING THE ALSUP

Getting Specific on Unsolved Problems/Using Plan B in Groups (program aired live on February 8, 2010)
In this program, Dr. Greene initially spent some time reviewing several ALSUPs that were completed by teachers of actual students so as to examine whether the items listed in the Unsolved Problem section were too vague (and to provide suggestions for information that would be more specific). Then he spent some time with a classroom teacher who called in to inquire about doing full-class Plan B with her group of students. (CLICK HERE)

Functional Assessments That Change Lives (program aired live on March 22, 2010)
How can the Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems (ALSUP) be integrated into a Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) and a Behavior Plan?  (CLICK HERE)

 

USING PLAN B

The Empathy Step (program aired live on December 7, 2009)
This program focused extensively -- and almost exclusively -- on the Empathy step of Plan B, and on "drilling" in particular. For the unfamiliar, drilling involves probing for additional information about a particular unsolved problem so that the concern or perspective of the student is well-understood. Thanks to a caller, an example of "tough drilling" was also discussed. Don't forget: you have a better chance of getting the Empathy step rolling if you're as specific as possible about the unsolved problem you're trying to discuss. (CLICK HERE)

The Empathy Step: Why Didn't the Student Talk? (program aired live on February 22, 2010)
The planned topic for this program was the seldom-talked-about Invitation step of Plan B. But, thanks to a caller, the focus shifted to helping a teacher who is very devoted to using Plan B (but is just beginning to learn how) sort through the possibilities for why a student didn't provide much information in the Empathy step of Plan B. (CLICK HERE)

Troubleshooting Plan B (program aired live on January 25, 2010)
In this program, Dr. Greene helps a group of educators -- who are trying to re-engage a student academically so he doesn't drop out of school -- figure out why they've been "going around in circles" in their efforts to resolve the student's concerns using Plan B. A few of the common ways in which Plan B can go awry -- difficulty "drilling" for information in the Empathy step, and proposing solutions before the concerns and solutions of both parties are well-understood -- were the focal point of this discussion. (CLICK HERE)

The Invitation Step (program aired live on March 1, 2010)
The topic of this program was the much-neglected but really-important Invitation step (these days, referred to as the "Brainstorming ingredient") of Plan B. But woven into the discussion was another topic: time. In other words, it's one thing to learn how to do Plan B, to appreciate the need to do Plan B proactively, and to become proficient at the three ingredients of Plan B. But when are you going to do all this in the ongoing stream of a school day? Probably by devoting 15 minutes a day, every day, to helping kids solve problems. (CLICK HERE)

 

WHERE IT'S HAPPENING

Galvanized and Mobilized in Calgary (program aired live on May 17, 2010)
This program featured an interview with System Principal Lori Pamplin from the Calgary (Alberta, Canada) public schools. Lori's been helping the assistant principals in her school system learn about Collaborative Problem Solving, and reported that folks were positive buoyant when first learning about the lagging skills and unsolved problems setting the stage for social, emotional, and behavioral challenges in students. Naturally, the challenge is to maintain the buoyancy when learning how to do Plan B and trying to apply the CPS model to the many different kids in the system whose unsolved problems and lagging skills have gone unattended for so long. CLICK HERE)

Questions from the Trenches (program aired live on April 12, 2010)
Today's program was broadcast from Harpswell Island Elementary in Maine, where staff are in the early phases of learning about and implementing Collaborative Problem Solving. They had some questions about how to move things further along and make CPS an integral part of their way of doing things, and you can listen in! (CLICK HERE)

CPS Goes to School: The Real Deal (program aired live on November 30, 2009)
In this program, Dr. Greene interviews Dr. Craig Murphy, school psychologist in the Newton, Massachusetts Public School system. As part of a 3-year, federally-funded project overseen by Dr. Murphy, many of the elementary schools in Newton have been implementing the Collaborative Problem Solving approach. Dr. Murphy describes the challenges and successes in helping classroom teachers understand challenging behavior as a form of developmental delay and embrace Plan B as a viable option for helping students with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges. (CLICK HERE)

Continuity...and Energy! (program aired live on April 5, 2010)
The theme for this program was continuity, so it's fitting that Dr. Greene spent the program interviewing Thomas Ambrose when he was principal at Lafayette School in Sanford, Maine (he's since moved on to a school in Freeport, Maine). Mr. Ambrose and the staff at Lafayette put lots of energy into implementing the CPS model at the school, and Mr. Ambrose talked about where that energy came from, how things have gone, and the challenges they've overcome along the way. It's an ongoing effort, and it's paying off. (CLICK HERE)