Howard Wills

The purpose of the CW-FIT Middle School (CW-FIT MS) project is to conduct an Initial Efficacy evaluation of CW-FIT MS for improving middle school students' engagement, academic outcomes and socially appropriate behaviors while improving their teachers' classroom management practices. Classroom behavior problems top the list of concerns for teachers, who consistently rank students' disruptive, defiant, and aggressive behaviors as major barriers to teaching. Classroom management is particular...

The purpose of this project is to develop the Middle School Class-wide Function-related Intervention Teams (MS CW-FIT), a multi-tiered, class-wide, positive behavioral group contingency intervention for improving middle school teachers' classroom management practices and students' engagement, behaviors, and academic performance. Effective middle school classroom management is critical because well-managed classrooms create opportunities to learn and foster student engagement, while poorly ma...

Research suggests that 3-6 percent of school-age children have emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD), yet these students are typically not identified until they have exhibited serious problems, including school failure, over multiple school years. There is a need for evidence-based interventions that prevent and ameliorate severe problem behavior exhibited by school-age children. Behavioral interventions based on an understanding of "why" a student displays problem behavior (i.e., the fun...

The purpose of this project is to develop Para-Impact, a professional development package to train supervising teachers to utilize practice-based coaching (PBC) to improve paraprofessionals' implementation of systematic instruction for elementary students with moderate to severe developmental disabilities (MSDD). Students with MSDD - including those with autism, significant intellectual disabilities, and multiple disabilities - typically require frequent and intense exposure to evidence-base...