Virtual Open House Master of Education in Special Education – Behavior Analysis Transcript

Chris Barthold: So, this is the Master of Education and Special Education with a concentration in Behavior Analysis, Open House. You both have the privilege of being the very first to people to ever hear the… this presentation. So, this is the very first open house we’ve had for this program, so welcome, and… You get to kick everything off, so, awesome to have you here. We’ll talk a little bit about me, for a second. We’ll talk about George Mason. We’ll talk about the curriculum, the behavior analysis details, BA stands for behavior analysis, not bachelor’s. And then we’ll get into admission requirements, next steps, you can ask questions along the way. If you want to ask questions in chat, or if you just want to raise your hand and ask questions. Feel free to ask questions along the way, don’t feel like you gotta wait till the end, especially since there’s only a few of us here. I would rather that you stop and ask questions, because what I can do is that I can really tailor this to both of you, and anything you have As a burning question, feel free to ask. This is me. I am the Academic Program Coordinator for behavior analysis, and I have been doing this behavior analysis thing for about 30 years now. I became a BCBA in 2001, BCBAD in 2007, and, I’ve been at Mason for about 12 years now. My areas of study are, the scholarship of teaching and learning, so how to teach people, who are learning behavior analysis, and also sport, health, and fitness. So, in typical populations. All right, so… what makes our program unique? So, really, this is a program in behavior analysis, and so what you’re going to be learning is you’re going to be learning the ins and outs of behavior analysis from conceptual to applied. It is a part-time format. We will talk a little bit about there is some field work involved. We are ranked number 5 for Best Online Special Ed Programs by U.S. News and World Report. And you can start in the spring or start in the fall. Or the summer. We have starts spring, fall, summer. And, you will… see that our program is very interactive. So, we’re not just a watch a video, write a reflection paper, watch a video. There’s a lot of things like simulations that you’ll be doing. You’ll be collecting data, you’ll be interacting with your peers. A lot of different ways of learning come into play here as you’re taking courses online. Alright, so, you’ll see that most of the courses that you have to take are, behavior analysis. So, this is not necessarily a track, it’s actually a concentration. So, once you start, you’re in the behavior analysis concentration. It’s, not necessarily that you can move between degrees. It’s also, just so you know, this is not a teacher education program, so you can’t get a teacher cert out of this. And the other thing to know is that while we will talk a lot about autism, this is not necessarily an autism-centric program. So you’ll be able to learn about the applications of behavior analysis in all kinds of different places. Our faculty work in all kinds of different spheres, from schools to autism to, I also work with adults with intellectual disabilities. To, like, counseling and marriage and family therapy. So, we have… you can learn about behavior analysis and apply it to anything that you’re really interested in. So, you will have to take two special education courses. One is the Intro to Special Ed, and the other one is our Computer Applications for Special Populations. And then you’re gonna jump right into your behavior analysis courses, starting with the BEHV602. So EDSE 625 and 664 happen a little bit later. Your principles of behavior analysis, this is where you start to learn to talk like a behavior analyst. Even if you’ve worked in the field, there’s a lot of things that… a lot of things that we have to be really specific about. When we’re learning these terms, and you’ll learn to get fluent in those terms. BEHV603 is conceptual analysis of behavior, so conceptual issues. So really, the, bedrock of our science. Things like philosophy, how did Skinner see certain things? We go beyond Skinner. So, that’s where you start to get into the concepts and really start to think like a behavior analyst. Next is your research methods, and, this one… will require you to do some field-based work. You will find those field placements on your own, to do things, and we’ll help you along the way. We’ll help you get that field placement. It will give you all the parameters, the, memorandum of understanding that you’ll have to do, where you take your data, all those types of things will be given to you when you do those field-based assignments, and you’ll start doing those Starting in BEHB604, And then also in 606 and 607. BEHV605 is probably my favorite, but I’m a little biased. Experimental analysis of behavior, this is where you’ll get to work with a virtual rat in an operant chamber. And I’ve had some people go, oh, I’m not so sure about that, but honestly, a lot of people, once they start doing it, and they see how powerful this stuff is, they get really, really excited, and they end up loving it. assessment of behavior is just as we say it is. It’s, how you get baselines of behavior, it’s how you determine what’s going on, it’s kind of the… Class where you learn how to ask why. in, the right ways. Organizational behavior management, this is a new course. This is about applying behavior analysis to systems. and organizations, whether those are human service organizations, Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, it’s really about how to apply behavior analysis to organizations and systems. And then, you’ll get to verbal behavior, where you’ll learn about how behavior analysts talk about communication and language, and learn about how we assess it, and how we teach it. And then, last but not least, ethics. Ethics and professional conduct for behavior analysts. And actually, this is the, admissions process. We are going to have lots of time for questions here.

George Mason Online Admissions: Alright, so I think this is where, I, I, I typically hop in. So…yeah, the admissions process for this program is going to be, really straightforward. the big two things that I always like to start with as it regards to admission, and these will be the things that we’re gonna need, regardless of what program you’re applying for, you know, we’re gonna need, Application and transcripts. The big thing that we’ll need your transcripts for, is just to show that you’ve completed some sort of, yeah, bachelor’s degree, and that your GPA meets the minimum requirement of a 3.0. So those are kind of the big two things that we’ll start with. We’ll need an app and transcripts, just to show that, once again, you’ve got your undergrad degree, and that your GPA is a 3.0. And I’ll pause here, because I see a hand. So do we have a question? If so, you can, you can put it in the chat. Alright, and while we… while we wait on that, The number of things that we’ll need apart from your application and transcripts, as you can see here, it’s not gonna be just a whole lot. Two letters of recommendation are required. The main thing that I’ll point out there. Is that the two letters of recommendation need to be, from someone who knows you on a professional basis, so no personal character recommendations. They need to be two professional letters of recommendation. That’s kind of the big thing to remember there. we’ll need a short statement of purpose. Usually that’s gonna be around 750 words, approximately, so nothing just too long there. But usually we’ll want to be pretty… pretty close to that word count whenever possible. Make sure to flesh it out as much as possible. And then, yeah, the only thing other than your letters of recommendation and your personal statement is the resume. And the resume doesn’t need to be anything, just exorbitantly over, I’d say, a page. So you’re, you’re not gonna need a lot there, just your professional and educational background, and that’s gonna give the admission board pretty much everything that they need. And other than that, that’s… that’s pretty much all of the, all of the items that we need. So certainly, it’s gonna be a little more than your typical bachelor’s program, where you’re fine to just fill out an application and send in your transcripts. But not so much that, you know, we’re gonna be overwhelmed at any point in the process. So yeah, it’s a pretty straightforward application, and I’m actually gonna put my email in our meeting chat. Because one of my big jobs is for the students who find themselves needing assistance in the application process, that’s kind of where I’ll step in. So if you find yourself, you know, forgetting about a specific item or how to submit it. what your app deadlines are, when you need to have all of your paperwork in by. You can shoot any of those questions to me over an email, and I’m always more than happy to either set up a phone call, or chat with you over email, whatever I can do to make your application process just as smooth as it can be. But yeah, that’s pretty much… Everything is in regards to the application itself.

Chris Barthold: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, so Larry’s question was, some courses are listed as may not be repeated for credit, can you explain the repeat policy? Yes, so… Let me go back to… And that’s what… that’s the… go back here. So, if you take… EDSC 501, and let’s say, you know, you get an A in it, you pass it, you can’t take that again and then have it count as more credits. So, once you take a course, you can count those credits, but you can’t take it again. So let’s… but let’s say that you take a course and you don’t pass it. You can take it again then for credit. So, it really is about, if you pass the course, you can’t really double dip. Larry, I don’t know if you’re in the situation where maybe you took some of these courses in a previous degree. I can answer those questions if that’s the case.

George Mason Online Admissions: A lawyer. If we’re… if we’re waiting on more questions, I did have one additional note, for the letters of recommendation. This is something that I’d like to know if I was applying for a program. Usually with letters of recommendation, they’re gonna follow one of two formats. You’re either gonna be asking someone to write a letter, which can take a little bit of time, and sometimes you may need to wait a little bit for your recommender to write something up. And sometimes it’s a questionnaire, and I just wanted to clarify, for this program. the letters of recommendation are a questionnaire. So, you just need to put your recommender’s email addresses and contacts, and it’s like a 10-minute survey. So, the letters of recommendation are actually particularly easy to complete for this one. I meant to clarify that earlier, and I forgot, so just wanted to disclaim that, because I know that sometimes letters of recommendation can be kind of a process to get. You need to wait for someone to write them, and these are super straightforward.

Chris Barthold: Yeah, and And, I’m gonna… answer LaChanta’s question. I have already applied, but I wanted to confirm, for letters of recommendation, would a colleague be acceptable? Yes, as long as they’re not, like, a friend. So, as long as it’s not a personal reference, if they can speak to your work, that’s what is most important. So they should be able to speak to your work, and what you’ve done. The other question that sometimes I get, I don’t know if this is, something you all are thinking about, do you have to be a registered behavior technician to be in this course? No. You absolutely do not. do I have to work in autism? Do I have to have autism experience? No, you absolutely do not. Because really, our idea is that this program will teach you the foundations of the science of behavior, which will allow you to, apply it wherever you would like. So, if you don’t pass a course, does that mean you can’t repeat it? Yes, you can, Larry. So, you can repeat it once more. There are certain restrictions as to how many classes you can, not pass. There’s a certain restriction as to how many Cs you can get in graduate school, and the advisors can tell you more about that. But if you don’t pass the course, if you get a C or an F, and you want to take it again… well, actually, if you get an F, and you want to take it again, you can do it one more time. But that second one is the one that would count towards graduation. It also doesn’t erase the F off of your GPA, so that’s important to note, too. But… let’s hope that, Larry, that you never run into that problem, and you don’t have to worry about that. Yeah, yeah, just threw you off, yeah. The other thing that I did not talk about that I just realized, that I wanted to jump into a little bit is the thesis. The thesis is a brand new addition to our program. And we are in the process of being, of going through the accreditation process, the tiering process of what it is what it’s called, by the Association for Behavior Analysis International. We don’t have it yet, but we’re working on it, we’re working really hard on it. And part of that, they do require that you have a thesis. And this is, somewhat new. So, the thesis is going to be… about one to two semesters long, and you will go out and you’ll either do a research project, or you’ll be doing some sort of literature review, and hopefully you’ll also get to present that work at some conferences. We’re hoping that that’s a thing that students will be able to do. Why did we add that in? Because, there is some literature to support that students who, Interact, to do research as part of their graduate program. tend to be stronger clinicians once they get out, even if they never do research again. Just the idea of learning how to collect data with research precision, learning all of the things that you have to do to get a research project approved, all those types of things, really make people much better clinicians. So, that thesis will cap off your experience at Mason. 3.0 is mandatory, or can a GPA addendum be submitted with the application? So, a 3.0 is, if you are a little bit under a 3.0, Some people are, you know, they come in and they have a little bit under 3.0 for a lot of reasons. You can do a GPA addendum about that, and then your, application would be flagged for additional review. So, someone like me or, somebody within the admissions office would take a look at your application, and then we would make a manual decision about your admittance. Sometimes those admits are full admits, sometimes they’re what’s called provisional, which means that you have to maintain a certain grade in one or two courses to, continuing the program, but, if you have something like a 27 or a 2.8, and you’re like, okay, well, I can’t do this, don’t do that. Apply. Because it’s possible that, we can review your… your stuff, and, it’s still possible that you may get in. Like I said, you two are the brand new, people. This is the first time I’ve given this spiel, so I’m still tripping over my words a little bit, so I appreciate your patience with that with such a small group, I wish there was a way to unmute the participants. And that we could just have a conversation. I’m a talker, yeah.

George Mason Online Admissions: Same.

Chris Barthold: Same, same, same. But, just to put stuff in the chat, I’ll keep answering it as I go, as I can.

George Mason Online Admissions: Oh, and I’m gonna go on ahead and put my email in the chat, so if we get to the… the end of the meeting, we all sign off of our computers, and you think, I wish I… I wish I would have asked this while we were on, send it to me in an email, I’m always more than happy to address any follow-up questions if you have them.

Chris Barthold: And I’ll do the same once you do that.

George Mason Online Admissions: Alright. So there’s my email address. Yeah, like I said, I’m pretty much good whenever, to either schedule a phone call, chat over email, if you guys have any, additional questions after the meeting.

Chris Barthold: I’m thinking of what else we might have missed in the presentation. While you’re thinking of questions, faculty. We didn’t have a faculty slide, we usually do. So… Our faculty, and I will definitely answer that question in just a second, They’re, the faculty, we have, We have Dr. Lisa Tullo is full-time faculty. She works in schools, as does Dr. Christy Park. I work in health, sport, and fitness. I also work with adults in, residential settings. And I am working on a project with, the Virginia prison system. But that hasn’t quite gotten off the ground yet. And then we have, Dr. Kristen Kugel. She works mostly in early childhood autism. And we have Dr. Ted Hoke, who works in marriage and family therapy. So, you have a broad, kind of a broad brush when it comes to the faculty that you’ll be working with. I don’t want to skip the presentation, but here are a few things I’ve been thinking about. Fieldwork data, would it align with RBT work? So, does that fieldwork have to be volunteer work? So I’m going to answer the second question first, and then get to the first question. So the second question, field work does not necessarily have to be volunteer work, it can be paid. Our field work will not necessarily count to those 2,000 hours of supervised independent field work that you have to get in order to get certified, although maybe your supervisor may say so. And just so you know, RBT work only counts for a percentage of those supervised hours. I think it’s, I think it’s 40%. I have to look about the percentages, but it’s on the BACB website, Behavior Analyst Certification Board. So if you’re working just as an RBT, you have to do extra stuff in order to sit for the exam. That’s not enough. Your supervisor should be familiar with those guidelines. Whoever you pick as your supervisor, they should have the 8-hour supervisor training, and you should be executing a contract with them, just so you don’t get stuck. The other thing to keep in mind is with, supervised independent field work, is that once you start with EDSE 602, that’s when you could begin your fieldwork, not with 501. And as far as our assignments are concerned, they’re going to be Pretty prescriptive about what you have to do, so we will work well in advance of those courses to make sure that you’re good to go. So, as soon as you start your first course in behavior analysis, we’re going to be talking about how to get those sites, what’s needed, what types of permissions need to be signed, etc, because we don’t want to see it get stuck. And you will be able to do all the assignments in one setting if you so choose, or you can skip around. It’s up to you. I like the broad behavior analysis outlook, but I’m concerned about… about the program preparing students to pass the BCBA exam, especially since it’s highly scenario-based. Our pass rate is high, for a program with the volume that we do. we have a very good pass… pass rate. We have not had anybody say that they are… they felt as if they were, somehow hamstrung, with… because we have that broader outlook. So, I don’t think you really have to worry about that too much. I understand where that’s coming from, but… Most of our, most of the people who go through this program do pass, and a lot of them do pass on the first try. And for the program size that we have, our pass rates are well within range. I see the program is pursuing recognition through the Association for Behavior Analysis International Tiered Model of Education. Yes, that is the language that they told us to use. Can you share where the program, stands in that process, and the expected timeline for obtaining recognition. Oh, you’re at NBCHWC, I love it! So am I. And… and plan to sit for the BCBA certification post-degree, understand that recognition and status is important for my planning. Does the program foresee approval, and by when? So, we can never say. that it’s going to be a slam dunk, you know, because we’re not allowed to say that. ABAI would go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So… but… we are, I think we’re pretty well positioned to get tiered. Our plan is to go through that in March. Knowing that there’s going to be kind of a rush, because this tiering thing is, now required by, the end of 2026. Otherwise, you, you’ll have trouble sitting for the exam. We have been working on this for about 3 years now to make sure that that doesn’t happen to you, and I anticipate that we will be tiered long before you’ll graduate. So I wouldn’t worry, too much about, you know, not… us not getting tiered and you not being able to sit for the exam. So, yeah. Yeah, we’ve been working on that. Now, obviously, we’re not allowed to say that we, you know, we’re guaranteeing anything, but, I can tell you that we’ve been working really hard on this, and I am so excited that you’re on MDCHWC! Larry, were you… In the presentation that I gave for, Wisconsin Stevens… I knew your name sounded familiar! Okay. Alright, awesome! I’m so glad that you came to, That you came to, to Mason. Awesome! We’re glad to have you.

George Mason Online Admissions: Wow. I just wanted to throw this out as a quick note. I know it’s great timing since we’re through a lot of the content that we have, but the good news is that I’m learning how to work computers over here, and I think I can allow you guys to talk through your through your computer microphones, if you prefer to. I don’t know if you have… if you have many more questions, but, I think I’ve figured out how to do some computer magic over here, and allow you guys to just talk instead of sending questions through the chat, if… That would be your preference.

Chris Barthold: That’d be great.

George Mason Online Admissions: Let’s see…

Chris Barthold: Thank you, thank you.

George Mason Online Admissions: Let’s start with, with you, Larry.

Larry Green: Can you hear me?

George Mason Online Admissions: Yes. There he is!

Larry Green: There I am. Hmm, how are you? Good to hear you.

Chris Barthold: It’s doing well, doing well.

Larry Green: Yes, yes, yes. I did have a question about the field work.

Chris Barthold: Huh.

Larry Green: And I may… I’m sure I missed it, but for the program, we are responsible for obtaining our fieldwork, or is that, like, outlined for us, and you go to said fieldwork, or we have to find it on our own?

Chris Barthold: So you would have to find a place, but the activities are set out for you. So it’s a little more prescriptive than when you got the MVCHWC, but if you… are you coaching right now?

Larry Green: I am.

Chris Barthold: Okay, yeah, you should be able to, if you’re coaching or working with, a company, you should be able to do a lot of what, you need to do within that coaching.

Larry Green: Awesome.

Chris Barthold: Stuff. Yeah. Are you working with a company, or are you private practice?

Larry Green: private practice.

Chris Barthold: Private practice, okay. The OBM course, the OBM thing, we might need to work with you a little bit on that one, but we’ll work with you way in advance of that. I think we can make it work, and it won’t be a problem.

Larry Green: Okay.

Chris Barthold: Yeah, so, don’t panic, we can make it work for you.

Larry Green: Haha, thank you.

Chris Barthold: Yup. And as far as the other, the 2,000 hours, I think probably once you get admitted, and you’re in, why don’t we set up a time, because your situation… I’ll understand your situation probably the best out of… anybody, so why don’t we set up a time and we can figure out how we’re going to, move forward with those 2,000 hours, too.

Larry Green: Got you. Thank you. Will it do.

Chris Barthold: Absolutely. Absolutely. LaShunta, did you have questions, or did you want to jump in?

LaShunta McQueen: Can you guys hear me?

Chris Barthold: Yep, absolutely.

LaShunta McQueen: I really feel like I asked the questions that I had.

Chris Barthold: Okay.

LaShunta McQueen: I’m just excited to be here. I feel good about the presentation, I’m excited to start the classes. I want you to tell me that I’m accepted right now, actually.

Chris Barthold: I wish I could do that, but I don’t have your stuff in front of me, so I… I can’t say for sure. Your name looks very familiar to me, I can tell you that.

LaShunta McQueen: There was a… there was a movie.

Chris Barthold: Really?

LaShunta McQueen: Lightning McQueen cars.

Chris Barthold: Oh, yeah, that is true, that is true, yeah.

LaShunta McQueen: Or a Steve, a lot of people know Steve McQueen.

Chris Barthold: Steve McQueen, yep, yep.

LaShunta McQueen: Yeah, but, no, I feel like I’m excited to start the classes. They sound very interesting. I’m excited about the, organizational, behavioral, aspect of it. Coming… I’m working as an RBT, I’m in clinic. I’ve been doing it for 8 months now. And… Oh my goodness. Could we use the organization, right?

Chris Barthold: Well, yeah, that’s… I think that’s why we added it in, actually, because it is a new requirement from the BACB to get certified.

LaShunta McQueen: I have been looking into different work positions along that side, and I noticed that only, like, less than 1% of BCBAs even take on a role like that, so I’m excited to learn more about it. That’s all, y’all, I’m just excited, like, okay.

Chris Barthold: Yeah. Yeah, we’re super excited about, you know, the people who want to go out and apply behavior analysis in really cool places. So, you know, the people who, you know, oh, only 1% of PCBAs do this, or only 1%, we want to

Chris Barthold: We want to encourage you all to do those types of things, because we think that that’s really where the growth of the field’s gonna happen.

LaShunta McQueen: and the staff, I love how broad it is, because I also used to work, with elderly and residential areas, and I’m interested in moving from a child setting and working with adults with different disabilities. I just felt like working with kids and seeing that raw emotion would help when it came to moving back along to the adult side, so I just love that there’s a broad outlook among the staff as well. I can pick all your brains.

Chris Barthold: Absolutely, absolutely. My oldest client right now is, 67 years old. And Dr. Hoke has also worked way across the lifespan. He’s been doing this for a really, really long time. All of us have extensive experience. So you have a very, seasoned faculty. But we’re not jaded.

Larry Green: We’re seasoned, but we’re not jaded.

Chris Barthold: So…

LaShunta McQueen: That was all for me.

Chris Barthold: Okay, yeah, any other… any other things? Questions? I always say questions, concerns, worries, freakouts, All right. Well, I don’t want to keep anybody longer than we have to, Do me a favor and tell a couple of friends that you were here. And get them to apply, too. Because, We are very, very, very excited to start this new program. We think it’s gonna be great, and we’re also very excited to… start, preparing behavior analysts in this new program, so… Tell a few friends, and be happy to answer any questions, concerns, or worries that you might have going forward. So, Matthew, is there any other things that we need to cover that you can think of?

George Mason Online Admissions: Yeah, I think if… if that answers everyone’s questions, I’ll go on ahead and, and, and yeah, wrap us up here. Just as the last note here, once again, and I can’t overstate this, if you guys do have any questions, or even if you don’t have any questions, and you’ve got an application in, and you just want an update, feel free to give us a call, shoot us an email whenever. You know, we’re always more than happy to, Address any questions, even if we’ve addressed them before, because the application process can be… stressful, even in the best of circumstances, so we’re gonna try and make the application process as smooth and as easygoing as possible. So, yeah, if you need anything, give us a shout whenever. And other than that, I think… I think that pretty much does us.

LaShunta McQueen: I’m sorry, did you already put that information in the chat? Because I don’t see it on my side. Your email?

George Mason Online Admissions: Yeah, I put it… I put it in the chat. It should be… If you can see the chat history, it should be in there. Larry, can you see it?

Larry Green: No, I cannot see it.

George Mason Online Admissions: Let’s see…

LaShunta McQueen: Huh.

Chris Barthold: Oh, because it’s going to the hosts and panelists, and we didn’t hit everyone. Okay. I know exactly what happened, and I’ll cut and paste. For you, Matthew.

George Mason Online Admissions: There we go. There’s my email.

Chris Barthold: And then mine, I’ll put mine in. There we go.

George Mason Online Admissions: There we go. You guys see the both of those?

Larry Green: Yes.

George Mason Online Admissions: Perfect. Well, yeah, especially now that you guys have those, yeah, whatever questions or updates or, yeah, just a need for conversation that you guys want to have. There’s a lot that goes into this, so definitely feel free to reach out whenever. And unless you guys had any more questions, I think we’re good to wrap up here.

Larry Green: I’m good for now, but Chris, I will be emailing you if that’s okay.

Chris Barthold: Absolutely.

Larry Green: Yes, ma’am.

Chris Barthold: Absolutely, yup.

George Mason Online Admissions: Well, awesome. I’ll go on ahead and, and close this out here, but like I said, reach out if you need anything, and yeah, thank you for giving us some of your time tonight.

Chris Barthold: Yes, thank you for coming.

Larry Green: Thank you for hosting so much.

Chris Barthold: Thank you. Absolutely.

George Mason Online Admissions: Alright, thank you guys.

Chris Barthold: Take care.