What is ibestt?
The ibestt team at the University of Washington is a group of researchers, educators, and coaches dedicated to supporting schools and districts build effective behavior support systems to help each child thrive. We have created a suite of free resources available on our website related to behavior support in schools, as well as a new app designed to help teachers and behavior support personnel communicate and collaborate to create a positive climate and deliver effective behavior strategies in the classroom.
Featured free resources available on the ibestt website:
- Classroom Check: The Classroom Check is a tool to help school teams and teachers ensure classrooms have universal classroom strategies in place before conducting more intensive, function-based assessments or interventions.
- Intervention Guides: These guides describe evidence-based practices you can use to provide supports for your students with challenging behavior. Codes are provided for each guide to suggest the behavioral function (escape, attention) and plan component (antecedent, teaching, consequence) most appropriate to consider when using the guides to develop individual support plans.
- Behavior Coaching Supports: The Behavior Coaching Organizer helps coaches and educators work together to support implementing the plan in the classroom.
The ibestt App
ibestt is a free online app developed at the University of Washington in collaboration with schools in Washington state. ibestt was created to help teachers keep students with individualized behavior support plans learning in their own classrooms. It connects teachers with their school’s behavior support team and makes daily data collection quick: one or two data points at the end of the day, with progress graphs drawn automatically.
Currently, we are seeking schools to partner with us in an exciting research and professional development opportunity to evaluate the app. We offer $500 to schools that partner with us, free access to ibestt, and consultation to support each school’s behavior support goals*. We ask a small set of staff and families to fill out 2-3 surveys per year, to help us learn about the impact of ibestt on the school community. Staff and families receive gift cards for each survey they complete.
You can learn more about becoming a research partner on the ibestt website or reach out to our team at ibesttstudy@uw.edu.
* All participating schools are randomly assigned to the ibestt intervention group or a waitlist control group. The intervention group receives ibestt access and training support in the Fall the waitlist group receives the same access and training after the school year ends. Every enrolled school gets ibestt. Random assignment only decides when.
