FAQ & Fact sheets |
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• Fact sheet about Ripple Effects Software
Q: What is Ripple Effects software?
Q: What is Ripple Effects program? A: Ripple Effects software is an integrated, software-based system that includes a multi-award winning learning system, a library of multi-media content, a data management system to assess needs, measure outcomes and track progress and supplemental, web-based resources for students and the adults who work with them, and trainer training that leads to a Certificate of Proficiency. All of it is oriented toward strengthening the social-emotional abilties that are more correlated with school success than IQ, more corelated with work success than technical proficiency.
A: Reading independent and media-rich, the program combines under a single electronic roof hundreds of strategies that evidence has shown work to change behavior, raise grades, and prevent social and health problems. It deploys these strategies using engaging multimedia – photos, sounds, drawings, animation, videos, peer voices and interactive games to provide three tiers of service. Primary: universal development of core social emotional abilities that are linked to success; Secondary:targeted prevention of injury, illness and school failure among groups who have shared risks; Tertiary:indivdualized intervention to reduce recurrence of behavior problems, or under achievement that has already begun. It also offers these same levels of intervention for adults who work with students.
Q: What problems does it solve? A: Behavior problems and academic underachievement, at the school, group and individual levels. It provides a solution to the problem of what to do with students in In-School Suspension that will move them ahead, instead of leave them further behind. It provides systematic, quality-controlled, skill training for students who have been identified as having special needs, due to social and emotional disorders. In terms of process it cuts time and cost needed to scale and sustain best-practice, behavior interventions that previously were avaiable only to a few. It reduces the burden on teachers to instruct in areas they never were trained for and returns to them instruction time lost in dealing with behavior problems. It enables administrators to comply with NCLB required Response to Intervention (RTI). It greatly increases the chance of finding a match between the exact need of any child in any class, and the strategies best suited to meet those needs. Because the expertise is in the box, it increases a school's abilty to sustain the program, when teacher attrition rates are high. Most of all, it empowers children and teens to succeed. It develops strengths, reduces risk factors and effectively intervenes with self-defeating behavior. Finally, due to its data base structure and customizing features, it solves a political problem that has long bedeviled print media: how to simulatantously meet the needs of diverse communities, with diverse policies, without watering down content to the point that it doesn't offend anyone, but doesn't engage them either.
Q: What is the theory behind it? A: Developed by the same woman who conceived and oversaw development of Second Step (a clincially validated violence prevention curriculum), Ripple Effects software is based on a large body of evidence-based theory and research from many fields: education, psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, statistics, technology, art design, and social marketing. It adapts strategies that have been proven effective in settings with live instruction. It particularly draws on work being done in six interrelated fields: Positive youth development, comprehensive prevention, individualized behavioral intervention, learning theory, technology design and social marketing. It draws on more than 1000 published studies. It includes all five of the strategies that meta-analayses of hundreds of prevention programs have shown to be most effective in reducing anti-social behavior:cognitive reframing, behavioral strategies, social skill training, attention fousing techniques, and personal guidance. It also draws heavily on research in the last two decades about how people learn most easily and what roles computers, can and cannot play in that learning process. More than 700 mutli-media tutorials each include no fewer than eight modes of learning, which appeal to diverse learning styes and kinds of intelligence.
Q: Who is Ripple Effects software for? A: Ripple Effects software is for children and youth, and the adults who work with them. It’s used in schools, community organizations, health clinics, and juvenile justice settings. Different versions are developmentally appropriate for their target audience. Ripple Effects Coach for Kids is for children ages seven to ten. Ripple Effects Coach for Teens targets 11 to 16 year olds. Ripple Effects Coach for Staff, targets any adults working with kids. The company also provides a suite of training and implementation support tools and resources to ensure these programs work.
A: Usually to supplement, not supplant, their other efforts. It most often starts at the margins of a school system and works its way to the middle. First, it's used to individualize interventions to address specific behavioral issues, especially in discipline settings like In-School Suspension. Special Education Teachers use it to individualize learning, especially for impulse control, anger management and social skill training. Counselors and nurses use it to provide guidance and problem-solving, and prompt disclosure of sensitive issues. Classroom teachers use it to provide immediate response to a behavior problem, without interering with instruction, or creating a paperwork burden. (Data tracking is automated). The next level of use is to prevent failure, illness or injury for which there are group level risk factors. Scope and Sequence lists are provided for use as violence, substance abuse and a dozen other prevention curricula. The program has been Third to proactively build competence in core social-emotional abilities among all students. Recent research shows a clear link between these peronal characteristics, and academic outcomes. A study conducted by West Ed increases in respect, character, or social-emotional competency.
Q: What results are users seeing? A: After using Ripple Effects, schools see discipline referrals go down, and attendance and grades go up. Students are more respectful and engaged in learning, and staff and students form stronger bonds. The result is less aggressive behavior, more orderly classrooms, greater courtesy and kindness, improved school climate, greater time spent on learning, fewer social and health problems, and improved academic and social outcomes.
Q: Is there evidence it works? A: Yes. Eight studies, five Randomized Controlled Trials, (the gold standard for research) and three Quasi-Experimental studies (the second level of rigor) used school adminstrative data (and in one case, also outside observation of behavior) to measure objective outcomes of students exposed to Ripple Effects, compared to a control group. Here's a short summary of those results: 2005-2006 Randomized Controlled Trial. 6th grade students exposed to Ripple Effects showed scored signficantly higher on two aspects of resilience: empathy, a component of social competence, and problem solving. Their peers in the same classroom scored significantly higher in perceived connection to community. (When one group got Ripple Effects training, stressing empathy, the group they interacted with felt more included. 2003-2004 Four RCT's (funded by NIH) showed statistically significant difference in grades, attendance and some behavior infractions, among four demographically different groups, all with multiple risk factors. The program had the greatest impact on the weakest students, rasing average GPA at one school from 1.4 to 2.2 - the difference between failure and success. all except one showed statistically significant positive impact on attendance. 2003-2004 One quasi-experimental study in the same series (same NIH funding) , showed similar positive impact on grades, behavior and attendance. 2000 In NYC, first RCT showed clinically important, but not statistically significant differences in remedial summer school referrrals. It showed statistically significant positive differences in two scales related to agression: unkindness and disrespect. Terrorist attacks in 2001 prevented replication of study. 1998 A pilot, quasi experimental study showed first evidence of effectiveness, less agression, more assertiveness among diverse group of 9th graders. Ripple Effects software has also been honored with 30 major awards. Is there any evidence it doesn't work? There is mixed evidence about its success as a tool for substance abuse prevention. The same NIH funded study referenced above, showed it lowered perception of harm of marijuana overall. However, in several of those studies, it strengthened norms against occasional use of marijuana, and at the only school that actually measured drug use, students exposed to the Ripple Effects program had statistically significant fewer discipline referrals for actual drug use. California, where these studies took place, has legalized the use of marijuana for medical purposes, which may have affected these findings. Conventional wisdom says perception of harm of marijuana is linked to actual use, as well as to discipline problems and school failure. In these studies, althought students' perception of harm from arijuan went down instead of up, their grades and behavior were significantly better than the control students. We think this challenges the conventional notion that scare tactics are the right approach to reduce marijuana use, and merits further study, but so far no funding has been avaialbe for replicaiton. Q: Shouldn’t parents and teachers be doing this, instead of computers? A: Absolutely – and the machine is a bridge to help kids and adults connect. Kids in trouble often won’t ask for help. These kids will go to the computer, get reassurance they’re not alone, a language for what’s bothering them, a sense of what to do, and encouragement to talk to an adult they trust. The software doesn’t replace the human connection, it’s a catalyst for it. Anecdotal evidence shows that far from replacing human interaction, use of the program strengthens connections between students and caring adults, especially teqachers and parents. And remember, many teachers also need help in developing positive relationships with students, overcoming race-based stereotypes, and effectively handling defiant or disruptive behavior. The computer can give it to them, when and where they need it.
Q: Why does your computerized approach work to teach these things?
Q: How do students cover the material?
Q: Who created the software?
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