Comparing Versions of the Good Behavior Game: Can a Positive Spin Enhance Effectiveness?

Disruptions can prevent the classroom from being an effective learning environment. The Good Behavior Game (GBG) is a group contingency that has been proven to effectively prevent disruptions and increase engagement. However, the traditional methods of the GBG include teacher scanning for negative student behaviors, and may not align with Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), which is becoming widely adopted in many schools. Extending the findings of Wright and McCurdy, the current study compared the effects of the GBG and a positive version of the GBG, called the Caught Being Good Game (CBGG), on student behavior, including engagement and off-task behaviors, as well as teachers' use of positive and negative statements. Results showed both the GBG and the CBGG improved student behavior, with data not clearly indicating one was superior. Neither intervention led to an increase in positive teacher statements. Implications for teachers and suggestions for further research are discussed.

Fat, fibre and cancer risk in African Americans and rural Africans.

Rates of colon cancer are much higher in African Americans (65:100,000) than in rural South Africans (<5:100,000). The higher rates are associated with higher animal protein and fat, and lower fibre consumption, higher colonic secondary bile acids, lower colonic short-chain fatty acid quantities and higher mucosal proliferative biomarkers of cancer risk in otherwise healthy middle-aged volunteers. Here we investigate further the role of fat and fibre in this association. We performed 2-week food exchanges in subjects from the same populations, where African Americans were fed a high-fibre, low-fat African-style diet and rural Africans a high-fat, low-fibre western-style diet, under close supervision. In comparison with their usual diets, the food changes resulted in remarkable reciprocal changes in mucosal biomarkers of cancer risk and in aspects of the microbiota and metabolome known to affect cancer risk, best illustrated by increased saccharolytic fermentation and butyrogenesis, and suppressed secondary bile acid synthesis in the African Americans.