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From Me to Us: A Sixth Grade Class’s Journey from Individuals to a Classroom Community
Jennifer Bagun 20092010 Intern: Park Forest Middle School
Sixth Grade Jlb5148@psu.edu
Inquiry Conference
May 8, 2010
2
Table of Contents
Description of Teaching Context……………………………………………………………………………………3
Wonderings and Questions……………………………………………………………………………………………5
Main Wondering………………………………………………………………………………………………...5
Sub‐questions…………………………………………………………………………………………………….6
Data Collection………………………………………………………………………………………………………………6
Data Analysis…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………8
Explanation of Findings………………………………………………………………………………………………...10
Reflections and Implications for Future Practice…………………………………………………………….15
Appendices
Appendix A: Inquiry Brief….………………………………………………………………………………..19
Appendix B: Student Survey………….…………………………………………………………………….26
Appendix C: Student Survey Results……………………………………………………………………30
Appendix D: Sociogram………………………………………………………………………………………35
Appendix E: Sociogram Analysis…………………………………………………………………………36
Appendix F: Anecdotal Records…………………………………………………………………………..41
Appendix G: Morning Meeting Analysis………………………………………………….……………53
Appendix H: Superstar Student Papers………………………………………………….…………….59
Appendix I: Superstar Student Analysis………………………………………………………………61
Appendix J: Student Survey April…………………………………………………………….…………..64
Appendix K: Student Survey April Results………………………………………………….………..68
Appendix L: Sociogram April Analysis…………………………………………………………………73
Appendix M: Annotated Bibliography………………………………………………………………....78
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Description of Teaching Context In my self contained classroom of sixth grade students at Park Forest Middle School,
an even number of boys and girls make up my twenty‐four students. As a Professional
Development Intern, I am a student teacher for the entire year through a partnership
between Penn State and the State College Area School District. I am one of the two teachers
consistently present in the classroom, in addition to the learning support teachers that are
present certain periods throughout the day. My students have varied strengths, needs,
desires, and interests both academically and socially; further, their varied past experiences
impact their encounters in the classroom every day. Based on the different teachers and
classes students have had in the past, they behave differently and respond differently to
situations and motivators.
Of these 24 students, four kids participate in the learning enrichment program
either based on academics or desire to be involved in the program. Three students are in
learning support, one for writing, one for reading, and one for processing information.
These three students have Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) and receive extra support
and services throughout the day. Additionally, two students are currently going through
the Instructional Support process (IST); these students require extra attention,
modification, and support with many assignments throughout the day. Lastly, one student
attends English as a Second Language (ESL) during writing every morning.
So far this school year, the members of our classroom community have shifted; one
student moved away toward the beginning of the year, another student moved into our
classroom after her family moved into the area, and another left this month. It is likely that
if children move into the area, we will have another addition to our classroom community
4
since we now have only 23 students in our class, less than most (if not all) other sixth grade
classes.
As a whole, this class has many strengths. They are excellent at turning in work on
time. When our new student moved into our class, many students were very welcoming
and willing to show her around and help her become acquainted to our schedule. Even
though students have preferences with whom they would prefer to work on group
assignments, they seem willing to work with whomever they are assigned. Further, there
are many positive role models, both male and female, among the students in our class.
However, there are some challenges with this class as a whole. They are an
extremely chatty group of children, which leads to off task‐behavior, such as talking to
neighbors, distracting others, playing with objects, and not paying attention. Further, this
class is inattentive as a whole, needing directions repeated multiple times. Students seem
to either not know when appropriate times to socialize are, or else they disregard these
standards. They talk without regard to the expectations set by teachers during lessons,
silent reading, read aloud, and quiet work time. We are also starting to see cliques
developing among the girls in our class; further, students often cross the line between
joking and inappropriate comments. These comments pertain to name calling and
threatening to self‐harm themselves. We have struggled with dependency and students
needing consistent positive reinforcement. The students in our class seem immature as a
whole, which leads to behaviors that can be interpreted as disrespectful based on what is
expected for their age. (Appendix A)
5
Wonderings and Questions
After leaving school many days emotionally exhausted and frustrated with the
learning and behaviors that occurred in my classroom, I began to wonder about the source
of these feelings. Similarly, starting back as far as parent teacher conferences, we were
notified of students who felt uncomfortable in our classroom for various reasons. A couple
student behaviors stood out as the basis for these frustrations, including the tendency of
this class to talk over teachers and peers during lessons, the lack of respect, whether
intentionally or unintentionally, in both social and academic situations, the willingness of
students to engage in side conversations, the choice students made not to follow explicit
directions the first time, and the ease at which students jokingly called each other names. I
found students unresponsive to strategies my mentor and I tried to work through these
issues, including class meetings, pointing out the behaviors, and talking with parents.
However, the disrespect and feelings in our classroom are all issues that I believed could be
resolved with community building because sixth graders are extremely social, and their
actions revolve around social influences. I thought that if communication was more open,
many of the issues that teachers and students were seeing could be addressed before
anyone got angry or frustrated. Further, seeing the importance of each member of the
classroom community would help students learn to respect each other. Therefore, I was
interested in examining the effect that community building had on this group of sixth grade
students in response to many of the challenges we were encountering. This led me to my
wondering:
Main Wondering
• How can I strengthen my classroom community?
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Subquestions
• How can community building impact how students respect other members of their
classroom community?
• How do my students understand the concept of respect?
• What do the social relationships look like in my class? Will a focus on community
building alter the social status of students in my classroom?
Data Collection
Before I began collecting data, I gathered a baseline of student behaviors to evaluate
our classroom community and the respectful behaviors that students exhibited. I required
my students to fill out a survey made with Google applications (Appendix B). This
anonymous survey began with open‐ended questions about respect in ideal situations. The
survey concluded by asking students to rate themselves on a scale from one to five about
their actions in our classroom. Additionally, to gain insight into the social relationships in
our classroom, I created a sociogram that asked students questions about their social
preferences in regard to the people in our classroom (Appendix D).
From the beginning through the end of my inquiry, I kept a notebook with anecdotal
records. I wrote down respectful and disrespectful behaviors I noticed students engaging in
and the teacher actions that came before and after those student behaviors. I also noted
any interventions that were implemented and how I was feeling about the events of the day
(Appendix F).
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The first intervention I implemented was morning meeting. The morning meetings
in January and February always began with a discussion about an issue I was noticing, a
way we were going to work to improve, and/or an intervention to support students in our
journey. In February and March, I also began to incorporate greeting, sharing, and
community building activities into morning meetings to help build positive relationships
and strengthen our classroom community. My mentor videotaped each morning meeting,
focusing both on me and the students’ reactions throughout the meeting.
To potentially interpret a change in the way students felt and spoke about each
other, I began making copies of Superstar papers. From the beginning of the year, students
have written notes to the Superstar student of the week, sharing with that student what
they like about him or her and why he or she is a positive member of our classroom
community. I made copies of these papers to track the nature of students’ comments, the
amount of detail, and the specificity of the comments to the Superstar student (Appendix
H).
Lastly, to reevaluate students’ feelings after the interventions had been in place for
three months, I required students to complete the same survey that I gave at the beginning
of my inquiry. However, I added on three questions that asked if students liked the
interventions and if they felt they had any impact on our classroom community (Appendix
J). Similarly, I gave students the exact same sociogram to evaluate whether the social
dynamics changed as a result of the community building activities.
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Data Analysis
Analyzing the surveys made with Google Applications was fairly simple with the use
of the tools available in the application. Many of the questions I created were scale
questions where students rated their thoughts from one being “never” to five being
“always.” I was able to easily analyze these results with a feature on the application that
graphs the responses, giving the results in a bar graph and displaying percentages. The
answers to the free response questions were all organized into one place making them easy
to read and compare. Looking at the bar graphs gave me insight into students’ feelings and
perceptions about our classroom community, and seeing their prior knowledge about
respect helped me plan the next steps in my interventions and instruction (Appendix C).
To analyze the sociograms, I made two identical columns that each had the names of
the students in my class. I drew lines from the student providing the responses to the
students he or she chose for each one of the scenarios. Once all the lines connected the
students, I looked for patterns; for example, students who had many lines attached to their
names gave different implications about their social statuses in our classroom than
students who did not have any lines connected to their names (Appendix E).
To gather my anecdotal records, I hand wrote notes in my notebook which I later
typed. Before analyzing these notes, I thought of specific actions that I would look for in my
notes pertaining to community building and respect. The categories I decided on were
negative verbal responses, negative body language, negative facial expressions, negative
student action, negative teacher action, and consequence for negative behavior; I assigned
each one of these categories a highlight color. As I read through my records, I highlighted
the notes that corresponded to these categories. Further, I assigned each day an overall
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positive or negative rating if I could tell from my notes whether we had an overall good or
bad day. I looked for patterns among the relation of positive days to negative days
(Appendix F).
Once I imported the video of each morning meeting onto my computer from the flip
camera, I used Studiocode to analyze the video according to pre‐assigned behaviors. In my
code window, I made one overarching button that I titled “negative.” Linked to this
negative button were three buttons that each represented an action that I classified as a
negative behavior; these buttons included “body language,” “verbal,” and “facial
expressions.” As I watched the video of the morning meetings, I coded these behaviors of
both individual students and the whole class according to these standards. Once all the
video was coded, I used the matrix feature to see how many instances of each negative
behavior appeared in each morning meeting. Further, I compared the amount of time
where negative behaviors were present to the amount of time where positive behaviors
were present (any time not coded indicated positive behavior), and I looked for patterns in
these times among each morning meeting. Lastly, I used the video to continue my anecdotal
records by writing down comments students made about respect or our classroom
community during morning meetings (Appendix G).
My purpose in analyzing the Superstar papers was to see the nature of students’
comments and the amount of specific detail they provided about each student. To organize
this data, I created an Excel spreadsheet that had each student’s class number, the date, and
key words he or she used to describe the Superstar student each week. For each week, I
created a new page in the spreadsheet to make it easy to compare across the weeks. Once
all the data was collected in the spreadsheet, I printed it out, spread the pages out next to
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each other, and looked for patterns among the nature of the comments and the amount of
specific detail (Appendix I).
I analyzed the final survey and sociograms the same way I analyzed the first ones so
that I could easily compare the results. To explore a change in student ideas about respect
and their actions in our classroom, I looked for changes in percentages from January to
April. I also examined students’ ideas about what respect is and what actions demonstrate
respect by reading their responses to those questions and noting any shift in ideas. Lastly, I
used the graph and percentages to see students’ responses to the questions about whether
they liked the interventions I implemented and if they thought they worked in
strengthening our classroom community (Appendix K). Similarly, I compared the results of
the final sociogram to the initial sociogram by looking at the distribution of students’
preferences. I noted any patterns and changes I saw, including the representation of
students in the second sociogram who were not mentioned by any students in the first
sociogram (Appendix L).
Explanation of Findings
Claim #1: The classroom community in my sixth grade classroom is stronger than it was in
January.
As I analyzed the data I collected throughout my inquiry, I began to notice a pattern
among my claims and evidence that all led back to my main wondering: how can I
strengthen my classroom community? The main sources of evidence to support this claim
came from the surveys and sociograms that students completed both in January at the start
of my inquiry and in March as I began to collect my final data.
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My survey asked students a variety of questions that focused on issues I felt are key
components of a strong classroom community. Students’ feelings about the presence of
many of these factors shifted from January to March. In January, 81% of students felt that
they listen to peers most or all of the time; however, in March, 95% of students felt this
way. Before any interventions, 86% of students thought that they never or rarely teased
people, while in March, 91% of students said they never or rarely teased people. In January,
76% of children in my class said they never take things that do not belong to them, and
86% of these children believed they never take things that do not belong to them in March.
Lastly, 85% of students thought that they put supplies away when they were done using
them most or all of the time, while 95% felt this way in March.
To help students realize their actions and focus on improving so we could
strengthen our classroom community, we talked about many of these issues at morning
meeting and implemented both whole class and individual reward systems. Once students
were aware of the expected behaviors from our discussions at morning meetings, we
determined at the end of each period how well students applied the information to their
own actions. We further reinforced this positive behavior by catching students in the act
and giving them one of five different tickets that they could enter in a raffle drawing at the
end of each week. The five different tickets gave students immediate, specific
reinforcement of the positive behavior with phrases such as, “I caught ____________ listening
to peers,” “I caught ____________ following directions,” and “I caught ____________ giving
someone a compliment.” Students could win pencils, pencil grips, books, seating privileges,
homework passes, and more in the raffle drawings. It appears from the increase in
percentages of students answering more positively to these questions that the
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interventions helped students become aware of these behaviors and apply them to their
actions.
When I analyzed the sociograms I gave students in January, there was one student
who no other students most wanted to sit by in the classroom, work on a project with, or
hang out with on the weekend; however, seven students stated that they would not like to
sit by this student in the classroom. Two students said that they would like to get to know
this student better. In March after we engaged students in many community building
activities, one student said that he would like to sit with this student and work with him on
a project. Only four students did not want to sit with this student now, and three different
students wish they knew this student better. The fact a this child now has a friend in our
classroom and is more known and therefore liked among the other kids is evidence that the
community in our classroom has improved, and it will make a world of difference to this
child.
Lastly, in my final survey, I added a question that asked students to rate their
thoughts on the following question, “I feel like we are a stronger classroom community
than we were in January.” 81% of students said they agree with this statement most or all
of the time, while only 10% of students disagreed. If 4/5 of my class can feel a difference in
our classroom community, then I feel as though the interventions helped us grow as a
community and are essential in helping students feel comfortable and successful in our
classroom.
Claim #2: Students believe that classroom community building activities are positive
experiences.
When I first implemented morning meetings, I was disappointed with students’
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reactions. During our first meeting, students exhibited negative verbal comments, negative
facial expressions, and negative body language 31.27% of the time. From their nonverbal
cues which I recorded in my notebook of anecdotal records directly after the meeting, I got
the impression that they did not like the idea of morning meetings, were uninterested or
defensive about what we were discussing, and did not want to be there. However, during
the morning meeting on March 22nd, students exhibited these negative behaviors 9.48% of
the time. Although the percentages did not steadily decline each morning meeting, the
highest percentage for student display of specific negative behaviors was during the first
morning meeting, and from the first morning meeting to the last, the presence of negative
verbal comments, facial expressions, and body language decreased by 21.79%.
Comments students made during morning meetings contributed to the claim that
students believe community building activities are positive experiences. On March 1st, as
we were finishing up the activity in our morning meeting, students wanted to keep playing;
one student even said, “One more time!” Then on March 23rd, when we had some extra time
in the day, students asked if we could have a morning meeting, which indicates that they
look forward to that time and enjoy morning meetings. Other comments such as, “ I love
morning meetings! They are fun!” were expressed by students.
Lastly, in the final survey I gave at the end of March, I added a question that read, “I
enjoy having morning meetings.” 48% of the children in my class responded that they
always enjoy morning meetings, 38% replied most of the time, and only 5% expressed that
they never enjoy morning meeting. More than ¾ of the kids in my class enjoy this time
when we can talk about anything on our minds and strengthen our community with some
activities.
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Claim 3: Teaching values of respect and community can result in a safer, more trusting
learning environment.
The first time we implemented a greeting into our morning meeting, students were
visibly uncomfortable shaking a neighbor’s hand, looking him or her in the eye, and
greeting him or her. When I asked how they felt during the greeting, they expressed that it
was awkward and uncomfortable because they didn’t know what to say and they were put
on the spot. At that time, I informed them that we would regularly incorporate greetings
into our morning meetings and hopefully that as they practiced and became more
comfortable with each other, the greeting would seem less awkward next time. After the
greeting during our next morning meeting, students agreed that they felt less awkward this
time greeting a neighbor in front of the rest of the class. Many weeks later, we tried the
same greeting the we used for that first morning meeting, and students enjoyed thinking
back to how awkward they felt the first time and how much they have grown considering
this time they were comfortable and did not feel awkward at all. (Appendix F)
On April 6th, one student returned from a fun activity during a PSSA afternoon
visibly frustrated and upset. I asked her to come in the hallway to talk with me and she
willingly followed. She did not want to name names, but she said that some people in our
class were spreading rumors about her and they were always whispering behind her back.
Thinking that this topic affects our entire class and is affecting our classroom community, I
asked if she wanted to talk about rumors and gossiping at our next morning meeting; I
reassured her that I would not mention her name or anyone else in the class specifically.
She agreed, expressing that she thought talking about this issue as a community might help
the problem. When this student agreed to talk about personal, social issues that were
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hurting her with the entire class at a morning meeting, she indicated that the work we put
into talking about community and respect made our environment a safer place for
students.
Reflections and Implications for Future Practice
Throughout the inquiry process, I found myself consistently frustrated with my
perceptions of how my inquiry was impacting my class. I know that this is not an
improvement project, but in the back of my mind, I was hoping that this focus on
community building would help fix all of the issues we were combating in our classroom.
When I was not seeing the results I was wishing for and instead leaving school many days
frustrated and defeated, I questioned the effectiveness of this inquiry and was quick to
judge it as a failure. However, constant reminders that this inquiry was not about making a
difference in my classroom but a difference in how I approach questioning and research in
my classroom began to shed some light on the benefits of this process.
Even though my inquiry did not turn out as I expected, I still went through the
process of organizing an inquiry from identifying a wondering in my classroom, finding
ways to collect data, implementing strategies, and analyzing the outcomes to inform further
practice. From my teacher education classes and philosophies as a teacher, I believe that if
there is an obstacle that is preventing the success of one or many children in my classroom,
it is my job as an educator to explore the causes of the issue, possible ways to affect positive
change, and the effectiveness of the strategies on decreasing the problem and increasing
student success. Even if there is no problem in my classroom but something that strikes me
as interesting and I want to explore the phenomena, I need a reliable, effective tool to
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conduct this research. Receiving the guidance that I did while working through my first
inquiry prepared me to conduct this research consistently throughout my teaching career.
The foundation I have will only get stronger as inquiry becomes a natural part of my
teaching, but now that I know what is involved in this process and ways to go about
conducting this teacher research, I feel confident that I will embed it in my teaching
practices in the future.
Not only did I learn how to conduct an inquiry, but I also gained enormous insight
into community building and the individual students in my classroom. I think if I had
implemented some of these strategies at the beginning of the year, our classroom
community would have been stronger from the start and my rapport with students would
be different, as would their relationships with each other. I see the value in morning
meeting for students of all ages, and I see this as something I plan to implement in my
future classroom. How I structure the morning meetings will depend on the needs and
interests of the specific students in my class, but some of the components I may implement
are greetings, sharing, discussion time about student directed and teacher directed issues,
and activities.
Another area pertaining to morning meetings that I am interested in exploring
further is student led morning meetings. If I implement morning meetings from the
beginning of the year and they are a regular part of our weekly routine, I will have time the
first few months to model for students and then pass off the leadership responsibility to
them. I wonder how the community would be strengthened further by giving students
power over the meeting because they will need to work together to make the morning
meeting successful, view each other as leaders, and listen to peers as they take on this
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leadership role. I think that when students need to listen and respond to peers, they begin
to respect each other more and see each child’s value in the classroom. All of these factors I
believe lead to a stronger classroom community, and I would like to explore the
possibilities.
In thinking about what support my students needed to be successful in the social,
behavioral aspects of our classroom, I went a little out of my comfort zone and
implemented whole class and individual incentives. While there are some benefits to using
a reward system, I feel that sometimes the negative aspects outweigh the positive. For
example, I found that students behaved appropriately according to our goals we set up for
the reward only when they were motivated by the incentive. This makes sense, but it
seemed as though students felt that if they were not interested in the reward that week
that they did not have to bother with behaving appropriately. One week when only half the
class was interested in the reward and another week when teachers picked the reward and
students were not interested were the only two weeks we did not earn the reward. I also
feel like when I use extrinsic rewards that I am bribing students to behave, and it has taken
a lot of reasoning for me to realize that we need to start somewhere; however, I am
extremely interested in exploring how to move students from extrinsic motivation to
intrinsic motivation.
Another source of frustration for me during this process, which leads to future
wonderings I wish to explore, was that I felt my expectations and students’ behavior rarely
aligned. With the interventions and constant support in place to help students be
successful, I am baffled by the fact that we still never seemed to find a mutual meeting
18
place. In the future, I am curious to explore the reasoning for the gaps in teacher
expectations and students’ actions.
Lastly, although I found that students were able to apply the information we
discussed in morning meetings and that was reinforced with whole class and individual
rewards, I felt that their application of these behaviors was fairly inconsistent. Another
future wondering that I am interested in exploring in my future practices is how to help
students apply learned information more consistently to their actions. How do I help them
internalize these behaviors?
I cannot guarantee much about my future, but I do know that wherever I end up, I
will in some form, either formally or informally, engage in teacher research. I will never
know everything, but I plan on using these inquiry skills to help improve my practices as an
educator and ensure success for all of my students. As long as I have tools to constantly
learn and grow, I will be able to face any challenges and provide a comfortable, successful
learning environment for all students.
19
Appendix A Inquiry Brief
Context In my self contained classroom of sixth grade students at Park Forest Middle School,
an even number of boys and girls make up my twenty‐four students. As a Professional
Development Intern, I am a student teacher for the entire year through a partnership
between Penn State and the State College Area School District. I am one of the two teachers
consistently present in the classroom, in addition to the learning support teachers that are
present certain periods throughout the day. My students have varied strengths, needs,
desires, and interests both academically and socially; further, their varied past experiences
impact their encounters in the classroom every day. Based on the different teachers and
classes students have had in the past, they behave differently and respond differently to
situations and motivators.
Of these 24 students, four kids participate in the learning enrichment program
either based on academics or desire to be involved in the program. Three students are in
learning support, one for writing, one for reading, and one for processing information.
These three students have Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) and receive extra support
and services throughout the day. Additionally, two students are currently going through
the Instructional Support process (IST); these students require extra attention,
modification, and support with many assignments throughout the day. Lastly, one student
attends English as a Second Language (ESL) during writing every morning.
So far this school year, the members of our classroom community have shifted; one
student moved away toward the beginning of the year, another student moved into our
classroom after her family moved into the area, and another left this month. It is likely that
20
if children move into the area, we will have another addition to our classroom community
since we now have only 23 students in our class, less than most (if not all) other sixth grade
classes.
As a whole, this class has many strengths. They are excellent at turning in work on
time. When our new student moved into our class, many students were very welcoming
and willing to show her around and help her become acquainted to our schedule. Even
though students have preferences with whom they would prefer to work on group
assignments, they seem willing to work with whomever they are assigned. Further, there
are many positive role models, both male and female, among the students in our class.
However, there are some challenges with this class as a whole. They are an
extremely chatty group of children, which leads to off task‐behavior, such as talking to
neighbors, distracting others, playing with objects, and not paying attention. Further, this
class is inattentive as a whole, needing directions repeated multiple times. Students seem
to either not know when appropriate times to socialize are, or else they disregard these
standards. They talk without regard to the expectations set by teachers during lessons,
silent reading, read aloud, and quiet work time. We are also starting to see cliques
developing among the girls in our class; further, students often cross the line between
joking and inappropriate comments. These comments pertain to name calling and
threatening to self‐harm themselves. We have struggled with dependency and students
needing consistent positive reinforcement. The students in our class seem immature as a
whole, which leads to behaviors that can be interpreted as disrespectful based on what is
expected for their age.
Rationale
21
The idea for my inquiry stems from observations of the students in my class and
conversations with my mentor about how our class of sixth graders differs from any other
class she has had in the past. Starting back as far as parent teacher conferences, we were
notified of students who felt uncomfortable in our classroom for various reasons. These
student perceptions differ from teacher perceptions, and I started to think about the source
of the differences.
The tendency of this class to talk over teachers and peers during lessons and when
they are asked to work silently caused teachers to continually get frustrated with the
students; however, students interpreted this as mean and uncalled for. Even though the
issue of listening was addressed multiple times in a class meeting and throughout the days,
students have not shown improvement in controlling their chattiness.
This chattiness is only one of the behaviors that concerns me. Students are
disrespectful to both teachers and peers, yet they do not seem to notice anything wrong
with their actions. The specific behaviors that I classify as disrespectful are students not
listening to peers and teachers when they are talking, engaging in side conversations, not
following explicit directions the first time, jokingly calling each other names and defaming
group work.
When a small group of children, or even just one child, engages in disrespectful or
inappropriate behavior, it impacts the rest of the class in some way. If two students are
talking during a lesson and I need to stop and wait for those two students, the entire class
is missing out on the opportunity to learn or get ahead on work. Further, when teachers get
frustrated with a few students because of disrespectful behavior, the rest of the class can
sense the frustration and the comfort level in the classroom diminishes. However, the
22
disrespect, perceptions, and feelings in our classroom are all issues that I think can be
resolved with community building because sixth graders are extremely social, and their
actions revolve around social influences. I think that if communication was more open,
many of the issues that teachers and students are seeing can be addressed before anyone
gets angry or frustrated. Further, seeing the importance of each member of the classroom
community will help students learn to respect each other. Therefore, I am interested in
seeing the effect that community building will have on this group of sixth grade students in
response to many of the challenges we have been encountering.
Wondering
• How can I strengthen my classroom community?
Subquestions
• How can community building impact how students respect other members of their classroom community?
• How do my students understand the concept of respect?
• What do the social relationships look like in my class? How will a focus on community building alter the social status of students in my classroom?
• How does community building impact students’ perceptions of school, teachers, and peers?
Data Collection
To get a baseline of student behaviors, I am keeping a notebook with anecdotal
records. I write down respectful and disrespectful behaviors that I notice students
engaging in on a regular basis. I will continue to keep this notebook of anecdotal records
23
throughout my inquiry and analyze it for the nature of the comments throughout. Further, I
am going to create a chart with two sides, one labeled “kind words and actions” and
another labeled “disrespectful words and actions.” Since it is difficult to write down every
nice or mean thing that children say to each other, I will keep tally marks to measure the
number of comments and actions over time. I will analyze this to see if the number of
positive to negative comments and actions changes as I work on building a stronger
classroom community. Similarly, I will keep a running tally of the number of times I need
to redirect my students during the day by either verbal comments, stopping and waiting, or
with a warning glance. I will analyze this to see if there is any change over time.
Before I begin any interventions, I am requiring my students to fill out a survey
made with google apps. This anonymous survey begins with open‐ended questions about
respect in ideal situations. The survey concludes by asking students to rate themselves on a
scale from one to five about their actions in our classroom. I will give this same survey
again toward the end of my inquiry to see if there are any significant changes in student
thoughts about respect and the actions in our classroom.
To gain insight into the social relationships in our classroom, I am going to create a
sociogram also to be given toward the beginning of my inquiry. This sociogram will ask
students questions about the people with whom they prefer to hang out, work on projects,
etc. I am interested in seeing if there are any patterns (certain people students prefer to
work with but not hang out with, for example). By giving this sociogram again toward the
end of my inquiry, I will see if there is any change in the social dynamics in my classroom.
Since the beginning of the year, one student per week has been chosen as our
superstar student. The other students in the class write this student a note saying what
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they like about this person. I am making copies of these superstar notes each week, and I
will analyze them for the number of times students say “I don’t know you that well” and for
generic responses, for example, “you are nice.”
As one of my interventions, I plan on implementing class meetings and morning
meetings a couple mornings a week. I will attempt to videotape these meetings and analyze
them using Studiocode. Using this analysis tool, I will code for negative reactions, whether
these be verbal comments, facial expressions, or body language. The remainder of the video
that is not coded with negative reactions will be assumed to be students displaying positive
reactions. I will use the data from these videos to inform my next steps, and I will compare
these analyzed videos over time to see if there is a change in student reactions.
Timeline
2/8/10‐ 2/12/10 • Survey about respect ideally and in our classroom • Class Meeting (videotaped) • Introduce Classroom Sound Level Meter • Explain class reward for a week of exceptional behavior • Come up with class name • Collect and analyze Superstar papers • Continue notebook of anecdotal records • Create sociogram
2/15/10‐ 2/19/10
• Give sociogram • Continue notebook of anecdotal records • Collect and analyze Superstar papers • Hold first morning meeting/circle of power; implement community building
activities 2/22/10‐ 2/26/10
• Continue notebook of anecdotal records • Collect and analyze Superstar papers • Hold morning meeting/circle of power
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• Start analyzing video 3/1/10‐ 3/5/10
• Continue notebook of anecdotal records • Collect and analyze Superstar papers • Hold morning meeting/circle of power; implement community building activities • Continue analyzing video
3/8/10‐ 3/12/10 (Spring Break)
• Analyze data up to this point 3/15/10‐ 3/19/10
• Give survey about student feelings class • Continue notebook of anecdotal records • Collect and analyze Superstar papers • Continue analyzing video • Hold morning meeting/circle of power; implement community building activities
3/22/10‐ 3/26/10
• Give respect survey (same as beginning) • Give sociogram (same as beginning) • Analyze anecdotal records and Superstar papers • Continue analyzing video
3/29/10‐ 4/2/10
• Analyze data: surveys and sociograms 4/5/10‐ 4/9/10
• Work on inquiry paper 4/12/10‐ 4/16/10
• Finish first draft of inquiry paper • Inquiry paper (first draft) due 4/16
4/19/10‐ 4/23/10
• Peer edit inquiry papers • Begin thinking about presentation
4/26/10‐ 4/30/10
• Work on and finish 20 minute inquiry presentation • Submit final inquiry paper (5/2/10)
5/3/10‐5/7/10
• Practice inquiry presentation
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• Finalize presentation
Appendix B Student Survey
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28
29
30
Appendix C Student Survey Results
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32
33
34
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Appendix D
Name: _____________________________
Date:___________________________________ A110 Student Survey List two classmates you most like to sit by in the classroom. Why?_____________________________________ Write the name of three people you would most like to work on a project with in our classroom.________ List three classmates you would most like to hang out with on the weekend.____________________________ List two classmates you least want to sit by in our classroom? Why?___________________________________ List three classmates you wish you knew better.________________________________________________________
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Appendix E
Sociogram Analysis
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38
39
40
41
42
Appendix F Anecdotal Records
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44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
Appendix G Morning Meeting Analysis
February 8, 2010
February 15, 2010
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February 19, 2010
February 22, 2010
56
March 1, 2010
March 15, 2010
57
March 18, 2010
58
59
March 22, 2010
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Appendix H Superstar Student Papers
January:
61
March:
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Appendix I Superstar Student
Analysis
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64
65
Appendix J Student Survey April
66
67
68
69
Appendix K Student Survey April Results
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71
72
73
74
Appendix L Sociogram April Analysis
75
76
77
78
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Appendix M Annotated Bibliography
Bechtel, L., & Kriete, R. (2002). The morning meeting book: Strategies for teachers (2nd Expand ed.). Greenfield, MA: Northeast Foundation for Children. Encompassed in The Morning Meeting Book are numerous ideas for greetings, sharing, and activities to use with students up to eighth grade. Further, the authors explain the important components of each part of the morning meeting so teachers can learn how to implement them most effectively in their classrooms. Since my inquiry is focusing on community building and building a respectful classroom environment, I may implement either a morning meeting or circle of power in my classroom. Since we do not currently have any sort of morning meeting in place in our classroom, learning the specific techniques and components that I can implement will be extremely helpful if I choose to see how a morning meeting/circle of power can influence student interactions. Campbell, D. (2000). Cooperative group problem solving. Lausanne: Dummy Book Co. In Campbell’s teacher resource book, he provides many activities to do with children in middle and upper grades that encourage children to work effectively in groups, communicate appropriately, and listen to each other. Included are the objectives, steps of the activity, list of materials, and student pages for each activity. To improve the dynamics of my classroom community, I need to engage students in more activities where they see the value of all members; many of the activities in this book achieve this goal. Specifically, I can foresee using “Pulling the Strings” because the activity will fail if every member is not participating and the group cannot communicate effectively; I think this activity will help students see the value of each member of the classroom community. Denniston, Autumn. (February 2007). Encouraging respectful behavior in the classroom. State College, PA: The Pennsylvania State University, Professional Development School, College of Education. This inquiry brief by a past PDS intern focuses on how to foster respectful interactions among her class of fifth grade students. Since one of my sub‐questions is how to encourage respect among my sixth graders, I can look at how this intern went about collecting data to measure respect and other questions she had that relate to respect in her classroom and apply some of those strategies to my own research. For example, Autumn wondered how students act in situations when teachers are not around, such as during lunch. I think it would help me to see my students at lunch as well, taking notes on with whom they sit, if it stays consistent from day to day, and the nature of student interactions during lunch. Lastly, Autumn lists some expert research that helped her in her research,
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and I will take a look at those resources as well to see if they can provide me with any useful information. Denton, P., & Kriete, R. (2000). The first six weeks of school: Strategies for teachers series. Minneapolis: Educational Media Corporation. When writing about the first six weeks of school, Denton and Kriete focus on how to build a classroom community that will impact the remainder of the school year. Included are tips about making rules, morning meetings, consequences, and more that progress from when students do not know each other to when they are more familiar and comfortable with each other. While some of the information does not apply for me anymore since we are way past the first couple weeks of school, other information is extremely relevant and will help me build my classroom community. I can take the strategies the authors suggest for setting the tone, building the community, and setting up expectations and use them now to help my class become the community that I desire for us. Kagan, S. (1997). Cooperative learning ([1993 ed.] ed.). San Juan Capistrano, CA: Kagan Cooperative Learning. This teacher resource book begins with information on the cooperative learning theory and reasons why cooperative learning is so vital for children, and continues with the benefits of a classroom that incorporates cooperative learning. To follow up, this book provides numerous cooperative learning activities that encourage students to build stronger relationships with their peers and work together effectively. Reading about the cooperative learning theory will help me visualize the outcomes I hope to see in my kids. I can also see the potential of using many of these activities in my classroom to help my students develop the skills to work cooperatively. Kreidler, W. J. (1996). Creative conflict resolution: Good year education series. Glenview, Illinois, USA: Good Year Books. Focusing on resolving conflict in the classroom, this book provides information and activities on resolving student and teacher conflicts, improving communication skills, teaching cooperation, and more. Since part of my wondering is whether students respect each other and how to encourage respect in my classroom, I need to find ways to model respectful behavior and provide students with guided opportunities to practice respecting each other. Some of the teambuilding activities provided in this book are appropriate to use in my classroom to help achieve my desired results, and I will keep them in mind when deciding specifically what activities to use in helping my children learn to respect each other. Lutz, Linda. (April 2008). Classroom community build on mutual respect and caring. State
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College, PA: The Pennsylvania State University, Professional Development School, College of Education. Linda Lutz, a past PDS intern in a third grade classroom, focused on community building and the impact it had on her students and their interactions with one another. After reading her inquiry paper, I have more ideas about ways to collect and analyze data, as well as some possibly community building activities that might be useful in my classroom as well. I especially like the idea of using a sociogram to collect information about students’ interactions with and feelings about each other in different social contexts. I saw how Linda used this information to make claims about the community in her classroom, and I think that this information will give me enormous insight into the social climate in my classroom as well. Schaps, E. (2009). Creating caring school communities. Leadership, 38(4), 8‐11. This journal article begins with defining a classroom community and explaining some of the many benefits having a classroom community has on children, such as increased academic motivation and more respect for teachers. Schaps also provides feasible ways to develop a strong classroom community, including class meetings, collaborative learning opportunities, and service learning projects. Lastly, Schaps provides three surveys as possibilities for measuring progress. All of these components will help me in my inquiry because I am currently considering various ways to improve my classroom community and collect data; I will consider implementing morning meeting and using some of the questions in the surveys to further my data collection. Teaching Strategies. (2010). Teaching strategies, inc.: Dynamic curriculum, assessment, and training. Retrieved February 6, 2010, from http://teachingstrategies.com This article found at teaching strategies.com is a fabulous resource for any teacher looking to build and strengthen a classroom community. The article begins by explaining that the first step to building a classroom community is making sure that all children’s’ needs are met; it is helpful to look at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The article then explains other components necessary in order to have a classroom community, including respect, responsibility, social, emotional, and academic competence, and inclusion. The rest of the article explains ways to build this community in a classroom, including classroom meetings, lessons on listening skills, activities to promote friendship, and more. This article addresses almost all components of my inquiry and gives me some background knowledge I need to understand why my students may be behaving the way they currently are. It also gives information on how to implement an effective classroom meeting which I am considering doing, and it provides some community building activities that I will try in my classroom, possibly integrated with my morning meeting. I will refer to this article throughout my inquiry for information and ideas to make my interventions as successful as possible.
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The Kagan Club. (2009). Kagan publishing & professional development. Retrieved February 6, 2010, from http://www.kaganonline.com/KaganClub/index.html Dr. Spencer Kagan, an expert on cooperative learning, provides many articles on his website that cover topics from classroom meetings to cooperation among students. I think one way to foster a stronger classroom community, which is the focus of my inquiry, is to provide many opportunities for cooperative learning. Even though my students work in groups now, the resources on this website will give me insight into whether I am structuring and supporting these groups correctly or if there is a more effective way to integrate cooperative learning into the curriculum.
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