from individuals to a classroom community · from individuals to a classroom community ... to...

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 [email protected]

Inquiry Conference

May 8, 2010

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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

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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)

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

30

Appendix C Student Survey Results

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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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Appendix F Anecdotal Records

54

Appendix G Morning Meeting Analysis

February 8, 2010

February 15, 2010

55

February 19, 2010

February 22, 2010

56

March 1, 2010

March 15, 2010

57

March 18, 2010

59

March 22, 2010

60

Appendix H Superstar Student Papers

January:

61

March:

62

Appendix I Superstar Student

Analysis

65

Appendix J Student Survey April

69

Appendix K Student Survey April Results

74

Appendix L Sociogram April Analysis

79

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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