A Case Study: Living the Process of Inquiry Journal Entries for Chapters 5-8

CHAPTER FIVE

Analyzing Field Note Data

Prompt #5 Questions: There were four observations that Sienna conducted over a two-week period to document May’s redirection behaviors. First, you will examine the series of observation reports. Second, identify any trends and themes you find in the data. Be sure to consider the observational notes that Sienna included. Look to find and share any triangulation processes in May’s data collection and analysis work. Third, evaluate the data and provide reasonable explanations for what you think might be happening over time that would explain the story the data are revealing.

Response:

The most obvious change from the first observation report to the last is the decrease in the number of redirections that May has to use during the measured time.  In the first report it appears that she is having to redirect almost constantly.  By the last report she only needs to redirect from time to time and for a large chunk of time (1:15-1:35) she doesn’t need to redirect at all.  I also noticed that her way of addressing the class (or those that are misbehaving) is often “Guys” or “Listen up” and I’m not sure this is providing the result or change that she is looking for.  She uses these prompts multiple times and often they are used multiple times in a row.  Sienna also marks down “Uh” as a redirection but I am not sure what this is indicating on the observation report.  I prefer to address specific students and specific behaviors when I need to redirect my own classroom.

I think Sienna points out what is happening over time in her notes on last observation report.  She points out that more seats still need to be moved indicating that May has been making adjustments over time but still has more adjustments to make.  Moving students away from other students that are known to have discipline issues when they are by each other is a great way to decrease certain behaviors.  It is also possible that there are certain activities that occur on certain days that hold more of certain student’s interest than other days.  Sienna also points this out in her notes on the second observation when she mentions that students had something to look forward to that wasn’t boring.

CHAPTER SIX

Analyzing Data Related to the 5-Minute Challenge

Prompt #6 Questions: Describe May’s class graph. What happened over time, and what are some possible reasons for the trends and patterns you notice? What new goals do you think May should set for the class as a whole based on her students’ response to the timed agenda challenge?

Response:

May’s graph shows a gradual increase over time in the number of students that are actually writing in their agenda during the “Five Minute Challenge”.  I think that students started to believe that this was going to be a regular part of their classroom and not just a short-term requirement.  Once they started to see the consistency, more of them started to participate.  More students participating in the “Five Minute Challenge” meant that there were less students to talk to for those that didn’t want to write in their agenda.  I imagine that towards the end of the recorded data, students that would have been the longest holdouts gave in and recorded information because they had no one to cause issues with.  There is still one student that is not writing in their agenda.  Unless this is Sienna and she is excused from this, May’s goal should be to get this number to 100% of her students.  I also think that I would like to see this data charted over a month or a quarter.  I would like to see if she stays committed and if the students stay bought into what is happening.  May’s new goal should be to see this number at or close to 100% for an entire quarter.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Graphing Data and Focus Group Interview

Prompt #7 Questions: Describe Anthony’s and Leah’s data. What happened over time? What do you think May might do in the future to capitalize on Anthony and Leah’s success and keep them on track during the entire class period?

Response:

Both Anthony and Leah’s time decreased over time.  There was a very sharp decline in the beginning and then gradual improvement until they reached a level that seemed to be a pretty consistent average.  You can see that the graphs follow their goals all the way down.  This would be an important key for May to take notice of.  In the future, May should have Leah and Anthony set goals for other areas and not just their writing in their agendas.  They seem to be driven by their goals and that is a great tool to use when you can identify what students are motivated by that.  May also might be able to tap into their desire to compete against the class as a way to keep them motivated and focused.  I would love to see them set goals for their daily work, homework and their grades.

CHAPTER EIGHT

 Bringing Closure to May’s First Cycle of Inquiry—May’s Journaling

Prompt #8 Questions: Pretend you are May, and it is now the start of the next school year. Your assistant principal, Mr. Brown, asks you to talk about your inquiry journey at the first faculty meeting of the year. Discuss a plan for your presentation. What will you share and how will you share it? Refer to Chapters 6 and 8 of The Reflective Educator’s Guide to Classroom Research for support in responding to this prompt.

Response:

I think the first thing I would do is profess that I am not perfect and attempt to humble myself before my peers.  It is important to have others see the value of your work and research without feeling put-off or tuning out because they are being told how to fix the problems in their classrooms.  My next step would involve me describing the classroom environment that I had in the very beginning and spending some time talking about my original behaviors and classroom management strategies.  I would then discuss the process that went into my teacher inquiry research and how the action plan for this research was developed.  I would then show the graphs of the data that Sienna recorded and how her suggestions were put into action and positive results came out of it.  After this, I would discuss the “Five Minute Challenge” and use Anthony and Leah as examples.  Part of this would include showing their graphs and goals and how they worked to achieve their goals and the positive impact that made.  Finally, I would lay out my plan for the coming school year and how I would work proactively to prevent these issues from becoming major concerns in the future.  I think that it would be critical to discuss my plan as a way to show that I had learned something from my research and would be attempting to create a change in not only my classroom but in myself as a teacher inquirer.

A Case Study: Living the Process of Inquiry Journal Entries for Chapters 1-4

Prompt #1 Questions: Why is it important for May to look at literature as a part of her inquiry journey? What insights did May gain about her inquiry topic through her readings? In what ways might May’s readings inform how she will collect data for her study?

Response:

It is important for May to look at the information and knowledge that others have taken the time to put together.  There is so much to be learned from what has already been researched.  May is able to find ways to describe behaviors in a clear and concise manner.  This gave her an advantage in diagnosing behavior problems and then designing ways to improve them.  May also learned a new approach for dealing with students that exhibit negative behaviors.  She started to think about the type of life experiences her students might have had that led them to making poor choices in the classroom.  One other important insight that May learned from her research was that there had been a precedent for working directly with the most difficult students in a collaborative manner.  From this she decided to incorporate this student and teacher teammate philosophy into her inquiry process.

Prompt #2 Questions: May, Naomi, Margaret, Darby, and Mr. Brown formed a professional learning community that met regularly to plan May’s first inquiry and to support one another in their work as educators. What specific benefits did May receive as a result of collaborating with her colleagues? Why is collaboration an important component of the action research process?

Response:

May gets the benefit of working with others across a variety of specialties that also have interactions with some of the students.  Her group also helps her narrow down her inquiry to just one class instead of all five.  They also help her through a process for determining what that one class should be.  Her cohorts work with her and allow her to bring the knowledge that she already has out and into the forefront of her mind.  May was able to work with her team and develop her action plan and make predictions about the type of interventions the targeted students would need.

Collaboration provides an opportunity for those in the group to bounce ideas off of each other and share in a common knowledge.  It also provides an opportunity for members of the group to help remind each other of certain strategies and ideas that they already know.  There are numerous times when challenges present themselves and those immersed in the most difficult parts need someone outside of themselves to help them formulate an idea to break through certain roadblocks.

Prompt #3 Questions: A critical component of the inquiry process is designing a plan for data collection that is doable! Explain the importance of developing a data collection plan that is meaningful but practical to the life of a classroom teacher. Address the following:

·         What part of May’s data collection plan do you feel will be most meaningful? Why?

·         What parts of May’s data collection plan do you believe to be the most practical? Why?

·         What parts of May’s data collection plan do you believe to be impractical? Why?

·         Pretend you are one of May’s colleagues. Suggest one additional form of data you think May might collect that could inform her research. Be sure you provide an explanation that describes why you think May should consider collecting this form of data.

Response:

I think May will find the information gathered by Sienna as the most meaningful.  This is someone that is an outside observer recording information and data that May will be interested in.  It is also important to note that Sienna is one of the targeted students believed to be one of the main offenders in the classroom.  I think this provides a great opportunity to empower a student and potentially remove their problem behaviors at the same time.

I think that May’s journal and reflections are the most practical data collection she intends to use.  This is information that she can be responsible for and can record without relying on anyone else.  She can also set up the format for this in multiple ways in order to record the information that would be the most beneficial to her research.

I believe that May’s 5-minute challenge idea is the most impractical collection method.  There isn’t a strong case that her students want to please her and so it would stand to reason that a challenge without a reward would not be valued by the students.  This would be a challenge that most would not care about and the data collected would not really benefit her students in any way.  While she could record this information for her own personal use, sharing these results with the students would not result in an improvement in their behavior.

I would suggest that May have her students complete a survey about her classroom and the behaviors that are present.  Ask the students to describe their class and compare it to others.  Ask them what causes a bad classroom experience and what creates a positive learning environment.  It would be good to see what their expectations are when they walk in the classroom and see if there are students that recognize that there isn’t a positive environment.  I think it would be most interesting to see what her targeted students put as responses.

Prompt #4 Questions: Download May’s “Wish List” Student Response data.

Follow a modified version of how to conduct a data analysis as described in the course text, The Reflective Educator’s Guide to Classroom Research.

ü  Begin reading through the entire class’s wish list responses.

ü  Next, read through the data set a second time. Ask yourself, What am I noticing about the student responses? Do the responses seem to fall into different categories? How would I name the categories? Select your categories.

ü   Code each category with a different color.

ü  Finally, read through the data a third time, highlighting each response in a different color to correspond with the categories you created above.

In your journal responses, share the categories you named, as well as examples of responses that were included in each category. If you were May, what do you think your analysis of this initial data is telling you to do next?

Response:

My categories were Behavior, Grades, Homework and Unrelated.  There was a little crossover in some of the items listed on the Wish List but most fell easily into one of the noted categories.  I must note that some of the behaviors were student driven and some are teacher driven but I did not differentiate between the two as there is equal responsibility.

Unrelated: A student that submitted a response that was completely unrelated to the prompt was placed in this category.  One student noted “I wish I was the richest person in the world.”

Grades: Students that mentioned wanting to get good grades or that all should get A’s were put into this category.  These responses were along the lines of a concern for grades but most wanted the grades handed to them and did not want to work for them.  An example of this is seen in the following response: “To give me an A for no reason and to just be kind to people.  Having a little bit of fun and not having all this homework.  To be Friday every day!”

Homework: Student responses were placed in this category if their primary focus was on the type or amount of work that should be given in class or assigned as homework.  This was one of the categories that could have had the most crossover responses with Behavior and Grades.  One student simply stated “I wish I could get us less homework.”

Behavior: This category had the most responses of all of the categories.  It would appear that most of the students can identify where the problems are in the classroom and have a similar wish to what their teacher would like the classroom environment to be.  One of the examples of this is “I wish we could come to class, sit down and get started on our work!”

My initial response to these student statements would be to look at what the students are saying about issues that I am directly responsible for.  I would encourage May to do the same.  When the students say that they want to get started right away, find ways to make that happen.  If the students are pointing out that there is a problem with noise, find ways to decrease that factor.  I would also take a look at the amount of homework that is being assigned to see if it is being given as a method of punishment for classroom behaviors.  Make a few small changes that the students have focused on and then ask them the same type of question again in a few weeks to see if anything has improved or if any of them have gotten their wishes.  I think these wishes are great for insight into what May is battling with and what role she might be playing in that.  She should also consider sharing the Behavior responses with the class as a means of pointing out to the entire class the sheer number of students that aren’t happy with the behaviors of their classmates.