Research to Practice

With every learning experience, we should be thinking and reflecting to ourselves about the process and the outcomes. What have I learned? What would I do differently? How can I improve for future reference? Staring at my laptop screen and reading through my blogposts, I ask myself “How has this experienced helped me? What have I learned?. Like the queen from Snow White, I am unsure if I like the answer I receive.
My normal writing style for things involving data and analysis tend to be very academic. I enjoy listing statistics, showing data, etc. To me, that is the goal of an analytical piece. It was difficult for me to “add flair” and “personality” to my blog posts. I also did not like that there wasn’t much flow and organization throughout my posts. I think next time I would try to relate each post to one another. If the goal was to learn how to ask better questions and relate research to teaching practices, I would start off with my first blogpost being a question that leads to other questions relating to the main topic I decide on. Then with each post, I would address a specific question with research articles and try to relate each post to one another. The progression of “gurus” to “questions in the field” to “Eshelman experience” to “questions in the field” seemed a little disconnected to me. I guess a takeaway from this learning experience that I can apply to my future teaching would be to be consistent and meaningful in my lesson planning and content delivery.
The advice I have for future students who are going to do the R2P project would just be to really consider and think about your main goal you want to accomplish. Link it to teaching practices and ideas and pedagogies and develop opened ended questions. Use those questions to fuel your posts. What I would also suggest would be to spend less time in class going over the rhetorical triangle. I think that many of us are aware of how to change our writing style to fit the intended audience. Going over it in class is fine but I do not think that many class periods should’ve been spent discussing the topic. I also wished that there was more consistency and clear communication. It was difficult for me to sit in class and wait to hear the main point while listening to multiple variations of the same metaphor. I would say that overall this was a new and challenging learning experience for all of us.

A common concern many teachers and parents have relate to how to handle situations where a child or student are misbehaving. Think back to your early years in education. What happened when you misbehaved in the classroom? What happened when other students misbehaved? When I was younger, there were two methods that I vividly remember. In kindergarten, there was a chart with every students name on it. Everyone had three cards (red, yellow, green) with their name. Whenever someone misbehaved, the teacher would stop class, call out the student, and make them walk up to their name and switch the card from green to yellow. If they misbehaved again, they would change their card from yellow to red and the teacher would send a note home about their behavior. Another method I remember was used when I was in fourth grade. If someone misbehaved the teacher would write their name on the chalkboard and take away their recess time. To earn their time back, they had to behave during class and a letter of their name would be erased at the teacher’s digression. If their entire name was erased they would earn back their recess time. Let’s look at another example of how someone dealt with difficult behavior.

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What do you think about this video? Do you agree with how this person handled the situation? What would you have done differently?

“If a child doesn’t know how to read, we teach.
If a child doesn’t know how to swim, we teach.
If a child doesn’t know how to multiply, we teach.
If a child doesn’t know how to drive, we teach.
If a child doesn’t know how to behave, we… teach? …punish?
Why can’t we finish the last sentence as automatically as we do the others?”
-Tom Herner (NASDE President, 1998)

How did you answer that last question? Did many of you think of the word punish first? Is it better to punish poor behavior or teach and reward good behavior?

In the classroom that I am currently observing, the scene is what you typically expect from a daycare facility. There are children playing and interacting with each other. It is loud and sometimes chaotic. As expected with children who are still learning, there are behavioral issues. To help children learn how to behave and what is considered appropriate behavior, the teacher will stamp a child’s hand when they are exhibiting wanted behavior. For example, when children are cleaning up when asked, they receive a stamp on their hand. If they are sitting in their chair quietly before brushing their teeth in the morning, they receive a stamp. Another reward that children receive for positive behavior is a pom pom in a cup with their name. If children are sitting quietly and nicely on the carpet during large group time, they get a pom pom in their cup with their name on it. Once a large jar is filled with pom poms, the class receives a reward. This method is also used to help the children to behave during lunch time.

There are rules that the children follow during lunch time. They must grab a plate, grab a cup, and go sit at their placemat. They are asked to sit safely in their seat and wait for the rest of their classmates to be seated. Once everyone is seated, children take turns serving themselves. This is usually a chaotic mess. There are children running, dropping plates, not sitting, moving chairs, etc. However, the children following the rules receive a reward of a stamp or a pom pom. This is an example of PBIS in action.

Earlier I mentioned my experience with behavior modification when I was in elementary school. This experience may be different from what other generations may have experienced. Older generations may remember corporal punishment in schools. Some people still think this form of punishment leads to the best results for behavior modification. People might often quote “spare the rod, spoil the child”. How does this compare to PBIS? Let’s examine what PBIS means, the benefits, and how it compares to other methods.

PBIS

PBIS stands for Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports and is a multi-tiered framework. It is used to identify and support desired behaviors in the school setting. How does it work? Here is an example of how one school utilizes PBIS to teach appropriate lunch room behavior.

PBIS Lunchroom Expectations

Mark Twain Elementary School’s rules on how students should behave in the lunchroom.

PBIS takes unwanted behaviors that children exhibit and turns them into teachable moments. Instead of being punished for poor behavior, children are taught appropriate behaviors. Strategies are also provided to help decrease the instances of unwanted behaviors. PBIS creates teachable moments so children learn why their behavior may be wrong instead of just punishing them leaving them confused or angry.

“PBIS is a framework of systematically organizing and implementing evidence‐based behavioral supports to all students to promote positive academic and behavioral outcomes. PBIS encompasses multiple levels of support, so the specific interventions and their intensities will vary depending on the unique needs of the students. However, in general, PBIS consistently relies on data to inform decisions about the selection, implementation, and progress monitoring of interventions across tiers” (James, et. al,2019). Each tier within the system provides different strategies and levels of support to improve behavior and schoolwide culture. Progress monitoring is also implemented to determine if other supports are needed to improve behaviors.

Why PBIS?

There have been many studies conducted on the use of PBIS. Are the benefits short-term or long-term? Does it help with academic success? PBIS is designed to create a positive school environment. Some aspects of these include:

• • A feeling of safety
  • Respect
  • Engagement in learning
  • Involvement in school life
  • Shared vision
  • Involvement of teachers, students, and families

“Research has shown SWPBIS to be associated with improved student prosocial behavior, healthier functioning of schools, more positive relationships among staff, and fewer suspensions and disciplinary referrals” (James, et. al, 2019). There is mixed data about the impact PBIS has on academic achievement. However, the relationship between PBIS and academic achievement is more indirect. Improving behavioral issues and classroom culture may allow a student to be more engaged in the classroom leading to academic success.

Implementing a school wide PBIS program has also lead to a decrease in out of school suspensions.  “When controlling for several key demographic covariates, Ohio schools that scored greater than or equal to 70% on the Tier 1 TFI experienced significantly fewer OSS per 100 students compared to schools in Ohio that scored below 70% on the Tier 1 TFI” (Noltemeyer, et. al, 2019). In this controlled study, schools reported that students who received tier 1 interventions with PBIS had fewer suspensions. Attendance is typically linked to success in school. If students are not being suspended, they spend more time in the classroom engaged in learning.

Other Methods Used to Modify Behavior

“Parental corporal punishment (CP) was found to be associated with high rates of children’s externalizing behavior problems” (Xing, et. al., 2018). This reactionary method is shown to have negative effects on modifying behavior. While it make stop the unwanted behavior in that moment, the child only remembers the punishment and may not fully understand why they are being punished. What they may remember is the anger or fear behind the whole event. Studies have also linked CP to an increase in negative externalizing behaviors in children. “Both higher paternal and maternal CP were significantly associated with lower inhibitory control and higher
externalizing behavior problems among children, and higher paternal CP was significantly associated with lower working memory in children” (Xing, et. al., 2018). Another problem with this type of punishment is that “corporally punished children as compared to children who were not punished showed the highest depression and anxiety. Both stress and depression are produced due to corporal punishment” (Ali, Malik, & Khan, 2019). The same results can be seen when using embarrassment as a form of punishment to modify behavior. Calling a student out, singling them out, making them write their name or change a colored card may cause the child to feel embarrassed or ashamed. Nothing is accomplished from that. This may also deter a child from participating in class leading to poor academic function.

It is evident that using PBIS is a better solution to modifying behavioral problems. There is a concern about children only behaving due to an extrinsic motivator. The fear is that once the reward is removed, then the behavior returns. However, from the data and studies mentioned, there are long lasting positive effects of using PBIS.

Further Reading

If you want to find out more about PBIS check out these websites

PBIS
What is PBIS?

Do you think this method could be used inside and outside the classroom? What are your opinions about it? Do you have any similar experiences with behavior modification in elementary school? Please share your thoughts and experiences to expand our knowledge of the topic.

References

During a hands on learning activity at an elementary school, many students were surprised as they witnessed the science behind surface tension. Students were asked to guess how many paper clips it would take to make a cup full of water overflow. the guesses ranged from one to a billion. The students watched with anticipation and excitement as the paper clips sank to the bottom of the cup. They held their breath with each drop and would voice their disbelief when the cup would not overflow. The sight of the full cup fooled them into thinking that one paper clip would cause it to overflow. Hook, line, and sinker. The students were beginning to question why the cup did not overflow after a few paper clips. Their minds were blown.

What worked in the presentation and what would we change if we did it again?

 In the presentation, we started off with a question. We asked the students, “How many paper clips will it take for this cup of water to spill over?”. This got the students excited to see how many would fit in the cup. Starting off the presentation with a question got the students thinking and engaged. Also, having the students count the number of paper clips with us kept their attention. This also gave them a chance to practice their counting. One thing that we would change would be to have everyone standing during the experiment. This would have helped the problem of students bumping into the table and making the water spill out. Another thing we would do differently is put the cup being filled with water in a flat, shallow container. This would help make the clean up easier. The water will spill into the container instead of on the floor or table. This will also prevent students from possibly slipping on the floor. 

What were the highlights?

During the presentation, the students immediately got excited when we asked our first question. The highlights were seeing how the students interacted with the activity and they all were engaged the whole time. For us, it’s nice to realize that with a little number of supplies, it gets the students answering questions, participating and learning. Once we went over everyone’s guess, the students got more excited to actually see how many paperclips it takes to slip over the water. Once our experiment was over, the students loved it and eventually wanted to try again to see if they could get more paperclips than the first time. Seeing the students faces throughout the whole experiment made us realize that they were engaged and wanted to get to that final number. 

What are you proud of?

As a group, we were proud that the students showed genuine interest in the experiment. They excitedly counted along even when we got to over 100 paper clips. They would change their guesses in the middle of the experiment to try and get the exact number of paper clips that would make the water spillover. At the end, we asked if any students would try this at home and several students said that they would. This meant that they enjoyed the experiment and were excited to learn!

How did you modify based on the first try?

 After the first try, we made some changes as the second group was coming our way. We discussed going over the directions more specifically to the students so they got a better understanding to see how the full experiment would work. We had the students sit around the table instead of on just one side so that they all can see and participate. The students listened very well for the most part. 

What did you do differently at the last time?

As the groups came and went, they got more touchy, as expected. For the last time, we had only one student put in a couple of paperclips so the other students wouldn’t be distracting and knocking over the worked. We reminded the students to slowly drop the paperclips in the cup when each student took their turn. We made sure that the students had their hands in their laps so they didn’t bump the table to knock over the water. 

What questions emerged?

 During the experiment, there were many questions. Below is a list of questions that came up.

• “Why can’t we put in more than one paper clip at a time?”
•  “Why isn’t the water spilling over yet?”
• “Why can so many paper clips fit in the cup without the water spilling over?”
• “Is it my turn?” 
• “Is it going to melt?”
• “Can we pour some water out? If there is less water we can put more paper clips in!”

As the students asked questions during the experiment, we tried to answer them as we went along. This gave the students a chance to think and ask more questions as they came up. 

Overall

This experiment was extremely fun to do with young children. They are simply amazed at how many paper clips it takes to make the water spillover. Other than a few minor changes to do in the future for this experiment, it was super easy and fun! We would highly suggest and parents, teachers, or future educators to try this with children. It’s educational and fun at the same time! If anyone has any suggestions for this experiment, please leave your comments below. We would love to know what you would do differently or any other aspects you would add in to make it better. All comments and tips are welcome and appreciated!

There have been many times in my life where I have walked into a seemly chaotic situation. Sometimes at work I would clock in and see my coworkers rushing about to complete orders. When I visit my sister, I sometimes witness her two year old running around the house with their pants waving in the air and screaming at the top of their lungs. Within the preK classroom I am currently observing, it is a very typical sight. Many children running, playing, and conversing with eachother. The teacher is often trying to redirect or correct unwanted behavior.

There are typically three to four students who exhibit disruptive behaviors. These children are typically not listening to the teacher, running instead of walking, not using an inside voice, or becoming physical with adults or their peers. One tactic that is being implemented is a reward system. The incentive for following the rules include reciving a sticker, a stamp on the hand, or a pompom for their jar. As I observe and interact with the children I am left with a few questions. Is this seemly organized chaos? How can we teach children to demonstrate less distruptive behaviors? What are some ways we can manage our environment (in this case, the classroom)? Does creating a classroom culture help?

Classroom management

What is classroom management and why is it important? Classroom management as the development of a positive learning climate by defining
class rules, ensuring an appropriate classroom setting, managing teaching process and time effectively, and supervising student behaviours (Üredi and Gül, 2018). Classroom management also involves a variety of strategies used to keep a classroom running smoothly and efficiently. These strategies are meant to keep distruptive behaviors at a minimum. The strategies also create a structured learning environent. In any setting, having an environment that runs smoothly with minimal disruptions are important. So what are some of the strategies and what could impact classroom management?

What could affect classroom management?

There was a study done to examine the correlation between leadership style and effective classroom management. The theory is, the better the leader, the better the classroom is managed.  In an article by Dr. Lütfi ÜREDİ and Abdurrahman GÜL (a classroom teacher), they discuss what effective leadership looks like and how it can transform a classroom. In a side by side comparison of a traditional vs a leadership teaching role (image below), it is clear that being a leader in the classroom is more beneficial than assuming the traditional teacher role.

They also discuss the main components of effective management which include:

• Class rules
• Use of appropriate intervention techniques
• Teacher-student associations
• Mental structure
• Educational goals
• Cooperation
• Awareness of students with special needs

Their study concluded that there is a positive directional meaningful relationship between leadership and classroom management competencies, a
positive directional weak relationship between leadership and teaching management, and no meaningful relationship between leadership and behaviour management (Üredi and Gül, 2018). So from this data, we can gather that there are many things that affect the different facets of classroom management, but leadership style has little to no influence on modifying behavior.

Strategies

If you search for classroom management online, you will be bombarded with a slew of search results. This is definately a topic that many teachers are concerned about.  If effective leadership has no impact on managing behavior, then what strategies could be used to do so? One strategy involves creating a classroom community. Creating a classroom community also involves setting clear rules and expectations. Fostering a sense of trust and allowing students to come together and take pride in what they are doing has been shown to reduce disruptive behaviors. Another strategy is to have a clear and consistent routine. Routines help students help students learn your expectations and can help keep them focused and on task during the day.

Moving Forward 

The use of routines has been observed within the classroom that I am currently placed in. Many of the children are just starting school and slowly learning the expectations. Their behaviors are a little expected since they are still learning. The development of a classroom community takes time and effort. I think that by the end of the year, many of the problems within the classroom will improve. Like many things in life, this will just take time and patience.

Further Reading

Classroom Management
Proactive Classroom Management

References

Üredi, L. and Gül, A. (2018). The Review of the Correlation Between the Leadership Styles of Teachers and Classroom Management Sufficiency, International Journal of Eurasia Social Sciences, Vol: 9, Issue: 33, pp. (1404-1433).

Being able to find a passion in life is a difficult task. Many of us are faced with making that decision without experiencing the different options before us. The path I took in regards to my education and career have always been related to science and medicine. If you would have asked me 5 years ago what my dream was, being a teacher was not on my radar. So if you were to ask me who my Gurus are, I would not feel comfortable describing the people who are shaping my teaching philosophies. I have not experienced or explored the many facets of early childhood education to confidently make that choice. The main reason I decided to go into the field of early childhood education was because I did not want children to grow up regretting their choices about their education. There are three elements that I gravitate towards that change the way I think about teaching. These three elements are Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, The Importance of Play, and Art Integration. What are these elements and why are they important to me?

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy
Culturally relevant pedagogy is an approach to teaching that helps struggling students achieve success. Teachers identify unique cultural backgrounds and strengths of students to connect their life and experiences to their learning. “The cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning more relevant and effective … It teaches to and through the strengths of these students [and] is culturally validating and affirming.” (Lim, Tam, & Saito, 2019). Different cultures bring in different perspectives and offers different ways of thinking. Children become more open to new ideas or strategies helping strengthen the skill of creative thinking. This approach to teaching makes the experience more engaging and meaningful to the child and may help then decide the goals they want to achieve and the problems they wish to solve.

Importance of Play
Play is often something that is dismissed or ignored. However, play is essential to the physical and mental development of children. “Play contributes to the development of creativity, optimism, and innovation. Pretend play offers children the opportunity to express many different processes—cognitive, affective, and interpersonal—important for creativity” (Wood). Allowing time for structured and unstructured play helps children develop important skills that are highly sought after such as creativity, flexibility, and problem solving skills. These 21st century skills are always in high demand. It is important to allow children to practice developing these social, physical, and cognitive skills associated with play. There are many innovative and effective ways to incorporate this element within the classroom.

Art Integration
Art integration has always been a touchy subject in the field of education. With the focus being placed on other academic subjects, art tends to be forgotten or neglected. Integrating art helps create more observant and curious students. It allows students to question and wonder about the world around them. This idea should not be confused with creating crafts. Having students create something for the sake of creating is not helpful and is a poor use to time. With the increase demand for creative thinkers, allowing art to be a part of your lesson is important. “Art can make learning and just about anything more beautiful, memorable, meaningful, and fun” (Dowell & Goering, 2018). Along with increasing student engagement, integrating art allows students to practice critical thinking skills.

How do these all relate?
When thinking about my own educational experiences, I often wonder if I was ever prepared to be a functional adult who could contribute to society. We may all have that relatable experience where the only things we remember from our early educational careers were tests and exams. We may also feel as though what we learned in school has no real world application or we may have simply forgotten most of what we learned. Many of my memories of school involve memorization and stress about creating projects or writing papers just for a grade. As a future educator, I do not want my future students to simply remember and regurgitate information. I want to help create more meaningful educational experiences for them. These three topics mentioned above help shape and drive my own teaching philosophy. As I progress with my own professional development, I hope to discover new ideas and experts within these related topics to help improve my own practice.

References