Elizabeth Curtin

EDPR 420 Managing the Learning Environment

Context/Situation Each day during practicum, I co-teach a 5th grade writing class. The class is made up of 19 students. The behavior of this class is not ideal. Many students talk out of turn, walk around the room during a lesson, leave the classroom, or talk negatively toward other students or teachers. While not all students present these negative behaviors, the class as a whole tends to act out often. This can impede learning for all students. It takes time away from instruction and is distracting to the class overall. Thus, during this class, I would like students to act more appropriately. I would like them to pay attention to the lesson, raise their hand to speak, stay in their seat, and act politely toward one another and teachers, pay attention to the less, and complete their work independently. I believe this will increase learning and create a community of learners in the classroom. Operational Definition During the co-taught writing class, students exhibit negative and disrespectful behaviors. Examples of negative behaviors include: -Getting out of seat without permission -Talking out of turn (interrupting another student, not raising hand, interrupting teacher) -Walking around classroom during lesson -Leaving classroom without permission -Making disrespectful comments to teachers or other students -Laughing at other students -Not doing in-class assignments/not completing in-class assignments -Sleeping during class -Laying head on desk during lesson -Distraction by other things (making bracelets, reading a book, playing on netbook) during a lesson Baseline Data *Occurrence of a negative behavior is taken from any individual student exhibiting behavior. While my program focuses on whole-group management, taking baseline on individual students will give an overview of the total number of occurrences (regardless of who is exhibiting the behavior) across the class period. Date Number of noncompliant/disrespectful behavior (negative behaviors) 1/17 17 1/18 21 1/22 16

Elizabeth Curtin

EDPR 420 Managing the Learning Environment

Results As shown above, baseline was taken for three consecutive days of class. Behaviors were exhibited 17, 21, and 16 times across the day. On average, these negative behaviors were being exhibited about 18 times each day. While some students did not exhibit these behaviors at all, the large number of times these behaviors were exhibited by multiple students caused distractions in the class. Intervention Plan In order to decrease negative and disrespectful behaviors in the classroom, I would like to implement a whole-class behavior management system. I would like to base this system on rewarding students for positive behaviors. I believe that by using positive reinforcement, students will be encouraged to act more appropriately in the class. I also hope that these behaviors will carry across the day when I am not present. To introduce this system to students, I would like to first discuss the classroom expectations. I will first list a few general expectations that I have of the students including (raising hand when talking, staying in seat unless given permission to leave, staying in classroom, etc). Next, I will give students the opportunity to create additional rules or expectations that they would like to have in the classroom. I believe that allowing students to create their own rules will help to create a community feel in the classroom. I hope this will encourage students to work towards expectations they have set for themselves, and will help them to feel like a team. After introducing the rules and expectations to the students, I will then explain how they can earn rewards by following the rules and meeting the expectations. For each day, the class as a whole can earn either 0, 1, or 2 points. The class will not lose points based on the behavior of one student, but will lose points when multiple students are not following the set expectations (not listening, talking when teachers are talking, not doing their work, etc.). The class can also earn extra points at my discretion for going above and beyond. The class might earn extra points if everyone earns an A on a quiz, or if everyone turns in their homework when it is due. When the class earns 12 points, they have earned a reward. These rewards can be tangible (food) or non-tangible (10 minutes free time). The class and I will decide together what they would like and I will provide it the following day. After the class has earned a reward, their points start back at zero, and they must earn 12 again. In addition to focusing on the class as a whole, I would also like to reinforce individual students who are consistently following expectations. While I want the class to feel like they are working together towards a common goal, I think it is important to recognize students who are acting appropriately. Therefore, in addition to giving the class points, I will give individual students tickets at the end of the period if they had followed expectations for the entire period. Students can enter their tickets into a drawing, and I will draw 1 or 2 students names once a month. These students will earn an addition reward (small gift card, I will buy them lunch, etc.).

Elizabeth Curtin

EDPR 420 Managing the Learning Environment

When implementing this in the classroom, I will be sure to communicate my expectations to students on a daily basis. I will also tell students when they have lost a point, so they are continuously aware of where they stand. Finally, I will also reinforce certain students who are acting appropriately ( I really like the way that the back row is paying attention quietly) in order to set a positive example for all students. I believe that clearly and continuously communicating my expectations and thoughts to the students will create trust and provide consistency throughout this program. In order to monitor the effectiveness of the program, I will keep record of how many points the class earns each day. Additionally, I will use frequency recording every Friday to record the number of times inappropriate behaviors are exhibited in the class. By recording the class daily score and number of negative behaviors on Fridays, I will be able to see not only if they class is acting positively on a daily basis, but also change over time. This will provide me with information regarding the effectiveness of my program over the course of the semester.

Reflection

Negative Behaviors
25 Number of Negative Behaviors 20 15 10 5 0 17-Jan

24-Jan

31-Jan

7-Feb

14-Feb 21-Feb 28-Feb Assessment Date

7-Mar 14-Mar 21-Mar

Results Overall, this intervention produced inconsistent results. The number of points students earned (out of 6) for group-behavior varied greatly over the course of the intervention. In the beginning, students were earning 2-4 points each day, and at the end of intervention, students were still earning between 3-5 points each day. The class as a whole only earned six points on three days over the course of 8 weeks. Students often earned 3-4 points for any given day, but also earned 0-2

Elizabeth Curtin

EDPR 420 Managing the Learning Environment

points on multiple days throughout the intervention block. As shown on the graph on the previous page, there is not a general upward or downward trend for class progress. Rather, class data is extremely inconsistent. In addition to earning points, I counted the number of negative behaviors exhibited on Fridays by individual students. I totaled those behaviors into the chart above. There is a general downward trend of negative behaviors exhibited. During baseline, students exhibited an average of 18 negative behaviors. By the end of intervention, students were exhibiting between 10 and 12 negative behaviors. This is a drop in negative behaviors, suggesting that the intervention was partially effective in reducing individual students negative behaviors. Discussion In all, the results of this program are inconsistent. The program helped to reduce individual negative behaviors, but was ineffective in reducing whole group non-compliance. These results are inconsistent because if individuals were not exhibiting negative behaviors, the overall point scores for the class should have been higher. Rather, though, there is a downward trend for individual behaviors, but an inconsistent trend for group behaviors. This is surprising because I expected to see a correlation between the two results. Many factors could have contributed to these results. To begin, student behavior (individually and as a whole class) was dependent on the task students were presented with. When engaged in an activity that allowed for group or partner work, the class earned more points because they were allowed to talk to one another and work together. On the other hand, when students were expected to listen quietly, students tended to exhibit more negative and non-compliant behaviors. This impacted the results because the data did not take various activities and their effect on student behavior into account. Additionally, the class spent a week participating in poetry stations during the intervention. During this time, students spent time with multiple teachers in different environments (as they moved through stations). Thus, I was unable to accurately score group or individual behavior outside of my station group. While I did communicate with the other teachers, I was still scoring rather subjectively. Inner rater reliability could have been stronger, and this would have allowed for more consistent and accurate results. Finally, the downward trend in individual students negative behaviors, I believe, can be attributed to the token economy system implemented in the classroom. Students seemed to enjoy being responsible for their own behavior, and would work harder to earn a ticket. Students seemed to dislike depending on their classmates behavior for earning group points. To promote the future success of this program, I would suggest creating more specific, operationally defined negative behaviors. Without clear operational definitions, assessment seemed subjective and there was irregularity in expectations between the three classroom teachers. This encouraged inconsistencies in the programs results. Creating clear rules and operational definitions would allow for consistent data collection between all classroom teachers. This would also be beneficial for students because they would be held to the same behavioral expectations for all groups, activities, and teachers.

Elizabeth Curtin

EDPR 420 Managing the Learning Environment