Action Research Project

EDI 685

03/26/2017

Brandon Bordewyk
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Action Research Project

Abstract

This semester I have been student teaching in a third grade classroom. While

there were several things that caught my attention as areas of improvement for the

class as a whole, there was one student whose behavior stood out to me as something

that needed action. I wasnt sure what I would do at first, but upon talking with my

mentor teacher and review literature on what she suggested, I took the steps that I

thought would best help this student overcome his habits and behaviors to attend to

class and improve his academic performance.

The Issue

From the start of the school year this student had shown behavioral issues.

Though not as noticeable at first they became accentuated as the year progressed. By

winter break he was doing things that disrupted his learning, those around him, and

even hurting other students, usually by accident when he flung objects around when he

got upset. He was constantly flipping any object he had in front of him, hed lean his

chair in any direction only to end up falling off it and hurting himself, he would shout at

me or my mentor teacher when he disagreed with us on something, would express his

emotions verbally out loud for the entire class to hear, would be rude to us and his

classmates, make random noises while I or my mentor teacher was trying to talk, not

pay attention to directions and always have to ask what are we doing!? in a loud and

annoyed tone, and would break down into tears if we had to come help him with

something or redirect him.

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Questions

Coming back from winter break we knew we had to do something. We werent

sure what that would look like yet, but we first needed to conduct a functional behavior

assessment (Kearney 2015) by talking to him and his parents about it, from that we

would be able to develop a behavior plan. Thankfully we already knew some things

about his background. We knew he hasnt been diagnosed with ADHD or a behavioral

disorder, though his parents have not had him tested. His dad has been on dialysis for

a number of years, and his mother had separated from his dad and lived out of state for

a year or two in the past. His older sister was the most disobedient girl to ever attend

the school according to my mentor teacher and other teachers, and he recently moved

to a new house before the start of the school year. Given all of this wasnt new halfway

into the year and his behavior was only getting worse, we decided to first talk with him

to find out what is going on in his life.

It turned out he had found out his parents had been talking to divorce lawyers,

and was worried that they would be separating. After finding this out we talked with his

parents, they confirmed that they had been considering it but are staying together for

now. They both admitted that they too need to try something because he isnt doing

well at home either. We told them wed talk and see what we could come up with and

would get back to them. So our questions now were what can we do for him in school,

and what can be done at home? I did a little research and came up with a plan.
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The Research

I had read about behavior plans in previous classes and suggested that using

one in this case may help him to self-monitor his own negative behaviors, hopefully

resulting in a reduction of the number of those actions. Based on what I had read in

Classwide Interventions for Students with ADHD (Harlacher 2006), self-monitoring of

behaviors through the use of a behavior points chart has resulted with ADHD students

in increased time on task and reduced inattention and inappropriate behavior

(Harlacher 2006) and even students without ADHD have been shown to benefit from it.

After reading about how to implement one for a student in Classroom

Accommodations for Children with ADHD (Barkley 2008), me and my mentor teacher

decided that this would be a good fit for him. To ensure that his behavior has

consequence I also needed to come up with a way to give the points meaning to him.

For this I read the parts of the book Understanding Applied Behavior Analysis

(Kearney 2015) that addressed consequences. Based on what read and that I knew

about the student is easily upset, I decided to suggest a positive reinforcement plan to

be implemented at home.

Process

Using the self-awareness training from Classroom Accommodations for

Children with ADHD (Barkley 2008) as guidelines for setting up and implementing a

behavior chart I created this chart based on what I was observing.

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BEHAVIOR I DID IT! OOPS! POINTS

I know what to do and

do it.
(follow directions)

I work quietly.
(no outbursts or noises)

I use positive words

and actions.
(control your emotions)

My hands are on task.

(no flipping)

The plan was to tape one of these charts at the top of his desk every day, and

have him put a tally on his chart after each of the 7 subjects during the day. The tally

would either go in the I did it! column, for the behaviors he accomplished, or in the

Oops! column, if we pointed out that he wasnt demonstrating one of those behaviors.

His total points for the day would be the number of tallies in I did it!. The first week I

would be marking his sheet for him, the second week he would record in the I did it!

column and I would mark the Oops! occurrences, and the third week he would be

doing both, though he would receive verbal prompting from myself if he needed to mark

an Oops!. Done in pen so he could not go back and change them.

For positive reinforcement me and my mentor teacher talked to the parents to get

an idea of what he did while he was at home. They told us that he spends most of his

time on his computer watching youtube videos and playing video games, and admitted

this probably wasnt the best for him but theyd like to cut back his time on them. So

they decided that to tie in with the behavior plan they would not allow him to use his

computer on weekdays unless he got a 6 or 7 in all four behaviors for the day.
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Results

After each day I would record his scores in a spreadsheet, initial his chart, and

send it home with him for him to give to his parents. I then plotted the data I collected to

get a look at how his behaviors changed over that 3 week period.

The first week of data shows about how he was behaving prior to implementing

the behavior plan. The chart was placed in front of him on his desk, but was recorded

on by myself throughout the day. The second week shows him recording the times he

met his behavior objectives, while I marked his Oops! column. The third week shows

him recording both with verbal cues to mark an Oops!.

He received full points in only two of the behavior areas, once in using positive

words and actions and twice in following directions. He never received 0 points in any

area for the day, but never met his parents goal of getting all 6s or 7s for the day.
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Conclusions

Nearing the end of the second week it appeared that he was making progress,

and he was getting more points than the previous week in all 4 behavior areas. Friday

he slipped a little in following directions and working quietly, but Fridays are generally

like that for most students. What I did notice though was a more noticeable uptick in his

anger, shown in how he talked to myself and others, and him smashing his markers and

pencils against things. By the end of that Friday my mentor teacher had received an

email from his father informing us that his wife was going on vacation to Mexico and

would be gone next week, to let us know that the student may be affected by that in the

upcoming week. If I were to guess it had already started to affect him that day.

The third week came and we anticipated that it might be a rough one for him.

And it was. He got about the same points he was getting the first week in working

quietly and using positive words and actions, and struggled more than the previous

week with staying focused and following directions. However he did keep his hands on

task and was no longer flipping or fidgeting with things he shouldnt be throughout the

day. Ultimately this was the biggest success of the plan, and today he has almost

entirely broken the habit of flipping objects during class time.

Looking at the data we saw that his biggest struggles were controlling his

emotions through words and actions, and making noises or loud outbursts. These were

especially apparent in times of stress when he would break things of his, shout out his

opinion when I or one of his classmates was talking, and speak rudely to students or

myself. The behavior plan is still in place, and my mentor teacher wants to create a
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new one over spring break to implement when he returns. However, his mother is no

longer on board with the idea and thinks we were being too critical of him, as she does

not observe these behaviors from him at home. She currently plans to take him to a

counselor and get him scheduled for behavioral testing.

If I was to implement a new behavior plan for this student, as my mentor teacher

wants to do, it would no longer rely on consequences at home. From what we learned

from the father at parent-teacher conferences the positive reinforcement plan we came

up with was often not being enforced. I would probably again try a positive

reinforcement technique because of how emotionally sensitive the student is, but if that

didnt work I would try using punishments. Positive reinforcement in the classroom may

be something like if he reaches a certain number of points in each category he could

share a video on youtube he made with the class on Fridays, or get extra time on the

computer in math workshop. Punishments may include losing computer access in math

workshop, losing recess time, or writing about his behaviors and what he should do

differently, if he gets less than a certain number of points in a day.

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References

Barkley, R. A. (2008). Classroom Accommodations for Children with ADHD. The ADHD

Report, 16(4), 7-10. doi:10.1521/adhd.2008.16.4.7

Harlacher, J.E., Roberts, N.E., Merrell, K.W. (2006). Classwide Interventions for

Students with ADHD: A Summary of Teacher Options Beneficial for the Whole

Class. Teaching Exceptional Children, 39(2), 6-13.

doi:10.1177/004005990603900202

Kearney, A. J. (2015). Understanding Applied Behavior Analysis, Second Edition : An

Introduction to ABA for Parents, Teachers, and other Professionals. Retrieved

from http://www.eblib.com