New Insights For Improvement Within My Action Research Project

When looking for improvements for revision in the action research project over student discipline, blog information from classmate’s suggestions have allowed me to gain insight of what may work for motivational factors to gain a positive change and how data could be organized to produce greater understanding of what may or may not be effective discipline motivators.
Jackie Postlethwait suggests creating competitiveness within the high school campus as a motivational factor. I love this idea, each grade level will compete to see who has the least amount of student referrals at the end of a semester, and the class with lowest referrals will be rewarded. However, to keep those students with outstanding behavioral status but in a disruptive class, I think there should be some kind of reward for these students. My site supervisor and I will be creating a combination of the two, to keep students from being discouraged because they have a class with students who really do not care if they receive incentives for good behavior.
Another suggestion I found helpful in revising my research project into an effective student discipline research project, was from Becky. She suggests breaking down offences into particular levels/categories to see if there is an effect in one area more than in another area. Categorizing student referral information will help bring insight to which individual is doing what and are problems reoccurring. This will allow my site supervisor and I to see if there is an underlying problem , viewing of individual folders and teacher interviewing may be need to gain further knowledge about habitual students.
Being able to interact with other Lamar students over the action research projects will be a tremendous help in creating an effective and efficient student discipline research project for my high school campus. Also, following projects similar to mine will allow me to gain insight of different strategies or suggestions to improve discipline across the campus will be very beneficial for all stakeholders while creating a positive morale for all.

What have I learned this week?

This week I have gain insight of the importance of comprising a well thought-out research plan consisting of student discipline. What do I hope to gain from this research? Hopefully what all educators would hope to create within their classroom, discipline strategies to create harmony for producing constructive learning.   This is why my student discipline has created a wondering for me as an action research project.  As a teacher, I am always looking for ways to grasp a better understanding of my students. If administration can find positive ways to mold student’s actions without degrading students with negative reinforcements while winning over respect and interest from today’s student, then administration opens doors to students learning while creating positive learning environments.

Draft: Student Discipline Action Research Plan

Purpose and Significance of My Action Research Project: Student Discipline

The purpose of my action research plan is to take a look back at our student discipline process and procedures. We have a small campus, where most of our students are good.  Many teacher complaints are about respect and getting a handful of students to get quiet and stop disrupting class.  Very seldom do we have fighting, drugs or major discipline problems. The first stage of my action research project has started by reviewing discipline referrals: looking and categorizing them into different severities.  I will check to see if there is a correlation between discipline and productive learning. I thought about checking to see if state assessment scores are affected in certain class with high discipline referrals.  I also want to create teacher, student, and parent questioners to see how they feel about past, current, and present discipline on our campus. I feel that including those whom discipline affects, should have input about our discipline perspective.  Maybe look at teacher training, has our district assured teachers have been properly trained how to discipline, defuse problems before they escalate. Also, look at students individual folders, could there be an underlying problem or issue with the student(s).

What is the significance of my action research project? I will create a positive beneficial way to keep discipline at its lowest level. I will create a positive and productive learning environment for administration, teachers, and students.

Action Research

What I have learned what action research means to me:

Action Research is having the ability to go deep into a situation or problem and analyze beyond the scope of traditional educational research.  Traditionally outside source would be used to solve educational problems, maybe books, videos, or someone from a university.  In the text, Harris et al., I have gained an understanding about action research, it is a systematic tool that allows researcher, administrator and/or teacher, to be a physician of their own issues, not an outside resource (pp.6-7). When the tool is used correctly, analyzing produces a cure to the whole affected areas, not a quick fix to symptoms.

Also, to add to this knowledge, the Dana text, I have been able to grasp a better understanding of how action research will enable me as an administrator to pinpoint issues or problems and use a systematic process to fix the source of the problem, keeping it from reoccurring (pp.1-2). 

The process starts by stepping back from the problem and looking at it from all angles to clearly define the problem. My site supervisor and I have decided discipline is an excellent action research topic for our campus. For this topic, we need to first look at the problem from different perspectives, different severities, and other factors concerning discipline.

Second process, collection of data will be comprised and analyzed to look at the problem from different perspectives.  I will need to gather different data to analyze our discipline problem by collecting different data sources: past referrals, state assessment scores, teacher and student input, and other resources affecting discipline within the campus.

Third process, will be thoroughly evaluating process one and two, create a strategic solution to solving the problem and making those changes.

Fourth process, information needs to be shared with employees and workers.  The issue monitor throughout time to insure reoccurrence does not take place.

How educational leaders might use blogs:

Blogs can become a powerful resource for documentation of reflection in the educational field.  Administrator, teachers, students, and/or community can follow an issue or project as it unfolds to enhance an understanding about how a subject is solved or produced.