Journal Drop #2

9-26-16

Frustrations in Education

One of my many roles in our school is to support a mainstream teacher with our IEP students and any other students in need. I feel frustrated watching this particular class being taught. The teacher I work with is a friend and we have a good relationship, but the class does not run smoothly and by my estimations, learning is not occurring. When I get the chance to work with students after lecture time I find that I can help individuals but I can not help everyone.

Now I am envisioning myself as a special education case manager. In that role I will have to suggest to teachers different teaching styles and modifications to better support our IEP students. This could be difficult. I do think I have an easy going personal manner but few teachers want to be told how to teach. I am wondering how I will walk this tricky and important line. Today I did approach my coworker and make a few suggestions. He runs a very strict class where he wants everyone doing the same thing but we did agree to try modifying and supplementing the note taking process for a few of our students. I have seen this approach used before to great success for students who worked slower than others or who were often off task. While supporting this particular class I want to try to continue to have conversations with the lead teacher in an effort to better serve the needs of our struggling students. My hope is that this class will serve as experimental grounds for working with not just students but also making recommendations (an important part of my future position) to teachers in my school.

9-28-16

Checking for Understanding

Every teacher (should) check for understanding daily. I have observed many techniques:

1. “Thumbs up, in the middle, or down” based on level
2. “Show me how you are feeling about this with 1-5 fingers”
3. Sticky notes for answering an exit slip question

And many more

Today I began wondering how effective these brief surveys of knowledge are? How do I know if I am getting honest answers? How can I encourage students to be honest about what they know AND what they DO NOT know?

I have also noticed that these methods of checking for understanding are often used initially and quickly fall off.  I wonder how a more disciplined and differentiated use of checking for understanding could benefit the teacher and students learning. This is an area of inquiry that could be interesting for action research.

Becoming a Teacher Through Action Research Ch 1

Becoming a Teacher Through Action Research Ch 1

The introduction and chapter 1 challenge us to be mindful of our thoughts, feelings, and reactions to the ideas posed by the authors. They implore us to note our disagreements and to connect to our own definitions of teacher, researcher and student. I am noticing thoughts popping into my head. “This seems overwhelming” “Who has time for this in their job?” “The idea of being a teacher and a researcher seems to be contradictory at times.” and many other thoughts. I do consider myself as a lifetime learner and I am trying to attach myself to the idea of being a teacher-researcher.

The authors ask us to consider our own personal paradigms and how they influence our view of the world and in turn our view of education. This is certainly a worthy goal. I like to think that I am a rationalist, with a scientific outlook of the world, and a value for evidence and facts. For these reasons I find myself identifying and feeling more comfortable with the quantitative research. Conversely, qualitative research is more difficult for me to understand. Action Research is more associated with qualitative research and I hope that as this class progresses I will begin to appreciate qualitative research, how it works, and how I can use it in my professional career.

Ch.1 Content Questions:

1. Why is it important to consider our own views of “good” teaching and research in begining action research?
1. Establishing a point of view or opinion on what is “good” as a teacher/researcher gives us goals and standards to aim for. We can establish a framework that we want to find ourselves in as teacher-researchers.
2. Why does context matter to our work as teacher-action researchers?
1. The context in which we teach determines  what, how, and why we teach. I aspire to work in the behavioral areas of special education. This context presents me with students who have needs that often times will be different than those of their peers. Another example of context could be imagining the students one could work with in inner city public schools vs rural private schools.
3. What does it mean to “deconstruct”?
1. Deconstructing is the strategic use of contradictory ideas, looking outside the binary to see what other options may be available to a given problem or system.
4. What is the differences between quantitative and qualitative research?
1. As I understand them, quantitative research relies on measures that can be looked at mathematically. Qualitative research is much more difficult to describe as it can include a mix of multiple methods of looking at and answering a question. In general qualitative research assumes that the “data” will change from time to time, place to place and person to person and thus relies on a different type of inquiry and data collection methods.
5. How does “mixed methods” research differ from action research?
1. Mixed methods uses both quantitative measures as well as qualitative reports in the  same study. The book suggests that action research is often qualitative but then goes on to say that action research is inclusive of data. I am still having a hard time seeing the difference between the two.
6. Define:
1. Self-Study - Preservice teachers examine themselves during the process of becoming a teacher. Looking to find what their beliefs, values, biases etc. may be and how to recognize these and use them to become better teachers.
2. Ethnography-Studying a group of students to find out; who are they? What do they want? How do they learn? Etc.
3. Curriculum analysis-The study of educational curriculum to determine if it is effective at getting students to meet pre determined rubrics of success.
4. Integrated Action Research - This is described as “trying out” a system, plan, etc. on students. Identify an issue, form a plan, implement and analyze the results.

Ch. 1 Process Questions:

1. What contradictions are between your image of “good” teacher and “good” researcher? What do the images have in common? How will you resolve these images as you continue your work?
1. Teachers apply research driven methods and researchers develop those methods after analyzing teacher action, curriculum and students outcomes. My initial thought is that these two roles could be contradictory and difficult to perform both objectively. I am trying to wrap my head around how the roles can coexist in the same person.
2. On the four types of teacher action research discussed - self-study, ethnography, curriculum analysis and design research - which makes the most sense to you at this stage in your learning?  
1. I think I understand self study best right now. The basic concept makes sense to me although I do think it would be a difficult task for me at the present time.

Action Research: Promise for Special Education

Action Research: Promise for Special Education

As I read this article I began to realize that I have done my own action research in the past without realizing it. My experience as a basketball coach closely mirrors the action research framework. I have learned from respected experts in the coaching field, I have studied new innovations in coaching and strategy, we analyze how our team is performing, we question what can be done to get better results or help struggling players and we implement new plans for changing and evolving circumstances and game plans. The basic idea and concepts of action research makes sense to me.

I can particularly see how the action research mindset can benefit students and teachers in special education classrooms. In my experience leading small group and whole class activities in self contained classrooms the cycle/model of “Plan-Implement-Reflect” was a process that helped me to have successful lessons and activities. When there were breakdowns or complete failures during these activities, reflecting with co workers was very helpful to identify some of the reasons why.

The article suggests that teachers are the agents and source of educational reform and not the objects of reform. I found this to be a powerful statement and agree whole heartedly. Using your classroom as a sort of laboratory to create, implement, test and evaluate new ideas and ways of teaching is a fascinating idea. It is also a very daunting idea. When I consider all of the duties and demands of a special education I become overwhelmed at times. The concept of teachers as action researchers only adds to my feelings of a looming and massive workload. However when I reflect on what I do, even now as an IA, I realize that I am a consumer of educational knowledge and I am attempting to put that knowledge into practice. Using evidence based strategies to better myself as a teacher and in turn improve the education of my students is an exciting idea. Developing some of those strategies on my own will be a challenging and rewarding process.

Journal Drop #1

9/15

Life as an IA

Working as an Instructional Assistant (IA) can be a frustrating job at times. I sit back and watch a lesson being taught from a very interesting point of view. From my position I can see students engaging with the material in many different ways. I can also see how easily students can be distracted and become disinterested when lessons and lectures are boring. In fact, I find myself tuning out at times during a math lecture. This school year I have begun to take notes during the classes that I work in. I am looking for ideas of what “works” and what doesn’t. In one particular class I see the same pattern of a long lecture, interrupted at times to discipline misbehaving students, followed by a very short period of time to complete the day's investigation and example problems. This work then becomes homework which many of the students have difficulty completing because they have a very limited understanding of the material and only about 5 minutes at the end of the period to try it on their own and ask me questions.

This particular class is very frustrating for me because I enjoy helping students understand and even find their own enjoyment of math. As an IA it is hard to find the time or a comfortable way of addressing some of the issues I see. For now I will use this as a learning opportunity where I can see what works and does not work in more traditional direct instruction environment.

9/20

Challenging Students: Applying action research

I have a class called Learning Lab where we are tasked with helping our students, many of whom are on an IEP, support their learning with extra lessons and review of their mainstream math and language arts classes. Only five days into the school year and we are seeing many challenging behaviors and learning disabilities (which can lead to more behaviors). I am also taking SPED 510 Behavior Management this fall. I have found myself in a unique place to merge theories and ideas from two classes that I am currently taking and implement them in the real life environment of a special education classroom.

The behaviors we are observing are creating questions for myself and my coworker. “Why does he constantly talk out?” “Why is she out of her seat multiple times during class?” and many more… I am attempting to find the root of the behaviors and address them there rather than only responding with “Raise your hand if you want to talk” or “stay in your seat till you have permission to get up” These thoughts have driven me to create a google form that I am using in class to quickly note student behaviors. This data is sorted in a spreadsheet and we are going analyze it at the end of the week. I am enjoying seeing how my interests and my personal classes are meeting in my job. While I do not yet have answers for these challenging behaviors, I do have a plan to track them and then apply some of the research we are studying in Behavior Management to the biggest problems.

EDUC612 intro

Three interesting things this week:

1) I work in an LRC class with students with a variety of behavioral and learning disablities. Immediately I noticed that I was more aware of my own presence, tone, and attitude as the small behaviors arose in the class room.

2) I noticed myself thinking more as a special education teacher/case manager as I observed other teachers working with our SPED students. Often I am focused on supporting our students immediate needs but I found myself thinking deeper, trying to find ideas and methods to inspire and motivate some of our tougher students toward more long term goals rather than just managiing their class room behavior and finishing a modified task.

3) I have noticed that special education teachers spend far less time preparing interesting and usefull lessons than many regular education teachers. I understand that the daunting leagal paper work is a limiting factor in this area.

Questions/Wondering

I am wondering if I can find a balance between meeting the legal requriements and still create interesting lessons.

Behaviroal classrooms are may area of interest. I have experience working with kids in behaviors in a reactionary and managing, after the behavior, setting. I want to learn more about pre teaching behavior management strategies.  How will this goal fit into my classroom schedule, teaching style, etc. ?

Currently I work in two inclusion classes. I agree with this philosophy but I already see teachers stepping on each others toes. I could see myself in an LRC role in the future. the inclusion model isnot going away. How do teachers collaborate together to teach effective lessons?

I see special education as a place where I can make a small difference in the lives of individual students, make inclusion classes better for main stream teachers working with sped students, improve the over all school climate toward students with disabilities and hopefully impact the greater community outside of school.