Action Research Project
At Frosty High School the largest problem I encountered was behavior issues. I had a very spirited group, that was used to a relaxed teacher. Before he left for the year, I asked him for some advice about behavior management because I could tell this was going to be a loud class. He simply replied that it was not his strength and wished me good luck. The largest problems included: constant talking, cheating, having their phones out texting or facebooking, taking very long bathroom breaks where they would often go to other classes to chat with their friends, as well as having their friends come into my class to hang out without my consent. Some of these where easily solved, like making a bathroom pass where only one student at a time could leave and timing their trips, but getting the class to quite down and actually listen to a lecture took a lot of hard work. I wondered what I could do to fix this behavior in order to have a more conducive learning environment within my geometry class. I researched and implemented four different strategies for managing classroom behavior. The techniques included behavior monitoring experiments, adjusting my role in the classroom, and classroom organization.
My first experiment came from the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis1. The article was a summary of an experiment where bad behaviors were monitored and prizes were given as rewards. This was an experiment done in a fourth grade class where the students where divided into teams, then whenever any team member behaved poorly, the team would get a point on their groups board. At the end of the week the team with the least amount of points would get a prize. The focus of this experiment was that if even one student was behaving poorly, the whole team would get the consequence. This brought in not only the teacher as a monitor and enforcer of the student, but pressure from peers to behave in an appropriate manner.
In my geometry class this had mixed results. Initially, the more competitive noise makers wanted to get a prize so they behaved better. This included my most rambunctious student who in the first week I almost forgot was in class, but after winning week one with his team, he gave up being good and decided to go back to his usual very loud self. The groups received points for talking during lecture, wondering out of their seats, and having their phones out. I recorded their bad behavior point marks on the board and would just write a tally without stopping class to confront the student's bad behavior. Often the other group members who were paying attention would shush their team-mates taking control of the reprimand. I recorded each weeks end results in a file so I could compare week to week and make note of improvements. By week four all groups were behaving better and they went from a class average of twenty three points in week one to only having two marks per group for a three-way tie in week four.
After the tie I decided to change the groups to see how the behaviors may change with different people. This was a disaster. Almost everyone was unhappy with the groups and after just two weeks in the new groups they were out of control with fighting and yelling at their peers to shut up or telling on other groups for ridiculous things to try and get the other groups to have more points because they were in last place. That was the end of groups.
This experiment worked well for a limited time. In the beginning, it was a wonderful change that improved the learning environment of the geometry classroom. Students were quieter and more on task. As a part of the groups, I included the option of a group test for the midpoint quiz. The students wanted to try it and the end result was all groups getting a 90% or better on the quiz. Unfortunately, the students got highly competitive and their behaviors shifted towards yelling at classmates and complaining about other groups. After the groups where abandoned, the improved behavior stayed with the majority of the class, but a handful of class clowns still were very talkative. The biggest accomplishment was that phone usage significantly decreased.
Having positive results with one experiment, I decided to research and implement a new experiment. Due to the success of the first experiment, I gathered the second one from the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis2 as well. This experiment focused on individual behavior monitoring. It had the teacher keep a chart and give students a “golden star” every time they did something good, and then punish the students without the golden stars. I designed a program to record the stars, and “punish” students in a way that would affect their grades, hoping this would motivate their actions. I gave the students with stars daily class participation points, while the ones without stars got zeros in class participation. The students' points were distributed based on the number of stars they received.
This was only really effective for one week. In the beginning the students tried, but the bad students were still bad and the good students that had A’s just kept getting A’s. By the end of week three the same students were always getting stars and the same ones were always getting zeros, which was making it even harder for them to work on improving their grades. We had several talks about how easy it would be to get stars. They just had to stay quite and take notes, but they complained about how hard that was. My data looked exactly the same day to day.
For the last two weeks of the semester I ended up not doing the golden stars and finishing up the year. The class for those two weeks was significantly better behaved then my first two weeks, but some chatting continued, especially while I was writing notes with my back to the class. I believe the largest reason this experiment was unsuccessful was because the students who were struggling with their grades were usually the loudest in the class. By punishing them through their grades based on their behavior, the students just slipped further and further into a hole. This significantly impacted their behavior because the worse their grades got, the worse their behavior became. The semester ended and I knew I had to use my break to research more and come up with a plan for the start of the next semester.
I had made some improvements within my geometry class, but more needed to be done at the start of the new semester in order to have a successful learning environment. Over the break I researched books that dealt with classroom management. The most useful books I discovered where Classroom Management that Works by Robert J. Marzano and Classroom Management for Middle School and High School Teachers by Edmund T. Emmer and Carolyn M. Evertson. They opened my eyes to ways of thinking about student behavior, as well as the way I react to certain behaviors and how that can impact the overall environment of the class.
The most important thing I learned from my research, that I then implemented in my classroom for the second semester, was understanding the three types of problems and how to react to them. There are nonproblems, when students talk during transitions of activities or do something brief for attention. The solution to nonproblmes is to just ignore them and “not waste too much energy, interrupt lessons constantly, and detract from a positive classroom climate,” (Emmer, 169). There are minor problems that “are behaviors that run counter to class procedures or rules but do not, when occurring infrequently, disrupt class activities or seriously interfere with student learning,” (Emmer, 169). Minor interventions include nonverbal cues, using proximity, redirecting behavior, and giving students choices. Finally there are major problems which disrupt activities or interfere with learning. These tend to be limited to single students or a small group of students. Solutions for these behaviors are to isolate or remove students from class, office referrals, detentions, and in extreme cases meeting with parents.
At the start of second semester I came in with a new frame of mind and was ready to deal with these problems properly. I implemented a second semester restart, where we discussed new rules and procedures, like a would do at he start of the school year. This became vitally important because I got a whole new class and about twelve new students. I learned to ignore nonproblems, including the minor chatting while I wrote notes on the board. For some of the minor problems in my class, ideas about the choices and proximity worked the best. Proximity is making sure I am walking the classroom to be sure to be close to the students, hopefully keeping them on task more. I am definitely walking up and downs the rows more often and when students fall behind we have more open discussions about problems with lectures or needs for a catch-up day where I can answer one on one questions. This basically eliminated cheating and when students were caught up, they paid more attention.
When a major problem would occur, I found that talking to the coaches of athletes was very helpful with controlling certain students. I also kept in regular contact with two students’ parents about tracking their child and with one it worked wonders, but with the other he got resentful and refused to work in my class. I also had a better understanding that individual students react differently to all my behavior techniques, and knowing the students better helped me control the classroom environment more effectively. With all these changes, and a little organization, the restart was very successful. I was able to properly recognize all the progress from the start of the year until the end of the year.
My final attempt at managing classroom behavior was the structure of the classroom itself. Both books3 discussed classroom organization, and how that can affect the learning environment of the classroom. My original classroom had nine tables that comfortably seat twenty one students. With all the new students I had second semester, I had thirty one students cramming around tales. This was not the ideal situation and behavior issues where starting to slip backwards. I meet with the principal and there happened to be an unused classroom with individual desks that could fit all my students. We also moved seven students out of that class, creating their own class later in the day. This was a huge help and gave me even more of an opportunity to restart how my classroom would be run for the second semester.
Having individual desks significantly decreased the amount of socializing in my geometry class. The individual desks helped with organization and behaviors. Marzano states that “ensuring that desks are not too close together decreases the chances of students being distracted by one another,” (96). This was unquestionably apparent when we switched to desks instead of tables, but I still had some minor problems with students sitting near their friends and chatting constantly or student sitting in the back and not paying any attention. The end solution was assigned seats. This worked wonders for a majority of the noise and I was able to properly monitor other issues like cheating and phone usage because I could see the students better. I still had a few problem students who would shout to their friends across class or randomly start singing nursery rhymes, but it is better than the constant talking that once filled the room.
Overall, my research and implication was very successful. I improved my outlook on teaching by gaining personal understanding of classroom management and learning my own limits of what I expect from my students in terms of behavior. I also learned some fun techniques and experiments I could do in my classroom to monitor behaviors, making students realize what it and what is not acceptable in my classroom. After both experiments, the behaviors of most students in my geometry class improved, and I noticed specifically cell phone usage and full class long conversations had stopped. After the restart in the second semester I stopped expecting perfect silence and let the nonproblems go allowing me to interrupt the lecture to tell students to stop talking less. I also started involving coaches and parents in major behavior issues which significantly helped control the extremely rambunctious students who continued to shout to make jokes at all times. To help with the minor problems, proximity and assigned seats nipped the quieter chatter out of my class and kept students on task. Now I have a better learning environment within the walls of my room, where students are on task during lecture, can ask questions when they are confused, and still have some comfortably playful chatter when it is appropriate.
1Barrish, H. H., Saunders, M., & Wolf, M. M., (1969). Good Behavior Game: Effects of Individual Contingencies for Group Consequences on Disruptive Behavior in a Classroom. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 2, 119-124.
2Madsen C. H., Becker, W. C., & Thomas, D. R. (1968). Rules, Priase, and Ignoring: Elements of Elementary classroom control. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1, 139-150.
3Marzano, R. J., Marzano, J. S., & Pickering, D. J. 2003. Classroom Management that Works Researched-Based Strategies for Every Teacher. Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Emmer, E. T. & Everstson, C.M., 2013. Classroom Management for Middle and High School Teachers. San Francisco, California: Pearson.