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Written by Amber Puglisi | amber.puglisi@uamaker.nyc
Problem
A problem I have identified in my first year of teaching has been students not asking for help when they need it. I have noticed they will wait for teachers to check in and then ask for the help they need. Although asking their peers for help is a strategy that can be useful, sometimes students feel uncomfortable asking their peers. This idea of teaching students self advocacy is something that is important to me because these are life skills people sometimes need to be taught. Especially when it comes to our students with disabilities, as they often struggle with asking for help and advocating for themselves when they need support.
Hypothesis
If students have authentic relationships with teachers and are encouraged to ask the teacher, then they will be more willing to ask for help when they need it as measured by recording when students engage with check ins, and when students check in on their own.
Target group
My target group is students who struggle with asking for help when they need it. I chose three students who struggle with self advocating. These three students are students that have expressed the desire to improve their grades.
Data collection
Data collection
Baseline data
My baseline data was observations I made from prior knowledge I had on my students. I have good relationships with most of my students, and I believe these were the three that struggled the most when it came to speaking up for themselves in an academic setting. The baseline data was admittedly very subjective, however they were students who rarely spoke up in class, if ever, and the only academic interactions were once I would check in. I did have a conversation with my students about self advocacy and asking for help when they needed it prior to data collection.
Measuring success
Over the span of two weeks from May 15th to May 26th I recorded when I had an interaction with students after a check in, and when students called me over to check in with them (and what they wanted to talk about). Success was measured by seeing how many times students checked in with me in the times I had class with them. Considering the three students had difficulties with speaking up and advocating for themselves when they needed help, I considered them asking for help 2 times or more successful.
Overall findings & impact
Out of the three students I feel Student D truly has put more of an effort to ask more questions and check in with the teacher, opposed to waiting for a check in. The data also says, Student C seems to be approaching the idea of asking for help more. Student A has engaged with check ins more however is still reluctant to ask for help.
I would love to do an iteration of this over next year's semester 1 inquiry project. It is difficult to implement new strategies at the end of the school year, however it is something I want to implement in all of my classes at the start of the 2023-2024 school year.
Actionable steps
If you want to use this strategy in your classroom, I recommend …
Taking better baseline data. Ask students for feedback and actionable steps on what you can do to support them. This will influence the strategies that you implement on what you can do for students other than encouraging them to advocate for themselves.
Taking good data. It sometimes can be challenging to collect data, and this is not a strategy to use when someone else can collect the data for you since it is over an extended period of time. Either printing the spreadsheet out and taking handwritten notes, or taking notes during class is something I would do better next time.
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