This past week in practicum, we have had many issues with behavior problems. How ironic that my inquiry wondering revolves around these issues and how to make them better. Originally, I was going to focus on the disruptive behavior of my students. The biggest problem that most of the disruptive students have is shouting out without raising their hand or continuously talking with the teacher is talking. This still is a very major aspect of the behavior problems in the classroom, but I am now starting to wonder about the disrepectful behavior between the students as well as for me and Megan. There is consistently this one kid that talks back and is so incredibly rude. The worst part is when we go to flip his card on the behavior chart, it doesnt even phase him. I believe that this is an even bigger issue that needs to be addressed over the disruptive talking. But how? I know that I can not change the entire behavior system that my cooperative behavior has in place. But, I do know that I am tired of dealing with his behavior and I want to put an end to it. For some reason, I am totally against in and out of school suspension because I feel like its a "free day" pass for the students and since they are being pulled out of class, they are getting farther and farther behind. I know that I refuse to tolerate it any longer, but I also feel uncomfortable in the situation because Megan and I do not know how to put a "healthy" end to the situation. In addition to the disrepectful behavior that we are receiving, it is also being dished out between our students. Bullying has been an ongoing issue throughout the whole year. Since several of our students can not and will not get along, then it has been extremely hard to find seating charts at lunch in the classroom that will work for the environment of the classroom. This has been one of our biggest struggles that I also believe leads to other problems.  How much am I able to fix through my inquiry?

After reading chapter five from The Reflective Educator's Guide to Classroom Research, I learned a lot about data analysis and what I should learn from collecting it. I learned that many teacher-inquirers move through four steps: description, sense making, interpretation, and implication drawing as they analyze their data. The goal of the descriptive step is to describe my inquiry data using the following questions: What did you see as you inquired? What was happening? What are your initial insights into the data? The next step is sense-making by reading my entire data set and asking questions such as: What sort of things are happening in my data? What do I notice? Then, I will begin the interpretive step of my inquiry analysis and ask questions like: What was my initial wondering and how do these patterns inform it? How are these patterns connected to my teaching and to my students? Finally, the last step is the most important step. I will start to reflect on implication questions such as: What have I learned about myself as a teacher? What have I learned about children? What are the implications of what I have learned for my teaching and what changes might I make in my practice? Last week in seminar, I started outlining my data collection. I have decided to collect the following:
a)  field notes to record observations of student behavior
b) teacher interviews to discuss classroom management
c) teacher reflective blog to assess my thinking of current classroom management and changes I might want to make
d) literature on classroom management to find the benefits of the use of classroom management plans
e) student surveys (before and after) to get the students opinions of their classroom behavior and what they will respond to

As I am collecting my data over the next couple weeks, I hope to keep the questions stated above as a reflection piece to see how I am doing with my data analysis. I guess what I am wondering now is whether we have to go through each of the "step" to successfully analyze our data?

This past week, we did our second round of the lesson study. It went so much better than our first time around. Although the debrief sessions are a little awkward and frustrating, I feel as though we finally have realized where the want to focus the most on our lesson plan. I think we have created a really great lesson, but we were struggling with finding the focus point and direction. Next week, Megan and I have the pleasure of teaching the lesson in our own classroom. I must say that I am very nervous, because the first two classes were so well-behaved.....and our class is not. Again, I know the purpose of the lesson study is to master a lesson, not our teaching. But, the teaching part and how we execute the lesson is truly an important part (especially since it is in our mentor classroom). Like I have said in previous posts, my inquiry project is directed towards better classroom management in 5th grade classrooms. Megan's inquiry project is focusing on collaborative learning groups. So, together, we will be have the first hand chance to see how well our students behave in a serious situation and how cooperative they are in groups. We are excited of course, but quite nervous because we know there is a lot of pressure. How can we tune out the problems and be the best teachers we can be without worrying about all the small stuff? How can we get the kids to focus during our lesson and want to participate? I think I have the answer: engagement and organization. But, is that all it takes?