Category Archives: Inquiry

I truly enjoyed reading this article! All of the 7 habits are critical to emotional wellness. I have been learning about bits and pieces of these habits all year, it was refreshing to read about them together. My favourite was number 7: Maintain passion and playfulness. This tied in nicely with a peer’s inquiry presentation today. I like to believe that I have a good sense of humour and I try to bring that into the classroom as much as I can. It was easy doing it in a K/1 classroom but if I ever have an intermediate grade I would definitely take out the time to incorporate play into my lessons. Having fun with the curriculum content is an easy way to get all students engaged and learning without them even knowing that they are doing work! I also liked habit number 3: Ditch the easy caricature. It is human nature to categorize people based on their strengths or weaknesses, and it can be hard to stray away from that kind of thinking. Seeing people as fully developed thinkers is something that will come with practice but is VERY important to do to get to know students as a whole. Great article, I will be saving this one for sure.

One thing that I believe makes for really good teaching is taking that time to build relationships with your students and build a good class community. If you don’t take this time as a teacher before you start teaching any content, I do not think students will get the full experience of learning. Also, as hard as it may seem, a good teacher tries their best to spilt the time between students to assess and discuss their learning.

Good teaching is measured in the way students react to your lessons and the learning that you see happening throughout the year. If your students have improved in any way since the beginning of the year, academically or socially, you have taught them something!

The SEL presentations at the beginning of class are very helpful in providing me with some ideas for my future classrooms. It is a great way to build some activities to bring to a TOC class or to integrate into certain lessons. They all create a sense of community and relationship building between the students and the teacher, which I enjoy and hope to bring to my own classroom one day. I’ve also enjoyed listening to everyone’s mini inquiry ideas, you can really do inquiry projects in so many different ways! The MOA experience was eye-opening and I look forward to starting my own inquiry project with a field trip. Now that I have had experience working with my own class I feel as though I am finding so many interesting ideas to add to my teaching.

Hallam, S. & Price, J. (1998). Can the use of background music improve the behavior and academic performance of children with emotional and behavioral difficulties? British Journal of Special Education. 25(2), 88-91.

This study looked at the effects of providing background music in the classroom on the behavior and academic performance of children with emotional and behavioral difficulties. The results indicated positive results for those students whose problems were related to constant stimulus-seeking and over-activity. These finding suggest that the classical music can have a calming effect on children who may have a hard time focusing during work periods in the classroom.

Hastings, P. R. & Bham, S. M. (2003). The relationship between student behaviour patterns and teacher burnout. School of Psychology International. 24(1), 115-126.

This article discusses the associations between student misbehaviour and teacher burnout. The aims of the study of 100 British primary school teachers were: to explore the properties of a measure of student behaviour in the classroom and to test the prediction of burnout dimensions from dimensions of student behaviour.

Leaman, L. (2007). Dictionary of disruption: A practical guide to behavioural management. New York, NY. Continuum International Publishing Group.

This is a very useful informational text that provides suggestions on how to deal with specific behaviours that are commonly found in the classroom. It talks about physical aggression, self esteem, group behaviour and much more, all laid out in alphabetical order.

MacGarth, M. (2000). The art of peaceful teaching in the primary school: Improving behaviour and preserving motivation. London, UK. David Fulton Publishers Ltd.

This book aims at helping primary teachers improve behaviour, preserve motivation and foster cooperation by developing positive relationships with pupils and their parents. It takes and empathetic approach to understanding and managing disruptive behaviour.

Ostrosky, M. M., Mouzourou, C., Dorsey, E. A., Favazza, P. C., & Leboeuf, L. M. (2015). Pick a book, any book: Using children’s books to support positive attitudes toward peers with disabilities. Young Exceptional Children, 18(1), 30.

This article discusses the impact of reading on child development, the use of books featuring characters with disabilities, children’s understandings about and interactions with peers with special needs, including books about special needs in early childhood classrooms, and using guided discussions to support young children’s positive attitudes about individuals with special needs.

http://dsm.psychiatryonline.org/doi/book/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596

This website serves as a great tool to look up any disorders under the DSM-5. It is also a navigation website that links to journals, books and news around psychology.

I think it is safe to say that I have learned many strategies to deal with behavioural issues in the classroom, but I still have much more to learn. I am finding that when I deal with mis behaviour in my classroom I get mixed reactions from my students; some understand and I can have dialogue with them to try and figure out a solution but others do not hesitate to ignore what I have to say. I am not surprised by this, I do have very young students that I am dealing with, but I wonder how I can get to the students that ignore my requests? There is one student in particular that is having a difficult time listening and behaving and it is my goal for the long practicum to have the courage to keep trying to help her situation. I have found that it is really easy to leave her issues for the other teachers in the classroom to deal with, but I feel as though I need to step in and help as well. I think during my lessons I will have opportunities to deal with her misbehaviour and hopefully I can help her through it.

Teacher burnout is something that I have been warned about in the past form fellow teachers and professors. I have always kept in mind that is important to take care of myself throughout my journey as a teacher and that with the right coping strategies I can avoid teacher burnout. There can be many causes for teacher burnout but one that has come to my attention recently is the relationship between student misbehaviour and teacher burnout.

Student misbehaviour has been known to be a source of stress for teachers for some time, and is associated with high levels of teacher reported burnout (Hasting & Bham, 2003). This is not hard to believe; as teachers we deal with many different issues in the classroom daily  and dealing with a difficult student takes a lot of energy and time. Overtime this can have a negative affect on our physical and emotional health (Hasting & Bham, 2003).  In a study done by Hastings & Bham (2003), it was revealed that teacher self efficacy in their ability to manage the classroom and student behaviour was an important factor in avoiding reported teacher burnout. Also, retaliating with emotion-focused strategies when dealing with difficult students showed an increase risk in emotional exhaustion (Hastings & Bham, 2003).

Dealing difficult students is not something we can do on our own. I believe it is really important to seek help in the beginning of the year when we notice that there are difficult students in the classroom. Having a positive and frequent relationship with school administrators and school counsellors can help with the emotional strains of the work.

Ever since I had my music class last semester I have been interested in looking into research that supports music therapy in the classroom. Music is a wonderful tool for many reasons in the classroom, it builds on creativity, gets kids moving and is great for classroom management. I have been particularly interested in the effects on music on those students with behavioural issues, can music help them manage themselves?

A study that looked at the effects of providing background music in the classroom on the behaviour and performance of children with emotional and behavioural difficulties revealed positive findings. Hallam & Price (1998) found that there was a significant improvement in behaviour and mathematics performance for all children who were exposed to the background music during their daily activities. The effects of the music were particularly powerful for those students whose problems were related to constant stimulus-seeking and over-activity (Hallman & Price, 1998). The music played in these classrooms was classical music. These finding suggest that the classical music can have a calming effect on children who may have a hard time focusing during work periods in the classroom. This study also revealed improvements in co-operation and reduction in aggression during the lessons (Hallam & Price, 1998).

When thinking of a school enviornment we generally think of a safe space that children learn and grow as individuals. Threats around the school community seem to be low unless the community is known for violence or is unsafe. What all schools may share in common, however, is threats from other students. It may be that a child does not want to come to school because he or she feels threatened by another peer. Not all of this information is shared regularly with parents and teachers or other adults so it can be an internal struggle that a child is dealing with.

This topic was bought forth to me this week during an important staff meeting at my practicum school. A grade 5 student who has a history of behavioural outbursts and issues was suspended after making derogatory, sexual threats to a female student. The staff at my school was bought together to discuss how to move forward with the inceident. We had our school counsellor present and also a behavioral specialist from the district. The main focus of the meeting was to inform the staff of the reprucssions  of the student’s actions and to get everyone’s feedback to ensure a safer environment for students and staff. Some teachers strongly felt threatened and unsafe by this student’s previous behaviours and were really concerned about the safety of the other children. Their concern was around the school community as a whole.

The student had gone under some testing with the district but because of confidentiality I did not learn the diagnosis or the results of the testing. The district specialist and our district counsellor worked hard behind the scene in dealing with the student and his family. Some community members, especially the parents of students, often do not know how much work is done by the principal, counsellor and other district members to help the troubled student and the school. It is not unfamiliar to hear parents talking about how “nothing is being done” because they expect immediate answers for the student’s actions. I have learned through this staff meeting that it takes a long time to deal with a situation like this. It takes a lot of work to come to an agreement for what is best for the student, family and teachers.

There was conversation around what was said by the student and if teachers should debrief with the students who were around the situation when it happened, so that there is some teaching about what the meaning of the words is. I think it depends on the classroom environment, it does not have to revolve on what had been said but it can be around the whole issue itself. Often situations like these may be disturbing to other students who witness them and I definitely think that their feelings and thoughts around it should be addressed.

I learned a lot from this open discussion meeting. The staff really cared about the troubled student and wanted to help him but they were also looking out for the rest of the school community to ensure that his behaviours do not negatively affect anyone else. I really thought hard about what the student himself was going through at a time like this. How was he feeling about the situation? Is he able to return to school without being treated unfairly by the students and staff?

This week in my Education, Knowledge and Curriculum course (EDST 403) some of my classmates and I are doing research on violence surrounding students in the classroom. We will be presenting our findings to our peers next week and so far we have found some interesting research. I chose to take part in this topic because it relates closely to my inquiry around behavioural management in the classroom.

Staring on this project, my group and I quickly realized that violence in the classroom was a pretty broad topic. We found lots of information that we want to share with our peers but due to time constraints we will be focusing our attention on violence between students, violence between student and teacher and what the new curriculum is telling us that students need to know about violence. We will give strategies for dealing with violent students and how to prevent violent behaviours. Being part of the SEL cohort we strongly believe that imbedding practices such as Second Step will help students gain a better understanding of how to deal in situations where they may feel obligated to be violent with each other or with an adult.

So far we have found some Canadian research that suggests that violence in schools is on the rise but we are looking further into these studies to getting a better understanding of what is affecting this. My group and I had an interesting conversation surrounding violent outbreaks in the classroom. How do we as teachers respond to a student who is putting him or herself in danger along with the rest of the class? We discussed how it was important to take the rest of the class outside of the classroom so it is safe but then that leaves roughly 25-30 students unattended (if there is not EA in the class) or a violent child unattended in the classroom. Through our research we will also be exploring the different polices among school districts and will be looking into what we as teachers can do if a situation like this arises. I am looking forward to our findings as it will strengthen my findings around my Inquiry question.

It is hard to narrow done to a few sentences what kind of teacher I hope to be. However, there are some parts of my career that I feel more strongly about and hope to accomplish over the years to come. 

Through my social and emotional approach to teaching I hope to support ALL of my students in any way possible. Mental well-being is not always talked about in classrooms and talking openly about our emotions with my students will only do them good in the future. As a teacher I will be a role model to every student I meet so it is my goal to epitomize the good qualities that I want to see in them. Lastly, making learning memorable is something I strive for because knowing that your students remember something they learned from you is beyond satisfying.