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Professional Inquiry Project – Report

The classroom setting in which my placement took place was a year 2/3 class
consisting of 26 students. The school falls under category two and is in a low socio-
economic area. Within the class there are 12 EALD students and 4 students who are
on the spectrum. One student in particular requires a full time SSO. The composite
class has one teacher for the first two days of the week and another for the last three
days. This means that the students are receiving two different teaching and
pedagogical styles which I took into account as I took over full time teaching and I
adapted some of these styles to limit dissimilarity in the classroom.

Upon initial observations of my placement class, I began to feel unsure about how to
approach the ongoing behaviour issues. As Sullivan’s (2015) research explains,
these negative actions could be seen to affect student’s concentration and
performance. For this reason, I chose to focus on improving my behaviour
management within my teaching. I developed a mathematical unit on addition and
focused on improving student behaviour within these lessons as it was filled with
new content that required student attention. The behaviour management strategies I
designed not only assessed the student’s outcomes, but also enabled me to reflect
on my own teaching behaviour as I implemented them. As discussed by
Groundwater-Smith et. al. (2015, p. 270) these strategies can change and develop
as you go along, which I saw to be true as I found myself constantly finding ways to
expand along the way, giving the students and myself the opportunity to improve.

The teaching area of mathematics was selected as it requires a deep understanding

into the content and strategies for learning in order to comprehend and complete the
problems (Comber & Kamler 2004). As classroom management skills are important
in positively influencing student learning (Williams 2012, p. 3 & Whitton 2016, p. 88),
I found the subject of mathematics to be the perfect area of focus.

The initial planned focus was to implement a range of strategies that encouraged
students to set goals that could be achieved as a class, as well as personally
reflecting on one’s own behaviour and setting individual goals. As Comber and
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Kamler (2004) explain, the most important variable in making a difference for
students in school is the teacher, which is why I had to ensure my own teaching
strategies were assisting in the overall goal. This became something that I analysed
and discussed with a critical friend to ensure I was making any necessary
modifications or developments to the initial plan as I went on.

I began the project with some anecdotal notes on the types of behaviour issues that
were most common within the classroom, along with the effectiveness of
consequences verses positive reinforcement (appendix 1). It came to light that
positive reinforcement on its own didn’t seem to improve the behaviour of many
students, however when a warning was given for a consequence to take place,
students were then seen to want to do the right thing and responded to positive
praise for it (appendix 2). Upon discussion with my critical friend and reflections on
my observations, it was decided that I would focus on positive classroom talk, which
as Comber and Kamler (2004) explain, a teacher’s classroom relations to young
people greatly effects their outcomes. This was to be achieved as I focused on
setting positive expectations and using encouraging language (Hoy and Weinstein
2006).

This lead to the implementation of my class marble jar reward system (appendix 3),
which provided students with an incentive to work together in improving behaviours
and listening skills during mathematics. This was evidently working during math
lessons, but after student’s poor behaviour during school assembly, I decided it could
be something that encouraged positive behaviours throughout the school day too
(appendix 4). I initiated a spontaneous class discussion around the school value of
respect and this became the focus when earning marbles. The students
brainstormed some ideas on how to earn marbles (appendix 5), which had the power
of enabling the participants to control their own practice (Grundy 1995), which was
an encouraging factor for the students. I was then able to continue positively
reinforcing behaviour during math lessons and referring to the student’s goals as a
teaching strategy. This was an important part of my teaching practice as it resulted in
a rise of student engagement and motivation, which Williams (2012, p. 3) and Killen
(2016, p. 277) describe as one of the most important aspects in creating an effective
learning environment.
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The aim of this strategy had been to provide an appealing incentive that got children
involved in achieving their best (Williams 2013; Groundwater-Smith et al. 2015;
McDonald 2013). However, as Killen (2016) describes, teachers need to
simultaneously teach and analyse while in action. It was during this process that I
realised students were losing interest in achieving the goals as several children were
constantly exhibiting behaviour that let the class down. It is known that student
participation is a result of interest (McDonald 2013, p. 109), which is why I decided to
recognise and commend each positive experience during math lessons in an attempt
to reclaim interest in working towards the reward. I did this by purposefully ensuring
the goal was reached and students were able to see the benefits of reaching their
goals. I began to see a positive relation between standard 4.1 (Support student
participation) and 4.3 (Manage challenging behavior) in creating a learning
environment that provides maximised opportunity for success.

As Grundy (1995, p. 15) discusses, significant data collection is required when

making judgements about a situation and using that to inform future planning. This
method was used as I recorded each daily goal, the reasons for awarding marbles,
and whether the goal was reached each lesson (appendix 5). I was then able to
reflect on the results and provide important positive feedback to students (Killen
2016; Williams 2013; Groundwater-Smith et al. 2015) and offer suggestions for
improvements.

In regards to their own individualised goals, each student was able to self-assess
their behaviour (Appendix 6) during mathematics on a weekly basis in hopes that
they recognise areas for improvement. The self-assessment included criteria in
behaviour, attitude and effort, allowing the students to become mindful of themselves
and reflect on their achievements in mathematics over time. This method allows for
the children to get involved in their own feedback, which ultimately benefits me as
finding the time to conduct a thorough analysis can often be difficult (Greenwood
2007). The feedback from students (Appendix 7) demonstrated that they enjoyed
engaging in reflections and I found it to be a useful tool as I was then able to give
students constant encouragement on achieving their personal goals.
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Over the process of the investigation I analysed the data from student achievement
in the first few maths lessons compared to the last few (appendix 8). In conjunction
with my mentor teacher and critical friend it was concluded that the management of
behaviour could be seen to have assisted the students in achieving their best.
Overall comments from my mentor teacher were that my behaviour management
strategies were successful and my teaching behaviour in regards to consistently
enforcing both consequences and rewards made for a successful implementation of
this project. I believe that my ability to assert authority without being aggressive (Hoy
and Weinstein 2006) assisted me in gaining respect from the students and in turn
gave students a desire to exhibit positive behaviour (Comber and Kamler 2004 &
McDonald 2013, p. 109).

The challenge for me within my practice became finding the balance between
acknowledging both positive and negative behaviours in a way that impacted the
student’s learning in a constructive way. Initially I found it difficult to reward small
snippets of good behaviour when the majority of a lesson was filled with poor
behaviour. However a major change in my practice occurred when my critical friend
questioned me on this. It became clear then, that in order to see positive results, I
needed to first enable students to see the benefits in achieving. I was then able to
complete a thorough analysis of my practice and make the appropriate alterations to
my own behaviours (Greenwood 2007). After then evaluating the results of my new
methods, it became clear that the positive reinforcement was successful and the
class began working together and encouraging each other to achieve.

Throughout the process of this inquiry, I discovered the importance of going

backwards and forwards between reflecting and collecting evidence (Grundy 1995). I
was able to annotate my own behaviours and use professional discussions and
reflections to improve my own practice. I have gained a deeper understanding of
what it means to create an effective learning environment, which not only includes
reflection of the students behaviour, but begins with reflections on my own.
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References

Comber, B & Kamler, B 2004, ‘Getting out of Defecit: Pedagogies of Reconnection’,

Teaching Education, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 293 – 310.
Greenwood, DJ & Levin, M 2007, 'Introduction to Action Research (2nd ed.)', Sage
Publications.

Groundwater-Smith, S, Ewing, R & Le Cornu, R 2015, Teaching Challenges &

Dilemmas (5th ed.), Cengage Learning, Melbourne, pp. 268-293.

Grundy, S 1995, Action research as professional development, Innovative Links

Project, W.A.

Hoy, AW & Weinstein, CS 2006, 'Student and teacher perspectives on classroom

management', Handbook of classroom management : research, practice, and
contemporary issues, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, New Jersey, pp. 181
– 219.

Killen, R 2016, ‘Effective teaching strategies: lessons from research and practice
(7th ed.)’, Cengage, Australia, Victoria, pp. 273-297.
McDonald, T. 2013, ‘Proactive Teacher Behaviours’, Classroom management:
Engaging students in learning, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, VIC, pp.
106-154.

Williams, D 2012, Background Basics, University of South Australia, Adelaide.

Whitton, D, Barker, K, Nosworthy, M, Humphries, J & Sinclair, C 2016, ‘Learning for

teaching: teaching for learning (3rd ed.)’ Cengage, Australia, Victoria, pp. 79-90.
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Appendices

Appendix 1: Anecdotal notes

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Appendix 2: Journal extract

Appendix 3: Marble Jar reward system

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Appendix 4: Journal extract

Appendix 5: Class brainstorm

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Appendix 5: Record of goals

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Appendix 6: Student Self-assessment

Appendix 7: Journal extract

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Appendix 8: Assessment results in mathematics unit