Elizabeth Curtin

EDPR 250

Managing the Learning Environment Group Focus

Each day during practicum, I teach three periods. Within these three periods, I teach the same 10-13 students (with the exception of two students leaving for another class). The first period is from 8:20am-8:58am, the second is from 9:02am-9:40am, and the third is from 9:44am10:22am. In between classes, students are allowed a four minute break. When students return to class and the bell has rung, the group of students has a tendency to converse and walk around the classroom. As well, within each class period, our class does a variety of different activities. When transitioning between activities, students start talking with one another, and it takes a few minutes before my cooperating teacher and I can get the students to focus on the next activity. During transitioning between classes, I would like students to stop talking and wait for instructions when the bell rings. Also, when transitioning between activities during class, I would like the students to stay focused on the teachers instead of talking with one another. Overall, when the bell has rang or we are transitioning from one activity to another, I would like to decrease conversation between students. In other words, I would like students to be prepared for lesson. My teacher and I define prepared for lesson as students who are seated in their assigned seat and are refraining from conversation. Mastery of this skill for class period transitions will be 90% of students prepared for lesson within 10 seconds of the bell each day for 5 consecutive days. Mastery of this skill for activity transitions will be 100% of students ready for lesson between all activities each day for 5 consecutive days. Data Baseline Assessment Charts 2/2/12 Transition Period 0-1 1-2 2-3 Number of Students Prepared for Lesson 2 3 3 Number of Students Present 12 12 12 % of Students Prepared for Lesson 16% 25% 25%

Activity Transition Transition 1 Transition 2 Transition 3 Transition 4 Transition 5 Transition 6 Transition 7

Number of Students Prepared for Lesson 5 5 4 6 n/a n/a n/a

Number of Students Present 12 12 12 12 n/a n/a n/a

% of Students Prepared for Lesson 50% 33% 41% 41% n/a n/a n/a

Elizabeth Curtin 2/3/12 Transition Period 0-1 1-2 2-3

EDPR 250

Managing the Learning Environment Group Focus

Number of Students Prepared for Lesson 2 2 4

Number of Students Present 11 11 11

% of Students Prepared for Lesson 18% 18% 36%

Activity Transition Transition 1 Transition 2 Transition 3 Transition 4 Transition 5 Transition 6 Transition 7 2/6/12 Transition Period 0-1 1-2 2-3

Number of Students Prepared for Lesson 4 4 5 6 4 n/a n/a

Number of Students Present 12 12 12 12 12 n/a n/a

% of Students Prepared for Lesson 33% 33% 41% 50% 33% n/a n/a

Number of Students Prepared for Lesson 3 2 4

Number of Students Present 11 11 11

% of Students Prepared for Lesson 27% 18% 36%

Activity Transition Transition 1 Transition 2 Transition 3 Transition 4 Transition 5 Transition 6 Transition 7

Number of Students Prepared for Lesson 5 5 4 3 n/a n/a n/a

Number of Students Present 12 12 12 12 n/a n/a n/a

% of Students Prepared for Lesson 41% 41% 33% 25% n/a n/a n/a

Elizabeth Curtin Baseline Assessment Graphs: Class Period Transitions

EDPR 250

Managing the Learning Environment Group Focus

Students Prepared for Lesson- Class Period

12 10 Number of Students 8 6 4 2 0 2/2/2012 2/3/2012 Assessment Occurrence 2/6/2012 0-1 period 1-2 period 2-3 period Total number of students

% of Students Prepared
40 % of Students Prepared for Lesson 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 2/2/2012 2/3/2012 Assessment Occurrence 2/6/2012 0-1 period 1-2 period 2-3 period

Elizabeth Curtin Activity Transition

EDPR 250

Managing the Learning Environment Group Focus

Number of Students Prepared for LessonActivity

14 12 Number of Students 10 8 6 4 2 0 2/2/2012 2/3/2012 Assessment Occurrence 2/6/2012 Transition 1 Transition 2 Transition 3 Transition 4 Transition 5 Total number of students

% of Students Prepared for Lesson

60 % of StudentsPrepraed for Lesson 50 40 Transition1 30 20 10 0 2/2/2012 2/3/2012 Assessment Occurrence 2/6/2012 Transition 2 Transition 3 Transition 4 Transition 5

Elizabeth Curtin Results:

EDPR 250

Managing the Learning Environment Group Focus

After taking informal assessments on the students in my class for three consecutive days, I have a general understanding of the amount of students that are not prepared for the lesson when the bell rings or a new activity is started. Students especially have difficultly transitioning in between classes. In my assessments, no more than 36% of students were prepared for the lesson when the bell rang at any given time. When averaging the three days, about 24% of students were prepared for the lesson overall. In addition to transitioning between classes, my students have difficulty transitioning from one activity to another. Over the course of three days, no more than half of students were prepared for the lesson at any given time. As well, an average of only 38% of students were prepared for transitioning between activities. While students struggle to transition between activities, I did notice that is it more likely that a student is prepared in between activities than in between class periods. It seems as though my students struggle more often with transitions between class periods, but both types of transitions can be problematic.

Intervention Plan After my program, I would like transitioning in my classroom to go much more smoothly. Ideally, students will remain quiet and in their seats when transitioning between all activity in a given period. In between class periods, I would like students to sit in their assigned seat quietly and ready to start the lesson within ten seconds of the bell ringing. In terms of mastery, 90% of students should be prepared for the lesson in between activities. Also, 100% of students should be prepared for the lesson in between class periods within ten seconds of the bell. To communicate these goals with students, I will have a class discussion about the current amount of conversation that happens between transitioning. We will discuss how this takes away from instructional time. We will also discuss how this can be disrespectful toward teachers and other students because not being prepared for the lesson can be distracting and time-consuming. For this task, I will divide my intervention plan into two separate parts. The first part will be a plan to assist students in transitioning between class periods. First, I would like to ensure that I or my teacher are in the classroom and prepared to begin the lesson before the bell rings. Showing preparedness to students is non-verbal encouragement for them. Being able to start a lesson immediately after the bell rings will show students the importance of using all instructional time effectively. Thus, each day, I will ensure that either I or my coop teacher is at the front of the classroom when the bell rings and begins the lesson immediately. Secondly, I will encourage the students to participate in the beginning of each lesson by doing a small preparation activity when possible. For example, when students come into 1st hour, I will have them immediately get up quietly and retrieve their fluency folders independently. Giving students a task to do will be a non-verbal signal that it is time to begin the fluency lesson.

Elizabeth Curtin

EDPR 250

Managing the Learning Environment Group Focus

Simultaneously, I will be speaking to the students about the date and the activities for that day. Lastly, I will implement the use of a timer to encourage smooth transitioning between class periods. I will set a timer for one minute and ten seconds about one minute before the bell will ring. This procedure will allow a timer to go off approximately ten seconds after the bell rings. This timer will be a single to students that the class period is starting and it is time to focus on the lesson or activity of the day. The second part of my intervention plan will be to assist students in transitioning between activities within a class period. I will begin to warn students each time we are about to transition to a new activity. Instead of ending an activity when all students are finished, I will begin to have a more structured schedule so I can warn students when one activity is ending and we are transitioning to another. While I will ideally know each time we are transitioning between activities, there are times that certain students finish an activity before others. In this case, I will have a pre-planned mini activity for students to engage themselves in. These activities might be a short journal entry, silent reading, or a helpful classroom task. These small activities will keep students engagement and focus on classroom work while they are waiting for others to finish their work. In the event that one of these activities is needed, I will provide direct instruction to the student to do a given activity so the student is clear on the expectations for that transition time. Lastly, many of the activities we do in my classroom are somewhat structured. For these activities, I normally know how long we want the students to be engaged in their work. In these instances, I will once again implement a timer to signal students when one activity is over and another is beginning. Using the abovementioned strategies with various activities and transitions in the classroom will, I believe, help students to stay focused on the lesson and engage less in unrelated conversation. In addition to implementing these strategies, I also realize the importance of providing reminders to students. Thus, I will randomly verbally remind students to stay quiet before a transition. These reminders will provide another signal for students that a transition is happening and encourage appropriate behaviors. While these strategies will help my students to appropriately transition between class periods and activities, I will also rely on reinforcement and consequences to instill these skills in my students. I will be sure to provide direct verbal praise to the whole group after every successful transition (from every student). I will also provide random praise to students that I notice consistently transitioning well. To provide this praise, I might say You guys did a really great job transitioning to this activity or Danny, I really appreciate your preparedness for this next activity. In addition to verbal praise, I will provide students with a Bulldog Buck at the end of each week if the entire group has met the mastery goals. These bulldog bucks can be used in the school store to buy supplies or other rewards. As for consequences, I will implement an IOU system with the students. Each time the students are spending instructional time talking with one another and not focusing, I will say You all owe me time starting now. I will then

Elizabeth Curtin

EDPR 250

Managing the Learning Environment Group Focus

clock the amount of time it takes for everyone to get focused. The students will then owe me the clocked time at the end of the period (after the bell rings). In order to effectively collect data throughout the semester, I will keep a running record of the groups transitions three days a week. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I will monitor the group transitions and record how many students were prepared during each one. These records will be the same as the baseline records I took, and they will give me an overall idea of the groups transitioning improvements throughout the semester. At the end of the semester, I will be able to look back at my data and see what improvements the group has made.

Elizabeth Curtin

EDPR 250

Managing the Learning Environment Group Focus

Post Intervention
Data Charts

Average % of Students Prepared- Class Period

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

% of Students

Date

Average % of Students Prepraed for LessonActivity

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 % of Students

Date

Elizabeth Curtin

EDPR 250

Managing the Learning Environment Group Focus

Weekly Average of Students Prepared for Lesson

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 % of Students

Week of

Results In all, the students in my classroom improved on their transitioning throughout the course of the semester. In both class period and activity transitions, students made improvements after I implemented my program. For between period transitions, students gradually made improvements. During baseline, an average of between 22% and 24% of students were prepared for the lesson. At the end of my managing the learning environment intervention program, an average of 95% of students were prepared for the lesson. In the first few weeks, many students would be talking or not sitting in their seats within 10 seconds of the bell ringing. Near the end of the program, almost all students were prepared for the lesson when the bell rang. As the graph below indicates, there was a general upward trend in the percentage of students prepared for the lesson when beginning a new class period. There were a few points in the semester, though, that students showed a decline in preparedness for the lesson. During the end of February and beginning of March, an average of about 60% of students were prepared for a new period each day. Upon returning from spring break, though, students declined to about 45% of students prepared. Also, students did not meet the intended mastery for this program. Mastery was considered to be 90% of students prepared for lesson for 5 consecutive days. Students reached over 90% for three consecutive days, though. Overall, students increased to an average of over 90% of students prepared for the lesson by the end of the program. In addition to class period transitions, my program also focused on transitions between class activities. The results for these data were very similar to the results of the class period

Elizabeth Curtin

EDPR 250

Managing the Learning Environment Group Focus

transitions. During baseline, an average of 33%-38% of students were prepared for the next activity/lesson. Over the course of the intervention program, more students were prepared each day. There was an increase in the average percentage of students prepared over time. By the end of the program, about 94% of students were prepared for transitions between activities. Right before spring break, there was quite a large spike downward (from 64% to 37%). Still, overtime the numbers did increase. The graph below depicts this upward trend. While there was a general increase, students did not meet the intended mastery. Mastery for activity transitions was 100% of students prepared for 5 consecutive days, but the students only reached 94%. Discussion In summary, the program implemented in the classroom seemed to be an effective method of helping students to transition smoothly both in between class periods and in between class activities. All three graphs below show an overall increase in the percentage of students prepared for the lesson or activity. Weekly averages show that students generally improved each week, specifically after spring break. By the end of the program, close to all students were prepared for lessons or activities both between class periods and in between activities. There were a few contributing factors that seemed to heighten student success. When I began to notice a decline in the percentage of students prepared, I provided verbal reminders to students (on 2/28 and 3/27). This increased the number of students prepared for that week. As well, during the last few weeks, the students noticed that I was taking data on them. They noticed that I was taking data on the number of students in class and also taking data immediately after the bell rang. This may have skewed the data upward because students were encouraging each other to be in their seat when the bell rang. Once I told students they had a minute until the bell, they immediately began telling students who were not prepared to sit down. Since students knew I was taking data on how many of them were in their seats, they were more encouraged to be prepared. Had students not noticed that I was taking data, they may have been slightly less prepared. In addition to these factors, there were factors that also contributed to downward spikes in data. First, before and after spring break fewer students were prepared for lessons/activities. In my opinion, this can be contributed to the time in the semester. Students were excited for spring break and not very focused before they left or when they came back. Thus, many students may have forgotten the expectations. This may have caused students not to be as prepared for lessons as they usually were. Also, during the entire program there were 1-2 students that consistently were not prepared for the lesson/activity. As a result, the overall averages were decreased consistently by these two students. When interpreting the results, it is important to remember that almost all students made improvements, but there were 1-2 students that did not improve. As stated above, this program was quite effective overall. There were factors that contributed to both improvements and declines in data. Yet, in the end, most students made progress. Had I continued this program, I would expect students to improve further and eventually reach mastery.