Aleena Ijaz

April 16, 2016

Community, Pedagogy, and Practice

Case Study: Part 2

I changed the focus of my case study since case study 1. This change was primarily

because I felt that as the school year progressed, there were more pressing matters for me to

focus my energy on as an educator; my time was best spent investigating a different group of

students with different needs. For this case study part 2, I chose to focus on 2 students in my first

period anatomy and physiology class. I chose to focus on this class period because I had trouble

delivering effective instruction to this class due to persistent and systemic disciplinary issues.

The class culture for this period was severely deficient in comparison to my other classes, and I

believe that a major reason for this was that students were frequently engaging in off-task

behavior.

In particular, I chose to focus on these two students because they seemed to trigger off-

task behaviors in their peers. I observed that these two students were consistently at the center of

off-task conversations and behaviors, and exhibited similar behaviors to each other. The first

student, Zion, is a reserved and introverted student who is normally quiet but has trouble

focusing and paying attention. This leads him to engage in playing and conversation with other

students. He especially engages in these behaviors with the second student who is the focus of

this case study. Zion does not perform well in class as a result; he has been just above failing for

the past 2 trimesters. He tends to shut down easily when given a consequence for his off-task

behavior. He frequently comes to class with homework half complete or not completed at all.

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 The second student, Carl, is social and extroverted. He is friendly with many of the other

guys in class and likes to speak out of turn and make out of context commentary. He often turns

to Zion and begins speaking to him or other students in a loud tone of voice, which frequently

derails other groups of students. When isolated from his peers or sent out into the hallway, he

tends to turn in high quality work. He, too, frequently comes to class with homework half

complete or not completed at all.

Both of these students sit in the front of the classroom. I have placed them in the front of

the room both for legal reasons and to increase attention and focus. Below is a diagram of the

classroom setup; Zion and Carl are on separate tables in the very first row.

Front of Room

Zion Carl

For my case study, the intervention that I staged involved a new approach to classroom

management. I implemented a verbal warning and strike system inside my classroom,

complemented by frequent explicit positive narration. Under this new disciplinary system, a

student was given one explicit verbal warning before that student was given a log entry, which is

equivalent to a demerit at Boys Latin. The verbal warning was generally given after whole class

redirection and positive narration to encourage the creation of a positive classroom culture before

a negative one. The verbal warning was made explicit by using the students name and saying

the words thats a warning for you or something similar. This consequence ladder was

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replacing a previously loosely structured system. Before, I used all of these methods in same way

but lacked consistency and clarity. While I liked the flexibility of not having a strict consequence

ladder, I realized that it was unclear to students. I decided to transition to this system because it

established a clearer and more direct relationship between actions and consequences.

After making classroom observations as portrayed in the attached video recording, I drew

a few conclusions from the case study. One thing I noticed is that my disciplinary system may

not have been tailored to suit my personality and strengths as a personality. I noticed that I was

often inconsistent and hesitant in moving up the consequence ladder. For instance, in the attached

video recording I use multiple whole class redirections and allow many students to commit

multiple offenses before ever giving an individual student an explicit warning. I also noticed that

with this system I had no mechanism for me to track whether students had received a warning or

not. Because of this, students may have received more than one warning without moving up in

the consequence ladder. For instance, I noticed that in the video recording Carl was given an

explicit warning but then continued to exhibit off-task behaviors rather than silently engaging in

his do-now. Instead of moving up the consequence ladder and receiving a log entry, I gave him a

second warning by saying I do not want to have to talk to you again. However, this was

inconsistent with my stated consequence system because I did not follow through. I also noticed

that I seemed to sanction some students and not sanction other students for the exact same

misbehavior. I believe that this may have been due to cognitive saturation and stress, or may

have been a product of my personal biases. Finally, I noticed that I used much more negative

warnings and consequences than I did positive narration. The result was an overall negative

classroom culture.

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 However, on the plus side, some elements of my system did seem to be working. For

instance, eventually after two warnings Carl did stop having side conversations and get back on

task. In addition, whole class redirections did seem to take care of the large majority of

misbehaviors so that I could focus my attention on a few problem students. Zion was able to get

back on task with a simple warning and never had to receive a log entry. The video was recorded

during the first few minutes of class, and by the end of the video it is clear that the class is on a

much better track to learn the content.

Given these observations, I learned a few lessons from this intervention. For one, I think

the most effective element of my system was that it was explicit. Students knew when they were

engaging in misbehavior and realized that the teacher was taking notice. It provided a

mechanism for a more open channel of communication between teacher and student. I also think

it was effective in combining the existing school-wide log entry system with a more

individualized disciplinary system specific to my classroom. However, I also learned that there

are several areas for growth within this system. For one, my system may seem very structured on

the surface of it, but in reality it is not as structured as it needs to be. I believe that I need to more

explicitly delineate which behaviors warrant a warning rather than a simple redirection. I also

need to start tracking which students have received a warning during that class period. There are

two options for tracking warnings: 1) a magnet tracker displayed in the front of the room or 2)

tracking it on my clipboard. Given that my students are juniors and high school and that I already

carry a clipboard around for other purposes, I believe that the second option is more feasible and

easier to implement. I believe that my clipboard can also be a platform for tracking positive

narration. Ideally I should have a spreadsheet that contains a section for the warnings and

positive narration each student has received during a given class period. A simple sticky note

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reminding me to use positive praise and narration would also complement this management

system.

Overall, I believe that this case study gave me new insight into the workings of my

classroom and the needs of my students. I realized what balance to strike between a structured

and unstructured disciplinary system, and a system that relies on both positive and negative

reinforcement. I believe that improving upon my management system by clearly delineating

which behaviors are sanctioned and actively monitoring individual students will improve student

outcomes. I look forward to implementing these changes and observing the results.