Daily Classroom Improvement with Action Research

"My fifth period class bounces off the walls. They are the rowdiest class that I have ever had. How can I keep that class on track? " All teachers face a "fifth period" occasionally. Our challenge is to work through this difficult classroom situation to achieve effective teaching and learning! But that is often not easy to do. If we can't identify the root cause of the problem, changing it is unlikely. We ask ourselves, "What can be done to improve classroom management and effect positive student learning? " Action Research may be the answer. When the topic of research is presented to many agriculture teachers you may get a roll of the eyes, a quick attempt to change the subject, or even a quick exit! Agriculture teachers often believe they are so busy participating in school activities, FFA activities, classroom instruction, and all of their other responsibilities that research would be too difficult and time-consuming to conduct. But what if the agriculture teacher could combine teaching and research? Action research makes that connection. What is action research? It is an approach to introducing problem identification, action planning, implementation, evaluation, and reflection into your teaching (Johnson, 1993). Action research is a learning process that allows learning and creation of knowledge through critical reflection on experiences, forming abstract concepts, and testing the implications of these concepts in new situations (Johnson, 1993). Simply put, it is a way of scientifically examining the way we teach and how we can do it better, for positive student outcomes - we learn by doing! In a practical sense, action research helps us to evaluate our teaching methods and curriculum as well as our efforts to respond to our student's educational needs. Can you answer yes to any of the following questions? - Do you want your students to perform better? - Do you think about making changes to your style of teaching? - Do you wonder why your students act and behave the way they do? - Do you talk about teaching with your colleagues? - Is classroom management a concern? - Do you wish students enjoyed being in your classroom? If you answered yes to any of these questions, action research could be the solution. The answer lies in following the six steps. Step 1: Pick an area of question. Let's address the following question. "Why do my fifth period students come into class everyday bouncing off the walls? " Now that you know what you are trying to solve, working through it will be much easier because now you can focus on an issue and not a broad topic like class management. You won't just be saying, "my fifth period class is horrible" you will be saying, "my fifth period class is very lively when it comes into the room. " There is a big difference. If you can control this class when they first come into your classroom it may change the entire class period. Step 2: Find out what others have to say about your question. This involves doing some investigation. The best way to do this is to read up on what others say about your question. For our example you might read, "The First Days of School" by Wong and Wong (1998). This book discusses why students may enter classrooms in "hyper" mode. You might need to read up on what time of day has to do with the way students are acting. In some arenas you might call step two the "review of literature. " During this step you can also seek assistance and insight from other teachers, administration, or even the Internet. Step 3: Gather any and all information you can. Start collecting data on your class and the problem that you are studying. Count the instances, occurrences, individuals, and events that surround your problem. Arrange the information that you gather by grade level, classes, etc. As you collect the data, write it in the form of a diary or journal. …