Memo #6: Taking Stock and Making Sense

After all of the research I have done for this project I have learned quite a lot about my topic. I now believe that there are many (almost infinite) ways through which teachers can create physically, emotionally, and psychologically safe and inviting writing environments and communities for their students to thrive in. Even through the sentence before this one, I feel as though I have had to add many vocabulary words like "psychologically" and "inviting" and "communities" to my original topic title because I have learned to associate them with what I have been studying.

Where am I in this project as of now? Well, I think I have reached the end of my research for this topic. I have read multiple secondary sources from scholarly sources, interviewed students, teachers, and myself, went to sessions and workshops that pertained to my topic, and have gained new and exciting strategies and ideas for my future classrooms. I think there were a few things that surprised me as strategies: classroom cheers, Post-Secret incorporation, trust exercises, games, and unique writing exercises like writing a BAD poem.

While learning about this topic there were also a few things that frustrated me. I think the biggest thing was hearing from both teachers and students how often it is that they are uncomfortable with the temperature of their classrooms and how often it is that the school does not have the funds to fix these issues. I know from experience that I am less likely to concentrate on anything academic when I am sweating gallons of sweat in a room with no windows and no air conditioning when it is in the low 90's outside. I also remember how aggravating fans were because they were always very loud and we could not hear our teacher when they were on. Temperature is a huge distraction in a classroom when it is not properly handled and, unfortunately, many schools do not handle this issue. This was probably the biggest frustration of all because I know that this will be an issue that I have to handle in the future. A few lingering questions I still have is: Why is this not a priority in schools? Will this issue ever be fixed or taken care of properly? I guess these are just some complexities that I will have to live with for now and in the future. Temperature has always been a huge issues to me, and I think that it is something that needs to be paid attention to more.

In conclusion I can say that there are many things that factor into a classroom's environment and community: physical conditions (temperature, organization, decoration, lighting, air quality, etc.), physical safety (eliminating bullying), emotional and psychological conditions (student-student relationships, student-teacher relationships, student-self relationship, feeling like one belongs in his society, writing and sharing strategies, assessment and grading strategies, etc.) and so on. I can also say that, in order to create a safe and inviting environment, it takes a lot of planning and time. Though this is true, the outcome is always worth the work. Through these strategies and through planning, students are more likely to feel comfortable with their work and, therefore, are more likely to produce their best possible writing. What is most important is creating relationships that are based on mutual-respect and trust within in a classroom. Almost every source I went to (both primary and secondary) stressed this point. In order to create these things in the class we, as teachers, need to plan, plan, plan, and then plan some more.

Overall this project has really taught me a lot about my topic. I have learned tons of new strategies to keep in my teacher's tool box for the future.

Memo #5: Follow Up and Creating An Action Plan

There is still a few things that I want to know more about. I want to know more about specific strategies teachers can use to make sharing writing more comfortable and positive in a classroom. I heard a lot about decorating strategies and climate strategies/opinions, and I heard a lot about how to create a community of writers, but I now want to know more about specific strategies about the sharing process. I think for this information I am going to go with things that I have learned from our SED445 class. Professor Collins (at least in my opinion) is one of the best professors I have had a RIC when it comes to teaching us about teaching and sharing writing. We share our writing all of the time in class, and I think her strategies have really brought us all together. I plan on using strategies that I have observed in her class to answer this final question. 

When it comes to dealing with bullying, I want to know how to deal with it in a way that both eliminates it from the classroom while not eliminating the bully from the classroom. In other words, how can I change the actions of a bully? I think the best way to find this answer is to talk to a specialist in dealing with some troublesome students. One that I can really think of is the principal of Central Falls High School: Joshua Laplante. Even being in his presence is very calming, and I know that he was hired at the school because of his experience and excellence of dealing with troublesome students and helping them succeed and change. 

I think by reflecting on observations of Professor Collins’ class and talking to Josh Laplante I will have the answers to these few remaining questions. 

Finally, I will definitely be including some of my own reflection and opinion in this project. I am a student too (at least for now), and I am still learning. By reflecting on how certain teachers made me feel and talking about classrooms that worked for me, I can make a decision on what I think works well. Now that I have secondary and primary sources to back up my information, I think I will have plenty to talk about and address about my topic. I almost think there is so much information that it will be nearly impossible to include it all in one paper. I think this is what I need to think about next: how am I going to take all of the information I have received and turn it into a coherent paper? I think this will be my biggest struggle coming up in the future. 

Memo #4: Primary Sources and Findings

I apologize to those who have been waiting to see the outcome of my primary sources. I have been waiting for certain interviews from particular students, but I finally found time to talk with them. I found out so much information about creating safe environments  from my participants! I’ll take time to talk about them here:

PHYSICALLY SAFE AND INVITING ENVIRONMENTS:

I first interviewed a teacher named Jack Caswell that I used to be my Honors English teacher. When I asked him about ways to make his classroom physically safe we talked about key factors to physical safety that I learned about from my secondary sources: room decoration (encouragements, posters, etc.), and climate (temperature, air condition, lighting, arrangement of furniture). I found that he decorates his classroom in the beginning of each year with students’ collages that are components of heir autobiography projects. This way students always have a piece of them on their classroom walls. I think this is a great idea. Not only will this make the classroom colorful and bright to lighten the tone of the classroom, but it also helps students to feel more comfortable by having parts of their lives included in their learning place. When students are more comfortable with their surroundings they are more likely to write more fluently. 

Mr. Caswell also stated that he allows students to paint ceiling tiles in his classroom (as long as the painting has something to do with the content of the classroom). He said that he loves the artwork so much that he refuses to move to another classroom. I think this is also a great idea (as long as it is approved by the school, which, in this case, it is). Through this students that want to can show off their artwork and design part of the classroom by themselves. I was actually one of the students to paint a ceiling tile of Big Brother from George Orwell’s 1984. Through these ceiling tiles I think one becomes a part of the community. When a student decides to go above and beyond to paint something literature-based that is not required, it brings them into a writing and reading community. I really always enjoyed those ceiling tiles and creating one. 

 He also thinks that it is important to, as a teacher, include parts of yourself on the wall. He has what he likes to call his “Holy Trinity” on his walls which includes posters of: Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen, and Mark Twain. While only one of these figures is a writer, all three are people in history. Mr. Caswell thinks that by including these figures on his walls, he is showing the students a part of him too which I think is something that many teachers forget. Students are intrigued by their teachers and want to know who they are. While it is inappropriate to show them too much about our lives, I think it is okay to show the students that even their teacher is human that has idols and influences in his life. I think by including student collages with the teacher’s work is a really great idea. This way the students and the teacher are on an equal level where their interests are combining into a whole on the wall, symbolizing that the classroom is a community through which they can trust one another and share their personal writing. 

I know from personal experiences in his classroom that Mr. Caswell also uses a technique called “The Wall of Fame” where he posts students’ best papers on the wall. I always thought that this motivated me to write better and better as I progressed in that classroom. I wanted to see my work get up there. Anytime Mr. C thought that a paper was well-written he would bring the student to the front of the class, announce their achievement, the class would applaud, and then the student would staple it to the wall. It was almost like a little ceremony after ever paper was due. Mr. Caswell always makes it a point to make sure that every student gets on that wall at one time or another. By the last paper of the semester, every student was on the wall because they all showed signs of improvement (which is really what he is always looking for). I think that this idea is also a great one to use. Students need to be motivated by something, and the way that he allows students to clap and cheer for one another when they make the wall is really a great way to create a writer’s community in the classroom that is based on respect and support. 

When it came to climate, I found out many things from my teachers and my students. Mr. Caswell said that his classroom always gets stifling hot in the spring and late summer months. He doesn’t like to use fans because they blow papers around and make a lot of noise to the point where it distracts students from their writing. While this is true, the heat is also a distraction. If it is too hot or too cold, students will not feel comfortable enough to work. He said he used to always take students outside to inspire their writing while helping them get some fresh air, and sometimes he would take them to the much cooler auditorium, but recently (due to all of the school shootings on the news) they refuse to let them open the outside doors. Thus, he often takes them to the auditorium. I think that it is sad that we now have to monitor our schools so much due to the terrible school shootings, but I think that Mr. C has a point here. Fans are distracting, and so is the heat. I think that taking students outside or to a cooler location is a good idea. Being outside is freeing to students and may inspire their writing.

When I asked my two students about the temperature of classrooms they said that the temperature really affects their work. Ryan Pinney (a junior at Johnston High School) said that he was taking a final exam in English once in the beginning of summer and the room was so hot that he couldn’t concentrate on the exam and ran out of time to complete it because he was constantly getting up to grab paper towels to whip his forehead with. Another student, Erin Isherwood (a senior at Pilgrim High School), expressed how the heat often puts students to sleep or agitates students. Some get so hot that they often have to leave the classroom (which doesn’t help anybody create better writing). She also said that sometimes the classrooms get too cold to the point where students keep whispering to one another about how cold it is. By doing so they often miss instructions by the teacher or do not hear what the teacher is talking about. Again, I find this to be very important information. Schools and teachers need to cooperate to find a way to regulate the temperature in their schools. Eventhough it may cost money to install or fix air conditioners and heaters, it is necessary to help the students feel safe and comfortable in their surroundings in order to provide their best work. 

When I asked about lighting of classrooms I found out even more information. My second teacher (who wishes not to be named) said that she had a flickering light bulb in her classroom that drove the students crazy. The changing of light was giving students headaches and was hurting their eyes. She said that she asked the school to fix it multiple times and they didn’t get it done until two weeks after. Two weeks of flashing light and headaches is a long time! What student can write in this kind of condition? No student. 

Erin stated that recently her school lost power during one of the storms. She said that when this happens it makes it easy for students to fool around and scream “boo!” at one another. When students can’t even see the work in front of them they tend to not care that they are in school. Even if they work by a window where they can see their papers, they know that something is off with the school and take advantage of it. While schools cannot stop storms from taking out the power, they should always have a backup plan as to how to keep the students engaged in what they are doing and to distract them from the lack of light. 

Finally, when I asked about organization of rows, nearly all of the people I interviewed agreed that they liked to be seated in groups or big circles. All except Mr. Caswell. Mr. C said that he has always aligned his class into rows. In semi-circles he thinks that there are too many conversations and disruptions which makes it more difficult to manage a classroom. He said that the only time he puts students into circles is if they are doing a socratic seminar. The other teacher I interviewed said that she really enjoyed using wide circles because students could see each others’ faces and, thus, started more conversations about writing that they shared. This way students also could see their peers reactions to their work instead of staring at the backs of each others heads (which is uncomfortable because one may never know if someone is laughing at them). My two students, Ryan and Erin, stated that rows are better if you want to cheat off of someone’s paper , but that circles have always been more fun and engaging. They think that when they are put into circles, they can’t hide behind other students and, thus, talk a lot more. They like debating about things with other students and feel more comfortable sharing their work this way. 

EMOTIONALLY/PSYCHOLOGICALLY SAFE AND INVITING ENVIRONMENTS: 

I already stated a little too much above, so I’m going to try and keep this section relatively short for now (but it will be explained more in detail in my paper). There was so much information that I got from this section that I simply cannot talk about all of it, so I will name a few things. 

1.) In regards to making a community of learners and making students feel supported by their classmates: 

Mr. C talked about how he always sets parameters of behavior and respect. He has a no-tolerance rule. He always announces and achievement by a student and sets the rule that students should always support one another and applaud for each others accomplishments. He reads aloud some of the papers for shy students and points out all of the good things about it to the class. 

The other teacher said that she often creates student trust activities where students must trust other students to finish their piece of writing without changing the story (and it oftentimes works). I fount this to be a very interesting practice. She also said that she tries to show students that she is not perfect and makes mistakes just like everybody else. She oftentimes shares some writing from her past that is far from being perfect and students usually get a kick out of it. 

Ryan and Erin talked about how they like it when teachers ask students to tell them compliments about their work once they have shared. That way they don’t relate their students to negativity and, thus, create a better community. 

I also remember in Mr. C’s class he created a cheer for us to chant in the beginning of class. It went something like this: “We are the always writing, people enlightening, room brightening, no complaining, excellence sustaining, A- attaining, over-achieving, dream-believing, extraordinary, legendary, period 1 honors class!” I remember that we loved the cheer so much that we did it every morning with a certain clap excerise to get the day going. It only took about a minute of class time and it really brought us all together as a community. When a classroom has their own personal cheer it really helps them feel like they are special. Saying the cheer together creates a singular voice that helps students recognize that they belong in this environment. 

2.) In regards to bullying of writing:

Erin and Ryan said that students hardly ever bully one another for their writing, but they still don’t feel comfortable presenting personal pieces. They said it is easy to present a project or an essay because it is just an assignment given to them that is not personal. Things like poetry or journal entries, on the other hand, are embarrassing to share and seem to personal. 

Ryan stated that at his school there was only one time when a student bullied another for their work and called him “a faggot”. Ryan said that it seemed like a playful friend-like kind of joke, but I think that even this style of “joking” should never be allowed in a classroom. We do not know if the other student really took it as a joke. This kind of behavior only disheartens students and we need to stop it from penetrating our classrooms. With it lurking around our students will never do well. 

Both of my teachers stressed that a no-tolerance stance in the classroom on bullying is important. A teacher needs to be the difference. Make examples out of students that bully and kick them out of class. 

3.) In regards to assessment and trust:

All participants stated that it is better for a teacher to grade on improvement rather than perfection. Teachers need to find the important issues in a paper and address those specifically. Ryan and Erin think that teachers only berate their writing and, thus, Ryan stated that he “thinks he is stupid”. Erin said that she is typically a good writer and gets good grades, but she feels like her work is never enough for a teacher and, in that way, she feels like a failure. Teachers need to look at how their assessment methods affect students’ confidence and motivation to write. Both of my teachers stated that they often attach a page to their students papers where they list at least 3 things they liked about the paper and 3 things they need to work on. I think this is a good strategy to allow students to see that there is potential in their papers and not bombard them with 100 things to fix at once. 

I could continue to talk about what I found, but this would go on forever. I found these interviews to be my favorite part of the project. Finding out first-hand how students and teachers feel about classroom communities was really interesting. How can we fix temperatures of a room in a school without the funds to do so? How can we keep students who bully from bullying without taking them out of the class? I think these are some important questions to ask. Bullies are students too. They can’t be kicked out of class all of the time. There has to be a way to stop it without extracting them. As for my next steps? I have to decide how to find out some answers to these questions I have and how to compile all of my information together in a paper. There is almost too much information! 

Memo #2.5: Updates on Useful Secondary Sources!

There are a few more secondary sources that I have stumbled upon that could be useful to my I-search project topic. 

1.)  “Chapter 7: Using Assessment to Drive Better Student Writing” from Kelly Gallagher’s Teaching Adolescent Writers

Though this chapter is about using assessment strategies in order to extract the best possible writing from students, the chapter actually had a lot of strategies that could be used in making the student feel more comfortable in their environment. What really struck be about this chapter was the introduction about men in a prison that were asked to share their writing. Gallagher talks about how even inmates are scared and nervous about presenting personal work to their peers. She writes, “Here is a young man, Ruben, who had been hardened in the mean streets of Los Angles. A man who has been conditioned in jail to mask any weakness. A young man in jail for murder. Yet when it came time to share his writing, he shook like a leaf.” I think there is a lot to learn from this one observation that Gallagher presents to us as readers. He really gets to the heart of what I am concerned with in my I-Search project: comfortability and safety in the classroom as a writing community. 

He continues on to say “Salzman’s anecdote reminds me of the risks involved when we share our writing with one another. This risk is not limited to adolescent; it is a natural response among adult writers as well… I too plead guilty to being defensive about my writing” and then afterwards talks about “ ‘ritual apologies’ ” and how they are “defense mechanisms that spill out of us when it comes time to opening ourselves up to feedback”. Afterwards he states, “Ritual apologies that pour from my adolescents serve as a continual reminder of the risk my students take when they entrust me with their writing. As their teacher and primary responder, two central question come to mine every time I collect a set of student papers: (1) How can I respond to these papers in a  way that nurtures the trust my students have placed in me? and (2) How can I provide feedback that is not only meaningful, but that also drive my students to improve their writing?” 

What Gallagher is writing about in this text is a huge part of my research that I am pursuing.  He acknowledges the fact that writing is personal and that it is risky for the student to present this writing to their peers and their teacher for critical feedback. I acknowledged the same thing in my proposal. He then talks about two central questions that this chapter will be about. These questions are related to how a teacher can use strategies to make feedback in the classroom less harsh and more nurturing to the student’s fears and needs in order to create better writers. The teacher is always a huge part of the classroom environment, and, while the community of writers is more apparently about the students’ interaction with one another, it also includes the teacher’s interaction with his students. Gallagher expresses many ways through which he helps create a nurturing and encouraging environment through assessment strategies. These strategies make it easier for students to feel more comfortable and confident in their work. These strategies also allow the teacher to find a comforting way for students to receive feedback that is constructive without disheartening the student. Thus, in order to create a secure and positive environment, one major aspect of the classroom environment that needs to be looked at is the way that the teacher approaches graded the student’s writing and what strategies they use. 

Gallagher has about 10 billion great strategies that he uses to accomplish this goal including but definitely not limited to: “I Like…” Conversations, Golden Line Exchanges, Moving Away from “Sucker Punch Grading”, Conferences, only identifying two key problems with papers, creating rubrics with students, the Seven Commandments of Building Successful Young Writers, etc.  All of these strategies will be great ideas to talk about in my research paper. 

Overall, I think what I found most interesting and important from this source is that I learned about a part of my research that I hadn’t even thought of: how changing assessment and grading strategies is another part of how a teacher creates a physiologically safe writing environment that encourages the best possible writing. This information will most definitely be helpful in learning more about my topic and finding strategies. 

2.) “Fostering Self-Determination Through Building Productive Relationships in the Classroom” by Sharon L. Field, EdD, and Abigail S. Hoffman, MEd

I found this source to be very useful when thinking about my research topic and finding strategies to create positive classroom environments. Though the article is about creating “Self-Determination” the authors continue on through the article to state, “Self-Determination is essential to successful transitions…Self-Determination also supports academic success… and There is evidence to suggest that increased self-determination is linked to better mental health, which is also a contributing factor to both successful transitions and academic achievement”. The goal of this I-search project is to learn how to create physically and psychologically/ emotionally safe and positive environments where teachers can extract the BEST writing from their students (in other words, “academic success”). 

The text gets more in depth specifically about “positive relationships” in the classroom. It states, “Research…foudn that positive relationships were viewed by the majority of persons they interviewed as the most important support for self-determination, and difficult relationships were noted as the most significant barrier to self-determination”. The text continues on to state, “Because of the preponderance of evidence supporting the importance of positive relationships to promoting self-determination, Hoffman and Field revised their initial self-determination model to provide a stronger emphasis on the importance of relationships as a component element of self-detmintion. In the revised model, the importance of relationships to self-determination is specifically noted under Value Yourself (i.e., “develop and nature positive relationships”) and Act (i.e., ‘access resources and support’, ‘communicate’, ‘negotiate’, and ‘deal with conflict and criticism’).” 

What is even more interesting is when the text provides what a “positive relationship” is defined by: “(a) built on a support a foundation of relatedness, competence, and autonomy and (b) supportive of an individual’s ability to engage in the steps of self-determination”. In other words, a positive environment must provide support, and it must help a student become determined and, ultimately, successful. This is exactly what I am looking for. 

The text then goes on to provide strategies for building relationship skills. I really liked the introduction to this section. It states, “Teachers have a powerful impact not he growth of students’ ability to develop and maintain positive social relationships they have with students, and the way they manage classrooms. For example, the extent to which teachers arrange and organize features of the classroom environment to meet students’ social needs has an impact on social interactions and relationships as well s students’ perceptional of their social relationships”. I completely agree with this statement. Teachers hold the power to create a community of writers in their classrooms. They have the ability to create positive environments that encourage student writing. I especially liked the example the text gave in this excerpt. It talks about the physical aspect of my topic. Arrangement of the features in the classroom is important. Do you place everyone in rows where they are forced to stare at the backs of their peers’ heads? This allows students to become more nervous when presenting their writing because they cannot see other students’ facial reactions. Do you place everyone in a giant circle where everyone can see everyone? Do students sit in small groups to help create a smaller community? Does this leave the possibility of cliques in the classroom? There are a lot of things to think about! 

The text also talks about how “classroom relationships include, but are not limited to, teacher-student relationships and student-peer relationships”. I appreciate that the authors included both relationships because both are central to creative positive environments. Some of the strategies that the text talks about is stated as such: “Teachers can help students develop the ability to form and maintain positive relationships by (a) supporting students to increase their self-awareness, (b) implementing social skills training, (c) being a positive role model, (d) providing opportunities for positive teacher-student interactions, and (e) increasing teacher awards of and attention to classroom peer ecology”. The text then goes into detail about each strategy and why it is important in creating a positive environment. There are steps involved in each strategy and the text also provides examples. 

Overall, this text provides me with not only an idea of how relationships affect classroom environment and why they are important to create, but it also provides me with suggested strategies on how to achieve these relationships and create academic achievers. It will be very useful for my research. 

Memo #3: Plans for Primary Sources- Who the Heck Can I Talk To?

     I personally plan on interviewing a lot of people and possibly plan on creating a short survey. I first want to at least interview two different teachers. My first teacher is an old English teacher that I have always been inspired by. He was my Junior year Honors English teacher. We have remained very close, and I have not visited him in quite some time. I will contact him on Facebook about the project and will explain to him how he can help me. His name is Jack Caswell and he was not only the most influential English teachers I have ever had, but he has always created a very safe environment and a strong writing community for me. I think that he can be of significant help in my research.

     I also plan on interviewing my other English teacher Darlene Netcoh. She was my Senior year English Honors AP teacher. She is a great teacher who knows how to command a classroom and how to create a hard-working community.

     I guess I can't exactly say for sure how emotionally and physically safe these teachers' other classes were considering I was in honors classes and never experienced the other classes they had, but I can say that whatever they did in the classroom I was in worked. When I say this I do not mean to imply that other classes that were not honors were incapable of having a safe community or that honors classes were any better than any other type of class. What I am saying is that these class categories are catered to all different types of students, and I am not sure if environmental safety, and tactics used to create this safety differ depending on the type of class the teacher is teaching. This is something I will have to further investigate in order to better my research. I should ask both of these teachers.

     I also plan on interviewing students. Their perspective is every bit as important as the teachers'. As a future teacher I need to ask students: What makes you feel physically safe in a classroom? How do you feel about presenting your writing to your classmates? Do you feel comfortable presenting to your classmates? If not, why not? If so, what makes you feel safe? What is inviting about any of your classrooms? How can teachers help eliminate bullying in their classroom? Etc.

     I specifically think I am going to interview my brother (a Junior in High School) and see what his opinion is. Sometimes he is not the best source to go to because sometimes he won't take my topic seriously. In this case, I also have many other students that I could ask. My goal is to try and get multiple perspectives. Thus, I am also going to interview my cousin/friend who dropped out of high school. Why did she drop out? I'm curious to find out specifically why and what wasn't working in her classrooms. I specifically want to try and see if it was at all related to the environment she was in. I also have many friends with siblings that I can interview easily.

     If I am able to, I also want to conduct a student survey. I'm pretty sure that my old teacher, Jack Caswell, will allow me to hand out a short survey to his students to fill out for five minutes. This survey will ask simple questions about their environment and how safe they feel. It will also ask about their feelings towards writing. The goal will be to record data about the relevance of their feelings and attitudes to writing in correspondence to how physically and emotionally safe they feel in their classrooms. This will then give me some more information to record in my research.

     Finally, I will also include my own opinions. The goal here is not to be biased at all. Instead, it is to express my own experiences with safety and classroom environments and to input my own information and view on the subject matter. I am a source that I constantly have access to. While my research should go far beyond my own perspectives and opinions, I have been and still am a student, and my perspective is also valid. I know why Jack Caswell's class was some comforting. I know what made me want to go to that classroom every day. Thus, I think that my own opinion should be of use to this project. This statement is not to be confused with me implying that I know everything that my teacher did to make the classroom safe. Rather, it is me stating that I know what made me feel safe and what didn't. Mr. Caswell's tactics behind why I felt safe in his classroom is something that I still need to investing.

Four Sources for I-Search Project

Source #1:  “Making Classrooms “Safe” for Adolescent Learning”  by  Glenda Ward Beamon 

This source was a great find for my project. It talks about exactly what I am looking for. It first talks about how a classroom needs to be both “physically safe” and “psychologically safe for learning”. After explaining why this is important, the author continues to suggest what makes a positive classroom positive. It states that, in order to allow adolescents to develop socially and emotionally, the classroom needs to be characterized by the following: “relationship-builiding, positive interaction, and trust”. Not only does the source explain that these characteristics are what makes a positive classroom positive, but it also provides ways in which to accomplish this psychologically safe environment. It states, “The current ideas for fostering social and emotional support for adolescent learning can be grouped into several broad areas, including: personalize learning opportunities, build relationships, promote inner management, create emotional security, and teach well.” It continues to explain strategies on how to accomplish these things: 

“Instilling positive feelings in students will not result from pep talks or positive self-image assemblies, but from planned educational experiences. Provide students with genuine evidence of personal academic success (competence). Show them that they are members of a community (belonging). Reinforce feelings that they have made a significant contribution (usefulness). Help students feel empowered (potency). Encourage/teach tolerance, empathy, civility, and moral development. Listen to others’ perspectives, present your views with clarity, support ideas with reasoning. Talk through conflict, reflect on learning process.”

Additionally, it also provides activities that can be used to make the class more psychologically safe. For example, the text suggests “perspective-taking, debate, role playing, decision-making, discussion, and civic projects” and allowing the students to “craft a class constitution,” through which the students would create the rules for the classroom and monitor positivity, “allow 20-minute seminars” for students to vent their feelings about issues in or outside of school, and for students to fill out a “teacher evaluation form” through which the student can evaluate how safe the teacher has been able to make them feel and leave suggestions. 

Overall I found this sources very useful. Not only does it talk specifically about what my project is about (both the physical and PSYCHOLOGICAL/ EMOTIONAL safety of a classroom environment), but it also offers what characteristics make a classroom safe and positive, and suggests certain activities to use to try and achieve this type of environment. I found Beamon’s activities to be ones that I could use in a future classroom. I agree that students, in order to feel safe, need to feel like they belong and need to be able to trust those in the classroom around them. Also, allowing students to debate their ideas and opinions in a positive and appropriate way allows them to disagree and argue in a way that is not emotionally disturbing. For example, if a student is asked to present something they wrote about a particular topic and a student disagrees, the text provides that the student should listen to the writer’s perspective, present his own views with clarity, and provide support. In this way, while the student is portraying his own opinions, he is not simply tearing the student’s writing a part or insulting the student. He is simply portraying an opposing argument with evidence in an appropriate manner. 

I will most definitely be using this source for my project. 

Source #2:  “Positive Classroom Environments = Positive Academic Results” by LaTerra Wilson-Fleming and Dylina Wilson-Younger, Ph. D.  (Alcorn State University)

This source was also very interesting and useful for my I-search paper topic. First it talked about positive classroom environments and why they are important to creating positive academic results. For example, the text states, “A positive classroom environment is essential in keeping behavior problems to a minimum. It also provides the students with an opportunity to think and behave in a positive manner. Positive classroom environments help to enhance, promote, and encourage students’ learning in all academic settings”. The text then continues to provide a definition of a classroom environment as such: “classroom environment can be defined in terms of the students’ and teachers’ shared perceptions in that environment”.  I found this to be an interesting way to define this term. It can only be defined by the way it is perceived by all the members in the classroom. Thus, everyone’s perception is important when determining what constitutes as “positive”. 

After providing this definition, the text then continues on to say, “there are a number of ways in which teachers can create positive classroom environments. Some suggestions for creating a positive classroom environment includes: starting the year with high expectations, encouraging student involvement, making the classroom visually appealing, getting parents involved, and using effective praise and effective feedback.” What I like about this text is that it doesn’t just simply create a list of suggestions and then leave it to the reader to figure out how to do these things. Instead, what it does is go through each suggestion and explain why and how it could help. 

For example, the text says, “It is essential for teachers to start the school year with high expectations in order to guarantee a positive classroom environment. The implementation of positive expectations should occur on the first day of school By doing this, the students will gain  sense of ownership and responsibility for their actions. This implementation will encourage them to behave and act appropriately with an academically structured setting. Teachers should adhere to these expectations throughout the school year. Teachers must also strictly adhere to the structured guidelines set forth at the onset of the school year. Failure to do so will undermine the process and students will revert to previous undesirable behaviors.” The text continues on to explain this suggestion more in depth and then moves on the others that were listed. This can be an important piece to my research for my project and also gives me a good idea as to WHY these suggestions can work and why they will make positive environments. 

I agree that teachers should always start with having high expectations of their students. While I think that these expectations should not be overbearing and strenuous for the student, I do believe that teachers should never have low expectations for their students. High expectations instills a sense of responsibility and maturity in a student which can lead to a hard-working environment where students can work together efficiently and appropriately. 

Overall, this source is very useful for my project. 

Source #3: “Keep It Simple, Make It Real: Character Development In Grades 6-12” by Jan Olsson

I actually found this source through the Rhode Island College school librarian we met with during our time in the digital classroom in Adams Library. She offered me this book that had great information about my topic on classroom environments. 

First, the text talked about how the school and teachers as a whole can implement a behavior plan to help create a better working environment. There first chapter is broken down into sections through which the book talks about “the key to successful implementation” which is motivation. It even includes percentages. 

As it states, “The research conducted by Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports strongly recommends that there must be an 80% buy-in required by staff before moving forward with the implementation of a behavior plan for students. Simply put, for any plan to be successfully implemented, the inner circle of staff supporters must grow to a sufficient size that a large number of teachers become willingly engaged in the execution of the plan. Conversely, the reminder of non supporters must be reduced to a small enough size so that, despite their best efforts to do so, they are unable to sabotage the implementation of the plan.” 

The text continues to talk about just what kind of support is needed to start this. While at first I wasn’t sure if this was something that was important to my topic, I continued to read and found what direction the book was headed. The next part of the book is dedicated to “Creating the Assessment Tool” through which teachers can assess behavior. It then goes on about how to record this information and when to collect data. They even provide the reader with a visual graph through which the data can be collected. While this is at great use for an entire school to use, I also feel like a teacher can use these tools and this information in his or her own classroom. A teacher could use these tools to decide what kind of behavior and environment they want to have and then they can use it to monitor their students progress so that the teacher can be aware of when it is safe for students to start sharing their writing. This is just my opinion. 

Chapter 2 of the book was the most helpful towards my topic. It was entitled “Safe and Inviting Physical Environment: Physical Environments That Change Behavior”. It first talks about how the environment affects student’s behavior and, in response, their achievement. It states, “A student’s learning environment can be defined by the qualities of three factors: cognititve, emotional, and physical. The majority of the current educational research focuses on the cognitive fact and how creative curriculum interventions can impact student achievement. The emotional environment, which is formed by the teacher-student relationship, focuses on empowerment and its impact on student motivation, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and the resulting achievement. The physical environment includes all the human and nonhuman elements that make up the physical world where learning takes place [the classroom]…The focus here looks at the physical environment and its impact on the development of good character, in particular, student behavior and achievement”.  

My project is about creating emotionally AND physically safe environments, and this book goes deep into the detail of both. In my proposal, I talked about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in regards to my project. This author does the same thing, which I found very useful in backing up my own statements. It specifically talks about how the student needs to feel physically and psychologically safe in their learning environment in order to produce achievement in learning. It provides diagrams that I could use in my data, and then it continues into a section entitled “Aspects of the Physical Environment that Impact Achievement and Character Development”. In this section it goes into detail about what physical characteristics of a classroom make it positive (the lighting, the temperature control, air quality, etc.) It was very interesting to see just how many things affected the performance of students. I never really thought about the physical component before, and, if I did, I thought of wall encouragements and decorations (which the text also talks about later) more so than the actual climate of the room, but, as I think about it, I agree with the text. I always felt most relaxed in a room with a comfortable climate. Anytime I was cold or the lights were too bright or too dim I couldn’t concentrate as easily on my work because I was distracted by uncomfortable physical elements.  I will have to remember this as a future teacher. 

The book then talks about why and how physical environment should be and can be controlled. It continues into how a physical environment can improve achievement and how it can affect the way that teachers teach (which is an aspect I also never really thought of before) and how the way it affects the teaching, in turn, affects the students. It continues into the kinds of impact that may occur (achievement, engagement, affect, attendance, and well-being) and provides a diagram to organize all of it which I found to be something that I should also hold on to for the future. Most importantly, it is then broken down into sections entitled, “Aspects of the Physical Environment Affecting Health”, “Aspects of the Physical Environment Affecting Safety”, “Aspects of the Physical Environment Affecting Physiological Needs”, and “Aspects of the Physical Environment Affecting Morale” which all provide information about how and why the environment, once again, affects the students in both positive and negative ways. The book provides rubrics to follow to make sure that your classroom is safe and allows the teacher to evaluate themselves (once again something every teacher should have in their classrooms). 

There are many other uses of this book that I found to be one of the most important in my research, but I have already written too much about it as it is. Regardless, this was probably the best source I found (but what else should one expect when receiving help from the awesome expertise of a RIC librarian). 

Source #4: “Positive Classroom Motivational Environments: Convergence between Mastery Goal Structure and Classroom Social Climate” by Helen Patrick, Avi Kaplan, and Allison M. Ryan (Journal of Educational Psychology) 

This source was a little different from the others (in a good way). It had an entire section about “Classroom Climate RESEARCH” which provides information about classroom environments that have been collected through instruments including “Learning Environment Inventory, Classroom Environment Scales, My Class Inventories, Classroom Life Instruments, Individualized Classroom Environment Questionnaires, Consructivist Learning Environment Surveys, Inventory of Classroom Environments, Questionnaires on Teacher Interaction, and ‘What is Happing In This Class?’” The “big guys” here to remember are B. J. Fraser who conducts many of these researches and two of the authors of this source (Patrick and Ryan) who are well known for the study of classroom environments. 

These tools were used by these researchers to measure 4 things: 1.) “to describe naturalistic classrooms quantitatively at various grade levels or in different subjects”, 2.) “to compare students’ perceptions of their current and ideal classrooms”, 3.) “to compare classrooms that differ in some way to evaluate effectiveness of different types of interventions and to compare perceived classroom climate by gender and across nations”, and 4.) “to investigate associations between classroom dimensions and students’ outcomes, including motivation, engagement, and achievement.” I really found this explanation to be important in deciding whether or not this research was going to be useful. Though some research seems to be helpful to a specific topic one is working on, it must first be decided whether or not the research is measuring what one’s topic is specifically about. In this case I believe it is. 

I think the legitimacy of this information is what will be useful in my project. While I do have other sources that talk about the topic, this source provides me with the clinical research that accompanies its arguments about positive classroom environments (which is always something that should be part of one’s research). 

The source found that what was most important to the classroom environment were these three things: teacher support, mutual respect, and student interaction. It found that these dimensions were “associated similarly with student motivation, engagement, and achievement”. 

They then conducted experiments in classrooms to try and prove that integrating the text’s idea of a “goal theory” with “classroom climates areas of research has the potential to lead to new developments in understanding the nature of mastery-focused classrooms and the specific types of teacher practices perceived by student as emphasizing a mastery focus” (positive learning environment aimed at extracting the best work). They conducted 3 experiments and found out that their prediction was right. “Mastry goal structure construct could provide a good, parsimonious, and efficient alternative to administering numerous measures of classroom social climate in order to assess the multidimensional nature of the classroom.” 

Overall, this source is useful to my project due to its research provided by experts. 

Introductory Trailer

Hey, everyone! Here is a introductory trailer to my I-search project! Please enjoy! The link is below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsep27bagTc