Hello! It has been about two weeks since my last post, and things are going pretty well! As I continue to collect data for my research project, some things have come up that I wanted to note. It seems funny now that I had this perfect vision of the way I envisioned how my research project would pan out. When I began the action research process, I was so sure of my ideas and the ways in which I would collect data. I developed this perfect scenario in which I would implement a new strategy with the student that I work one on one with. I would then collect data which would show me that the strategy yielded perfect, positive results, and my student would magically display positive behavior because of what I implemented. I am currently in week 4 out of 8 in my data collection period. As I have been moving forward in my action research, I have also taken a lot of time to reflect on my actual project as well as what I want to get out of it to take with me on my own teaching journey. I have come to realize that this process is an ever evolving one. My own research is most likely not going to be perfect by any means, and I may not get the results that I had initially envisioned or hoped for.
So many thoughts have crossed my mind since I began collecting data, including the contemplation of whether or not I chose the best data collection templates for this project. Looking back on the summer course when we learned about the triangulation of data, I am beginning to wonder if I should not have been documenting positive behaviors with my student during our reflection time as well as negative behaviors. While we do spend our entire day based around praise for positive behavior, I have started to think that it could have had a more positive impact on daily reflection time with me if we documented "good stuff" as well as the "bad stuff" - which is what my student has termed talking and journaling about negative or unexpected behaviors throughout the day. The problem that I have run into is that the behavior sheet I am using to collect data for reflecting about unexpected behavior does not have any space on it to document positive behavior. It is very specific to reflecting on negative behavior, and I wish that I would have thought about this prior to submitting my HRC proposal. While I do believe it is an excellent way to reflect on unexpected behavior, perhaps it would have been worth while to develop my own sheet to reflect on positive behavior too.
With all that being said, I also wanted to reflect on the fact that my strategy was implemented not too long after I also implemented a points system with my student based off the FBA that was conducted in October. While it is great that I am able to use his points system as data, I think it will be hard to decipher whether any changes in my students behavior resulted from the self-reflection strategy that I implemented, or the points system based off avoiding behavior in the classroom. I think the difficult part in this issue is that I may never know which strategy worked best for my student.
Although all of these thoughts have been whirling around in my mind for a few weeks, I have made the conscious decision to keep my head up and carry on with the research as planned. I need to stop second guessing my initial ideas and have faith that my plan will prove to be successful, even if it is only to give me experience in action research.
"Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them become what they are capable of becoming." -Goethe
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