Implementing Adult
Motivation Strategies to Develop and Foster a Positive Working Relationship
between Teachers and Teaching Assistants and the Effect on Student Behaviors
Needs
Assessment
The strained
relationship between our teachers and teaching assisstants on our campus has
been an ongoing problem. Because our
direct care staff’s main responsibility at our residential treatment facility
is behavior management therapy (keeping the students from harming themselves or
others), they feel that their purpose during the school day is to simply
monitor student behaviors and step in for assistance as needed. However, it ihas been stressed to them many
times that they are to serve a dual role as a teaching assistant as well during
school hours. Over the years this has
continually created a difficult relationship between the teachers and
staff. I had the teachers and assistants
complete a short survey inquiring about their thoughts on the topic including
how they felt about the current relationship, what problems they see, and how
they think these problems can be fixed.
Our teachers surveyed are all caucasion teachers, male and female, of
various age ranges. Our teaching
assistants are predominantly African American, female and male, and various age
ranges. Our student population has grown
tremendously this year, and there have been many incident reports and therapeutic
restraints in the classroom. I also want
to see if the relationship between teachers and teaching assistants affects the
behavior of our students in the classroom.
Therefore, I collected data on the number of incident reports and
restraints that occurred in the classroom.
Our student population is a mix of caucasion, African American, and Hispanic. We have 18 females and 22 males ranging from
12 years old to 22 years old.
Objectives
and Vision of the action research project
The objectives
that I hope to accomplish are to develop positive working relationships between
the teachers and teaching assistants, improve campus climate, and decrease the occurrences
of negative student behaviors. All of
these objectives are measurable with the use of
teacher and teaching assistant surveys and interviews to monitor the
progress of their working relationships, as well as analyzing the data to see
if there is a decrease of student incident and restraint reports. Through
my action research I will be able to study the impact of intrinsic and
extrinsic motivation for adults to encourage the teaching assistants to work
harder at their jobs of assisting students academically as well as
emotionally. I will be able to have
surveys completed as well as hold discussions with both entities to see if
relationships are improving. I will also
be able to view our incident reports and restraint log to see if improving
relationships help to improve student behaviors as well.
Review
of Literatre and Action Research Strategy
The decision
making process for implementing the action research project was done by myself
and my site supervisor. We both agreed
that this was a continuing problem between our teachers and teaching assistants,
and we discussed trying intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for our teaching
assistants including a Teaching Assistant of the Month award and a monetary
award the second semester. The award is
given based on commendations done by the teachers and myself. My site supervisor has helped to guide me
through the entire action research project from start to finish. Anytime I have questions he is able to give
me great ideas to work with.
Articulate
the Vision
I communicated
the vision of the action research project to our program director, staff
supervisor, principal (my site supervisor), and executive director last summer during one
of our monthly leadership meetings. Then
once school started I explained my project as well as staff commendations that
need to be completed to the teachers at our first staff meeting the first week
of school. I was then able to explain to
the staff (i.e. teaching assistants) about their expectations in the classroom,
the staff commendations that the teachers would be completing, and the Teaching
Assistant of the Month awards. I did not
yet tell them about the entire project in relation to comparing intrinsic and
extrinsic motivation because they were the subjects of this particular aspect
of the project. I also did not explain
the details of the project to the students so that I would not get any type of
skewed data in results to their behaviors in the classroom. Parents (our students only have surrogate
parents due to their CPS placements) and community members were not a part of
this action research project and were not directly affected by the project so I
did not explain it to them.
Manage
the organization
Most of the
responsibilities for implementing this project belong to me. I had the task of designing a Google doc form
to use for the staff commendations and updating it monthly. I also designed the various surveys to be
given to staff members and teachers as well as conduct the interviews and
meetings with the teachers and teaching assistants each month. The teachers and myself are responsible for
completing the staff commendations, and I complete the tallies each month to see
who has received the Teaching Assistant of the Month award, as well as present
the award each month. Our program
director keeps a log of incident reports and restraints that I use for my data
collection to determine the effect on student behavior. The only money involved in my project is the monetary
award that we have been giving as part of the teaching assistant award during
the second semester. The facility that I
work for agreed to pay for this once I had it approved from our CEO. The only way that students will be involved
in this project is when I will do student surveys and questionnaires at the end
of the school year which will basically get their opinions on the role of
teaching assistants in the classroom and the partnerships between the teachers
and teaching assistants. However, one of
the main objectives of this project is to decrease the amount of incident
reports and restraints in the classroom which leads to an overall more positive
experience in the classroom for the students.
Manage
Operations
I used the needs
assessment to determine what the problem areas are on our campus that need to
be addressed. There was an obvious need
to improve the working relationships between our teachers and teaching
assistants. Surveys completed by our
teachers and staff reiterated the need for better communication, more concise
job duties for our teaching assistants, and more motivation for our staff. I then spoke with teachers during our staff
meetings to gather their concerns in regards to our staff and explained to them
how the staff commendation forms need to be completed. I then took their concerns to the staffings
with the teaching assistants and discussed these with them. They also provided input regarding their concerns
with the teachers in the classroom. I
would relay these concerns on to the teachers.
I would then check in often with both parties to see if issues had
improved or been resolved. If there were
continuing problems then I would get the teacher and teaching assistant
together with myself to mediate to discuss how we could resolve these
problems. I always follow up with them
afterwards to see if improvements have been made.
Respond
to Community Interest and Needs
This action
research project will be incredibly beneficial to our students. We serve a very unique population of
students. They are in CPS custody due to
some type of neglect and/or abuse and have been placed at our facility due to
their severe behaviors. Almost all of
them are in special education. Positive
relationships among them are very important to help in their therapeutic
care. A good working relationship
between teachers and teaching assistants will allow a collaborative effort
between the two to ensure the best academic and behavioral support needed by
our students. This will in turn improve
the campus climate at our facility by allowing for better communication skills
and work ethics among the teachers and teaching assistants.
