The action research project that I chose to analyze and address is:
In what ways does direct one-on-one teacher-to-student mentoring decrease discipline referrals and improve academic performance.
When speaking with my site supervisor we have concluded that there is a select group of students that account for the majority of discipline referrals, meaning that the same students tend to get written up for behavior problems over and over again. These students are also in danger of being retained in their current grade level and have shown a pattern of low academic performance. My assistant principal and I have decided to investigate whether or not a direct mentoring program that focuses solely on these particular students would curb misbehavior, decrease time missed in the classroom from “in and out of school” suspensions, and increase the academic performance of these students. We have looked at the correlation of missed days of school because of behavior interventions and academic performance; we have found that students who missed a significant number of school days have also performed poorly in the classroom. We believe that a mentoring program that matched students with a positive role model would hold the students more accountable for their actions and would give them a support structure to model positive behavior and teach the students how to be constructive citizens of our campus.
This sounds like a great project. I feel like this is a topic that every school could use the findings and results. I am interested to see how you chose your mentors and how you partner the mentor and the student up.
ReplyDeleteGreat topic. Missed days = missed class time = discipline problems = low performance. How are you planning to evaluate the progress and results of your project? Look forward to seeing the results.
ReplyDelete