Zones of Regulation

Why this study for these students?

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My class had four students in particular that had a hard time following directions and focusing, but the instructional strategies were selected with the intention of benefiting and improving behavior for all students in the class. In my class, about half of the students lacked strong problem solving skills and would come to me right away, even when it was a minor disagreement, question, or clarification. This was limiting their ability to handle their emotions and confusion on their own, as I usually ended up offering suggestions for how to solve the problem. Additionally, out of the 22 students in the third grade class I taught, 9 of them had split time between households and one of them had a father who had been deployed for the past year. One of my students received special education services and four were tested and qualified during the year to give them support from special education services related to language arts and math. Their minds could have been on topics that were distracting them, whether it be family dynamics, home life, or the stress they were having by not understanding the material we were learning in school.

Finally, as of the 2017-18 school year, there were 427 students in the school. Of these 427 students, 87% were Caucasian and 13% were minorities including Hispanic, African American, Asian, and other races. In my classroom, these demographics were reflected as I had one African American student and one Hispanic student of my 22. This showed me that my students may not have experienced a lot of diversity in the people they were typically interacting with, including people different from them both physically and those who offered different perspectives. They may have had a hard time seeing situations in a different way or understanding why someone was acting the way they were. 

The observations I had over the first few months of school and the data I collected showed a need for my students’ self-regulation and listening skills to improve. Discussions with past teachers showed patterns of impulsivity among several students and discussions with parents at conferences revealed the same thing. I had noticed this with many of my students through observations, as I had to give repeated redirects to make sure students were doing what they need to be doing. Additionally, there were several pieces of data that showed a need for improvement in these areas. First of all, my school’s PBIS curriculum followed a system in which when students were not following expectations, they filled out a reset form after two reminders. Of the resets that had been filled out, 81.6% of them were because the student had not been listening in some way. Reasons for this included talking to the people around them, messing with other items, and getting out of their seat when someone else was talking. Other reset forms in the remaining 18.4% were filled out for reasons such as continued arguing with peers, which were fueled by strong emotions in these specific students. I was not as consistent as I should have been when following the system for implementing resets, as I often allowed students more than two reminders and gave more chances, so this may have been a factor affecting this data.

Finally, from my observations and discussions with other professionals in the building, there were two particular students in my class who reacted to situations with immediate anger. Their problem solving included yelling or shoving, and it was triggered by anything from someone cutting in line to working in a partnership in class. These two students, as well as several others in the class, also became extremely frustrated when they were not understanding something we were learning right away. There were several instances in which one student would sit under her desk and cry when she became upset. This stress and anxious behavior she and other students displayed was inhibiting them from learning. I believed having listening and self-regulation skills would allow all students to recognize their own behavior, how they were feeling, and improve themselves socially as well as academically.

The information gained from this study would be important because it would allow me to see what progress students were making and have evidence of that progress. It would also allow students to track their own progress as individuals, and allow for me to look at the class progress as a whole. This study would also help me see what level each of my students were at, and through discussion, would allow for us to build better relationships and determine what I could do for them to help them be a better learner in the classroom. I initially was focusing on the lack of listening among my students, but realized after further consideration that there were most likely deeper reasons for their lack of listening. If they were able to recognize their emotions and handle them better, their listening skills would improve as well.