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This is to certify that the
dissertation entitled

WHY DO HIGHLY ENGAGING MIDDLE SCHOOL
TEACHERS SATURATE THEIR CLASSROOMS WITH

MOTIVATING INSTRUCTION?

presented by

Lisa Marcy Raphael

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for the

 

 

 

Doctoral degree in Department of Counseling,
Educational Psychology, and
Special Education
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2/05 cfiRC/Dateouoindd-ms

 

WHY DO HIGHLY ENGAGING MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHERS
SATURATE THEIR CLASSROOMS WITH MOTIVATING INSTRUCTION?

By

Lisa Marcy Raphael

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology, and Special Education

2005

ABSTRACT
WHY DO HIGHLY ENGAGING MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHERS
SATURATE THEIR CLASSROOMS WITH MOTIVATING INSTRUCTION?
By

Lisa Marcy Raphael

Throughout the 2003-2004 academic school year, classroom observations,
extensive interviews with teachers and students, and analysis of classroom artifacts
occurred in two sixth grade classrooms in two middle schools to determine the factors
influencing the motivational decisions of two middle school teachers, identified as highly
engaging in a previous study of middle school teaching (Raphael, Pressley, & Mohan,
under review). Concern for student emotional safety, desire for student mastery and
valuing of academics, and hopes for self-regulated student participation led the teachers
to saturate their classrooms with numerous motivational mechanisms, which ultimately
supported student engagement. Embedded within these themes was the strong awareness
of and responsiveness to individual student needs and the multiplicity of connections.
Future research should consider how other teachers choose motivationally based

instructional practices and the implications of their decisions.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................... v
LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................. vi
INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 1
METHODS ............................................................................................................. 10
RESULTS ............................................................................................................... 32
DISCUSSION ....................................................................................................... 1 15
APPENDICES ...................................................................................................... 140
REFERENCES ..................................................................................................... 152

iv

v

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE 1 ................................................................................................................ 11
TABLE 2 ................................................................................................................ 13
TABLE 3 ................................................................................................................ 23
TABLE 4 ................................................................................................................ 24

LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE 1 ............................................................................................................... 15
FIGURE 2 ............................................................................................................... 16
FIGURE 3 ............................................................................................................... 17
FIGURE 4 ............................................................................................................... 18
FIGURE 5 ............................................................................................................... 19
FIGURE 6 ............................................................................................................... 20

vi

INTRODUCTION

Student motivation is critical to academic success. Motivation to learn is
associated with sustained engagement and enhanced achievement on academic tasks. The
instructional decisions of teachers can significantly contribute to the academic
engagement and achievement of students. Highly engaging teachers successfully
motivate student engagement by saturating their classrooms with numerous positive
motivational mechanisms (Pressley, Dolezal, Raphael et al., 2003; Raphael, Pressley, &
Mohan, under review). In highly engaging classrooms, at least ninety percent of the
students persist at appropriately cognitively demanding and worthwhile tasks ninety
percent of the time. Highly engaging teachers may be especially necessary during middle
school to offset the substantial declines that occur in student motivation (Anderman &
Maehr, 1994). Although much is known about the instructional practices used by highly
engaging middle school teachers, little is known about the reasons why these teachers
choose to flood their classrooms with motivating instruction.

This study is a descriptive case study of the motivational decision making of two
highly engaging middle school teachers, identified by Raphael, Pressley, and Mohan
(under review) as very effective in promoting academic engagement. More specifically, I
consider the factors which influence the motivational decisions of highly engaging
middle school teachers (i.e., how and why they choose to saturate their classroom with

positive motivational mechanisms).

Background Literature
Characteristics of Motivating Teachers

This study emerged from a collection of previous work with colleagues aimed to
understand the characteristics of effective teaching, in particular, how teachers support
student motivation, and ultimately student engagement. In several studies using grounded
theory methods (e.g., Bogner, Raphael, & Pressley, 2002; Pressley, Dolezal, Raphael et
al., 2003; Raphael, Pressley, & Mohan, under review), my colleagues and I discovered
that about 20% of elementary and middle school teachers saturated their classrooms with
close to 50 instructional practices that appear to support student motivation and
engagement. These highly engaging teachers encouraged student motivation as they
fostered curiosity and suspense, made abstract material more concrete, modeled interest
and enthusiasm, scaffolded student learning, provided home-school connections,
displayed appropriate pacing, exhibited positive encouragement, made cross curricular
connections, and demonstrated the appropriate use of strategies. In these studies, we
defined engagement as the proportion of time students spent actively working on tasks
that were appropriately demanding (i.e., required student effort) and worthwhile (i.e.,
important content in the elementary school curriculum). Consistent with Wharton et al.
(1998), we documented student engagement by scanning the classroom every ten
minutes, recording the percentage of students attentive during the activity. The most
striking finding from each of the elementary school studies was that on-task engagement
was highest in the classrooms with the greatest amount of positive motivational
mechanisms. That is, at least ninety percent of the students in the classrooms with the

greatest amount of positive motivational mechanisms were observed engaged in tasks at

least ninety percent of the time. Behavioral problems were also infrequent in these highly
engaging classrooms. In comparison, students in the other classrooms, especially in the
classrooms with the predominance of negative motivational mechanisms, appeared off
task the majority of the time, with behavioral problems interfering with instructional
time.

In each of these studies, we used multiple sources of data (i.e., observations,
interviews, and analysis of classroom artifacts) and multiple observers to understand the
complexities of instruction in elementary and middle school. Consistent with grounded
theory methodology (see Glaser & Strauss, 1967), data collection and analysis occurred
simultaneously in these studies as the researchers identified emerging categories of
instruction and developed models for each classroom.

The results of Pressley et al. (2003) and Raphael et al. (under review) advance an
important hypothesis about teaching initially proposed by Brophy (1986); both
elementary and middle school teachers can support student motivation and engagement
by flooding their classrooms with motivating instruction. That is, by using a variety of
different motivational mechanisms, highly engaging teachers advance student
engagement and potentially student achievement. Highly engaging teachers may be
especially necessary during the transition to middle school.

The Middle School Years

As students progress through school, they become less confident about their
academic capabilities. With the advent of the middle school years, students possess
increasingly negative attitudes towards school in general and about specific subjects (e.g.,

math, language arts) (Anderman & Maehr, 1994; Eccles, Wigfield, Reuman, Mac Iver, &

F eldlaufer, 1993; Midgley, 1993). The transition to middle school, in particular, threatens
students’ competence beliefs and valuing of academic tasks (Harter, Whitesell, &
Kowalski, 1992; Wigfield, Eccles, Yoon et al., 1997).

Although deve10pmental changes contribute to age-related declines in student
motivation, everything the classroom teacher does potentially influences student
motivation (Pintrich & Schunk, 2002). Given the relationship between motivating
instruction and student engagement, as mentioned previously, it is important to
understand the cognitive processes of highly engaging teachers with respect to motivating
student engagement. That is, why do highly engaging teachers choose various
motivational practices over others?

Teacher Thinking and Decision-Making

Research on teacher thinking and decision-making has progressed since the
advent of the cognitive revolution in the 1970’s. Dissatisfaction with behaviorist notions
of teaching and learning and contradictory findings in process-product research led
researchers to examine how teachers interpret their daily interactions in the classroom
and how these interpretations influence everyday decision-making (Calderhead, 1996).
Since the 1970’s, researchers have examined the intricacies of teacher thinking in a
variety of studies (see Calderhead, 1996; Clark and Peterson, 1986 for reviews).

Teacher thinking encompasses both teacher knowledge and teacher beliefs. While
teacher knowledge refers to cognitive, or factual propositions held by teachers, teacher
beliefs also include ideologies, which are affective and evaluative in nature (Pajares,
1992). Compared to the broad category of teacher thinking, teacher beliefs are more

informative and more indicative of teacher decision-making and behavior (Pajares, 1992).

Research in teacher beliefs can help teachers better understand their daily interactions
with students and ultimately lead to improvements in the quality of teacher education and
professional development programs (Calderhead, 1996; Clark, 1988; Pajares, 1992).

Teachers’ motivational beliefs influence the use of instructional practices. A
variety of factors including external constraints (Pelletier, Seguin-Levesque, & Legault,
2002) and perceptions of one’s teaching efficacy (Tollefson, 2000) influences the types
of motivational practices that teachers choose to implement. In a study with 254 teachers,
for example, Pelletier et a1. (2004) found that perceptions of high work pressure and low
student self-determination threatened teacher self-determination and autonomy
supportive practices in the classroom. Few studies exist, however, which examine the
types of goals that teachers pursue with respect to motivation.

Teachers ’ Goals

Teachers’ beliefs and hopes for their students, as well as the nature of teaching
and learning are related to their goals. Goals reflect the purposes or the intentions of
behavior (Ford, 1992). Teachers may possess goals about student learning, student needs,
as well as their own teaching (Aguirre and Spencer, 1999; Ames, 1992, Clark & Peterson,
1986: Lemos, 1996).

Expert teachers possess different beliefs, and ultimately different goals than
novice teachers. In a study with novice and expert teachers, Westerman (1991), for
example, found that expert teachers integrated all three stages of decision-making (i.e.,
preactive, interactive, postactive). That is, expert teachers taught their lessons based on

their reflections and goals made before and afier each lesson. Compared to the novice

teacher’s focus on objectives and student behavior, the goals of the expert teachers were
concerned with the needs of their students.

Teachers are especially concerned about students’ needs. In a review of six
studies, Clark and Peterson (1986) reported that the interactive thoughts of teachers were
primarily focused on the learner, more so than instructional procedures or strategies.
Similarly, in case studies of 14 junior high teachers, Munby (1983) found that concern for
students (i.e., learning and development goals, involvement, and needs) comprised three
of the five most prevalent beliefs and principles possessed by the teachers.

Noddings (1989; 1992; 1997; 2003) has advocated for an educational system that
prioritizes caring about students. Exemplary teachers, in fact, truly care about their
students. Ruddell and colleagues (1983; 1994; 1995; 1997) have found that teachers
across multiple grade levels, perceived by students as highly motivating or “influential”
are extremely concerned with student needs and believe that developing supportive bonds
with students is essential to their practice. Preservice teachers also regard effective
teachers as highly “student centered,” who behave in supportive and caring ways towards
their students (Minor, Onwuegbuzie, Witcher et al., 2002). In fact, the most effective
teachers adjust their plans every day, adjusting and readjusting their methods to fit
student needs (Good & Brophy, 2003).

Teachers’ goals influence their everyday decision-making in the classroom. In a
detailed analysis of two Algebra teachers, Aguirre and Spencer (1999) examined the
interaction between teacher’s beliefs and goals during the moment-moment interactions
of teaching. Beliefs about the nature of mathematics, learning, and teaching directed the

teacher’s goals during teaching. For example, believing that mathematics was a set of

procedures, formulas, and equations, and that it was the teacher’s role to explicitly tell
students how to do mathematics problems guided a teacher’s decision to correct a
student’s graph. The collection of the three beliefs, labeled by Aguirre and Speer (1999)
as “belief bundles” influenced how the teachers formulated and modified goals in their
everyday teaching. The results of Aguirre and Speer (1999) are consistent with Parker
and Gehrke’s (1986) findings that teacher’s interactive decision making was determined
not only by the activity itself and the routines of the class but also the goals of that day.
Although goals appear to be an important factor in teachers’ beliefs and decision-making,
little is known regarding the motivational goals and decisions of teachers.

Motivational Nature of Teacher ’s Goals

Teachers’ motivational goals influence the communication and implementation of
motivationally based instructional practices (Ames, 1992). Classroom environments are
characterized by goal orientations (i.e., mastery vs. performance) based on categories of
teaching practices (e.g., task, authority, recognition, grouping, evaluation, and time)
(Epstein, 1989). For example, students in a performance-oriented classroom believe that
they should learn for the sake of outperforming others. In comparison, students in
classrooms with a mastery orientation believe that they should learn for the sake of
learning or achieving mastery. Unlike the maladaptive outcomes associated with a
performance orientation, students’ perceptions of a mastery orientation are associated
with positive achievement beliefs and behaviors (Ames & Archer, 1988; Kaplan &

Midgley, 1999).
Student perceptions of goal orientation match the type of classroom environment

they experience. Patrick, Anderman, Ryan, et al. (2001) found that teachers perceived by

students as low mastery generally exhibited more negative affect and less positive affect,
fewer opportunities for positive social interaction, and greater emphasis on grades and
relative performance than teachers perceived as high mastery. Although this was the first
observational study to examine how actual teaching practices are related to students’
perceptions of classroom goal structures, Patrick, Anderman, Ryan, et a1. (2001) did not
examine the content of the teachers’ goals and these goals were connected to their choice
of motivational practices.

Teachers and students sometimes adopt similar goals. In a correlational study of
high achieving students and their teachers, Ee, Moore, and Atputhasamy (2003)
examined the goal orientation of teachers’ goals in relation to their students’ goals.
Consistent with student reports, the teachers reported that they adopted more task goals
(i.e., mastery) than ego goals. The teachers also frequently encouraged strategy-based
instruction in their classrooms by teaching strategies, discussing the use of strategies, and
solving problems with strategies. Although Ee et a1. (2003) examined the nature of
teachers’ goals, they limited their investigation to the traditional categories of mastery
and performance goals.

Recognizing that students and teachers pursue multiple goals, Lemos (1996)
examined the types of goals pursued by 17 sixth grade students and six teachers from
different subject matters. Both groups of participants were interviewed about their goals
as they viewed instances of videotaped lessons. During the teacher interviews, as the
teachers viewed the lesson, they responded to questions such as, “What are you doing,”
“What are you trying to accomplish”, and “What for.” Seven different types of goals

emerged for the students and the teachers (i.e., enjoyment, learning, complying, working,

evaluation, interpersonal, and discipline). Compared to the students’ emphasis on
working and evaluation goals, the teachers reported focusing more on complying and
learning goals.

Although Lemos (1996) advanced the study of teacher goals, there is still a need
to further understand the content of teacher’s goals within a classroom environment,
especially with respect to the motivational elements of teacher decision-making. That is--
Why do teachers choose motivational practices over others? How do their choices
connect to the everyday practices in the naturalistic classroom setting? Ethnographic case
studies are needed to provide well—documented and insightful accounts of teacher thought
processes and decision-making (Calderhead, 1996).

Purpose and Rationale of the Current Study

Given the importance of investigating the intricacies of motivation in the middle
school years and the need for more research regarding the content of teacher goals, the
current study is an ethnographic multiple case study of two highly engaging sixth grade
teachers. Using the principles of grounded theory methodology, I examined the multiple
motivational goals of the teachers and how these goals influenced their everyday

interactions with students in the classroom.

METHODS

Participants. The participants were two female Caucasian sixth grade teachers
from two 5’h and 6th grade middle schools in the same community. Prior to this school
year, the schools consisted of 6th and 7th grades. I chose these two teachers based on a
study of middle school motivation conducted the previous year (Raphael, Pressley, &
Mohan, under review). In this study of middle school motivation, my colleagues and I
found that three out of ten teachers saturated the classroom with instructional practices
that appeared to positively support student motivation and achievement. We also found
that the majority of the students in these three classrooms appeared engaged in
academically worthwhile and cognitively demanding tasks the majority of the time. I
began the current study hoping to learn more about the decision-making with respect to
motivation of all three of the most motivating teachers identified last year. The third
teacher in the study did not participate in this study, however, because she relocated to a
half time position in another school for personal reasons.

The first teacher, Ms. Purple, in her mid 40$, taught at Jansen Middle School and
had been teaching for eighteen years, with a total of twelve years in sixth grade. Ms.
Purple achieved 30 credit hours beyond a Master’s degree in Curriculum and Teaching
with a middle school endorsement (i.e., although her bachelor’s degree certified her to
teach social studies, with the endorsement, she was certified to teach any subject in
grades 5-9). Ms. Purple’s morning began with home base, a ten minute time period for
morning announcements and lunch arrangements, which consisted of 27 students.
Following home base, Ms. Purple taught two seventy-five minute Language Arts classes

and a fifty-minute Reading class. Afier lunch, Ms. Purple taught a sixty-minute Social

10

Studies class and a fifty-minute Social Studies class. The Social Studies class directly
afler lunch was ten minutes longer than the seventh hour class to give students extra time
in the busy lunchroom. Each class consisted of 24-28 students, with Ms. Purple
interacting with 56 students.

Table 1:

Ms. Purple’s Schedule

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hour of The Day Class

15’ (8:35-8:45) Homebase

2nd (8:45-10:00) Language Arts
3rd (10:00-11:15) Language Arts
4th (11:15-12:05) Reading
(12:05-12:40) LUNCH
S’h(12:40-1:40) Social Studies
6‘“ (1:40-2:30) Planning

7m (2:30-3:20) Social Studies

 

 

 

The other teacher, Ms. Yellow, in her mid 30’s, taught at Brooks Middle School,
and had been teaching for twelve years, with a total of eleven years in sixth grade. Ms.
Yellow possessed a Master’s of Arts in Teaching from a local university, in the area of
Special education (i.e., emotionally impaired) and K-S regular education. Ms. Yellow was
a resource teacher with sixteen students on her caseload. Ms. Yellow also team-taught a

Math and Language Arts class in the morning and an inclusive Social Studies class and a

11

pullout Reading class in the afternoon, contacting 49 different students each day, with 24-
25 students per class.

As the year progressed, Ms. Yellow’s schedule changed. First, in the beginning of
the year for twelve weeks, during fourth hour, MS. Yellow assisted a fifth grade teacher’s
class. I did not observe this fifth grade class. Second, for twelve weeks in the beginning
of the year, during fifth hour, Ms. Yellow assisted six students in a math class. I observed
this class one time. Eventually, another teacher was hired to fill that position so Ms.
Yellow began lead teaching the Social Studies class and was able to spend more time
with her students in that class. Third, during the middle of the year, the school district
extended third hour so MS. Yellow then taught Language Arts for an extra fifteen minutes
every day. Finally, following spring break, Ms. Yellow decided to pull out a small group
of students for math homework assistance to replace the reading class at the end of the
day, for these students already had extra time in Language Arts. Table 2 represents Ms.

Yellow’s daily schedule after she began teaching Social Studies.

12

Table 2:

Ms. Yellow’s Schedule

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hour of the Day Class

1st (8:45-10:00) Math

2nd (10:00-11:15) Language Arts
(11:15-11:45) LUNCH

4‘11 (11:50-12:55) Social Studies
5‘h (1245-1 :40) Math

6T( 1 :40-2z30) Planning

T“ (2:30-3:20) Reading

 

 

 

MS. Yellow team-taught all of her classes with other teachers. While Ms. Yellow
was more likely to lead teach the second hour Math class and the Social Studies class
everyday; she shared the teaching role with another teacher for the Language Arts and
Reading classes.

Sites.

The schools consisted of Jansen Middle School and Brooks Middle School, two
public middle schools (grades 5-6) located in the same school district, an urban fringe of
a mid-Sized Midwestern city. According to the 2000 US. Census, the community
surrounding the schools consisted of 11,315 people (3,553 total student population), with
a median household income of $44,382 and an unemployment rate of 2.9%. The racial

composition of the community was more homogenous than the rest of the United States,

13

with 92.9% of the community being Caucasian or Non-Hispanic compared to 75% of the
United States.

Jansen Middle School

Jansen Middle School, with a student population of 467 students and 36 staff
members, was located within walking distance of the principal Shopping district in the
community. At Jansen, 19% of the students qualified for free lunch and 8% qualified for
reduced lunch. Jansen Middle School, originally built in the 1930’s, with additions made
to the school in the 1980’s, consisted of traditional linear hallways that were spread
throughout the school.

The sixth grade student body at Jansen was divided into four teams or units,
identified by their grade level and unit number. Each teacher taught two sections of their
primary content area daily to fifiy-six students in two-person teams. Ms. Purple and Ms.
Orange were a team, with Ms. Purple specializing in Language Arts and Social Studies
and Ms. Orange responsible for Science and Math. Both Ms. Purple and MS. Orange
taught two Reading classes to two groups of students for two marking periods.

Ms. Purple taught in a classroom towards the back entrance of the school, next
door to the resource teacher and surrounded by two other classrooms. Ms. Purple’s
classroom was arranged with thirteen two-person tables in four rows around the room.
Ms. Purple’s classroom was decorated with a rich variety of posters with messages about
student conduct, learning, and reading. The room library was positioned towards the front
of the room, with several bookcases filled with books. Upon entering Ms. Purple’s room,
students entered a “Learning Zone,” as highlighted by the poster on the door. Figure 1

provides a map of Jansen Middle School and Figure 2, a map of Ms. Purple’s classroom.

14

Figure 1:
Map of Jansen Middle School
*Note- Map Not Drawn to Scale

Kg!

*= Ms. Purple’s Room

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

/I_—
Office

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

15

 

 

 

Figure 2:

Map of Ms. Purple’s Classroom

 

Door

“You’ve Entered A
Learning Zone”

 

 

 

Back Chalkboard

 

Homework

 

Assignment Board

 

 

 

 

Book Cases

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book
Case

 

 

 

My
Seat

 

 

 

 

 

Ms.

Purple’s
Desk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table Over ’
head

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cabinets
with
Pictures
of
Former
Students

 

 

 

 

Front Chalkboard

 

 

l6

 

 

Counters

 

 

 

 

File
Cabinets

 

 

 

Brooks Middle School

Brooks Middle School, which consisted of 417 students and 35 staff members
was located about three miles from the principal shopping district in the community,
close to an elementary, junior, and high school. At Brooks Middle School, 9% of the
students qualified for free lunch and 6% qualified for reduced lunch. Brooks Middle
School, built in 1993, was divided into three teams of clusters, with six classrooms per
cluster. Three classrooms in the cluster served the 6th grade, with approximately 50-55
students per cluster of sixth grade students. Each cluster was identified by name through
signs that overlooked the hallways and the windows. The clusters fed into a carpeted,
enclosed hallway Situation that could be used for spillover small group interactions,
which was necessary because some of the classrooms in this building were small. Figure
3 represents the map of Brooks Middle School.
Figure 3:

Map of Brooks Middle School

 

 
   
 
 
     

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Main Cluster
Music, Band, Entrance to
& Art School
Library Cluster with
Mr. Black &
Gym Mr. James
Office
Cafeteria

 
    
   
 

 

 

 

  

Ms.
Yellow’s
Cluster

 

 

 

17

MS. Yellow shared a classroom with the other resource teacher, which was
located in a cluster close to the main office and the school library, next to two fifih grade
classrooms. The classroom consisted of three rectangular shaped tables, with seating
possible for four-Six students. The room was decorated with student work and local
University spirit paraphernalia. Figure 4 is a map of MS. Yellow’s classroom.

Figure 4:
Map of Ms. Yellow’s Classroom

Note: I typically sat at MS. Yellow’s desk or at the middle table next to the students

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another
Resource
Front Chalkboard Teacher 5

Desk

Display of student

work and banners

from Ms.Yellow’s Cupboards

alumni

Windows

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Door

 

MS
Yellow’s
Desk

 

 

 

 

 

 

C we)

 

18

MS. Yellow used her classroom periodically for small group or pull out classes
such as the Reading class at the end of the day. In two other classrooms, in a neighboring
cluster, Ms. Yellow team-taught Math and Social Studies in the same classroom with Mr.
James and Language Arts with Mr. Black in the classroom next door. Both of these
classrooms were decorated with posters, books and various materials. See Figures 5 and 6
for maps of Mr. James and Mr. Black’s classrooms respectively.

Figure 5:

Map of Mr. James’s Classroom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bulletin- Class
board with Rules
student POSICI
work
Mr. .
James’s Front Assignment Board Homework Dally Schedule
desk
Bookcases
Cupboards Overhead
Windows
Wall with
calendar and
school
Door pictures of
students
Closet Table where I sat Cubicle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

19

Figure 6:

Map of Mr. Black’s Classroom

Note: S= Student Seats

 

Front Assignment Board Homework

  

 

 

 

 

Daily Schedule

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mr.
Black’s
desk

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bookcases

 

Windows

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Counters
[—Overhead
Cupboards S
S
S
Closet Back table where I typically sat
Door

 

 

20

 

 

 

 

 

Closet

 

 

Role of the Researcher.

Throughout the entire school year, I maintained a fiiendly researcher role with
Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow. I began eating lunch with both of the teachers early in the
school year after they invited me to do so. Sensitive to LeCompte’s (1995) notions of
critical collaborative research, I began the research project talking to both teachers about
collaboration and the importance of us being co-participants in the project. 1 also shared
emerging conclusions with both teachers, as well as asked them for their opinions
regarding research decisions. As a collaborative project, I represented both of the
teacher’s voices throughout the project and in the final write up.

As the year progressed, my role as the “researcher” was less apparent as the
teachers and I became closer. For example, this new role was evident in how I spoke
about the project, as meetings with the teachers became known as “chats” instead of
recall sessions. Throughout the year, the teachers and I engaged in academic and personal
conversations that were not limited to the research project.

Design

Data Collection Procedures

Beginning of the Year Observations

I began the study in the beginning of the school year, knowing that the beginning
of the year is a critical time for teachers to introduce themselves and establish routines
and procedures (Emmer & Evertson, 1982, Bohn, Roehrig, & Pressley, 2004). In the first
three weeks of school, I observed Ms. Purple eleven times during various classes, for a
total of 8.25 hours. I observed MS. Yellow nine times for a total of 6.83 hours. At the

conclusion of those initial three weeks, I interviewed both teachers in semi-structured

21

interviews about their perceptions and initial observations (e. g., how they designed the
beginning of the year, hopes and expectations for the year, attention to particular
students’ needs). See Appendix A for the beginning of the year interview questions.
Observations Throughout The Year

Observations continued throughout the year in both of the teacher’s classrooms.
In the beginning of the year, I quietly sat in the back of the classroom, recording as much
of the daily events as verbatim as possible. As the year progressed, especially towards the
end of the year, I participated more actively in the two classrooms. That is, I assisted the
teachers and the students with several activities, including a Language Arts/Social
Studies research project, revising and editing essays, math homework, etc. My
observations in both classrooms included a wide variety of content and lessons, as well as
special activities (i.e., small group events with other classes, field trips). Beyond the first
three weeks, I spent a total of 90 hours in Ms. Purple’s classroom, with 110 different
observations, not including lunch. Beyond the first three weeks, I observed Ms. Yellow
for 72.6 hours, with 76 different observations, not including lunch. I spent less time in
Ms. Yellow’s classes because of scheduling (i.e., her schedule changed several times
throughout the year) and personal events (i.e., Ms. Yellow underwent surgery during the
school year, which prevented several weeks of observation).

Chats With The Teachers Throughout The Year

As soon as I began observations, the chats began with both teachers. These chats
occurred at all times (i.e., at the beginning of a class, during a class, at the end of the
class, during lunchtime, and even via e-mail). Most of the time, the teacher initiated the

chats when they reflected on a particular aspect of a class. Some of the time, when I

22

spoke to the teachers informally or asked the teacher to clarify something, it resulted in a
reflection in person and/or via e-mail.

Throughout the school year, to supplement my observations, 1 videotaped various
classes and asked the teachers to reflect on a variety of episodes shortly afier the class
occurred, which typically ranged from a couple of days to a week, depending on the
scheduling for the meeting time. In the beginning of the year, I chose to videotape
randomly, selecting episodes for the teachers to reflect upon, hoping to capture a
representative sample of content and instructional practices. In these initial chats, the
teachers viewed the episode and talked openly about the reasons that had influenced her
decision making during that episode and that class. Between September-December, the
teachers and I had met three times to view and reflect on a class. Table 3 is the schedule
of chats in those months.

Table 3:

Schedule of September-December Chats

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Month Teacher Class
September MS. Purple Social Studies
October Ms. Yellow Math

October Ms. Purple Reading
November MS. Purple Language Arts
November Ms. Yellow Math
December Ms. Yellow Social Studies

 

 

 

 

23

 

After these initial chats, I developed more probing questions for both of the
teachers, hoping to obtain more details on the insights that were emerging. In January and
early February, I conducted probing interviews with each teacher. All of the probing
interviews were semi-structured, guided by the teacher’s responses, my observations, and
emerging conclusions. See Appendix B for the list of questions for the first probing
interview. In April, I conducted another probing interview with each of the teachers. See
Appendix C for the list of questions for the second probing interview.

In March-May, two chats with each teacher continued with the videotape but I
purposefully selected the lessons based on the emerging conclusions, with the teachers
obtaining more of a role in the selection of the episodes. While I selected some of the
episodes, for others, I asked the teacher to select episodes. Table 4 is the schedule of
chats in those months.

Table 4:

Schedule of March-May Chats

 

 

 

 

 

 

Month Teacher Class
March Ms. Purple Language Arts
April Ms. Yellow Language Arts
May Ms. Yellow Math
May Ms. Purple Language Arts

 

 

 

 

Finally, in June, I conducted end of the year interviews with each teacher, to
clarify some of the emerging conclusions. See Appendix D for end of the year interview

questions.

24

Student Interviews

Throughout the year, I also interviewed the students in both classes. I conducted a
total of five interviews with 17 students in Ms. Yellow’s class and five interviews with 25
students in MS. Purple’s class. I initially selected students openly, hoping to obtain a
variety of perspectives. In the majority of these interviews, I asked students to share their
thoughts on the lesson/activity that day (e.g., what did they think of _, what they
thought the purpose of the lesson/activity was) and what they were thinking/doing when
the teacher said _. As the year progressed, I focused my interviews more on the
students identified by their teachers as “engaged” and “disengaged” and spoke to the
other students more informally. At the first probing interview with the teachers in
January/February, the teachers selected several students that they perceived as “engaged”
and several students that they perceived as “disengaged.” I conducted one formal
interview in the mid February or early March with these students (i.e., two engaged
students and two disengaged students in Ms. Purple’s class and two engaged students and
three disengaged students in Ms. Yellow’s class). The majority of the student interviews
occurred during lunchtime, with some occurring at the beginning or at the end of class.

Chats With The Students

As the year progressed, primarily after January, I decided to chat with all of the
students more informally, hoping that my continued presence in the classroom would
make things more comfortable for them. I distinguish between these informal chats and
the formal interviews because in the formal interviews, I pulled students out of class or
met with them privately during lunchtime. In comparison, with the informal chats, I did

not set up any meetings with the student. Instead, I chatted with the students frequently

25

sometimes right before or after the class started, at the beginning or the end of lunch, on a
Special class trip, or during class, especially if I sat close by or was assisting them on an
assignment/activity.

My participatory role in the classrooms increased as the year progressed, as I
became more involved in conversations with the students about their lives and assisted
them with various types of assignments. This was easier in Ms. Yellow’s classroom
because I sat by several students daily in language arts and often chatted with students as
we walked to the local kindergarten for a reading-writing partnership. My hopes with the
informal chats were for the students to perceive me as a big sister or a friend that they
could confide in or enjoyed talking to about their lives. At the conclusion of the school
year, I felt like I had achieved friendly relationships with many of the students, especially
the students I interacted with a regular basis (e.g., I sat by the same students in several
classes, assisted some of the same students). While this paper focuses on the teachers, I
include the student responses only if they are pertinent to the conclusions.

Data Analysis Procedures

Data collection and data analysis occurred simultaneously throughout the course
of the study. My field notes consisted of my observations in the classroom, and any
additional notes, reflections, and/or questions following each observation. I transcribed
verbatim all of the teacher and student interviews, adding memos when applicable that
directed me to particular comments and/or questions.

Coding

Coding began shortly after the initial observations and continued throughout the

study. I began coding by first reading over my multiple sources of information (i.e., the

26

field notes, chats with the teachers, and interviews with the students) and then
categorizing the information according to themes. Since I was primarily interested in the
reasons why these two teachers use particular instructional practices to motivate their
students, the chats with the teachers were especially important in my data analysis.
Throughout the year, I developed categories, with examples of dialogue from multiple
sources to represent the emerging conclusions. By the first probing interview in mid
January/February, I had developed a set of major categories with minor categories and
examples/quotes to represent my first set of major conclusions. As the year progressed, I
revised the list to incorporate new conclusions. In the second probing interview in April, I
tailored my questions to the revised list of conclusions, revising and editing the list based
on the teacher’s responses. The process was similar for the end of the year interview.
Finally, at the end of the year, I shared my conclusions with both teachers, revising and
editing again based on their comments. See Appendix E for the final list of major
conclusions.
Reliability

In qualitative research, reliability is achieved when the results are consistent with
the data collection and others can replicate the study (Merriam, 1998). Explaining the
investigator’s position, triangulation, and providing an audit trail ensures the reliability of
qualitative research. As mentioned previously, this project consisted of a collaborative
partnership between the teachers and me. I considered my emerging relationships with
not only the teachers but also the students and adjusted the format of data collection

accordingly.

27

Besides cultivating a partnership between the teachers, me, and to some extent,
the students, my ultimate goal was to understand the everyday practices and the meaning
of various practices to my participants, with the particular details described earlier in the
methods section. Although I began the study with a complete understanding of
motivation theory and my participation in the middle school study of the previous year, I
remained open to new interpretations and meanings constructed by my participants.
Triangulation through multiple methods, multiple forms of data collection, multiple
participants, and consultation with other researchers established the credibility of the
study. To ensure that other researchers can travel the same path, I have carefully
documented how I collected and analyzed the data, as well as made various decisions
throughout the course of the study.

Validity

Both internal and external validity are also necessary to qualitative research. Does
the data collection and results truthfully represent the participant’s perspectives? While it
is evident that this final write-up considers the perspectives of the participants, as
evidenced by the numerous direct quotes, the collaborative relationship that I developed
with the participants is also indicative of the truthfulness of the multiple stages of this
project.

Member Checking

Convergence across multiple data sources is essential to the validity of qualitative
research. In particular, confirming observations and emerging conclusions with

participants is essential to confirming the truthfulness of data collection and analysis.

28

I conducted formal member checks with Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow in the middle and at
the end of the school year. For instance, at the mid January interviews, I presented
summaries of the emerging findings to both teachers. At the time of this interview, the
emphasis on emotional safety/comfort was the most detailed finding but pieces of the
other major themes had begun to emerge in data analysis. Both teachers agreed with the
findings and added additional details to further delineate the themes. For example, MS.
Yellow connected her awareness of individual student needs and concern for emotional
safety/comfort when she explained her reasons for positioning herself in deliberate ways
(e.g., how she approached her students when coaching them). Similarly, Ms. Purple
discussed how She encouraged student participation in the context of a safe emotional
environment (e. g., questions She asked to inspire participation, accepting different
participation structures for individual students).

At the mid January interviews, I also asked both teachers to openly explain the
factors influencing their decisions in the classroom, especially their decisions with
respect to motivation (i.e., what factors influence how you make decisions in the
classroom? In particular, what factors influence how you motivate your students?) Both
of the teachers talked about one of their goals, which matched the emerging themes. For
example, MS. Purple discussed her hopes for student participation while MS. Yellow
emphasized the importance of student value.

At the end of the school year, I asked both teachers to share any other thoughts
they had on motivation, both on how they motivated their students and the reasons for
doing so. MS. Yellow spoke extensively about emphasizing emotional safety (e.g.,

making a connection with students and letting them know she supported them on a daily

29

 

basis) and communicating academic value to her students (e. g., questioning students
about the purpose of lessons). Similarly, Ms. Purple spoke about the intricacies of the
culture of her classroom, which included her concern for student emotional safety (e.g.,
building relationships with students) and her encouragement of student value, especially
in reading. After looking at the final methods and the final results sections, both teachers
recommended only minor revisions (e.g., grammatical, number of students).

Does the data collection and analysis represent the constructs of interest? As
described in detail, I began the study interested in the factors that influence how two
highly engaging teachers make decisions that are based on student motivation. I selected
the teachers based on the findings of a study conducted the previous year. Both of the
teachers were aware of the goals of the study. As mentioned previously, 1 Spoke to my
participants in a variety of different ways, using diverse methods. When I selected
videotape instances for the teachers and students, I possessed two goals. First, I selected a
variety of instances, hoping to obtain a representative sample of naturalistic classroom
practices. Second, I chose instances that related to motivation based on my knowledge of
the motivation research literature. From time to time, I also consulted with other graduate
students and faculty members familiar with theory and research in motivation.

Negative Case Analysis

Throughout the study, I conducted a thorough negative-case analysis (Lincoln &
Guba, 1985; Merriam, 1998), searching for examples of data that might disconfirrn the
emerging conclusions. By the end of the study, I was confident that a complete negative-
case analysis had occurred, with no data inconsistent with the conclusions offered here.

External Validity

30

After addressing concerns with internal validity, it is necessary to satisfy the
requirements of external validity. Are the findings generalizable to other individuals and
contexts? In this paper, my detailed description of the participants, classroom contexts,
and the data collection and analysis address many of the concerns with external validity

in qualitative research.

31

 

RESULTS

The Three Major Goals

Throughout the course of the study, three goals constantly emerged about why
MS. Purple and Ms. Yellow taught as they did. Across all data sources, I found that both
of the teachers consistently and similarly maintained the importance of establishing
emotional safety in their classrooms, aspired for student mastery and valuing of
academics, and strived for participation, especially self-regulated student participation in
the classroom.
Goal #1: Importance of Emotional Safety

The first major goal was the importance Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow placed on
student’s emotional safety in their classrooms. Although some differences existed, I
observed the most similarities between the teachers with respect to this theme. Both MS.
Purple and Ms. Yellow emphasized the importance of student emotional safety more than
any other practice throughout the school year. This goal emerged in just about every
conversation that I had with both teachers. The high emphasis placed on emotional
safety, as reported by the teachers, also influenced many of their decisions. Both Ms.
Purple and Ms. Yellow constantly and consistently communicated the importance of
establishing a comfort zone or a safe emotional environment for the students in their
classrooms. As Ms. Purple explained, “It’s about working with people. Not just about
presenting fine lessons. That’s a balance... And I hope that they #1, that they feel safe in
this classroom emotionally...” Similarly, Ms. Yellow shared, “They just want to know

that you care. I think that’s the key. If they know that you care, they’re going to want to

32

 

do better for you.” From the beginning to the end of the school year, these teachers were
committed to their students.
From The Beginning...1 Care About You and I Want You to Be Comfortable

The teachers’ concern for emotional safety and establishing a comfort zone
presented itself in conversations with me and with the children. This language began
early in the school year and continued throughout the school year. Prior and during the
first several days of school, students in Ms. Purple’s class knew that She would take care
of them, to help them navigate the new environment. During the orientation, prior to the
first day of school, Ms. Purple told students upon meeting them for the first time, that all
they needed to do was Show up, she would take care of them once they got to her
classroom (e.g., “As long as you know how to get to this room on Tuesday, I will take
care of you”). Ms. Purple also assured students they would feel more comfortable once
they purchased items on their supply lists and participated in the school tour (e.g., “If you
want to go through this tour, I think you’ll feel more comfortable”). The teachers cared
about how their students felt in the new environment. Beginning in the first week of
school and continuing throughout the school year, MS. Yellow asked her students to self-
reflect on the day’s events. For example, at the end of math class, Ms. Yellow asked the
class, “How do you feel about today? Thumbs up or down?” problem-solving with
students as they shared their daily reflections.

Here ’s What You Need to Know

Part of establishing student comfort in the new environment meant introducing
the many new responsibilities and roles. Early on in the school year, Ms. Yellow spoke of

the importance of student comfort in the new environment (e.g. “Even that first week but

33

 

the first day is basically getting comfortable with the room, routine, where they’re going
to sit, their locker, just all the stuff that in the normal day that they’re going to have to
handle. . .”). During the first week of math class, for example, as Ms. Yellow introduced
the new books to her students, she explained a routine (e.g., going through three lessons
in every phase of the math book). After introducing, MS. Yellow constantly reminded her
classes of daily routines such as completing the math warm-up at the beginning of class,
the proper heading for their papers (i.e., name, date, and hour), and filling out agendas at
the beginning of each class. Early in the first week of school, Ms. Yellow introduced her
students to the physical environment with a mapping activity of the entire school, as well
as to common phrases that She would use throughout the year (e.g., “Voices off”. . .when
we ask to have your attention. . .. need you to stop and look. . .”).

Both teachers were mindful of the importance of introductions, especially in the
initial weeks of school. AS MS. Purple explained, “Well at the beginning, the first week
especially, I say it’s my goal to introduce the kids thoroughly enough to the building, to
the classroom, to one another, to myself so that there’s a level of comfort there.” Ms.
Purple made students explicitly aware of her classroom procedures by providing them
with a “how to survive” classroom guide.

Continuing Routines Throughout The Year

The commitment to classroom routines continued throughout the school year. As
Ms. Purple discussed the writing process with her students (e.g., beginning with
prewriting, composing a rough draft, revising and editing, and ending with a final copy),
she remarked, “Where do we need to go next week? We are going to be doing some

writing. Who is surprised by that? Reading a couple of stories and then writing. I’m

34

getting predictable.” MS. Purple later told her students, “1 want to be predictable. Do you
notice how predictable I am? I don’t think that’s being boring. I think that’s being safe.”
MS. Yellow similarly reinforced routines (e.g., “When you’re given a paper, Show me
what you’re supposed to do” or “Are you with me?”).

Both Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow requested student attention by asking students to
“Focus” or “Focus front” or “Eyes and ears up here.” Additionally, Ms. Purple typically
redirected students by asking them to put their hands in their laps (e. g., “It Should come
as no surprise when I say, put your hands in your lap. Do it now”).

For both teachers, steady routines for the students occurred in the beginning and
at the end of every class (e.g., looking at the assignment board or the chalkboard for the
day’s schedule, setting up properly for class with the right materials, filling out the
agenda, and remaining quiet while packing up, waiting for dismissal). For example, at the
beginning of class, Ms. Yellow simply asked her students to “Show me what the
expectation is,” praising students who appeared prepared for class (e.g., “B looks
excellent today. Got all his materials out”). In both classes, students knew that they
needed to raise their hands if they wanted to speak (e.g., Ms. Yellow tells a student, “I
would love to answer your question but what do I need from you? Raise your hand”). The
classroom routines exemplified the teacher’s hopes for a safe, emotional environment.

Ms. Purple: “1 value the consistency because I think it’s provides safety for them
—- consistent routines. I hope that I am a consistent adult for them.”

MS. Yellow: “You have to have a routine where the kids are used to, feel

comfortable, and that they know what to expect. It doesn’t mean that you can’t change

35

within that but the mold of your day needs to stay somewhat concrete so that the kids
have something to go on.”
Building Relationships Early On

The beginning of the year was a time to build all sorts of positive relationships.
The teachers hoped to build caring relationships with their students. For example, during
the summer, MS. Purple sent a letter to her students introducing herself to them and
inviting them to write back to her. In addition to playing kickball with her students, Ms.
Yellow comforted and advised several students with various types of problems. Both
teachers strived to facilitate positive relationships among students in their classes with
introductory activities in the first week of school. “All about me,” for example, required
students to introduce themselves to their classmates and their teacher, which was
typically accompanied by pictures or drawings of meaningful parts of their life. Ms.
Yellow created an “All about me” paper T-shirt, introducing herself, her likes and
dislikes, and information about her family, which hung in the language arts classroom for
most of the school year. Similarly, Ms. Purple set aside a special bulletin board in the
back of the classroom for “All about me” presentations that took place throughout the
school year, beginning with her own in the first week of school.

In both classrooms, students participated in interviewing activities, which
provided opportunities to acquaint themselves with their new middle school peers,
coming from several different elementary schools. For example, in preparation for the
upcoming discussions in reading class, Ms. Purple’s students participated in a round
circle that required them to introduce themselves to each other while maintaining a

rhythmic beat. MS. Purple later shared that, in addition to acquainting the students with

36

one another, She hoped that students would know that She was in charge of the class,
based on the way she led the rhythmic beat of the round circle. In Ms. Yellow’s
Language Arts class, students interviewed at least ten other students (and sometimes Ms.
Yellow) about their interests, aspirations, and preferences. Finally, by having students
create a time capsule, which captured student perceptions and opinions in the beginning
of the school year, MS. Yellow hoped to connect the beginning of the school year with
the end of the school year.

Both Ms. Purple and MS. Yellow strived to establish relationships with their
students’ parents early on in the school year through introductory phone calls and e-
mails. Ms. Purple shared that she aimed to share positive messages to parents in these
early phone calls: “I wanted them to be the positive phone calls. I see your child doing
this wonderful thing and it was once again all about those academic habits-- they come
prepared, they pay attention, they’re eager to learn, they’re trying their best and I see this
in your child.” For Ms. Yellow, establishing this early relationship with parents’
benefited future interactions (e.g., “ I like to just touch base with them (so) if you do have
a difficulty (then) the student (and) the parent already has a relationship somewhat built
with you or some kind of conversation”).

Aware of and Responsive to Individual Student Needs

Throughout the school year, both Ms. Yellow and Ms. Purple were extremely
aware of and responsive to the needs of their students, which connected to their goals of
emotional safety. Ms. Yellow explained, “You just got to make your room feel like a
community kids are so individually different with different needs so I think just

finding that with the student is the key... I mean you just got to figure out how to read the

37

kid and what they need from you and vice versa...” Similarly, Ms. Purple shared, “But
it’s knowing them. It’s knowing the kids. It’s taking all the extra time to meet with their
families, to e-mail their families, to call them on the phone. To keep the standard high but
give them the rungs on the ladder to get there.” The teachers communicated this
awareness and responsiveness in their daily interactions with students.

Reading The Signals You Give Me

Both Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow constantly read their student’s faces. Ms. Purple,
for example, paced her lessons based on the signals she received from her students. For
example, in a lesson on good public speaking in Language Arts, she told the class that she
constantly looked at her students to make sure that She was not frustrating them by going
too fast. When Ms. Purple reflected on this lesson, she explained that she tried really hard
to learn her students, keeping in mind that their personal issues sometimes impeded their
learning:

I really try to pay attention to the feedback that they give and they give a lot. Now

sometimes it’s miscommunicated. That’s why I have to learn my children. When I

look at (Student), I have to know that he’s not bored and not paying, he has

defense mechanisms because of his mental health issues of depression. When

(Student) is lying all over his table. . .because I know his family is working with

him to balance his medication right now. I know it’s not. . .its simply not paying

attention. And so I have to learn the kids and I have to take their feedback...

Similarly, Ms. Yellow frequently scanned the room to check her student’s

reactions:

38

Just breaking down the process. I think as a teacher you’re always evaluating or
assessing where the kids are at. Even if you don’t have them write it down or say
it, you’re either making observations or a verbal quick check with them or even
just looking around the room and seeing if you’re getting those blank stares or
not. . .And even when I’m questioning in the class, I always try to look around.
Just to make that simple connection sometimes because you can just read them.

You can read them just by their face.

Learning about her students was essential to MS. Yellow’s vision of good
teaching:

Oh. I guess I take a lot of ownership in that. I mean, even fiom the bright kid to

the kid that’s working three grade levels behind. As a teacher, I think that it’s my

responsibility to reach all those students so I think that I take that on myself. I

don’t know if part of that is my training, being in Special Ed and being more

aware of that. Or is it just the person that I am? I mean I don’t know how to

differentiate that. I don’t why teachers are that way.

MS. Purple believed that her student’s parents provided an invaluable source of
information:

I bet probably at every level 1 would be because I think it’s valuable to say to the

parents, “You know your child. Help me know your child. Let’s set up some goals

for this year. I LOVED that form of as opposed as waiting until you got a bunch

of garbage to share with them and the parents sit there and say you tell me. You

39

know, come on, you be the expert. Let’s work as a team. So I take what I can

from the kids nonverbally and then I go to...

Purposefid Positioning In The Physical Environment

Ms. Yellow and Ms. Purple deliberately positioned their physical movements in
the classroom based on their awareness of student needs and hopes for emotional safety.
During math class, for example, Ms. Yellow would frequently walk around the room,
checking individual student progress on the warm-up, homework, or small group activity.
As Ms. Yellow worked with students, she leaned behind them and looked over their
shoulders with her arms outstretched at their sides, as if she were about to hug them from
behind. Ms. Yellow explained that she approached students purposefully (e.g., “And I
guess whenever I try to approach a kid just to conference or to you know to have
interaction with them, I want to think on that we are kind of on the same level and not
I’m going to scold them or be a negative on them. . .”). Ms. Yellow adjusted her
positioning to meet the needs of individual students. For example, shortly after a new
student entered the classroom, Ms. Yellow perceived that he seemed intimidated by her
presence, knowing that he was upset about receiving Special education support. During
one lesson, MS. Yellow began to approach this student from the front of his desk but then
decided to talk to other students first and come back to him, leaning from the back, first
praising his strengths in the math lesson and then working on some problems. After
conversing with the student, MS. Yellow noticed the change in his attitude, “He wrote it
down, had a smile on his face but it was a whole different demeanor than when I came to

the front of that desk.”

40

Videotaping Ms. Purple meant that the camera never remained in one Spot. Ms.
Purple constantly walked around her classroom during whole group and small group
lessons, sometimes stopping to whisper or sit by certain students. Ms. Purple explained
that she hoped her frequent physical movements promoted a communal environment: “I
don’t just want to be on the stage upfront so that they can set and get. I want to interact
and. . .I believe I want to be more personable.” Sometimes Ms. Purple sat by certain
students because of anticipated behavioral problems but other times, Ms. Purple sat by
students in need of a fiiend: “So maybe I move and place myself strategically because I
know a kid cannot behave unless I am really close. But maybe it’s because that kid
doesn’t have anybody that’s going to choose to Sit by them otherwise so maybe it’s the
emotional piece.”

Physical Gestures That Show How Much I Like You

Both teachers relied on physical gestures to Show their students that they liked
and approved of them. While both MS. Purple and Ms. Yellow hugged or half hugged
their students, students in Ms. Purple’s classroom also received playfill swats (i.e., gentle
hand or paper taps) from their teacher. These swats, always playful in nature, were
sometimes teacher initiated based on student comments or behaviors but also sometimes
requested by students because they desired attention from their teacher. Ms. Purple often
told the class, “I only swat you if I love you.” She later explained, “It’s a way of giving
them a hug in a publicly appropriate way.” One student agreed, “She swats you and it’s
fun. Swats are always great. It means she loves you.” MS. Yellow also gave her students
high fives for daily successes, telling them “See ya later alligator” as they left the

classroom.

41

How I Talk To You

In addition to deliberate physical movements and gestures, MS. Purple and MS.
Yellow spoke to their students in very purposeful ways, communicating at all times that
they cared about their students and wanted the very best for them, even when students did
not seem on top of things. Ms. Purple sometimes kept students at lunch for missing work
but also for misbehavior. During an interaction with several students that were goofing
off, Ms. Purple spoke to them with a caring tone:

I like you so much as human beings. I cut you too much slack. What I know for

sure is that you are very capable young ladies. Have the potential to do the

work to be successfiil. I want that for you. I hope that you want that for yourself

tOO.

Similarly, in an interaction with a student who frequently got in trouble, Ms.
Yellow reminded him of his potential, telling him, “Because you are going to be a
successful kid if you want to be or you can be the kid that you’re trying to be here.”

Minimizing Student Anxiety

MS. Purple and Ms. Yellow also tailored their language to minimize student
anxiety. For example, Ms. Purple kept a student after class to discuss her perfectionist
tendencies, aiming to build the student’s self-confidence after telling her that she was
being too hard on herself:

I need you to stop expecting to get a 4 every time. Do you expect yourself to be

(perfect)? I don’t expect... There’re some things you cannot get a 4 on...Were you

42

being too hard on yourself? Do you understand? Can you look yourself in the

mirror and say, “I’m all that?” Do exactly this. . .Aren’t you glad you can fix it?

At the end of this conversation, MS. Purple told the student that her personal
homework was to, “Be nicer to yourself.” Ms. Purple explained at a later time that she
called this student’s parents to tell them that she was worried that the student was being
too hard on herself.

Similarly, during a math quiz, I observed an interaction between a student and
Ms. Yellow, with the student becoming increasingly frustrated, telling Ms. Yellow
repeatedly, “I don’t understand”:

Student: I don’t understand this.

Ms. Yellow: Do you want me to read them to you?

Student responds.

Ms. Yellow: I can understand you’re frustrated and confused.

Ms. Yellow reads paper to Student.

Student: But I don’t understand.

Ms. Yellow continues to assist this student until he appears to understand the

problems.

Ms. Yellow quietly Spoke to this student, appearing to relax him. She later

explained that she communicated with him in an attempt to validate his feelings while

still helping him with the problems and providing him with more of a comfort zone:

43

You know, ok, I understand you’re frustrated. What are you frustrated with kind
of thing? If they can talk through it then usually I can help them work through it
or whatever. And I think I did there with that because I think he focused back on
to the quiz. A lot of times I’ll tell them, if they’re stuck on one and they’re

frustrated with it, lets skip it and go to another section. I

Similarly, Ms. Yellow also tried to alleviate the anxiety of a student with i.-

perfectionist characteristics:

 

I said if you start feeling that pressure here- let me know. You don’t have to act

that way or treat me with disrespect. Let me know. If you’re feeling

overwhelmed, you go get a drink or whatever.

Common Phrases

The endearments used by Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow reinforced the comfortable
and safe environments. While MS. Purple referred to her students as “Sweetie” or
“Honey,” Ms. Yellow, mostly addressed her students as “Bud” or “Buddy,” hoping that
would ease her student’s comfort:

I want them to feel comfortable you know —“Hey bud. What’s up?” You know

that kind of thing and not...Just the authoritative model. I am an authority figure

but I don’t want them to feel threatened or not comfortable coming to us so I think

that’s kind of how that comes into play.

I Want You T 0 Have Fun

Ms. Yellow and Ms. Purple frequently entertained their students with humorous

phrases and stories. After students helped Ms. Purple with a task such as locating

44

materials or giving information to another teacher, Ms. Purple jokingly told the student
that S/he was her favorite student. She reflected that while her intentions were good, she
had to be careful how individual students interpreted her sense of humor:

And they want to feel like their teacher likes them. And I use my sense of humor

in that way. And sometimes it’s effective and sometimes if the kids aren’t

cognitively capable of getting my humor, it doesn’t work. The most recent
example - when kids do a favor, “Oh you’re my favorite...” Sometimes the
humor I use is in the form of sarcasm and to make sure that type of humor is not
negatively received by children because they are at an age level where they get
those kind of jokes but it’s still my job as the adult to make sure it’s a positive and
not ever an embarrassment.

Ms. Purple also interjected humor in her lessons, especially in Language Arts. For
example, Ms. Purple’s students frequently sang songs about grammar, including nouns
and adjectives, with Ms. Purple even having the class learn through song the different
types of helping verbs. During one observation, in preparation for the upcoming test,
students sang the verbs endings in operatic and Kentucky voices. MS. Purple intentionally
used these dramatizations to fulfill her ultimate goal of emotional safety:

When it’s so unbelievably hard, they might build up a wall just to protect

themselves and so I have to be in the business of breaking down any wall that gets

in the way of their learning. And yeah I do. I think the music really lends itself to
it.

During a lesson on homonyms, Ms. Purple dramatized that she loved homonyms,

laughing as She provided an example of a student’s last name that was a homonym. Ms.

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Purple later explained that, “I hope that my enthusiasm will help them see the fun in
learning, but the love of the English language is sincere too. I love play on words. I think
it’s hilarious.” One student agreed, “I thought it was kind of fun doing the homonyms and
that stuff especially when we did homonyms, synonyms, things. . .writing them down.

Getting to know about homonyms, synonyms, and stuff better. It was fun.”

 

Ms. Purple also included dramatization throughout her lessons. After telling the E"
students they needed to use more details in their writing in early November, Ms. Purple
engaged the class in an enthusiastic reiteration of “Detail! Detail, Detail!” which
persisted as the “word of the year” throughout the school year. During one observation, 1

Ms. Purple discussed a short story with the class, encouraging them to tell her details
about the mushroom in the story:

Did you describe it? I want detail! Word of the year? Three Times. Detail! Detail!

Detail!

Ms. Purple later explained that she wanted the students to repeat the word without
being boring (e.g., “Say it loud. Say it soft! Kind of make it a game. I’ll ask them today-
what was the word for yesterday and see if they can tell me. I’ll tell them it’s the word for
today too. It’s the word for tomorrow. . .”).

Ms. Yellow also believed in the importance of humor, stating, “I want them to
think learning is fin and school is fun.” On numerous occasions, I observed instances of
Ms. Yellow’s humor. For example, following Mr. Black’s praise of the students during
Language Arts, Ms. Yellow teasingly told him, “We can just sit and eat bon bons.”
Sometimes when a student waved his/her hands to answer a question, Ms. Yellow

playfully asked him/her if s/he was an airplane.

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MS. Yellow also connected her humor to the day’s lesson. For example, after the
class read an article about teachers that study mummies, Ms. Yellow jokingly told her
students that she and Mr. James could be full time mummy hunters on the side, going to
Peru next week. During a graphing lesson, Ms. Yellow asked the class to say, “Skewed,”
telling them that it was fun to say. In Language Arts, while introducing a small group
activity, Ms. Yellow teasingly told the class that she and Mr. Black got tired of talking
because after a while it sounded like “Blah blah...” Similar to Ms. Purple, MS. Yellow
hoped that humor would facilitate a more comfortable environment: “But you got to keep
the humor, the fun into leaming otherwise they’ll shutoff.”

Both teachers possessed unique sayings and/or phrases, which appeared to
contribute to a positive class environment. For example, Ms. Purple exclaimed “Oh my
stars!” when something surprised her and added “aroni” as a suffix to spice up words
such as “duh” and “quiz.” MS. Yellow frequently praised her students with cheers of
“Woo hoo!” or “You’ve won the woo hoo award” and told her students, “Jeepers
creepers” when something surprised or amazed her.

Students in both Ms. Purple’s and Ms. Yellow’s classes appeared to appreciate the
humor of their teachers. For example, one student of Ms. Purple’s remarked, “She makes
it kind of fun so it’s pretty cool...” One student of Ms. Yellow’s shared that Ms. Yellow
was especially responsive to student’s needs:

And if someone was put down, she (would) try to like brighten up their spirits a

little more so they would be happier about their days through the school year.

47

 

Connecting and Reconnecting With Students

Both Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow developed caring relationships with the majority
of their students. Although Ms. Purple believed that She connected with about 95% of her
students (e.g., “And I believe that most all of them know how much I care about them
and their learning”), she admitted that she “didn’t get there” with some of her students.
Similarly, at the end of the year, Ms. Yellow contended that she established connections
with most but not all of her students.

Beginning of the Day Bonding

Home base was a perfect time for Ms. Purple to begin bonding with students
every morning. Besides informing students of daily events, Ms. Purple often asked
students in her home base about their lives such as “What can I do for you? Anybody
need anything?” Mr. B, how is your head?“ or “Do you have any concerns just for home
base stuff or life in general?” Because Ms. Yellow did not share a home base with
students, she made sure to connect with her students when she entered math class,
greeting them with, “Hi, how are you” or “What’s going on?” Ms. Yellow believed that
these connections were essential to student comfort:

Just in general I think being there and being supportive everyday is key with kids.

Greeting them in the morning and give them a chance to interact with you is big.

Personal Stories

Both MS. Purple and Ms. Yellow also developed relationships with their students
by sharing personal stories about their families. Ms. Purple frequently talked about
various family members to illustrate class examples, but also to build connections. For

example, during a Language Arts lesson on listening, Ms. Purple talked about her

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fourteen-year—old daughter pretending not to listen to her (i.e., engaging in selective
listening) and her husband being a very nice man with a great sense of humor.
Subsequent reflections of Ms. Purple exemplify how her family stories deliberately
connected to her ultimate goals of emotional safety:

I see the benefit of starting out lessons by providing examples of the relationships

within my own family. Using that technique just makes me more real to the

students. When I refer to my family or my colleagues, I’m very intentional about
putting those people in positive light. I know our (Student) right now is having to
go through counseling because of something with her dad. A lot of these kids
don’t have positive adults in their lives and so I try to make positive references
even if I’m playing jokes, you know, Sharing some information that’s not maybe
the prettiest, I try to do it in a very positive way to make a point. And for me, it’s
all about connections.

Ms. Yellow also incorporated her family life in lessons. For example, as the class
recreated the events of a story they recently read in language arts, Ms. Yellow Shared a
personal story, which connected to the main character’s life:

I had a pet that died. Her name was Samantha. I still miss her. Why is it a big deal

if her brother died?

In a lesson on “book choices,” Ms. Yellow shared with the class that She loved
reading children’s books to her children:
I still read. those books to my children. 1 like to read those books. If you would

come to my house, you would see tons of children’s books.

49

 

Sometimes Ms. Yellow modeled assignments for students, with examples from
her own life. For example, to help students with the survey project, She did a survey of
her own based on her family members’ preferences for ice cream. To introduce students
to the writing process, Ms. Yellow showed her students a paper she wrote for a college
course. Both Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow Shared stories about outings with their family
members and friends, who were often other teachers in their respective buildings. The
teachers shared such personal stories, as part of establishing student’s emotional safety in

the classroom, hoping to shape how their students viewed them via their personal stories:

 

Ms. Yellow: “1 think it is important getting the kids to think of us as people and

not just teachers. Like that we have a life. I have kids. (Mr. Black) and I are

friends. We Shared that we went on a trip together with our spouses. And I think

that they just see you in a different light then. Then it’s not artificial or

whatever. . .this is a place that you know you can feel comfortable in, we care

about you kind of feeling...”

Ms. Purple: “1 try to be a real human being to them. Telling them when I have my

ear infection. Not to whine and fuss but just to be a real person.”

I Really Do Care About YOU

The teachers also connected with the students by showing them that they cared
about them as individuals. Ms. Purple felt especially zealous about caring for her
students: “And every kid best feel like I like them a lot. They deserve that.” Ms. Purple
did everything possible to connect with individual students, even wearing glasses one day

to comfort a student with a new pair:

50

I think it’s the writing them thank you notes when they give you whatever they
give you, whether it’s Christmas or something. I write them a thank you note
because loving human beings treat one another that way. You know, just letting
(Student) know, I’m here for you if you need me. It’s about building relationships
with them as people. When I see them in public and especially now that my
daughter is their age —you know, speaking to them and that type of thing. Going
out of my way to treat like a human being that I enjoy being around. And it’s
realizing that (Student) wants me to say goodbye to him everyday even when he is
too shy to say it first.

MS. Yellow believed that letting her students know she cared about them was
essential to student success, “If they know that you care, they’re going to want to do
better for you.” When students returned to school after absences, she told them,
“Welcome back. I’m glad to see you.” When students struggled with tasks, she
encouraged them, “Do the best you can. That’s all I ask.” Ms. Yellow established caring
relationships with her students, keeping the needs of individual students in mind at all
times. For example, Ms. Yellow established a contingency contract with a student and
took her out to lunch several times throughout the year after she fulfilled its requirements.

For Ms. Yellow, caring about students meant being responsive to their individual
needs: “So there are different things that you’ve got to look at for different kids.” After
observing that a student did not write in his journal during writing workshop, Ms. Yellow
tried various tactics to reengage him such as looking at him, ignoring him, mouthing
“Please,” and standing near him but not talking to him. She later explained that she

eventually learned what he needed:

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And I learned with him, the more you’re on with him... He likes the space but if

he knows your expectation, he’ll give you effort and try with most of it.

MS. Yellow pushed students to do their best at all times. For example, in one
interaction with a student in social studies, Ms. Yellow looks at a student’s paper and
tells him, “This is not _’S best work.” After probing the student on several of the
concepts, MS. Yellow noticed his efforts, “Yeah. Very good. You got it.”

Establishing a safe emotional environment and caring relationships with Ms.
Yellow’s students facilitated academic connections, especially in language arts:

And I do believe that we’ve connected with the kids at a different level where

they’re comfortable, they want to write for us. . .And I think just making that

connection with the kids and the fact that they’re comfortable, that it’s a non-
threatening environment where we’re going to encourage them...
Celebrating Student Accomplishments

Caring about their students translated into celebrations of student
accomplishments. Both Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow recognized the successes of their
students with positive phone calls home throughout the school year. Ms. Yellow
sometimes rewarded the whole class for various successes (e. g., completion of
homework, good behavior) with pizza parties, movies, and free time. Ms. Purple
celebrated successes with whole class praise (e.g., in the beginning of one reading class,
for example, she told the class that She “want(ed) to celebrate a little bit,” telling them she
was thrilled reading their detailed comments in their recent papers on Roll of Thunder,

Hear My Cry.

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Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow also recognized individual student successes. Ms.
Purple considered the individual needs of students when celebrating successes:

And so I can’t always determine what that will be for different kids but I just try

continually when they have done their personal best to #1 be aware of it. Make it

public if and only if public is meaningful for that child. Because we all know how

 

that can be embarrassing instead. And then do whatever I can to make it special so a?
it’s a memorable moment on their journey. .. ’
MS. Purple recognized individual students in a variety of ways. For example, Ms.

Purple frequently chose a student to do special errands for her, aware that this student did '

not establish any close fiiends the entire year. Knowing that another student aspired to be
an author, Ms. Purple made sure that she was editor of the school magazine, even though
that student was not in her home base. Wanting to recognize the efforts of several
students who volunteered during lunchtime, Ms Purple gave them first dibs on the new
book orders.

Similarly, Ms. Yellow celebrated the successes of individual students, especially
when they exerted effort on challenging assignments. In one math class that I observed,
Ms. Yellow assisted a small group of students on a central tendency assignment:

Ms. Yellow: I’m not sure where each of your understanding is. Work on some

problems to see where you are at.

During this small group time, Ms. Yellow walked around the classroom, advising
and praising students as they worked through the problems:

Ms. Yellow: Which one are you doing? What do you have to do first?

Student responds.

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Ms. Yellow: How did you come up with this answer? You did a great job! (She

pats student’s Shoulder).

Towards the end of the hour, MS. Yellow spent some time working with one
student, asking him questions about his thought processes (e.g., “Is there a number you
see the most?” “How do you find the mean?” “When you find the mean, what do you
do?”). As the student successfully solved the problems and seemed to understand the
concepts, Ms. Yellow cheered him on, “You got it! Woo hoo! I’m excited!” “You didn’t
think you’d ever get this. Go boy! Go!” Even after Ms. Yellow dismissed the class, this
student continued working, asking Ms. Yellow, “Do we have to stop?”

Ms. Yellow’s excitement about this student’s successes was related to her
knowledge about the challenges often experienced by this student:

That’s just pride coming out. I’m so happy for him. All the effort he gives. . .I

mean, some kids, it comes so easily to them and everything he struggles with.

He’s just a book with his cover opened up. Right now, he’s letting us fill it up. So,

hopefully we can keep this trend going and we don’t overwhelm him too much

where it shuts him down. But, he got the right answer and he did it himself and
just saying “Go boy go” just sounded appropriate.
Academic Comfort

Academic comfort was essential to the emotionally safe environments created by
Ms. Yellow and Ms. Purple. As both of these teachers aspired for their students to feel
comfortable academically, they made particular decisions to ensure the academic comfort
of their students. Both of the teachers relayed messages to the students that demonstrated

that they cared about academic comfort. After introducing the lesson on fractions, for

54

example, MS. Yellow told the class, “You may not know a lot about them now. I
guarantee you’re going to be much more comfortable.” Similarly, in the introduction to
homonyms, Ms Purple asked her class to “Say (the words) aloud” because she thought
using that strategy would make the lesson easier for the students. Ms. Purple believed that
this strategy promoted student’s academic comfort:
I frequently coach them to read their work aloud. Read it aloud. And so I try to
get them to feel comfortable with their own voice.

Choosing Particular Students

 

Both Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow intentionally chose students to answer questions
based on their awareness of their learning needs. For example, in the beginning of a
social studies class, Ms. Purple intentionally chose a student to answer a question because
she knew he could answer this question:

It started with (student) who isn’t a shining star of the classroom, behaviorally or

academically, so I used him as an example to reinforce to him- my golly I did

something right and tried to make him the shining star for the moment.

Ms. Purple later shared that she wanted all of her students to feel like “stars” but it
was sometimes difficult: “The challenge for me is having an environment where every
kid can be that star sometime.”

Similarly, MS. Yellow intentionally called on a student to answer a question in the
math warm up based on an awareness of the student’s insecurities and because she knew

she could do it:

55

I picked that question and picked her to do it for a reason, just for that, because I

knew she could do it and it was going to prove to her she could do it. Because she

is the type that would sit there quiet and not do any of her math warm-up.

Modifying Expectations Based on Awareness of Student Needs

Both Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow modified their expectations, attuned to the
emotional needs of individual students. For example, after noticing that a student was
extremely self-conscious about her language arts paper, MS. Yellow quietly coached the
student, reassuring that she could improve her paper:

Student: I want to make sure it’s good.

Ms. Yellow: Oh. Ok.

(Ms. Yellow reads the paper quietly).

Ms. Yellow: Who’s “her” here?

Student: Matilda

Ms. Yellow: Ok that might make it stronger, to start it outwith Matilda instead of

her.

Ms. Yellow: Can you give me a specific example about how her family treated

her poorly?

Student: They didn’t care about her feelings.

Ms. Yellow: Give me an example that they didn’t care about her feelings.

Student: Well she wanted to learn how to read and they didn’t get her...

Ms. Yellow: That’s a great example. Did you see how I mean? We need to get

specific. And that gets me all excited about it!

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Ms. Yellow also used the Signals that she received from this student to determine
when she should call on her to answer math problems, knowing that this student felt
uncomfortable answering math problems when she doubted her academic capabilities:

She doesn’t want to be called on if She’s not getting it. I can tell by the look on

her face where she’s at with it. And I know when not to call her (and) when I can

call her.

By comparison, Ms. Yellow recognized the difference between students who were
paying attention but needed emotional support from her and students that needed to
engage in the lesson:

And other students you know they’re not getting it but they’re not paying

attention so you’re going to call them out on it, “Hello?”

Similarly, consistent with Ms. Purple’s attention to the “learner as a total human
being,” She modified her lesson plans and her expectations for participation based on the
emotional needs of her students. For example, after learning that two of her students, who
experienced many emotional difficulties, would probably participate in class if she
worked with her peers, MS. Purple modified a social studies reading assignment so it
could be done in small groups. AS I observed the students working in small groups, I
noticed that the aforementioned students appeared engaged in the activity. Also, one of
the student’s peers encouraged the student to be even more engaged by telling her,
“Come on. You can read more than that.”

Unique Ways to Establish Academic Comfort by Teacher

Ms. Purple: "Stretch but Not Stress. ”

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__'""‘"'_T

 

Although I observed similarities in how the teachers established academic
comfort in the classroom, some differences existed. MS. Purple, for example, maintained
the motto, “stretch but not stress.” Although she set high academic standards, she
believed that She needed to “stretch them, not stress them beyond comprehension.”

The language of caring emphasized in the beginning of the year continued

throughout the year. For example, during a school-wide power outage, Ms. Purple

.. gnu-31"IIM

reassured a student, “You’re not to worry about the homework. We’ve had an

interruption and you’ll be okay.” To illustrate a text-self connection, at the end of a

 

language arts lesson, Ms. Purple told her students just how much She cared about them:

I’m probably one of the most challenging teachers here. It could be

misunderstood as I’m mean and don’t care where truthfully I want you to learn

and have big opportunities. I care about kids. I love kids more than most. I go at
this job in a gang busters way.

MS. Purple later reflected, “And I give the kids the blanket, if you ever don’t
know what’s going on, come to me, I’ll take care of you.” When Ms. Purple noticed that
several students were in danger of having the same headline in a current events
assignment, for example, she reassured them, “It’s okay. Whatever you brought, you get
to talk about it. No matter what anyone else says, ” adding that, “I’m in the business of
solving problems. It takes a bigger problem than that to throw me for a loop.” Similarly,
as students began constructing a number book of Central America in social studies, Ms.
Purple assured them that, “The instruction I’ve given you today will take care of
everything you need to know for this project.” A couple of minutes later, she told them

exactly what she expected, ”Some top quality projects with a lot of creativity.” MS.

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Purple’s communication to the students reflects her ultimate goal of emotional safety
balanced with high expectations:
And what I am seeing and hearing from parents is that kids are worried because I
tend to set the standard pretty high and I do tend to go at things in an aggressive
manner; the downside is your good, conscientious kid can get stressed out. It’s my
responsibility to take care of that. I have got to make sure they are ok. So I try to
use particular language to help students fix their own problems (e.g., These are all

the different ways you may have handled this task). To make it emotionally safe I

 

to share. . .80 immediately I wanted to intervene, using that same language, solve i

a problem, not a problem because we can solve the problem and take care of the

emotional safety of the kids in the classroom.

Ms. Purple used the “stretching” language with her students. For example, for the
end of the year book club, She told them they had to read a book they did not think they
would like, stretching them out of their comfort zone; “I’m stretching you. . .Expose
yourself to a new genre. You can either be a sponge or a rubber band.” When Ms. Purple
anticipated student stress, however, she comforted her students. For example, after being
absent for a couple of days, Ms. Purple acknowledged that her students might be feeling
“nervous” about handing in an assignment. MS. Purple reassured the class, “Whenever I
change the rules, it’s never going to hurt kids.”

Ms. Yellow: Choose What Works for You

Consistent with Ms. Yellow’s hopes for establishing an academic comfort zone in
the classroom, She advised her students to choose strategies that fit their particular needs,

especially in math class. During a graphing lesson, for example, Ms. Yellow informed the

59

class that they were going to make a histogram, telling them that they could make a
frequency graph if they felt more comfortable with that. Ms. Yellow subsequently told
the class, “I’m going to go through exactly what you have to do.”

In several interactions with her students in math class, 1 observed that Ms. Yellow
told students to pick problems with which they were most comfortable. For example, in
the beginning of the year lesson on central tendency, Ms. Yellow encouraged a struggling
student to pick the problems that he felt the most comfortable solving. Similarly, later in
the year, after a student told her that he could not “do” division, Ms. Yellow told him that
he could skip a couple of problems:

Student: I hate division!

MS. Yellow: What would make it easier?

Student: I can’t do it! Even when my parents explain it, I don’t understand it.

MS. Yellow: I’ll do you a favor. Skip #2 and #8. I want all the rest done.

Ms. Yellow shared with me that it was important to establish a comfort zone to
combat students’ frustrations:

So I always tell them, pick the one that you’re most comfortable with first

because sometimes that will trigger the other ones. I think he’s somewhat

embarrassed because he didn’t do them all... But you know, you did the ones you

were comfortable with. That’s the key to start with. Get comfortable with some

and then we can add a little bit more.

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Ms. Purple and 1119. Yellow Establish Emotional Safety in Different Ways

While both Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow emphasized the importance of student
emotional safety and seemed to agree on the definition of emotional safety, some
differences emerged in how they established emotional safety or a comfort zone in their
classes. While both teachers did establish connections with their students, I observed
more attempts by Ms. Purple to connect with student’s emotional needs and more
attempts by MS. Yellow to balance connections with students’ thought processes and
personal lives.

Ms. Purple ’3 Emotional Connections

MS. Purple, for example, explained that she tried to connect with every student
every day (i.e., “I really try to either physically or verbally connect with every kid every
day every class”). While her connections were deliberate and purposeful, the outside
observer was not always aware of them. For example, in an introduction to a language
arts lesson on listening, Ms. Purple began the lesson with dramatizations of “Can you
hear me now?” and humorous anecdotes (e.g., being a former cheerleader). Ms. Purple
ended the introduction with a humorous quip after telling the class that there was no way
for absent students to make up the lesson. After telling the class to be glad that they were
there today, she pauses and whispers, “Oh I am, Ms. Purple.” The class then recited, “Oh
I am, MS. Purple.” Ms. Purple jokingly told the class to “Say it like you mean it” and “Oh
we love you...”

Ms. Purple later Shared that she deliberately Spoke to a student during that

introduction based on previous conversations with his father:

61

That was my comment to (Student). You know I had that conversation with your
dad, your dad and I are a team, and you know then sometimes the joke is we’re
ganging up on you but the bottom line is, we’re a team. And I want you to be
here. I’m SO glad you are here today. You couldn’t learn this if you weren’t.

Ms. Purple’s sensitivity to student’s emotional needs was especially present in
difficult situations. For example, after learning that a student could not afford materials
for a research project, MS. Purple gave her the materials during lunchtime, telling her,
“And honey, you know the word—advocate. It’s take care of yourself and whenever you
need something, you let me know.”

Similarly, upon leaving for a doctor’s appointment in the middle of the school
day, Ms. Purple made sure to say goodbye and comfort a student who was experiencing
many emotional difficulties:

When (Student) was in detention and I had to leave and she was in the office

saying, “I just want to be dead. I just want to be dead.” I went to her and I just

said, Honey, I wish I was going to be in class today because then you could come
with me. I said, but I have to leave but I hope I see you tomorrow.

On numerous occasions, I observed Ms. Purple speaking quietly to a student in
the hall after behavioral troubles occurred. For instance, after reprimanding a student for
teasing her, Ms. Purple made sure to reconnect with him after school:

It was quite the teachable moment about how that hurt my feelings and how

whenever. . .I said, I am a human being too and just that. But then I reconnected

with him after school. I said, honey, you do feel bad for having said that. I can

tell. And I said, don’t worry about it. It’s Ok. I just wanted to let you know that it

62

did hurt my feelings. But it’s ok. So, reconnecting, letting him know but also
making the standard in the classroom —we’re not teasing anybody because we all
deserve better than that.

The language used by MS. Purple was especially instrumental in how She
connected and reconnected with students. After an incoming substitute confessed that she
was wonied about a student disrupting the class, Ms. Purple asked this student to leave
the classroom, telling him in a positive manner, that he needed a quieter place to work:

Substitute: B might be a problem.

Ms. Purple: Let’s take care of it now.

Mrs. Purple calls the office: He’s not in trouble. He just needs a quiet place to

work.

As mentioned previously, although Ms. Purple did not believe that she connected
with every student, she did her best to connect with all of her students, purposefully
connecting with students who did not think she liked them. For example, Ms. Purple
confided to me that when one of her students perceived that her teacher did not like her,
Ms. Purple intervened; “So you know I just go out of my way to —oh can you help me,
and oh. . .so now she thinks she’s my Shining star.” Ultimately, Ms. Purple hoped that all
of her students would see that they were “shining stars” in her classroom because of how
much she tried to Show them that she genuinely liked and cared about them.

Ms. Purple’s strong commitment to student’s emotional needs was driven by her
beliefs about the role of educators as “bridge builders,” asserting that her students were

only “eleven years old and they shouldn’t be expected to handle it all on their own.”

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Ms. Yellow ’3 Personal Connections

Ms. Yellow believed that personal connections with her students were essential to
the learning process:

But I think if you’re really going to get every student to be able to learn, you have

to know how that student learns and how they perform and what’s going on in

their life just so that you can connect with them and make that distinction in there.

Ms. Yellow frequently connected with students’ personal lives to engage them in
class material. For example, in social studies class one day, she encouraged the students
to discuss their parent’s employment in order to understand the concept of labor. Ms.
Yellow later explained that once the students connected with the concept, they were
engaged in the activity:

And I think almost all the kids in there wanted to share what their parents did. If

those kids didn’t even make those connections among themselves... just talks

about who works for (company) and what their parents did... once they made that
connection, they were totally engaged in that activity.

Ms. Yellow connected with individual students by expressing genuine interest in
their personal lives (e.g., “Oh you’re on the basketball team. That’s great” or “Oh you’re
playing the flute. How’s that going?”). These personal connections facilitated a variety of
interactions with her students, including the frequent individual conferences she held with
students to discuss math assignments or writing in language arts. In these conferences,
Ms. Yellow communicated with her students about their academic challenges, within the

context of a supportive environment:

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And I think just making that connection with the kids and the fact that they’re
comfortable, that it’s a non-threatening environment where we’re going to
encourage them and we’re not going to candy coat it because we told them that.

When we conference with you, I’m not here to say, “Oh this is the best writing.”

I’m looking at here to critique it to see where we can make it better.

After observing Ms. Yellow consult with several students during a language arts
conference session, I walked around the room, conversing with several students
immediately following the conference, curious about their reactions to the conference. On
my way to speak to a student, another student stopped me and asked me about my own
experiences in middle school. After we talked briefly about middle school, this student
professed that she thought high school was going to be easy. Interestingly enough, Ms.
Yellow had shared with me that initially, this student, who had a learning disability, felt
extremely self-conscious about her paper in the conference, but then loosened up as the
conference progressed. In another conversation, a student told me that although he was
not finished with his paper, he knew what he had to do. Based on previous conversations
with Ms. Yellow, I knew that this student (who also had a learning disability) did not
frequently engage in class material because it was so difficult for him.

Ultimately, MS. Yellow’s personal connections with students encouraged
academic connections. AS MS. Yellow expressed interest in student’s personal lives, she
remained sensitive to their academic struggles. Consequently, many of the students in

Ms. Yellow’s class felt comfortable in their learning environment.

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Summary of Results: Emotional Safety

Both Ms. Yellow and Ms. Purple emphasized the importance of establishing
student emotional safety in their classrooms. The teachers addressed emotional safety in
the beginning of the school through introductions, routines, and the development of early
relationships. As the year progressed, Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow remained committed to
emotional safety by being highly aware of and responsive to their student needs. While

some differences emerged in the particular ways the teachers responded to their student’s

_n.r.-n v u. 3

needs (i.e., Ms. Purple’s emphasis on emotional connections vs. MS. Yellow’s emphasis
on personal connections), both Ms. Yellow and MS. Purple implemented practices and
communicated in ways that reflected their concern for student’s emotional needs in and
out of the classroom.
Goal #2: Importance of Student Mastery and Valuing of Academics

Both Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow adamantly hoped that their students would
achieve mastery of academic Skills and content, as well as value their academic
endeavors. Upon walking into MS. Purple’s classroom, students entered a “Learning
Zone,” as exemplified by the bright poster hanging on the door that greeted them. Early
in the school year, Ms. Purple proclaimed, “That’s what I want your #1 goal for Sixth
grade to be-- to learn.” MS. Purple also frequently reminded students to value what they
were learning. MS. Purple’s “All about me” stated, for example, “Obviously I value
education and love to learn.” Similarly, Ms. Yellow constantly asked her students to
Share what they learned in class work and on homework assignments. Also, during the

school year, Ms. Yellow modeled the importance of life-long learning by Sharing

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personal examples and stories from her own college-level work and life, and hoped to
encourage student pride and ownership by posting student papers throughout the cluster.
Achieving Mastery Is Possible In My Classroom

Opportunities to “F ix It”

In both Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow’s classes, students received endless
opportunities to improve upon all of their assignments. As Ms. Yellow relayed, “They
could always redo any of their work if they needed to.” Ms. Purple’s classroom
procedures guided stated, “It is my goal that all skills are mastered by every student. That
may mean that from time to time an assignment may need to be redone. Always feel free
to check with me about this if you are concerned.”

Ms. Purple provided “fix it” opportunities for her students, hOping that they would
ultimately feel good about their efforts: “If they can fix it, that’s where I want them to go,
leave school feeling successful, feeling like they’ve done it and they’ve done it well.”

Ms. Purple set up this policy because of her strong desire to balance emotional safety
with high quality student work. As students completed a social studies test packet, Ms.
Purple confided to me, “The beautiful thing is they can fix it. They don’t always
remember.” She later relayed a similar message to the class, “Oh my sweet children
loveable ones. A lot of people didn’t do it. . .Tomorrow I will let you correct anything
that’s wrong. How many people does that breathe a sigh of relief?” The entire class raised
their hands. Ms. Purple further told the class that she wanted them to “prove” to her they

knew the information.

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Ms. Purple sometimes reminded students of opportunities to improve their work.
For example, in a reminder prior to a social studies lesson, she maintained her hopes for
student mastery:

Remember one of the classroom procedures. Sometimes you’ll get assignments

back and you won’t be really happy about it. Don’t be so hard on yourselves. You

don’t have to do perfect in 6’h grade. You have to be getting better, right? You

have to be learning more and more. You have to be trying your hardest, right? But

be okay with yourself. If you mess up, be willing to fix it. And I’ve had some

people say, “Can I do this again? Can I fix my problem?” Sure.

Ms. Purple let her students know that she appreciated their extra efforts to
improve upon their work:

No matter how much work it takes, you’re willing to put in the effort it takes to do

a good job.

Modifying Lessons To Meet Individual Student Needs

Both Ms. Yellow and Ms. Purple periodically changed their lessons and activities
to meet the needs of their students. For example, after observing that the majority of their
students struggled with paragraph writing in the beginning of the year, Ms. Yellow and
Ms. Black decided to “return back to the basics” in writing and spend three days
conducting individual conferences with students in language arts. After discussing the
conferences with the students, Ms. Yellow told the class, “I’m going to make sure you get
it. My job is for you to understand it.” Ms. Yellow believed that she needed to modify her

instruction at times to reach more of her students:

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To really make that work, you either got to do individual, small group or split the
class up because at that point, the whole instruction wasn’t reaching everyone so
you got to break that up or decide a different learning pattern for them so that
maybe you can reach it with them.

Sometimes Ms. Yellow modified lessons based on a small number of students.

For example, when Ms. Yellow could not gauge several of her students’ understanding of

a math concept, she decided that she needed to work with them individually in a small

group:

I also know that I don’t like to end the lesson (when) I don’t feel like the kids got
the concept at all either and that drives me nuts all night like in my mind, what are
we going to do tomorrow to recapture that? Or you know figure out what they
were doing.

Ms. Yellow constantly checked her students’ understanding, believing that lesson

plans were not set in stone:

When a teacher brings to me their plans from years and years and they follow the
same plan book then they are not looking at the individual needs because you can
NOT. . .It’s not that easy, it’s not that cut and dry, you know I did this on this day
last year so these kids will be ready for that. . .because the kids come in with
different backgrounds and what teachings they’ve had and what teachers they’ve
had and you know experiences... I always evaluate, how did that go? Do I need to
re-teach something on that before I move on?

Ms. Yellow was extremely aware of how her students learned, using that

knowledge to support students as they confronted academic challenges. For example,

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during a small group math activity, Ms. Yellow questioned students based on a strong
awareness of their individual learning needs. For example, MS. Yellow posed questions
and used strategies (e. g., drawing squares to represent percentages and folding the paper
to focus the students on similarities in the process) that were specifically tailored for the
visual learning needs of three students:

They’re all visual learners so they need to do those written examples, concrete

examples written on the board. They couldn’t even just come up with it on their

own so that’s why I needed to prep them a lot or question, probe, just to get the
info from them without me just telling them. Because it would have been much
easier, much quicker if I would have just said, you do this, this, and this and show
me how to do it. Then you do it. But then they wouldn’t have gotten it.

Ms. Purple also modified lessons, activities, and assignments based on the needs
of her students. Sometimes Ms. Purple used mini lessons to reinforce and re-teach
reading strategies. For example, after observing that students did not understand the
language arts story prior to a writing assignment, MS. Purple reminded them of several
comprehension strategies and asked the class to reread the story because, “They are going
to help you understand the story and (are) almost like prewriting.”

Ms. Purple also modified the class schedule to provide students with additional in
class time to work on various projects. Similarly, Ms. Purple modified due dates of
assignments after unexpected disruptions occurred (e.g., substitute teachers, snow days).
MS. Purple also modified the timing of novels based on her previous experiences with

them. For example, Ms. Purple chose to spend the beginning of the year on Where The

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Red F ern Grows instead of Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry because it was much easier for
the students.

Ms. Purple also modified instruction based on individual student needs. For
example, instead of scolding a student with severe emotional difficulties for not doing her
work, Ms. Purple tried to make it easy as possible for her to succeed (e.g., asking her
probing questions during round circle discussions, providing her with several ideas for
the explanatory essay presentation). Similarly, after one student asked if she could read
magazines for her at home reading assignment because she enjoyed them, Ms. Purple
agreed, telling her that she had “great respect for a student and a mom that wants to be
honest.” Ms. Purple confided to me that she remained mindful that this student was
reading novels in her classes:

I know she’s having to read Roll of Thunder for my reading class. I know she’s

having to read a book for book club in language arts. If She chooses to read

magazines for that 20 minutes at home, I want to be okay with that. And so I said,

“Yes”...

Explicit Strategy Instruction

Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow taught a variety of strategies and constantly insisted
that their students used them. Ms. Yellow explained that strategies provided students with
“skills that they’re going to use throughout their life.” MS. Purple frequently reminded
her students of the benefits of strategies (e.g., helping them write better, understand a
story better), explaining that they sounded “intelligent” when they used various
strategies. Both of the teachers modified their instruction based on the guidance of

another research project, which emphasized comprehension strategies. Ms. Purple, for

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example, attached cards with all of the strategies (e.g., visualizing, building on
knowledge, making predictions) to the ceiling of her classroom, often asking her students
to point to the strategies they used.

The teachers questioned their students about the strategies they used across all of
their classes (e.g., during a math lesson, Ms. Yellow praised a student for using a
particular strategy, “That’s an excellent strategy,” asking the rest of the class what
strategies they used (e. g., “Did anyone do it a different way?”). Likewise, during a
reading lesson, Ms. Yellow instructed, “Your job is to write down the sentence when you
found it in the book. What strategy can we use to do that? Similarly, in preparation for a
language arts essay, MS. Yellow, for example, asked the class, “What would be some
good strategies when writing a rough draft?” Also, when Ms. Yellow introduced a
partnership activity in language arts with the nearby Kindergarten class, She informed the
students, “You guys are going to be these K buddies role models for reading. What are
some strategies you can show them? Finally, in social studies, MS. Yellow encouraged
her students to use the comprehension strategies when they took notes from the textbook.

At the beginning of most reading classes, MS. Purple read aloud a couple of pages
from a novel (e.g., Bud Not Buday, Hollis Woods, Because of Winn Dixie), modeling the
use of comprehension strategies to students:

Ms. Purple: Are you visualizing what (character) looks like right now?

Ms. Purple: Do you guys have Christmas ornaments at home?

Several students respond.

Ms. Purple: What did you just do?

Student: Make a connection.

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Ms. Purple: What type of text am I reading?

Student responds.

Ms. Purple: Are you kind of glad that I didn’t blame. . .are you kind of getting an

idea? Building some knowledge?

To prepare the students for a language arts reading assignment, Ms. Purple
questioned them about the comprehension strategies they discussed earlier that week
(e.g., “Tell me in your own words, what does it mean to visualize when you’re reading?”
“What does it mean to be evaluative?” “What does it mean to make connections?” “What
does it mean to preview?”). After the students practiced the reading strategies
individually, Ms. Purple asked students to Share the specific strategies they used while
reading the play in their language arts textbooks (e. g., “What’s a reading strategy and
how did you use it?”).

Similarly, in preparation for a social studies reading assignment, Ms. Purple asked
her students to tell her what reading strategies they could use while reading from the text.

Ms. Purple: “What’s an effective reading strategy for when you have a

textbook?”

Student: Skim and look for bold words.

Ms. Purple: Do it now.

MS. Purple: What’s another textbook reading strategy that you should put into

place?

Student: Read captions.

Ms. Purple: Look at the captions and study them.

Ms. Purple: What’s another strategy?

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Student: Reading the questions at the end.

Ms. Purple: Go there. Kind of helps you. Do you know any of the answers?

Both of the teachers communicated to their students that strategies would benefit
their learning. Ms. Yellow shared with her students: “I want you to be the best writers
you can be. That’s why we’re working on these strategies.” As Ms. Purple instructed
students to re-read a story in language arts, she told her students to, “Add more
strategies:”

MS. Purple: You have to have the reading strategies. They are going to help you

understand the story. Almost like prewriting.

Student: It was hard to do strategies.

Ms. Purple: Do the best you can. I’m doing this to help you understand the story.
High Quality Work

Connected to their hopes of student mastery, both MS. Yellow and MS. Purple
demanded high quality work from their students. After conferencing with a student in
language arts, for example, Ms. Yellow asked him, “You tell me if that’s your best work.
You think about it. Give me more sentences and then tell me if it’s your best work.” At
the end of a revising and editing session in language arts, Ms. Purple asked her students,
“Are you going to have a good quality product for me tomorrow? Make sure you tell me
you were here today. Apply what you learned.” Both of the teachers valued student
efforts (e.g., “It’s important that you do your best effort;” “Do the best that you can”)
Evidence of Mastery

At the end of the school year, both Ms. Purple and MS. Yellow were reluctant to

quantify the learning of their students. Ms. Purple simply said, “But what I do know is I

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know my kids.” Throughout the school year, Ms. Purple examined how each of her
students progressed in a variety of Skills. Ms. Purple also questioned the validity of
standardized test scores, preferring her knowledge of student growth:

But I question some of the validity of that. I know they grow in my own analysis

on their writing ability as they progressed through the year in their own portfolios

that are now in the hands of their parents.

Similarly, MS. Yellow preferred the daily accomplishments of her students as
evidence of their learning: “I do believe that their daily work to me is more important
than what they can always accomplish on a test or an assessment at the end of an unit.
Because on a daily basis if they’re able to accomplish. . .because so many kids freeze up
on those tests and that but they know so much more than what they can Show you
sometimes on that given day.”

Both teachers monitored the progress of their students throughout the school year:
MS. Purple explained, “The things that I am noting that they are learning and that they are
doing well on are part of the written curriculum of (District) public schools. Ms. Yellow
remarked, “Progress 1 mean on individually, it’s the same thing when you’re monitoring
or looking how you’re going to pace the whole lesson for the whole group. You have to
look at their needs on that basis and try to figure it out.

Stories Of Individual Student Growth

Both of the teachers shared stories about the growth of individual students in their

classes. Ms. Purple, for example, reflected on a conversation with student who was

extremely hesitant to read in the beginning of the school year:

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My mom never has to ask me if I’m going to read anymore. And I’m so proud and
my mom’s so proud of what a good reader I am. It took her from September to
December to get through The Black Stallion and now she’s devouring books.
Individual students also appreciated being in MS. Purple’s class. For example, late
in the school year and even the following school year, individual students informed Ms.
Purple that they were reading more than ever before and reading a variety of new genres.
During the following school year, former students visited Ms. Purple to chat about novels
that they read in her classes. Prior to the next school year, the siblings of former students

also requested Ms. Purple as a teacher.

MS. Yellow also shared a story about successfully building the confidence of a
student who would not even attempt most math problems in the beginning of the school
year:

All those things that we talked about in math when you’re doing problem solving,

what’s the question so they can focus in on it. So I mean those are the kind of

things I can see as a teacher what she’s learned. Compared to what she did at the
beginning wouldn’t even attempt.
Examples of Student Progress

Students in both classes progressed throughout the year on a variety of skills. For
example, MS. Yellow administered a grade-level standardized test to her students at the
beginning and at the end of the school year to ascertain her students’ grth in math. On

six of her students’ tests, all Six of the students increased at least two grade levels in

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computational skills and problem solving, with some students increasing four grade
levels in those areas.

Students in Ms. Yellow’s class also perceived that they progressed in language
arts, as evident by their end of the year portfolio reflections:

Student #1: I have improved most on my Spelling and punctuation.

Student #2: My biography because I haven’t got any mistakes on my paper.

Student #3: I think I have improved the most on spelling and topic sentences.

Students’ parents affinned the student reflections in Ms. Yellow’s class. For
example, one student concluded, “I have done very good at progressing in my paragraph
form and topic sentence form.” The parent of this student similarly believed her child’s
strengths in writing included, “Creativity and paragraph structure.” While another student
was especially proud of a book cover that she had created for Where The Red Fern
Grows, she knew that she needed to still work on her “Spelling and grammar.” The parent
of this student agreed that her child continued to struggle with “punctuation, paragraph
structure, etc...”

In Ms. Purple’s class, students wrote an end of the year essay, highlighting their
successes and challenges. Several students discussed their improvement in reading and
writing:

Student # 1: I exceeded in becoming a better reader. I was stuck (with) one type of

genre, realistic fiction. I am now reading all types of books.

Student #2: With the help of (MS. Purple) and (Resource Teacher), I have become

better at writing. From recognizing verbs and all those good English terms, to

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writing essays. Writing is a bit more easier for me now than it was back at the
beginning of the year.

Student #3: But for every book we read we had to write a letter about it. That was
a great success and helped us understand that there is more to reading than

enjoying the book.

Other students shared success stories in social studies:

Student #4: My biggest success this year was my edible Central America map.

 

(Student), (Student), (Student), and I all got 3’s and 4’s.
Student #5: Another success is Core Democratic Values. I liked CDV before but
now I love it and this really really helped me express my true feelings about

common good.

In an end of the school year reflection of the language arts portfolio, the parents of
Ms. Purple’s students also observed growth in their children in a variety of skills:

Parent #1: Reason and distinguish between words. This “growth” can be

measured on her interest to ask about “why’s” and “how’s” and how others judge

people.

Parent #2: Describe what she is writing about creatively.

Parent #3: Communicate a particular point.

Parent #4: Be able to express herself on paper.

One parent was especially pleased with how well his daughter could write. He

observed growth in her ability to: “Tell a good story. It was interesting to see her apply

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the life lessons of others to her own experiences.” After reading her son’s portfolio,
another parent understood, “Why he didn’t like to read before and why he enjoys it now.”
This parent perceived that her son grew in his ability to “express his feelings more on
paper and his ability to write poems.”

Connection between Mastery and Value

Consistent with the sixth grade curriculum’s emphasis on foundational Skills (e.g.,
in language arts, the students were expected to understand and use the steps of the writing
process), the teachers hoped to instill a foundation of knowledge in their students. Both
Ms. Yellow and Ms. Purple envisioned the foundation as the building blocks of learning:

Ms. Yellow: “With the deal with learning is building blocks you know. It’s just

like you know a toddler. . .building up your building with those building blocks.

Get your tower higher and higher in some sense.”

Ms. Purple: “1 see it as building blocks and I have to find out where they’re at and

take them on regardless of where they’re at.”

The connection between instilling a foundation and the value of learning was
obvious for both of the teachers. For example, during math class, MS. Yellow modeled a
sample collection report for the students to show them what they needed to include in
their own report. Ms. Yellow explained that she hoped to build a foundation for
paragraph writing because she did not “feel like these kids have a foundation of what a
good essay looks like.” Ms. Yellow further reflected:

And so I think that’s those building blocks that they need. . .if we start them in 6’h

grade and if they build on to them 7th and so on, they’ll have that foundation for

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whatever career, whatever life plan they’re going to, that they can at least write a

good paragraph and those things.

Ms. Purple sometimes spoke to her students about “big time learning,” telling
them, “Truthfully, I want you to learn and have big opportunities.” During a prewriting
exercise in preparation for a biography writing assignment, for example, Ms. Purple
encouraged her students to devise higher-level questions, “I want you to go bigger folks. I
think we need to ask some why questions.” Building a foundation was consistent with

MS. Purple’s desire for student valuing of learning:

 

I’m thinking I want to give you the foundation so that you have every opportunity
for every choice that you would so desire.
Learn It Forever!
The Value of Learning
Both Ms. Yellow and Ms. Purple believed that they needed to convince their
students that what they were learning was worthwhile:
Ms. Yellow: “That’s the challenge. To make it. . .that they got to value it so they
think it’s worthwhile doing.”
Ms. Purple: “1 want them to realize that what we are doing here in this room for
6th grade applies to other learning that they’re going to do, whether it’s in other
classrooms. That what we do isn’t just because I said. I want to attach value to
what we’re doing.”
Both Ms. Purple and MS. Yellow regularly communicated the value of lessons to
their students in various ways. Ms. Yellow emphasized the importance of lessons by

repeatedly telling her students that they were important (e.g., “I really think _ is

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important” or “This is one of the most important things”). Sometimes, Ms. Yellow
conveyed to her students that she hoped they would remember a lesson forever. For
example, after questioning students on the five themes of geography, Ms. Yellow
concluded, “Hopefully, now and forever, you will be able to tell the five themes.”

Ms. Purple emphasized the value of learning to her students. For example, during
a word study lesson on synonyms, she informed her class, “These dittos help us learn as a
group. The real value is your own writing.” Ms. Purple also frequently told her students
to “Learn it forever.” After a lesson on capitalization, for example, she told her class,
“This is not something you learn for this ten minutes. You learn this forever. When you
go to seventh grade, I want people to know that you know how to capitalize...” After
noticing that a student did not capitalize a proper noun on a map in social studies, Ms.
Purple told him to “Fix it and you’ll learn it forever.”

There is a Purpose

MS. Yellow and Ms. Purple attempted to convince their students of the value of
lessons by informing them and/or questioning them regarding the purpose of activities.
Both teachers posed questions to their students such as, “Why are we learning this? Why
is this important? Why do we need to know this?” “Why in the world do you think I have
you do this?” What are you learning in _ today?” Ms. Purple reflected on her
intentions for students understanding the purpose of learning:

I’ve been much more intentional making sure children know why in the world

we’re doing this. What I don’t want them to simply be are trained circus animals

that do it because I say so. I want them to understand the purpose for the tasks that

I’m asking them to do.

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Ms. Purple conveyed the value of the activity by reminding students of the
purpose of the activity. For example, during a social studies group project, Ms. Purple
reminded students of her “learn it forever” motto:

Ms. Purple: What’s my goal for you as social studies students?

Student: Learn about Central America.

II“

Student: Geography.
Ms. Purple: State benchmarks. . ..Westem Hemisphere. I hope this is enjoyable so

you might learn it (pauses) forever. What?

 

Class: Forever!

Sometimes the teachers questioned students about activities or lessons from
previous days to emphasize the value of them. For example, after conversing with the
students about a bar graph lesson fiom the previous day, Ms. Yellow asked the class to
recall the purpose of the lesson:

Ms. Yellow: Why did we do that yesterday?

Student: Comparing graphs.

Ms. Yellow: Exactly. Interpretations and conclusions.

The teachers also communicated the purpose of the activities to emphasize the
importance of them, hoping to convey to students that the activities would help them
learn. For example, when Ms. Purple asked the class why they were studying
capitalization in world study, she explained, “Because, in your writing you’ve done for
me, you’ve shown me that you don’t know...” Similarly, after discussing folktales with
the students, Ms. Yellow asked the class to share their thoughts regarding the purpose of

this discussion:

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Ms. Yellow: What’s the point of us doing this? Why do we do this activity? Why

do we care about folktales?

Student: Learn about different parts of story.

Student: Learning about different genres.

Ms. Yellow: Excellent. What are we going to do next? Don’t you have to know

the parts of folktale to write our own?

During a vocabulary lesson in social studies, Ms. Purple conversed with several
students about the importance of learning vocabulary and keeping lists of vocabulary in
their binders:

MS. Purple: Why in the world do you think I have you do this?

Student: In December we don’t remember a word, we can look in binders and it

will be there.

Student: Maybe it’ll be on the test.

Ms. Purple: Oh.

Student: Later on in the future.

Student: For reference.

Student: Keep it forever.

MS. Purple: Why do you think I ask you to write key word?

Student: Learn.

MS. Purple: It helps you learn and understand.

Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow Especially Value...
Although Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow both highlighted the value of lessons to

their students, they expressed their preferences for particular values. While Ms. Purple

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emphasized classroom time for learning and the importance of life-long reading, Ms.
Yellow connected lessons to the real world.

Ms. Purple ’s Emphasis on Classroom Learning Time and “Read Forever! ”

MS. Purple was especially passionate about learning and communicating the value
of learning to her students. MS. Purple, for example, pledged it was “All about the
learning” and “Nothing can interfere with the learning.” For example, although MS.
Purple allowed her students to use the restroom from time to time, she did not provide her
students with a daily break.

Five minute breaks everyday for a 180 school days based on six hours a day

makes you waste two and half days of school a year so that everybody can go to

the bathroom and get a drink at the same time. I’m not willing to give that time
because there’s too much learning to be done. I don’t have a kid fussing to me
about that. I have kids who need to use the restroom from time to time and we
make way for that...

Ms. Purple also adamantly desired for her students to enjoy reading and writing.
For example, Ms. Purple told her students, “If I do anything for you this year, I want you
to fall in love with reading and writing. That’s my goal.” In the weekly book club,
students in MS. Purple’s class conversed about books and wrote letters about the books
they read to Ms. Purple and to their peers.

Ms. Purple made it clear that She would not tolerate students who disrupted
reading time; “Remember reading time is not a time we can waste time. It’s hard to give
you reading time when I get requests such as, “Can I go to the bathroom?” No, this is

sacred.”

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Ms. Purple’s message of “Read forever” persisted as the school year progressed.
In the last week of the school year, for example, Ms. Purple posted “Read forever” on the
assignment board for language art’s homework. After reading the assignment, several
students remarked, “I will read forever.” Similarly, Ms. Purple signed all of her student’s
yearbooks with a simple message, ”Read forever.” Finally, on the last day of school, Ms.
Purple provided her students with a “summer passport to reading,” instructing her
students to share their summer reading experiences with her.

Parents believed that Ms. Purple’s love of reading transferred to their children.

 

One parent commented that her daughter now enjoyed reading for pleasure. This parent
noted that her daughter “finally discovered the joy in reading a good book, rather than
looking at it as a chore.” Similarly, another parent claimed that her daughter regained her
“love of reading” again after losing it with a previous teacher.

Ms. Yellow '5 Connections to the Real World

Ms. Yellow regularly connected lessons/activities to the real world, especially in
math class. For example, in the “Fraction Hunt,” the students searched the classroom for
examples of fractions (e.g., based on the number of teachers in the room, the number of
bookshelves, the number of students, etc. . .). Ms. Yellow highlighted the importance of
fractions in the real world:

You don’t realize fractions are around you all the time. Raise your hand if you

like to shop? Believe me. These are going to be the most important lessons you

need to know. These are life lessons. Ladies and gentleman, you are going to be

the experts.

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Following the lesson, a student shared with me that she now saw fractions
everywhere!

And when I saw stuff around me, there was lots of fractions to fit the board that

she gave us, that she gave fractions on the board. And then um, I started looking

around out the classroom and I saw five people talking and one person um going

_—

at their locker. And I was going to write that but it had to be in the classroom so. ..

Another student appreciated the utility value of the lesson, as he thought about

MS. Yellow’s introduction to the fraction hunt.

 

Yeah and I think they are because you can use them in a whole bunch of different

jobs and stuff so they could kind of help you later on in life.

Ms. Yellow also frequently connected math lessons to student’s everyday lives.
For example, when the students needed to solve a money problem, she asked them to
raise their hands if they babysat, discussing the connections between babysitting money
and the problem. Similarly, in the percents lesson, Ms. Yellow talked about sales and
how students could find percentages off their favorite clothing and apparel. Students in
Ms. Yellow’s class also computed percentages from a restaurant menu.

MS. Yellow’s connections to the real world extended to social studies class. For
example, after watching an economics video, MS. Yellow questioned her class about the
natural resources used by the school. Ms. Yellow frequently connected class material to

the real world, even when She did not originally plan extended discussions about concepts

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such as the division of labor as related to the labor of the student’s parents, believing that

these connections were essential to student engagement and ultimately lifelong learning:
So I mean the kids need to be connected what also engages their learning...
Because content is important but you also need to teach the strategies and make
those connections with them because they’ll be able to use those strategies

throughout school and life hopefully.

an _I— "1 al.,

Summary of Results: Mastery and Value

Both MS. Yellow and Ms. Purple frequently communicated the importance of

 

 

student mastery and valuing of academics to their students by acknowledging the Skills
that students were learning, as well as the importance and purpose of class material.
While many similarities existed in how Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow expressed their hopes
for student mastery and valuing of academic tasks, some differences emerged in what the
teachers valued. For example, Ms. Purple was especially passionate about her love of
reading and transferred this love of reading to many of her students. In comparison, Ms.
Yellow regularly made connections between academic material and lessons to the real
world, communicating to students that what they were learning was representative of the
real world.
Goal #3 .' Striving for Participation, Especially Self-Regulated Participation

The final result concerned the teachers’ desire for their students to participate, or
to engage in the classroom. The teachers believed that engagement, or participation was

necessary to their students’ successes:

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Ms. Purple: “What is my ultimate goal- that they’re engaged academically and
growing from where they’re at because where they have to go in the state of __
is so huge.”

Ms. Yellow: “If you have them actively engaged in learning, they can do
anything. . .”

In addition, MS. Purple and Ms. Yellow expected their students to become self- I
regulated participants in their learning. They expected the sixth graders to assume

responsibility for their behaviors and for their learning.

 

It’s Worthwhile to Participate

Both of the teachers believed that it was necessary for their students to feel like it
was worthwhile to participate in the classroom. MS. Purple pointed out the benefits of
participating to her students, “Everybody needs to participate because when you do
participate, you learn more and class is a more fun place to be...” Ms. Yellow
communicated to her students that their participation in the lesson would aid their
understanding, often asking her students, “Are you with me? I want to make sure
everyone understands.” Ms. Yellow perceived that student attention was essential to
student understanding; “At least I know if I have their attention then they have a half
chance of getting what I’m trying to say.” Ms. Yellow also believed that her students
would engage only if they perceived not only the value of particular lessons or activities
but also the challenge of them:

So the assignment needs to be challenging to them so they see it as worthwhile

and it’s challenging their brains so they want to engage. Because kids won’t

engage if they think it’s too simple.

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Encouraging Self-Regulated Participation
Monitoring and Evaluating Your Efforts
Both Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow expected students to regulate their behaviors.
In Ms. Purple’s class, students regularly monitored and evaluated their own and their
peer’s efforts. For example, in language arts, Ms. Purple asked students to evaluate the
“picture adjective” assignment using the grading guide before they turned it in:
Now using your rubric, look at your poster. Look at the third column of the rubric.
Put a “X” by what you think your poster deserves. . .next look at column. . .put a

“X” where you evaluated your paper. . .Switch with a partner. Evaluate your

 

partner’s paper. On their rubric, put your initial just like we’ve done in social

studies. . ..

Students in both Ms. Yellow’s and Ms. Purple’s classes also reflected on their
academic progress in their portfolios. For example, following a district writing
assessment, MS. Purple’s students reflected on their strengths and possibilities for
improvement. Ms. Purple advised her students to, “Learn from the comments. Set your
goals for improvement. And you should have one goal be including details.”

Similarly, in both language arts and math, Ms. Yellow’s students periodically
completed portfolios throughout the school year, assessing their strengths, goals for
improvement, and attitudes towards their work. MS. Yellow believed that the portfolios
encouraged students to value their work because of the reflective opportunities.
According to MS. Yellow, portfolios were necessary to the student’s development as

learners: “(They) cannot move on until they know what they’ve learned.” Since students

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had to Share their reflections with their families, it is possible that students valued the
portfolios in and of themselves:
Ms. Yellow: “Because it’s got to be a full circle. That these kids got to know that
we are doing it for something besides just for themselves. But to show what they
know for the parents too.”
These portfolios encouraged the students to reflect upon Specific assignments as
well as their skills. In an end of the year language arts portfolio, one student of Ms.

Yellow’s reflected, “I am most proud of my biography because I worked very hard on

 

it. . .I need to work on punctuation and creativeness the most.”

Fixing Your Problems

Both teachers expected their students to fix their own problems. Ms. Purple, for
example, purposefully used the “fix it” language to encourage student self-regulation:

They can fix it. And I try to use that language —- that you can fix it... And often

times they can fix it all on their own, whether it’s writing themselves a note or

seeking adult intervention.

For example, Ms. Purple instructed her students to write a note to remind them as
they edited and revised a language arts paper: “If you don’t have four paragraphs, write
on your rough draft the number of paragraphs that need to be added on. Write yourself a
note.”

MS. Yellow also hoped that her students would develop self-regulatory skills now
to prepare them for the future. For example, after modeling elements of a math project,

Ms. Yellow asked students to share their “plans for the next two days”:

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Instead of telling them, I’m starting to ask them. You know, what’s a good plan?

What’s going to work for you? And then kids can get ideas about what their plan

is for doing their assignment or whatever instead of the teacher telling them. . .. I

mean, they’re getting into secondary school now and there’s a lot more projects

and things that they have to orient themselves. With that you always cannot wait

until the last minute to do.

Acting Responsibly

Both Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow believed that students needed to convince them
that they were responsible despite challenges. MS. Yellow encouraged students to take
ownership over their learning, when they answered problems in class. For example, when
Ms Yellow instructed students on the math homework, she asked them, “Raise your hand
when you think you understand and tell me in your own words when you understand how
to do...” After explaining directions to the whole class, Ms. Yellow checked if students
could tell her the expectations for that day.

Ms. Purple also appreciated responsible students, especially when they handed in
late homework assignments:

I’m going to call for late work. I know some of you are trying to be responsible

because there was such a wealth of it yesterday.

Both Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow expected their students to assume responsibility
for their own learning even when they confronted parental challenges to the process. MS.
Yellow, for example, discussed how a student’s parent wanted her to write everything in

the student’s agenda everyday because he did not know what was going on in class. In

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her conversation with the parent, Ms. Yellow shared that she did not think he would learn
responsibility for his learning if she took care of it for him:
I’m doing him a disservice if I do that... he’s got to take ownership in his own
work. . .he needs to start taking responsibility for his learning because if he doesn’t

do it now, who’s going to have him do it next year you know...

Ms. Yellow maintained the utility value of assuming responsibility in sixth grade:

So hopefully the work habits we’ve created will follow them on to high school.

You know, filling out your agenda, organizing your folder. When the teacher says

to be here and sitting on your seat and being prepared, that they will be ready to

take that on to junior high then high school, college or whatever job they are
going on.

Similarly, Ms. Purple expected her students to assume responsibility for their own
learning despite obstacles. After learning that a student did not have his language arts
assignment, for example, Ms. Purple communicated that she expected him and his dad to
be responsible:

Ms. Purple: What about a Friday folder for reading?

Student: Don’t got one.

Ms. Purple: Do you think your dad would get you one?

Student: Yes.

Ms. Purple: Let’s write him a note. Not going to do him any good if he doesn’t

have assignment.

Student responds.

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MS. Purple: What’s in it for me?

Student: I don’t know.

Ms. Purple: What do I want?

Student: The paper.

Ms. Purple: So do you think it’s worth it for me to give you another one?

Student: Yes.

As the year progressed, however, MS. Purple’s expectations for student
engagement changed. Towards the end of the year, in particular, MS. Purple expected her
students to assume more responsibly for their learning. For example, during a language
arts note taking lesson, Ms. Purple informed her students, “This is the middle... no, this
is the end of sixth grade and you need to be responsible for writing down some of these
statements yourself and not have me tell you everything.” Ms. Purple also realized that
her students desired more responsibility. For example, at the beginning of a daily oral
language exercise, Ms. Purple hoped to encourage participation when telling her students,
“This is about your only chance to tell me what to do. So I would think lots of hands
would be up in the air to tell me what to do.” Ms. Purple’s hopes for student
responsibility motivated her remarks: “I try to encourage. I try to go from their point of
view. And what I know is that 11 and 12 year olds are trying to break away from adult
control so that was my first comment, “This is your chance to tell me what to do,” just
perceiving that they would LOVE to tell an adult what to do.”

It ’s What You Choose To Do

Both of the teachers believed that the students could and should solve their

academic and behavioral problems. Ms. Yellow and Ms. Purple conversed with their

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students about the “choices” they possessed based on their observations of student
behavior. For example, when students disrupted class, Ms. Yellow reminded them of
their choices (“Can you make a good choice please;” “Come on, make a good choice,

bud”), believing that the Sixth graders were developmentally ready for the language of

 

choices:
Especially at middle school level because choice is starting to become everything. I
And they’re coming at the age where they get more choices now.
Even when Ms. Yellow reprimanded her students for being disruptive in the '

hallways, she reminded them of their choices:

This is the last time I’m going to hear about it. . .not being responsible like Sixth

graders like I know you can. I will not hear about it again or there will be a

consequence. If you think that’s a choice you want to make...

Ms. Yellow believed it was truly up to the student whether or not S/he chose to
engage in the classroom. For example, throughout the year, Ms. Yellow struggled to
engage one of her students. This student was consistently off task in all of his classes and
typically sought the attention of classmates around him. Ms. Yellow tried a number of
tactics to engage him (e.g., moving his seat, monitoring him). Ultimately, Ms. Yellow
maintained that she could best help him after he chose to engage, “When he wants to be
engaged, we can engage him.”

MS. Purple also spoke about student choices in the classroom, sometimes noting if

individual students were not making the right choice during a class activity (e.g., “This is

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not a choice”). Similarly, when Ms. Purple asked her students to follow along in a read
aloud, she told them to “Choose to listen.”

Ms. Purple also encouraged students to “fix” their behaviors, “Some of you need
to be better listeners now. What can you do to help yourself now?” There’s a problem
with the chattiness in this classroom that I won’t tolerate. It’s not my problem. It’s your
problem. Fix it.”

MS. Purple used the “fix it” language, when speaking to individual students about

their off-task behaviors. For example, following a language arts lesson, Ms. Purple

 

 

informed several students that they needed to fix their inappropriate behaviors:
There are some things that are problems. I want to tell you about them so you can
fix them. Am 1 mad at any of you? No. Do I like every one of you? Yes. There are
a couple of you that I am starting to get displeased with. Do you know how to fix
the things I’m talking about? What are you going to do about it?
Ms. Purple relied on the “fix it” language to address a variety of student problems.
For example, after instructing students to read a novel for the rest of the class time, She
reminded them of their responsibility as learners:
I don’t have the ability to fix your problem if you don’t have (your) book. I’m

going to do my work and you’re going to do your work.

AS the students read quietly, MS. Purple whispered to a student, “You need to be ‘

responsible and bring your materials.”

Communicating That You Must Take Ownership

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As part of encouraging self-regulated participation, the teachers expected the sixth
graders to take ownership over their learning. Both Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow made
deliberate decisions to promote student ownership. For example, Ms. Purple shared that
in addition to serving an introductory purpose, students presented their “All about me”
presentations throughout the year because she wanted them to obtain some ownership in
the classroom. Similarly, Ms. Yellow proudly displayed the students’ social studies
projects in the hall because she knew that, “They just love to see their work on display. It
really does make a difference.”

Having an audience encouraged student ownership, as it promoted student pride.
Ms. Yellow shared that a student did his best work on a social studies project because he
wanted to make his parents proud of him:

Well they are doing a family coat of arms. It’s firnny (student) I should show you

some of his handwriting. You cannot read it half of the time. He doesn’t take the

time or whatever. You should see his coat of arms. Because we said that we want
to make your parents proud, your family proud. His printing on there, if I didn’t
see him do it, I would have asked him, “You know, who wrote that for you? But
just the difference. They take ownership in it.

To encourage ownership, the teachers Spoke to their students in particular ways.
For example, MS. Yellow frequently conferenced with individual students in language
arts. When Ms. Yellow questioned students about aspects of their paper in these
conferences (e.g., “Okay, tell me how occupation was valued in Roll Of Thunder Hear
My Cry “If that would help you the most...Whatever I can do. . .Whatever you think

would help you the most”; Do you want me to start at that paragraph? Where do you

96

 

want me. . .”), She communicated in deliberate ways, hoping that her students would
assume ownership over their learning:
With the individual conferencing with the kids, it’s like you’re probing. You
know. You try to start an idea for them but you want them to finish it so it’s their
idea, so they remember it and take ownership of it because you know I could

(have) easily on that paper scratched off and wrote Logan’s and then...

Ms. Yellow knew that simply telling her students what they should write would
not advance them as learners:

Because otherwise if I write it on their paper for them, that’s not showing them

anything either...

In comparison, as with behavioral problems, Ms. Purple communicated to her
students that they could fix their academic problem. For example, aS Ms. Purple
introduced a revising and editing session in language arts by discussing the “pitiful” test
scores of the district, She made it clear that the student could fix their own problems with
reading and writing:

Kids in (district) cannot read and write. I worry for you as my students. That’s

why we do what we do with reading and writing. You need to read and write

better than you do. The good news, this is what we’ve been asking you to do.

Personal responsibility iS exactly what you need to do. Have you done that? You

have a final paper due tomorrow. What do you think we’re going to do first? Step

1, I want you to underline what we call your position statement...

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While Ms. Purple hoped that her students would assume some responsibility in
their writing, she also reassured them that she would support them:

So I wanted once again to be real serious. I want to be upfront and honest, but

then I want to provide the help. And that’s what I tried to say there. I was very

upfront to how serious it is and my concern for them but it’s not hopeless. But I

want to let them know they have to put the work in it. It won’t happen by

accident. And I can do my part but I tried to get them to want to be the learner, to

want to grow.

 

The majority of the students that I spoke to assumed responsibility for their i
writing after hearing about the district’s test scores:

Student 1: “l was thinking that we Should. . .I didn’t know we were doing that

bad. I never got that __ before so I try a lot harder and that luckily never mind

about that we didn’t take the (test) this year. But still we should be trying to do

our best. Like um keep filll attention and do your hardest on school stuff.”

Student 2: “Um, Wonder why like everyone we are all scoring differently. Am

like wondering if I’m scoring poorly.”

Student 3: “Well, um, I was kind of like shocked because I didn’t know that and

like I was surprised we were doing so bad and I’m just trying. . .I’m going to try

my best to do the writing how teachers want it and stuf .”

One student was especially sensitive to the recent news concerning the district’s

ICSI scores:

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Student 4: “I thought she was thinking of me. . .I thought she was speaking of me
because I had trouble with sometimes so I thought she was speaking of me and
probably some kids in this class that has troubles like me so. . .”
The Culture of Self-Regulated Participation
Self-regulated participation occurred according to the requirements of the
classroom context. Both Ms. Yellow and MS. Purple defined how students needed to

participate as they established certain routines and identified appropriate behaviors.

I'm-10“.. "I: an?

Attention to Classroom Routines is a Prerequisite to Participation

 

Student participation needed to occur within the context of classroom routines.
Hopes for student participation and ultimately, student engagement motivated the
everyday phrases and routine activities used by Ms. Purple and MS. Yellow. Both of the
teachers solicited student attention by regularly asking their students to “Focus” or “Give
me your eyes” or “Put your pencils down.”

Daily warm-ups in Ms. Purple’s language arts class and Ms. Yellow’S math and
social studies classes communicated to students that they needed to begin class
immediately after they entered the room. Ms. Purple was convinced that these daily
routines encouraged student participation and engagement by setting up students for
success, or the “position of success,” telling her students, “You will know what to do if
you focus and listen.”

Acting Like A Learner

The sixth graders needed to prove that they were learners in the classroom at all
times. Ms. Purple, for example, constantly reminded her students to sit up and act like

learners or “work harder,” especially when she noticed otherwise. For example, when

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She noticed that several students were off task during a reading class project, she
approached them, “How can I politely say I want you working hard and talking less?”
MS. Yellow similarly instructed her students to act like learners, reminding them of their

tasks (e.g., “That is your job right now” or “__, you Should be getting started”). Prior to

a quiet work session in social studies, Ms. Yellow reminded the class of the expectations:

Ms. Yellow: What type of work environment do we want in here?

Student: I’m going to sit here and be quiet.

Ms. Yellow: That would be a nice goal.

Positive Ways to Encourage Student Participation

Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow relied on mostly positive tactics to encourage student
participation. Both teachers expected students to raise their hands at all times (e.g.,
“Raise your hands. I would love to have a conversation;” “Please don’t make comments
when your hand is up”). Ms. Yellow typically invited her students to participate in the
discussion by asking them to “Share their responses.” Ms. Yellow also encouraged
students to participate in discussions by praising their capabilities. For example, during a
language arts lesson on topic sentences, Ms. Yellow asked a student if she could “Say it
nice and loud” because she had such a great voice.

Ms. Purple also repeatedly joked with her students to spark their attention in the
lesson. For example, after noticing that only several students volunteered during daily
oral language (DOL), Ms. Purple remarked, “Oh I got slim pickings today. Anything you
all could do about that?” Similarly, after the class chorally read directions in a language
arts lesson, Ms. Purple teasingly told them, “You can bore me too” and had the class re-

read the directions with more enthusiasm. After noticing that several students were

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If 'H P. HI—

 

slouched over their desks during a language arts discussion, she told them that they
“needed to take their naps somewhere else.” Subsequently, the majority of the class
raised their hands to volunteer. Ms. Purple believed that humor worked well because the
students understood it:

You know, try to use a little humor there. That makes sense to kids. You can’t

".. “nu-W

take a nap in class...
Both teachers reminded the whole class and individual students of appropriate on- '*_

task behaviors. For example, when the class seemed especially chatty, Ms. Yellow simply

 

remarked, “I shouldn’t hear all these voices please” or “There Should be no chit chatting.”
Ms. Yellow sometimes questioned individual students, “Are you with me? You look like
you’re distracted” Both Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow reminded students of behavioral
consequences when they talked in class (e.g., ” Keep talking and you’re going to be at
lunch with me. There’s no talking”), or when they were not prepared for class (e.g.,
“Where’s your letter? I get it tomorrow or lunch detention”).

Ms. Purple also did not tolerate students engaging in distracting conversations
during and between lessons and reminded students at times to “Stop blurting out.” After
observing that the class was especially talkative when transitioning to the next activity,
Ms. Purple informed the class, “Hard working sixth grade students do one thing and the
next thing without interruption, because I keep going.” Ms. Purple often reminded
individual students of appropriate on-task behaviors, “J, you may start reading like the
rest of the people in the class.” Sometimes, Ms. Purple admitted to her students that she
communicated in clever but polite ways to encourage their attention (e.g., It’s going to be

advantageous if you don’t be the chatty class today, which is another polite way of saying

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“Shut up.” I find clever...” or “Don’t make it harder on me by not being in your seat,
which is a polite way of saying sit down”).
Recognizing Student Participation

Both teachers appreciated the participatory efforts of their students, often praising
them (e.g., “Great job” or “Thank you”) for their on-task behaviors. For example, Ms.
Yellow cheered her students with “Woo hoos” when they were prepared; “That whole
back table—woo hoo!” Similarly, MS. Purple remarked, “Oh golly, yes! You are so on
the ball” when students turned in an assignment. Also, during a whole class discussion in

social studies, hoping to reinforce the class routine of paying attention to her students, |

 

Ms. Purple exclaimed, “You are focusing your attention on one another. That’s
wonderful!” Sometimes, Ms. Yellow’s students received rewards for participation. In
reading class, for example, during “Tootsie roll talk,” students received a tootsie roll
when they participated in the discussion; “If you’re participating in here, you get a tootsie
roll. Really simple, really easy to do."
Awareness and Responsiveness of Individual Student Needs

Although Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow agreed that on-task behaviors were
indicative of student engagement, they maintained that the requirements of self—regulated
participation in the classroom depended upon the individual needs of their students. The
teachers constantly monitored individual students and modified their expectations based
on the needs of their students.

Monitoring Individual Students

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Both of the teachers monitored student engagement by walking around the room
checking on student progress. Ms. Yellow, for example, believed that this constant
monitoring was essential to good teaching:

I think you just got to be aware as a teacher, and if you’re going to be a teacher

that’s going to make a difference, you cannot sit at your desk especially when

they’re working. You need to be monitoring. Even if they’re sitting there (and) it
looks like they’re working. If you’re not peeking over their Shoulder every a little

bit then you know you’re concerned.

Similarly, MS. Purple constantly walked around the classroom to connect with
individual students but also to make sure they were engaged in the task:

So, I want them all to feel liked, but I also believe the proximity and their level of

expectation not just for behavior but for staying engaged for being on task, I just

want them to never know where I might Show up next. And it’s definitely not
sitting behind my desk.

The teachers also carefully observed their students’ reactions to tasks, as
indicators of engagement. Ms. Purple, for example, tried really hard to read her student’s
non-verbals for emotional reactions: “1 think their posture, their eyes, their faces
communicate so much and so if they’re doing, “Oh this is so stupid” kind of thing,
attention from the teacher is warranted.” Similarly, Ms. Yellow regularly scanned the
room to check student understanding:

Even if you don’t have them write it down or say it, you’re either making

observations or a verbal quick check with them or even just looking around the

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room and seeing if you’re getting those blank stares or not. Or, are they engaged

with you?

Lack Of Engagement Is Strongly Related To Lack Of Student Understanding

Both of the teachers recognized that a lack of understanding sometimes prevented
students from engaging in lessons:

MS. Purple: “1 do know that some of the reason for lack of participation was

because they really didn’t get it...”

Ms. Yellow: “It’s sad but it’s the ones that are most academically challenged that

you know I don’t know if they get frustrated sometimes so they’re off task. We

see lots and lots of that.”

Both teachers reflected that the students they identified as “disengaged” were
often off-task and struggled with academics the majority of the time. Consistent with
their commitment to individual student needs, Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow fi'equently
conversed with “disengaged” students about their lack of engagement, hoping to refocus
them and assist them with their struggles. Although the teachers hoped that their tactics
would encourage self-regulated participation for all of their students, some of their
students remained consistently off-task throughout the school year.

Tailoring Questions to Individual Student Needs

Knowing that students achieved different levels of understanding, both of the
teachers relied on different types of questions to encourage student engagement. Ms.
Purple believed that it was necessary for her to ask many different kinds of questions, to

encourage student participation:

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And I really believe the effective educator can ask a variety of levels of questions
to enable every kid to participate. And I think that’s my burden. To make sure that
I structure my class so that every kid has a chance to raise their hand and offer a
winning answer... If I want every child to participate, I have to level my
questions and that type of thing so that every child has the ability to provide an

answer.

MS. Purple, for example, deliberately chose particular students to answer certain
questions during the language arts daily oral language (DOL) because she knew that they
could answer them:

The beginning questions of DOL, for example, everybody knows. You need end

punctuation. And everybody knows the first letter needs to be capitalized. And so

when a bizillon hands are going up right at the beginning of the DOL exercise, I

pick on kids that probably can only answer that piece.

In a Similar sense, Ms. Yellow, recognized that she needed to ask higher-level
questions to sustain the engagement of some of her students:

And sometimes that might be more intellectual with him with the conversation

that I have. Maybe not on the subject that we are doing but ask him. . .he’ll be

talking about something, “My mom was buying airline tickets on there and it said

it was 45% off. The ticket was $269.. .”so he was talking about how much would

that be. So we talked more about it at that level but we are still talking about the

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concepts. . .but it’s going to be at a totally different level than with (Student). I just

think engage them and I think it’s true with all kids.

Making Connections is Necessary to Student Engagement

Both teachers agreed that the connections they established with their students
facilitated student engagement. Ms. Yellow knew that her students needed to feel
“valued” as human beings:

They think they’re important if they’re spoken to or whatever. And even when

I’m questioning in the class, I always try to look around. Not even the one that’s

off task but the one’s that kind of sitting back, you know coasting that day. “Hey

haven’t heard from you today you know what’s going on?” Just to make that

simple connection sometimes because you can just read them. You can read them

just by their face.

Similarly, in an introduction to a language arts lesson, Ms. Purple teased her
students as she shared personal stories about her family and popular culture:

Ms. Purple: Anybody watch much TV?

(A couple of students raise their hands).

Ms. Purple (laughs): Yeah liars. That’s not very nice to say. I bet you do.

Student: I watch...

Ms. Purple: Have you seen this commercial? (Pauses and walks up to several

students) Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?

Several Students: Yeah. Yes.

MS. Purple: Do you know that one?

MS. Purple: Well, could it be a better lead in for this next unit of study?

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Later in the lesson.

Ms. Purple: My husband. He’s a very nice man. Some of you know him. Some of
you in fifth hour social studies met him because he came in as a dad. And that
joke I did, he does those kind of jokes all the time. And you know what, I laugh
every single time. I love that.

Ms. Purple: Kids I could whisper (whispers), I would like to give you a hundred I 7
dollars to do some sort of shopping. (In normal voice) And I’m telling you I’ve
got a 14 year old almost 15 year old that would hear me if I whispered that

downstairs and she was upstairs in her bedroom with the music blaring. She

 

would hear that. And by golly She would definitely choose to listen (in unison) to
it. Now I could be up in the hallway outside her bedroom door and say, “L, it’s

'9,

time to go. Come on! Come on! We’re running late And she might not hear me.
(Class laughs). Do you get it? And if you’re honest, you play those same games.
Ok here we go. Too bad for you. I know all the tricks. (Class: Aw). Ha! Ha! The

famous evil laugh of the teacher.

Ultimately, MS. Purple hoped to establish connections with her students:
80 the whole thing about listening is connecting. This isn’t just for at school. This
is for home too. And so just building those bridges so that they can make
connections so their learning is more meaningful to them.

Differences in Ms. Purple ’s and Ms. Yellow ’3 Beliefs about Participation
Although both of the teachers similarly recognized the importance of student

participation and ultimately, self-regulated participation, they possessed unique beliefs

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about how students should participate in the classroom and the tactics they needed to use
to encourage such participation. For example, Ms. Purple did not allow passivity in her
classroom and used dramatizations to facilitate whole-class participation. In comparison,
Ms. Yellow relied upon her knowledge of student understanding to determine the
guidelines for classroom participation.
Ms. Purple ’s “No Passivity Allowed in My Classroom ”

Ms. Purple did not allow her students to sit back and be passive in the classroom:

But when I present it to the whole group, there was too much passivity and I

needed to inspire that right out of them. . .I can’t tolerate passivity in the

classroom. . .I also know that too many kids in the whole educational system are
allowed to be passive learners. And when they are passive learners, they are not as
effective as. . .I’m passionate about that. They’re not as effective. They don’t learn
as much when they’re allowed to be cute and quiet in the classrooms in this
district perhaps or across America...

For example, after realizing that her students could not hear each other when they
spoke, early in the school year, Ms. Purple decided to have her students stand when they
responded to questions. Ms. Purple desired for her students to perceive that, “The
accepted environment of the classroom is to participate. And it is the “cool” thing to do.”
MS. Purple also frequently used choral responses to spark student engagement because:
“The unpredictability of that piece keeps them on their edge a little bit because if
everybody else is saying something, by golly, you ought to say it.”

Ms. Purple made it explicitly clear that students needed to participate in the

lesson. During a language arts lesson, for example, Ms. Purple told her students that she

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could not have parents calling her, telling her that she did not like their kids because She
did not call on them in class; “I can’t be having that, so I’m going to call on everyone no
matter if hand is raised or not.” After asking the class to share their connections to a
reader response activity, Ms. Purple told them that she was looking around to see who
has not spoken yet because she did not want anyone to go home and tell their parents that
she never called on them. Throughout the school year, Ms. Purple made it clear that she
expected her students to participate in class discussions, noting when students were not
participating in the activity (e.g., “I love those raised hands. Beware if you don’t raise
your hand, I’m going to call on you anyway so it’s in your best interest to participate”).
MS. Purple also monitored the participation of individual students and let them know
when they needed to participate. For example, during a social studies discussion, Ms.
Purple remarked, “I’m worried some of you are getting overworked. Some of you I’m
looking for an answer.”

When students did not participate in class discussions, Ms. Purple adjusted her
expectations. For example, after noticing that several students never received an
opportunity to participate in round circle discussions during reading class, MS. Purple
reminded students of the expectations while restructuring some of the requirements for
participation:

Everyone needs to participate. You can’t. . .don’t just call on the same person. I

guess I was trouble shooting what I know what kids tend to do. Some kids would

tend to not participate. Some kids would tend to call on the same loud mouth over
and over and over. And that’s not our idea. I tried to set the parameters and give

ideas of what they might talk about.

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MS. Purple’s orchestrated whole class participation, hoping to encourage student
participation when it may not have otherwise happened. For example, Ms. Purple
purposefully used dramatizations to “Make it exciting for the kids,” hoping to combat the
challenges to student learning: “When it’s so unbelievably hard, they might build up a
wall just to protect themselves and so I have to be in the business of breaking down any
wall that gets in the way of their learning.” Ultimately, Ms. Purple hoped to unify
students in her classroom as they strived for the same goals: “But the big idea that we’re
all unified, we’re in this together, we’re doing something together for a common goal, for
a common purpose, I think can still happen.”

Ms. Purple’s hopes for unification were connected to her previous experiences as
a music teacher. Ms. Purple viewed the class as a choir that she worked really hard to
unite:

I see performance. I do. Because really though that’s what I want. When you

think of a choir, you need everybody doing their piece together under the

conductor’s direction. And what do I want in a classroom? I don’t want these little

islands. . .and I got hawk eyes making sure everybody is responding and then I

take my voice out of it from time to time so that the kids are feeling more

responsible to actually read those directions aloud.

Consistent with her vision of the class as a choir, Ms. Purple purposefully varied
her voice, tempo, and movement during lessons to Spark student engagement:
I noticed that I use so much voice variation. As far as keeping them engaged

because there’s not very much monotone. I do a LOT. My dynamics there. That

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whispering and the leaning forward and it’s like _ and I mean it does I believe
lead to capturing their attention just to see what in the world is She doing.
Similar to an orchestra, Ms. Purple’s students served different roles, with respect
to promoting engagement among members of the class:
And I also know perhaps the relationship to the orchestra. (Student) would be my
section leader because of the naughty boys, he’s the brightest. And if I can get
(Student) participating, which he was, he was right there He’s the one that had the
right answer. You’ve got a great sense of humor and a step dad that has built a
good relationship to work with me. But if I can get him, I’m more likely to get
(Student). And if I can get him, I’m more likely to get (Student). And he likes
(Student) so I’m more likely. 80 he is probably my section leader not for the
saxophones but for the naughty kids. (Laughs). And if I can get him, I might be

able to get them.

Ms. Yellow ’s Attention to Student Understanding

An awareness of student understanding dictated Ms. Yellow’s pedagogical
choices, and ultimately her beliefs about self-regulated student participation:

You really got to gauge it where your kids are at and depending on the activity

and where they’re at with that. Are they you know at the modeling stage or the

introductory stage? Or are they at the mastery stage where they should be able to

do it independently?

Ms. Yellow observed her students carefully to identify their level of

understanding, believing that their individual needs dictated how they participated in the

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lesson. For example, during a fractions lesson, Ms. Yellow knew how a student would
participate based on his choices throughout the lesson:
But there’s so much you can find out from that. First off, the type of problem they
pick. So, for example, (Student) picked 7/8- 1/8, real basic, simple, already had
the common denominator. You can see where his comfort level is and where his
independent level is for that math lesson, which is fine, that’s where he is.
During whole class lessons, Ms. Yellow monitored student understanding based
on how students participated in the lesson. Ms. Yellow’s awareness of individual students
determined her expectations for participation and ultimately, future instruction.
Their homework was to come with a problem and do that... I can see where these
kids (are) at, where their comfort zone is and how deep their understanding is
because they had to do greater then statements, less then statements and closest
to. . .. but in that class, I was sure that I had everyone come up there (and) do their
problem. I could see where these kids were. . .so the next day, instead of going
on with the whole group with the lesson, the kids that I knew from their
understanding stayed in the room w/ Mr. (James) and I took 8-12 of them.
Sometimes Ms. Yellow restructured activities to encourage more self-regulated
student participation, based on her awareness of student understanding. For example, in
addition to modeling concepts, restructuring participation structures was especially
necessary when students learned new, unfamiliar concepts:
If you’re bringing in a new concept and you know that all of the kids are not

going to be familiar with it, usually breaking it down where they are going to have

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a group, small group or an activity where they’re going to be able to work with

another is very important.

For example, MS. Yellow decided to allow her students to write their answers on
the overhead to the daily social warm-up, hoping that they would become more engaged
with the difficult concepts:

A lot of students are weak sometimes and so I try to get the student participation

when they’re up coming and doing that. That really gets them more involved and

they’re more willing to try some of them that might be more challenging for them
to do

Ms. Yellow also modified her expectations for participation based on her
awareness of student understanding. For example, Ms. Yellow’s expectations of the
number of problems students should complete in a math assignment depended upon her
perceptions of the student’s background knowledge:

You want to have all the same expectations but kids don’t come in with the same

background knowledge. You know, (Student) is going to have no idea on some

problems where (Student) is going to master them. So I’m. . .I expect (Student) to
have that filled in you know all five of them all day or you know every day or

whatever. With (Student), I want one and I might go around personally and say I

want 1, 3, and 4. I want you to attempt those or whatever you know.
Summary of Results: Participation and Ultimately, Self-Regulated Participation

Both Ms. Yellow and MS. Purple hoped for student participation and encouraged
self-regulated student participation in their classrooms. The teachers communicated to

their students that it was worthwhile to participate in the classroom. Ms. Yellow and Ms.

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Purple solicited student participation in positive ways, recognizing the efforts of their
students. Consistent with the teachers’ awareness of individual student needs, the
teachers modified their expectations for participation, tailored their questions to
individual students, and were sensitive to the various needs of their students. Both
teachers also encouraged their students to achieve self-regulated participation through a
variety of tactics (e.g., monitoring and evaluating their progress, fixing their problems,
and acting responsibly). Ultimately, the teachers also expected the sixth grade students to
take ownership over their learning, especially when they confronted obstacles to the
process. Both Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow also recognized that the personal connections
they established with their students facilitated student self-regulated participation. While
Ms. Purple was committed to eliminating passivity in the larger classroom and took great
care in orchestrating whole-class participation, Ms. Yellow was primarily concerned with

her students’ understanding of lessons.

ll4

 

DISCUSSION

The purpose of this section is twofold. First, I will summarize the findings (i.e.,
the three major goals), including some discussion of the development of the goals and
connections between the goals. Second, I will connect the findings to research literatures
in education and psychology. I will begin by framing the findings as bridging the gaps
between motivation and engagement. Other relevant research literatures connected to the
study include beginning of the school year, relatedness, caring pedagogy, instructional
scaffolding, multiple goals, and influential teachers. The discussion will close with the
limitations and implications of the study, both theoretical and practical.
Summary of The Findings

The Goals Possessed By Two Highly Engaging Middle School Teachers

Teacher beliefs are important determinants of teacher decision-making. In
particular, teachers use their goals to make important decisions in the context of everyday
decision-making in the classroom (Aguirre & Speer, 1999). Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow
kept three goals (i.e., emotional safety, academic mastery and value, and self-regulated
student participation) in mind when they motivated their students. These goals emerged
in the teachers’ beliefs about motivation, their reflections about particular lessons, and in
observations of everyday instructional practices. While some differences emerged in the
particulars of how the teachers articulated goals, both of the teachers were ultimately
committed to supporting student motivation with these goals in mind.

Development of The Goals

MS. Purple and MS. Yellow saturated their classrooms with instructional practices

that supported student motivation based on the three goals they pursued. How did the

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teachers develop these goals? In particular, how did the teachers’ conceptions of children
and motivation influence the adoption of the particular goals? Both of these teachers were
highly aware of the developmental needs of middle school students, consistent with
Eccles and colleagues assertion that instruction in the middle school years needs to fit
students’ developmental needs (Eccles & Midgley, 1989; Eccles, Midgley, Wigfield et a1,
1993; Eccles, Wigfield, Midgley, et al., 1993; Midgley, 1993; Roeser, Eccles, &
Sameroff, 2000). In particular, Ms. Purple maintained that ensuring emotional safety in
the classroom was especially important because many of her eleven year old students
confronted difficulties in their personal (e.g., ADHD) and family lives (e.g., divorce,
homelessness, financial hardships). Ms. Purple structured her classroom management
around the principles of Jim F ay’s Love and Logic classroom (Fay & Funk, 1998) while
keeping in mind Maslow’s hierarchy of needs ---knowing student emotional safety
facilitated academic learning (Maslow, 1962). Ms. Purple realized that motivation was
“bigger than that immediate moment,” with students “happy and smiley” all of the time.
Rather, Ms. Purple believed that She needed to show her students the value of learning
(Wigfield & Eccles, 2000), which often required persistence and struggle.

In comparison, Ms. Yellow’s commitment to individual student needs, especially
student comfort in the classroom was essential because many of her students were
identified with disabilities and did not achieve at grade level. MS. Yellow aimed to
support each individual student by recognizing their progress on “baby steps,” (i.e.,
providing mastery on challenging tasks) (Deci & Ryan, 1992) and by providing
accommodations as needed such as hurdle helps, believing that it was essential to “break

down” concepts with challenging but attainable goals (Bandura, 1988; Locke & Latham,

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2002; Schunk, 1989a) to facilitate student engagement. MS. Yellow’s conception of
motivation matched her commitment to individual student needs and often scaffolded
students within their zone of proximal development (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988). MS.
Yellow believed that students exerted effort in the classroom when they felt supported by
their teachers (Deci & Ryan, 2000). Ms. Yellow established multiple connections (e.g.,
personal, cross-curricular, peer) with students (McIntyre, 1989), hoping that these
connections would spark student motivation, and ultimately, student engagement in the
classroom.
Connections Between The Goals
The three goals possessed by Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow were inextricably

linked. For example, Ms. Purple supported student self-regulated participation within the
context of a safe emotional environment. Ms. Purple believed that her students would
participate only if they felt emotionally safe (e.g., “The overall thing is that it’s safe in the
environment. It is safe. No one will be laughed at.”). For example, following a
reproductive health lesson, Ms. Purple knew that student comfort in the classroom was
essential to successful class participation:

But the safe environment. Reproductive health yesterday. That was hard for those

girls to say the vocabulary of the male reproductive system. They feel safe. They trust

me. They trust that they won’t be made fun of in this room. Otherwise, it wouldn’t

have been that way.

MS. Purple also recognized and responded to the emotional needs of her students. For
example, after observing that several students had not participated yet in a language arts

lesson, MS. Purple remarked, “A reader please. Have I left anybody out? (Student), did I

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leave you out?” Ms. Purple’s zealous concerns for student emotional safety motivated

how she communicated her hopes for student participation:
1 try to turn the perspective of participation from “You didn’t speak yet” to “Oh my
goodness. It’s my fault. I have left you out. I would never do that for you.” And it’s
really just a point of view. And then the children think, “Oh” and then they also think
so it’s that message of it’s not your fault for not raising your hand. I haven’t called on
you yet so I’ll take the blame, responsibility for that. It’s when I ask questions, I try
really hard not to say, “Who has a question?” I’ll say, “What haven’t I made clear?”
You know, it’s my problem not your problem. I’ll take the responsibility for that. So
they don’t have to feel embarrassed. The other thing is just that language, I believe
lets kids know I don’t want anybody left out. We are all together. We’re all going to
be good to each other.

Similarly, Ms. Yellow recognized that students would achieve self-regulated
participation only if they felt emotionally safe and comfortable. After helping a student
organize his math binder, MS. Yellow, for example, conversed with the student about
strategies that he could use to help him better understand fractions:

You do whatever is easy for you. We want you to look at that fraction and say

how could you visualize it in your heads.

With such a large emphasis on strategy instruction, it is not surprising that Ms.
Yellow’S goals for self-regulated participation became connected to her goals of student
mastery of strategies. Ms. Yellow required that her students take responsibility for their
learning of strategies (Schunk, 1985). For example, during a fractions assignment, Ms.

Yellow informed a student, “You got to do it. I can’t tell you. Find your strategy,”

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maintaining that students needed to, “Think of other strategies to use when a teacher is
not around to ask or even look if you don’t know.” Students needed to explain why they
solved problems in particular ways. For example, as Ms. Yellow consulted with a student
during math class, she asked him, “What strategy did you use? Tell me in writing. How
did you figure it out? You tell me in writing. How did you figure it out? You tell me, if
you don’t know, where’s a place you could look if the teacher wasn’t here?”

Through the above comments and others, both Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow
encouraged their students to adopt an incremental view of intelligence (Dweck, 1999),
communicating that the strategies would provide students with tools to succeed
academically. Consistent with efficacy training programs (Schunk, 1985), the teachers
modeled the appropriate strategies, provided explicit instruction in the strategies,
encouraged their students to set challengeable but attainable goals, and self-reflect on
their learning efforts (Schunk, 1996). The connections between the three goals illustrate
the importance of examining the qualitative dimensions of the multiple goals of teachers,
instead of just single goals.

Both of these teachers aimed to establish learning communities in their
classrooms (Baker, Terry, Bridger, & Winsor, 1997). Ms. Purple and MS. Yellow
consistently emphasized learning within a collaborative environment. According to
sociocultural views of teaching and learning, learning occurs through apprenticeship---
knowledgable others teach novices the discourse and tools of the community (Wells,
1999). Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow communicated in deliberate ways, which shaped how
students understood the norms of the classroom and the appropriate use of tools (e.g.,

books, strategies).

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Connections to Research Literature

Engagement vs. Motivation

The results of this study contribute to research and theory in psychology and
education. Student motivation and engagement are the top concerns of most educators
(Guthrie & Alvermann, 1999) yet most studies of educational motivation are based upon
student perceptions rather than actual observations of the classroom environment.
Furthermore, although motivation is distinct from engagement, researchers tend to
broadly conceptualize engagement (i.e., the joint functioning of motivational beliefs,
conceptual knowledge, strategies, and social interactions) (e.g., Guthrie & Alvermann,
1999; Guthrie & Wigfield, 1997), confilsing the types of outcomes it produces because it
does not consider the unique contribution of motivation, strategies, and knowledge
(Baker et al., 2000). Although educational researchers have started to examine teachers’
use of instructional practices that support student motivation and engagement (e.g.,
Pressley et al., 2002; Blumenfeld, Puro, & Mergendoller, 1989; Meece, 1991; Meece,
Blumenfeld, & Puro, 1988; Patrick, Anderman, Ryan, Edelin, & Midgley, 2001 ;Tumer,
Meyer, Cox, Logan, DeCintio), there is still a need to investigate the ways that teachers
uniquely support student motivation vs. engagement (Shuell, 1996).

While motivation provides students with reasons to persist academically (i.e., “the
why’s”), engagement refers to how students actually approach academic tasks (i.e., “the
how’s”). The development of metacognitive knowledge is preceded by the development
of attributional beliefs, motivation, and affective states (Borkowski, Carr, Rellinger, &
Pressley, 1990; Pressley, Borkowski, & Schneider, 1989). That is, students who feel good

about their academic capabilities and are excited about learning are more likely to believe

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in strategic behavior and potentially engage in strategic activities. Motivation to use
strategies, however, can be separated from actual strategy use. Students use strategies
only if they are equipped with knowledge about when, where, how, and why to use
strategies. That is, student motivation to use strategies may mobilize them to use
strategies, resulting in heightened engagement, but motivation by itself may not be
sufficient for students to use strategies. Furthermore, students may appear to be highly
effortful, or cognitively engaged in worthwhile tasks, but it is possible that they are not
utilizing effective strategies.

Ms. Purple’s and Ms. Yellow’s instructional beliefs and practices match

 

Blumenfeld’s (1992) analysis of fifth and sixth grade teachers who connected their
students to lessons and connected lessons to their students, ultimately achieving high
perceptions of student cognitive engagement (i.e., cognitive and metacognitive
strategies). Teachers who accomplished both goals provided numerous opportunities to
learn (e.g., developed concepts, required students to use strategies), pressed for thinking
(e.g., encouraged student explanations, monitored students), supported student learning
through scaffolding, and emphasized learning and understanding in their evaluations.
Both MS. Purple and Ms. Yellow cared deeply about student thoughtfulness and
implemented instructional practices that supported student engagement.

In addition to the practices mentioned, both Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow were
highly concerned about the development of student self-regulated behaviors
(Zimmerman, 1989) and structured their activities, as well as their participation structures
in particular ways to promote student self-regulation. What are the long-term effects of

being in a cognitively engaging and motivating classroom? Future studies Should

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examine longitudinally the particulars of student learning and motivation as students
negotiates differentially engaging learning environments.

The results of the current study contribute to the discussion of motivation vs.
engagement initially proposed by Borkowski and colleagues. MS. Purple and Ms. Yellow
articulated and implemented goals in their daily classroom practices, which considered
student motivation (e.g., emotional safety) and student engagement (e.g., mastery, value,
and self-regulated participation). Without these affective and cognitive goals, it is
possible that students may have lacked the desire to use the strategies or the knowledge
of the strategies despite the desire. Future studies should investigate how students
perceive the goals adopted in the classroom and the implications of the goals on student
motivation and/or engagement.

Beginning of The School Year

The beginning of the school year is a critical time for teachers to establish
routines and procedures (Bohn, Roehrig, & Pressley, 2004; Emmer, Evertson, &
Anderson, 1980; Evertson & Emmer, 1982; Kronowitz, 1999; Wong & Wong, 1998).
Excellent classroom management in the beginning of the year is associated with
increased student achievement and student self-regulation later in the school year (Bohn
et al., 2004; Evertson & Emmer, 1982). Both Ms. Purple and MS. Yellow were highly
aware of the importance of the beginning of the school year and taught their students
particular routines in the beginning of the school year.

The categories found in Bohn et al. (2004) analysis of effective elementary school
teachers are consistent with how the teachers in this study began the school year. That is,

Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow introduced expectations and procedures in the first several

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days of school, provided specific praise to students following directions, encouraged
student choices and self-regulation (e.g., taking ownership and responsibility), and
modeled many behaviors. Similar to the junior high teachers in Evertson & Emmer
(1982), Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow also monitored the progress of individual students
and provided corrective feedback (e. g., reminding and refocusing students) when students
did not follow the routines (e.g., preparing for class, passing back papers, participating in
class).

Bohn and colleagues noted that compared to the other teachers, the more effective
elementary school teachers created positive and caring classrooms for their students early
in the school year. The students genuinely seemed excited to learn, as evidenced by the
high percentage of student engagement documented in these classrooms. These results
are consistent with Ms. Purple’s and Ms. Yellow’s classrooms in the beginning and
throughout the school year. Both teachers created an engaging but also an emotionally
safe and comfortable environment for their students caring immensely about individual
student needs. In particular, in the beginning of the school year, both Ms. Purple and Ms.
Yellow were committed to holistic student development (Dewey, l916)---supporting
students as they negotiated the new classroom and school, establishing connections with
their families, encouraging the development of new peer relationships, and introducing
students to the new curriculum. Future research should consider how teachers develop
plans for the beginning of the school year and how teachers adjust their plans based on

student needs.

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Student Perceptions of Relatedness

Relatedness is essential to student engagement (Deci & Ryan, 2000; Furrer &
Skinner, 2003; Skinner & Belmont, 1993). In particular, middle school students’
perceptions of teacher support (e.g., believing that the teacher values and establishes
supportive relationships with them) are positively associated with motivation and
engagement, as well as achievement (Anderman, 1999; Goodenow, 1993; Osterman,
2000; Ryan & Patrick, 2001; Solomon, Battistich, Kim, & Watson, 1997). Compared to
their peers, students who perceive a high sense of relatedness exhibit higher amounts of
personal control, which ultimately leads to increased effort and participation in the
classroom (Connell, I990; Connell & Wellbom, 1991). Perceptions of teacher caring and
support may mitigate the declines in motivation that typically occur in the middle school
years (Eccles & Midgley, 1989; Midgley, 1993; Wentzel, 1998).

How did students in Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow’s classes perceive their teachers?
Throughout the school year and at the end of the school year, I obtained multiple
indicators of how students perceived their experiences with Ms. Yellow and Ms. Purple.
These various sources included whispered student comments to others, student
interviews, student writing samples, and conversational chats. At the end of the school
year, students in both Ms. Purple’S and Ms. Yellow’s classes possessed a variety of
opinions about their teachers. In an end of the year essay entitled, “The best school year
ever,” MS. Yellow’s students mostly talked positively about their teachers, and to some

extent, their learning experiences:

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Student #1: In LA. we did a bunch of fun activities. We made a poster that was
an advertisement for Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. We also did this thing that would
help you do better on tests. That was really fun...

Student #2: This year was the best year ever because we had the best teachers
ever”.

Student #3: This is the best school year because there were really nice teachers
like (Mr. Black), (Resource Teacher), (Ms. Yellow), and (Mr. James).

Student #4: This year was the best year ever because I have the four best
teachers. . .(MS. Yellow) is nice and fun.

Although the end of the year essays were somewhat general, many of Ms.
Yellow’s students, however, signed her yearbook and wrote personal letters to her at the
end of the school year, appreciating both her personal characteristics and the support she
provided:

Student #1: You are the best teacher there ever was to me. I would like to thank

you for all the help you had given me to support my education.

Student #2: I want you to know that this year was fun for me. . .You made it clear

to see that I could do these things like math, LA. and other things through out my

days as I sit here now I think about the times that you helped out of trouble. ..

Student #3: Your such a cool teacher. I usually find math boring but you made me

enjoy it. I love how your always so happy.

Student #4: I had a great year thanks to you! You are a funny, nice and smart

teacher!

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Many of Ms. Purple’s students also appreciated their time with Ms. Purple. For
example, towards the end of the school year, a student shared with me that Ms. Purple
taught him a LOT over the school year. Similarly, another student appreciated how much
Ms. Purple encouraged student learning:

Throughout sixth grade, (Ms. Purple) never took it easy on my class. She always

had us on our toes. Good thing I was able to keep up with her. She told the class,” I E

We were only failures if we stopped trying. . .”Over the year I have had pg failures

just many challenges.

 

One student proclaimed that she enjoyed having MS. Purple as a teacher because, '
“She’s enthusiastic and makes everything fun.” This student really enjoyed how Ms.
Purple emphasized “DETAIL” in the students’ writing.

Twenty-nine of Ms. Purple’s students contributed to the end of the year school
literary magazine. Several of these students wrote about their experiences in Ms. Purple’s
classroom. For example, in “Getting prepared for class,” a student discusses the routines
of Ms. Purple’s class, as well as the content learned:

(Ms. Purple) is a fabulous language arts teacher but you must know how to get

prepared for class. If you don’t know how to get prepared for (Ms. Purple’s) class

at (Jansen Middle School), I will show you how. To start with, just have six items
out: class folder, notes book, agenda, and two sharpened pencils. As you enter

Room (number), the first thing to do is to check the white board for activities you

are going to do in class. Another step is if you are absent for many reasons, go to

the makeup file. A paper will have your name on it. You will have to be

responsible for all your makeup work.

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Now you are ready to learn in (Ms. Purple’s) exciting language arts class. You
will learn formal writing, daily oral language, descriptive writing, explanatory
writing, and many more things. I hope you will have firn and learn.

Another student reminisced about the “Sounds,” “Smells,” and “Quotes” in MS.
Purple’s class in her poem:

I know Room (Number):

SOUNDS

like the swish swish of an eraser, click click of mechanical pencils, noise
of the mall, and rumbling of fresh clean paper.

I know Room (Number):

SMELLS

like ocean mist candles, refreshing brewed coffee, quickly made Progresso
soup, and crisp book pages.

I know Room (Number):

QUOTES

“Details!”, “I’ll swat you!”, “I don’t want to do this assignment!”, IS AM

ARE WAS WERE BE BEING BEEN ....... , “ and “My stars.”

I know Room (Number):

On the last day of school, most of Ms. Purple’s students wanted Ms. Purple to
know how much they enjoyed her classroom. For example, when Ms. Purple walked back
into the classroom, a small group of students waiting for the final dismissal cheered, “We
love you.” After receiving a summer “passport to reading” assignment, one of Ms.

Purple’s students asked, “Can we write you a letter?” referring to the numerous book

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response letters they wrote in language arts. After instructing students to ”read forever” in
their yearbook, one student told Ms. Purple that she did not even need to Sign that part of
the yearbook because he knew who would write that. Ms. Purple agreed, “They know
that I want them to read forever.”

While some of the students perceived Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow as too strict or
too demanding, the majority of the students appreciated their teachers and established
positive relationships with them throughout the school year, consistent with the qualities
of caring yet demanding teachers in the Classroom Strategy Study who were rated as
outstanding in their attempts to teach students with chronic achievement problems
(Brophy, 1996). AS the year progressed, most of Ms. Purple’s and Ms. Yellow’s students
regarded the teachers positively, as evidenced by their hugs, whispered comments, and
frequent volunteering to help the teachers in the classroom. Several students even
confided in Ms. Purple that they wished that she could be their teacher again.

Caring Pedagogy

Ms. Purple’s and Ms. Yellow’s commitment to student emotional safety is
consistent with Noddings’ (1992; 2003) vision of education as emphasizing student
caring and developing caring relationships. Caring teachers constantly model caring
behavior, engage students in mutual dialogues, and expect students to do the best that
they can. Students regard caring teachers as democratic in their interactions with students
and respectful to the needs of individual students (e.g., attuned to the needs of the learner)
(Wentzel, 1997).

The results of this study contribute to Noddings’ (1992; 2003) conception of a

caring curriculum by describing in great detail the variety of mechanisms used by Ms.

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Purple and Ms. Yellow to pursue their goals of emotional safety, or a caring educational
environment. Consistent with Noddings’ (2003) assertion that education satisfy needs and
wants, Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow believed that student engagement in the classroom
depended upon the fulfillment of individual student needs. Both Ms. Purple and Ms.
Yellow remained attuned to the needs of individual students as they facilitated supportive
but academically challenging classroom climates-- consistent with the dimensions of
effective parenting (e. g., high teacher expectations and fairness) (Wentzel, 1997; 2002).
Similar to authoritative parents, Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow possessed high expectations
within the context of a supportive environment (Baumrind, 1991). While caring and
supportive relationships may be especially necessary to facilitate during the middle
school years, a curriculumof caring is essential for all children at every stage of
development. Future research efforts should investigate the different types of bonds that
teachers form with their students and how these relational bonds can support student and
teacher development.

Noddings’ vision of a caring education prioritizes student happiness. Caring
teachers establish meaningful learning environments, providing many opportunities to
cultivate student value, creativity and autonomy. Both MS. Purple’s and Ms. Yellow’s
classrooms were generally supportive but also academically worthwhile environments
(Brophy, 1992a; 1999). Although there were some exceptions, the majority of the
students appeared engaged the majority of the time, excited to learn. The teachers
constantly communicated about the benefits associated with learning and created creative
and/or authentic academic activities that required higher-order thinking (e. g., integrative

language arts and social studies research projects, book clubs, survey projects in math,

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edible maps in social studies, fraction hunts in math, and picture books in social studies).
If high student engagement is of interest to educational research and practice, it is
worthwhile to investigate further how teachers enact the curriculum to create engaging
lessons for their students. In particular, how do teachers sort through the abundance of
curriculum materials to create highly engaging environments for their students?

What are the goals of contemporary education? If psychological well-being or
self-realization is truly the aim of education (Ryan & Deci, 2001), educational
researchers and practitioners need to consider seriously how much attention is being paid
to the holistic development of children in classrooms across America. Educational
researchers need to examine the multiple implications of student and teacher well-being,
as well as the constraints to well-being. If satisfying relationships are the key to student
development, how can teachers foster long-term meaningful relationships with their
students while in the context of a meaningful academic learning environment? Also, how
do individual student needs afford different types of well-being in the classroom? It is
possible that psychological well-being within a caring educational context requires
multiple paths and endpoints, based on individual needs.

Instructional Scaflolding

The results of this study also provide new directions for current research and
theory in instructional scaffolding (Hogan & Pressley, 1997). By being highly responsive
and aware of student individual learning and personal needs, Ms. Purple and MS. Yellow
intensely scaffolded their students. Current notions of instructional scaffolding are
primarily limited to academic scaffolding (i.e., using techniques such as modeling,

explaining, monitoring, to provide students with assistance on challenging tasks after

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determining the amount of support needed). Ms. Purple and MS. Yellow provided their
students with appropriate academic supports within the context of a supportive, emotional
learning environment. That is, both teachers were highly aware of individual student
learning needs and scaffolded their students accordingly. The concept of instructional
scaffolding, however, needs to include motivational components (Brophy, 1999)—that
learning is facilitated within the context of a supportive and caring emotional
environment

Similar to instructional scaffolding, teachers can scaffold student motivation for
learning. Brophy (1999) proposed that scaffolding student appreciation occurs within the
motivational zone of proximal development. Teachers can encourage student value by
teaching content that is academically worthwhile (e.g., relevant and applicable to student
lives) and fostering student appreciation for learning. Scaffolded appreciation occurs as
teachers model reasons why content is worth learning, coach through goal reminders and
cues, and provide detailed feedback on student development. Both Ms. Purple and MS.
Yellow scaffolded student appreciation by communicating about and providing relevant
activities (e.g., solving problems in math class vs. the real world; reading books to
children using strategies learned in class), establishing goals that aided the development
of student appreciation (e.g., reading books in different genres), and recognizing student
accomplishments. Future studies should examine the specific mechanisms used by
teachers to scaffold student appreciation.

Tappan (1998) discussed the connection between Vygotsky’s (1978)
sociocultural perspective and Noddings’ (1992) caring pedagogy. Tappan (1998)

concludes that the sociocultural perspective inherently incorporates the mechanisms

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essential to the care perspective (i.e., modeling, engaging students in dialogue, providing
opportunities for students to practice, and confirming student’s developmental potential).
That is, during the processing of scaffolding, teachers naturally establish trusting and
mutually supportive relationships with their students and assist their students in the
development of notions of care. This study documents how Ms. Purple and MS. Yellow
scaffolded their students’ learning within a caring pedagogy. Guided participation (e.g.,
Rogoff, 1990) occurred as the teachers co-constructed their relationships with individual
students based on their zone of proximal development. For example, Ms. Purple modeled
caring to her students by wearing glasses based on her knowledge of a student’s
discomfort and anticipation of the class’s reaction. After being mocked by a student for
wearing the glasses, Ms. Purple engaged in dialogue with the student, telling him how
much the comment hurt her but also confirming that she knew that he did not intend to
hurt her feelings. Future educational research should examine the mechanisms, including
the particular forms of discourse (see Santa Barbara Classroom Discourse Group, 1992b)
co-constructed by teachers, parents, and students during scaffolded learning within the
context of caring pedagogy.

Multiple Goals and The Content of Teachers ’ Goals

The motivation research literature is dominated by investigations of mastery vs.
performance goals (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002; Pintrich, 2000). The results of this study
support the notion that motivating instruction occurs within the context of mastery goals
(see Ee, Moore, & Atputhasamy, 2003; Patrick etal., 2001). That is, both Ms. Purple and
Ms. Yellow strongly desired for their students to obtain mastery or higher-level Skills

rather than compete for the best outcomes. In fact, both of the teachers were highly aware

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of individual student needs and adjusted instructional practices to benefit individual
students. In addition to mastery goals, MS. Purple and Ms. Yellow articulated and
implemented several other important goals.

The results of this study contribute to the small but growing literature on multiple
goals and the content of teachers’ goals (Ford, 1992; Lemos, 1996; Wentzel, 1998). In
addition to mastery goals, the teachers in this study pursued goals of emotional safety,
student valuing of academic content, and student self-regulated participation. These
results are somewhat consistent with Lemos (1996), where teachers and students in that
study articulated seven different types of goals (i.e., enjoyment, learning, complying,
working, evaluation, interpersonal, and discipline) but the teachers’ emphasized two
goals (i.e., learning and complying).

It is likely that the participants selected for the study (i.e., two highly engaging
teachers) and the rich detailed permitted in this ethnographic investigation provided more
insight into the complexities of the goals and with goals especially important to
motivating instruction. The three goals prioritized by Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow are in
line with Ford’s (1992) contention that individuals pursue multiple goals and construct
hierarchies, ranking goals of particular importance. More research is needed to
understand the nature of multiple goals, especially teachers’ goals. For example, how do
features of the context influence how teachers construct and prioritize their goals? How
do teachers and students co-construct their goals throughout the course of the school
year? Which goals are particularly important in the processes of learning and

development?

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It is possible that less engaging teachers possess similar goals as highly engaging
teachers but choose to implement them differently. Although highly engaging teachers
may be especially necessary to offset declines in student motivation during the middle
school years (Anderman & Maehr, 1994), it is necessary that future research efforts
consider the types of goals possessed by less engaging teachers and how these goals
become represented in the context of everyday classroom decision-making.

Beliefs of Influential Teachers and The Results of T his Study

The goals that Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow adopted and implemented in their
classrooms are very consistent with the shared beliefs possessed by influential teachers
analyzed by Ruddell and colleagues (1983; 1994; 1995; 1996; 1997). In these studies of
influential teachers, through primarily questionnaires and interviews, students reminisced
about their experiences with influential teachers» teachers that positively and
significantly influenced their academic and/or personal development. Influential teachers
conceived of teaching as incorporating certain personal characteristics (e.g., passion, a
caring personality), understanding of learning potential (e.g., sensitivity to individual
needs), enthusiasm towards their subject matter, concern for student personal
development, and emphasis on high quality instruction.

Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow adopted goals that reflected the beliefs of influential
teachers and translated these beliefs into classroom practices that supported student
motivation. The use of ethnographic multiple case analyses in this study, however,
permitted detailed descriptions of how particular instructional practices reflected the
complexities of goals articulated by Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow. Also, although the goals

adopted and pursued by Ms. Purple and MS. Yellow were Similar to the beliefs of

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influential teachers, Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow also pursued additional goals (e.g., self-
regulated student participation), which were unique to their experiences.

Advancing Studies of Motivation

The results of the current study support contemporary principles of educational
motivation (Brophy, 2004). Motivation in education requires attention to both the
expectancy and the value dimensions of motivation. Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow
simultaneously supported student confidence as learners and cultivated student
appreciation for learning as they kept the three goals in mind.

The current study is the latest installment in the grounded theory studies of
motivating instruction, both at the individual classroom level (Bogner et al., 2002;
Pressley et al., 2003) and at the whole school level (Pressley, Gaskins, Solic, & Collins,
under review; Pressley, Raphael, Gallagher, & DiBella, 2004). In each of those studies,
my colleagues and 1 used ethnographic research methods to document the practices used
by teachers and schools to motivate their students. Highly engaging teachers saturate
their classrooms with instructional practices that support student motivation and
engagement. According to the findings of this study, highly engaging middle school
teachers flood their classrooms with motivating instruction as they maintain goals of
student emotional safety, mastery and valuing of academics, and self-regulated
participation.

The current study advances the work done by’Pressley and colleagues by merging
the observational life of classrooms with analysis of teacher cognitions. By uncovering

the motivational goals pursued by highly engaging teachers through rich, detailed

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descriptions, the story of grounded theories of motivating instruction continues with a
new chapter and many new possibilities for future research.
Limitations of The Current Study

This was a study of two teachers with somewhat different roles in the classroom
(i.e., Ms. Purple, a general education teacher and Ms. Yellow, a special education
teacher). It is possible that the roles of the teachers created different types of
opportunities and constraints for the teachers to articulate and implement their goals. For
example, Ms. Yellow, who was constantly concerned with individual student thinking,
was probably afforded that role as a special education teacher. In comparison, MS.
Purple’s concern for the entire class as a whole was afforded by her role as a general
education teacher. Future studies should consider the opportunities and constraints as
teachers and staff members enact various roles in the classroom.

This was also a study of two female sixth grade teachers. Do the results of this
study generalize to other teachers from different contexts and different grade levels?
Also, this study represented the experiences of just highly engaging teachers. Do less
engaging teachers possess the same goals as the teachers investigated in this study? It is
possible that less engaging teachers possess the same goals as the teachers in this study
but choose to implement practices that undermine support motivation for various reasons.

The students in both Ms. Purple’s and Ms. Yellow’s classes progressed in the
various subject areas. Although I obtained multiple indicators of student mastery, it is
worthwhile, in this current era of accountability, to investigate the complexities of
achievement from multiple perspectives. Ms. Purple and Ms. Yellow both relied on

portfolios to Show student growth. Several questions remain of interest: First, how did the

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portfolios reflect student learning? Second, what did the portfolios inform the students
about the nature of the learning.

This was primarily a study of the motivational goals adopted by two highly
engaging teachers. If motivation is truly socially situated (Turner & Paris, 1994), there is
a need to look carefully at the social nature of motivation. How do highly engaging
teachers orchestrate the complexities of moment-moment instruction as they consider
curriculum and instruction, their daily and long-term goals, as well as the needs of their
students? How do personality factors influence the formulation and implementation of
classroom goals?

Finally, although I incorporated student perceptions throughout the study, I did
not examine student perceptions of goals used by their teachers and the implications of
the goals. How did the students in Ms. Purple’s and Ms. Yellow’s classes respond to the
goals? Although it was clear based on informal comments that some of the students
recognized the goals pursued by their teachers, did the entire class recognize and
appreciate the three goals? How did the three goals relate to student learning and
motivation? It is possible that the goals differentially impacted the students --future
studies should investigate the differential outcomes of students produced in highly
engaging classrooms. For example, although Ms. Purple’s and Ms. Yellow’s students
appeared behaviorally, cognitively, and emotionally engaged, consistent with the
multidimensional nature of engagement (F rederiks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004), future
research efforts are needed to assess the possibility of differential forms of engagement in
the classroom.

Implications of the Findings

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Theoretical Implications

The results of the study contribute to the research literature in education and
psychology. It is possible that the three goals represent a theoretical model for
conceptualizing the motivational goals of highly engaging teachers. Additional studies of
teachers’ motivational goals are needed to verify the results found in this study.
Quantitative analyses of the goals with larger samples of teachers can further validate the
usefulness of the three goals as a theoretical model. Educational researchers should
continue to examine teachers’ beliefs and decision-making within the context of a
classroom environment. Understanding how teachers formulate their beliefs and
implement their beliefs through the adoption of goals can critically inform teacher
development.

Practical Implications

The results of the study can contribute to teacher preparation and professional
development programs by informing teachers of the goals adopted by highly engaging
teachers. The detailed descriptions of the instructional beliefs and practices found in this
study can aid teachers in responding to the needs of their students. If goals of student
emotional safety, academic mastery and value are necessary to high student engagement,
teacher preparation programs should focus on the development of such goals.
Conclusions

Prior to this study, the cognitions of motivating and engaging teachers remained
somewhat of a mystery. The findings of this study uncover the complexities of how
highly engaging teachers think about everyday classroom life, with respect to motivation.

This is an important new direction for the fields of psychology, educational psychology,

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and teacher education. If we know more about how highly engaging teachers think about
their instruction and how their thoughts relate to their everyday classroom instruction,
new possibilities emerge for theory, research, and practice in teacher training and

development, as well as in teacher motivation.

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APPENDIX A:
Beginning of The Year Interview Questions
Ms. Purple

So you’re now in the 3rd week of school and I guess I have a whole bunch of questions
that relate to the first couple of weeks: how do you design the beginning of the year?
What do you hope to accomplish in the first couple of weeks? More specifically, what do
you hope students and parents know after the first couple of weeks of school?

What values, messages, and different types of roles do you try to instill in your classroom
in these first couple of weeks? You said that the focus is on learning to be a student.

I guess I’m wondering about the beginning of the year stuff and the type of things that
you’ve accomplished and tried to accomplish. How well do you think you’ve done with
everything? Have there been any changes that you’ve decided after certain things didn’t
work, as you reflected on things?

So how do you think your students perceive your classroom after the first couple of
weeks?

One thing I want to know more about is your definition of success. I see success as a
major thing in your classroom. You talk about success and habits a lot.

So speaking of kids, what certain things have you’ve noticed about particular students in
these past initial weeks? Are you noticing any differences between the classes?

Ms. Yellow

Now you’re in the third week of school, I’m wondering about how you design the
beginning of the year such as what do you hope to accomplish in the first couple of
weeks of school? What do you hope students’ parents know after the first couple of
weeks? What types of messages, values, roles have you tried to instill? How do you
decide what things to emphasize in the beginning of the year?

How well do you think you’ve done with all of this as you reflect?

Have you’ve changed anything based on the first couple of weeks?

Are there certain things that you’ve begun to notice about particular students or the
classroom as a whole? What are you noticing?

Are there things that you didn’t anticipate? Anything that you didn’t anticipate about
students?

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You talked about some things you’ve noticed about students. In particular, some red flags
have come up and how you’re dealing with them. Are there any other ways you’re
thinking about how you’re going to monitor student progress throughout the year?

So, how do you think students perceive you after these first couple of weeks?

How well do you think your students are doing so far?

How are you defining success at this point?

What are your hopes and expectations for the year?

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APPENDIX B:
First Probing Interview Questions
Ms. Purple

As you know, I am interested in your decision-making. What factors that influence how
you make decisions in the classroom? In particular, what factors influence how you
motivate your students?

As far as the information that you receive in the beginning of the year, how do you take
that information into account but also as you said not let it. . .how do you balance that?

I guess I am wondering more about this balance between the needs of the class vs. the
needs of individual students. How you go about - you said you modified social
studies. . .how do you balance that? When do you decide to modify? What are some
implications of doing so?

You mentioned in your example with the round circle that you positioned yourself in a
certain way. Can you talk about how you position yourself in the classroom?

So, you mentioned a couple of reasons why you place yourself in certain parts of the
classroom- can you describe a Specific example...

What about when a student doesn’t understand something? In a lesson, on a homework,
on a test — how do you respond?

I guess I’m wondering. You mention that you coach students as times and you provide
them opportunities to be shining stars. Describe more of how you do that — an particular
instance of when you did that. How you communicated...

So you try to give everyone a question so they can participate everyday. What about — I
remember you said in one of our chats, you mentioned that you deliberately pick
someone to answer questions and then you coach that student through. . .Tell me more
about that.

I wanted to ask you about student progress. You’ve talked a little bit about it. I wanted to
know more about how you define student progress and how you keep track of it.

Lets move on to a different topic. This whole idea of caring and making kids feel
emotionally safe in your classroom. It seems to be a big thing. And you’ve talked about
this in past conversations but also today. I guess you know, first of all, what does it really
mean for kids to be emotionally safe in your room? How do you encourage that? And
what do you do when you sense kids are not emotionally safe?

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Just to ask you 1 more thing about this. . .You mentioned before that you want to stretch
but not stress them beyond comprehension. How does that play out in your mind?

Ms. Yellow

As you know, I am interested in your decision-making. What factors that influence how
you make decisions in the classroom? In particular, what factors influence how you
motivate your students?

I have noticed that you are very aware of and very responsive towards the needs of
individual students. Tell me more about this.

How do you deal with the needs of the whole class vs. individual students?

I was going to ask you about modifying instruction based on student needs and I’ve
noticed for example in LA, where the students experienced some problems with writing
paragraphs, you stopped and for a couple of days and you conferenced. .. And then
similarly in math, students had some problems with the mean, median, and mode and
then you pulled them out and worked with them. So I was wondering, you know, how do
you make those decisions? When do you make those decisions?

Let’s talk about this a little bit more. When a student doesn’t understand something. You
know, I noticed several things when you work with students. You tend to stand behind
the student and lean over him or her. You tend to. . .You pick students sometimes to
answer questions so you know that they can be successful. Tell me I guess about a recent
interaction with a student when s/he didn’t understand something. Maybe you were
conferencing. You know, how do you position yourself physically? How did you
communicate? And why?

You mentioned that you always got to keep the humor, the firn into learning or they will
shutoff. What do you do to do this? Are there limitations, unexpected challenges, or vice
versa unexpected benefits?

I wanted to just ask you about student progress. You mentioned it with these interactions
with individual students. How do you define that?

One big theme that I have been seeing is this whole idea of making students feel like they
have a comfort zone in the classroom, showing that you care, building connections. Let
me just read some things to you that you’ve said (I read from list). And then I’ve noticed
that you often refer to kids as “Bud or buddy.” And so I think this all ties together in
some way. Or maybe it’s not but you know I just wanted you to maybe talk about it.

You mentioned that you do a lot to build a community. How do you what do you do?
You mentioned that you read that you have to read individual kids to determine how you
approach them and what you say and what you do type of thing. Tell me more about that.
And what do you do when you sense that kids do not feel comfortable.

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I’ve noticed in both yours and Ms. Purple’s classroom, especially recently, talking about
getting the students ready for 7th grade. How are you getting the students ready? I know
we talked in our last conversation about we talked a lot about students taking more

ownership over their work.

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APPENDIX C:
Second Probing Interview Questions
Ms. Purple

I have a whole bunch (of questions) about learning. And it’s very good that last chat you
said, you ended with learning. I don’t know if you remember but the last thing you said
was, “nothing can interfere with their learning.” And you said. . .That sounds like
something I might say. You know that the students know that. And so I wanted to ask
you a bunch of different questions related to learning for this first part. First is, how do
you balance learning that is “long term foundation rather than the moment of life?” and
then you mentioned, I’ve seen it here, “learn it forever.” What does that really mean?
What exactly do you want students to learn forever? So why don’t we start with those.

You mentioned to your students, “Truthfully I want you to learn and have big
opportunities” and you’ve talked about “big time learning.” You’ve said I think in our
last conversation about (student), “Hopefully I’m giving her great things.” First, what do
you mean by “big opportunities,” “big time learning?” and then second, how do you
advance a student like (student) compared to a student like (student)?

So when you talked about learning, you mentioned foundation, what exactly were you
thinking?

You talked about this year, you’ve had a lot of challenges because there have been a lot
more students with lower economic status. How have you kind of worked through those
challenges this year?

Going back to this big theme of learning. Because that’s what it’s all about. I wanted to
refer back to what you had said one time “Because there are many ways to present the
material but I’m finding I can present it in a more casual manner now because they know
the rules of my game. They know. . .because I try very hard to be consistent even within
the flexibility but consistent of my expectation and they know it’s always about learning.
It’s always about learning.” And so I’m wondering, how do you balance being flexible
but still communicating that it’s always about learning and being consistent?

Ms. Yellow

We talked about learning as a foundation a little bit last time. You have mentioned that
you want students to build a foundation. Um that they are not really going to remember
what they learned in 6th grade but rather this foundation. And you’ve talked about
academic habits such as filling out the agenda, organization, as well as developing a work
ethic. I guess I wanted to know what other foundational skills do you attempt to develop
in students? And how do you know if students are developing this foundation? And how
do you distinguish between say if we contrast between (students) you know with this
foundation.

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So when you said with Language Arts-- the writing process and then with Math--
explaining the reasoning, having a deeper understanding, is that pretty consistent with the
standards and the benchmarks?

How do you see the relationship between building a foundation and making different
activities seem worthwhile to the kids?

Connections. And this is something I’ve heard you talk about quite a bit. You’ve talked
about “They will do their best work if they feel like there’s a connection to it.”). You’ve
talked about ways that you connect with the students, in trying to build a classroom
community and the relationship between those academics and connections with students.
You’ve even mentioned last week how parents connect with students. I feel like we’ve
talked a lot about how you connect with students in terms of the way you sit, the way that
you talk to them, positioning, and building a classroom community. What other
connections do you establish? I think you even mentioned last week something about
(student) getting an allowance and comparing it to gaining money in his LA paper. What
type of connection were you hoping for there?

Let’s talk about student participation. You have discussed the importance of student
participation. I’m wondering, what are your goals for student participation? What are
ways that students can participate inside and outside? How do you encourage students to
participate? Like what language do you use to encourage student participation? 1 have a
whole bunch of questions. Why don’t we start there?

So as far as participation, what I’m hearing, is that it depends on the type of participation
like in terms of being organized. What other different types? What are your expectations
for participation when you’re modeling vs. during math warm-up?

You talked about student’s individual needs in terms of what problems they might be able
to solve vs. others in math class. What role do student needs play in your expectations for

participation?

You mentioned that students can sit cute as pie and not be engaged. Tell me about that.

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APPENDIX D:
End of the Year Interview Questions.
Ms. Purple

Throughout the year, you mentioned that students receive opportunities to “fix”
assignments. How often do students receive these opportunities?

Several times throughout the year, I noticed that students publicly assessed themselves
based on their class preparation. How often did students do that? E

Throughout the year, it was clear and you mentioned that you possess very high
expectations for students. If you could provide some examples of those expectations.
Also, how do you communicate high expectations to students? What language did you
use to tell them?

 

You mentioned that you celebrate student learning. Provide some examples how you do I
this.

In the beginning of the year, you talked about the importance of balancing everything that
you do in a gangbuster way (e.g., encouraging student excitement about learning,
showing them they are approved of, teaching them responsibility and respect, as well as
the content). Now that it’s the end of the year, how well do you think you did with all
that?

In the beginning of the year, you talked about your hope to bring students up at least 1
level. How well do you think you did?

The beginning of the year was filled with a variety of challenges, especially the lack of
intern and resource support. How would you assess your progress as you worked through
these challenges (and others) as the year progressed?

After the first couple of weeks of school, I asked you how you thought your students
perceived you and your class. Now that it’s the end of the year, how do you think your
students perceive you and your classroom?

This might be a little repetitive but. . .At this point, now that it’s the end of the year, just
about the last day of school, what do you hope that your students leave 6th grade with?

In the beginning of the year, you mentioned that you began to notice things early on
about students. As the year progressed, how did these early observations change or

remain the same?

As you know in this project, I’ve tried to understand how you, the reasons why you
motivate students, the reasons why you make decisions to motivate students. I guess this

147

 

is a 2-part question. One, as the year has progressed, have been there many changes do
you think in the way that you did to motivate students. And also we’ve talked throughout
the year about why you do the things you do. If you could maybe provide a little
summary.

Ms. Yellow

You mentioned difficulties with students turning in homework throughout the year. How
have you addressed this problem? What are the consequences for students? I overheard
you telling Student that he wasn’t going to be able to participate in the pizza party if he
didn’t hand in his homework.

This year was full of many changes. Some of these changes included your role in 5th
grade to your new role as lead teacher of SS and transforming that class, your role in
(teacher’s) class. Also the Reading class seemed to go through many changes this year.
Big emphasis on reading and writing with lots of additions to LA such as that Guided
Reading. And also your new team-teaching arrangement. So, tell me about these changes
and how you made some decisions throughout the year. And overall your satisfaction
with how things turned out?

You mentioned in the beginning of the year that you end the year with students revisiting
their time capsule that they made in the first week of school. How else do you end the
school year? For example, are there particular writing assignments that students do to
capture the end of the year?

So now it’s the end, what do you hope students have left 6th grade with?

You mentioned in the beginning of the year, you began to notice things early on about
students. For example, you brought up the example with the paragraph writing. AS the
year progressed, how did those beginning of the year observations change or remain the
same or evolve?

Now that it’s the end of the year, lets talk about student learning across the year. What
type of evidence could you share and maybe that’s going to include actual paper evidence
of student learning throughout the year?

I asked you in the beginning of the year. Now it’S the end of the year. How do you think
students perceive you?

In the beginning of the year, you said your 2 words for the year were “positive and a
balance.” How would you assess your progress with those 2 things?

So as you know, this has been about motivation and I was wondering first, have there
been any changes throughout the year in the ways you motivate students? And then also
I’m trying to figure out why you do what you do in terms of motivating students. Any
other comments on that? If you could maybe provide a little summary.

148

 

 

APPENDIX E:
Summary of Major Conclusions
_Miior Conclusion #1: Importance of Emotional Safety
Beginning of The Year
Introductions
Routines
Relationship Building
Aware of and Responsive to Student Needs
High Awareness of Students
Reading Student Signals
Physical Positioning
Gestures
Communication Through Language
Caring and Approval
Minimizing Anxiety
Common Phrases
Humor
Connections With Students
Beginning of the School Day
Personal Stories
Caring About Students
Celebrating Student Accomplishments

Academic Comfort

149

 

Choosing Particular Students
Modifying Expectations
Unique to the Teachers
Stretch but Not Stress
Choosing Problems That Work for You
Differences Between The Teachers
Ms. Purple’s Emotional Connections
MS. Yellow’s Personal Connections
Major Conclusion #2: Masteryand Value
Achieving Mastery Is Possible
Opportunities to Fix It
Modifying Lessons
Explicit Strategy Instruction
High Quality Work
Evidence of Mastery
Connection between Mastery and Value
Learn It Forever
Value of Learning
Purpose of Learning
Differences Between The Teachers
Ms. Purple’s Emphasis on Classroom Learning Time and “Read Forever”
Ms. Yellow’s Connections to the Real World

Maior Conclusion #3: Shim for Self-Regulated Participation

150

 

It’s Worthwhile to Participate
Encouraging Self-Regulated Participation
Monitoring and Evaluating Your Efforts
Fixing Your Problems
Acting Responsibly
It’s What You Choose To Do
Communicating That You Must Take Ownership
The Culture of Self-Regulated Participation
Attention to Classroom Routines is a Prerequisite to Participation
Acting Like A Learner
Positive Ways to Encourage Student Participation
Recognizing Student Participation
Awareness and Responsiveness of Individual Student Needs
Monitoring Individual Students
Engagement Is Strongly Related To Lack Of Student Understanding
Tailoring Questions to Individual Student Needs
Making Connections is Necessary to Student Engagement
Differences Between Teachers
Ms. Purple’s “No Passivity Allowed in My Classroom”

Ms. Yellow’s Attention to Student Understanding

151

 

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