Week 4 Assignment Article Research

I have not had to write very man y research papers in my school life. In fact I cannot think of a paper that was considered an actual research paper that I have had to write. I have written a lot of papers but most are read and analyze style. I have found the research process a little exhausting. I keep wondering if I am headed in the right direction or if I am completing my assignments as they are meant to be. In prior papers I was always given the material that I needed to read and the thesis statement was always from the material given so most of the time the papers were along the same line.

This week we explored finding articles using Discover! Search Database. The database was very user friendly and easy to navigate. However, finding an actual article that fit the mold I wanted was a little challenging. I liked the search for books better, but I found the articles had a lot to offer also. During my search I found that the parameters I wanted to use were too vague. My keywords were returning a wide range and variety of articles but non that seemed to be what I was looking for. One of the articles I found based on the title sounded like a jackpot but upon further reading I was left with inconclusive results and I found that frustrating.

I finally changed my search keywords to more specific elements of classroom management and was able to get results that were more in the area I was looking for. I liked the article that I chose, Examining classroom influences on student perceptions of school climate: The role of classroom management and exclusionary discipline strategies. After skimming the article and having a lot of the heading catch my eye I wanted to read and learn from the piece. I really like that it was an article on using positive supports rather than discipline strategies to promote positive classroom behavior.

I think that I was closed minded about articles before starting my research because I was so unfamiliar with them. Add on the difficulty of finding what I wanted and I was in full I hate this mode. Now that I rethought my strategy and decided to give it one last go I am thankful I didn’t give up. I enjoyed the extra insight that reading the articles gave me and after reading it decided that the reading was not as daunting as I felt when trying to navigate a book. It was more to the point and didn’t have a whole lot of skimming to do since it was a whole lot shorter.

Week 3 Assignment Book Research Online

In my classroom I see a lot of children act out in ways that seems they may be seeking attention. Most of the time this attention they seek given in a negative way. Writing on the desk, intentionally cutting up papers, and aggression are among the many negative behaviors I witness on a daily basis from the same 6-10 children. While I originally wanted to research what parents are not doing in the discipline area compared to 10 years ago it has come to my attention that pointing out what parents are lacking will not fix the issues in my classroom. I then decided to change my direction a little to what can I do for these children in the 5 hours that I touch their lives to make their life and my life a little easier. I realize that not all children learn and relate to disciple in the same way, I also feel that parenting and teaching may overlap in the classroom when it comes to techniques.

I have decided to research both parenting and classroom management techniques to help get a wide variety of information that may be of help in the classroom. A book that I found through the Chapman Leatherby Library EBSCO database really sparked my attention in the classroom management area. The Developmental Management Approach to Classroom Behaviour : Responding to Individual Needs. The table of content had many chapters that I could relate too and the breakdown of the different type of classroom behaviors was a great. I also liked a chapter that focused on teaches’ aggression toward misbehaving students. It was an eye opener for seeing your own actions from the outside.



Further researching books this week really helped me to see where I wanted to go with my research. It gave me some insight and better direction. I realized what aspect of the classroom behavior I could have an effect on rather than trying to control situations that were beyond my reach.

Assignment 2: Understanding of Topic and Research

I am going to be a teacher and I currently work in a kindergarten classroom full of 28 rambunctious and inspiring children. One of the areas that I struggle with every day is the behavior of some of my students. I see so much disrespect and aggression, I see children that want to be loved and cared for, and I see smart open minded children struggling to fit in, in a chaotic world. Every day I contemplate what makes the behavior extremes so different in each child. Are they neglected at home, have they been on the receiving end of aggression, or are parents just getting lazier in their parenting styles and not teaching these children right from wrong? What has caused the lack of respect for themselves, their peers, and their teachers? Based on this question I decided to research classroom behavior strategies along with parenting strategies.

I am from the era of Google. Have a question Google it, need and idea Google it, bored Google something. I also am a daily user of Facebook and Pinterest. You can link to all sorts of information from both of these apps/websites. So upon reading this week’s assignment I thought Google was the answer to it all. When I sat down to research my topic I decided to stay away from Google. I already know I can get a ton of information relevant to my topic and a lot of it would be opinion not so much scholarly. I decided to start with the Leatherby Libraries E-Reference.

I wasn’t too interested in the dictionaries that were listed so I skipped looking through those. I was familiar with EBSCO eBook Collection so I started there. I used the key words Discipline and Classroom. My search returned a number of results. After reading the titles of the books I decided to bookmark The Developmental Management Approach to Classroom Behaviour : Responding to Individual Needs and Approaches to Behavior and Classroom Management : Integrating Discipline and Care. They were books written by individuals with degrees and experience in the field. Skimming the books I found many helpful and interesting passages. I also liked the titles in the table of contents. There seemed to be many areas to pull research from.

I like books but sometimes I feel they can overwhelm with information. I have a preference for articles so I furthered my research base into the Gale Virtual Reference link. I wanted some information on types of disciple that parents can use. I did a broad search with the keyword discipline and it returned a number of articles on the topic. I decided on an article published in the International Encyclopedia of Marriage and Family titled Discipline. After skimming the article I was able to find three different and specific types of disciple that parents can use, plus the article was written by a credible source. After skimming I decided to further the discipline search to specific disciples searching for keyword Spanking. It returned an article titled Spanking, from the same Encyclopedia as the previous article so I also bookmarked this article for further reading.

My least favorite search method was Google Scholar. I found it to produce a lot of outdated articles and when I did find an article I wanted to read further it took me to snippets of the article and then wanted me to purchase the PDF or downloadable version of the article or eBook. I did locate two articles from this search engine using keywords discipline and behavior, Journal of Marriage and Family through JSTOR titled Paternal Involvement and Children's Behavior Problems and the other from Pediatrics Vol. 98 Advising Parents on Discipline: What Works.  To access these articles I had to create a profile and login information which was slightly inconvenient but worth it because I found the articles to be useful and pertinent to my topic.