Inquiry and Reflection

Draft Proposal:

The Alti Spike

 

Alti Spike (Verb)

1. a predictable reaction or spell of behavior involving the loss of physical or emotional control when confronted with a

situation that exceeds one’s perceived abilities.  “Joe didn’t like how his art project was turning out. His next step was to

immediately trash and alti spike his project on the floor."

synonyms: to become enraged, to lose one’s temper, a loss of composure.

 

Where am I going? I have decided that my inquiry topic is going to be centered within the domains of self-regulation.  I plan to learn how I can facilitate and bridge self-regulation strategies within my practice and the climate/context of my high school classroom.  Even more specifically, I am hoping to co-create, with my students, a common language around these self-regulated strategies.  

 

I question if the use of common language for self-regulation techniques will be a skill that transfers from the classroom into all aspects of my student's lives? What will my evidence be and where will I find my data? I have read research that suggests when a student is operating within the “survival” part of their brain that the full power of their cognitive skills are inhibited.  This leads me to question if I will I even be able to teach self-regulation techniques to students who experience intense trauma and live in chronic stress?

 

The “Alti Spike” is a term commonly used my classroom, and is the metaphor that I will be using to help crystallize my learning throughout this inquiry.  The term “Alti Spike” has helped take away the stigma of having a “blow-out” in class and has allowed students to have an open conversation around an incident. I want to follow my gut-feeling and set goals for myself that allow space so I may center myself as a teacher-learner and use this time to discover, evaluate, co-create common language, and implement SRL into my practice.

 

Where was I? When reflecting on my graduate diploma inquiry projects, I can see a common theme of using the relationships and attachments that I have developed, to purposefully work with a student to identify and develop their lagging skill.  Navigating friendships and social networks, having a sense of belonging, and strategies around self-regulation are what my student’s struggle with on a daily basis.  One might think that it is academic or intellectual engagement that would prove the most difficult, but typically alternative students have massive difficulties navigating their relationships, and enjoying or feeling like they belong in school.  Until a young person is socially engaged in an adaptive fashion, it is quite difficult to then extended a more ambitious goal of promoting deep cognitive engagement that results in learning.

 

My “big-picture” link is that I want to give my students power and knowledge over their trauma-directed instincts and emotional responses.  I feel that my proposed inquiry connects to educational research and the suggestion that these skills directly affect one’s ability to successfully navigate life’s many challenges.

 

The list of theoretical, philosophical, and experiential guides that I will rely on to guide my inquiry will continue to evolve. My pedagogy aligns with the likes of Gordon Neufeld and his attachment theory, Ross Greene and Plan b, and by Martin Brokenleg and restorative justice practices.  I am influenced and impacted by Larry Brendtro, a co-author of the book Reclaiming Youth At Risk: Our Hope for the Future, and a founding member of Life Space Crisis Intervention.  The researchers and authors that I plan to read and draw inspiration from include: Deborah L. Butler, Carol Dweck, Barry Zimmerman, Judy Halbert, Linda Kaser, Timothy J. Clearly, Dr. Shanker, and D.H. Schnuck.  This list will most likely need to be flexible and fluid to fit with my needs.

 

 

My next steps are to gather resources, from the authors previously listed, that support the direct instruction of cycles of self-regulation. I will have to decide which strategies I want to directly teach, so that I allow the students to have opportunities to practice them. I will need to develop a common language and terms with my students. These strategies and terms will need to be displayed in the classroom somehow. I will need to research and develop a system for monitoring the students’ self-regulation data. My last but resounding thought is that when teaching self-regulation skills, I need ensure that they become an integral aspect of teaching and learning in my classroom and that this inquiry is not a separate curriculum.  Sometimes a simple statement is the most impactful. I will keep Urie Bronfenbrenner’s motto that “there are no disposable children” in my head and my heart.