Dialogue Journaling between Teachers and Students with Behavior Difficulties in a Therapeutic School Setting

Format

Individual Presentation

Location

Vernon

Strand #1

Social & Emotional Skills

Strand #1

Head: Academic Achievement & Leadership

Strand #2

Head: Academic Achievement & Leadership

Relevance

Students who attend alternative schools often have a low sense of school belonging, including poor perception of teacher-student relationships. Poor teacher-student relationships often lead to poor academic outcomes, risky and off-task behavior, and dropping out. Dialogue journaling has been found to improve teacher-student relationships and student outcomes.

Brief Program Description

In this presentation, we will present data from a single case study conducted in a therapeutic setting with 8th and 9th-grade students who struggle with on-task behavior using dialogue journaling. In this study students and teachers use dialogue journaling to communicate with each other and data were collected to track on-task behavior.

Summary

The purpose of this study was to answer the following research questions; What impact does dialogue journaling have on the on-task behavior of eighth and ninth-grade students in a therapeutic setting? Do eighth and ninth-grade students in a therapeutic setting who participate in dialogue journaling demonstrate improved writing skills, teacher-student relationships and sense of school membership?

A single-case multiple-baseline across participants research design will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of Dialogue Journaling on improving student on-task behavior. It will also examine writing fluency, correct word sequence, teacher-student relationships, and students' sense of school membership. Participants will consist of six 8th and 9th-grade students in a therapeutic services school. Student on task behavior was measured during baseline and intervention. Students were observed over a 15-minute block of time in which student were asked to read the teacher's response to the previous day's journal entry and respond with a new entry. The researcher observed students in 15-second increments. If the student demonstrated on task behavior at each 15-second interval the researcher marked "yes" on the recording sheet and if they were not "no" was marked. The percentage of time on task was be found by dividing the number of "yes" intervals by the total number of intervals.

Dialogue Journaling is an ongoing, personal and relevant written conversation between the teacher and student (Peyton, 1997). After baseline was established the researcher introduced dialogue journaling to the students in the study. Then the teacher and student began dialoguing until the end of the study.

Evidence

The relationship between teachers and students is vitally important for students' success in school (Burchinal, Peisner-Feinbers, Pianta, & Howes, 2002) These relationships impact not only students academic outcomes but also areas such as social-emotional well-being, attitude, involvement, engagement, interpersonal relationships, and attendance (Birch & Ladd, 1997; Burchinal et al.; Pianta & Stuhlman, 2004) De Wit and colleagues (2010) found a connection between students' declining perception of teacher support and students' declining attendance. Students want teachers to know them as individuals. Students believe that teachers care for them if they laugh with them, trusted them, and regarded them as individuals to be treated with honesty and affection (Capern & Hammond, 2014), They feel supported by teacher who make efforts to know them personally, demonstrate genuine concern and communicate positively (Capern & Hammond, 2014). One way to get to know students as individuals, demonstrate genuine concern and communicate positively is through dialogue journaling. Unlike elementary teachers who spend all day with the same group of 30 or so students, middle and high school teachers often have over 100 students and spend between 55 and 90 minutes a day with them. This makes it difficult to get to know each student as an individual.

Dialogue journaling is an alternative way for teachers to communicate with individual students and thereby strengthen the student-teacher relationship (Regan, 2003; Regan, Mastropieri, & Scruggs, 2005), Reagan and colleagues found that dialogue journaling improved students attention to task, writing quality, and number of words written. The dialogue journal is and ongoing, personal and relevant written conversation between the student and teacher (Peyton, 1997)

Biographical Sketch

Carrie Kane is a PhD student in Exceptional Children at Georgia State University. Her research focuses on students with disabilities in alternative settings.

Keyword Descriptors

Alternative settings, Theraputic settings, Dialogue Journaling, On-task behaivor, Teacher-student relationships

Presentation Year

2016

Start Date

3-7-2016 3:00 PM

End Date

3-7-2016 4:15 PM

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Mar 7th, 3:00 PM Mar 7th, 4:15 PM

Dialogue Journaling between Teachers and Students with Behavior Difficulties in a Therapeutic School Setting

Vernon

In this presentation, we will present data from a single case study conducted in a therapeutic setting with 8th and 9th-grade students who struggle with on-task behavior using dialogue journaling. In this study students and teachers use dialogue journaling to communicate with each other and data were collected to track on-task behavior.