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Teaching Inquiry
INITIAL TEACHING INQUIRY

Intern Name: Jessica Hatcher

Date of Initial Presentation: 20 Sep 2017

Initial Inquiry Topic: Getting students to take responsibility for their learning.

The Context:
Class grade level (as relevant): 12th Grade, College Comp, Dual Enrollment
Class/student ability level: Gifted, mostly
Descriptive contextual details: I have three blocks of this prep. Two are semester long, which meet
everyday for 90 minutes, and one is a year long, which meets every other day for 90 minutes. The year
long class has 16 students and the two semester-long classes have 31 and 28 students respectively.

The Problem/Issue as it is Initially Presenting Itself:

I am very lucky in my placement that I havent encountered very many in the way of serious issues.
Our students are, for the most part, engaged, fairly responsibly, and, most importantly, intrinsically
motivated students. They understand, if not consciously than at least on some level, that taking college
courses in high school is a privilege that they have to earn. They also, for the most part, understand the
stakes involved in taking this class. If they fail this course than it goes on their permanent college
record, which will impact them as they go to apply to colleges. The students want to do well for this
reason and more. The vast majority of them are college bound and grade conscious. The valedictorian is
likely in one of these classes. The point is that, for the most part, they care, or, at least, they should.

The thing is, while these are lovely, well-behaved, motivated students, we have had repeated problems
in the past months with student engagement. Its not always evident in the classroom, but it comes
forward when students are turning in, or more often not turning it, assignments, and are failing to pick
up the responsibilities that we are giving to them.

This issue really came to a head two weeks ago, right before the students turned in their ad analysis
papers. The students were clearly struggling with the paper. A few had come forward with questions,
and the few people who had turned in rough drafts were on the completely wrong track. I could sense
this in the room, but I wasnt getting questions or any pleas for help. So I decided to send out a
emotional check-in Google form that included a question about how they felt about their paper. The
flood of responses I received back floored me (see artifact). The students, by and large, were stressed
and unprepared. For some of them, those who had expressed stress, either to me or to their peers in my
earshot, I expected, but I did not expect that the majority of the students were not ready to turn in their
paper. I spent the next two days doing damage control, conferencing with every single student who
expressed even a hint of anxiety in the survey. This helped, but some of the students, including many
that I conferenced with, still missed the the mark and will have to rewrite their paper to get the grade
that they want.

But this is not the only way that my mentor teachers and my expectations are not being met. We expect
the students to use their writing days wisely. We expect them to be listening when we show them how to
do things. We expect them to turn things in on time. Over and over again we give them our expectations
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in multiple forms and multiple ways, in person, over email, through Google Classroom, on the
whiteboard, on the chalkboard (two different things), and, in some cases, in the hallway everyday as the
students walk into the room. Are these expectations to high? Am I overestimating their ability? These
students want so much out of their life and their education, but seem to consistently come up short of
actually grabbing it.

The students are making choices to put the responsibility of their education in our hands. They are too
old and too motivated to be getting away for this. As college students, and technically they are college
students, we expect them to own their education. This doesnt mean that they should be teaching
themselves. This doesnt mean that we expect them to write and read at the same level as First years.
But it does mean that when they have problems or questions they need to reach out, not expect us to
guess at their struggles.

1-3 Questions the Problem/Issue is Raising for Me:

1) How do I give seniors the autonomy that they want and deserve as responsible almost-adults if
they refuse to take the responsibility for that autonomy and own their learning and study.
2) How do I reach the students who are check-out and uninterested in class.
3) How do I motivate students to take responsibility for their education without resorting to failing
them/bad grades.

Artifact (evidence) that Supports the Presentation and/or Discussion of the Inquiry
Issue:

Artifact One:
Some of the answers from the emotional check-in form:
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Artifact Two: Case Study One

One of my students, Lillian, began to concern me very early on in the semester. Despite signing her
syllabus acknowledging that she understood any paper (of our big, test-grade papers) turned in late
without an extension would result in a zero (yes, a zero. This is not my grade policy but my mentor
teachers and I dont want to use this valuable time to debate this practice. We already have done that in
here) she skipped class and turned in our first big essay an hour late. It was clear from the revision
history of the paper that she had been writing it during class time. We had a short conversation with her
and she understood that she would receive a zero. The thing is, she didnt seem to care. My mentor
teacher discussed this with Lillians eleventh grade AP teacher who proceeded to rail for ten minutes
about how lazy and irresponsible the student is. In her words, Lillian was never going to engage with the
material or take responsibility. Notice, she did not give any ideas for how to deal with this problem or
engage the student, but just gossiped and ranted.

Lillian has continued to have a blas attitude towards school work. Most recently, she went an entire
week before telling any teachers that she was unable to log into the school computers. She references
this in the artifact when she said that she had to handwrite the whole paper. I refuse to believe that she
does not want to learn. I want to help motivate Lillian to engage with her class work and own it for
herself, but Im not sure the right avenue to approach that with. I try to check in with her frequently, but
the class, though not our largest, has a high number of students who need extra support in it.

Artifact Three: Case Study Two

Last Friday, a group of students who are all in the nurse aide class decided not to return to school from
their clinicals. Three of the four are girls who I am fairly confident are trying and working hard. They
reach out when they have questions, they submit the optional first drafts, they work hard. I am fairly
certain that this was partially a matter of peer pressure. They were all the way out in Pantops, they had
an extra hour to get lunch and get back to school, and then someone in their nurse aide class says
something like, Its Friday, lets not go back to school. I understand this from their perspective, but it
actually made me angry. The students missed a valuable and, I think, engaging and fun lesson. They
didnt even try to not get caught. They all walked into class Monday morning with their tails between
their legs, waiting for us to lecture them. We are actually waiting for their respective administrators to
discipline them and therefore the whole event has gone unremarked to them.