Thoughts for the Week

This week I looked at three topics to consider for my action research plan: discipline, mentoring programs, and professional development.  For discipline I would like to take a look at the behavior program, Conscious Discipline.  I believe it would be beneficial to incorporate it into my classroom and see how it can impact discipline issues in the classroom.  If over the course of the year we were to see great improvements than this could be a program that would benefit teachers, administrators, and most importantly the students.  The campus could look into having a training on Conscious Discipline and then the next year have all the grades implement the program.  The second topic I considered was the mentoring program at our school and the types of support that helps new teachers succeed.  It is amazing all the research that shows how many teachers we lose in the first five years of teaching.  I see it as a duty of veteran teachers and administrators to find ways to help and support our new teachers so that we can retain as many as possible.  The final topic I looked at was the process of teacher led professional development and if it helps your new and veteran teachers continue their education.  I have heard many varied responses on this topic and find it very interesting.  At times it sounds like it is seen as beneficial to new teachers but what does it do for our veteran teachers?  Much research could be done on all three topics and each would benefit from an action research plan.  I have enjoyed looking into all three and after careful consideration and the meeting I had with my principal, I have decided to focus on discipline.  I am very much looking forward to all I can learn from my action research project.  If anyone has any suggestions or ideas that could aid in my process/adventure, please feel free to share.  The more information I can gather the better!  Thanks :)