ESP 763 – Action Research and Data-Based Decision Making/Student Growth Models
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Department of Early Childhood, Multilingual, and Special Education
Problem Posing Worksheet for Action Research Development
Identify 2-3 areas related to the outcomes of diverse learners in your school or classroom
environment that you would like to improve through action research. These areas could be
related to curricula or interventions implemented in your classroom, teacher knowledge and
skills, environmental variables in your learning environment, or schoolwide ideas.
Can you do Is it important Are you committed What is the potential
something that you do to doing something impact of doing
about this? something about it? Will you something about
about it? be able to? this area?
Why?
Area 1: Yes, I can do Yes, it is Yes, I am The potential impact
something important that committed to doing that this would have
Students’ about this. I do something something about it. would be allowing
Social about this. I I believe that it is my students to
Emotional Skills work in a important for my better understand
strategies students to process themselves and
classroom their emotions, others. It would
with students understand how allow them to
who are they feel, and help understand their
diagnosed them develop own emotions and
with autism. strategies to how they can
This means manage their process those in
they struggle emotions. Yes, I will healthy and
with be able to help my productive ways. It
identifying students in this will also allow them
emotions, area through to understand their
understanding learning, modeling, neurotypical peers
emotions, and curriculum. and form friendships
processing and relationships
emotions, and with them.
interacting
with peers. It
is important to
address these
deficits to
allow my
students to be
successful in
the classroom,
at home, and
in building
relationships
with others.
Area 2: Yes, I can do Yes, it is Yes, I am The potential impact
something important for committed to doing would be allowing
Understanding about this. me to do something about my students to use
and something this because it is their voice. It would
Communicating about this, important that my open up
with Nonverbal because all students have a communication
Students students have voice in their between us and
a right to use education. Yes, I allow my students to
their voice will be able to do easily express their
when it comes something about wants and needs. It
to their this area. By would reduce the
education. researching amount of
Being able to strategies, I can frustration my
understand determine what students feel and
and methods or reduce the number
communicate communication of tantrums and
with styles best fit my outbursts that go
nonverbal students needs. along with the
students can frustration of trying
allow them to to communicate.
share their
interests,
strengths, and
be more
successful
towards their
goals.
Chosen Priority Area: Rationale:
Improving nonverbal students’ social and I chose to combine the two areas that I
emotional skills. discussed above. I did this because I feel
like my students who are nonverbal
struggle more with their social emotional
learning. Many children with autism
struggle with understanding, processing,
expressing, and managing their emotions.
This becomes more of a struggle when
they do not have a way to easily express
how they are feeling. If I am able to
support my nonverbal students with their
social emotional learning, we can develop
ways for them to productively express
themselves.
Identify data sources that you can review in order to fully understand the aspects of your
chosen priority area. Describe that data.
As stated in the article by Groundwater-Smith and Mockler, students are
able to become active co-researchers instead of sources of data during
Student
research. By allowing students to become co-researchers, it allows them to
Variables; how
have a voice in the work. This is very important for my area of focus since I
can you engage
am focusing on my nonverbal students and wanting them to have a voice in
students as co-
the classroom. I want them to be able to build relationships and engage
researchers as
with adults and peers through the research and be able to express
discussed in
themselves. With this in mind I plan for my research to be student focused
Groundwater-
and allow them to have input on how things are going. I will allow my
Smith &
students to self-assess how they are feeling and the strategies that they
Mockler
enjoy using. I will use self-assessments and observations to determine how
(2015)?
my students are feeling throughout the day and see if they are able to
correctly identify emotions.
There are a few environmental variables that could have an impact on the
research. The time of day can have an impact on how my students are
feeling and their willingness to participate in tasks. For example, one of my
students was chronically late last year, which would affect his mood
Environmental entering the classroom. School breaks and weather can have an impact as
Variables well. When students return from break, they need to reacquaint
themselves with the routine of the classroom and the transition back to
school can really affect their mood. Additionally, very windy days seem to
have an impact on students with autism, making more problem behaviors
arise.
There are many different types of curricula that focus on social emotional
learning, so finding the one that best fits my students’ needs is important.
Curricular Washoe County School District Special Education department usings the
Variables STAR Autism Support program. I will be using this program and
supplemental activities to support my research.
There are many factors of being a teacher that can have an impact on
research. One of them being my experience as a special education teacher.
Teacher I am going into my second year of teaching special education, but
Variables previously taught fourth grade for three years. My content knowledge of
the STAR program is also very limited, so taking time to familiarize myself
with the curriculum will be necessary.
Identify the historical and current interventions that have been implemented to address your
chosen priority area. Describe them, and their effectiveness, below. If you plan to analyze
additional information to better understand previous interventions, indicate that here as well.
Targeted Impact of the
Historical Interventions Impact of the Interventions
Interventions
In my previous fourth grade
classroom I had used the
Sanford Harmony program.
The lessons were very
The targeted impact for this
interactive for the students,
intervention is Social
but there were some topics
Emotional Learning, but the
or lessons that the students
program is developed with
1. Sanford Harmony were less engaged in,
neurotypical students in
limiting their understanding
mind. This program would
of certain topics. For the
not be a good fit for my
lessons that students
current students.
enjoyed, they were able to
implement the strategies
into their friendships and
classroom relationships.
Current Interventions Impact of the Interventions Targeted Impact of the
Interventions
1. Zones of Regulation The Zones of Regulations is a The targeted impact of this
program that allows intervention allows for
students to become more students to better
aware of their emotions and categorize the vast number
how to regulate them. The of emotions that can be felt
program sorts of emotions into easier to understand
into four categories (blue zones. The program helps
zone, green zone, yellow students to not only be able
zone, and red zone) that to identify and understand
makes it easier for students these emotions, but also
to understand and identify. helps with regulating the
The blue zone describes emotions in one’s body. It
emotions that are a low teaches students skills using
state of alertness or down common language for
feelings such as sadness. The students to understand.
Green zone would be used
to describe a student who is
calm and alert and ready to
learn. The Yellow zone is for
higher energy emotions such
as stress and excitement.
Finally red zone is for
extremely high energy
emotions that can become
overwhelming, such as anger
and panic.
2. STAR Autism Support, This intervention is designed The intervention is designed
Social Emotional specifically for students with to target the social and
Learning and Emotional autism. It provides tools for emotional learning needs of
Regulation (SOLER) students to learn about students with autism. The
themselves, empathize with program uses evidence
others, and develop healthy based instructional
relationships. The program procedures to promote
offers differentiated lessons social emotional growth. It
on self-awareness, also provides tools for data
communication, perspective collection, progress
talking, and relationship monitoring, and
skills. I have not had a documentation.
chance to use this
curriculum yet, but it will be
the one I will use for the
2024-25 school year.
State the problem that you would like to design an action research project to address. Provide
detailed information, including an operationalized definition.
The problem that I would like to design my action research project around would be how I
can best support and improve the social emotional needs and skills of my nonverbal
students. As previously stated, students with autism struggle with understanding, identifying,
and processing emotions in themselves and others. This can be especially difficult for
nonverbal students. I want to be able to best support their learning in the area of social
emotional learning and help them to be able to express their emotions. I will work on this by
utilizing the STAR Autism Support program to instruct students. I will use their data collection
tools and progress monitoring tools to collect data on my students’ growth and progress.
Write your research question(s) that you hope to answer through this action research project.
How can the Star Autism Support program impact a nonverbals student’s social and
emotional learning?
