Phase 1: Description of Implementation
The implementation of phase 1 did not go exactly according to my Action Plan. There are parts of my action plan that I kept, parts I revised, and parts I completely got rid of due to time and what I thought would be best for my students. I originally thought I would be able to do a conflict resolution lesson with the class every day for 20 minutes after recess but due to all of the academic material that had to be covered each week, I was only able to do conflict resolution lessons with the class 3-4 times per week for 20 mins each. However, since almost all of my students experience conflicts with other students on a daily basis, every day I could see if they were applying the skills that I taught them when they encountered a conflict.
Week 1 (Nov 12- 15)
In thinking about how I would introduce conflict resolution to my class, I decided to stick with teaching them first the I-statement strategy. However, I felt that the term I-statement would be hard for my students to remember since many of them most likely don't even know what the word "statement" means so I changed the name of the strategy to I-Message. I knew the word "message" would be a familiar word to the students and would be easier for them to remember. I also slightly changed the structure of the I-Message. Instead of the structure being, "I am______ when you_______. I'd like you to_______", I changed the structure to "I feel ______ when you_______. I'd like you to_______". I simply changed the start of the I-Message from "I am" to "I feel". I felt that the words "I feel" would help guide the students and help remind them that a feeling word goes next. The blanks would still be filled in with the same information as previously stated. The first blank would be filled with the emotion the student is feeling, the second blank would be filled with the action the other student is doing that is bothering the student and the third blank would be filled with what the student would like the student bothering them to do instead. As I taught my students the concept of an I-Message, I wanted my students to see a visual of the I-Message structure so I created a poster with the I-Message structure. When I presented this poster to them, I did not have the emotion faces under the first blank. I asked my students to tell me feelings they feel when someone is bothering them and put the feeling words they told me with corresponding faces under the blank. Since many of my students are English Language learners and many of my students can not read yet, I felt that the faces would help them visualize the feelings they feel when someone is bothering them. After I explained to my students that an I-Message is used to solve a problem with a friend, I wanted show to them an exact situation when it could be used and show them proper usage of an I-Message so I role played having a social conflict with my master teacher and I resolved our social conflict with an I-Message. To help the students practice using the I-Message, I called on students to role play typical conflicts and use the I-Message to solve the conflict. I posted the I-Message poster on a place on the wall where all my students could see it so they could refer to it when they encountered social conflicts with friends during class.
As planned, the next day, I read to the students the story of the Ugly Duckling and had a class discussion about how the ugly duckling should solve the conflict in the story. Many of my students suggested the ugly duckling should solve the problem using an I-Message and gave me examples of an I-Message the ugly duckling could use. I was impressed many of my students already knew when and how to use an I-Message. At this point in the week I noticed many of the students were starting to use I-Messages to solve social conflicts with their friends and often wanted to stop instruction time to do an I-Message with a friend bothering them. At first I let them but it started to disrupt instruction again so I decided the students would have to save their I-Messages and do them at another time. I felt the best time for students to do their saved I-Messages would be during class meetings so this lead me to changing the structure of class meetings from the structure I planned in my action plan. I made class meetings a time for the students to say saved I-Messages and a time for students to report problems they had with friends and how they solved it.
The following day we had our first class meeting. Several of my students had problems to report and want to share how they solved them. One student reported solving a problem with a friend sitting on her spot by using the I-Message, "I feel sad when you sit in my spot. I would like it if you move".
On Friday my conflict resolution lesson was skipped because the class had a field trip but I was able to conference with each of the students I was following and ask them about problems they had with friends during the week. At the end of the week, I analyzed the data I collected discovered that 21 social conflicts had occurred this week. Of the 21 social conflicts, 15 of them were solved with an I-Message. I saw that each of the students I was following had used an I-Message to solve a problem with a friend at least once during the week. Most of these students even used an I-Message more then once during the week to solve a problem with a friend. However, I witnessed two of the students I was following receive an I-Message after bothering a friend and not respond well to the I-Message. One of the students just ignored the student while he was saying the I-Message and the other student denied doing what the student told her she did in the I-Message. As a result these students didn't feel better and felt as if they hadn't solved the conflict. Also many of my students were reporting conflicts to me and other adults instead of trying to solve themselves with an I-Message. I recorded a total of 5 conflicts that were reported to me and other adults. I also witnessed 1 student pushing another student to try to solve a problem.
Week 1 (Nov 12- 15)
In thinking about how I would introduce conflict resolution to my class, I decided to stick with teaching them first the I-statement strategy. However, I felt that the term I-statement would be hard for my students to remember since many of them most likely don't even know what the word "statement" means so I changed the name of the strategy to I-Message. I knew the word "message" would be a familiar word to the students and would be easier for them to remember. I also slightly changed the structure of the I-Message. Instead of the structure being, "I am______ when you_______. I'd like you to_______", I changed the structure to "I feel ______ when you_______. I'd like you to_______". I simply changed the start of the I-Message from "I am" to "I feel". I felt that the words "I feel" would help guide the students and help remind them that a feeling word goes next. The blanks would still be filled in with the same information as previously stated. The first blank would be filled with the emotion the student is feeling, the second blank would be filled with the action the other student is doing that is bothering the student and the third blank would be filled with what the student would like the student bothering them to do instead. As I taught my students the concept of an I-Message, I wanted my students to see a visual of the I-Message structure so I created a poster with the I-Message structure. When I presented this poster to them, I did not have the emotion faces under the first blank. I asked my students to tell me feelings they feel when someone is bothering them and put the feeling words they told me with corresponding faces under the blank. Since many of my students are English Language learners and many of my students can not read yet, I felt that the faces would help them visualize the feelings they feel when someone is bothering them. After I explained to my students that an I-Message is used to solve a problem with a friend, I wanted show to them an exact situation when it could be used and show them proper usage of an I-Message so I role played having a social conflict with my master teacher and I resolved our social conflict with an I-Message. To help the students practice using the I-Message, I called on students to role play typical conflicts and use the I-Message to solve the conflict. I posted the I-Message poster on a place on the wall where all my students could see it so they could refer to it when they encountered social conflicts with friends during class.
As planned, the next day, I read to the students the story of the Ugly Duckling and had a class discussion about how the ugly duckling should solve the conflict in the story. Many of my students suggested the ugly duckling should solve the problem using an I-Message and gave me examples of an I-Message the ugly duckling could use. I was impressed many of my students already knew when and how to use an I-Message. At this point in the week I noticed many of the students were starting to use I-Messages to solve social conflicts with their friends and often wanted to stop instruction time to do an I-Message with a friend bothering them. At first I let them but it started to disrupt instruction again so I decided the students would have to save their I-Messages and do them at another time. I felt the best time for students to do their saved I-Messages would be during class meetings so this lead me to changing the structure of class meetings from the structure I planned in my action plan. I made class meetings a time for the students to say saved I-Messages and a time for students to report problems they had with friends and how they solved it.
The following day we had our first class meeting. Several of my students had problems to report and want to share how they solved them. One student reported solving a problem with a friend sitting on her spot by using the I-Message, "I feel sad when you sit in my spot. I would like it if you move".
On Friday my conflict resolution lesson was skipped because the class had a field trip but I was able to conference with each of the students I was following and ask them about problems they had with friends during the week. At the end of the week, I analyzed the data I collected discovered that 21 social conflicts had occurred this week. Of the 21 social conflicts, 15 of them were solved with an I-Message. I saw that each of the students I was following had used an I-Message to solve a problem with a friend at least once during the week. Most of these students even used an I-Message more then once during the week to solve a problem with a friend. However, I witnessed two of the students I was following receive an I-Message after bothering a friend and not respond well to the I-Message. One of the students just ignored the student while he was saying the I-Message and the other student denied doing what the student told her she did in the I-Message. As a result these students didn't feel better and felt as if they hadn't solved the conflict. Also many of my students were reporting conflicts to me and other adults instead of trying to solve themselves with an I-Message. I recorded a total of 5 conflicts that were reported to me and other adults. I also witnessed 1 student pushing another student to try to solve a problem.
Week 2 ( Nov 18-22)
This information helped me plan how I was going to go about week 2 of my phase 1. This week, I did a conflict resolution lesson with the class every day except Thursday. I wanted to continue to expose my class to different kinds of social conflicts that could be solved with I-Messages so in the beginning of the week I brought in puppets and role played them encountering different social conflicts. I had my class help the puppets solve their problems. For each problem the puppets encountered, many of my students (including students I was following) suggested different I-Messages the puppets could say to solve their problem. I told the I-Messages the students suggested to the puppets then the puppets chose one of the I-Messages suggested to solve their problem.
I was happy to witness a lot of my students using I-Messages on their own when they encountered a problem with a friend. I heard one of my student say to another student bothering them, " I feel sad when you yell in my face. I would like it if you stop" and another student say, "I feel mad when you sit in my spot on the rug. I'd like it if you stop".
Although students were using the I-Messages, I still noticed many students not responding well to the I-Messages directed at them so problems were not getting solved. I observed two more situations where students were not responding well to I-Messages directed at them. In one of the situations, the student ignored the student saying the I-Message and in the other situation the student denied doing what the person told her in the I-Message. This lead me to focus on the topic of "How to respond to an I-Message" for my conflict resolution lesson on Wednesday. I made a circle map with the question, "What are ways we can respond to I-Messages?" and recorded my students responses. Several of my students (including some of the students I am following) came up with appropriate ways to respond to an I-Message. Then I allowed students who needed to say I-Messages to friends to come to the front of class and say the I-Message to their friend. After each, I asked the class if the friend responded well to the I-Message to reinforce appropriate ways to respond to I-Messages. Through out the rest of the week, I witnessed several student receive I-Messages and respond to them in the appropriate ways the class came up with on the circle map. I could see this made students feel better and feel like they had successfully solved their problem.
This information helped me plan how I was going to go about week 2 of my phase 1. This week, I did a conflict resolution lesson with the class every day except Thursday. I wanted to continue to expose my class to different kinds of social conflicts that could be solved with I-Messages so in the beginning of the week I brought in puppets and role played them encountering different social conflicts. I had my class help the puppets solve their problems. For each problem the puppets encountered, many of my students (including students I was following) suggested different I-Messages the puppets could say to solve their problem. I told the I-Messages the students suggested to the puppets then the puppets chose one of the I-Messages suggested to solve their problem.
I was happy to witness a lot of my students using I-Messages on their own when they encountered a problem with a friend. I heard one of my student say to another student bothering them, " I feel sad when you yell in my face. I would like it if you stop" and another student say, "I feel mad when you sit in my spot on the rug. I'd like it if you stop".
Although students were using the I-Messages, I still noticed many students not responding well to the I-Messages directed at them so problems were not getting solved. I observed two more situations where students were not responding well to I-Messages directed at them. In one of the situations, the student ignored the student saying the I-Message and in the other situation the student denied doing what the person told her in the I-Message. This lead me to focus on the topic of "How to respond to an I-Message" for my conflict resolution lesson on Wednesday. I made a circle map with the question, "What are ways we can respond to I-Messages?" and recorded my students responses. Several of my students (including some of the students I am following) came up with appropriate ways to respond to an I-Message. Then I allowed students who needed to say I-Messages to friends to come to the front of class and say the I-Message to their friend. After each, I asked the class if the friend responded well to the I-Message to reinforce appropriate ways to respond to I-Messages. Through out the rest of the week, I witnessed several student receive I-Messages and respond to them in the appropriate ways the class came up with on the circle map. I could see this made students feel better and feel like they had successfully solved their problem.
However since I had noticed students denying bothering other students earlier in the week and the week prior, I made the focus for my lesson on Friday "denial". I had the puppets encounter a social conflict. Then I had the puppet being bothered say an I-Message to the other puppet but the other puppet denied doing anything wrong. After I asked the class if the puppet responded to the I-Message in an appropriate way. Several students responded that the puppet did not respond in a good way because it was lying. I explained to them what was happening was called "denial". I asked my students for better ways the puppet could have responded and many of them suggested ways from the circle map lesson on Wednesday. Then I shared my students ideas with the puppets and the puppets reenacted the problem and solved it using one of my students suggestions.
On Friday, I also conferenced with each of the students I was following. At the end of the week, I analyzed my observations on my observational guide and the student self reports from each student conference. This week there were a total of 25 social conflicts that occurred. 1 of the conflicts was solved by a student by getting aggressive and poking the student. I saw that sometimes the students would do I-Messages to solve conflicts with their friends but not all the time. I recorded a total of 13 I-Messages used amongst the student I was following. I also noticed that the students were responding better to I-Messages directed at them after I did the lesson on responding to I-Messages and denial. However, there were quite a few conflicts being reported to me or other adults to solve for the students. This week 10 conflicts were reported to me and other adults. The interesting part is that each time they reported a problem to me, I would ask them how they thought they should solve it and they would say "I-Message" then they would go solve it using an I-Message. I noticed when the students were presented with a social conflict that was not their own (like a conflict the puppets encountered), the students immediately suggested that the conflict be solved with an I-Message and could articulate an appropriate I-Message to use to solve the problem. These observations told me that my students knew the appropriate times to use an I-Message. I also learned this week that two students in my class had used the I-Message at home. One student suggested that his brother and sister use an I-Message when they were having a conflict at home and another student told her mom about the I-Message. I was happy to see what I had taught these students was being transferred to their life outside of school.
On Friday, I also conferenced with each of the students I was following. At the end of the week, I analyzed my observations on my observational guide and the student self reports from each student conference. This week there were a total of 25 social conflicts that occurred. 1 of the conflicts was solved by a student by getting aggressive and poking the student. I saw that sometimes the students would do I-Messages to solve conflicts with their friends but not all the time. I recorded a total of 13 I-Messages used amongst the student I was following. I also noticed that the students were responding better to I-Messages directed at them after I did the lesson on responding to I-Messages and denial. However, there were quite a few conflicts being reported to me or other adults to solve for the students. This week 10 conflicts were reported to me and other adults. The interesting part is that each time they reported a problem to me, I would ask them how they thought they should solve it and they would say "I-Message" then they would go solve it using an I-Message. I noticed when the students were presented with a social conflict that was not their own (like a conflict the puppets encountered), the students immediately suggested that the conflict be solved with an I-Message and could articulate an appropriate I-Message to use to solve the problem. These observations told me that my students knew the appropriate times to use an I-Message. I also learned this week that two students in my class had used the I-Message at home. One student suggested that his brother and sister use an I-Message when they were having a conflict at home and another student told her mom about the I-Message. I was happy to see what I had taught these students was being transferred to their life outside of school.
Week 3 (Dec 2-6)
I was happy that my students were beginning to use the I-Message to resolve conflicts with their friends. I was also happy to see that when my students were presented with other peoples conflicts, they recognized that it could be resolved with an I-Message. Lastly, I was happy to hear that some of my students were even using the I-Message at home. But a handful of my students were still reporting problems to me before trying to solve it themselves with an I-Message. I wanted to change that. I wanted the students to avoid reporting their problems to me and instead immediately solve it on their own with the I-Message. Therefore for my conflict resolution lesson on Monday of this week, I focused on solving a conflict with an I-Message before reporting the conflict to the teacher. I had the puppets encounter typical conflicts but before they could tell the teacher about it, they had to try solving it on their own with an I-Message. Although I thought this lesson may help the students learn to solve their social conflicts with an I-Message before reporting them to the teacher, through out the week I still had quite a few students coming up to me to report problems then had to redirect them to solve it on own. Once I redirected them to solve it on their own, they immediately choose to solve it with an I-Message without me even suggesting it.
For my conflict resolution lesson on Tuesday and Thursday of this week, I held a class meeting. During the class meetings, I noticed several students had to do I-Messages with friends for hitting or pushing them. Through out this week, I myself witnessed 5 incidents of students I am following hitting and punching other students to solve a problem. This showed me that students were getting physically aggressive again.
For my conflict resolution on Friday, I read the students a Franklin story called, "Franklin and Harriet" by Paulette Bourgeois. When I stopped at the conflict in the story and asked my students how the character Franklin should solve it, almost the whole class suggested an I-Message and two of the students I am following gave me an example of an I-Message the character Franklin could use. One student suggested Franklin say to his sister, "I feel sad when you take my stuffed animal. I'd like it if you stop" and the other student suggested Franklin say, "I feel angry when you take my things. I'd like it if you stop." At the end of the week, I was able to conference with all of the students I was following except one because she was absent the whole week. Most of the students reported having a medium amount of conflicts with friends during the week. I analyzed the student self reports I filled out for each conference and my notes on my observational guide. Based on these sources, I discovered that a total of 23 social conflicts occurred this week. Approximately 10 I-Messages were used by my students to solve a conflicts, 8 conflicts were reported to me or another adult before trying to solve it with an I-Message, and 5 conflicts were solved by physical aggression. This showed that there were still a number students trying to solve their social conflicts by getting physically aggressive and tattling to a teacher or another adult. For week 4 my goal was to find a way to decrease this.
I was happy that my students were beginning to use the I-Message to resolve conflicts with their friends. I was also happy to see that when my students were presented with other peoples conflicts, they recognized that it could be resolved with an I-Message. Lastly, I was happy to hear that some of my students were even using the I-Message at home. But a handful of my students were still reporting problems to me before trying to solve it themselves with an I-Message. I wanted to change that. I wanted the students to avoid reporting their problems to me and instead immediately solve it on their own with the I-Message. Therefore for my conflict resolution lesson on Monday of this week, I focused on solving a conflict with an I-Message before reporting the conflict to the teacher. I had the puppets encounter typical conflicts but before they could tell the teacher about it, they had to try solving it on their own with an I-Message. Although I thought this lesson may help the students learn to solve their social conflicts with an I-Message before reporting them to the teacher, through out the week I still had quite a few students coming up to me to report problems then had to redirect them to solve it on own. Once I redirected them to solve it on their own, they immediately choose to solve it with an I-Message without me even suggesting it.
For my conflict resolution lesson on Tuesday and Thursday of this week, I held a class meeting. During the class meetings, I noticed several students had to do I-Messages with friends for hitting or pushing them. Through out this week, I myself witnessed 5 incidents of students I am following hitting and punching other students to solve a problem. This showed me that students were getting physically aggressive again.
For my conflict resolution on Friday, I read the students a Franklin story called, "Franklin and Harriet" by Paulette Bourgeois. When I stopped at the conflict in the story and asked my students how the character Franklin should solve it, almost the whole class suggested an I-Message and two of the students I am following gave me an example of an I-Message the character Franklin could use. One student suggested Franklin say to his sister, "I feel sad when you take my stuffed animal. I'd like it if you stop" and the other student suggested Franklin say, "I feel angry when you take my things. I'd like it if you stop." At the end of the week, I was able to conference with all of the students I was following except one because she was absent the whole week. Most of the students reported having a medium amount of conflicts with friends during the week. I analyzed the student self reports I filled out for each conference and my notes on my observational guide. Based on these sources, I discovered that a total of 23 social conflicts occurred this week. Approximately 10 I-Messages were used by my students to solve a conflicts, 8 conflicts were reported to me or another adult before trying to solve it with an I-Message, and 5 conflicts were solved by physical aggression. This showed that there were still a number students trying to solve their social conflicts by getting physically aggressive and tattling to a teacher or another adult. For week 4 my goal was to find a way to decrease this.
Week 4 (Dec 9-13)
According to my action plan, I was going to introduce my students to another strategy of problem solving this week, the problem solving steps. However, I did not feel my students were ready to learn another strategy to problem solve because they still hadn't mastered using the I-Message strategy. Students were still not consistently using the the I-Message to solve their social conflicts. Therefore, my plans for this week changed drastically from the plans for week 4 set out in my action plan. In the first week of phase 1, I had taught the students that a simple way to end their I-Messages is by saying, "I'd like you to stop" and many students were ending their I-messages with "I'd like you to stop". However, I felt that it would be a lot more purposeful for the student to tell the person bothering them exactly what they would like them to do to instead. By doing this, it would provide the student who was causing the problem with direction on how to fix the problem and what to do in the future to avoid getting into that problem again. I felt that maybe if students were told I-Messages that ended in "I feel sad when you push me. I would like it if you keep your hands to yourself", it would prevent violence from occurring in the future.
Therefore, with this in mind, on Monday of this week, I decided to center my conflict resolution lesson on teaching my students how to say more purposeful endings to their I-Messages that would give the student doing the bothering direction on what to do to fix the problem. I decided to teach this to my students through a puppet show. I had my puppets, Jack and Michelle, encounter a typical Kindergarten social conflict. I choose to have the puppet Jack poking the other puppet Michelle. Then I ask the students how they thought Michelle should solve the problem. Several of my students suggested an I-Message along the lines of, "Jack, I feel mad when you poke me, I would like it if you stop". Then I asked my students if Michelle could say anything else besides "I would like it if you stop". Several of them suggested she could say instead, "I would like it if you keep your hands to yourself". I told them that this was a better ending to the I-Message because it told Jack exactly what to do instead of poking her. I had the puppet Michelle solve the problem saying that. I repeated this procedure with a couple other typical conflicts until I felt my students understood how to say a more purposeful ending to an I-Message.
On Thursday and Friday of this week, I held class meetings. During these meetings, many students reported having a conflict with a friend that they wanted to solve with an I-Message so I let these students present their I-Message to their friend. During the class meeting, I was happy to see that each of the students who presented I-Messages to other students used an I-Message with a purposeful ending. One of the students who presented an I-Message was a student I am following and the I-Message she said was, "I feel sad when you say mean things. I would like it if you only say positive things". I could see that my students were using and applying what I had taught them for their own conflicts they encountered. However, during both class meetings, several students reacted badly to I-Messages presented to them. For example, one student said, "I didn't do that. He is lying" and another student said, "Thats not true. She is making it up". This ended up leading to long drawn out arguments between the students in conflict. As a result, I would have to intervene and stop the students from disputing. These meetings were ending in a lot of tension amongst students. Students felt accused and blamed for things they apparently did not do. I was not happy with the direction it was going.
On Friday, I was able to conference with each of the students I was following and fill out a student self report for each of them. After conferencing with my students, I looked over the student self reports and my observations on my observational guide. I found that a total of 14 social conflicts occurred this week. I saw that 8 conflicts were solved with an I-Message, 4 conflicts were solved reporting it to me or another adult and 2 conflicts were solved by getting physical. This showed me that my students were still not always using the I-Message as their main strategy to solve their problems but the amount of reports to the teacher and acts of aggression to solve a problem was starting to decrease. I realized some major changes would have to be made in phase 2 in order to get the students to see the I-Message as the best way to solve their social conflicts.
According to my action plan, I was going to introduce my students to another strategy of problem solving this week, the problem solving steps. However, I did not feel my students were ready to learn another strategy to problem solve because they still hadn't mastered using the I-Message strategy. Students were still not consistently using the the I-Message to solve their social conflicts. Therefore, my plans for this week changed drastically from the plans for week 4 set out in my action plan. In the first week of phase 1, I had taught the students that a simple way to end their I-Messages is by saying, "I'd like you to stop" and many students were ending their I-messages with "I'd like you to stop". However, I felt that it would be a lot more purposeful for the student to tell the person bothering them exactly what they would like them to do to instead. By doing this, it would provide the student who was causing the problem with direction on how to fix the problem and what to do in the future to avoid getting into that problem again. I felt that maybe if students were told I-Messages that ended in "I feel sad when you push me. I would like it if you keep your hands to yourself", it would prevent violence from occurring in the future.
Therefore, with this in mind, on Monday of this week, I decided to center my conflict resolution lesson on teaching my students how to say more purposeful endings to their I-Messages that would give the student doing the bothering direction on what to do to fix the problem. I decided to teach this to my students through a puppet show. I had my puppets, Jack and Michelle, encounter a typical Kindergarten social conflict. I choose to have the puppet Jack poking the other puppet Michelle. Then I ask the students how they thought Michelle should solve the problem. Several of my students suggested an I-Message along the lines of, "Jack, I feel mad when you poke me, I would like it if you stop". Then I asked my students if Michelle could say anything else besides "I would like it if you stop". Several of them suggested she could say instead, "I would like it if you keep your hands to yourself". I told them that this was a better ending to the I-Message because it told Jack exactly what to do instead of poking her. I had the puppet Michelle solve the problem saying that. I repeated this procedure with a couple other typical conflicts until I felt my students understood how to say a more purposeful ending to an I-Message.
On Thursday and Friday of this week, I held class meetings. During these meetings, many students reported having a conflict with a friend that they wanted to solve with an I-Message so I let these students present their I-Message to their friend. During the class meeting, I was happy to see that each of the students who presented I-Messages to other students used an I-Message with a purposeful ending. One of the students who presented an I-Message was a student I am following and the I-Message she said was, "I feel sad when you say mean things. I would like it if you only say positive things". I could see that my students were using and applying what I had taught them for their own conflicts they encountered. However, during both class meetings, several students reacted badly to I-Messages presented to them. For example, one student said, "I didn't do that. He is lying" and another student said, "Thats not true. She is making it up". This ended up leading to long drawn out arguments between the students in conflict. As a result, I would have to intervene and stop the students from disputing. These meetings were ending in a lot of tension amongst students. Students felt accused and blamed for things they apparently did not do. I was not happy with the direction it was going.
On Friday, I was able to conference with each of the students I was following and fill out a student self report for each of them. After conferencing with my students, I looked over the student self reports and my observations on my observational guide. I found that a total of 14 social conflicts occurred this week. I saw that 8 conflicts were solved with an I-Message, 4 conflicts were solved reporting it to me or another adult and 2 conflicts were solved by getting physical. This showed me that my students were still not always using the I-Message as their main strategy to solve their problems but the amount of reports to the teacher and acts of aggression to solve a problem was starting to decrease. I realized some major changes would have to be made in phase 2 in order to get the students to see the I-Message as the best way to solve their social conflicts.
Results of Phase 1
Below is a comparison of the conflict resolution strategies my student choose to use weekly through out phase 1. As seen, their use of I-Message started to go down through out phase 1 and there were still quite a bit of conflicts being reported to the teacher in phase 1. The amount of students solving their conflicts with violence was far less then the amount of students reporting conflicts to the teacher and amount using the I-Message strategy to solve their conflicts.
Below is a comparison of the conflict resolution strategies my student choose to use weekly through out phase 1. As seen, their use of I-Message started to go down through out phase 1 and there were still quite a bit of conflicts being reported to the teacher in phase 1. The amount of students solving their conflicts with violence was far less then the amount of students reporting conflicts to the teacher and amount using the I-Message strategy to solve their conflicts.
In total there were 83 conflicts that occurred in phase 1 with an average of 20. 75 conflicts happening per week. Of the 83 conflicts that occurred in phase 1, 46 were solved with an I-Message, 27 were solved by tattling to a teacher, and 10 were solved with physical aggression. This information is represented below.