Researching, Teaching and Learning

Essay
The chosen research article is Establishing Positive Relationships with Secondary Gifted

Students and Students with Emotional/Behavioural Disorders: Giving these diverse learners

what they need by Trevor Capern and Lorraine Hammond. This essay will take a critical look

at the previously mentioned research article, while also extracting theories and

recommendations for teaching practises that could influence the way that I (the author)

conduct my class, as well as the empirical findings combined with those points on how they

can shape and change a lesson plan provided by the author. All of this will be looked at under

the lens of the Modern History key learning area, or, KLA.

The education issue that is the focus of this research article is establishing relationships with

both gifted students as well as the students with behavioural and/or emotional problems that

may impact on their ability to learn. A more distilled version is that it focuses on how to

make work more interesting and engaging to both spheres, as well as how positive teachers

can influence their students. To look at this education data, Capern and Hammond looked at

58 gifted students and 40 students with Emotional/Behavioural Disorders (EBD) and

measuring their interactions with teachers. The specifics of the data collection and the

findings will be discussed further on in this text.

This is all extremely relevant to both education as a teacher, as well as the KLA of Modern

History, because History as a school subject can be both very engaging to a certain few, and

intrinsically disengaging to many others. While this could be said for any school subject, as

many teachers and ex-students will attest, some students just dont gel and understand why

they are learning history and why things that happened ages ago in the past are still

important to be taught in schools today. This is coupled with the attitude of many teachers
that seem to take their work very seriously and being very strict in terms of relationships with

their students leads to said students not connecting with the teacher, and due to that being

unable to make a positive connection and relationship further stresses the need for this

research article. History is already a hard subject area to find major student interest in, a

problem that is reinforced by unhappy and unengaging teachers, but, by using these findings

and recommendations we can find ways to improve lesson planning, as well as, the way that

teachers conduct themselves.

Thanks to Applying Educational Research, an edited book by Jacqueline Ullman (2015)

there is a certain set of questions and stipulations that we can demand in order to quantify its

ability as a research article. In terms of establishing its creation and the need for the research

to be done, Establishing Positive Relationships (Capern & Hammond, 2014) excels. Within

its introduction it makes a strong case for why research in to this area of teaching and

student-teacher interaction is important. The introduction starts with the statement that a

large body of research indicates that relationships between teachers and their students plays a

vital role in creating positive learning outcomes and environments which is followed by

There is a lack of comparative research about how positive relationships are developed

differently with particular group (Capern & Hammond, 2014). Over the course of the

introduction it talks about the potential benefits of positive teacher-student relationships and

how they can help childrens education and future prospects. It contrasts these benefits with

the last two paragraphs focusing on what the previous studies and literature dont focus on or

update the education society. With Capern and Hammond divulging that there is a lack of

educational policy that defines and sculpts the creation of these relationships and that the

literature [also] fails to address how strong student-teacher relationships are formed in

practise (2014). With the questions provided in Appendix 3 and 4 of Applying Educational
Research (Ullman, 2015) we can see that the introduction is very strong and covers both the

positives and the negatives

The Literature Review section is, again, very strong and is solid in its deconstruction about

previous literature on the topic, as well as how it can be incorporated into the study itself and

its potential influences. Since the study deals with two distinct groups of students, it discusses

the previous literature on this by quoting a report that found a correlation between quality

student-teacher relationships and increased academic achievement (Birch & Ladd, as cited

in Capern and Hammond, 2014) as well as explicitly explaining what they mean by a

positive teacher-student relationship (2014). Once again its apparent that this literature

review is tight and encompasses all of the differing views and opinions on the literature that

came before this study.

Capern and Hammond state that this research study is a mixed method study, Ullman defines

mixed method research as a type of study that uses both quantative and qualitive techniques

for data collection (Ullman, 2015) and the authors immediately address this is in the

methods section, explicitly detailing the different methods the quantitative data was

collected via surveys distributed to the participants, while the qualitative data was collected

through focus groups (Capern & Hammond, 2014). There is a very deep and again explicit

explanation of where all of the data was collected from, and what sort of probing questions

that were asked in the focus groups, as well as where they got their sample from, and for how

long the study took place. It is not a very large or extensive portion of the research study, and

maybe it could have been longer and a bit more focused in its expression, but it is unclear as

to whether or not that these problems are due to the writers themselves or the nature of the

research.

The findings are broken down into the two groups, Gifted and EBD, students and discusses

each findings regarding their own groups. They ranked 10 behaviours using a mean score and
the top three for gifted students were 1. Not discriminate against specific students due to

race, ability level, etc. 2. Give students enough time to complete assignments and/or prepare

for tests 3. Allow students to get help from other students. This is oddly reflected with the

top 3 for the EBD students, with theirs being 1. Not discriminate against specific students

due to race, ability, etc. 2. Be patient with me. 3. Be able to take a joke. Shows that there are

the same main primary behaviours that are desired by students to create these relationships.

Both groups emphasised the importance of teachers treating them with respect, being warm

and friendly and helping them with their schoolwork (Capern & Hammond, 2014) is

reflected in other literature regarding student teacher relationships, with two other studies

stating relationships considered strong by both boys and teachers were characterised by

great help-seeking (Kavenagh & Freeman, 2012) and satisfied teachers could have a more

positive attitude towards the students, which eventually has a positive effect on perceived

student engagement (Van Uden, Ritzen & Pieters, 2013). This all points towards these

specific findings being supported by other findings in the same general study area.

This leads into the second part of the essay, looking at the recommendations outlined by

Capern and Hammond and how we can use them to alter and revise an existing lesson plan,

as well as how the recommendations can help teachers to become better at their profession.

The research study itself doesnt not give any clear recommendations on how teachers can

use the findings to shape their lesson plans and revise how they run their classrooms. What it

does help greatly in, is providing a window in to how students perceive their teachers and

what they expect/want, as well as what they believe would help them to become better

students. We can apply the knowledge and the salient points taken from the study and apply it

to a Year 9 History lesson plan provided by Australian Curriculum Lessons. The lesson plan

only contains two major activities, so we can just combine them together and change the plan

as a whole with our new information.

This lesson plan focuses on WWII and Australias involvement within it. The two activities

are to watch a video of Robert Menzies declaring our involvement with the War, and the

other is to write a few paragraphs as if the students were going off to war themselves and how

they would feel. Looking at the findings we can begin to see that there are a few things we

can immediately change within our lesson plans. The current table in the lesson plan is

Time/Lesson Stage/Content/Teaching Learning Strategies /Assessment or HWK

(Australian Curriculum Lessons, 2015) and I feel that the most obvious thing we can change

about this is the addition of a column called Scaffolding that contains extra activities for

the gifted students and ways to make the activities easier for students with EBD disorders.

We know this because Students with EBD placed a greater emphasis on the importance of

emotionally support behaviours Gifted students put a much larger emphasis on

academically supportive behaviours (Capern & Hammond, 2014) so to provide for the gifted

students, create extra-academic challenges and way to support them as well as feel like they

are getting the most out of the class. In the reverse, adding into that Scaffolding column, the

ways to either make the activity easier, or even to shift it a little bit to make it slightly

different may cause opportunities for EBD students to see that you care and can emotionally

support their diverse learning needs.

There is a potential change to the activity itself, and that is to shift if from individual work to

pairs or groups, writing as if they were a troop of soldiers each including their own segments.

Allowing each student to learn what each other thinks of WWII and share with the others

their own feelings and what they learnt from the previously watched video. Because we know

that gifted students prefer allowing students to get help from other students and that it will

allow EBD students to get equal attention and praise among students (Capern & Hammond,

2014) sating both their in-class learning needs, and their social development and interactions

as well as improving their relationships with other students and the teacher. With the first half
of the Lesson Plan detailing things like student outcomes/ syllabus outcomes/ student

previous knowledge (Australian Curriculum Lessons, 2015) make for a very dry document,

also a very teacher focused one. In order to improve this document, we can shift it towards a

very student focused, more streamlined lesson plan for our class in particular, we have

previously established that this content can be potentially very boring as well as disengaging,

so to help both gifted and EBD students to remain involved in the lesson, we can add in the

next step.

The next addition that the findings tell us that we can include is the inclusion of a whole other

section devoted to how the lesson is taught. Currently, the Australian Curriculum Lessons,

lessons plan is a very bare bones straight forward lesson plan that only details the actual

events of the lesson. As if it was a lesson happening within a vacuum. Adding another section

detailing a more nebulous concept of how the lesson is given towards the students and the

class, calling the section Targeted Behaviours/Lesson Delivery This is more of a filling in

the blanks segment than other parts, as it would require first-hand knowledge of the student

make-up of the class. If you know that you have a class with a high-percentage of EBD

students, say a low-end class in a streamed system, you can include certain EBD specific

teaching behaviours like Be willing to explain things again or give equal attention among

students, likewise in regards to Gifted students with go beyond using the textbook and use

additional information or give all students equal chances to participate in class on

assignments (Capern & Hammond, 2014). The point of this section in the lesson plan would

be to write notes for yourself on the way you will be delivering the lesson, the way you want

to act and how you want to support the kids in your classroom. Examples would be create a

casual atmosphere instead of a quiet strict one and set strict rules that are enforced judicially

and fairly, its an important lesson for the unit really trying to nail down the way the lesson
is taught to help engage and encourage students to both do their works and create these

positive relationships with you, the teacher.

This research study is a very tight, solid piece of research that manages to both incorporate

previous studies in its search for new findings in its own field, as well as educate us the other

literature as well as the contrasting literature, and the missing research that still needs to be

done. The findings regarding the Gifted and EBD students are also invaluable to teachers,

both working and pre-service in all KLAs of teaching because it can allow the teachers to

understand their students and what the students want of the teachers, and how they believe

the teachers acting can help them succeed. The results can be used in many different forms to

shift, shape and revise the way that the lessons are made, and most importantly, the way that

lessons are delivered.

Appendix 1:
Reference List:

Capern, T.. & Hammond L. (2014) Establishing positive relationships with secondary gifted

students and students with Emotional/Behavioural Disorders: Giving these Diverse

Learners what they need. Australian Journal of Teacher Education 39(4). 46-67

Jong, R., Mainhard, T., Tartwijk, J., Veldman, I., Verloop, N., & Wubbels, T. (2014). How

preservice teachers' personality traits, selfefficacy, and discipline strategies

contribute to the teacherstudent relationship. British Journal of Educational

Psychology, 84(2), 294-310.

Kavenagh, M., Freeman, E., & Ainley, M. (2012). Differences between Adolescent Boys' and

Teachers' Perceptions of the Student-Teacher Relationship. The Australian

Educational and Developmental Psychologist, 29(1), 1-16.

Van Uden, Jolien M., Ritzen, Henk, & Pieters, Jules M. (2013). I think I can engage my

students. Teachers' perceptions of student engagement and their beliefs about being a

teacher.(Report). Teaching and Teacher Education, 32, 43.

Australian Curriculum Lessons. (2015) Yr 9 History Lesson Robert Menzies Announces

Australias Involvement in WW2. Retrieved March 25, 2016 from

http://www.australiancurriculumlessons.com.au/2015/08/01/yr-9-history-lesson-

robert-menzies-announces-australias-involvement-in-ww2/