“What do teachers know about how to handle ADHD students in their classrooms? ” This is a question that I asked myself during my internship. My research will cover this topic because it is to my interest that my mentor teacher had a kid that was really hyperactive. She did not know how to handle situations where he or other kids would present qualities of an ADHD child. Neither did I know how to help my mentor teacher in making accommodations to the classroom, or even how to manage the situation, in which we were part.
For some reason the teacher would get tired and did not know what to do with this specific boy and she would think of him as a kid that would group to be part of a middle class and probably would amount to nothing if he would not take the appropriate medication if there was one. This way of thinking of my mentor teacher reminded me of the article “Social Reproduction” where the author had mentioned that there is a tendency of working class people to end up in working-class jobs and environments.
I am going to find out what goes on in school or what does not goes on in school to have the teachers prepared on how to handle ADHD students in their classrooms. I am going to interview with at least three teachers and find out what they know about handling students with ADHD or students who present same characteristics. From these interviews I will get much information on what their previous experiences have been with this type of students.
Meanwhile, I will also be observing their attitudes toward this topic and find out how they feel towards it. Another of my method to use on this research is a survey. I created a simple survey of eight varied questions on ADHD. I will administer this survey to four teachers two of them bilingual, one transitional and one monolingual. They all have at least six years teaching elementary grades. The reason why I chose this topic it is due to its’ do-ability and want-to-do-ability that it portrayed to me.
After reading the article “Planning the Research, 61-62” I came to the conclusion that this topic was going to accommodate to my needs. Based on previous observation of my mentor teacher in class, I decided to use the following methods. Interviews seemed a very reasonable method because of the type of questions that I had and that I could ask. The teachers participating in the interview were motivated about my project and enthusiastic to be part of it. Adding to this, they were also available to be interviewed during their conference time.
I then decided that this method was the best to choose since I had been part of the class and I had the opportunity to observe different scenarios were my teacher did not know how to react to, in reference to ADHD characteristics in particular students. Most of it was a convenience matter since all of them were available in their conference times at the time of my research. Since the teachers were close by and interacted with each other in a daily basis, and were teaching the same grade, I thought this was best option I had since sometimes having different grades spreads teachers apart.
I wanted to have them close to me and as much as available as possible. I chose three persons for interview, because I thought about the person who would probably have more experience on the topic, one with maybe no experience and the third one with some knowledge of the topic. I wanted to get the most out of this interview. Another method I chose was the survey. The reason why I selected the survey method was because I wanted something simple for them to answer, but in accordance of the topic to find out the attitudes, beliefs and knowledge they have or apply during instruction with ADHD students.
The article that we read during class helped me a lot in deciding which methods to use. I am referring to the article “Gathering Data in the Field” I agree with what the article says on page 124 “Talk, is essential for understanding how participants view their worlds” here the interviewer can elaborate on questions that would elicit rich narratives from the interviewed person. During my research I decided to start with the surveys. Four people answered the survey.
