Browsing by Subject "haastava käyttäytyminen"

Objectives. The goal of this thesis is to examine various positive methods in which a teacher can confront a challenging student in the classroom and redirect the student’s behaviour to fit the lessons agenda. This thesis will also aim to examine what kinds of challenging behaviour can be found from analysed drama lessons. Previous research has shown that teachers find interactions with challenging students to be often demanding. In the modern classroom teachers must be prepared to face challenging students and therefore there is a need to research teachers already working in the field to see how they confront challenging students in a positive way. Methods. The research for this thesis was done as a case-study based in video observations, where footage from the 2018 KEHU-project was utilized. The research footage contained five filmed lessons, which were taught by five various drama-specialized teachers across Finland. The teachers participating in this project taught grades one through third grade. The nature of this research was based on qualitative methods. The material was processed through content analysis and classification. Results and conclusions. Challenging behaviour was categorized into four distinct categories based off the filmed drama lessons, which were disruptive behaviour, wandering, disobedience and negative verbal or physical interaction. Challenging behaviour filmed during the lessons were often quite mild forms of challenging behaviour. Based on the results the teachers mostly conducted positive confrontations against challenging students and were able to redirect behaviour with efficient and practical methods. This thesis provided promising information in regards that teachers can redirect behaviour towards the lesson’s goals with positive interactions. Having a respective attitude towards students and striving towards dialogical interactions from the teacher appears to improve confronting the student, which has been proven in earlier research to be meaningful in regards to the students behaviour.

According to research, teachers starting their careers face many challenges in the school world, one of which is the challenging behaviour of students. Previous studies have also shown that, in order to survive the first years of work, teachers need the support of others. The purpose of this study is to examine the experiences of special education teachers at the beginning of their careers relating to working with students with challenging behaviour. The study examines how special education teachers build their competence when dealing with students who behave in a challenging manner. The study also examines what kind of support special education teachers at the beginning of their careers need when working with students with challenging behaviour. The research data was obtained by interviewing five special education teachers at the beginning of their working career. They had a maximum of three years of work experience, and all of them had graduated with a master's degree in special education. The interviews were conducted as semi-structured interviews and the collected data was analysed using data-based content analysis. The results of the study show that the special education teachers felt insecure about their own competence when working with students who behave in a challenging manner, especially as newly graduated teachers at the very beginning of their career. Through work experience they felt that their competence had developed. The special education teachers starting their careers built up their competence in working with students with challenging behaviour with the help of work experience, work community, education, model learning, self-reflection and knowing their students. They needed support especially in dealing with violence, intervening in bullying, dealing with students' psychological symptoms, cooperating with different parties, limiting the amount of work and building self-confidence. Support was required from work communities, mentor teachers, university studies, the schools’ operating cultures and further education. The most important conclusion is that teacher training should be developed in such a way that it would give more competence in dealing with the challenging behaviour of students. The support of the working community should already be present in the structures of every school and working community, so that it is available to all special education teachers from the beginning of their working career.