How might focusing on mindfulness impact student skills and achievement in my English class?

Seminar Title

How might focusing on mindfulness impact student skills and achievement in my English class?

Mindfulness for Student Trauma

High School

Elementary

Language Arts

All Disciplines

It’s the beginning of class, the students and maybe you, are feeling rambunctious, irritated and/or stressed out from whatever happened previously. Whether it is just walking in the hallway, negative peers or student interactions, class, or home life stressors are always present. Do you have thirty seconds to five minutes to spare for a mindful breathing activity? My research was geared to find ways to improve student skills by focusing on the habits of the mind and how it could improve their academic achievement. After practicing mindfulness, the students appear to be calm and willing to move forward with class. There appears to be a calmer environment. Mindfulness is about reducing stress and increasing our ability to focus on what really matters. Being in the moment, having presence, is essential to being grounded. My main goal is to assist students’ with emotional regulation ability and to increase their concentration. Are you ready to inspire your students with mindfulness and try it with me?

Mindfulness Abstract Dana Abrahamson Duluth Blend 2 deabra16@smumn.edu How might focusing on mindfulness impact student skills and achievement in my English class? The question guiding my research is as follows: How might improving student skills by focusing on the habits of mind impact student achievement in my English class? Within my research I looked at disengagement, absenteeism, social and emotional learning, and feeling or being connected with ourselves and our community. Within my research there were many pathways, ideas and suggestions to provide me with insight on how I can increase student achievement. Overall learning occurs when the learner feels cared for and valued by their teacher and the people surrounding them. I chose to practice mindfulness while interacting with others during a lesson or activity. We might role playing how to give each other feedback in a helpful way. we could say something during constructive criticism or class discussions. Practicing mindfulness not only improves academic performance, but also to improve communication by creating an environment where the students are more caring and receptive to each other and their surroundings. Through my research I had to make a few adjustments due to the type of setting in which I teach. With my intake group, (when new students are coming in they start in the intake group) the students are present anywhere from ten days up to six or nine months. Because of this, my group was constantly changing from one day to the next. Trying to create a rhythm or pattern with this group was very difficult so I did not implement mindfulness. With my next group, it took over a month to get them to buy into practicing mindfulness; let alone getting them to be quiet or participate. I learned that implementing mindfulness needs to be done more than once a week. The Mindful Tuesdays gradually grew into three days a week. I am finding that I need to have patience and accept that not every student is going to able be mindful, however, I did create guidelines for the group. If they were not going to participate or practice, that would be okay as long as they were quiet and keeping to themselves while the rest of the class is participated. Yes, sometimes it may have only be one or two students, but being persistent and patient, teaching mindfulness gradually paid off. Starting out small is huge; thirty seconds goes a long way when practicing breathing and listening to your thoughts. Although practicing mindfulness felt like it wasn’t productive for all the students, the important thing is they are listening, they are being exposed, and they are learning another strategy to calm themselves. Overtime, they are exposed to what it looks like, feels like, and notice the benefits of mindfulness. During the semester, it was observed where the students went from being disengaged or rambunctious to more than half the class trying the techniques and giving it a whirl...what else do they have to lose? I will be sharing the data with the students along with having a class discussion on what we notice or don’t notice, basically digging in deeper to what we notice within ourselves, others, and our surroundings.