Dismissal Procedure

By: Bradley T. Davidson

Action Research Summary finished product for presentation board

Question
Can the release procedure be streamlined to increase
instruction time?
Introduction
When I discussed this project with my mentor teacher, he suggested
that I look into reducing the amount of time it takes for the
students to prepare and leave for the day. The students were
preparing to leave for the day starting at 2:25 in order to leave the
building at 2:45. My goal was to shorten the preparation time in
order to increase the amount of time used for instruction.
My plan of action was to determine what tasks the students needed
to perform in order to be ready to leave for the day. Originally, we
released the students in groups to perform these tasks and
eventually as they students became more accustomed to the
procedures, we enabled them to leave as a class instead of small
groups.
We did not change the procedure for the first two weeks of in order
to collect data to be compared to four weeks of data collected after
the procedural change. The data was collected by using a stop
watch to determine the amount of time elapsed from the time the
students began preparing to leave and the time they physically left
the room for the day.

Literature Review
I performed research on the implementation of procedures in the
classroom. The articles I found focused mainly on timing and
consistency.
They suggested that the best scenario is to implement classroom
procedures at the beginning of school. If a change is to be made
during the school year, the best time to implement the new
procedure is after a break. The longer the break the better, but it
could be as short as a weekend. The reason for this is that the
students will be more receptive to change coming back for a break
rather than switching in the middle of the week.
The other thing the articles focused on was consistency. One key to
implementing procedures in the classroom successfully is to ensure
the procedure is followed correctly. New procedures should be
practiced until performed the right way. If the students are allow to
get away with performing the task incorrectly, it will never be
consistent. Taking the time to perfect the procedure will actually
save you time in the long run as you will not have to correct the
students continuously.
Methodology
My mentor teacher and I looked at the end of day procedure and
decided to attempt to streamline the process to gain instruction
time. We determined that the students needed to complete the
following tasks at the end of the day: Remove their backpacks from
their cubbies; removing their take home folders from the folder
bins; place their behavior stickers for the day on their calendars;
and go to their designated areas for car riders, bus riders, or
walkers. One change we decided to make was to assign a student
to pass out the behavior stickers to each group, before a
representative from each group was responsible to get the stickers
for their group. This alleviated some confusion on who would get
the stickers and where the sticker bag was located; it also reduced
the amount of students moving around the room. The other change
was we designated an area of the room for the different types of
transportation. Before the students were splitting up as we were

going out into the hall. At first when the students were told to
prepare to leave for the day, we were releasing the students a small
group at a time, but as time went by, we began letting the students
go as a class. This decision was made because as the students
were able to handle the process better as they became more
familiar with it.
Data Analysis (attach copy of graph (required), chart, table,
etc.)
How was the data analyzed?
The data was collected over a period of six weeks. The first two weeks of
data was taken prior to the implementation of the new procedure. Each day
I was present in the classroom, each Wednesday and Thursday, I collected
the data using the stopwatch feature on my cell phone to measure the
elapsed time from when the students were asked to get ready to leave for
the day until the student left the room. The data for the day was recorded
into my notebook, which was later transferred into a table on my computer.
How was the data presented? Graph (required), chart, table, etc.

Date
9/3
9/4
9/10
9/11
9/17
9/18
9/24
9/25
10/1
10/2
10/8
10/9

Dismissal Procedure
Time Elapsed
14:28
13:42
14:35
12:50
13:18
12:37
11:40
11:18
11:04
10:49
10:24
10:27

Dismissal Procedure

Findings from Data Analysis

What do you know from what you did?
I know that as a procedure becomes more practiced the time it takes to
perform the task takes less time.
What have you learned that you did not know?
I learned that implementing a new procedure is not an easy change for the
classroom, that planning is required for it to be successful.
What was unexpected?
It was unexpected that first graders would be able to take on as much
responsibility as they do.
Were your hypotheses supported? Why, why not?

Yes, my hypothesis was that time could be saved by streamlining the

dismissal procedure. This was true because after we implemented the
change of procedure, the elapsed time it took the students to get ready to
leave for the day went from approximately 14 minutes to approximately 11
minutes after the new procedure was implemented.

Conclusions
During the first couple of weeks of this school years, my mentor
teacher and I noticed that the time it was taking for the students to
get ready to leave for the day was cutting into instructions time.
We discussed ways that we could streamline the process and reduce
the amount of time it took for the end of day procedures. Once we
figured out what we wanted to change we implemented the changes
and were able to reduce the end of day procedures by
approximately four minutes. By doing this my mentor teacher was
able to use these four minutes for science instruction, which was
being cut short or eliminated altogether because of time constraints.
The procedures we implemented were successful and the teacher is
still using them in his classroom.
Implications
The implications of how this will effect me in the classroom is that I
have a better understanding of how to implement procedures in the
classroom. I have also had the opportunity to witness the
importance of ensuring the students are performing their
responsibilities as expected. When the students fail to perform
what is expected of them, my mentor teacher makes them repeat
the process until they have it perfect. This lets the student know
that unsatisfactory performance or behavior will not be accepted
and as a result, the students perform their responsibilities in a more
consistent and at higher levels of performance.