Most teachers can feel when part of the day isn’t working. What’s harder to say is how bad it really is, or whether the thing you try next is helping. Action research for teachers is a simple way to find out: one question, one small practice, and numbers you can show someone else. You can start this week.
Your First Week, in Three Moves
- Pick a 15-minute window that tends to go sideways, like 9:00 to 9:15. (2 minutes)
- Grab a counter. A handheld clicker works, and so does a tally sheet. (5 minutes)
- Count for one week before you change anything. You, an aide, or a co-teacher can keep the tally. (15 minutes a day)
Late October is good timing. If you take a baseline now, you’ll have about eight weeks before winter break, which is enough for a full cycle.
The Six Steps of Action Research for Teachers
1. Name what hurts your heart
What: Picture the faces of the students you serve. Which challenge keeps you up at night? Dr. Kelli Sammis, Dean of Student Success at Breathe for Change, opens every action research advising conversation with this exact prompt.
When: Find one quiet 10-minute window this week, before your baseline.
Why: If you care about the question, you’ll still be measuring it in week seven.
2. Write one research question
What: Try this template: How will [small practice] affect [outcome] for [students]? Christy, a kindergarten teacher, wrote: “How will a 5-minute morning circle with emotional awareness practices affect literacy outcomes for my bilingual learners?” Want somewhere to start with a circle? Here’s a 5-minute morning circle routine.
When: Right after Step 1, while the challenge is still fresh.
Why: With just one question, your data collection stays small enough to keep up.
3. Collect a baseline
What: Count the behavior during the same 15 minutes every day for a week. One pre-K teacher with 14 students asked an aide to click every redirection from 9:00 to 9:15. The weekly average came out to 35 redirections in 15 minutes. Kelli’s response: “Oh, sweet friend, no wonder you are exhausted.”
When: Week 1, before you change anything.
Why: If you skip the baseline, you’ll have no way to tell whether things got better.
4. Introduce one small practice and do it every day
What: Pick a single practice. Try the 2 Word Check-In, three collective breaths, or one of these nervous system tools for behavior. In the Human Intelligence (HI) framework, breathing together builds somatic skills, meaning regulation and co-regulation.
When: Start in Week 2. Do it daily at the same time, right before the window you’re measuring.
Why: Results show up when you stay consistent. A three-year trial across 24 schools found achievement gains in classrooms where teachers actually used the practices, even though the program didn’t beat control schools overall (Rimm-Kaufman et al., 2014). A review of 213 social-emotional learning (SEL) programs found an average 11-percentile-point gain in achievement, and results were weaker where programs were implemented inconsistently (Durlak et al., 2011). Both studies looked at full programs, so think of a single routine as a place to begin. It won’t guarantee those numbers.
5. Measure again and plot a line graph
What: Keep counting in the same window, the same way. Average each week and plot those averages as a simple line.
When: Weekly, for six to eight weeks.
Why: Anyone can read a line graph in seconds. The pre-K teacher’s line fell from 35 to an average of zero by weeks six through eight. Kelli points out that the children still had moments when they needed a reminder. They were regulating themselves, though, and making it to every learning station.
6. Share it with the people who decide
What: Take your question, your baseline, your practice, and your graph to your principal, your grade-level team, or your board.
When: When your cycle wraps up, ideally before winter break.
Why: Findings from action research in education rarely spread, because they tend to stay with the teacher who did the work (Manfra, 2019). Your graph can be the exception.
Bring Your Data to Parent Conferences
Families respond to something concrete. Show them the class-level graph and walk them through the practice their child does each morning. Then invite them to try the same breath at home. Keep it to whole-class trends, and leave out anything about another student.
Doing It With an Advisor
Count for a week, change one thing, and keep counting. By winter break, you can have a line you can hand to your principal. If you’d like an advisor, a data-collection course, and a capstone you can take to your board, that’s what the action research coursework in the William Jewell College Master’s of Science in Education (M.S.Ed.) in Transformative Teaching & Learning, in partnership with Breathe for Change, is built for. Explore the M.S.Ed.
Want to go deeper? Listen to the full conversation between Dr. Ilana Nankin and Dr. Kelli Sammis on A Work of Heart, the Breathe for Change podcast. They talk about how graduate students choose a research question, the pre-K clicker study, and what happens when the data surprises the teacher.
