Topic Selection for Dissertation Project

TOPIC: CHANGING TEACHER ATTITUDES TOWARDS STUDENTS AT RISK
MY FOCUS IS ON DROPOUT PREVENTION AND HELPING AT RISK STUDENTS FROM VARIOUS CULTURAL ENVIRONMENTS BY CHANGING TEACHERS ATTITUDES.
As a teacher, I have vividly felt the psychological, emotional, and social isolation, in children that I have come in contact with as a primary reason to provoke many of their deficiencies in academic learning in school. Therefore, how does the culture and structure of the school and its students influence the teacher’s instructional practices? I strongly feel that each teacher needs to perform a self-evaluation in the area of; the cultural differences, socioeconomic level, family and school relationship, and racial differences, in order to take an entirely different approach towards each student on a more personal level, in order to more effectively facilitate them in achieving their educational goals. Many of these children come from underprivileged environments, and it is of utmost importance that as educators, teachers understand the cultural differences involved, and where problems stem from in the students, and their families, before trying to tackle the academic problem.
I came across the topic by doing a search on Dropout Intervention, Students At Risk, and, Dropout Prevention. Then, I realized that in the articles I read, there were studies that were linked to other main articles, which also spoke about how teacher’s attitudes influence the learning environment of a child. I narrowed my search by recognizing that a teacher’s attitude towards having an awareness of a student’s home environment is also a main contributor in preventing students from dropping out of school. This topic gave much insight on how teachers need to have awareness of the student’s home setting, thus, build a confident relationship with the student, and their parents, in order to have a more encouraging atmosphere for the child, and certainly with more positive educational outcomes.
Finally, I tested my search my having my husband proofread my topic, and paragraphs. He made me rewrite the entire page, since I was starting to deviate from the topic at hand. Therefore, he suggested that I narrow it all by not providing examples of incidents with students sharing some of their frustrations with teachers. Also, he commented that perhaps the incidents could be used for my next project when I research the topic in depth.