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About

My name is Emily Marold and I am from Waterbury, Connecticut. I moved to Hyde Park, NY after graduating college. I graduated from Marist College in 2020 with a degree in Adolescent Education and Mathematics. I am pursuing a Masters Degree in Curriculum Development and Instructional Technology at UAlbany.

I am in my third year of teaching but second year at my school. I work at a junior high where I teach 8th grade math and Algebra. I also coach cheerleading for the junior high.

My Topic and Purpose

This mini course is about designing and maintaining a classroom centered around restorative practices. So often as teachers, we fall into a cycle of punitive punishments and our relationships with students can suffer from that. Restorative practices focus on maintaining relationships with students even when discipline is necessary and instilling a sense of ownership within students. I chose this topic because this is an initiative that my school has been working on for the past few school years and we are really seeing results. I center my classroom around restorative practices and I have seen an improvement in my students behavior overall and an increase in meaningful connections made with students. I think this is knowledge and practice that can be beneficial for more teachers to learn about because of what positive results it can yield.

Scope of Learning Outcomes and Content

This course will work to develop knowledge about what restorative practices are with examples provided. Within the course, you will learn about the beginnings of restorative practices and how they work in different settings and with different goals. The skills that will be developed are those on how to create a classroom centered on restorative practices. You will generate your own sets of activities on how you would create this class environment and what your students would do to make it happen. You will also learn skills on how to handle discipline within this environment and skills on rebuilding relationships after discipline might affect them. The attitude the course will work to develop is one that convinces teachers that restorative practices work and are worth the effort put in to establish them. This attitude will transfer to students also believing that these restorative practices make school a better environment for them.

Needs Assessment

The Educational Problem and Opportunity

Exclusionary discipline methods have been causing issues in schools for decades. Exclusionary discipline includes suspension and expulsion where the student who did not follow the rules was removed from the community. Exclusionary discipline practices have their place for dangerous instances in which harm would be caused to others but too often they are used to deal with even the most minor behavior issues. Furthermore, research has shown that exclusionary discipline practices are use disproportionately more among minority students (McNeill, et al. 2016). With this knowledge, an opportunity is presented. Restorative practices focus on inclusionary values that restore the relationships after discipline and do not isolate the student. Next Generation Learning Standards explains "Restorative practices focus on resolving conflict, repairing harm, and healing relationships" (2023). By shifting our paradigm to a restorative lens, we can hope to see students feel more invested and included in schools.

The learners/participants

The intended learners for this course are in-service or-pre service teachers who value alternatives to existing discipline practices.

Analysis of gaps

The reality of the gaps possible is that some learners may have never heard of restorative practices and have no preexisting knowledge or exposure to this time. In an ideal situation, learners will come into the course with some knowledge about what restorative practices are. They will also have a desire to change the way that relationships can be built and maintained. At the minimum, learners should have an interest in exploring alternative discipline practices and.

Existing efforts to address this gap

There has been an increasing amount of research being done on restorative practices in school. In a study done by Zakszeski and Rutherford (2021) they found that the cumulative amount of articles published on the impact of school based restorative practices increased from 1 in 2000, to 14 in 2010 and 71 in 2020. My school itself has been training teachers in restorative circles to begin this shift in our school culture.

Intent statement

This mini course will help participants address their needs by providing an explanation of what restorative practices are and offering real suggestions and approaches that can be used in classrooms.

Analysis of the Learner and Context

The learners in this course as mentioned above can be in-service or pre-service teachers. This course is designed to be completed independently. Learners should have some level of experience either working in a school or even just attending a school where they may have witnessed exclusionary discipline practices. Learners should have some knowledge of how discipline typically works in the school setting and an interest in learning more about how it can be improved. Learners can use this mini-course in any setting as long as they have access to the internet. Each module can be completed at your own pace in as little as a few hours or as long as a few days.

Performance-Based Objectives

After completing this mini-course, learners will be able to:

Define exclusionary discipline practices and restorative justice as terms and what they look like in education
Recognize the benefits of restorative justice for students and staff in a school
Identify processes and principles of restorative practices
Create restorative practices for their own classroom

Task and Content Analysis

Course Goal:

Participants will incorporate and implement restorative practices into their classroom and will see the value in restorative justice.

Module 1: What is Restorative Justice?

Learners will:

Read references on exclusionary discipline practices and on restorative justice.
Synthesize key examples of each from the references read
Summarize your own understanding of the effects of exclusionary discipline
Summarize your own understanding of the effects of restorative justice

Module 2: What are the benefits of Restorative Justice/Practices?

Learners will:

Read 2-3 article accounts from schools who have incorporated restorative justice
Summarize positive effects described in the articles
Write an application piece about how this could be a positive change for their own school and how it could be implemented

Module 3: What are the processes and principles of Restorative Justice/Practices?

Learners will:

Re-read the same 2 articles from module 1 and read case studies of restorative justice in schools
Make a list of common principles of restorative practices that exist from the different accounts they read
Create an action plan of steps that can be taken to start bringing these practices to their school

Module 4: What would Restorative Practices look like for me?

Learners will:

Read about different examples from teachers of restorative practices they have started using in their classrooms
Create a list of (at least) 3 practices they would like to start using in their own classes
Create a plan on how to implement these at the beginning of the school year and what they would need to do to successfully maintain them throughout the whole school year

Curriculum Map

References and Resources

McNeill, K. F., Friedman, B. D., & Chavez, C. (2016). Keep them so you can teach them: Alternatives to exclusionary discipline. International Public Health Journal, 8(2), 169-181.

“Restorative Practices in Schools: Building Better Communities.” NGLC, 16 Feb. 2023, https://www.nextgenlearning.org/equity-toolkit/school-culture.

Zakszeski, B., & Rutherford, L. (2021). Mind the gap: A systematic review of research on restorative practices in schools. School Psychology Review, 50(2-3), 371-387.