How can I improve my ability to effectively teach social skills so that students can apply the skills to enhance their life relationships in a meaningful way?

Teaching for Wendy Lauwerier is a third career. The majority of her eight years of teach-ing has been in special education. She has her specialist in special education and currently teaches a self-contained behaviour classroom at Delhi Public School. This is an account of a Special Education Teacher striving to improve the social skills of her students. They are in a Self-Contained Behaviour class and had a need for an improved ability for relating to other students. Recorded classroom observations and the comments of professional colleagues have provided evidence for this study. Background The term “Action Research ” has been part of GEDSB landscape for the last several years. I have even worked with other teachers who have “conducted ” Action Research. One day I received a call from the Coordinator of Special Education, Peggy Blair, inviting me to be part of an Action Research project. I was enticed for two reasons. First, I would receive a complete social skills program (complete with training) for my special education classroom. And, second, I had been contemplating putting more emphasis on social skills training as part of the alternative program-ming. I knew I wanted to improve how I taught social skills to the students, but I didn’t know how to begin