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Dream Project

Dream Project. Raising the Graduation Rate by Creating an Motivating Educational Setting for Middle School Students Presented by Bev Bricker. Research.

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Dream Project

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  1. Dream Project Raising the Graduation Rate by Creating an Motivating Educational Setting for Middle School Students Presented by Bev Bricker

  2. Research • More attention has been paid to administrators, teachers, instruction and pedagogy when searching for answers for the level of graduation rates than to other causes. • A shift in the focus shows a high correlation between high-poverty middle school students’ disengagement, absenteeism, behavior and dropping out of school. (Balfanz, Herzog & Mac Iver, 2007)

  3. Research • Any successful student in 6th-9th grade regardless SES will likely graduate from high school (75% or greater chance). • Unsuccessful, struggling and disengaged 6th-9th grade students especially those coming from high poverty school districts have less than a 20% chance of graduating. • About 40% of the eventual dropouts could be identified in the 6th grade and 75% by 9th grade when they begin showing clear signs of behavioral and emotional disengagement. (Balfanzet al. 2007)

  4. What changes in 6th and 9th Grade? Students move to another school – A Transition. • 1970 - <25% of middle schools included 6th grade. • 2000 – 75% of all middle schools enrolled 6th graders. (Cook, MacCoun, Muschkin, Vigdor, 2008)

  5. Placing sixth grade students in a middle school setting: • increases their behavior problems as measured by suspensions, (Arcia, 2007) Out of School Suspensions were highly predictive of a student becoming a future drop-out. And so was sustained mild misbehavior (e.g. receiving a poor final behavior grade in two or more courses). (Balfanz, 2012)

  6. Placing sixth grade students in a middle school setting: • negatively effects their self-esteem, (Simmons & Blyth, 1987)

  7. Placing sixth grade students in a middle school setting • lowers their motivation, ( Hunt, 1975; Mitchell, 1969, Ladd, Buhs & Troop, 2002)

  8. Placing sixth grade students in a middle school setting: • may negatively effect their academic performance. (Alspaugh, 1998; Barber & Olsen, 2004; Wentzel, 2003; Wentzel & Caldwell, 1997; Zetergren, 2003) • A trend that has been shown to continue throughout their remaining high school experience.

  9. Sixth grade is the most powerful predictors of academic performance in eighth grade. • Veronneau and Dishion (2010)

  10. State-wide 6th grade students’ CST scores are lower than 5th grade scores (CDE, 2011) PSUSD Sixth grade students who fail 1 core subject (ELA, Math, Sci or History) 60% chance of not completing high school (PSUSD, 2008) PSUSD Sixth grade students who fail 2 core subjects (ELA, Math, Sci or History) 75% chance of not completing high school (PSUSD, 2008)

  11. Course Failure in Philadelphia • Student who fail mathematics, English or any two courses in 6th grade are in trouble. • Few students failed both math and English, but those that did almost never graduated. • Course Failure is a Better Predictor of Graduation Outcomes than Test Scores. (Balfanzet al, 2007)

  12. There is a cost for the loss of academic growth in 6th grade.

  13. The solution may lie in the focus and structure of our schools. • If we know that the students we send to a new school are about to undergo dramatic physical, psychological and emotional transformations, why would we also add another element that may contribute to a drop in motivation, self-esteem, academic success, and self-control?

  14. The solution may lie in the structure of our schools. • Limiting the transitions to new schools K-8 9-12 • or lengthening the time between transitions K-4 5-8 9-12 • will help mitigate the negative effects of the transitions. (Rockoff & Lockwood, 2010)

  15. The solution may lie in how we approach our students and the relationships we build with them. • Daniel Pink wrote in his book, Drive, that motivation isn’t about money but it involves autonomy, mastery, and purpose. • Humans have a need to: • direct our own lives • learn and create new things • do better by ourselves and our world. (Pink, 2009)

  16. My Proposal To Transform Middle Schools

  17. Exemplary Leadership Needed • This change will need a transformational leader that can challenge the processes in place, inspire a shared vision, model the way so that others will be enabled to act and encourage the heart. A blend of the transformational and exemplary leadership (Kouzes & Posner) models will enable a leader to move the school in a forward direction while teachers feel empowered and students become the focus of attention.

  18. My Student-Centered Solution • Eliminate departments and 7 period days Pink’s research on motivation: • Mastery –Provide authentic learning experiences that require the skills and knowledge that we expect the students to master in order to complete the task. • Autonomy - Allow students to pick the learning task which will demonstrate their mastery. • Purpose - Structure group and individual tasks so that students learn the importance of working in a group and that their actions will have an effect on those around them, they can be a part of something bigger that has real meaning.

  19. My Student-Centered Solution Integrate art, music, health and physical fitness in the activities to provide students with reasons to explore each of these areas. The mastery of skills and development of talents will increase self-esteem.

  20. My Student-Centered Solution Create schedules that allow for students to be with the same teachers and develop relationships. • Young adolescents need a more supportive and positive relationship with adults (Jerome, Hamre and Piant, 2008) • Schools that remain departmentalized tend to create impersonal, highly competitive settings that feature more rote learning and less participation (Eccles, 1999).

  21. My Student-Centered Solution • Not individualized instruction, but individualized progress and movement. • Authentic reasons to learn the content and put it to use. • Motivating, interesting projects that impact the real world. • Classroom structures can be adjusted to accommodate student progress rates; it should not be the other way around (Eccles & Midgley, 1989) Education is a journey not a race, as students master skills they will move the next level or grade whether their peers are moving or not.

  22. How will we know this is no longer a problem? Monitoring of • District/State Systems • Graduation Rates • School Climate • Student Engagement – interactions in class, attendance, completion of tasks. • Surveys • Teacher satisfaction • Parent • Student • Community • Discipline • Suspensions • Expulsions • Academics • The State’s standardized test scoring system • District assessment system • benchmarks, short-cycle assessments

  23. Resources Alspaugh, J. W. (1998). Achievement loss associated with the transition to middle school and high school. Journal of Educational Research, 92(1), 20-25. Arcia, E. (2007). A Comparison of Elementary/K-8 and Middle Schools’ Suspension Rates. Urban Education. 42 (5), 456-469 Balfanz, R. Herzog, L. & Mac Iver, D. (2007). Preventing student disengagement and keeping students on the graduation path in urban middle-grades schools: Early identification and effective interventions. Educational Psychologist, 42(4). Barber, B. K., & Olsen, J. A. (2004). Assessing the transitions to middle and high school. Journal of Adolescent Research, 19(1), 3-30. Cook, P., J., MacCoun, R., Muschkin, C., & Vigdor, J. (2008). “The negative impacts of starting middle school in sixth grade.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 27(1), 104–121. Eccles, J. S., & Midgley, C. (1999). Stage/environment fit: Developmentally appropriate classrooms for early adolescents. In R. E. Ames & C. Ames (Eds.), Research on motivation in education (Vol. 3, pp. 139-186). New York: Academic Press. Hunt, D. E. (1975). Person-environment interaction: A challenge found wanting before it was tried. Review of Educational Research 45, 209-230. Jerome, E.M., Hamre, B.K., & Pianta, R.C. (2008) Teacher-child relationships from kindergarten to sixth grade: Early childhood predictors of teacher-perceived conflict and closeness. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9507.2008.00508. Ladd, G., Buhs, E., & Troop, W. (2002). Children’s interpersonal skills and relationships in school settings: Adaptive significance and implications for school-based prevention and intervention programs. In P. K. Smith & C. H. Hart (Eds.), Blackwell handbook of childhood social development (pp. 394–415). Malden, MA: Blackwell.

  24. Resources Mitchell, J. V. (1969). Education's challenge to psychology: The prediction of behavior from person-environment interactions. Review of Educational Research 39, 695-721. Palm Springs Unified School District Board of Education Report. (2008) Pink, D. (2009). Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. New York: Random House. Rockoff, J., Lockwood, B. (2010). Stuck in the middle. How and why middle school harm student achievement. Education Next. Simmons, R. G., & Blyth, D. A. (1987). Moving into adolescence: the impact of pubertal change and school context. Hawthorn, NY: Aldine de Gruyter. Véronneau, M., & Dishion, T. (2010) Middle School Friendships and Academic Achievement in Early Adolescence: A Longitudinal Analysis. Journal of Early Adolescence 31(1) 99–124 doi: 10.1177/0272431610384485 Wentzel, K. (2003). Sociometric status and adjustment in middle school: A longitudinal study. The Journal of Early Adolescence, 23, 5–28. doi:10.1177/0272431602239128 Wentzel, K. R., & Caldwell, K. (1997). Friendships, peer acceptance, and group membership: Relations to academic achievement in middle school. Child Development, 68, 1198–1209. doi:10.2307/1132301 Zettergren, P. (2003). School adjustment in adolescence for previously rejected, average and popular children. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 73, 207–221. doi:10.1348/00070990360626949

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