Month: August 2018

Individualized learning, goal setting helps DC students become independent learners

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Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science Principal Kathryn Procope acknowledges the personalized learning system put in place at that Washington D.C. school this year is “not a silver bullet,” but it’s helping students set goals and develop self-discipline to become independent learners.

The school is in its first year using a new Summit Learning platform that encourages students to set daily goals and track their progress through online lessons, with constant feedback and guidance from teachers in the classroom. The individualized learning approach “is not a new concept,” Procope said, but the new Summit program developed by Facebook engineers is taking it to another level, EdSurge reports.

Summit Public Schools – a charter school chain operating in Washington and northern California – developed the software for its schools in partnership with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative over the last several years, and it’s now used by about 56,000 students in 40 states and 330 campuses, including Howard and the Truesdell Education Campus in Washington, D.C.

“What Summit has done is take a concept that already existed and put a framework around it so that it assists every student,” Procope said.

Dianne Tavenner, founder and CEO of Summit Public Schools, contends the Summit system is primarily focused on changing school culture to foster independent learning, with online lessons to support that goal.

“This is really about a whole belief, a way of educating, thinking and learning,” Tavenner said. “This (platform) is just a tool.”

The program centers on several core tenets schools must adopt to implement the approach successfully, including 1:1 mentorship, project-based learning activities in all curricula, a change from A through F grades to “a competency-based system where students only progress when they demonstrate mastery of a topic or subject,” and ongoing professional development for staff, EdSurge reports.

Summit requires students to select daily goals from a list provided by teachers, and to analyze feedback on assignments using a grading rubric. Summit collects data on each student’s progress, which is relayed to students and teachers through a data dashboard and allows students to work at their own pace.

Educators also practice “aggressive monitoring” to keep students focused.

“Sixth-grade students can barely put their pants on. They lose their stuff all the time,” Procope said. “It takes a lot to help them start setting their own goals. It’s a lot of repetitive processes.”

While the impact of the new approach at Howard is unclear, results are promising at Truesdell, where the 364 mostly low-income students in grades 3 to 8 have used the program since 2015.

“The school has made gains over the years, not big leaps and bounds, but nice, consistent gains,” principal MaryAnn Stinson said. “Last year we had the highest [district] growth in English Language Arts for a Title 1 school.”

The personal education paradigm is an increasingly “thick” educational model.

James Davison Hunter and Ryan S. Olson define thickness in The Content of Their Character, a summary of character education programs in a variety of schools.

Hunter and Olson write “‘thick’ moral reasoning and discourse is not abstract, but concrete; bounded by the history, tradition, and the practices of lived experience in particular communities.”

Researchers who conducting field research for the book found that “the thicker the moral culture of the school, the more coherent it was and the more cohesive an environment it provided for the young.”

Summit Learning offers the video “Habits of Success at Summit” for those interested in more details on how the personalized approach inspires students to take control of their own learning.

‘Chess Queen of the South’ recognized for skills, character, leadership

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Earle STEM Academy student Tamya Fultz started playing chess in sixth grade, and the next year she won Chicago Public Schools’ Academic Chess South Conference Playoffs with a perfect score.

It was the first time in the history of the school that a seventh-grader took first place at a CPS chess tournament, and it was one of the first of many championships that earned Fultz the nickname “Chess Queen of the South,” said Earle STEM Academy math and chess teacher Joseph Ocol.

Fultz was also the only girl, the only black student, and only student from Chicago Public Schools to place in the 2017 IESA State Chess Finals in Peoria.

As an eighth-grader, Fultz won her divisions in the 2017 National K-12 Chess Tournament in Florida and the Chicago Chess Foundation Chess Tournament in the Windy City, and she’s now looking forward to “bigger” things as she takes her talents to high school.

The recognition for all of her hard work, Fultz said, is rewarding.

“It feels like I accomplished something in life and I did something,” she said in a CPS blog.

Ocol attributes much of Fultz’s success to her character. The teen is an honor roll student with perfect attendance, who also placed in the 98 percentile on standardized tests – “the highest attained by any student at Earle,” the teacher said.

“She’s not just persistent; she’s also tenacious and has the grit to cope with all sorts of challenges,” he said, adding that Fultz now inspires younger students as a team captain. “Everyone wants to follow in the footsteps of Tamya.”

Fultz’s mother, Andrea Smith, told CPS she encourages the youngster to remain humble and respectful, and to step up to embrace her new role.

“I tell her by being captain she’s a bigger influence than the coach sometimes because peers look to each other,” Smith said. “I tell her she’s a leader now.”

The success at Earle STEM Academy is both a testament to Fultz’s strong character and a reflection of what researchers at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture refer to as a “moral ecology.”

Scholars James Davison Hunter and Ryan S. Olson describe the relationship in “The Content of Their Character,” an analysis of character education in a wide variety of different schools.

“When social institutions – whether the family, peer relationships, youth organizations, the internet, religious congregations, entertainment, or popular culture – cluster together, they form a larger ecosystem of powerful cultural influences.”

Fultz is not only a product of the moral ecology, but also a respectful, humble, and tenacious role model for younger students.

Loyola Marymount University offers resources for teachers, students and others on “Educating for Intellectual Virtues” – which the website describes as “the deep personal qualities or character strengths of a good thinker or learner.

“Intellectual virtues include qualities like curiosity, attentiveness, open-mindedness, intellectual humility, intellectual autonomy, intellectual courage, and intellectual tenacity,” according to the site.

“Educating for intellectual virtues is not an alternative to instruction in traditional academic subjects like math, English, history, and science. Rather, it is a way of helping students approach and engage with these subjects – a way that is personal, thoughtful, and active.”

 

Montessori schools promote intrinsic reward of learning to develop creative, self-directed learners

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Principal Meredith Wallace of the Murray-LaSaine Elementary School in Charleston, South Carolina has no use for sticker charts or special recognition for perfect attendance. She’s also not a big fan of letter grades.

“There’s no need for us to put a letter grade on what they can do,” she told the Post and Courier. “We just want them to keep learning.”

The public school on James Island is among dozens of Montessori schools that have emerged in the Palmetto State since it adopted the self-directed approach to early education more than two decades ago.

Unlike most other places where the majority of Montessori schools are private, 7,402 South Carolina students at 45 public schools in 24 districts participated in Montessori programming in 2016, including large percentages of minorities and low-income students. And it’s exactly the type of situation Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori crafted this educational approach for when she developed the program for low-income families in the early 1900s.

“South Carolina is a wonderful hub for Montessori,” said Timothy Purnell, executive director of the American Montessori Society. “Low-income students are now afforded an opportunity for an education that is self-directed. It’s vastly different than most education systems we see today.”

The Post and Courier reports:

Montessori classrooms often combine children from a broad age range: Age 3 through kindergarten in primary classrooms; grades 1 through 3 in lower elementary; and grades 4 through 6 in upper elementary. Each school day includes about three hours of self-directed activities, with children choosing their own tasks involving a set of classroom materials.

The unique situation in South Carolina allowed researchers at The Riley Institute to examine the effectiveness of the Montessori approach in public schools, and the results are encouraging.

A three year study that ended in 2015-16 showed that “when comparted to non-Montessori public school students across the state, Montessori students were more likely to have met or exceeded state standards in each of the four subjects” – English, math, science and social studies, according to the findings. “Subgroup analysis indicated that low-income Montessori students scored significantly higher than low-income non-Montessori students.”

Montessori students also “exhibited significantly higher levels of creativity than non-Montessori students,” “demonstrated higher school attendance,” and “were significantly less likely than similar non-Montessori students to have had a disciplinary incident or have served a suspension during the school year,” the Riley Institute reports.

Researchers at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture noted the distinctive approach of Montessori schools that drives its success both with academics and developing self-motivated, responsible, curious and persistent learners.

“The Montessori model views ‘the child as one who is naturally eager for knowledge’ and ‘values the human spirit and the development of the whole child – physical, social, emotional, cognitive,’” sociologist David Sikkink wrote in “The Content of Their Character,” an analysis of character education in a variety of U.S. schools.

“Key characteristics of the program ‘include multiage groupings that foster peer learning, uninterrupted blocks of work time, and guided choice of work activity,’” he wrote.

The blog, Children of the Redwoods offers a short summary of the Montessori approach to education with “Montessori 101, The Basics.”

The primer explains the background and methods involved, and why the biggest reward comes from learning itself, rather than stars or stickers.

 

Restorative justice approach reduces fights at Canadian Catholic school by 74 percent

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St. Benedict Catholic Secondary School in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada switched from automatic suspensions for students who fight to a restorative justice approach that requires them to work with a mediator and take responsibility for their actions.

The school began the shift late in the 2016-17 school year, and officially implemented the restorative justice discipline approach in 2017-18. The change led to a 74 percent drop in “conflicts of a physical nature” compared to the previous year, while also reducing suspensions by 44 percent, CBC reports.

“It’s learning how to be in relationship with somebody,” said Shelley Schanzenbacher, restorative justice practitioner at Community Justice Initiatives Waterloo Region.

“Sometimes what happens is those situations begin to escalate, because they never get put to bed,” she told Craig Norris, host of CBC Radio’s “The Morning Edition.”

Principal Dan Witt noted mediation is not something students can choose over being suspended.

“It’s not a negotiation piece,” he said. “You don’t want the mediation to be a coercive strategy.”

Students sit with a mediator to talk one-on-one about fights or other incidents, as well as issues leading up to the conflict and how it impacted them.  Students involved then get together with the mediator to devise a resolution.

“It gives voice to each party and it gives an opportunity for each person to hear about, how did that feel when you said those things to me,” Schanzenbacher said.

Effective restorative justice practices draws on what scholars call “moral autonomy.” Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture founder James Davison Hunter writes in “The Death of Character” that moral autonomy is an individual’s capacity to freely make ethical decisions, because “controlled behavior cannot be moral behavior for it removes the element of discretion and judgment.”

Schanzenbacher said that even though it might seem like students are being let off easy, mediation actually is a very difficult process. It requires students to face those they’ve harmed, listen to them, express an apology and repair the damage caused. It’s a process that students must undertake freely, unlike a forced suspension.

The data suggests the approach is working well with St. Benedict students, and Schanzenbacher contends administrators are recognizing the benefits.

“They’re starting to shift their perspective,” she said, “and culture shift is hard.”

Schanzenbacher is hopeful the success so far at St. Benedict will help inspire other area Catholic schools to consider restorative justice, as well, though she acknowledges that a systemic shift won’t come easy.

“There’s a lot of hard work ahead,” Schanzenbacher said, “this isn’t going to happen overnight.”

Duke Law offers more details about restorative approaches taking root in an increasing number of schools in the report “Instead of Suspension: Alternative Strategies for Effective School Discipline.”

The report “is not only educational and informative, but also can serve as a starting point for action or as a source of guidance for policy change.”

Olympic gold medalist Alex Rigsby talks character with students in Classroom Champions program

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Alex Rigsby, gold-medalist on the U.S. Women’s Olympic Hockey team, returned from the Olympic Games in PyeongChang, South Korea to a drastically different environment.

The 26-year-old spent her second year in the Classroom Champions program working as a mentor in four elementary classrooms, two in Alexandria, Virginia and two in Portland, Oregon, The 74 Million reports.

Rigsby discussed how the experience has made an impression on both her and the students, and what she hopes to accomplish through the mentorship.

The best part of the experience, she said, is “seeing the impact it has on children.

“It is so fun interacting with them and seeing the progress they are making throughout the year and the different challenges that they accept and meet from what I give them each month,” Rigsby told The 74.

“I was lucky to be able to see two classrooms of mine last year,” she added. “It was just so awesome to see all the kids and how excited they were, and see them look to me as a friend and get excited to work on their goals and perseverance and all the different types of things we talk about.”

Rigsby explained how sports or students’ other passions can help students develop habits and virtues for success at school and later in life.

“I think it is about setting goals for themselves. That is one of the biggest things we preach to them: It is about goal setting and chasing your dreams,” Rigsby said. “Sports are just such a great thing for any kid to have, and if they take it to a high level or not, they are going to be able to learn some lessons from it, and if they can take anything they learn and move forward with it, it is going to help them in their life.”

Researchers at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia emphasize and support efforts to help students overcome adversity as a critical component of effective character education, which extends to students’ mental state, home life, and after school community.

James Davison Hunter, sociologist and Institute founder, wrote in “The Tragedy of Moral Education in America”:

The form of character is one thing, but the substance of character always takes shape relative to the culture in which it is found.

The Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues takes a deeper look at the character virtues that drive student success and the role character education can play in helping students succeed in the report “Flourishing From the Margins.”

The project reviewed data on 3,250 students from a variety of backgrounds to “illuminate the vital practical work that tutors, youth workers, and community leaders do every day in supporting and guiding marginalised young people to build character and become moral, engaged, intelligent members of an increasingly complex and challenging society.”

“Flourishing From the Margins” also offers a suite of teaching resources for educators interested in forming character in students, as well as recommendations for schools working to develop a positive culture that values strong character and virtues.

California teacher promotes civics to confront ‘selfish’ student stereotype

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Mission San Jose High School teacher Jeffery Alves wants students to focus less on themselves and more on what they can do for others.

The Fremont, California teacher learned about complaints from colleges about “selfish” students focused more on their academic achievement than civic and social issues, and crafted two courses designed to better engage students in government and their communities, the East Bay Times reports.

“I thought this would be a great course for the kids in Fremont because we really focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) a lot, and I think social sciences is kind of forgotten sometimes,” Alves told the news site.

“Civics really works to get them aware of their rights, their responsibilities, but also how to engage in civic dialogue, and how to participate, whether it’s in a company or in politics.”

The courses, implemented last school year, prompt students to take action by writing letters to the editor, creating fundraisers, and starting student clubs, among other projects aimed at advocating for others or challenging the status quo.

“That’s what we want,” Alves said. “We want active, productive, positive citizens.”

Meera Sehgal, a 14-year-old at Mission San Jose who took the class said it’s helped him “develop more as a person.”

“Mission as an atmosphere is quite competitive. Luckily, my personal family, they don’t really push me too hard, but I definitely see other kids here struggling a lot. Because the thing with immigrant parents is they try to push you to succeed a lot. I think that can be detrimental to some kids,” she said.

“If they take a class like this, which shows you that there’s more to life than just your grades, I think that can really help break out of that single focus.”

Jeff Guhin, a UCLA sociologist and researcher with the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, wrote about the obsession with personal achievement in urban public schools he visited for a chapter in “The Content of Their Character,” an analysis of character education in a variety of schools.

After extensive interviews with students, teachers and administrators, as well as observations in classes, assemblies and other venues like sporting events, Guhin noted that “self-actualization was by far the most important moral idea in any of the schools, on both an aggregate and individual level.

“It represented what schools were supposed to do according to administrators and to district, state, and federal programs,” he wrote. “It was what the teachers and principals wanted for the students, and what the students themselves wanted.”

The renewed focus on civics at Mission San Jose High School is one example of how educators can successfully redirect students to focus more how they can serve others through civic participation.

The Jubilee Center for Character and Virtues offers resources, such as “A Framework for Character Education in Schools,” that can help educators bolster moral and citizenship education in their classrooms.

The Framework delves into the intersection of character and civics through a look at the psychology of moral development, the virtues of good character, and the important role teachers play in character development.

 

©2017 Advanced Studies in Culture

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