How+Students+Experience+School

Key Topics

 * ==** School Connectedness ** .............. == || ==** Out-of-School Time ** .................. == || ==** Viewing Classrooms ** .................. == || ==** Teaching Patterns **== ||

The Importance of School Connectedness For Students
Monahan, K. C., Oesterie, S., & Hawkins, J. D. (2010, September). **[|Predictors and Consequences of School Connectedness: The Case for Prevention]**. //The Prevention Researcher, 17//(3), 3-6.

** The article sites research that indicates 40 to 60 percent of all youth-- urban, rural, suburban --report being disconnected from school; that is, not liking their teachers, lacking interest in school, and not finding schoolwork meaningful or engaging **. **School connectedness among students is high in elementary school, begins to decline in middle school, and is a major issue in high schools**.

**Youth who are connected to their school are less likely to engage in delinquent or violent behavior, to drink alcohol, or use drugs**. **Also they are less likely to initiate sexual activity at earlier ages**. Connectedness is also linked to mental health and emotional well-being with results of less physical and emotional distress, less depressive symptoms, less suicidal thoughts.

**Youth who feel connected show better academic outcomes, higher motivation, lower classroom misbehavior, higher grades, higher rates of graduation from high schoo****l**.

How do schools promote a sense of school connectedness among students ?
 * ** high academic standards coupled with strong teacher support **
 * ** positive and respectful adult/student relationships **
 * ** physically safe and emotionally safe school environment **
 * ** positive and proactive classroom management **
 * ** opportunities for students to participate in extracurricular activities **
 * ** tolerant disciplinary policies **
 * ** small school size **
 * ** interactive teaching and cooperative learning experiences **

National Research Council recommendations for building school connectedness include : > > > > ** BUDL: Baltimore Urban Debate League: **** A DEBATE TEAM ** > ** Debate in Baltimore builds kids' interest in and determination to succeed in learning? Yeah? ** > > @http://stateofthereunion.com/baltimore-md-outsiders-in/ > > ====** Fresno, CA high schools design a program for engineering: An Engineering Career? Oh, yes! **====
 * ** not separating students into vocational and college tracks **
 * ** setting high academic standards for all students **
 * ** providing students with the same core curriculum **
 * ** creating small-sized learning environments **
 * ** forming multidisciplinary education teams **
 * ** ensuring every student has an advisor **
 * ** providing mentoring programs **
 * ** ensuring course content is relevant to the lives of students **
 * ** providing service learning and community service projects **
 * ** providing experiential, hands-on learning opportunities **
 * ** extending class periods, school day, or school year **
 * ** providing opportunities for students who are falling behind to catch up **
 * @http://abc30.com/education/encouraging-kids-to-start-planning-a-career-pathway/94579/

Education reformers are proposing new structures to dramatically change how students experience school. What time school starts and ends, curriculum innovation for instruction and accessibility to education within the daily lives of working students, and personal interests are all influential reasons why students stay in or leave school.

Time Out: Rethinking the Hours America Spends Educating
[] "But if this [learning time]transformation requires unprecedented national effort, it does not require unprecedented thinking about school operations. Common sense suffices: American students must have more time for learning. The 6-hour, 180-day school year should be relegated to museums, an exhibit from our education past. Both learners and teachers need more time -- not to do more of the same, but to use all time in new, different, and better ways. The key to liberating learning lies in unlocking time."



What to Look for in a Classroom
Writer and education reformer Alfie Kohn (The Schools Our Children Deserve Houghton Mifflin, 1999) offers a framework for examining how classrooms function to engage or distance students. It is presented below and is available online at: []

**Transmission (Teacher-Centered) and Constructivist (Student-Centered) Classrooms**
Teacher-centered classrooms tend to feature whole group instruction, seat work by individual students, discussions emphasizing correct answers, and assessments based on worksheets, quizzes and tests. Student centered classrooms are marked by a combination of whole group and small group activities, cooperative learning and group projects, open-ended discussions emphasizing many possible solutions to problems, and assessments based on student projects, performances, and portfolios. In Search of Constructivist Classrooms by Jacqueline Grennon Brooks and Martin G. Brooks (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1999) presents a further description of classroom environments.

TEACHER-CENTERED :
 * Curriculum is presented part to whole, with emphasis on basic skills.
 * Strict adherence to fixed curriculum is highly valued.
 * Curricular activities rely heavily on textbooks and workbooks.
 * Students are viewed as blank slates onto which information is etched by the teacher.
 * Teachers generally behave in a didactic manner, disseminating information to students.
 * Teachers seek the correct answer to validate student learning.
 * Students primarily work alone.
 * Assessment of student learning is separate from teaching and occurs almost entirely through testing.

STUDENT-CENTERED :
 * Teachers seek the students’ point of view in order to understand students’ present conceptions for use in subsequent lessons.
 * Curriculum is presented whole to part, with an emphasis on big concepts.
 * Curricular activities rely heavily on primary sources of data and manipulative materials.
 * Pursuit of student questions is highly valued.
 * Teachers generally behave in an interactive manner, mediating the environment for students.
 * Assessment of student learning is interwoven with teaching and occurs through teacher observations of students at work, and through student exhibitions and portfolios.
 * Students are viewed as thinkers with emerging theories about the world.
 * Students primarily work in groups.


 * 1) How has your view of yourself as a learner affected your school performance?
 * 2) How do your friends’ views of themselves as learners affect their school performance?
 * 3) How can you, a tutor and a learner, help students develop positive beliefs about themselves being smart, capable learners who can succeed in school?
 * 4) In classroom(s) where you are tutoring and classrooms you remember from your own school experiences, what patterns do you recognize--teacher-centered, student-centered, combinations of patterns, different patterns in different subjects?

__//Did You Know?//__
This video is a remix of a Powerpoint presentation originally created by Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, and Jeff Brenman on Powerpoint slides. The remix into a short video was intended to captivate an audience's attention which a Powerpoint presentation did not achieve. Watch the full video on YouTube at: @http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY