Foundation of Education

Submitted to Mr. Seoung SophaPresented by: - Lay Sun -Taing Kung Ann Year IV, Semester I- Thab Chanthorn Afternoon class

Western UniversityDepartment of English

CHAPTER 16: SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS AND REFORM IN THE UNITED STATES

I. Imperative to improve the schools

• Underprepared workers• Several major national reports and studies have

suggested that American students are leaving school unprepared to participate in jobs.

• Compelling need for equity• Nearly all the recent reports and studies dealing with

educational reform also call for (need) improving the performance of economically disadvantaged students in order to make educational outcome more equitable.

• *** Specific areas of concern for educators working to reform educational opportunities for disadvantage students include the following:

• At-risk students and schools: Social and economic opportunities have declined rapidly for low-achieving students.

• Council of Chief State School Officer (CCSSO) argued that state law should guarantee educational programs and other services to enable all persons to graduate from high school.

• Inner-city poverty: The part near the center of a large city, which often has social problem.

• (Pocket of rural poverty) Concentrated rural poverty: Some rural areas have communities of concentrated poverty.

II. Characteristic of Effective Classroom and Schools

• The push for greater educational effectiveness becomes a national growth industry in 1983. Many studies have been designed to identify the characteristics of effective classroom teaching and effective schools.

• Classroom Management• Effective Classroom practices.• Making sure that students know what the teacher

expects.• Letting students know how to obtain help.• Following through with reminders between

activities and rewards to enforce the rules.

• Providing smooth transition activities.• Giving students assignments of sufficient variety to

maintain interest.• Monitoring the class for signs of confusion or inattention.• Being careful to avoid embarrassing students in front of

their classmates. • Responding flexibility to unexpected developments.• Designing tasks that draw on students’ prior knowledge

and experience.• Helping students develop self-management skills.• Attending to students’ cultural background.• Ensuring that all students are part of classroom learning

community.

Time On tasks

• Time on Tasks: That is, time engaged in learning activities.

• Questioning• Skillful questioning and wait time: With the

skillful questioning, teacher should ask students with appropriate questions and give time to mentally manipulate ideas by themselves.

• Direct instruction and explicit Teaching.• The terms direct instruction and explicit

teaching frequently used as synonym. Here is the six steps as central to direct instruction:

• Begin with a review of previous learning and a preview and goal statement.

• Present new material in steps, with clear explanations and active student practice after each step.

• Guide students in initial practice; ask questions and check for understanding.

• Provide systematic feedback and corrections.• Supervise independent practice; monitor and

assist seatwork.• Provide weekly and monthly review and testing.

• Techniques for explicit comprehension instruction• Prediction activities in which students infer what will be

found in the text based on their prior knowledge.• Reciprocal teaching, student team learning and other

approaches to cooperative learning through with students learn to take more responsibilities for helping each other comprehended mental.

• Semantic maps and thinking maps that organize information.

• Computer simulations designed to develop concept and thinking skills.

• Metacognitive learning strategies through which students monitor and assess their own learning process.

Techniques for explicit comprehension instruction

• Research on effective teaching and instruction suggests that successful reform projects should include several changes:

• Improving teachers’ classroom management • Questioning skills• Increasing time on tasks• Expanding the use of direct instruction and

explicit comprehension instruction• Introducing cognitive instruction for low-

achieving students.

Cognitive Instruction for Low-Achieving Students

Effective School Research• Elementary Schools• Characteristics of effective school• Safe and orderly environment conducive to

teaching and learning and not oppressive.• A clear school mission through which the staff

shares a commitment to instructional priorities, assessment procedures, ad accountability.

• Instructional leadership by a principal who understands the characteristics of instructional effectiveness.

• A climate of high expectations in which the staff demonstrates that all students can master challenging skills

• High time-on-task brought about when students spend a large percentage of time engaged in planned activities to master basic skills.

• Frequent monitoring of student progress, using the results to improve both individual performance and the instructional program.

• Positive home-school relations in which parents support the school’s basic mission and play an important part in helping to achieve it.

• Coordinating methods and materials.• Another characteristic that contribute to school

effectiveness is curriculum alignment.• Other key factors• Attention to goals involving cultural pluralism and

multicultural education.• Emphasis on responding to students’ personal problems

and developing the social skills.• Faculty who strive to improve students’ sense of efficacy.• Continuous concern for making teaching skill tasks

realistic and manageable.• Targeting interventions on low-performance students.• Collaborative problem-solving by the entire faculty.

High Schools• The following approaches have frequently been successful.• School within a school for low achievers. If their teachers are

selected for ability and willingness to work with low achievers, participating students can make large gains in basic skills and transfer to regular courses.

• Career academies. Functioning as schools-within-a-school that enroll students of various abilities across several grades, career academies focus on such fields as computers, biology or other science, humanity or arts, or occupational studies such as law enforcement or journalism.

• Smaller high-school units in general. Assigning students to these smaller schools or units can create a more personalized environment in which the staff provide individual help to students.

Evaluation of Effective School Research

• Evaluation of Effective School Research• First,Some people have in mind a school with

high academic achievement ( taking account of social class ), others are thinking about a self-renewing school that can identify and solve internal problems, a school that promotes students’ personal growth, a school that have shown improvement in achievement, or a school that concentrates on developing independent study skills and love for learning.

• Second, many rigorous studies have focused on high poverty elementary schools in which academic achievement is higher than at most other schools with similar disadvantaged students.

• Third, other methodologies problems have left much of the research vulnerable to criticism. The high achievement might be attributable more to the students’ background than to school characteristics.

• Fourth, the literature often tends to beg the question of what teacher and principal should do in the schools.

Characteristic of Successful School Reform• Adaptive Problem Solving• Innovations usually fail unless the organization

introducing them is adaptive in the sense that it can identify and solve day-to-day problems.

• School-level focus, with external support.• Because the innovation organization must solve day-

to-day problems, it must focus at the individual school level.

• Potential for implementation. Successful school reform also depends on whether changes can feasibly be implemented in typical schools. Three characteristics that make successful implementation more likely are :

• Innovation’s compatibility with the context of potential users.

• Its accessibility to those who do not already understood the underlying ideas.

• Its “doability” in terms of demands on teachers’ times and energy.

• Leadership and share agreements: Meaningful innovation requires change in many institutional arrangements, including scheduling of staff and student time, selection and mechanism for making decision.

• Staff training: Staff development is a core activity in the school improvement process.

.

Coherence: Coherence in school reform efforts has at least two major dimensions. The first refers to coherence across grade levels and coherence refers to consistency and compatibility across the instructional program and approaches used in the school.

• Professional community: Schools can ensure that all students learn only if teachers work together, trust their colleagues, and challenge each other to take responsibility for the difficulty task of helping low-achievers master increasingly challenging material.

The effective teaching practice cited earlier in this chapter work in individual class rooms, but numerous instructional approach are designed for use at several or all grade levels in a school.

I. Improvement Approaches Across Grade Levels or Schools

For example, many reading improvement programs often target students in kindergarten and the primary grades.

1.1 Higher-Order Thinking Skills(HOTS) Program

Stanley Pogrow and his colleaguesAim: Remedial-reading activities

grade 4 through 6. HOTS components.

2. emphasis on dramatization technique that require student to verbalize, thereby stimulating language

3. Socratic questioning

4. a thinking skills curriculum that stresses metacognitive learning, learning to learn, and other comprehension-enhancement technique.

1. Use of computer for problem solving

1.2 Success for AllComprehensive changes

improving the reading achievement of disadvantaged students, success for all provides intensive instructional support for student in elementary school.

It also emphasizes cooperative learning mastery instruction, with technique support and staff development provided by full-time coordinators and resource persons assign to participating school

1.3 Degree of Reading Power Comprehension Development Approach

Based in part on the Degrees of Reading Power test originally developed by the College Board, The DPR approach is being implemented successfully at several urban school.

The test is unlike most other standardized reading measures in that. It assess how well a student actually can comprehend written prose he or she encounter in or out school.

After using the DRP to determine their student’s comprehension levels, teachers in all subject areas align their instruction accordingly.

Standard Assessment: Stressing real-life comprehension

1.4 Comer School Development Program

.* Comer’s approach Developed by James Comer

and his colleagues at Yale University

Aim: to improve achievement at inner-city elementary

schools through enhanced social and psychological services for students, emphasis on parent involvement, and encouragement and support for active learning. Participating faculties involve parents, social workers, and other specialists form” Mental Health Teams” that design and supervise individualized learning arrangement for students with particular problems .

1.5 The Equity 2000 and Algebra Projects

* Transition to algebra. The Equity 2000 project address aspects ofmathematics education in secondary schools.Students receive assistance in pre-algebra, algebra,geometry, and other course. The Algebra Project involves curriculuminterventions that use disadvantaged students’personal experience and intuition to help them shiftfrom arithmetic to algebraic thinking.

1.6 Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP)

Aim: KIPP promotional information describes its schools as ‘open-enrollment public schools where undeserved students develop the knowledge, skills, and character traits.

Time: KIPP typically function from 7:30am to 5:30pm on Wednesday, and students also attend every other Saturday and for three weeks during summer.

KIPP further describes its approach as emphasizing rigorous ‘college preparatory instruction….. Balanced with extracurricular activities, experiential field lessons, and character development.

* Emphasis on time for learning and rigorous instruction

* Careful Expansion

Since its first school was opened in 1994, KIPP has expand to include some 66 schools, mostly middle school but also several high school and elementary schools.

Aim: carefully implementing plans to obtain dedicated staff willing to work long hours with struggling students, and to train and evaluate administrators and teacher, develop networks of supportive KIPP schools nearby, and articulate an effective program ranging from kindergarten through high-school graduation.

1.7 Advancement via Individual Determination Program (AVID)

• Helping middle-to-low-performing students AVID is a support program for grades5-12 that preparestudents for college eligibility and success. Aimed particularly at middle- to low-performing studentsat schools with significant proportions of disadvantagesstudents.

AVID provides many kinds of support, including help inmastering study skills and learning strategies, personal andcareer counseling and mentoring, and assistance in enrolling inand completing advanced course.

1.8 Response to Intervention with Tiered Instruction

RTI key elementsRIT began as an approach to avoid mistaken labeling

and placement of students into special education, but soon evolved to become a broader approach.

.A key element of this approach involves careful monitoring of all students’ status and progress, along with assessment of the problems of perhaps 20 or 25 percent of student are not progressing adequately.

1.8 Response to Intervention with Tiered Instruction (Con’t)

• Most tiered-instruction implementation have aimed to improve reading in elementary schools, but school have begun to adapt RTI for other subjects and for high schools. Implementation Necessities

- Choose and implement proven interventions to address students’ problems

- Follow explicit rules identify students not making sufficient progres- Monitor student outcome with at least biweekly assessment- Ensure that the intervention is delivered accurately and consistently- Determine the intensity of the support needed for student success

2. Comprehensive School Reform Programs

• Comprehensive reformAs described earlier, many reforms involveinstructional intervention designed for singles classuse or across several grades. More ambitiousprograms, however, seek to improve most or allsubject areas throughout all grades in an entireschool. These efforts are variously referred to byteam such as ‘whole-school reform’ or ‘ schoollevel restructuring.’

* Whole-school reform models

The federal Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSRD) Program was initiated in 1998. The program provides up to seventy-five thousand dollars per year for three years to help participating school introduce ‘whole school reform’ models that affect all aspects of the school’s operation and that have had documented success in improving student performance at other location.

3. Related Efforts and Aspect Involving Educational Effectiveness

• Cooperation and Participation with Business, Community, and Other Institutions

Type of cooperation

Boston Compact

Expansion of the compact

Support from foundation

* Technology in School Reform

Educator confront many questions and challengeswith respect to the introduction of new andemerging technologies as part of school reformefforts. We will consider several majors topics,including the effective introduction of newtechnologies in school and classrooms, equity andtechnology use in education, and cautionsregarding developments that have occurred duringthe past decades.

. Effective Introduction of Computers and Other Technologies

Policies for Technology

Standards & Assessment

Training needed

Concentration needed

Coordination needed

* Equity and the Use of Technology

Poverty schools bypassed

Community technology centers

Rural Education

Presented by : Phou Laysun

Rural education• About 20 percent of students and 30

percent of schools are located in rural areas.

• However, the rural education can’t compare to the education in the city.

• Rural education reached several major conclusions:– 1- Tremendous diversity in rural America requires similarly

diverse school improvement efforts that also address multicultural educations goals

– 2- The small scale of rural schools : teachers can know students and parents personally, and schools can work closely with community agencies.

– 3- Teachers in rural schools frequently require substantial technical support.

– 4- Many rural schools can benefit from distance learning and other advanced technology.

What is distance learning?

a way of studying,

especially for a

degree, where you

study mostly at

home, receiving and

sending off work by

post.

Rural education difficulties• Facing serious problem in attracting

qualified teachers.• Low salary• Not enough information of technology • Certificates are not well-recognized

Gifted and Talented Students

• Gifted education (also known as Gifted

and Talented Education (GATE), is a

broad term for special practices,

procedures, and theories used in the

education of children who have been

identified as gifted or talented.

Gifted and Talented Students

• “Gifted” refers to

great natural

ability,

intelligence, or

talent)

• “Talented” means that

Having a natural aptitude

or skill for something

Increasing Teaching and Learning Time

• Several national reports recommended providing more time for teaching and learning:– Extending the school year– Lengthening (longer) the school day– Offering after-school and summer learning program.

More time in school?

• Will give teachers more contact time and an opportunity to teach students in depth- useful for at-risk students who need special help.

• Countries indicate that increased time spent in school can assist in raising achievement scores.

• Can help to solve the problems of latchkey children (alone at home) this can benefit the family.

• Indicate taxpayer that schools are serious about raising educational standards- taxpayers will be more willing to support the schools.

• Will not compensate for poor teaching- not quantity but quality.

• Not much evidence show it will raise achievement scores.

• Will add to the growing institutional interference with basic family life.

• Will require parents to pay more fees to support teacher salaries. Taxpayers are not willing to pay.

PROS CONS

School choice• In recent years, school choice plans have been advocated as

a way to introduce greater flexibility and accountability into

education.

• President of the school

• Property

• Administration

• Environment

• School curriculum

• Alumni

How to choose the right school?

Systemic Restructuring and Standards-Based Reform

• Systemic restructuring means Systemic Improvement- that is reform that simultaneously addressed all or most major components in the overall system.

• School must be restructured to bring about systematic improvement in teaching and learning.

Educational points to be reformed

• Professional developments• Assessment of student• School performance• Curriculum and materials• School finance• Governance• Course requirements• Other aspects of education