Rebuilding for Learning
Enhancing School Improvement:
Addressing Barriers to Learning
And Re-engaging Students
The Imperative for a Comprehensive System of
Learning Supports
Trend in NAEP reading average scores for 9-year-old students
Trend in NAEP reading average scores for 13-year-old students
Trend in NAEP reading average scores for 17-year-old students
The Nation’s Report Card – National Center for Education Statistics
Three Lenses for Seeing
What’s Missing in School Improvement Planning
Caution: Don’t misinterpret the term
• Barriers to Learning
It encompasses much more than a deficit model of students.
And, it is part of a holistic approach that emphasizes the importance of
• Protective Buffers (e.g., strengths, assets, resiliency,
accommodations)and
• Promoting Full Development
ABOUT SCHOOL ENGAGEMENT AND
RE-ENGAGEMENT A growing research literature is addressing these matters. For example, see:
“School Engagement: Potential of the Concept, State of the Evidence” (2004) by J.
Fredricks, P. Blumenfeld, & A. Paris. Review of Educational Research, 74, 59-109.
These researchers conclude:
Engagement is associated with positive academic outcomes, including achievement and persistence in school; and it is higher
in classrooms with supportive teachers and peers, challenging and authentic tasks,
opportunities for choice, and sufficient structure.
Engagement is defined in three ways in the research literature:
• Behavioral engagement draws on the idea of participation; it includes involvement in academic and social or extracurricular activities and is considered crucial for achieving positive academic outcomes and preventing dropping out.
• Emotional engagement encompasses positive and negative reactions to teachers, classmates, academics, and school and is presumed to create ties to an institution and influence willingness to do the work.
• Cognitive engagement draws on the idea of investment; it incorporates thoughtfulness and willingness to exert the effort necessary to comprehend complex ideas and master difficult skills.
A Key Outcome of Engagement is Higher Achievement. The evidence from a variety of studies is summarized to show that engagement positively influences achievement
A Key Outcome of Disengagement is Dropping Out. The evidence shows behavioral disengagement is a precursor of dropping out.
Developing a System to Address Barriers to Learning and Teaching and
Re-engage Students in Classroom Instruction
Four Fundamental and Interrelated Concerns
Policy Revision
Framing Interventions toAddress Barriers to Learning and Teaching into a Comprehensive System of Interventions
Rethinking Organizationaland Operational Infrastructure
Developing Systemic Change Mechanisms for Effective Implementation, Sustainability, and Replication to Scale
Additionally, because of the overemphasis on using extrinsic reinforcers in all aspects of efforts to improve schools, we find it essential to re-introduce a focus on intrinsic motivation.
The real difficulty in changing the course of any
enterprise lies not in developing new ideas
but in escaping old ones.
John Maynard Keynes
Moving Forward:
Enhancing Policy for
School Improvement
######################################
In 2002, the Council of Chief State School Officers has adopted the following as the organization’s new mission statement:
CCSSO, through leadership, advocacy, and service, assists chief state school officers and their organizations in
achieving the vision of an American education system that
enables allchildren to succeed in school,
work, and life.
######################################
Defining a System of Learning Support for Policy Purposes*
Learning supports are the resources, strategies, and practices that provide physical, social, emotional, and
intellectual supports intended to enable all pupils to have an equal opportunity for success at school.
To accomplish this, a comprehensive, multifaceted, and cohesive learning
support system should be integrated with instructional efforts and interventions provided in classrooms and schoolwide to address barriers to learning and teaching.
*From: Proposed legislation in California to establish a
Comprehensive Pupil Learning Support System
Moving Forward:
Framing Interventions to
Address Barriers to Learning
and Teaching into a Comprehensive System of
Learning Supports
School systems are not responsible for meeting every need of their students.
But . . .
when the need directly affects learning, the school must meet the challenge.
Carnegie Task Force on Education
Examples of Initiatives, programs and services
>positive behavioral supports >programs for safe and drug free schools >full service community schools & Family Resource Centers>Safe Schools/Healthy Students >School Based Health Center movement>Coordinated School Health Program>bi-lingual, cultural, and other diversity Programs>re-engaging disengaged students>compensatory education programs>special education programs>mandates stemming from the No Child Left Behind Act>And many more activities by student support staff
Governance and Resource Management
(Management Component)
Policy Umbrella for School Improvement Planning Related to Addressing Barriers to Learning
Addressing Barriers to Learning/Teaching (Enabling or Learning Supports Component –
an umbrella for ending marginalization by unifying the many fragmented efforts and evolving a comprehensive approach)
Direct Facilitation of Learning(Instructional Component)
Toward a Unifying Intervention Frameworkfor a Comprehensive System of Learning Supports
(1) An essential continuum of interventions conceived as three levels of interconnected systems: • systems for promoting healthy development and
preventing problems • systems for responding to problems as soon after onset
as is feasible • systems for providing intensive care (2) Basic arenas for school intervention are categorized into major clusters based on content focus. For a learning supports component, the arenas are conceived as enabling a school to:
>enhance classroom-based efforts to enable learning
>provide support for transitions
>provide prescribed student and family assistance
>increase home involvement in schooling
>respond to and prevent crises
>outreach to increase community involvement & support
(3) The combined continuum and the content areas provide the framework for a comprehensive, multifaceted, and cohesive system of learning supports
To ensure all students have an equal opportunity to succeed at school, a system of learning supports (an enabling component) must:
(1) address interfering factors
(2) re-engage students who have become disengaged from
classroom instruction.
An Enabling or
Learning Support Component
Defining Major Arenas
that every school needs to operationalize in order to
address barriers to learning
EVERY DAY
School
Banks
Police Day care Center
Faith-based Institutions
Higher Education Institutions
Local Residents
Businesses
Restaurants
Health & Social Services Agencies
Community Based Orgs.; Civic Assn.
Media
Artist & Cultural
Institutions
Library
Senior Citizens
Excerpted from: J. Kretzmann & J. McKnight (1993). Building Communities from the Inside out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community’s Assets. Chicago: ACTA Publications.
Community Involvement & Engagement
We just missed the school bus.
\ Don’t worry. I heard the \ principal say no child \ will be left behind.
/
Moving Forward:
Rethinking Organizational and
Operational Infrastructure
#################################
Developing a Comprehensive System of Learning Supports (an Enabling Component) involves reworking the organizational and operational infrastructure for
> schools
> feeder patterns
> districts (and departments of education)
> school-community collaboratives
In reworking infrastructure, it is essential to remember
Structure
Follows
Function!
##################################
Key Mechanisms
• Administrative Leader
(e.g., 50% FTE devoted
to component)
• Staff Lead for Component
• Staff Workgroups
Overview of Major Phases and Steps in Establishing a Comprehensive
System of Learning Supports
First Phase –
Creating Readiness & Commitment
Second Phase –
Start-up and Phase-in:
Building Infrastructure and Capacity
Third Phase –
Sustaining and Evolving:
Enhancing Outcomes
Fourth Phase –
Generating Creative Renewal
and Replication to Scale
Building Capacity for Engagement & Re-engagement:
Staff Development Focusing on
Intrinsic Motivation
For Staff Development:
(1) Enhancing understanding of
intrinsic motivation
(2) How to reduce overemphasis on
behavior control to minimize
psychological reactance and
disengagement
(3) How to re-engage students who
have become disengaged
E x VExpectancy times value equals motivation
• “E” represents an individual's expectations about outcome (in school this often means expectations of success or failure).
• “V” represents valuing, with valuing influenced by both what is valued intrinsically and extrinsically. Thus, in a general sense, motivation can be thought of in terms of expectancy times valuing.
Such theory recognizes that human beings are thinking and feeling organisms and that intrinsic factors can be powerful motivators.
This understanding of human motivation has major implications for learning, teaching, parenting, and mental health interventions.
###############################
I suspect that many children
would learn arithmetic,
and learn it better,
if it were illegal.
John Holt (1989)
###############################
Learner Options to Enhance Motivation and Learning
Learner Options include:
Content - Students should be able to explore content that has personal value.
• Expanding options to include a wide sampling of topics that are currently popular with the majority
of students (e.g., animals, sports, music)• Ask students to identify additional topics they
would like included • Options the teacher identifies as important and
worthwhile.
Process - Students should be helped to pursue outcomes and levels of competence that reflect their
continuing interest and effort.
Process outcomes can be expanded by adding
• procedures that are widely popular (e.g., video or audiovisual materials)
• those of special interest to specific students, or• those newly identified by the teacher.
Structure- It is expected that those with the lowest motivation are likely to need the most support
and guidance. At the same time, they are likely not to seek help readily. Moreover, those with avoidance motivation tend to react
negatively to structure they perceive as used to control them.
Decision Making to Enhance Motivation and Learning
Are students competent to make good decisions?
Learning to make decisions should be a basic focus of instruction.
• Decisions about participation are the primary foundation upon which all other decisions rest.
Helping students make decisions
1. The student must understand the value of making his or her own decisions.
2. The process must include ways for students to actively sample and select from available
options and to propose other when feasible.
3. Working out problem details should be done as soon as choices are made.
4. From the moment the student begins an activity, it is important to monitor motivation.
Decision Making to Enhance Motivation and Learning
Are students competent to make good decisions?
Learning to make decisions should be a basic focus of instruction.
• Decisions about participation are the primary foundation upon which all other decisions rest.
Helping students make decisions
1. The student must understand the value of making his or her own decisions.
2. The process must include ways for students to actively sample and select from available
options and to propose other when feasible.
3. Working out problem details should be done as soon as choices are made.
4. From the moment the student begins an activity, it is important to monitor motivation.
Intrinsic Motivation – A Few References From the Center:
» Revisiting Learning & Behavior Problems: Moving Schools Forward (book-length)
» Enhancing Classroom Approaches for Addressing Barriers to Learning: Classroom-Focused Enabling (a guidebook)
» Accompanying Readings & Tools for Enhancing Classroom Approaches for Addressing Barriers to Learning: Classroom-Focused Enabling
» Classroom Changes to Enhance and Re-engage Students in Learning (a training tutorial)
» Re-engaging Students in Learning (a very brief Quick Training Aid)
A few other general resources:
• Why we do what we do. By E. L. Deci with R. Flaste (1995). New York: Penguin Books.
• Also, a second edition of Jere Brophy''s book Motivating Students to Learn came out this year and might be of interest (Erlbaum).
• Engaging schools: Fostering high school students’ motivation tolearn by National Research Council (2004). D.C.: National Academies Press.
• Motivation to learn: From theory to practice (3rd ed.) By D.J. Stipek (1998). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
• “School engagement: Potential of the concept, state of the evidence (2004) by J. Fredericks, et al., Review of Educational Research, 74, 59-109
• For both a theoretical foundation and applications to education, psychotherapy, and the workplace, see Ed Deci & Richard Ryan
(1985). Intrinsic motivation and self‑determination in human behavior. New York: Plenum.
Getting from Here to There
• enhancing understanding
of systemic change
• taking action
Implementing innovation =
Systemic change =
Escaping old ideas
How do we get from here to there?
Is this your systemic change process?
Questions????
Concerns . . .
Comments!!!!!!!!!!!!
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