Pedagogue Blog

Matthew Lynch published in HBCU's, Higher Education

How to turn lecturers into good university teachers

Lynn Quinn, Rhodes University and Jo-Anne Vorster, Rhodes University

Traditionally, it has been assumed that, once an academic holds a Master’s degree or PhD in their discipline, they can share their knowledge and teach students effectively. Most, though, don’t have a teaching qualification, nor have they been offered any opportunities to develop as teachers while studying towards their advanced degree.

This means that many lecturers feel like they have been thrown into the deep end at the start of their teaching careers. There has been some work in this field and many universities now offer formal and informal academic staff development opportunities.

But there is far more to good university teaching than just being able to project your voice, prepare a good PowerPoint presentation or keep your students interested. Academics’ deeply held views about their students must be challenged. They need to question seriously how issues of identity, belonging, privilege, diversity, racism and sexism can be addressed explicitly in the classroom.

Who is best placed to shape university teachers who are more than just technically proficient? This work is done by academic developers in teaching and learning centres in most universities. However, we believe that to do this work well, academic developers themselves need to engage deeply with questions of teaching, curriculum design and transformation.

How academic development has changed

The field of academic development first emerged in South African higher education in the mid-1980s. Its initial purpose was to support the small numbers of black students who had been admitted to historically white, English-speaking universities earlier that decade.

This approach to academic development was in line with the view that students lacked some of the requisite skills and knowledge to learn successfully in their new contexts.

By the early 1990s it became clear that not only were students under-prepared for the university context, but that academics were ill-equipped to teach a rapidly growing and increasingly diverse student body to learn successfully. Academic development then also started to concern itself with curriculum and staff development.

Many academics have common sense views about student learning. They tend to believe, for instance, that if a student is failing a particular course this is a reflection only on the individual student’s abilities.

These and other normative views about teaching and learning need to be challenged. Those who have been in the field of academic development for a few decades have developed more nuanced conceptions of teaching and learning and have been instrumental in helping to build the now extensive knowledge base of the field.

Developing the developers

In South Africa, there are ongoing and urgent calls from a number of quarters for the transformation of higher education.

This discussion is happening alongside debates worldwide about how best to professionalise academic staff. Each country brings a particular set of challenges or circumstances in its own higher education landscape to the table.

Rhodes University’s Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning offers a postgraduate diploma in higher education. There has been, in recent years, an increasing demand for the centre to organise academic staff development courses for a number of institutions in South Africa and on the continent.

We felt it would be more beneficial for the field if the centre worked with academic developers rather than directly with academic staff. This equips academic developers with the knowledge and skills they need to offer staff development courses to the lecturing staff in their own institutions.

Why this approach works

The resulting postgraduate diploma for academic developers is, as far as we are aware, the first of its kind in the world. The programme this year welcomed its third cohort of academic developers from universities around South Africa. The country’s Department of Higher Education and Training funds bursaries for course participants, demonstrating the government’s commitment to improving higher education.

The diploma offers spaces for academic developers to have serious, intellectual conversations. Some of these are about the nitty-gritty of teaching. Other debates deal with the broader context referred to earlier. The course participants consider, for instance, how institutions, teachers, curricula and teaching need to change to contribute to enabling all students to access the “goods” of the university.

Once this work is done, academic developers can return to their own institutions armed with knowledge and skills that can be shared.

The Conversation

Lynn Quinn, Associate Professor of Higher Education Studies. Head of Department of the Centre for Higher Education, Research, Teaching and Learning, Rhodes University and Jo-Anne Vorster, Course Co-ordinator, Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning, Rhodes University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in Education News, Equity, HBCU's, Higher Education, Secondary Education

Three Ways Louisiana Is Getting Students Career-Ready

By requiring industry-based credentials for CTE students and encouraging all students to interact with industry professionals, Louisiana’s Jump Start program is revolutionizing career education

In Louisiana, only 19 percent of high school students go on to receive a four-year college degree. There are plenty of high-paying jobs available for the other 81 percent, but matching students with these opportunities and making sure they have the right credentials—like a two-year degree or industry certification—has always been a challenge.

For years, Louisiana students have been able to earn a Career Diploma as an alternative to a traditional academic diploma. But the program was seldom used, and students working toward a Career Diploma weren’t being adequately prepared for jobs in high-demand fields.

In short, there was little or no connection between Louisiana’s career education strategy and its workforce needs. State leaders knew they needed a better approach.

Read the rest of this article on the Huffington Post.

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in Equity, Higher Education, Teachers

Teacher Prep and Better Resources: How to Reach Urban Students

By Matthew Lynch

Students in urban schools tend to have stereotypes attached to them. Rather than see these students as individual learners, many urban kids and their schools are often thrown into the “lost cause” category. Problems like deteriorating buildings and overcrowding often become too overwhelming for reformers. As always, before we can implement change, we need to fully understand the problem.

Not one-note students

In a 2009 article in the Harvard Political Review, writers Tiffany Wen and Jyoti Jasrasaria discuss the “myths of urban education.” The article points out that many people are quick to label urban schools as lost causes without actually investigating individual issues or how they can be resolved. Issues such as overcrowding, poor discipline practices and budget cuts are continually pervasive in urban schools.

Studies have found a correlation between overcrowding and lower math and reading scores. Teachers also cite overcrowding as a definite contributor to student behavior problems. Too many kids in classrooms means too little individual instruction. It also means that academic time is spent dealing with issues that distract from education. Overcrowding is only one problem that contributes to urban student disadvantages but one that deserves the spotlight.

Too quick to remove students?

Removal from school as a disciplinary measure, while potentially the easiest short-term solution, feeds the school-to-prison cycle that is built primarily in urban schools. Instead, mentorship programs would go a long way toward directing urban students toward higher academic engagement and graduation rates. Many colleges have implemented mentorship programs for at-risk students, like first-generation college students, so why can’t K-12 schools do the same?

With budget cuts a perennial complaint, though, more money for K-12 mentorship initiatives is unlikely. The bottom line is that urban students need more individual attention in order for their academic outlooks to improve. Technology has the potential to reach a wider number of students but the human connection is what will have a lasting positive impact on urban students.

Better teacher prep for urban students

In my book The Call to Teach: An Introduction to Teaching I explore the “real world” of teaching, particularly how new educators are ill-prepared to face the challenges of teaching in urban settings. Traditional university programs for K-12 educators do not adequately prepare students for what awaits them in the urban schools of America where the achievement gap and dropout rates are highest.

In the face of these obstacles, strong teaching in America’s urban schools is the key to overcoming dropout and achievement gap issues. Recruiting teachers with urban backgrounds—and then rewarding them is one strategy.  In addition, urban student teachers should be required to spend at least a few hours in an urban classroom, in addition to their other teaching assignments.

Seeing urban challenges firsthand must be part of every educator’s path to a degree, even if he or she never teaches full time in such a classroom.  With the right guidance, urban K-12 students can rise above their circumstances to be stand-outs in academics. They may even return the favor as teachers themselves one day. For urban teachers, and therefore students, to succeed they need more support and encouragement from their industry, government and society as a whole.

What do you think?  What other issues do urban students face that make their situations uniquely challenging?

photo credit: Draco2008 via photopin cc

Click here to read all our posts concerning the Achievement Gap.

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, International Education

Here’s why immigrant students perform poorly

Molly McManus, University of Texas at Austin

Immigrant students in the United States consistently perform worse academically than nonimmigrant students. This achievement gap is evident as early as preschool and only grows as immigrant students advance through high school.

But, what causes the achievement gap?

One notion that fuels anti-immigrant attitudes is the belief that immigrant students perform poorly because of their immigrant backgrounds.

This is misguided.

As a former teacher and now researcher of immigrant families, I am familiar with concerns about low academic achievement among immigrant students. However, as my work shows, immigrant students face barriers beyond their immigrant backgrounds, including restrictive learning environments in their classrooms.

A multitude of barriers

Research has also shown that immigrant students tend to be concentrated in poor neighborhoods, speak a language other than English at home and enter school later than nonimmigrant students.

Immigrant kids tend to be concentrated in poorer neighborhoods.
michael_swan, CC BY-ND

We know that poverty, language barriers and low levels of preschool enrollment contribute to poor academic performance.

There is also another, lesser known, factor at work here: school and teacher attitudes toward immigrant students. Immigrant students have been shown to perform worse when their schools or teachers harbor negative attitudes about their presence and abilities.

Poverty

A recent report on immigration and education from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows the extent of the immigrant achievement gap.

According to the report, in 2012, students in the U.S. with an immigrant background performed worse than nonimmigrant students on the Programme for International Student Assessments (PISA), a test administered to 15-year-olds in 65 countries, including the U.S. Immigrant students in the U.S. scored about 20 points lower in reading and 15 points lower in math.

Many people are also concerned that immigrant students negatively impact the education systems that they enter.

Current research, however, shows the opposite.

The presence of immigrant students does not negatively affect overall school performance. Rather, schools that serve poor families tend to underperform and immigrant families are often poor.

Poverty affects over half of immigrant families. In 2013, 54 percent of immigrant families in the US qualified as low-income.

In fact, when family income is taken into account, the difference between scores from immigrant students and nonimmigrant students on the PISA disappears.

Language and preschool

Immigrant students also struggle when they do not have mastery of the dominant language in their new country.

In 2015, nearly 10 percent of students in K-12 in the U.S. were classified as English Language Learners. These language barriers explain a larger portion of the achievement gap than immigrant backgrounds.

Also, low levels of enrollment in early childhood programs have a huge impact. Early entrance into the school system increases students chances for success in later grades. However, many immigrant families do not enroll their children in preschool programs because of families’ legal status, language barriers and cultural sensitivities.

Discrimination and racism

There is actually more evidence to show that schools in the U.S. are negatively impacting immigrant students and their families, not the other way around.

Many immigrant students face discrimination and racism in the form of segregation and hostile attitudes at their schools. Also, many schools don’t offer essential resources, like family liaisons or other social services, that would support immigrant families as well as the larger school community.

Immigrant students are also affected by a rarely acknowledged but equally important factor: the receptiveness of their host country’s education system, also known as the “context of reception.”

Teachers’ views of immigrant kids leave a big impact.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/presidioofmonterey/6947110047/in/photolist-bzTKMr-cTmUAU-dvakxJ-8PCwt2-cTmE1d-8CutqV-bVACx8-eg5hzD-8SMZsm-cTmKxb-qrtqd2-9qr8c3-HJCf-am1wbA-2FMQZN-cTmM5q-9bTe76-d2kArd-5NpaP-pLViJs-dXkbDh-cTmU2f-6oG67K-dXeDxK-dXeeZ4-dXefeB-dXe, CC BY-NC

When teachers and staff have negative views of immigrant children and their families, it has a negative impact on the academic performance of immigrant students.

Negative views are particularly harmful when they involve deficit thinking, or the belief that immigrant students perform poorly because their families have less or know less.

Alternatively, immigrant students who enter a welcoming environment benefit from positive school outcomes. Research in education shows that students who enter positive contexts of reception are more motivated, better adjusted and more engaged in curriculum.

The OECD report also found that immigrant students who said they felt supported and cared for by their teachers scored higher on the PISA.

Value in diversity

Research shows that despite barriers, immigrant students often hold high aspirations for themselves. These high aspirations make them more likely to put in greater effort to take advantage of educational opportunities and succeed academically. This is part of a phenomenon known as the immigrant paradox.

Just consider this fact. Among low-income students who took the PISA, immigrants make up a larger share of high-performing students than nonimmigrants.

At a time when presidential candidates are threatening to build a wall along the US-Mexican border and governors are attempting to close their states to Syrian refugees, it is important to understand that immigrant students do not harm our education system or our communities. Instead, they bring valuable diversity.

The Conversation

Molly McManus, Ph.D. Student in Educational Psychology, University of Texas at Austin

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

 

Click here to read all our posts concerning the Achievement Gap.

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform

Wasted Data: Student Information Should be Shared

It’s no secret that technology implementation in P-12 schools comes with some serious red tape. While American colleges and universities tend to be at the forefront of innovative ways of learning, childhood education lags seriously behind. A recent PBS study found that while 90 percent of P-12 classrooms have at least one computer, only 35 percent have tablets or electronic readers. The amount of policy writing that goes into allowing “new” technology like tablets, let alone the budget for them, makes it prohibitive for most schools to implement the equipment in reasonable time frames.

But what about technology that already exists in P-12 classrooms, but in less-flashy ways? Consider the database technology behind virtually every school system in the country. Schools have electronic storage of everything from basic address information of students to their in-class progress in an array of subjects. Schools often track other factors too like socioeconomic status and other defining features like racial background and family circumstances. This private data collection on students starts long before the traditional start of school. Early childhood programs in every state keep track of student information and progress too.

The problem with all of this data keeping is that the numbers are usually kept in isolation. Beginning with early childhood education, individual schools do not reach out to each other or across state lines when it comes to student progress and innovative teaching methods. In fact, a recent study released by The Early Childhood Collaboration found that Pennsylvania is the only state in the nation with a system for linking student data across all education programs, from early childhood learning through grade 12. Progressive California has absolutely no data linking programs in place and no plans to start one. As the report points out:

“Comprehensive and connected data on children, programs, and the workforce are used to track progress over time, pinpoint problems, identify underserved groups, and allocate limited resources.”

Despite such a treasure trove of data, student information seems to be recorded simply for posterity. It’s clearly not impossible to share the information (Pennsylvania does it) but states do not seem to be rushing to do it. Such an undertaking would certainly require an upfront cost which could be behind the hesitancy – but I wonder how much of the delay is simply the convenience of the status quo. Student data has always been collected for internal use, or to satisfy specific state requirements, so going above and beyond that is scary territory. How will schools find the manpower for the extra steps of sharing, and analyzing? Who will be in charge of storing the data? What about student privacy?

I understand the logic behind these questions but to me, these are all minor impositions. It has never been easier to connect all of the nation’s student data sets in order to build a better picture of what America’s P-12 student body looks like today, and set goals for improvement based on actual statistics. Like these databases, many education policies are created in isolation. What if the people who wrote those policies had a complete data set to inform their choices? How quickly would education legislation transform from theory to actionable plans based on fact?

The ECDC report recommends that states strengthen their abilities to securely link to student data amongst their schools, and to expand the information that is screened and collected. Some less tangible advice would be for educators and policymakers to realize the value of interconnected student information and begin to consider the true possibilities of combining that knowledge.

Would you support greater sharing of student data across schools, systems and states?

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, Teachers

An education for the 21st century means teaching coding in schools

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

Leon Sterling, Swinburne University of Technology

Bill Shorten’s recent announcement that, if elected, a Labor Government would “ensure that computer coding is taught in every primary and secondary school in Australia” has brought attention to an increasing world trend.

Estonia introduced coding in primary schools in 2012 and the UK followed suit last year. US-led initiatives such as Code.org and the “Hour of Code”, supported by organisations such as Google and Microsoft, advocate that every school student should have the opportunity to learn computer coding.

There is merit in school students learning coding. We live in a digital world where computer programs underlie everything from business, marketing, aviation, science and medicine, to name several disciplines. During a recent presentation at a radio station, one of our hosts said that IT would have been better background for his career in radio than journalism.

There is also a strong case to be made that Australia’s future prosperity will depend on delivering advanced services and digital technology, and that programming will be essential to this end. Computer programs and software are known to be a strong driver of productivity improvements in many fields.

Being introduced to coding gives students an appreciation of what can be built with technology. We are surrounded by devices controlled by computers. Understanding how they work, and imagining new devices and services, are enhanced by understanding coding.

Of course, not everyone taught coding will become a coder or have a career in information technology. Art is taught in schools with no expectation that the students should become artists.

Drag and drop

A computer program is effectively a means of automating processes. Programs systematically and reliably follow processes and can be used to exhaustively try all the possibilities.

The languages used to program computers have evolved in the 70 years we have been building computers. Interfaces and programming environments have become more natural and intuitive. Language features reflect the applications they’re used for.

What is needed to easily express a business process, scientific equation, or data analysis technique is not necessarily the same as what is needed to rapidly develop a video game.

However, throughout the evolution of programming languages, the fundamental principles have remained the same. Computer programming languages express three essential things:

  1. The order in which a sequence of instructions is performed
  2. A means of repeating a sequence of instructions a prescribed number of times
  3. And tests as to whether or not a sequence of instructions is performed.

While personal preference influences which computer language a programmer uses, there is a greater understanding of which languages work well for teaching introductory programming. For example, Scratch is popular for primary school students and is quick to learn. Alice has been used to help students quickly build computer animations. Python is increasingly used for scientific applications. Visual programming languages – where students can drag-and-drop icons rather than type code – allow for rapid development of simple programs.

At Swinburne University of Technology we run workshops to introduce school students to program NAO robots. Students use the Choregraphe environment to link robot actions from a library.

Students previously unused to programming can develop interesting robot projects in a couple of days. More sophisticated development of the robot requires students to use a more detail-oriented language, such as Python or C++. The simpler options lead to positive student experience.

The Nao robot can be programmed easily to perform a range of tasks.
Brett Davis/Flickr, CC BY-NC

Computational thinking

Writing and then executing a program gives immediate feedback as to whether you have correctly expressed instructions for the computer. Ultimately, the understanding of how to express concepts so that a computer can perform tasks accurately and efficiently is far more important than the details of the programming language.

Underlying all computer programs are algorithms, which specify in a more abstract way how a task is to be done. Algorithmic thinking – also called computational thinking – underlies computer science, and there has been a growing movement on algorithmic thinking in schools.

The new national curriculum reflects algorithmic processes, and materials are being developed to help teachers with the new curriculum. Victoria has recently developed a new subject for the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) entitled Algorithmics.
There are even materials for teaching algorithmic thinking without computers. The Computer Science Unplugged movement, led by Tim Bell and colleagues at the University of Canterbury, has developed resources that teach students concepts through movement and fun activities.

Teaching for the this century

Teaching computer coding in schools is very different from initiatives that advocate for computers in the classroom. I was not, and am still not, supportive of compulsory laptop programs in schools.

The idea is not necessarily to expose students to the technology itself, which is almost inevitable these days with the wide penetration of mobile phones. Rather, students are exposed to the skills needed to develop computer applications.

While IT skill shortages is a contentious topic, there is no doubt that not enough of the best and brightest are studying computer science at university. A significant factor is insufficient exposure to the topic at schools. Teaching coding at schools is aimed at addressing the lack.

It might be said that whatever programming language is taught will be obsolete by the time the students enter the workforce. My experience is that, if taught properly, students can rapidly transfer the principles of one language to another.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, the challenge was to understand the physical world, and harness force and energy. This understanding percolated into the school curriculum. In the 21st century, the challenge is to understand and harness data, information and knowledge. Computer programming is a necessary way of introducing students to these concepts.

Read all of our posts about EdTech and Innovation by clicking here. 

The ConversationLeon Sterling is Pro Vice Chancellor Digital Frontiers at Swinburne University of Technology.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Read the original article.

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in Ask An Expert, Current Ed News, EdTech & Innovation, Education Leadership, Education News,

Instead of textbooks, why not pay teachers for content?

By Brandon Wilmarth

As an English teacher in Oklahoma’s Moore Public Schools, I was recruited by some textbook providers to help them create content. It was a lot of fun, and I was happy to make some extra money doing it. But there are so many teachers in our district who are much more talented than I am. If I was developing curriculum materials that school systems across the nation were purchasing, they certainly could be doing this, too.

So when I became a technology integration specialist for the district, one of my long-term goals was to leverage the expertise of our teachers in creating high-quality digital content.

Teachers are already scouring the web for videos, articles, and other free instructional resources, then pulling these together into coherent lessons and adding their own valuable context to help students understand the material or promote deeper lines of inquiry.

My thought was, why don’t we take some of the money we’re hemorrhaging on expensive, print-based textbooks that aren’t interactive and don’t effectively capture students’ imagination—and use it to pay our teachers more money for their efforts instead?

Our vision is to create a central repository of exemplary digital content that is developed and curated by teachers, for teachers in our district. All teachers would have access to these shared instructional materials. Not all teachers would be required to contribute, but those who do could receive a stipend for their work if it’s approved as a district-vetted lesson or unit.

This would allow us to use our most powerful assets—our teachers—to their fullest potential, while also recognizing and giving value to teachers for the lesson planning and content creation they already do so well.

That’s important, because in Oklahoma, our teachers are among the lowest paid in the nation—and many leave the profession after only a few years. Honoring their talents and contributions could help stop this mass exodus of young teachers as well as veteran content experts and keep them in our schools.

To realize this vision, we needed to have a technology platform that would support teachers in creating and sharing digital lessons. We found this platform in Ogment, which helped us create curriculum by making it easier to grab digital content, including what we found on the web, and turn that into useable lessons for our classrooms.

Part of the problem is not the lack of resources, but rather the overabundance of resources. Every teacher knows how much great content exists online—but managing it all can be a nightmare. Ogment has let our teachers clip videos, articles, games, and other internet resources and put them into lessons or presentations with a simple drag-and-drop process. Then, they can embed questions within a lesson to check for students’ understanding or prompt further discussion—and they can easily share their lessons with other teachers.

Our teachers have used the service to “flip” their classrooms and even personalize instruction. For instance, Tiffany Truesdell, a math teacher at Westmoore High School, says she has used Ogment to make customized lessons for her students.

“I can assign a lesson that presents all the material, and as students go through the lesson, I can have questions that check for their understanding just as if I were presenting the material in class. I can pull videos from any website to enhance the lesson, and if I only want a small section of the video, Ogment lets me assign just that portion of the video in my lesson,” she says.

“Ogment also allows me to differentiate a lesson. For example, if I have a student on an IEP who needs multiple choice, but I want the other students to have a free response question, I can create the lesson once but with differentiated questions. When the questions come up, it will give the IEP student the multiple choice question instead.”

Mrs. Truesdell’s example shows that with the right technology, our district can build a shared repository of lessons that is truly usable. More importantly, a system like this allows our teachers to apply their talents and reignite their passion for creating great content.

We are working toward a model in which we pay teachers extra for the content they create and share through this tool. We’re not there yet; we’re still trying to free up the funding to be able to do this.

But when we come up with the funding to realize our vision, we’ll be able to pay our teachers extra for creating and sharing top-notch lessons—rewarding teachers for their work and restoring professionalism to the field.

Brandon Wilmarth is a technology integration specialist for Moore Public Schools in Oklahoma.

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in Policy & Reform

Report: K-12 education news coverage on the rise

Mainstream media drives conversations so analyzing what is being covered in the news gives a general indication of public perception on issues.

A new report from leading education reform policy strategist Andrew R. Campanella titled “Leading the News – 25 Years of Education Coverage” reveals how news media has presented K-12 education stories over the past quarter century. So what does education news coverage look like?

In short, coverage of K-12 education in the news media is on the rise — up 7.7 percent in 2014 over the average of the 25-year span.

Not surprisingly, local news outlets provide the most education news coverage. In fact, local news outlets commit 6.82 percent of their air time to cover K-12 education or schools. That’s nearly three times higher than the national news coverage average at just 2.3 percent. What’s more is that local education news coverage appears to be on the rise.

From 2010 to 2014, the top education news story topic (by far) was sports, garnering 13.6 percent. At a distant second was special events (5.1 percent), followed by education funding (5 percent) and academic subjects (4.65 percent).

As far as groups of people, students get the most mentions at 62 percent, followed by administrators (42.7 percent), teachers (28.3 percent) and parents (23.5 percent).

Coverage of educational policy is on the decline though — down 36 percent in 2014 over the 25-year average. Within the education policy category, funding and school choice were the most-covered topics. These two topics garnered 2.5 times MORE coverage than all other educational policy reporting combined (10 other specific issues).

Looking ahead, the report forecasts that school choice, school safety and state education standards will continue to rise in news coverage. Teacher issues, funding, federal programs and class sizes will continue to decline.

This is just a snapshot of all the report entails. You can read the rest of it by clicking here. 

I can’t say I’m very surprised that local outlets provide K-12 education the most coverage, but I was surprised to see that funding and federal programs are seeing less air time. I’d be interested to see an update of this report in another 5 years to find out if the trends in K-12 educational coverage continue on the same path.

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in Education Leadership, First Year Teachers, Teachers

How community schools can beat summer learning loss for low-income students

Laura Bronstein, Binghamton University, State University of New York

This article is a part of The Conversation’s series on summer learning loss. For other articles in this series, read here and here.

My children spent summers reading Harry Potter, playing chess, swimming and hiking the Adirondack high peaks in upstate New York.

As a single parent with a career as a social worker and academic, I wasn’t rich. But I had enough to make sure that my children had what they needed to excel in education and enrichment outside of school.

While middle-class homes can often provide for summer enrichment activities, studies show a different reality for children from low-income families. These children and youth often lose months of reading and math skills over the summer, widening the achievement gap between the classes.

What can schools do to address this learning loss?

Summer slide

The learning loss for youth in low-income communities adds up dramatically over the years. By ninth grade, about two-thirds of the academic achievement gap between disadvantaged youth and their more advantaged peers can be explained by how they spend their elementary school summers.

What makes this of concern is that a majority of U.S. students in public schools are now from low-income families. A 2013 study found that for the first time in U.S. history, a majority (51 percent) of public school students in the United States were eligible for a free or subsidized school lunch, indicating that they fell below the government’s low-income cutoff.

The majority of these students lack quality summer activities.

A majority of kids do not have quality summer activities. Children image via www.shutterstock.com

Furthermore, these issues do not exist in isolation. Children from low-income communities who often experience summer learning loss also often face multiple related challenges that impact their ability to attend school or focus when they’re there. These challenges include insufficient access to health care, poor nutrition, community violence and lack of adult supervision, among others.

Partnerships between schools and communities can help students’ academic success. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which replaced the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law in December 2015, addresses the achievement gap between children from low- and middle-income families.

Title IV of the ESSA under the program, “Community Supports for Success,” calls for a range of partnerships between schools and communities so students (especially those from low-income families) can gain access to services they need for academic achievement (e.g., physical and mental health care, adequate nutrition, supervision and access to healthy activities beyond school hours).

How can schools implement these partnerships?

Earlier this year, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a US$175 million plan that demonstrates a way to enable such partnerships. Cuomo’s plan aims to convert schools with the lowest test scores and graduation rates across the state into “community schools.”

Providing comprehensive services

So, what are community schools? And how do they help with student learning?

Community schools pursue a unique learning model whereby they supplement classroom-based instruction with out-of-school (before school, after school and summer) learning. They provide support to students whose families do not have access to academic support beyond the classroom. Their support is not limited to the school term, but continues all through the year.

My research on community schools across the U.S.and the world shows that they look different in each community as they develop in response to each school’s specific needs.

The idea behind this learning model goes back to the late 19th century. The first set of school-linked services (precursors to community schools) can be traced back to the 1890s. Back then, they were developed in response to the massive changes being brought about as a result of immigration and industrialization.

As teachers struggled with new sets of challenges in their classrooms, this model provided additional support. For example, in 1894, doctors visited Boston schools on a daily basis – a practice that helped bring down rates of communicable diseases.

The amount of school-linked services and their gold standard – community schools in the U.S. – have ebbed and flowed over the years. In the last few decades, there has been a marked increase in the number of community schools.

Many individual schools, several counties and an array of cities have incorporated the community school model to reduce the achievement gap between students from low- and middle-income homes. These include Multnomah County (Portland, Oregon), Broome County (upstate New York), Cincinnati, Chicago, Hartford, Tulsa and more recently, New York City, among others.

What’s the impact?

The community school model has shown numerous successes.

For example, Oyler School in Cincinnati had fewer than 20 percent of its students reaching 10th grade in the late 1990s. After implementing a community school model in 2010, 82 percent of students graduated high school.

Many of these schools provide extra outreach efforts to involve families that may be hard to reach in the education of their children – a critical component of the partnership. A recent study of the impact of family engagement in elementary and secondary schools found positive correlations between engaged families and improved academic achievement.

Oyler School in Cincinnati. Sean Biehle, CC BY-SA

School-based health centers are another frequent component of community schools. Studies indicate when there are school-based health centers, lost class time as a result of sickness reduces by as much as three times.

Summer programs are often part of community schools. These programs provide enriched summer activities for students, such as music, dance, crafts, athletics and academics. This enables teachers in high-poverty neighborhoods to begin teaching new content at the start of the school year, without losing months backtracking over content forgotten from the previous year.

Why we need community schools

The community school model has been so successful that universities too are making this a focus of college students’ civic engagement efforts.

In 1985, the University of Pennsylvania took the lead in developing a university-assisted community school approach. College students work with the community schools to integrate knowledge gained in their UPenn classrooms.

An example is the Moelis Access Science program where UPenn faculty and students provide STEM (science, technology, math and engineering) professional development to teachers serving students in West Philadelphia neighorhoods, which are marked by extreme poverty, violence and low educational attainment.

Over 20 universities are now part of the network of university-assisted community schools including Binghamton University (SUNY), Columbia University and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

In an increasingly diverse society facing more complex social problems, the traditional model where education occurs completely within the school building, provided solely by teachers from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and from September to June, needs reviewing.

That calendar was designed long ago to leave youth free to work in their families’ fields in the summer. Since farming is no longer a major role for the vast majority of students, time outside the classroom can either enhance academic year learning or diminish it.

Do community schools that offer year-round programming and supplemental services cost money? Of course they do. But they have also been shown to save health care costs. They can also save funds that are now being spent on residential treatment facilities for youth, prison and remediation.

With too many youth dropping out of school, the jobs and workforce necessary to compete in a global economy are at risk. Community schools make sense in a country that is committed to opportunities for educational success for any and all students, irrespective of their family income or their zip code.

The Conversation

Laura Bronstein, Dean of the College of Community and Public Affairs Professor, Binghamton University, State University of New York

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in Matthew Lynch, Parental Involvement, Teachers

9 Tips for Preventing the Summer Slide

When the school year ends, teachers are happy to have a break from the drudgery of the school year, but they also want students to avoid the summer slide. The summer slide occurs when children lose some of the academic skills and dispositions that they gained during the school year due to the absence and scarcity of quality learning activities during summer vacation. As the old saying goes, if you don’t use it, you lose it.

To succeed academically, children need continuous opportunities to acquire new skills and practice existing ones. This need is especially heightened during the summer months, because children do not have the privilege of being educated by certified teachers. When we think of the summer months, we think of a happy carefree time when children can have fun and unwind. But we forget about the potential learning opportunities that we can engage our children in. To make sure that your students do not experience the summer slide, here are some suggestions that you can give to their parents:

1. Summer Programs

Many public and private schools run summer programs for their students. Take advantage of them. They are usually for only half a day and allow flexibility for summer vacations. Contact your child’s school to find out if they offer summer programs.

2. Family Reading Program

Set up a summer reading program with your child in which they choose an agreed upon number of grade-level books to read per month. Make sure that you consult the child’s teacher or a librarian for advice. To show solidarity, the entire family should participate.

3. Specialized Summer Camps

Enroll your child in a specialized summer camp. These camps are fun and incorporate hands-on activities into their curriculum as well. Some of the more popular ones include computer, science, and math camps.

4. Pick the Teacher’s Brain

Consult your child’s current or next teacher, and ask for suggestions for summer workbooks, science activities, essay topics, and interesting summer activities for your child. You may even be able to elicit their help in assessing your child’s performance.

5. Summer Enrichment

Summer is also a good time to fill in learning gaps. If you know that your child is weak in a particular subject, you may want to set up an enrichment program. Of course, as always, consult with your child’s teacher.

6. Learning While Vacationing

If you are planning on taking a vacation this summer, you can turn it into a social studies activity. Ask your child to research the destination’s history, cuisine, popular attractions, and so on. Also, once you reach your vacation destination, you can schedule tours of famous landmarks and locations, which will increase their social studies knowledge.

7. Summer Journaling

Ask your children to write a daily journal of all of the things that they learn each day. Remember, you will need to orchestrate learning activities for your children, because you can’t trust that they will be able to do it on their own.

8. Turn Daily Activities into Learning Opportunities

If you’re at the grocery store with your kids, challenge them to add up the total cost of your purchase. Driving to grandmother’s house? Ask them to find certain colors, shapes, or patterns along the way. For older kids, think of appropriate variations.

9. Learning Locally

Don’t forget about the local park, museum, zoo, aquarium, and other interesting places. Your local community is full of learning opportunities that you’ve probably never thought of.

Preventing summer slide can seem like a daunting task, but thankfully it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to pull it off. All parents need is to be organized and have the right plan. With this list, you can provide them with some simple strategies that they can use to prevent summer learning loss, without taking the fun out of summer. When the new school year begins, your students will be armed with the skills that they retained from the previous year and hopefully some brand new ones. This will make your job as a teacher a whole lot better. Good luck!

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in HBCU's, Higher Education

Want free college? Then these two states may be good for you

The cost of college seems to be on the tips of tongues everywhere now. From members of the United States Senate to conversation overheard in church pews, tuition for entrance into an institution of higher education is now officially a hot button topic. Expect to see it discussed pretty heatedly in the upcoming Presidential election with all sorts of ideas on the docket.

Until then, there are some states making waves with their own plans to improve the cost of college for residents. To combat the rising cost of college, and maybe to appear more progressive, two states will offer free tuition to community college. Tennessee began to offer free tuition to community colleges last year and Oregon recently passed a bill that will do the same for students who reside in the state.

“This past week Oregon joined Tennessee when its Senate passed Senate Bill 81, also known as the Oregon Promise, to offer a free education at community college to eligible in-state students,” according to fool.com.

By the way, fool.com is short for The Motley Fool, an investment website.

Anyway, this comes behind President Obama’s proposal to offer free tuition to community college for any American citizen that may have interest. Of course that comes with limitations and rules but you get the idea.

So maybe Oregon and Tennessee were in front of Obama’s idea.

At any rate, hopefully more states will follow Oregon and Tennessee’s lead. Community college is a great way for any student to start a college “career,” and it’s also cost effective. Bravo to these states for setting a good example on both coasts.

  • no reactions
0
Share
Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation

There’s a new addiction on campus: Problematic Internet Use (PIU)

Susan M. Snyder, Georgia State University; Jennifer E. O’Brien, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, and Wen Li, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill

Problematic Internet Use is now considered to be a behavioral addiction with characteristics that are similar to substance use disorders.

Individuals with PIU may have difficulty reducing their Internet use, may be preoccupied with the Internet or may lie to conceal their use.

A recent study that I coauthored with UNC Chapel Hill doctoral students Wen Li and Jennifer O’Brien and UNC professor Matthew O. Howard examines this new behavioral addiction.

Perhaps not surprisingly, individuals with PIU have been found to experience several negative mental health problems which could include depression, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), hostility, social phobias, problematic alcohol use, self-injurious behavior and trouble sleeping (i.e., sleep apnea, nightmares, insomnia, and struggling to stay awake during the daytime).

Our study is the first to look at how PIU affects family relationships among U.S. university students. Intriguingly, we found that college students with PIU report effects that are both negative and positive.

Measuring PIU and its problems

To better understand PIU, we focused on students whose Internet use was excessive and created problems in their lives.

Study participants were undergraduate or graduate students enrolled at UNC Chapel Hill. We required that participants be individuals who were spending more than 25 hours a week on the Internet (time that was not related to school or work). Additionally, participants had to report experiencing at least one health, relationship or emotional problem due to PIU.

To recruit our participants, our team sent out an email on a Friday evening. We were not sure if this would be a good time to reach students, but we were surprised that within two hours, 39 students responded. Of those who responded to our email, 27 students attended our four focus groups and completed our questionnaires.

Roughly half (48.1 percent) of our participants were considered “Internet addicts.” These participants answered “yes” to five or more of our eight questions (e.g., preoccupation; inability to control use; lying about use; depressed or moody when trying to stop).

Half of the participants of the study were considered to be Internet addicts.
Southern Tier Advocacy & Mitigation Project, Incorporated, CC BY-NC-ND

Another 40.7% were considered to be “potential Internet addicts.” These participants answered “yes” to three or four items. All of the participants met the criteria for PIU using the Compulsive Internet Use Scale, a 14-item scale that included items like difficulty stopping; sleep deprivation; neglect obligations; feelings of restlessness, frustration or irritation when Internet is unavailable.

We used focus groups, which are group conversations guided by a facilitator, to discuss shared experiences or knowledge regarding PIU. Each focus group had six to eight participants.

Here is what we found

Three key themes emerged in the conversations: (1) family connectedness, (2) family conflict/family disconnection, and (3) Internet overuse among other family members.

We had examples of positive connections. Some participants reported that the Internet connected them to their families. For example, participants discussed using Skype, Facebook or email to maintain relationships with family while they were away at college.

A student we call Hannah explained:

But like using Skype helps keep you connected and also when we are at home we watch a movie together, it’s like family time, you know. And um, like you know, if we read the same, like article, then we can talk about it on Skype.

Another student, Lisa said:

I hate talking on the phone. So, that allows me a way to stay connected and especially with my mom who would… Normally, I would just not respond to her at all, but now we have an email dialogue going. That helps us stay more connected.

Despite the positive consequences that participants discussed, we found that across the focus groups, participants spent more time talking about the negative consequences of Internet use.

For these participants, Internet use caused family relationships to disconnect or become conflicted.

Instead of interacting with their family when they were at home, participants reported that they were “on the computer the whole time.” One participant described ignoring her family during her visits home as a result of her Internet use:

My grandma and my parents will complain about my Internet use because I will be sitting in front of the TV and I’ll have my laptop and so will my little sister. We’ll be sitting in front of the TV on our laptops not talking to each other. So, my parents will complain about that.

Andrew said,

I think for me, this year I went home and one of the reasons was just was to have more family time, but what I ended up really doing was staying on my computer pretty much the whole time, which was kind of defeating the purpose of actually going home.

Steve described how his Internet use affected a visit with his brother and his friends at a sports bar:

At one point we’re all watching the basketball game, and all four because we’re all on our phone, and he looked at us and he said, ‘Really guys, I am here for two days, you all just wanna [sic] be on Twitter and Facebook?’ So, while it can enhance with setting up social situations, it can also detract from them once you were actually in them…Yeah, he was very just like…He flew out for the weekend. You know he spent US$300 on an airplane ticket just to sit there and watch me on Facebook.

It’s not just the students

It may not be surprising that college students with PIU reported that members of their families also overuse the Internet.

Some participants expressed frustration at the lack of boundaries or rules in place for their younger siblings or other relatives. A participant we called Melissa shared about her little brother:

He just turned four, but they got him an iPad. Like, which I don’t agree with. I think it’s so stupid, but he is always, always on it. He gets really defensive if you try to take it away or put boundaries on it or something like that.

Small children are getting addicted to their devices as well.
Tia Henriksen, CC BY

Hannah, for example, described a cousin whose Internet gaming has impaired his vision, but he is unable to stop playing:

My cousin, he is addicted to video games. And he’s like, I think he is like 10, 12, something like that, I don’t remember. I feel like it’s a stupid game, there’s no deepness to it. You kill someone. They die. You get killed, it starts over again. He can play that for eight hours straight without moving. His eyes are really bad right now. He can’t control himself.

Participants described their parents’ PIU as well. Several participants described their parents as “constantly checking email” for their work. Others described their parents as regularly on computers, phones or iPads “on Facebook” or “browsing.”

Sarah likened her Internet use to her mother’s:

It’s not just the students who are addicted.
Chris Owens, CC BY-NC-SA

My mom talks about me using the phone at the table when we’re eating, cause like if there’s a break in conversation, ‘Oh, Facebook opportunity’ [others laughed and she laughed too]. And then, like, somehow in my mind [the] conversation is over, but it’s really not. So then she’s like ‘You’re always on your phone, what are you doing?’ But then, like two minutes later, she is checking the weather. So I don’t know [she laughed].

A few participants shared that they were the only ones in their family with PIU.

Cindy explained that her family was from another country, which may explain their low Internet use,

I find that I don’t really have family members with an Internet problem, and I am the only one who grew up here. So, that might be…

Gina said,

My parents are technophobes. They don’t even know how to turn on computers.

Although our sample size is small, we followed rigorous approaches to ensure that we obtained the best possible data. We conducted focus groups until we achieved data saturation, which means that when we reviewed the final focus group no new themes were discovered.

The conclusions come through loud and clear. PIU exists and it affects family relationships. While those effects may be both positive and negative, those who suffer adverse consequences from PIU may have difficulty addressing their PIU because of requirements to use Internet for classes via online assignments (e.g., writing blogs), online courses and materials accessed online.

All names have been changed to protect identity.

The Conversation

Susan M. Snyder, Assistant Professor of Social Work, Georgia State University; Jennifer E. O’Brien, Ph.D. Student, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, and Wen Li, Ph.D. Student, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Read all of our posts about EdTech and Innovation by clicking here. 

  • no reactions
0
Share
Latest Posts