Student Achievement Best Practices: A Perspective From Home Schooling

Student Achievement Best Practices

By Jennifer McMahon, National Board Certified Literacy Specialist, Founding Director of Literacy for Humanity


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image courtesy of literacyforhumanity.org

As a literacy specialist, I always tried to have very clear goals for my students. As a matter of student achievement best practices, I used running records and comprehension checks to keep track of progress, but even with small groups of students, I found myself moving them through their leveled books without always being sure every student had mastered every skill.  My students always made progress, so developing a new approach didn't seem that important. My perspective on teaching changed this year, though, when I started homeschooling one of my own children.

We made the decision to home school our youngest son after he had a very rough beginning to his school year.  Since it was intended only as a temporary arrangement (the remainder of the year) we used the school district's curriculum and Common Core as our guide.  I wanted to make sure my "school time" with my son was productive, so I pre-assessed him before introducing any new topic.  Sometimes this was a discussion, other times it was a written pre-test or a writing assignment.  I kept track of what he already knew and compared it with what he still needed to know.  Then, I explicitly taught him anything he didn't know.  I reassessed him after teaching and either moved on to the next goal (if he grasped the concept) or retaught the material in a new way, assessing all along until he was proficient.  Since I only had one child's achievement to focus on, I could easily make sure my lessons were tailored to fit his needs.  Using this approach, my son showed mastery of an entire year's curriculum in three months.
This made me truly reevaluate what we do in a public school all year long.

How could I thoroughly cover every subject area in a quarter of the time?  Simple. I focused instruction on the areas of most importance.  The curriculum told me what my son needed to know, understand, and be able to do.  My pre-assessments told me which of those goals I needed to focus on, and I was unwilling to move forward until I made sure he was proficient.  If he didn't understand something, I used every teaching technique in my repertoire to make sure he learned the concept.

After thinking about my homeschooling experience, I decided to see if a similar process might work with my reading students. I began by changing my mindset.  My goal as a teacher is to make sure every student of mine is able to achieve every learning standard.  Even though they are grouped together, I need to think of them as individuals.  With this in mind, I created a checklist/observation sheet for each of my students.   For every grade-level, I listed the learning goals/curriculum.  Next to each goal, I have a space for pre-assessments, a space for teaching points, and a space for post-assessments.  I have these in a loose-leaf binder (although I hope to leverage technology for this in the future).  Creating the recording sheets is an initial investment of time, but the benefits are worth the preparation time.  With my recording sheets handy, I pre-assess my students before I teach anything.  I do this "homeschooling style." Many times it is a quick check around the table or a conversation to determine what my students already know.  Individual dry erase boards are great for this. I can ask them to write the vowel sounds they hear, for example, and can quickly determine if a student needs more assistance with short vowels or if they are ready to move on to vowel combinations.  I record all of this information on my student sheets and then can design my lessons to meet each student's needs.  I can also share this information with classroom teachers, so we can work together to meet students' goals.

By using an individualized approach, my daily lessons look a bit different.  I am still using leveled texts and mini-lessons, but I am differentiating my lessons in order to reach each student.  Sometimes this means pulling a student aside during a reading conference to teach and reteach a particular point.  I have found I am spending more time on what my students really need to know and less time on the skills and strategies they have already grasped.  With individual student achievement at the forefront of my mind, I have found all of my students are moving forward and making progress.

During our homeschooling adventure, I came to appreciate a few ideas that helped transform my teaching:

1. Have high standards for every student.  I was not willing to let my son move on until I was certain he understood and was fully proficient.  As an educator, it is important to have this same drive and set of high standards for every student.
2. Use every moment as a teachable moment.  Every conversation "counts" in the world of homeschooling.  It was a great reminder that every discussion or interaction in the classroom should also be thought of in that way.  Truly getting to know kids by making personal connections is one of the best ways to assess what students know and what they need to know.
3. Learning should be joyful.  My son reminded me of this idea.  It can sometimes get lost in the world of standardized tests and continual assessment, but it is important.  I worked very hard to think of creative and engaging ways to present concepts and skills.  I worked just as hard to make sure my assessments were authentic and meaningful.  There are many ways besides a paper and pencil exam for students to show what they know.
4. Rich life experiences help build students' background knowledge and allow them to make connections.  The importance of these experiences cannot be underestimated.  Students who have had the opportunity to study the sky or make a barometer or visit an aquarium are going to more accurately visualize when they read about stars, weather, or aquatic animals.  They are also going to be able to make personal connections between their experiences and their reading.  These connections will lead to deeper comprehension.  While it isn't practical to take a field trip every week with a class of students, it is possible to focus on offering hands on activities, building background through discussions, pictures, and realia, and taking the time to help students make connections.

While homeschooling is not for everyone, there are definitely aspects of the homeschooling philosophy that can be borrowed by classroom teachers for student achievement best practices. Viewing each student as an individual and creating individualized learning plans based on the needs of students can have a significant impact on student achievement.

Jennifer McMahon is a National Board Certified Literacy Specialist at Brooks Hill School in Fairport, NY.  A mother of four, Jennifer is a passionate educator and student advocate.  She is also the founding director of the new non-profit organization Literacy for Humanity. Watch it take shape at www.literacyforhumanity.org.

We can't, and it's the hardest part.

Check in at the webinar’s page for Autism Training Solutions free webinar, “Training Educators to Do Behavior Assessments” on February 29!

It’s me, Jared Heath, again. There’s something you’ve got to know about School Improvement Network and February’s free PD theme, “Behavior and Classroom Management: Make It Work, Make It Last.” To put it simply, we can’t change student behavior. Here's why.

I know we’ve talked a lot about the great advances students have made when teachers use PD 360. I’ve written about it in many places, and I’m proud to work for this company because of it. But whether we’re talking about student behavior, differentiated education, or test scores, it really isn’t PD 360 or School Improvement Network making those changes.

I used to think it was teachers who made the difference. But that’s not really true, either. Is it? And teaching something that you know is so important and watching the concepts and principles bounce right off their heads is the hardest part of teaching that I can fathom.

When I taught, I took too much credit.

I taught ESL classes, and my students were from all over the world. In one class, I had students from Brazil, Japan, China (Cantonese speaking), Taiwan, and several Central American countries. Having been conversational in German, French, Chinese, and Spanish at various points of my life, I understood the frustrations of learning a new language, and as a student of the English language and English literature, I also understood the capricious nature of my native language. I was armed and ready to help these students learn English.

And they did. I was recognized early on for the advances that my students made. I didn’t understand then what that truly meant—I was recognized for the advances that my students made. Now as I look back, I see that any other organization would have had those 20 – 30 students howling for my blood as I received recognition for their accomplishments.

When I didn’t do well in school as a youngster, I also had a bad habit of giving teachers too much credit—it was somehow their fault when I didn’t perform as well as I wanted to.

The truth is that education belongs to the student. As teachers, we are facilitators. As a company, School Improvement Network is a supporter. But the only person who can decide what to do with the training given to her is the little girl with her new pink backpack and her open mind.

February’s free PD theme on schoolimprovement.com is built to help you give students what they need. Many of our students need the right tools to start building better behavior, and it is up to us to provide those tools. But if you will allow me to wax optimistic and don my rose-colored glasses, I feel that we need to believe in kids just a little more and give them a bit more credit.

I would never diminish our roles as educators. I simply discovered as I reflected on my time as a teacher that the more my students knew that I believed in them, the more they learned. And perhaps they even became so much more, because they believed in themselves, too.

What experiences do you have where your students felt empowered? Have you had experiences where the message didn’t get through, or worse, it blew up in your face?

Let’s talk about it in the comments.

Check in at the webinar’s page for Autism Training Solutions free webinar, “Training Educators to Do Teacher Evaluations” on February 29!

Supporting the Whole Student

Here is a guest post from Dr. Lisanne Pluth, PhD, on supporting the whole student and college readiness beyond academics!

Supporting the whole student is phenomenally important in this day of social media and increased social fragmentation. College life is much more than academic work; it requires a student to be personally accountable for finances, everyday living, dorm room supplies, and navigating a complicated and often physically dangerous social arena.

Increasingly across college campus blogs there are stories about lonely freshman students who can cope with the academics but can’t seem to cope with the life that marks their paths into college. Many of these new college kids will drop out of college and worse. According to the American College Health Association (ACHA) suicide is the second highest cause of death among college students. In addition, according to the most recent ACHA surveys, our college students are having trouble with a variety of College Life issues. For example 19.1% of them reported problems with anxiety, 12.4% reported problems with Internet use/computer gaming, 19.4% had sleep difficulties and 27.5% reported problems with stress. Without social support and an emphasis on the development of the whole student at the high school level students are often not ready to take on the complicated tasks of college. Parents, educators, students and universities need to start addressing this national issue.

A young woman I have the privilege of knowing from Iran captured the essence of the importance of nurturing the whole student the other day while venting her frustrations to me about her American boyfriend. She said, “He is like a baby, his parents do everything for him. They buy his car insurance; when he needs a sweater his mother just goes and buys one for him. He thinks of nothing besides playing Lacrosse,” She paused and her forehead wrinkled, then she went on looking at the fingers in her lap as if they held the answers. “I’ve lost a lot of respect for him, here he is a grown man and really his life, the life here, is so easy. Even though I’m younger than he is and I’m from Iran, where as a girl we know nothing, I feel like the adult in the relationship…”

What could I say? This girl had managed in a very few short sentences to prove that we had let this young man down. The “we” being: our society, our educational system and even the young man’s well-intentioned parents. The boy in question is already 23 years old but mentally he is much younger and he still hasn’t taken responsibility for himself in most areas of his life. In contrast, his Iranian girlfriend against all odds has grabbed her future. Her strength and courage is amazing. She doesn’t even know if she will ever be able to go back home. She is going through school in a foreign language and living in a foreign culture. At the same time she lives with the daily burden of not knowing whether her younger brother or someone else in her family might be killed. Against all odds she is coping and succeeding very well.

Supporting and teaching the whole student needs to be a community effort. This isn’t about the failure of educators, parents or students. It’s about all of us. There needs to be a qualitative shift in education that prepares students for College Life and not just college classes. In turn college curricula need to provide further emphasize on the development of the whole person rather than teaching antiquated subjects in institutions that are still organized like 17^th century religious colleges. We aren’t preparing college students and we aren’t preparing our society for a bright future.

Some new programs such as Jumpstart and Everfi and have added additional programs on financial literacy in an effort to increase individual responsibility and accountability among our young people. A good beginning, these programs still don’t deal with the whole student. We need to embrace common core standards that will help our young people grow up into accountable, responsible, thoughtful, and happy adults. The definition of these core values and standards cannot be dictated and teachers cannot be expected to carry this burden. Whole student standards mean rethinking the definition of “ education” and how it is implemented in our society.

 

Dr. Lisanne Pluth, PhD works as a Broadcast Manager for Resident Hall Linens. Her experience also includes teaching at both the University of Kansas and the University of San Diego.