Showing posts with label action research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label action research. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Ability and performance of students in year 10

Today I focused on the performance and ability of year 10 students. I really wanted to know what caused the lack of performance in students coming through from the middle school.

Issue 1: Middle School and Middle Schooling.

Funnily enough these are two different terms. Middle school is the structure - the buildings, the leadership model, the way students move between classes and the like. Middle schooling is the teaching pedagogy and curriculum. Neither came out unscathed.

Research was not positive about progress in middle schooling.

“middle schools are in serious decline in the US and UK... What is actually done within classrooms and schools is the most important thing, not structures... The most important factors for high-quality education are quality teaching and learning provision; teaching standards; and ongoing teacher professional learning focused on evidence based teaching practices that are demonstrably effective in maximising students’ engagement, learning outcomes and achievement progress.” (Dinham & Rowe, 2009)"

“the report called for a “second generation” of Middle Schooling philosophy with a focus on relationships, relevance, pedagogy and rigour, which is informed by students’ experiences and enabled through sound educational research.” (OBrien, 2009) [Referring to the Beyond the middle report]


" In a region with very low student retention, the middle years when curriculum becomes compartmentalised and fraught with judgmental selectivity was a crucial locus for confronting serious consequences, in student lack of engagement, for later achievement and retention" (Hattan et al, 2009).

“Middle Schooling movement that has been variously described as “arrested”, “unfinished” and “exhausted”." (Prosser, 2008)

"There needs to be a more systematic emphasis on intellectual demand and student engagement in mainstream pedagogy that moves beyond and capitalises on current foci on increased participation rates and basic skills development for target group students." (Luke et al, 2003)

A great article to read is Beyond the Middle Years (Luke et al, 2003) by DEEWR and then follow it up with Dinham and Rowe (2009) article available from ACER. If students don't have a workable learning environment then learning is highly unlikely.

Issue 2: Home environment

Home environment is a key aspect of demonstrable learning ability. Although the gloss has come off this idea since the Campbell report (1960) in the US which prompted black students to be bussed away from their homes into "better" environments, it is still a factor in understanding student ability and performance.

"Students performance in low SES schools significantly lower than high SES schools. Internal school-based determinants of success do not operate independently of external, context-based determinants" (Angus, 2009)

“Cost of school represents a disproportionate amount of household income in term 1 for sole parent families” (Bond & Horne, 2009)

" In the 2007 Education Costs Survey, most parents reported having difficulty paying aspects of their children’s education during the last year, particularly for sport/recreational expenses (69%), for camps (62%) and for books (60%). Almost half struggled to pay for equipment (48%) and excursions (47%)" (Bond & Horn, 2008).

“If education is going to be the means to personal fulfilment and opportunity, we need to ensure that all these young people and their families are given the support they need to succeed. If not, then the education process will reinforce disadvantage, not overcome it, to the detriment of us all.”(Dinham, 2008)

"Schooling reproduces the structure of inequality itself" (DEEWR, 2009) inferring that prejudices and low expectations are placed on working class children by the system and re-inforced by parents

Lower expectations by parents impact on adolescent performance (Crosnow, Mistry & Elder, 2007)

High level of aspiration, low chance of success (p.162) – ESL students with non-english speaking parents (Windle, 2009)


Issue 3: Ability is often not recognised

Students are unaware of their underperformance

“Honesty in recognising and reporting student ability levels (p.163) Students reported that their skill in English was much higher than assessment indicated” (Windle, 2008)

“Ability may not be recognised due to teachers failing to recognise high ability students manifesting typical low socio-economic behaviours.” (Petersen, 2001)

“Further, social and individual factors were found to affect students' attitudes and academic choices; in particular their identification with peers, school and family and student's perceptions of peer, school and family attitudes towards HE. An interesting finding arising from stage one data was that there were significant age related differences in students' attitudes toward school and learning. Students in year 10 were significantly more negative on nearly every measure than students in Year 9 or 12.” (Maras, 2007)

Issue 4: Underperformance of teachers

Poor application of new ideas has resulted in lower than expected performance for a generation of students.

"Research conducted over the last 40 years has failed to show that individual attributes can be used to guide effective teaching practice. That ‘learning styles’ theory appeals to the underlying culture’s model of the person ensures the theory’s continued survival, despite the evidence against its utility. Rather than being a harmless fad, learning styles theory perpetuates the very stereotyping and harmful teaching practices it is said to combat." (from abstract only) (Scott, 2010)

"Practice, grouping of concepts and direct instruction/frequent modelling are key element in addressing learning difficulties. Independent learning and discovery based learning is inappropriate in a learning difficulty environment." (Bellert, 2008)

“Many primary teachers feel under-equipped to teach mathematics and science. In a 2007 study of 160 Australian primary school teachers, they devoted only three per cent of their time to the teaching of science and 18 per cent of their time to teaching mathematics. There is concern that if students receive an insufficient grounding in mathematics and science in primary school, this will cause difficulties in secondary school.” (quote taken from http://www.acer.edu.au/enews/2008/03/study-of-mathematics-declines) (Chinnappan, Dinham, Herrington, & Scott, 2008).

“Curriculum alignment must occur to clearly connect outcomes to assessment.” (Hedemann & Ludwig, 2008)

“Curriculum Mapping is required to ensure minimum standards are met. Every student must have multiple opportunities to attain minimum standards. Choice of actions is required to improve performance.” (Falls, 2009)

And that was today's research!!

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Thinking about information thus far

Ok research thus far,

So for students to succeed in low socioeconomic schools we require the following:

a) Parents to encourage students towards realistic academic goals
b) For students to be educated into valuing academic success and aspire towards it
c) For teachers to set high expectations and go well beyond the average expectations of a normal teacher
d) For schools to find, support and appreciate teachers that can satisfy c)
e) For government to accept that low socio-economic schools (no matter what is done) will not succeed at the level of mid to high socioeconomic schools for a myriad of reasons.
f) For tertiary institutions to get involved at an earlier stage than year 11/12
g) For corporate entities and employers to realise that there are many capable late developing students from low-socioeconomic schools able to participate in the workforce (that under different circumstances could have achieved in a tertiary environment)

That's that.. done.. tick!

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Unrealistic expectations

Some students have unrealistic expectations. In the same way that some parents lower the expectations of their students, it does also go the other way.

One sector of the school population where this is common is with students of non-english speaking backgrounds. Students can be put under extreme pressure to perform, often after going through very limited schooling. It's not just a Perth thing, it was also observed in Windle's study (2009) where students reported higher understandings of English than their assessment recognised, the students had high levels of aspiration to attend university but a very low chance of success.

In the refugee population, this is a common problem, with many having had limited schooling prior to gaining residency or refugee status. It leads to exacerbate the demands on teachers in low-socioeconomic schools (as observed by Campbell Cook and Dornen, 1995), with teachers recognising ability, but requiring inordinate amounts of work to see these students through. In talking to a care worker outside the system, they raised that other issues are also common such as sleeplessness (due to hyper awareness), distrust of authority and reluctance (or over demand) when seeking assistance.

When you consider that many of these students are not eligible for additional funding, yet require lower primary assistance within a high school environment, it is easy to see why their performance can fall below school norms. Yet these same students are averaged into "my school" results. From a school perspective these students are a real problem.

For these students to be seen as a problem is a social justice issue that needs resolving. It is a real problem when moving from a searching for excellence paradigm to a market driven approach. In a pure market driven approach, these students would be excluded from mainstream education (to preserve school results and ensure that the calibre of students at a school is maintained) and placed in segregated specialist programmes. Yet from an ESL perspective (as discussed with ESL teachers) this is detrimental to their progress as their immersion to common language is a requirement for their improvement.

As a teacher it is a frustrating problem as you need to help at-risk students, but know to do so will draw attention away from kids that have higher probabilities of success. The 'greatest good' model vs the 'rights of an individual' is in firm conflict. Couple this to the higher risk that their 'other' issues may undermine your teaching programme for these at-risk students and the opportunities for success further decrease. Reverse racism (predjudice of non-minority but equally disadvantaged groups)is common, as are claims of racism if direct assistance is withdrawn. It can be a real catch-22 situation.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Literature Review

Research is one of my favourite pastimes, sitting in a library with purpose is quite a fun thing. Yesterday I sat and read about some of the issues faced by disadvantaged students. As I work on my literature review for my masters I'll keep updating this post.

1. It's not a new problem.

The Coleman Report in 1966 was a seminal report in investigating disadvantaged youth in schools (commonly referenced). I need to read it!

To address the issue in Texas, standardised testing was introduced and showed a high degree of success, but at the expense of a narrowing curriculum (Smith, 2005). This was again seen in the UK (Cox, 1999).

The Australian Government recognises disadvantaged student performance as a problem and have produced a paper outlining some effective measures that can be taken. I need to find references, I've read DEEWR articles in the past(here), now I need to use them!

In general though, Australian mathematics education fared ok when in 2000 we were compared to 31 OECD countries (OECD study, 2003), Australian education was significantly higher on the PISA scale for 21 countries and only significantly lower for two (Japan and Korea).

Students that study in state schools have significantly lower funding that independent and private schools (Edwards, 2008).

2. Environment is a key factor

In a US study, a pre-primary student given extra assistance by a university eventually graduated with two degrees. Nothing spectacular here except her parents had sub 40 IQ (Wickelgren, 1999).

3. Students require attitude adjustment

In a Queensland study in 1995, an observer recognised that until students are assisted in changing their perspective they cannot begin to appreciate any assistance given to help them gain access to university pathways (Campbell, Cook and Dornan, 1995).

I saw as a result of my action research in term 1 & 2 that students need to understand what academic behaviours are and why they are important. This can result in quite spectacular short term success. These behaviours in themselves are not enough to ensure ongoing success as retention requires repetition and a long term committed approach to provide lasting benefits.

4. Students require a range of motivational support

There is no one way to motivate students. Many theories exist and none are perfect. Common theories are Expectancy x value theory, Attribution cognitive theory, Attribution Achievement motivation theory and Achievement goal theory (King, 1998).

5. School can both improve future prospects and reinforce existing expectations.

For some students schools can inspire them to levels higher than their parents. For others, schools will reinforce similar job prospects to their parents (Campbell, Cook, Dornan, 1995) and schooling reproduces the structure of inequality itself (DEEWR Component A, 2009, p.29).

High SES students are over-represented and low SES students are underrepresented because students from different SES backgrounds are differentially prepared by schooling for entry into university (DEEWR, 2009, p.29)

6. It is possible to improve university pathway access

There's nothing easy about it, but it is possible with the proper long term approach. Now the task is to create a way to find that correct method for our school.

Russell.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Week two of action research cycle

1st report is due in this week and little to report. Students are settling into class and punitive measures for homework are starting to show results. Most students now know that not doing homework means being kept in.

Improving of teacher-student communication has also started with students realising that "I couldn't do it" is not an excuse and that they have to try and find a way to get the questions completed. They have a number of options from "finding me before/after school" to asking a friend, to copying someone else's answers.

For me, it's a way to quickly identify who is struggling.

Choral responses are improving, with students starting to use it as a way of communicating during class. Off-task communication is still a problem but there is slow improvement, with students completing a full exercise out of the book - something not done since the class changeover.

Student letters are taking a while to get out and I still haven't had a good look at the NAPLAN results for last year. I need to move on this soon.

First survey responses are in, I will need to examine these this week too and collate all the student/parent responses.

In class reward scheme has also kicked back in now that I have found the secret stash of rewards points. It will be interesting to see how that impacts on student responses.