SCHOOL CLIMATE - HOW DOES IT AFFECT ENGAGEMENT

The student’s perception of the school's climate and culture is essential for leaders to analyse as it effects the engagement of students. Smyth and Hattam (2002) explored the perceptions of early school leavers in reference to how they perceived administrative power within the schools they resided. The study identified three different themes that emerged as students voiced their opinions; the aggressive, passive or active school culture (Smyth & Hattam, 2002). The aggressive school culture emphasised a “culture of fear”, which brought many school leavers into conflict with the authoritarian style of leadership (Smyth and Hattam, 2002: 383). Students defined the passive school culture as “nice on the outside” but had no idea how to engage the youth of today. The curriculum was boring and was not relevant to youth and their interests (Smyth & Hattam, 2002). The active school culture created environments that worked with their students. Students approached school personnel to discuss issues, curriculum was flexible and pertained to current youth issues, and those students who were experiencing difficulty needed more engaging through effective curriculum (Smyth & Hattam, 2002).

This research is not about identifying school cultures as victimizing students because students also play a role in establishing their own outcomes socially, academically and in the sustainability of a functional community. The insight of early school leavers can prompt new methods to address the needs of all students within the school community. Smyth and Hattam (2002) conclude schools still predominately try to control students and their movements with the emphasis on social order. The difficulty lies when students then create their own “subscripts” to engage in this particular type of culture which may not lead to the most positive educational outcomes (Smyth and Hattam, 2002: 392).

Administrative leadership and the identification of school culture are vital to scrutinize but teacher leadership has serious repercussion if the teacher is lacking in these particular skills. Printy and Marks (2006) has identified that schools that have high quality teaching the teachers interact with their colleagues, teaching team, grade level team, and administrative staff on a regular basis. The teachers develop a vision and a purpose and together as a team develop clarity for what the intended future goals of the school and outcomes for all students (Printy & Marks, 2006). Teachers are responsible for learning and providing opportunities to tackle difficult problems together. Shared leadership encourages all participants within the school environment to be innovative and creative in developing strategies to engage children within their classrooms.

GOAL SETTING AND SELF-EVALUATION

Goal setting requires the student to be specific in an action or end (Zimmerman & Kitsantas, 2005). Teaching youth at risk to set goals is beneficial to the outcome of their willingness to stay involved in education. If youth have no goal in mind it is easy to become distracted and confused as to the direction they would like to take. Goals become a guide that facilitates the student to extend himself/herself to greater achievements if they are motivated to do so.

Other key self-regulatory processes are “task strategies” that encourage the student to analyse and identify specific methods for learning or performing a particular task. “Imagery” is a process where students create or recall vivid mental images to assist learning. “Self-monitoring” involves observing and tracking one’s own performance and “self-evaluation” requires the student to make self-judgements. “Environmental structuring” which involves structuring environments for the best learning outcomes, and “adaptive help seeking” involves choosing models, teachers and books to assist learning, (Zimmerman & Kitsantas, 2005). Athletes use this method to practice the most difficult situations that they may find themselves in during a match or game. Teaching youth at risk, these specific strategies can help them accomplish tasks in all areas of their lives not just in academic situations.

TEACHING SOCIAL COMPETENCE

The first step in addressing social compencies for students at risk is to identify their current positive social competencies versus their social incompetencies. Knapczyk & Rodes (1996) state that it is important to ask the question, “What must these students learn to improve their behaviour?” This focuses the student and the teacher on improving the skills the student requires to be successful in achieving their social and academic goals. The requirement then is to define the traits that competent students utilize in order to be successful and lay the foundation for teaching the student the skills they may be lacking (Knapczyk & Rodes, 1996). Initial assessments and observations are required to determine the areas that the intervention needs to target. A well-planned approach and discussions regarding the expectations of the student in a particular environment or setting is essential to developing an appropriate intervention for the individual student (Knapczyk & Rodes, 1996).

There are guidelines that are helpful in developing or listing a student’s expectations in particular settings or environments. Knapczyk & Rodes (1996) have found the following guidelines to be beneficial when initiating a program that is focused on developing social competence.

1. Describe the student’s expectations in positive terms. What should students do - Not what they should not do.
2. Describe expectations in terms of observable behaviour. Be specific when describing behaviour – Puts up his hand to answer the question.
3. When possible list expectations in chronological order. What is the general sequence of the activity or intended expectation? Define using a starting point and an end point. Example: He entered the classroom quietly. Returned to his desk quickly.
4. Delete items that are not true expectations. Is the expectation truly required for social competence?
5. Be sure the list reflects the full array of expectations for the situation. How the student participates in a verbal discussion as well as the ability to follow classroom rules.

By employing these guidelines, a curriculum can be developed for the student that matches their particular needs and skills. Evaluation can then take place to determine the quality or effectiveness of the intervention according to specific criterion and an assessment completed following the teaching period (Knapczyk & Rodes, 1996).

EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTION AND SCHOOL ENGAGEMENT

The importance of organization, delivery and time for students to learn specific material is crucial to increasing student engagement in school.

Williams-Bost and Riccomini (2006) have presented 10 principles for implementation of effective instruction to increase engagement for students with disabilities.

1. Active Engagement
The definition of active engagement is the amount of time students are actively engaged in relevant instructional tasks. The amount of time students actively engage can be increased using effective design and delivery of lessons, selection of interesting materials that are culturally relevant and appropriate to the students’ instructional levels, offering a variety of opportunities for student responses and reinforcing class participation.

2. Provide the Experience of Success
Teachers must provide students the opportunity to experience academic success early and regularly. Matching students’ level and task assignments is crucial to providing successful outcomes. Low academic achievement is a major factor in students dropping out of school.

3. Content Coverage and Opportunity to Learn
Deliver the content in the curriculum or classroom so students have the time to learn the content. Addressing absenteeism as a factor for youth at risk by assuring the content is engaging for students. The delivery of instruction is important to consider if students are disengaged.

4. Grouping for Instruction
Teachers who supervise learning activities directly help student engage and achieve their best. Grouping can help teachers engage students in continued learning. Groups consist of whole class, one to one, peer partners with each having its own distinct advantages and disadvantages. The most important thing to consider is the student’s academic success through increased support or grouping leading to a more likely result the student may stay in school.

5. Scaffolded Instruction
Encouraging students to become self-regulated and independent learners with scaffolded instruction allows students to become successful in school. Scaffolding is a systematic, sequenced series of prompted cues and material and teachers support to help the student utilize their strengths to overcome their weaknesses.

6. Addressing Forms of Knowledge
Teachers who balance the following critical forms of knowledge associated with strategic learning and address the students need to see relevance in the learning are more likely to encourage engagement with at risk youth. The critical forms of knowledge according to Ellis et al (1994) as cited by Bost-Williams & Riccomini (2006) are:

a. Declarative knowledge: basic facts and vocabulary
b. Procedural knowledge: steps used to solve problems
c. Conditional knowledge: when and where to use certain strategies

7. Organizing and Activating Knowledge
Carefully combining previous knowledge with new information is vital to student success. Build simple tasks into more complex tasks to develop foundational skills and knowledge to progress to tasks that are more difficult.

8. Teaching Strategically
Teach students “how to learn” versus “what content to learn”. Strategies include how a person thinks and acts when completing a task or assignment.

9. Making Instruction Explicit
Explicit instruction is teacher-directed instruction that is highly organized, task orientated and presented in a clear, direct manner to promote student understanding.

10. Teaching Sameness
Design instruction so students can recognize patterns and organize information in similar ways. Teaching sameness helps students make relevant connections, link and utilize information in a more effective and efficient way.

Using O-LADS to Structure a Classroom Discipline Plan

Hello everyone: Hope you all had a wonderful break and are rested up for another year. I thought I would write about a framework for structuring your classroom discipline that may be beneficial at the beginning of the year.

The program developed by Jerry Olsen (1989) is called O-LADS which refers to the following areas:

O - Ownership: Ownership should give your students a sense of security through control or possession of an object or idea. For example, classroom rules can be developed by all in the group, students are responsible to explain the rules to new students or visitors to the classroom, children may be given the opportunity to work on long term projects of their own choosing, contracts or mediational essays can be used to give children ownership of the problem, children are given a role to play in meetings with parents.

L- Limits: Appropriate boundaries must be set using rules, standards, and defining of areas in which the children work. Children are more secure when they know the boundaries within their control. Examples, Rules and consequences are clearly shown to the students prior to incidences occurring, predictability, consequences may be developed on a heiracrchy (teacher does not need to say "if you misbehave you are kicked out", children will be aware of where they stand on the heirarchy of consequences, refer back to the rule rather than lecturing students on the limits they have broken, visual or non-verbal cues should also be used to help those students who may struggle with auditory processing.

A - Acceptance: Children need to feel accepted for who they are without being blamed, dis-respected or rejected because of their differences. Children know when people do not accept them including the teachers and staff at the school. Techniques that may help with acceptance - using problem solving techniques to help children "own" their problems without blame, teachers can try to use humour, fun, maintain standards so children feel accepted by someone they respect, treat students as capable individuals, teach negotiation skills so children feel they can handle difficult situations with other people.

D - Direction: Giving children a sense of growth and helping them acquire new skills, knowledge and generation of their own ideas. Setting clear goals and standards that enhance feelings of competence, success, curiousity and completion of tasks. Students can experience success and recognition by: using clear goals as targets, using a curriculum that progresses, encouragement from teachers, using good instructional materials, developing morale or group spirit. Other examples, have children write a journey of their lives so far and where they would like to go, imagery through stories and film, compile lists of acquired skills (reading rate, math accuracy), students can define dreams, hopes and aspirations for when they grow up, have students predict how much quality work they can produce over the week, month, year, use timelines to show how the child is progressing with academics and behaviour (visual indicator).

S - Systems: "a set of connected parts forming a complex whole" Relationships are interactive and work two ways. Teacher affect students and students affect teachers. Blame can infect the "whole system" and can split the system so it does not perform efficiently. Teachers should work with parents and parents should work with teachers to make sure they are teaching the child to work cooperatively with all those people around them. Working as a team is paramount. Try to "externalize" the problem, people fight the problem, not each other. See things from others point of view.

The program encompasses all five areas when establishing your discipline plan at school, home and in the community for managing potential difficult situations.

Hope everyone has a great year. I look forward to discussing strategies and ideas as the year unfolds.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

I hope everyone has an excellent holiday and takes plenty of time to relax and rejuvinate. Have a great proactive, positive new year.

PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE STUDENTS

Sorry, it has been awhile since my last post. We have been in Canada giving seminars.
A question came up regarding passive aggressive students in the last seminar that I would like to address in this post.
Passive aggressive behaviour usually as the individual's feeling of powerlessness within their environment. By exhibiting non-compliance, complaining, not completing work tasks, or "purposeful" forgetting, while appearing to be polite, accommodating, and not understanding why people are frustrated with them. Could this behaviour actually be the result of the student's lack of self esteem and does the negative attention for the behaviour continue to drive the behaviour?
Student's learn very quickly that they receive attention for their passive aggresive behaviour. It may be that their behaviour is reinforced through receiving the negative attention rather than trying to avoid the task or assignment. Passive aggressive students may also feel that is not okay to express their anger or feelings so they express these feelings through their passive aggressive behaviour.

The DSM-IV also contains criteria for passive aggressiveness noting the following behaviours.

"A. A pervasive pattern of negativistic attitudes and passive resistance to demands for adequate performance, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by four (or more) of the following:
(1) passively resists fulfilling routine social and occupational tasks
(2) complains of being misunderstood and unappreciated by others
(3) is sullen and argumentative
(4) unreasonably criticizes and scorns authority
(5) expresses envy and resentment toward those apparently more fortunate
(6) voices exaggerated and persistent complaints of personal misfortune
(7) alternates between hostile defiance and contrition


The triggers that may be exhibited by the student:

1. Frustration with self or others - at this point they have no idea how to turn the situation into a positive result so they begin to try to seek negative attention
2. The student may have successfully "annoyed" the teacher and the teacher may respond with a reprimand.
3. May lead to student defensiveness. "You don't like me" "I never did anything" May respond as the victim.
4. The teacher may try to regain control by focusing on the student's negative attitude.
5. The teacher may then try to "lay down the law" which reinforces the student's perception that he/she is the victim and the teacher treats them poorly.
This tends to occur in cycles and the negative behaviour is consistently being reinforced.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

1. Determine the inappropriate behaviour through a functional assessment.
2. Analyze your own behaviour when in conflict with the student. Does it escalate the response? How do you feel after the conflict - confused, frustrated, angry?
3. Make a list of the behaviours that annoy you the most. Target the first 3 - 5.
4. Outline the behaviours that you feel would be acceptable beside the undesired behaviour.
5. Keep yourself calm and protect yourself from engaging in a manipulative attempt by the student.
6. Formal meeting with the student and the parent to outline what the proactive plans are to help the child learn new and acceptable behaviours.
7. Let the child know that you care if they pass or fail, feel happy or sad, loved or unloved......
8. Peer involvement may be beneficial in helping the student.
9. Don't forget that the student's behaviour is not always passive aggressive because they are disengaged from the learning that is being presented.
10. Teach positive self talk strategies so the student can begin to realize that they are not a bad, naught or awful person.


Helping the student make sense of their behaviour may help free the child from their hopelessness (Marquoit, 2004). Decrease the focus on the behaviour and try to intervene by trying to understand where the student's anger originated and work on those issues to help the child overcome and work through their anger. Increasing the relationship between the staff and student is a priority. Helping the student realize that the anger is typically an irrational belief that all adults are not interested in helping them (Marquoit, 2004).

You may want to try this book: Managing Passive Aggressive Behaviour of Children and Youth: The Angry Smile by Jody Long and Nicholas Long