Tracking & monitoring learners, and reporting directly to parents in order to increase completion and success rates

1. Tracking & monitoring learners, and reporting directly to parents in order to increase completion and success rates ANDREW HENRY

2. Presentation Overview • Introduction • Context • Research Questions • Research Team • The Literature • Methodology • How Sample Chosen. • How Intervention Conducted. • How Completion and Success rates were determined. • Results • Tables and Graphs. • Discussion • Interpretation of Results. • Conclusion • Answer Research Questions. • Recommendations for District/Schools • Questions • Discussion • Sharing

3. Introduction Study Site • Surrey Connect is a K-12 Distributed Learning (DL) school in Surrey BC. We deliver 9-12 content via an asynchronously continuous entry model.

4. Context /How I became Interested in Increasing Student’s Completion and Success. • In my first year teaching math 9, I had a passing rate of 33%. Of the 45 students that enrolled in the course, 15 had a passing mark June 31/07 • I looked at the BC rates for completion and found that DL students experience approximately a 30% drop/withdrawal rate. • In a neighbourhood school I would not be happy if 33% of my class passed, or if 30% of my class withdrew. • I decided to look into ways that I could help improve the success and completion rates of our students.

5. Initial Steps: Student/Parent Contact • Phone Contact with students revealed: • Students that were unsure of where there were in the course and what they should be doing. • Phone Contact with parents revealed: • Parents that were in the same boat. “I don’t know much about computers”, “They tell me they are doing work”, but I don’t know what they should be doing”.

6. Colleague/School Contact • Conversations with other Teachers showed similar concerns around parent contact and student achievement. • Surrey Connect had a school growth plan meeting articulating goals to address these concerns. • School Growth Plan • 1. To increase communication between parents, teachers, and students • 2. To increase course completion rates

7. Research Questions • My two research questions are • 1) How can we increase (enhance) parental involvement in our distributed learning program? • 2) How does direct parent contact effect student completion and success rates in grade 8-10 DL programs?

8. Research Team • Andrew Henry -Math 9 • Roger Hussen -Science 10 • Manjinder Kaila -Math 8 • Dennis Matechuk -English 8 • Maria Raycroft -Science 8 • Teresa Schwartz -Science 8 • Jeff May -Administrator

9. The Literature: Effects Of Parent Involvement • Decades of research show that when parents are involved students have: • Higher grades, test scores, and graduation rates • Better school attendance • Increased motivation, better self-esteem … (Parent_Involvement_Fact_Sheet Michigan DOE) • Family participation in education was twice as predictive of students’ academic success as family socioeconomic status.. (Walberg, 1984). • The most consistent predictors of children’s academic achievement and social adjustment are parent expectations of the child’s academic attainment and satisfaction with their child’s education at school. (Reynolds, et, al ) • The more intensely parents are involved, the more beneficial the achievement effects. (Cotton, K., Wikelund, K., Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, School Improvement Research) • Parental involvement was a key component of student success, yet here I had parents telling me that they did not even know how to log into their students course to see what they had done.

10. How Parents Can Become Involved • Parents need specific information on how to help and what to do. (Morton-Williams, R., 1964.) • The strongest and most consistent predictors of parent involvement at school and at home are the specific school programs and teacher practices that encourage parent involvement at school and guide parents in how to help their children at home. (Dauber and Epstein) • Parents may not effectively help their children succeed in school because they simply do not know what to do. • As teachers we can play a big role by communicating to parents and guiding them on ways to help their children succeed.

11. Who Should Initiate Communication & What Form Should that Communication Take? • “We need to investigate the barriers to parent participation and remove any misconceptions about who should be the initiator of home-school contacts. This is critical because many parents interviewed reported that increased teacher initiation of contacts would facilitate the establishment of effective partnerships.” Collaborative relationships between school and home: Implications for service delivery. By: Mundschenk, Nancy A., Foley, Regina M., Preventing School Failure, 1045988X, Fall94, Vol. 39, Issue 1 • “In addition, secondary schools should be aware of the preferences of families and sensitive to the variety of roles parents may wish to play in the education of their child. Many parents prefer informal conversations to the didactic sessions schools often organize.” Collaborative relationships between school and home: Implications for service delivery. By: Mundschenk, Nancy A., Foley, Regina M., Preventing School Failure, 1045988X, Fall94, Vol. 39, Issue 1 • According to the literature, the most effective contact is initiated by the teacher in an informal (non parent/teacher conference) way.

12. To Sum up the Literature • Parent involvement increases student achievement. • Parents need: • Some guidance as to how to help their children succeed. • Teacher initiated, informal, timely access to accurate information about their child’s progress.

13. Methodology • Study Group • 90 grades 8-10 students who had either received an incomplete on their spring report card or were less than 50% completed with 2 months left in the course. • Instrument: Progress Report http://fcweb.sd36.bc.ca/~henry_a/VSS2009/Progress%20Report • Our subjects were English 8, Science 8, Math 8, Math 9, and Science 10. Each subject had a different teacher.

14. The Intervention • Students were separated into a test group (n=45) and a control group (n=45). The test group (and their parents) were emailed completion calendars, and parents were emailed weekly regarding their child's upcoming assessments and progress based on these calendars. • Calendars could be customized by student. • Students who do not submit a customized calendar were given a calendar that paced them until the end of the school year. • Instrument: Calendar http://fcweb.sd36.bc.ca/~henry_a/Calendar/PersonalCalendar

15. Sample email Hello, this email is to inform you of your child’s upcoming exam due date in their online Math 9 course with Mr. Henry at Surrey Connect. Your child has their next unit quiz/module exam due next week. Unit quizzes are written at home module exams are written here at Surrey Connect. Unfortunately, if your child does not write this exam during this week, it will result in your child falling behind their schedule, and risking not completing the course in time. Fall/Winter semester ends June 06/08. Your child's schedule was sent to you previously. It is attached to this email. Please contact me if you have any questions. Thank you, Mr. Henry

16. Student progress was updated prior to mailing. • Instrument: Master Calendar http://fcweb.sd36.bc.ca/~henry_a/VSS2009/MasterCalendar • The control group was given access to the calendars; however, the parents were not emailed regularly. The email was the intervention. • Students assigned to test and control group at random, however, some purposeful sampling done to have some student be common to the different grade 8 subject areas.

17. If Parents Replied To Email For Guidance. • General • Recommend Study Skills. http://www.educationatlas.com/find-a-good-place-to-study.html • Recommend goal setting. http://www.goal-setting-guide.com/smart-goals.html http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/smart_goals.html • Specific • Recommend coming in for student help. • Recommend tutoring.

18. Calculation Of Completion And Success Rates. • Completion rates = Total Students – Withdrawals/ Total Students. • Success rates = Total Students – Withdrawals – Failed/ Total Students. • *Note success rates are based on total students, not on completed students.

19. Results Table 1 Pass, Withdraw, and Fail Totals • The test groups had a higher overall pass rate, and a lower withdrawal and failure rate as opposed to the control groups. The exceptions were the Math 9 and Science 10 test groups which had a higher withdrawal rate than their control groups.

20. Completion rates were higher for all grade 8 test groups, but higher for Math 9 and Science 10 control groups. Table 2 Individual Class Completion Rates Success rates were higher for all test groups. Table 3 Individual Class Success Rates

21. Completion and Success Rates Figure 1 Figure 2 • Students in the test group had 11% higher completion rates and 31% higher success rates than those in the control group.

22. Multi-teacher vs Single teacher emails Figure 3 Figure 4 • Students whose parents received emails from different teachers in different subjects showed a 30% higher completion rate and a 40% higher success rate than those receiving emails only from one teacher.

23. Discussion • Overall the completion and success rates improved for test group over control group. 11% higher completion rates and 31% higher success rates (Figure 1 and 2). This squares with the literature. Teacher initiated parent contact increases student success. • Multi-teacher emails appear to reinforce each other and produce results higher than single teacher emails alone. Multi-teacher emails showed a 30% higher completion rate and a 40% higher success rate than single teacher emails (Figure 3 and 4). • Interesting but expected

24. Interesting but unexpected • Completion rates for the grade 9 and 10 classes were lower for test group than control group (table 2) • Possible reason = Student Withdrawal. A higher proportion of the test group withdrew from these classes vs. the control group. Withdrawal Rates

25. Why the Withdrawals • Revisit data on multi-teacher vs. single teacher emails. • Grade 8’s receiving multi-teacher emails show a 30% higher completion rate than, grade 9 and 10 received single teacher emails. • Students may simply be withdrawing from the course sending the emails. Withdrawing = no more emails, and you can work on your other courses email free “stay under the radar”. • Students receiving multiple emails however have no other courses to turn to in order to “stay under the radar”. The emails just keep coming.

26. Conclusion • Answer Research Question #1: How can we increase (enhance) parental involvement in our distributed learning program? • -Parent involvement can be increased through direct teacher contact. That contact should be teacher initiated, non-formal and regular. It should also provide parents with timely access to accurate information about their child’s progress, and that contact should be able to come with some guide, or direction, for parents to take towards helping their child succeed. • Answer Research Question #2: How does direct parent contact effect student completion and success rates in grade 8-10 DL programs? • Direct parent contact increases student completion and success rates. When parents are informed with timely and accurate information on student progress they can positively effect student achievement. • The intervention (email contact based on calendar goals) appears to have been successful.

27. Recommendations for the District? For Schools? • Schools/Districts should be parent centered as much as they are student centered. The learner is not an island. The effect of parent expectations and support have been shown in the literature and confirmed in this study to positively effect student achievement. • Schools should institute some sort of program where teachers can initiate parent contact providing useful information regarding student progress. This is beyond a regular report card or phone call. In DL, it could be something as simple as we have done here and that is an email.

28. Schools should involve as many teachers as possible in the direct contact with parents. The more teachers there are in different subject areas contacting parents regarding a single child, the higher the completion. • Schools/Districts should determine what information is important (beyond just marks) and report that to parents regularly and informally (eg % course completed, upcoming work, expected student progress at present time).

29. Learn Now BC –provide study guide and tutoring material for grade 8 and 9 students.

30. Questions?