Bringing Student Responsibility to Life: Avenues to Personalizing High Schools for Student Success

1. Bringing Student Responsibility to Life:Avenues to Personalizing High Schools for Student Success Daniela Torre, Timothy Drake, Courtney Preston, Ellen Goldring, and Marisa Cannata Peabody College, Vanderbilt University www.scalingupcenter.org This research was conducted with funding from the Institute of Education Sciences (R305C10023). The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the institutions with which they are affiliated or the U.S. Department of Education.

2. Big Question: How can the capacity of school districts be enhanced so that they can • identify effective practices, • design innovations that reflect the core elements of the identified practices • adapt them to the contexts of schools and their communities, and then • implement them in ways that will lead to an increase in learning for all children?

3. Research Questions • What structures for both adults and students are in place to support student engagement   and the development of a collective responsibility for learning ? • How do these structures alter student and teacher locus of control?

4. Conceptual Framework Lee and Smith, 1996 Bandura, 1997; Schunk & Pajares 2005

5. Data Collection • 3 Waves of data collection from 2011-2012 • Interviews: Administrators, core-subject teachers, support staff, students • Surveys: Principals, teachers, students, parents • Observation/video taping of classroom instruction • Focus groups: Non-core subject teachers; Student activity Leaders; Students • Shadowing of students • Observation of leadership meetings/professional development

6. Data Analysis • Ongoing and iterative (LeCompte and Schensul, 1999) • Interview transcripts coded according to the eight essential components of effective high schools that emerged from the literature(Preston, Goldring, Guthrie, & Ramsey, 2012). • Themes emerged from the data were tested, refined, added, and eliminated. (Guba, 1978).

7. Case Study: Lakeside High School • Higher Value Added • Predominantly Latino population • Predominantly low income

8. Facilitating Conditions • Many facilitating conditions allowed Lakeside to instill in students responsibility for their own learning. • Shared vision around increasing student responsibility. • Accountability for implementing the vision • Trusting relationships • Relatively stable faculty and student population • Safe and orderly environments

9. Supporting Structures • Lakeside Code • Instructional practices • Learning Time • Assignment Log • Intervention Committee

10. Lakeside Code • Attend school and be on time; • Come prepared to class and take advantage of tutoring opportunities during Learning Time; • Find out what assignments are required after missing school; • Be able to either explain what the teacher has emphasized or have a question about what isn’t clear; • Practice independent applications of material to ensure understanding and attend Learning Time when you don’t understand; • Talk to teachers about assignments and tests where you struggled; and • Monitor your own progress through Assignment Logs. • The code includes 7 academic behaviors expected of all students. • A parallel code was created for teachers that enumerated the expected teacher behaviors that would support aspects of the student code. • Teachers evaluated on implementation of the code.

11. Instructional Practices • Teachers were expected to use certain instructional practices that would align with the Lakeside Code. • Collaborative learning strategies • “Accountable Talk” • Time cues

12. Learning Time “I’d like to think the Lakeside Code plays a big factor in … them having to be in class, be [in] class with materials … this is the first time for our kids that they're actually asked and expected to do homework. For whatever reason, our kids come to us with this expectation that well, homework is not that important. I don’t have to do homework. And we’re trying to change that mindset and get them to realize that they have to do homework ‘cause homework is what’s gonna help them to pass their tests. And we’re trying to … base most of their grades upon test scores rather than homework. So we try to get our kids to, through the Eagle Code they're required if they don’t understand something, ask questions.” • A 1 hour period offered around lunch time during which students were encouraged to attend tutorials. • Students were also able to interact informally with teachers and other adults during this time, facilitating trusting relationships.

13. Assignment Logs • Used by students to track both their assignments as well as their grades. At any given moment, students are expected to know whether they are passing in a class (with an average score of 81%). • Teachers are expected to check assignment logs periodically and to keep assignments posted in the classroom. It’s their grade...we’ve got these tutorials, we’ve got these logs, we’ve got this code... it’s like torturing ‘em in a good way: do you have your assignment log? Do you have your binder? .... and they hear it from me every single day...there are still some that got a 0 last 6 weeks because they didn’t produce that assignment log and I hate that they’re not the grades that [they could be] making but I think the more that this school can make these kids own their lives the better they will be served when they leave here.

14. Intervention Committee • The intervention committee is a support enacted for students who are not meeting the expectations of the Lakeside Code. Members of the intervention committee include the school social worker, an intervention specialist, five teachers and the dean of instruction.

15. Shifting Locus of Control • For teachers • Building trust through non-punitive evaluation • Explicit expectations • Building buy-in for the vision over time • For students • High expectations • Layers of support • Teaching responsibility explicitly • Caring relationships between students and teachers

16. Thank You For more information contact: Daniela Torre daniela.torre@vanderbilt.edu Courtney Preston courtney.preston@vanderbilt.edu Tim Drake tim.drake@vanderbilt.edu