April 1997 Students Can Play Crucial Role in Reform
What do students think and how can you find out? There's no need to resort to truth serum or mind reading. A new book from the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, Look Who's Talking Now: Student Views of Learning in Restructuring Schools, describes how seven research projects delved into students' perspectives about how they learn, the learning and teaching practices in their schools, and the school culture and climate. The book also gives tips on how this can be done at your school.
"It is a rich source of information for anyone interested in bringing students into their school improvement processes, or wanting to know what students think, or want ing to learn how to collaborate," says Dr. Bob Blum, Director of NWREL's School Improvement Program and one of the book's co-authors.
Look Who's Talking, edited by James Kushman of NWREL, describes the work of the Restructuring Collaborative, a national network of staff from regional educational laboratories, educators, and students working to increase knowledge about K-12 restructuring. The book begins with a description of how the collaborative learned to work together, how they decided to focus on student views of learning in a restructured environment, and how they gradually began to include students as part of the planning and research process.
The body of the book consists of seven case studies written by staff from six different regional laboratories. Taken together, the studies represent the views of more than 1,000 students from communities and schools across the country. Some of the case studies examine a single school; others look at larger entities. They include:
- An urban elementary school in the South
- A Northwest high school in a city of 50,000 in a farming and logging area
- A high school in the Southwest, near the Mexican border
- A rural middle school in the East
- Ten diverse California schools participating in Every Student Succeeds, a restructuring initiative supported by the state's department of education
- The work of the Assessment Working Party, a group of teachers from 20 Northeast middle and elementary schools attempting to include student voices in restructuring
- Students from across Kentucky, and their views of statewide reform efforts
Data-gathering methods were varied and included focus groups, written surveys, individual interviews, small group interviews, interviews anchored by classroom observation, videotaping, audiotaping, and note taking. In a few cases, students participated in the data gathering and analysis.
The book's penultimate chapter by Kushman of NWREL attemps to extract themes and conclusions both from the research data itself and the process of getting students to talk. Kushman identifies three broad themes from the student data:
- Relationships are very important to students, perhaps as much or more than particular learning activities. They want a caring and respectful learning environment.
- Students have a variety of learning styles and value different kinds of learning activities. There is no single best way to learn.
- Student views of what it is to be a successful learner are very limiting and traditional, not in accord with the ideals of the school restructuring movement. Students identify successful learning with traits such as conformity, obedience, and striving for good grades.
Kushman draws the following conclusions from the research processes used in the studies:
- Students are articulate and aware. They generally give thoughtful, honest answers to questions about their learning experiences and they are conscious of the restructuring and reform processes going on in their schools.
- Listening to students is not the norm. Though teachers and staff were open to hearing what students had to say, schools were often at a loss about what to do with the data.
- There are many ways to find out what students think, to involve them and the faculty in the inquiry process, and to bring the inquiry results into the school improvement process. A discussion of what researchers learned about the different approaches is organized into the following topical areas: student age level, student-led group interviews, recording interviews and note taking, maintaining quality research, involving all stakeholders in data analysis, how to ask students, what to ask students, and sharing the results.
Look Who's Talking concludes by outlining one-day methods schools can use to gather data from students. The following topics are covered:
- Planning and preparation—defining the effort, and forming and preparing the research team
- Focusing and designing the research—formulating questions, choosing a sample, designing interview methods, organizing data collection, and analysis
- Collecting data—recording accurately, probing for details, reviewing, and editing
- Analyzing data—collating and meaning making
- Developing feedback—identifying the audience and assigning author responsibility
- Using student data for school improvement—involving decisionmakers with the information
"Don't wait until the end to start thinking about how the data should be used," urge the authors. "Using the student information for improvement has high potential for making a difference in the lives of students and staff."
To order a copy of Look Who's Talking, fill out the order form in this issue of Northwest Report.
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