Concluding Post: A Line of Classroom and/or School Improvement

In light of TE 823, a course that has delved into the theoretical and practical aspects of communities in schools, I have developed a proposal for the implementation of cooperative base groups at the high school where I currently teach.  This proposal is written as a letter to the building principal.  

Mr. McDonald:

As the 2014-2015 school year draws to an end, it is time to begin thinking about the upcoming school year.  For the past several years Churchill has established a 20 minute time period between second and third hours devoted to sustained silent reading (SSR).  Each SSR period is spent silent reading or used as a study hall by students.  Due to MStep testing this spring, SSR time has been eliminated for the remainder of the school year.  You recently e-mailed faculty members for their opinions, ideas, and thoughts on the schedule for next year:  Return to the SSR schedule?  If so, keep SSR or use that time period for something else?  Or keep the current schedule?  This letter is written with the intent to propose the implementation of cooperative base groups to replace the time devoted to SSR.

I would like to first build a theoretical framework for cooperative base groups and from there share my vision for cooperative base groups at CHS.  A cooperative base group is defined as long-term cooperative learning groups with stable membership.  Within these groups, students provide each other with support and encouragement.  Students get the most benefits out of their experience as a member in a cooperative base group when the group is heterogeneous and meets regularly over an extended period of time.  David W. Johnson has conducted extensive research on the formation and implementation of cooperative base groups and has studied the effects of cooperative base groups on students’ educational experience.  I encourage you to look further into Johnson’s work if this is a direction you choose to pursue. 

My recommendation is for CHS to implement cooperative base group meetings one day a week for a 40 minute time period.  In terms of scheduling, this means that four days a week classes will be 59 minute periods (as in the current MStep testing schedule) and one day a week classes will be reduced to 52 minute periods to accommodate the base group meetings.  Although Johnson recommends a daily or bi-weekly meeting of base groups, this setup should allow students sufficient time to engage in a meaningful manner within their base groups without taking away instructional time from teachers.  In fact, this proposal will give teachers more time devoted to instruction in the school day than the previous SSR schedule. 

Cooperative base groups will be separated by class (i.e. freshmen will be together, sophomores will be together, and so on).  Students will be randomly assigned to a teacher as a freshman and this teacher will oversee these students for the duration of their high school career until graduation.  The teacher’s role is to divide students assigned to their room into smaller base groups consisting of four to five students.  Over the next four years, this teacher should cultivate a safe and nurturing environment in the classroom where students grow to feel comfortable sharing their thoughts.  There should be little to minimal planning and paperwork involved for teachers as they serve the role of overseers and facilitators in the cooperative base groups.

Since base groups are intended to meet the needs of students, students should have primary control over the activities and discussions that take place within a base group.  Students would be responsible for creating a general agenda for each base group meeting and documenting the general discussion points or activities that occurred during meetings.  Johnson suggests several activities students can engage in during their base group meetings, of which I will differentiate between academic support tasks and personal support tasks.  One example of an academic support task is a grade-check where students bring an up-to-date grade print out to their base group meeting.  Students can check for any missing assignments and set academic goals (i.e. make up all missing work by the next base group meeting, study for upcoming biology test for minimum of an hour).  By sharing these goals with one’s base group, a student is more accountable for their action as they will have to report back to their group.  A group study session could be classified as another academic support task.  Students can draw on their academic strengths to assist others in their group who may be struggling in a particular class.  Finally, I think it would be interesting for members to share a personal area of expertise or interest by teaching a mini-lesson to their group.  This could be a requirement for each student to complete once a year.  This activity would highlight the diverse interests and talents of Churchill’s student body and provide students a meaningful learning experience outside the normal academic classroom setting.

Personal support tasks allow students to engage in conversation and discussion about their lives outside of the school setting.  This type of task may take the form of team building exercises or activities.  Another type of personal support task would be a round robin of sorts for students to share something that is going on in their lives:  Perhaps a student has started working at a new job and is having difficulty juggling school and work; their base group members could suggest helpful time management ideas.  Maybe a student is struggling with a relationship in their life; base groups would provide a safe place for the student to share their feelings and seek support from peers on how to repair this relationship. Ideally, the safe environment of base groups would allow for these types of discussions to occur where students can be supportive and encouraging of each other.  This type of environment may be the only setting that some students feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and it is important that we provide this powerful outlet for students.

As you can see, cooperative base groups would provide a setting where students support, encourage, and assist each other to develop academically and personally.  There are several reasons why I feel CHS would benefit from cooperative base groups.  Churchill houses 1,600 students and has the most diverse student body of any high school in the district.  A disadvantage to being such a large school is that some students feel they are just a face in the crowd.  With programs like CAPA (Creative and Performing Arts) and MSC (Math/Science/Computer) and academically tracking students, the number of opportunities for students to interact with students who have different academic skills, abilities, and interests are limited.  With cooperative base groups, those interaction barriers will be eliminated and students will be able to take full advantage of this unique diversity by working with and learning from their peers.  Research has shown that base groups “…provide the social support needed to improve attendance, personalize the educational experience, increase achievement, and improve quality of life.”  Furthermore, the implementation of base groups will not cost the school money in terms of any equipment, resources, or additional staffing. 

In alignment with our school mission, cooperative learning groups will provide a safe and positive environment for students at school by giving students the sense of belonging.  Students will no longer feel anonymous as they go through their high school years.  This student is now part of something bigger:  They are accountable for and to their group and they know they have a teacher who is supporting them on their journey through high school.  I look forward to further discussing this proposal with you as I feel that implementing cooperative base groups is a direction CHS should pursue for students to reach their greatest potential.

Best Regards,

Amanda Raupp

Cycle 3: Schools as "Embryonic Communities"

My cycle two post began with, “I consider schools a mini-society within the larger society in which we live,” and this statement serves as a great starting point for my cycle three post.  John Dewey, an educational reformer, put forth the idea that a school can and should be more than a habitat for learning lessons that will have some remote relation to students’ futures, “…it gets a chance to be a miniature community, an embryonic society.” 

At the embryonic stage, schools have the potential for further development to provide quality and meaningful educational experiences for students by engaging all members in the community to work toward a common goal.  To engage students in the community – to be active and engaged members – a transition needs to occur that shifts the role of students from “listeners” to “workers.”  Many traditional classrooms are set up in a way so that students passively absorb knowledge transmitted from the teacher.  Instead, students should be placed in educational contexts where discovering knowledge is the norm.  It is only when students are motivated to learn and knowledge can be applied to their real-life that they will be able to positively contribute to the overall well-being of the community at school and the community at large.  Teachers can facilitate this transformation of student roles by being “knowledge workers,” engaging in reflective teaching practices, working collaboratively with colleagues and students, and keeping the students as the “center of gravity” in the classroom.

Many of the readings assigned for this cycle suggested approaches to further developing and nurturing communities in schools.  Small learning communities is one way to build rapport among students and between teachers and students.  From personal experience as a member of Team B in 6^th grade, I know full well the advantages of being a student in a small learning community.  Central Middle School, housing approximately 1,200 6^th – 8^th grade students, was three stories tall and intimidating to incoming students.  Add in that there were five elementary schools feeding into Central Middle School and that was enough to make the transition into 6^th grade uneasy at best and terrifying at worst.  Luckily, with the help of my four awesome team teachers, I connected to the school and my peers relatively quickly.  All Team B students were contained to the second floor of the building for academic classes, traveled to classes together, and ate lunch together.  Team B teachers worked with the same group of 120 students every day and had common planning time.  Looking back, I am glad Central Middle School used small learning communities to ease the transition of students into middle school; otherwise, I feel I would have had a more isolated learning experience.

Teachers can also suffer in isolation in schools, which may explain why 40% - 50% of teachers leave the profession in the first five years of their career.  To combat this, schools need to take action to promote collaboration and support among its faculty.  Every new teacher in the district where I work is assigned a mentor teacher for their first three years of their teaching tenure.  My mentor is fabulous!!!  She showed me the ropes when I first got hired in and over the past two years we have had many conversations about curriculum, teaching practices, classroom management, and working with parents.  She has been so supportive and is always there for me when I have questions or need to vent!  I know she has impacted me and I hope to have influenced her on a professional level as well.  Even though she technically won’t be my mentor next year, I would like to think our professional friendship and support for each other will continue.

To counteract the isolation both new and veteran teachers can encounter, Ann Lieberman and Lynne Miller discussion professional learning communities (PLC’s) to deal with issues of course content and the process of teaching.  They defined PLC’s as, “…collegial cultures where teachers develop the capacity to engage in honest talk.”  It is in PLC’s that teachers can discuss, debate, and reflect on their teaching practices.  For PLC’s to be most effective, Lieberman and Miller claim that reflective practices should be guiding discussions in order to promote “reciprocal, practical, active” learning among colleagues.  They also emphasize the importance of embracing conflict (when and if it occurs) as it shows that an illusion of consensus does not exist as it does in pseudo-communities. 

I believe PLC’s can be beneficial in building and contributing to a community within a school.  My only experience of working in PLC’s was for about four months when I first got hired.  The teachers did not utilize PLC’s in an effective manner to positively contribute to the community of teachers.  I would be interested in engaging in PLC’s in a setting laid out by Lieberman and Miller as I feel it would be a more powerful and meaningful experience.

With each of these suggested approaches, the community within schools is going to further develop only if the implementation of these approaches is carefully examined through inquiry.  What works for one school may not work for another; what works for one student may not work for another.  Action research may play a significant role in any changes made within a classroom, school, or district as students, educators, administrators, and parents work together in developing the community.   It is when we work together that a community flourishes!