Engaging Schools Fostering High School Students' Motivation to Learn (2004) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Pages 1-12
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These disadvantages can be lessened, however, by participation in an engaging school community with high academic standards, skillful instruction, and the support students need to pursue their educational and career goals. Engaging adolescents, including those who have become disengaged 1
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Many of the students who do not drop out altogether attend irregularly, exert modest effort on schoolwork, and learn little. To address these problems, the committee was charged to "review, synthesize, and analyze research on academic engagement and motivation that might apply to urban high schools." The committee examined how curriculum, instruction, and the organization of schools can promote involvement of urban youth in the academic program and the broader school community, also taking into account influences such as peer culture, family, and community resources.
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As a result, many experience schools as impersonal and uncaring. Because few urban schools are well connected to the communities they serve or to the educational and career opportunities potentially available to their students, many students fail to see how working hard in school will enable them to attain the educational and career goals to which they aspire.
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. Recommendation 3: The committee recommends that preservice teacher preparation programs provide high school teachers deep content knowIedge and a range of pedagogical strategies and understandings about adolescents and how they learn, and that schools and districts provide practicing teachers with opportunities to work with colleagues and to continue to develop their skills.
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Recommendation 5: The committee recommends that tests used to evaluate schools, teachers, and students assess high-level, critical thinking and that they incorporate broad and multidimensional conceptions of subject matter that includes fluency, conceptual understanding, analysis, and application. The tests that are used for accountability have substantial impact on what gets taught and how, and these in turn affect student engagement.
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students to challenge themselves and develop deep understanding is also critical. This focus can be conveyed by implementing school policies that recognize students who respond to academic challenges quickly and that provide preemptive interventions when problems of poor attendance, failure to complete homework, and poor performance arise.
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The committee also recommends that school administrators create opportunities for low-achieving students to interact with and develop friendships with more academically successful peers. Because students tend to choose to interact with students with the same ethnicity and similar achievement levels, concerted efforts must be made to create activities that will attract diverse students, and to promote a climate in which students feel comfortable venturing beyond familiar peer and instructional contexts.
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To help students achieve a realistic understanding of how what they are learning in high school is related to their educational and career options after high school, we suggest also providing students with experiences in work settings, teachers with curriculum materials and instructional supports to integrate rigor and relevance into the core curriculum, as well as close coordination with postsecondary educational institutions. Recommendation 9: The committee recommends that efforts be made to improve communication, coordination, and trust among the adults in the various settings where adolescents spend their time.
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For example, small, personalized schools may not enhance meaningful cognitive engagement and learning if they do not also provide effective teaching and a strong press for achieving high academic standards; the most engaging teaching practices may have little effect on a student who is homeless, has serious untreated health problems, or faces the chronic threat
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Although the focus is primarily on what can be done in high schools, the policies and practices described in this volume have important implications for many issues beyond its scope including, for example, policies that affect who is attracted into the field of teaching, preservice teacher and leadership training and credentialing policies, state and federal testing policies, graduation requirements, and school funding and resource allocation. Policy makers and educators must not become discouraged or give up when they encounter difficulties.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 11 As a society, we should not fail our youth by failing to provide them with the kind of educational program they need to achieve high standards of learning. Much is known about what needs to be done, and we are learning more every day about how to do it.
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