School can serve as a protective factor, or a risk factor, for a child or adolescent receiving a public education. Risk factors are individual, family, community, or environmental elements (behaviors, attributes) that increase the likelihood of negative life outcomes, i.e., dropping out of school, unemployment, and incarceration. Protective factors can be characteristics / conditions that increase positive life outcomes, or characteristics / conditions that help protect against existing risk factors. For example, living in a high poverty urban setting may be a drop out risk factor for adolescents attending a local, underfunded high school. Living in an affluent suburban area may be a protective factor for adolescents attending the local, public high school. Regardless of economic resources, school size, or family dynamics, school connectedness can be a protective factor for students (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2009). When children feel that teachers care about their learning, and are invested in their success, those children are at increased likelihood for positive life outcomes, e.g., academic achievement, employment. So how do educators increase school connectedness? How do we ensure that high school students feel cared about and valued by their teachers? Hirsch et al. pointed out one of the underlying factors to influence teacher caring (and school connectedness) in the title of their report, Teacher Working Conditions are Student Learning Conditions. Specifically, Hirsch et al. found that working conditions “have a direct impact on teacher retention” (p. 14) and student achievement (p. 51). Poor working conditions adversely effect teacher commitment to their current jobs, and thus, their long-term in... ... middle of paper ... ...ary schools. American Secondary Education, 31(2), 49-70. Rhodes, J.E., Camic, P.M., Milburn, M., & Lowe, S.R. (2009). Improving middle school climate through teacher-centered change. Journal of Community Psychology, 37, 711-724. Hirsch, E., Emerick, S., Church, K., & Fuller, E. (2007). Teacher Working Conditions Are Student Learning Conditions: A Report on the 2006 North Carolina Teacher Working Conditions Survey. Center for Teaching Quality: Chapel Hill, NC. Retrieved from http://www.eric.ed.gov/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=ED498770. Singh, K., & Billingsley, B.S. (1998). Professional support and its effects on teachers’ commitment. The Journal of Educational Research, 91, 229-239. Smith, P.A., Hoy, W.K., & Sweetland, S.R. (2001). Organizational health of high schools and dimensions of faculty trust. Journal of School Leadership, 11, 135-151.
That broader conception of school allowed those schools to better support the students and address social issues that prevent students from accessing their full potential. This conceptual shift can only be spurred by a clear vision of “good education”—which then caused an improvement in their community’s education
Carol Gerber Allred (Allred, 2008) describes strategies for improving classroom climate related to learning for the students, while enforcing a set of classroom expectations, informing students of their positive actions, infusing intrinsic motivation, encouraging positive behavior, connecting with students’ families and community, and being positive yourself (Allred, 2008). These strategies align with the attributes described in indicator 1a to foster respect for diversity, establish rapport, promote risk-taking and establish high
She claims that “schools are complex ecosystems,” meaning that there are multiple factors in question. One factor is the challenge of hiring good teachers, “given the privations of the job and poor odds of student success.” Some teachers choose to leave schools in low-income areas due to the amount of money they receive, as schools in high-income areas earn more; creating an imbalance between good or bad teachers and high or low-income areas. Another factor are the unsafe conditions in schools, as “it is hard to teach and even harder to learn in such places”. Problems like “stiflingly hot classrooms, collapsing ceilings, poisoned drinking water” all intervene with the ability for children to learn. By focusing on these issues, schools can repair and mend the in-school stressors that affect children in low-income
This paper explores the factors involved in success in the teaching field regardless of the environment. The information is based on the interview of current teacher Jane Satrom and her experience with a variety of adversities as a long time educator such as attending professional learning community (PLC) and department planning period (DPP) meetings. Her responses to various questions are compared to written advice for success in the college textbook Peak Performance: Success in College and Beyond in order to verify which skills and strategies are necessary in order to succeed. Major themes discussed are self-control, motivation, time management, and goal setting as used to succeed in the classroom. There are varying perspectives in the definition
Fundamentally, the first question one should seek an answer is; what factors would need to be studied in order to answer the question of whether teacher turnover is too high or too low? Many people would quickly hypothesize that retirement is the major cause for teacher attrition. However, a close scrutiny of the situation on the ground has it that this is not true. According to the analysis done by the US department of education, 2000 to 2001, teachers give other reasons rather than retirement when leaving and the most common include job dissatisfaction and search for other positions in other professions. For those teachers who transfer schools, 65 percent move because of lack of planning time, 60 percent move because of wo...
The sixth-grade year is critical in terms of providing the foundation for a student’s middle school career (Clark, 2007). If students have problems transitioning to middle school, the outcome for students may be negative (Ruiz, 2005). Akos, Eccles, and Midgley (1993) state that the timing of these events in a student’s life can lead to lower motivation, lower self-efficacy, lower standardized test scores, higher rates of absenteeism, and behavioral issues. Developmentally responsive schools may be the key to alleviating the problems of young adolescents' school transition (Mullins, Emmett R.; Irvin,
Even when low-income schools manage to find adequate funding, the money doesn’t solve all the school’s problems. Most importantly, money cannot influence student, parent, teacher, and administrator perceptions of class and race. Nor can money improve test scores and make education relevant and practical in the lives of minority students. School funding is systemically unequal, partially because the majority of school funding comes from the school district’s local property taxes, positioning the poorest communities at the bottom rung of the education playing field. A student’s socioeconomic status often defines her success in a classroom for a number of reasons.
Teachers: What Do We Really Know? Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness , 2 (3), 209-249.
Schneider, Mark., and Washington, DC. National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities. "Linking School Facility Conditions to Teacher Satisfaction and Success." (2003): ERIC. EBSCO. Web. 2 May 2011.
It is argued that there are 4 elements critical to the effectiveness of the instructional process: 1. the learner, 2. the teacher, 3. the home, and 4. the academic programs and the physical facilities at the school. These are interdependent and interactive and must function in unison for effective teaching to take place. The teacher's primary responsibility is to help the learner grow intellectually, physically, emotionally, and socially. Therefore, teachers should be competent, dedicated, and committed to the profession of teaching and to the service of the students. Teachers should have adequate academic and professional preparation and the requisite traits of character. Teachers should be respected, appreciated, and sumptuously remunerated to enable them to devote themselves with total concentration to the task of teaching. A home where education is valued contributes in immeasurable ways to the quality of learning of the child. Finally, the school should have innovative, creative, differentiated, and challenging academic programs."</cite> For example, if the schools physical facilities aren't in a good, safe condition, the learner will have a hard time learning because his mind will be on his own personal safety and well being. A lot of the inner city schools in the United States are older than the teachers that teach in them. Some schools are so overc...
582; Cemaloğlu et al., 2012, p. 54). Transformational leadership behaviors have both direct and indirect effects on teachers’ behavior, psychological states, and organizational performance (Balyer, 2012, p. 582). Such leaders motivate teachers to empower themselves to produce unexpected performance in terms of STEM curriculum. Also, they sharpen teachers’ skills and augment their knowledge from their own experiences (Asgari et al., 2008, p. 228; Balyer, 2012, p. 582; Seyal, 2015, p. 34). Also, transformational leadership builds genuine trust between school leaders and teachers since principals respect the teachers and deal with the difficulties they encounter. In turn teachers trust the principals and provide them with autonomy to increase their performance and efficacy (Asgari et al., 2008, p. 235; Balyer, 2012, p. 587; Cemaloğlu et al., 2012, p. 54). Such an approach explains that school administrators can become exceptional leaders who also qualify as moral leaders (Balyer, 2012, p. 582; Pless & Maak, 2011, p. 8). To add, charisma, individualized consideration, and intellectual stimulation serve as the main components of leaders addressing underrepresentation in STEM (Seyal, 2015, p.
Sadker, D.M., Sadker, M.P., and Zittleman, K.R.,(2008) Teachers, Students, and Society (8th ed.).New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
School climate has been studied for over 100 years.Until the 1950s, educators began to systemically study it, and there has been a growing body of research on the effect of school climate on education over the past 10 years . According to H. Jerome Freiberg (School Climate: Measuring, Improving and Sustaining Healthy Learning Environments, 2005), “School climate is much like the air we breathe -it tends to go unnoticed until something is seriously wrong”. School climate influences our education a lot. It is invisible, but necessary.There are many definitions of it. In the article “Measuring, improving and sustaining healthy learning environments”,Freiberg and Stein (1999) describe school climate as the heart and soul of the school and it draws the teachers and students attentions to participate the school. According to Homana,Barber,and Torney-Purta(Background on the school citizenship education climate assessment, 2006), “School climate refers to the impressions, beliefs, and expectations held by members of the school community about their school as a learning environment, their associated behavior, and the symbols and institutions that represent the patterned expressions of the behavior.” It made the definition more detailed. In the article “Student and teacher perceptions of school climate: A multilevel exploration of patterns of discrepancy”, Mitchell et al (2010) states that school climate is defined a communications between students and teachers to share attitudes, values ,and knowledge. It refers to the quality and character of school life.[1] Researchers have found that positive school climate can affect many areas ,such as decrease the students’ emotional problems (Kuperminc et al., 1997), help urban students succeed i...
Teachers have the unique opportunity to support students’ academic and social development at all levels of schooling (Baker et al., 2008; Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998; McCormick, Cappella, O’Connor, & McClowry, in press). According to the attachment theory (Ainsworth, 1982; Bowlby, 1969), positive relationships enable learners to feel safe and secure in their learning environments which helps providing scaffolding for social and academic skills. Learners who have positive teacher-student relationships may have the feeling of closeness, warmth and positivity which will increase their learning ability (Hamre & Pianta 2001). Students will use this relationship as a secure base for them to explore the classroom both academically and socially. Positive relationship with an adult may protect against the negative outcomes associated with children who stay in poverty (Gallagher 2014). According to Murray and Malmgren (2005), low-income students who have strong teacher-student relationships have higher academic achievement than peers who do not have a positive relationship with a teacher. Therefore, if a learner is born in a rural area, he/she may still able to have great learning capacity if he/she has a positive relationships with everyone in the
Education and the school environment are one of the three primary agents of socialization where children and adolescents spend most of their time over any other environment. With this in mind, it is very important that everything about the school environment rears positive outcomes for children and adolescents because they spend most of their time there. This essay will explore the topic of the characteristics of school environments that promote positive student outcomes and the studies that suggest the importance of these characteristics. Some of the characteristics that will be discussed as sub-topics will be the importance of the classroom climate, the teacher-student relationship, the socio-emotional climate of the classroom, school organizational structure, teaching and learning environment and student connectedness to the school. If the school environment is positive and students feel safe and supported, they are more likely to do well and achieve their full potential.