Why the Transition Process Matters for Students of All Ages

There is a wide range of transition plans from elementary school to middle school and from middle school to high school that can be seen in every school district. However, these plans have varying levels of success in regards to supporting every need that a student may have. Throughout my time as an Education major I have had the opportunity to view a diverse assortment of transition plans and have heard from the teachers involved how the students have done in transitioning into their new schools.

Research Says...

Moving is a stressful time for anybody, regardless of their age, so it is no surprise that middle school students also have a difficult time coping with changing schools. Some students experience a strong overwhelming feeling when in a new environment, therefore, it is helpful to provide students as many opportunities to become familiar with the new school as possible. The Shoffner and Williamson article provide a plethora of examples of things schools could do in order to support students such as: opportunities for incoming students to interact with current students and staff, multiple chances to tour the school, attempt their locker, and meet with their faculty advisor, if they have one.

Another aspect of support that schools should offer during the transition period, according to Koppang, is social and emotional support. In one scenario, a survey was distributed among all incoming middle school students where they were asked to determine how concerned they were about various middle school related topics. At the first orientation, students were split into small groups and the items that were deemed most concerning from the survey were discussed with students by both adults and current middle school students. During these small group sessions, students were separated from their parents and it was clear that students felt much more comfortable asking questions about the topics that were giving them anxiety.

How do Positive (or Negative) Transition Experiences Affect Students: A Personal Example 

Ensuring that the transition process is simple and supportive for students should be at the top of a school’s priority list. In my experience, a well down transition program can promote a student's success in ways that they could not receive from elsewhere. The reason I feel so strongly about the transition process is because through my personal participation in a variety of schools transition programs either as an active participant or an observer I have come to the conclusion that students at both the elementary and middle school level need a high level of support during times of transitioning between schools. The transition situations that I have experienced are similar to those found in the Shoffner and Williamson article. During my transition from eighth grade to high school my school hosted a picnic complete with some of our future teachers as well as “peer helpers” that were juniors or seniors. For me, this was a beneficial experience because on my first day in the high school there were multiple smiling faces that were there to welcome the new ninth graders and assist them with whatever they needed. My school district recently removed this picnic and changed the way in which fifth graders begin middle school.

During my senior year of high school I was provided the opportunity to intern in our middle school where I had the experience of watching students transition. The eighth graders had very little support in preparing for their move to the high school and the incoming sixth graders struggled to acclimate to their new environment that was much different than their previous elementary school. In terms of grades, I watched sixth graders struggle for the first few months and once the sixth graders had adjusted, the anxiety of moving to high school began to affect the eighth graders and their grades began to plummet along with their attitudes and outlook on their futures. While I know I cannot make any changes alone, I strongly believe that there are a host of programs and activities that schools could implement to help create more positive experiences for students.

What do Positive Transition Programs look like in Action?

Transition plans can look very different in action depending on the school a student is attending. Shoffner and Williamson have created a three part plan to help ease transitions for students which includes a prior to transition, during the summer, and during the school year stage.

Prior to the Transition:

1. Conduct a study group including a variety of teams and/or teachers to evaluate and potentially redesign the program.
2. Utilize school counselors and administrators talents by having them visit the incoming students to provide them with information about their new school.
1. Counselors can also spend time meeting with each student to answer any questions or concerns while also developing a personal relationship with each student.
3. Collaborate with students and teachers to develop an “Introduction to Middle and/or High School” program.
4. Plan meeting with parents of the incoming students.
1. Work to build relationships with these parents through informational mailings and phone calls.
5. Work to ensure that both students and parents are comfortable in their new environment.
6. Hold a spring open house for incoming students and parents.
7. Build connections between incoming students and current students. This can be done through the use of pen pals and student shadow days.

During the Summer:

1. Provide information for the upcoming school year early.
2. Inform students of their teacher/team assignments prior to the end of the previous school year.
3. Create a buddy system with older students. Allow eighth graders to act as “big brothers” or “big sisters.” The younger students benefit from knowing someone while the older students feel a sense of pride of being a mentor.
4. Provide time for students and parents to meet building faculty and teachers at a summer open house.

During the School Year:

1. Provide students time to become aquainted with their new building, locker, and class schedule. Request that for the first few weeks older students act as guides for the incoming students.
2. Design parent education programs to aid parents in continuing to support their child throughout their time in education.
3. Provide classroom advisory lessons on topics such as peer pressure, study skills, and bullying to help teachers in combating these common issues in middle and high school.
4. Include opportunities for school counselors to work with first-year students to address any problems they may have during and after the transition period. Ensure that counselors and administrators visit first-year classrooms during the first few weeks of school to interact with students.
5. Repeat the process by requesting feedback from teachers and students on the transition program and make necessary adjustments.

Below is a video that highlights some common issues in transitioning from middle to high school and how students in Boston Public Schools worked to smooth the process.

Conclusion:

Creating a successful transition program will require the involvement of all faculty and staff within both the student's current school and their future school. However, the benefit that the students, teachers, and families will receive will be well worth it. As stated above, a student's success in their new school can be determined by how positive of an experience their transition into their new school was.

The link to my Annotated Bibliography that includes all of the sources I used for this post can be found here.

Epstein's Framework

This week in Middle Grades Organization we were challenged to think critically about Epstein's Framework of Family Involvement. The two that I have chosen to take an in-depth look at are communication and volunteering.

The communication tier of Epstein's framework involves both school to home and home to school communication. It is so important to have a fluid line of communication between teachers and families because that is one way to ensure student success. Communication can be seen through parent-teacher conferences, report cards, sending portfolios of student work home, and providing information about various programs and topics that relate to a child's school experience. Of course these are not the only ways in which teachers should be communicating with parents, but it is a few examples that move away from the typical phone calls, emails, or letters home. The benefits of ensuring an open line of communication between teachers and families is that families will become more aware of what is occurring within the school and they will be capable of better understanding the policies in place.

Like many things, communication is not always perfect. One of the major challenges with communication is simply having the time to carve out of one's daily schedule to communicate with families. Many teachers have between twenty and thirty students so it can be difficult ensuring that you make contact with each family on a regular basis. However, that is a place where something like a weekly newsletter may come in handy because you will be able to briefly update families on the happenings within the classroom, saving your time to be used for calling or writing to parents about their child's success, or struggles.

In my future classroom, I would ideally like to have a weekly newsletter to send home with parents, as well as a set time each week to make phone calls or send emails to update parents on anything significant that happened for their student. I would like to make contact with every family at least once every two weeks, but I know it may be a difficult task within my first few years of teaching. I would also like to implement student run parent-teacher conferences because involving students in their future is the only way to set them up for success.

The other tier of Epstein's framework that I feel is important is encouraging families to volunteer whenever possible. Volunteering can be done in many ways. A few examples are allowing parents to participate in coaching a sport, leading a club, speaking on career day, providing contacts/networking opportunities (for students or other parents), or helping within the classroom or school. Allowing parents to volunteer their time or abilities is an important well to help ensure that parents feel welcome within the school building. It is also important to remember that not every parent or guardian will be able donate their time, but they may still want to volunteer in some form - it is crucial that they know that we, as educators, are willing to work with them and that we try to find a way to involve them, however that way may be!

In the future, it may be difficult to welcome parents into my classroom frequently, but I would like to think of ways to involve them throughout the year. I do envision working in a school that has a "bring your parent to school day" or something of the nature, which is beneficial for parents to see what their students are learning. Students can also benefit from volunteer parents because it provides them with the opportunity to practice socializing with adults that they may not typically come in contact with. Teachers also benefit from the involvement of parents because it reminds teachers that they are not alone and they have the support of their student's parents.

Middle School Advisory

This week for Middle Grades Organization our prompt is: Based on the research and readings, what makes a strong advisory program?  What would this look like in practice?  

In my opinion, a strong advisory program first and foremost focuses on building strong teacher-student relationships. From both the readings I've done and personal experiences, if a student does not have at least one positive student-teacher relationship, they will be less likely to succeed in school. The readings state that academic performance increases when students are aware that there is somebody with in the school that cares for them. Advisory should also help students to develop important life skills. During this time students can work on developing integrity, honing decision-making abilities, and understanding themselves and where they fit into the larger context of the school and the world.

In practice, a middle school advisory should allow students to freely communicate with each other and their advisor during advisory time. The activities completed during this time should not be traditional paper and pencil writing assignments that the students would complete in their academic classes. Students should be engaged and motivated as a way to start their day on the "right foot." Advisory time should not feel like an academic class, otherwise its purpose is defeated. As an advisory progresses, the sense of community throughout the class should become stronger.

To summarize, in my opinion, the most important characteristics of a strong middle school advisory program are:

1. Building positive teacher-student relationships
2. Ensuring students know that someone cares about them and their life
3. Working to develop important life skills
4. Motivating students positively for the day ahead of them
1. Supervising academic progress
5. Open lines of communication between students and advisors

Middle School Teaming

In Middle Grades Organization we were asked to reflect on Teaming. The prompt we were given was: Teaming is the heart and soul of middle school organization.  What are you wondering about middle school teaming?  What ideas in the readings or class discussions have challenged your thinking?  What ah-ha's have you had thus far?

Just last Thursday I met with my Cooperating Teacher that I will be Student Teaching with. He works on a five person team teaching grades 7 and 8. As we were talking, he mentioned that just last year the principal allowed the teachers to vote on whether they wanted 5 core teaching periods (with less students) or if they would prefer 4 core teaching periods (with more students) but they would have, from my understanding, 2 opportunities to meet as a team each day. The teachers overwhelmingly voted in favor of having more team time. After spending the week learning all about teaming, I started thinking about the students that will be in those large classes. Where I come from in Pennsylvania, we emphasized having the smallest classes possible, so it is an entirely different concept for teachers to choose to have classes in the range of 25-30 students. I understand the importance of working with your team more often, but how does increasing class size in order to do that affect students and their learning? I cannot wait to be in that classroom so I can see how things really do work for that school and why their larger class sizes are still as successful as their smaller ones. 

Looking back over the readings from last week leads me to believe that maybe increasing class size will not negatively impact students learning due to the fact that teams that work well together typically enhance student learning. I suppose that after my Education courses last semester, I am thinking about personalization 24/7 and how we can make learning relevant to all of our students, which seems like it would be something difficult to do with a class that size. This may simply be my inexperience talking, but I definitely see it as a concern, at this point in time.

The biggest "ah-ha" that I have had is how much teaming in my school district (in Pennsylvania) would have helped students. At my school district classes were not intertwined, teachers had to discuss students either at lunch or after school, and they had no time to coordinate with each other. I know in the near future that I will be lucky to land any teaching job, but after completing the reading and meeting my cooperating teacher (and part of his team), I feel very strongly that I working in multidisciplinary teams at the middle school level is truly the only way that teaching should be done.

Vocabulary Lesson

This past week in Literacy for Middle and High School we were given the opportunity to create and teach a mini (20 minute) lesson plan centered around vocabulary for the unit we have been building over the course of the semester. For this lesson we were also asked to record our teaching so we could review and critique ourselves to better our teaching abilities. To create my lesson plan, I chose to use vocabulary from the novel that I will be having students read; the novel is The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. The lesson is designed to be an introduction/pre-reading lesson for students before we begin reading. I will transform this twenty minute lesson into a full ninety minute lesson for my unit because I have planned to begin the novel with students in class during the lesson and will also work with the vocabulary at the beginning of the lesson.

The task of creating and implementing a vocabulary lesson plan falls within Performance Criterion 3.1: candidates design learning environments that support individual learning marked by active engagement. I demonstrated this through engaging students in the vocabulary through using personal experiences as examples for vocabulary words. Students were able to make better connections by hearing the stories of others and sharing their own in relation to vocabulary words. My lesson plan also falls within Performance Criterion 6.1: candidates implement multiple methods of assessment to monitor learner progress to  inform instructional practice. In my lesson students were formatively assessed through the use of the Frayer Diagram activity and the verbal assessment at the end of the lesson. In both activities, students were given a word and asked to work with it to define it and/or give examples. If I would have had a larger class of actual middle schools students, I would have been able to use the information from the first assessment (Frayer Diagram) to help me determine which words may still be difficult for students and I could have addressed them in the verbal assessment. 

After reviewing the video of my teaching I noticed that I am a very distracting person to watch and that I need to work on my public speaking. A few of the things I noticed were that I tend to fidget a lot in down time such as organizing papers and moving around when it is unnecessary; I also tend to smack my lips a lot when talking which makes a very distracting noise, as well as slapping my hands against my legs and, in general, moving my hands around a lot when teaching. I also noticed that I tried to build relationships with students; I can be heard joking with students and connecting to their personal lives when possible. This is mainly because I know my classmates, but I would also like to know my future students on an appropriate level as well so I am able to make these connections. The one thing that I am very proud of that I do is always providing one piece of positive feedback to students when they offer a response or example. There is research that shows that immediately providing positive feedback, before providing any criticism, makes people more likely to continue doing their work at their individual level of excellence, as well as makes them more likely to share. This same idea can, and should, be applied to students to encourage their learning.

This experience has shown me just how important a solid vocabulary foundation can be for students. When looking at texts of middle school grade levels, I often have no trouble with the words, but that is not the case for the future students I will have. It is extremely important for us, as future educators, to always take into consideration the difficulties that our future students may have within our content area. As an aspiring history teacher, it will also be crucial for me to explain to students why these vocabulary words are necessary to learn considering we often do not talk about historical events on a day to day basis, unless we are in school. I will also plan many opportunities for work with the vocabulary throughout my unit to ensure that students are learning and using the words. Ideally, I would like to stay away from the traditional vocabulary test and, instead, have students use the words more frequently, both written and orally, for me to check their understanding multiple ways without the anxiety of an exam. 

My next steps in this process will be to gain more experience in both teaching and public speaking. I would like to move toward using my hands less, and in a less distracting manner, as well as avoiding "um, ah, like" and smacking my lips. The only real way to diminish these habits is through practice, so I intend to seek out opportunities for said practice. In regards to the actual lesson and unit, I will plan for the experiences that I discussed above to ensure that students have as much exposure to the vocabulary as possible within my classroom to guarantee that students will be well versed in the content jargon and on the path to being informed, global citizens. 

Resource Evaluation Reflection

Through the class Literacy in Middle and High School we were assigned to work on a Resource Evaluation of a resource that we plan to use in our unit. For my unit, I plan to require my students to read The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank due to its relation to the Holocaust, its readability, and the ability for students to form connections due to their similarities in age with Anne Frank. The purpose of the resource evaluation was for us, as educators, to examine our resource through the eyes and minds of our students. Our students come from varying reading levels so it is important to ensure that the texts we ask students to read are informative and easily comprehendible while remaining an approrpiate challenge for students.

The completion of the resource evaluation fits with performance criterion 7.1: candidates plan instruction by drawing upon knowledge of content areas to meet rigorous learning goals. Since I will use The Diary of  a Young Girl in conjunction with instruction about World War II and the Holocaust, I will use Anne Frank's diary and other readings to engage students and teach them about the topic through personal narratives while also meeting the standards I chose for my unit. The resource evaluation also fits with performance criterion 8.1: candidates use a variety of instructional strategies to make the discipline accessible for diverse learners because I will plan a multitude of opportunities for students to interact with the text in order to learn the information and central concepts surrounding the book and those that relate to the broader objectives of the unit. 

The aspects of reading and texts that will be most important for me to evaluate when reading and assigning reading to students would be the readability and whether or not they have the background knowledge to understand the text fully. First and foremost, students should be challenged with their assignments, but it is also necessary to ensure that they are able to retrieve the information that is essential to their learning of the discipline. It will also be crucial that I survey students to determine the background knowledge that they possess prior to beginning a unit, providing them with any necessary background knowledge that they may not have, and clearing up any misconceptions about the topic we are discussing. 

The main thing that I have learned about supporting all students to learn from disciplinary texts is that all students do not learn the same way because they are not all at the same level. In my future classroom I will have students at varying reading levels, therefore, it will be necessary for me, as their teacher, to determine what texts are approrpiate for each student regarding the readability and level of challenge of the texts and assign readings accordingly. So long as students are getting the necessary information to achieve proficiency, I am more than happy to differentiate materials to ensure student learning.

Mini Lesson Reflection

On Tuesday, November 8th, and Thursday, November 10th, each student in 343/361 had the opportunity to teach two twenty minute lessons back to back. This was a great experience that took a lot of planning. A folder of documents can be seen here and include my lesson plan, documents for my activities and assessments, my agenda for both days, and the feedback documents from both my peers/students and professors. 

This experience of planning and implementing two back to back lessons aligns with the Performance Criterion 6.1, candidates implement multiple methods of assessment to monitor learner progress to  inform instructional practice, and Performance Criterion 7.1, candidates plan instruction by drawing upon knowledge of content areas to meet rigorous learning goals. Due to the class size only being four people, it was very easy to assess the students multiple times and multiple ways. At the end of Tuesday's class I had them hand in an exit slip which involved them writing down questions they still had and something that they learned from the lesson. On Thursday's class I had the opportunity to personally communicate with each student in regards to the activity they did, as well as I had them answer a short essay response question. To meet performance criterion 7.1, I used my interest in World War II combined with one of the standards I chose for my unit, College, Career & Civic Life C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards: D2.His.3.6-8., to create a lesson centered around responsibility and the Holocaust.

This back to back teaching opportunity was not my first experience with teaching back to back because, a few weeks ago, I had the same opportunity at my placement. During my placement lessons, I was also given the chance to teach the same lesson in two morning Social Studies mods. During that experience, I learned to modify from one mod to another because, as can be expected, the first mod did not go as planned. During the back to back lessons in 343/361, I learned more about modifying from one day to another and I look forward to learning how to better modify for multiple class mods who may, or may not, be moving at the same pace.

In regards to modifications from Tuesday's lesson to Thursday's lesson, I used the exit slips that students turned in on Tuesday and created a review sheet for them. The reason I did this was primarily because the lesson I chose to teach would be placed towards the end of the fourth week of the unit I designed, therefore, it will be important for students to have the background knowledge of everything we discussed up to that point to apply in developing their ideas about responsibility and the Holocaust. Considering the fact that we only had forty minutes over two days to teach this lesson, I felt the quickest way would be to create a review sheet for students to review rather than spending a day of class reviewing. In a future classroom, with more time, I would plan time for review during class with the review sheet as a take home supplement.

My final assessment involved a short answer essay of the prompt: How did the person/people you assigned the most blame to affect the way the Holocaust is perceived as historically significant? How would the Holocaust change if that person/group of people was not involved? This is a variation of the focusing questions which can be seen on my lesson plan. It also allows the students to form their own opinion about responsibility and blame, considering they are often subjective ideas. Since students also had to use information from the unit to justify their responses, they had the opportunity to demonstrate their learning as well.

The activity that I chose to have the students complete was very engaging for students, so I believe that it will be a great activity for my future classroom if/when I teach this unit. While I have always enjoyed and appreciated having agendas in my classes, I discovered just how helpful they are for teachers as well. Having an agenda helped to keep me aware of time and ensured that I did not run over my allotted time. The use of the agenda also allowed students to know what would be happening during class and what expectations I had.

The main revision that I would make to this lesson plan for my final unit would be to include more time for students to work on the activity and, with a larger class, more time for discussion. I am designing my unit around 90 minute class periods, so I feel as though time may be less of an issue.

One thing I would like to focus on as I move towards and during student teaching would be internal confidence. This process of creating and teaching back to back lessons has shown me that I am extremely capable of teaching and being successful. However, I have a tendency to believe that I will fail and/or the lesson will go horribly and/or I will not know enough about the given subject to teach my students effectively. I have learned, during student teaching, that failing is okay because there will be another teacher in the room to step in when necessary, that every lesson is a learning opportunity and as long as students learn it does not matter if you make a fool of yourself, and that whenever I feel that I know less about a subject than I should, that means I need to study and read more about it. I believe that by working diligently on improving myself a little bit each and every day, that this goal is more than attainable.