Session Abstracts

Closing the Achievement Gap through the Development of Critical Thinking Skills through Media Literacy Study

Thomas Goodkind

 

One of the realities today of underachieving students is that they often lack interest and motivation in traditional school study. Too many students view school as not relevant to their lives, school as a necessary evil, and something to be endured until the bell rings and they can escape to their own more interesting world of today’s technology outside of school. This outside “other school”, much more exciting to many students, is what we as educators and parents are competing with for the time, attention, focus, and interest of students. The mass media is a huge and attractive influence on young people. This workshop will demonstrate how developing critical thinking skills through media literacy programs is a natural way to close the achievement gap by helping underachieving and Under motivated students to relate to, learn from, and better understand the “other school” of the mass media. Helping students acquire important basic skills while becoming more aware of the mass media forces influencing their lives – their thinking, focus, priorities, values, and actions – and thinking critically about these forces is a key part of the growing media literacy movement today and can help close the achievement gap in our educational programs.

An Investigation of Successful Mathematics Instruction in an Urban High School

Michael Egan

 

Equity researchers in mathematics have long examined reform-oriented curricula as a potential means of closing the achievement gap, but are increasingly recognizing the need to investigate the practices of teachers who have been successful with students from traditionally underserved student groups.  This study aligns with the recent trend.  The practices of two successful mathematics teachers working predominantly with students of color in a large urban high school were examined.  This descriptive case study found that the teachers’ interpersonal qualities may be more central to their impact on students than their choice of teaching style.  Discussion of how these findings relate to larger conversations of mathematics education and urban education are presented.

Narrowing the Achievement Gap: A Success Story

Vivian Ikpa

 

In 2005, the Norfolk public Schools district was awarded the Broad Prize for Urban education.  This prestigious award is given to the urban school district that has made the most progress in narrowing achievement gaps among ethnic minorities as well as economically stratified students. In an effort to better understand the dynamics involved in narrowing the achievement gap, perhaps one should focus on success stories such as Norfolk. Educators, researchers, and policymakers may need to rethink research findings based on deficits models that present minority students as pathological entities. The purpose of this paper is to describe the reform strategies utilized by the district to narrow the achievement gap between minority and non-minority students.

Evidence Based Practices in Classroom Management

Sarah Fairbanks, Amy Briesch, Diane Meyers & Brandi Simonsen

 

To adequately close the achievement gap, teachers must employ both effective teaching and effective behavior management strategies.  In this presentation, we will present five critical features of evidence based classroom management.  Participants will walk away with a handout that describes the evidence base for each feature.

Improving School Culture to Raise Student Achievement

Soon Nam Choi & Lauren Rodriguez

 

This presentation will offer an exploration into schools that are implementing the data-driven, inquiry based comprehensive school improvement model, Accelerated Schools.  Using data collected from the Accelerated School’s School and Classroom Culture Survey, participants will learn how a positive school culture vastly influences student achievement.  Conversations will include the changing roles that effective teachers and administrators need to employ to facilitate the school transformation process, and the participation of various stake holders in the change process.   Everyone has a responsibility for making a full commitment to student achievement. Finally, participants will leave with strategies to increase school culture that will directly affect student achievement and close the gaps that exist.

An Examination of Differences in Student Growth

Martha McCall

 

This session reports on a study comparing the reading and mathematics growth of minority students to non-minority students and poorer students to wealthier students.  The study sample covered grades three through eight and included over 500,000 from 24 states.  During the school year, minority students grew less than European-Americans and students from poor schools grew less than those from wealthier ones.  When students with comparable skills at the end of the school year were measured in the following fall, poor and minority students grew less or lost more ground than their wealthier and European American peers.  In general, increased school time, including pre-school, extended school days and longer school years has been effective in narrowing the gap.  Surveys show that Americans have a keen desire to close the gap and a strong belief that it can be closed.  These results indicate that strategies for closing the achievement gap need to be aimed at all students, not just those at lower achievement levels. 

Closing the Achievement Gap: Universal Instruction Design Meets Social Network Theory

Na’im Madyun

 

Universal Design (UD) was created to promote better access for all by influencing the Development of climatic, communication, and resource structures.  Although primarily for individuals with disabilities, UD has functioned to increase access for many groups.  UD has been applied to education as Universal Instructional Design and reduces the number of accommodation and adjustments teachers  typically make to provide equality in educational opportunity in the classroom. For the past 50 years, there has been a documented achievement gap in American classrooms. Recent social theory argues that the social networks of groups play a significant role in the existence of the achievement gap.  I will present the literature for both UID and social network theory and explain their connection in the classroom. Using the principles of Universal Instructional Design and components of social network theory, I will develop a set of recommendations to guide teachers in reducing the number of barriers in their classrooms at both an instructional and social level. I submit these recommendations will increase the richness of the educational experience for average to above average learners and in addition to improve the educational outcomes of below average learner and assist in reducing the achievement gap.

Closing the Achievement Gap for Limited-English Proficiency Students

John Leach

 

After viewing a video of an inspiring story of Janek and the American Dream, the participants will identify and discuss initiatives to eliminate the gap between learners. Special attention will be given to helping students with limited English proficiency to achieve.

Closing the Vocabulary Gap: Intensifying Vocabulary Instruction for At-Risk Students

Susan Loftus, Richard Zipoli, Michael Coyne, D. Betsy McCoach, Michael Fagella-Luby, Stephanie Allen, Emily McCoy & Rebecca Curtin

 

Children begin kindergarten with vast differences in vocabulary knowledge and this vocabulary gap only grows larger and more discrepant in the early grades.  Although studies have shown extended vocabulary instruction to be effective enhancing word learning across ability levels, there is evidence to suggest that gains in vocabulary are differential based on prior vocabulary knowledge.  These findings suggest that students who are at risk for language and literacy difficulties may require additional direct, explicit vocabulary instruction in order to make vocabulary gains comparable to their peers. This session will present effective instructional strategies designed to support the vocabulary growth of primary grade students who are at-risk for language and literacy difficulties. These strategies were developed and evaluated as part of a multi-year program of research funded by the U.S. Department of Education.

Preventing Reading Failure: Supporting Reading Development in the Primary Grades

Yvel Crevecoeur, Athena Lentini, Maureen Ruby & Michael Coyne

 

One of the most consistent and consequential findings to emerge from the extensive knowledge base in beginning reading is that the trajectory of reading success or failure begins early in a child’s educational experience. Moreover, once reading trajectories are established, they become stubbornly resistant to change. There is widespread agreement that a preventive approach to reading difficulties is more effective in closing the reading achievement gap than trying to remediate difficulties once students fall behind. At issue is how to establish important early reading skills before negative reading trajectories become intractable. This session will present initial findings from a multi-year program of research funded by the U.S. Department of Education focused on supporting students in the primary grades in developing critical beginning reading skills through intensive and systematic intervention.

The Daily Behavior Report Card (DBRC) as an Evidence-Based Tool in Intervention and Assessment with At-Risk Students

Amy Briesch & Sandra Chafouleas

 

Research has shown that many teachers already use Daily Behavior Report Cards (DBRCs) in their classrooms and schools. However, many are not aware of the growing literature base with regard to their use in both intervention and assessment with at-risk students. One focus of this session will be to provide practical implementation strategies for the use of DBRCs in intervention. As a result of their inherent flexibility, DBRCs may be used to effectively address a range of problems (e.g., academic, behavioral) across a wide range of ages (e.g., preschool, high school) and ability levels (e.g., regular, special education). In addition, participants will learn how a DBRC may serve as an efficient, feasible tool for progress monitoring purposes. We believe that the fact that a DBRC can be used as a simple, cost-effective means of intervening with at-risk students naturally makes it a highly feasible tool for narrowing the achievement gap.

Reducing Achievement Gaps in Mathematics by Accelerating the Development of Computational Fluency with Basic Facts

Anthony Gabriele

 

In this presentation, I describe a professional development project aimed at reducing achievement gaps in mathematics. The overarching strategy of the professional development effort is to help teachers become more effective and efficient teaching computation so that they may devote more instructional time to other mathematical topics. Teachers were provided training in use of a supplemental computational fluency curriculum, a set of 150 scripted mini-lessons designed to accelerate the development of computational fluency of 1st and 2nd grade students. The rationale for the design of this supplemental curriculum, field-test data on its effects on the acceleration of at-risk students’ computational proficiency, and subsequent reported increases in time available for other topics through classroom-wide curriculum compacting of lessons from the regular math curriculum  will be discussed.

 

 

Bridging the Gap between Schools and Language Minority Families

Thomas Levine

 

Decades of research tout the benefits of schools partnering with parents, but many schools struggle to partner with language minority families.  What are typical stumbling blocks to promoting constructive relationships between schools and culturally diverse families?  What did one urban school do to succeed at building connections across culture and language, and what else can be done? This presentation will share others’ research findings regarding how families and school staff may have very different values, life experiences, and role expectations, differences which contribute to the achievement gap.  It will then present practical approaches one school used to help teachers learn about and connect with families whose culture and first language differed from their own.  The session will frame the larger problem and some approaches while encouraging audience interaction: Audience members will articulate the problems and share methods of addressing them that they see in their own work.

Closing the Technology Gap: Incoming Freshman Need More than Just a Laptop

David Parker & Manju Banerjee

 

Effective transition planning has contributed richly to a three-fold increase in the numbers of college students with LD and/or ADHD during the past 20 years. These important gains may be threatened, however, by a newly-uneven digital playing field.  College course and daily academic operations increasingly require undergraduates to possess independent fluency with a growing range of learning technologies.  Many college students with LD/ADHD lack this proficiency and encounter limited sources of the direct instruction necessary to close this gap in demanding postsecondary environments.  This workshop will present the results of a recent study on the learning technology needs, preferences, and fluency of UConn undergraduates with and without disabilities.  Instructional materials and student products from an emerging model of technology-infused learning strategy instruction will be presented to inform a discussion about implications for the tech competency preparedness of college-bound students with LD and/or ADHD. 

Intelligences Outside the Normal Curve: Factors that Contribute to the Creation of Social Capital in Young People and Adults

Joseph Renzulli

 

What causes some people to mobilize their interpersonal, political, environmental, ethical, and moral realms of being in such ways that they place human concerns and the common good above material gain, ego enhancement, and self-indulgence? Where do the Mother Teresas, Nelson Mandelas, Martin Luther Kings, and Rachel Carsons come from?   How can we promote more leaders like them? Persons who have made contributions to all areas of human accomplishment have been recognized because of their abilities, creativity, and task commitment.  But there are other characteristics that can be found in truly remarkable people, and especially people have used their gifts and talents to promote social capital and to make the world a better place.  This presentation focuses on these co-cognitive characteristics and various ways that we can develop them in young people.  Included are traits such as courage, optimism, a sense of power to change things, vision and a sense of destiny, and the ability to fall in love with a topic or discipline.

The Signature Initiative - Developing High Potential Youth: Take a Closer Look: You May Be Missing what Gold Man Sachs Students Have to Offer

Heather Corcoran

 

African American and Hispanic students are underrepresented at the 173 most selective colleges.  The Signature Initiative: Developing High-Potential Youth for Excellence and Leadership program was established to boost the numbers of under-represented students who become academically prepared, apply, and are subsequently admitted to these prestigious institutions.  Four programs will be profiled that share a common goal but have individual approaches to achieving the outcome.  As of June 2006, over 1,200 students have participated and students have enrolled in selective colleges.  This session will focus on the ETS program evaluation and will highlight some of the findings from the Signature Initiative Evaluation. 

Supporting Literacy Engagement for Upper Elementary and Middle School Students

Susannah Richards

 

What are the qualities of a reading and language arts program that supports literacy engagement?  This session will explore strategies and resources to create an environment that supports the development of lifetime and not schooltime readers and writers.  Using the work of Stephanie Harvey, Lucy Caulkins, Joseph Renzulli, Carol Ann Tomlinson and others for a foundation, this approach emphasizes a reading and language arts classroom where students want to read and write.  The focus will be on building on students' interests to create opportunities to explore writing and reading experiences in a variety of genres including graphic novels, poetry and nonfiction. Sample learning experiences and suggested materials will be shared and used to model high level differentiated curriculum for upper elementary and middle grade students that replicates the qualities of lifetime readers and writers.

A School Improvement Framework for Promoting Evidence-Based Academic and Behavior Supports

Michael Coyne, Sandra Chafouleas, Michael Faggella-Luby, Brandi Simonsen & George Sugai

 

A panel presentation and discussion by the research scientists from the University of Connecticut Center for Behavioral Education and Research (CBER) will focus on closing the achievement gap through application of a comprehensive framework for school improvement and improving both behavioral and academic outcomes for all students. The conceptual framework applies across both behavioral and academic domains and includes the following critical features: (a) promoting evidence based practices, (b) supporting change at the systems level, and (c) developing local capacity to sustain effective practices over time. Specifically, panelists will introduce (a) the

conceptual framework, (b) how the conceptual framework addresses the complexity of the performance gap, (c) data and practices related to academics through both early and adolescent literacy, (d) data and practices related to behavior through School Wide Positive Behavior Supports, and (e) objective benchmarks to measure progress towards closing the gap. Linkages will be made to current interests in school reform, responsiveness-to-intervention, evidence-based practices, progress monitoring, and data-based decision-making.

Regional School District Collaboration as a Comprehensive Strategy for Closing the Achievement Gap

Robert Jarvis & Claudia Lyles

 

In 2004 we initiated a project for developing and sustaining a network of regional Pennsylvania and New Jersey school districts that would work together to measurably and appreciably reduce the disparities in achievement and engagement between their African American and Hispanic students and their White and Asian peers. In our third year the Delaware Valley Minority Student Achievement Consortium is a committed collaborative of 22 districts that gather together monthly for shared professional learning and organizational planning.  Participants include: district and school administrators, school board members, classroom teachers, school counselors, district human resource directors, and parents.  We have developed multiple opportunities for district teams to come together to learn about and share promising practices. In this session we will share with you - specific collective and individual district strategies for addressing the achievement gap challenges; our collective learnings about what it takes organizationally, politically, and educationally to define and ultimately close the observed achievement gaps; and the development of a shared, coherent and collaborative research agenda.

 

Closing the Reading Achievement Gap: Lessons Learned from a Synthesis on Reading Treatment Outcomes

Colleen Klein Reutebutch

 

Findings examining reading interventions on adolescents with learning disabilities (LD) were synthesized, along with focus group data from reading professionals. The social validity of intervention practices is discussed along with the implications for closing the reading achievement gap for older struggling readers thorough the use of research-validated reading practices; appropriate and sufficient professional development; and ongoing support for reading educators.

 

 

Closing the Gap Before it Widens: A Review of Empirically Supported Interventions for Addressing Problem Behavior in Preschool and Kindergarten

Teri LeBel & Sandra Chafouleas

 

Increasing attention is being directed toward the role of social and emotional development of preschool and kindergarten age children in later school success. Acknowledging the importance of identifying behavioral difficulties early in development has lead to increased emphasis on providing psychological and educational services to young children with social-emotional problems. This presentation will summarize the need for early behavioral intervention, and review empirically-supported intervention practices with this population.  A strong literature base exists connecting early behavioral difficulties to a variety of future, likely more severe, behavioral problems. Participants will learn about the critical components of early intervention programs that may help in managing current problem behaviors (e.g., classroom disruption), decreasing future problem behaviors, and consequently, closing the achievement gap.

How Reading Comprehension Changed while We Weren’t Looking and what We Need to do about it: Closing the Achievement Gaps in Connecticut Our Nation

Donald Leu & Laurie Henry

 

The Internet is this generation’s defining technology for literacy. What new reading skills and strategies are required online? How can we teach these to adolescents?  Why has No Child Left Behind ensured that those who require our help the most with developing online reading comprehension skills actually receive it the least? This address will answer these questions and propose policy initiatives to ensure that every student is adequately prepared for their future.

Getting Parents Informed and Involved: The CMT and CAPT Results

Melissa Barber, Maurice Nelson, Jason Phillips, Linda Tran & Mary Yakimowski

 

This session presents a look toward sharing results with parents. “Faced with increasing accountability requirements, schools and school systems are implementing a variety of methods for gathering, storing, analyzing, and reporting all of these data, but they are moving forward with strikingly little guidance from any quarter” (Wayman & Stringfingfield, 2006). We will offer guidance which in places like Baltimore and Hampton (VA) has built the bridge between home and school. The 10-step Yakimowski method (2006) to share assessment results to parents will be presented. Then, panelists will share concrete examples of how this technique can be used with the CMT and CAPT results. Individuals will be divided into groups of three members. They will role play the teacher, the parent, and the observer. This will allow for understanding by participates and provide a quick training-for-trainers model that may be used across the school and district.

Professional Development for Mainstream Teachers to Work Effectively with Culturally, Linguistically, and Economically Diverse Learners

Michaela Colombo, Carol Shestock, Deborah McMakin & Cynthia Jacobs

 

Teachers who are prepared to meet the needs of all students are one of the most important factors in determining students’ academic success, yet academic failure rates among culturally, linguistically, and economically diverse (CLED) student populations remain high. Four researchers from the University of Massachusetts Lowell investigated factors that contribute to the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of mainstream teachers who work with CLED students.  Researchers conducted interviews with 20 mainstream middle-school teachers. The researchers, who represent fields of education, psychology, and social work, have extensive experience in K-12 settings and in school-based programs. They will briefly review current literature in the field, present findings from their interviews and discuss the implications for professional development that has potential to close the achievement gap for CLED students.

Evaluating the Impact of a Tailored Education Environment on African American  High School Students’ Academic Achievement and Truancy

Dedrick Sims

 

The Freshman Academy is a program at a southern Alabama school that has objectives to “increase passing of the Alabama High School Graduation Exam (AHSGE) and to increase “grade-to-grade” promotion” among its 291 minority students.  Its students are isolated from the upperclassmen and “housed” in a separate area.  It has been allocated a separate administrative staff and faculty.  The program operates under the assumption that a tailored physical environment and mandatory student generated electives along with using the school’s “best” 9^th grade teachers will increase the chances of the program meeting it’s objectives. The Freshman Academy shows a positive influence in closing the academic achievement gap between minority students and student peers of the dominant culture. This study evaluated the impact of a tailored educational environment on African American 9^th grade students.  The purpose was to measure any outcomes a tailored education environment would have on African American 9^th grade students’ academic achievement using students’ Criterion Referenced Test (CRT) scores and truancy rates. 291 African American 9^th grade students participated in the study.  The researcher met with the teachers and administrative staff once a week for a semester to obtain the truancy data.  The CRT exam was administered two times and collected after each administration.  The data was collected, compared and analyzed using SPSS.  The data was compared to students of the same demographics as the target group.  Preliminary results suggest that the Freshman Academy had a positive effect on the CRT and truancy data.  The findings suggest implications for school and classroom reform for minority students. Furthermore, these findings could lend themselves as a tool for the reduction of the academic achievement gap for minority students of all ethnicities.

Using the Schoolwide Enrichment Model Reading Framework to Eliminate the Achievement Gap

Sally Reis

 

This session will provide an overview of a new approach to reading framework, The Schoolwide Enrichment Model Reading Framework (SEMR). This approach was developed to enhance enjoyment in reading, while subsequently increasing student achievement. The SEMR has three distinct goals, to increase enjoyment in reading, to encourage students to pursue independent reading and to improve reading fluency and comprehension.  The SEMR involves three phases of reading instruction. Phase 1 involves selections designed to stimulate reading interest and follow-up through the selection of high interest read-aloud by classroom teachers accompanied by higher level questioning. Phase 2 of the SEMR includes opportunities for independent reading and guided differentiated instruction applied to self-selected high interest reading materials.  Phase 3 of the SEMR involves opportunities for self-selected work in a variety of enrichment opportunities in reading. Research on the SEMR will be reviewed and information about how to implement will be provided in this workshop.