Smith Elementary School’s Improvement Project Essay (Critical Writing)

Introduction

Problem Identification: The central problem in this project is that reading achievement has been declining in students from 3rd to 5th grades over the last three years. Even though school has particular expectations about the outcomes of the reading curriculum, children’s results do not coincide with implementation. Therefore, school leadership aims to explore the relationship between instructional delivery and student achievement by exploring the cultural responsiveness of the learning environment.

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Contextual Information: Smith Elementary School is a Title I school for children from pre-kindergarten to the fifth grade. The student demographic of this school is diverse, including socioeconomically disadvantaged, African-American, Hispanic, bilingual learners, and those who are served by Special Education program.

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Organizational Theory: The school administration wants to create an inclusive and responsive environment that will allow improving student achievement and outcomes.

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Evaluation of the Root Causes of the Problem: The methodology that will be most suitable for determining the cause of the problem is the logic model that allows the evaluation of the relationship between the program’s components and context.

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Intervention for Solving the Problem: If educators in this school concentrate on team learning, diversity, and inclusion, then students will be more encouraged to improve.

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Literature Review: This section will focus on the articles that explain the benefits of teamwork and cooperative learning.

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Plan for Data Collection: Quasi-experimental approach will be used to collect and analyze data.

The Highlights and Considerations for the Process Components

Problem Identification

Academic performance in schoolchildren depends not only on individual effort but also on a teacher’s encouragement, classroom environment, and cooperation with peers. The school that will be evaluated in this applied improvement project is Smith Elementary School, which is an educational organization for children from pre-school age to the fifth grade. This school was able to create a diverse and inclusive environment of multiple cultures and social classes. Indeed, children from socioeconomically disadvantaged groups and of various ethnic backgrounds attend Smith Elementary. However, the recent evaluation of primary programs showed a decline in reading achievement among students from the third to the fifth grades.

The data from Smith Elementary School demonstrates that reading achievement on the yearly state standardized summative assessment has been on a steady decline in third-fifth grades over the past three school years. The last state accountability measurement has reported that in 2021, 36% of 4th-grade students met the grade-level standard in reading. Reading teachers have consistently complained that students are entering third-grade reading below grade level, which has had a spiraling negative effect on achievement scores in testing grades. The school leaders have decided to examine the extent to which instructional delivery at Smith Elementary considers the diverse needs of the students represented in the school’s demographic. Therefore, the school administration decided to investigate the root cause of this problem by determining the relationship between material delivery and student outcomes.

Contextual Information

Smith Elementary School is a Title I educational institution that accepts children from the level of pre-kindergarten to the fifth grade. The school administration welcomes diversity and inclusion; hence, it has African-American, Hispanic, and White students of low socioeconomic status who may require special educational methods. These diverse groups of learners pose substantial challenges to the educators of this school. Thus, teachers should strive to be empathetic and non-judgmental to create an understanding and safe conditions for these students.

Organizational Theory

The central goal of this school is to create a diverse environment where students will be able to acquire material without feeling threatened or judged. Indeed, the school leaders believe that teaching should promote knowledge and skill acquisition in various spheres, develop critical thinking, and encourage the application of this information in real-world problems. It may be challenging for the school teachers to implement this approach in such a diverse group of schoolchildren. Still, educators in Smith Elementary should strive to become more compassionate and motivating to inspire their students for better academic performance.

Evaluation of the Root Causes of the Problem

The origin of the issue of the decline in the reading abilities of students will be identified using the logic model. This method allows assessing the relation between an educational program’s context and its components. This model consists of basic elements: inputs, activities, outputs, and outcomes (Frye & Hemmer, 2012). Firstly, in this case, inputs are the materials used for teaching children in Smith Elementary School. Secondly, activities can be described as strategies and innovations that are used in a specific educational program (Frye & Hemmer, 2012). Thirdly, as the name suggests, outputs are products of the particular process that may be defined based on the number of students in class or modules tested (Frye & Hemmer, 2012). Fourthly, outcomes are a teaching program’s short-term and long-term results (Frye & Hemmer, 2012). These four components need to be evaluated to determine failures at which level result in the drop in students’ reading achievements.

Intervention for Solving the Problem

If teachers in this school focus on team learning, diversity, and inclusion, then students will be more encouraged to improve their performance in the classroom. Cooperative learning “reinforces the educational value of interactions among students, cognitive development, autonomy and independence, …, socio-affective development, motivation for learning, reduction of anxiety, and better academic achievements” (Carlos Torrego‐Seijo et al., 2021, p. 2). It is one of the most progressive methods used in educational settings. Team-based teaching is also believed to improve children’s social communication skills and their emotional intelligence. When students work in collaboration with each other, they are more motivated to put increased effort, especially when a healthy competition is established in a classroom. Furthermore, when children communicate with each other in an educational setting, their verbal skills improve (Alemayehu, 2022). It means that if they watch and listen to their peers’ reading, they may be inspired to spend more time practicing to achieve the same level. Teachers should be prepared to create a positive atmosphere that will convince these schoolchildren that reading is an essential and valuable asset, which will give them respect from their classmates and adults.

The two crucial factors that may affect student performance are confidence and motivation. Indeed, according to Alemayehu (2022), shyness and lack of self-confidence create the fear of making mistakes and anxiety that may affect children’s ability to speak and read in front of others. Furthermore, motivation, which is defined as a psychological trait that generates an inner drive to attain better results, helps students enjoy the studying process, dedicating more time to it (Alemayehu, 2022). Therefore, those, who are motivated, practice reading more and thus develop better skills, while those who are often criticized or extremely shy fail to develop these abilities.

Literature Review

Educational researchers strive to understand what factors affect student performance in various courses and which characteristics have a positive impact on their school results. This literature review focuses on group-based learning described in two studies by Alemayehu (2022) and Carlos Torrego‐Seijo et al. (2021). This project aims to explore the factors of the learning environment of Smith Elementary School that influence children’s reading abilities. Thus, this literature review will concentrate on the studies related to improving students’ academic performance through group-based teaching methods.

Cooperative learning is one of the most frequently used teaching tools educators use. For instance, the study by Carlos Torrego‐Seijo et al. (2021) demonstrated that children who work in small groups show a significant improvement in their academic achievements than students in teacher-centered classrooms. Furthermore, the authors of this paper claim that this methodology is helpful for schoolchildren in primary school. Team-based learning contributes to the development of such characteristics as leadership, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and motivation that are essential for productive learning (Carlos Torrego‐Seijo et al., 2021). Moreover, Alemayehu (2022) states that a peer-led educational process is beneficial for engaging students in the learning process. If children feel that they equally participate in completing tasks and discussions, they are encouraged to put more effort into studying (Alemayehu, 2022). Alemayehu (2022) also demonstrated that children were highly concerned about others’ perceptions of them, self-confidence, and making mistakes. These results suggest that teachers should strive to create an atmosphere of support and tolerance for reading errors. It will motivate all students to read in class because mastery in reading will only come through deliberate practice.

Cooperative learning is considered to be one of the most effective approaches to improving schoolchildren’s academic achievements. The available literature demonstrates that it improves students’ cognitive skills, emotional intelligence, and social skills. The studies also demonstrated that children need a positive classroom environment to feel confident and motivated to participate in discussions and task completion. Hence, group-based method and tolerance to reading mistakes will be used in this project to see if children’s reading abilities improve.

Plan for Data Collection

The data collection process in this project will be conducted using a quasi-experimental method. This research technique allows to establish a linear correlation between specific study components and outcomes, but, unlike experimental design, it lacks randomization (Frye & Hemmer, 2012). In this project, a random assignment will not be helpful because children who do not read well should be placed in the intervention group to compare their results before and after the study. Quasi-experimental studies use comparison groups instead of controls, giving them a different intervention rather than no intervention (Rogers & Revesz, 2020). In the case of Smith Elementary, children will be divided into classes that will use cooperative learning and those that will be teacher-centered. Moreover, this tool enables investigators to reveal the causative relationships between independent and dependent variables (Rogers & Revesz, 2020). The former is the one that influences, while the latter is the element that is being changed (Rogers & Revesz, 2020). In this study, independent variables are group-based learning and methods used by instructors to teach reading, while the students’ outcomes are dependent variables.

Conclusion

The students’ reading abilities in Smith Elementary School started to decline over the last three years. One of the possible reasons for worsened academic performance may be that the educators’ teaching methods impede learning in a culturally and socioeconomically diverse environment. Therefore, the school administrators decided to investigate the current educational tools’ impact on schoolchildren’s outcomes and determine if team-based instructing can improve their reading skills. The two curriculum specialization outcomes that would align with the project outcomes are creating a diverse and inclusive environment and improving students’ reading abilities. The first objective will be attained through training educators to develop more compassion towards their students from diverse backgrounds, while the second goal will be reached by cooperative learning.

The curriculum that will be used in this project to achieve learning outcomes is group-based teaching. This approach was demonstrated to be efficient in improving students’ results in reading. Since Smith Elementary School has a diverse environment, educators will need to create an inclusive atmosphere through cooperative learning, which will allow to involve and connect all children in a classroom. Specifically, students will be divided into groups that should include individuals of various levels of reading ability. Students with superior skills will be encouraged to share their tips with their peers, helping them attain better results. Teachers should also be trained to withhold judgment and praise even small advancements for those who struggle. The effectiveness of this program will be evaluated using the logic model, analyzing inputs, activities, outputs, and outcomes. Learning outcomes can be improved using such assessment method as evaluation by classmates. It may reduce stress on students, eliminating the fear of making mistakes and concerns about how adults view them. Lastly, in addition to implementing cooperative learning, the curriculum should include training for instructors to help them incorporate empathetic and non-judgmental attitudes in teaching.

References

Alemayehu, M. M. (2022). Exploring factors affecting peer-led team learning in EFL classes: A case of secondary schools in Ethiopia.Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 11(3), 623-635. Web.

Carlos Torrego‐Seijo, J., Caballero‐García, P. Á., & Lorenzo‐Llamas, E. M. (2021). The effects of cooperative learning on trait emotional intelligence and academic achievement of Spanish primary school students.British Journal of Educational Psychology, 91(3), 928-949. Web.

Frye, A. W., & Hemmer, P. A. (2012). Program evaluation models and related theories: AMEE guide no. 67.Medical Teacher, 34(5), 288–299. Web.

Rogers, J., & Revesz, A. (2020). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs. In J. McKinley & H. Rose (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of research methods in applied linguistics (pp. 133-143). Routledge.