Giving Students a Say May Spur Engagement and Achievement by Sarah D. Sparks

Call it DIY differentiated learning: A new study at the University of Texas at Austin suggests students are more invested and learn more when they get a say in class assignments.

Erika A. Patall, an assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and lead author of the study, randomly assigned 207 high school students in 14 urban science, social studies, psychology and other classrooms to one of two lesson plans for a regular content unit. In one group, students were assigned one of two homework assignments that were in different modes but covered "essentially identical content," Ms. Patall said. In the other group, students were allowed to choose which of the two assignments to complete. For each homework option chosen, a similar student in the "no-choice" group would be assigned the same homework to create matched pairs.

Two weeks later, in the following unit, the two groups were switched, with students who chose being assigned homework and the assigned students getting a choice of the next two homework options.

At the end of each unit, researchers surveyed the students on their engagement, including how they felt about the assignment, how well they did and how much homework they had completed.

"When students were given choices, they reported feeling more interested in their homework, felt more confident about their homework and they scored higher on their unit tests," Ms. Patall told me. Students who chose their assignments also turned them in more often, but this finding was not significant.

The study, published in the November Journal of Educational Psychology, is the latest in a long line of research showing students become more engaged when they have a say in class. Ms. Patall said she also saw anecdotal evidence of why it's not a common practice: Students felt more empowered by the multiple assignments, but teachers felt less so. "One of the other things that became very evident was teachers found this study kind of an imposition," she said. "They're not inclined to do this sort of thing, because it's more work for them."

Moreover, giving students, particularly older students, only superficially different choices likely will not be effective, Ms. Patell said. "They can see through it. It has to feel like a sincere choice, that they really do have the ability to control their own behavior and their outcomes." All assignments must cover the same material, she explained, but choices should have significant differences. For example, students in a science class may choose to write a research report or conduct and explain an experiment in front of the class.

So how to give students choices while not overloading teachers? Teacher collaboration could help, Ms. Patell said; a group of teachers could individually plan assignments on the same content, and then offer all options to students and help each other with grading the results. "Parallel assignments may help ease the burden for teachers," she said.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2010/12/class_choice_may_spur_student.html

This Teacher Succeeds Because She Believes by: Tine Griego

This is turning out to be "inspiration week" here in my corner of the paper. On Monday, I told you of the remarkable students in the running to win Daniels Fund scholarships. Today, I bring you a remarkable teacher.

Linda Alston last appeared in this newspaper in June 2006. That was when she received the inaugural Kinder Excellence in Teaching Award. A national prize - $100,000 to do with as she liked. (She invested most of it.) That award came on the heels of other national prizes.

Alston started teaching for Denver Public Schools in 1989. She's now at Howell Elementary in Montbello. It resembles the schools Alston has served nearly all her career: low-income, largely minority. Scholastic has just published Alston's book Why We Teach, and it prompts my call to her classroom where a child answers: "Good afternoon. Ms. Alston's class. Elisa speaking. How may I assist you?" Elisa, 6 years old, cute as all get out, informs me later that answering the phone is one of her jobs. They all have jobs in Alston's class: meteorologist (reads the weather report); accountant (does the head count); historian (marks the date, day and year).

What's your job title, I ask Elisa. "Afternoon receptionist," she says.

Let's talk for a second about expectations. "High expectations" is the mantra of the day, repeated so often it tends to lose meaning. It's become a fuzzy- wuzzy concept, broad and vast and vague enough to disguise mediocrity. I will tell you I have high expectations of students. And then I will remind you that during my year writing about North High School, I found myself thrilled that half of the graduating class was going to college or vocational school only to realize - a thunderclap - that had this same proportion been college-bound at ThunderRidge High

School in Highlands Ranch, where I also spent a year, I would have been appalled. So easy it was, this insidious ratcheting down of my expectations. So, I stop when I get to one particular passage in Alston's book. It comes right after she describes how she succeeded with a second- grade class that chewed up and spat out teachers like old gum. "What I did was very simple," she writes. "I believed in myself. I believed in the children . . . The answers lie in one's fundamental beliefs

about children." And that summation, straightforward as it is, simple as it sounds, is what every master teacher I have ever known has said about why they succeed with their students.

They believe and their students know it.

"Here's the tricky thing," Alston tells me. "People think they believe in children. They'll say, 'Unequivocally, I have high expectations.' But bring them into my classroom and they look at the plants on children's tables and the fine china my kindergartners use to serve our guests tea and they say, 'Oh, if this were my class, we couldn't do that. My kids would make a mess.'

"It's that self-fulfilling prophecy. If it surprises you that my kindergarteners are reading, then how can you have believed in them? If you had faith, why are you surprised? So, then what people go to is, 'Oh, they must be the exception.' And my answer is no. No, they are not."

Alston says she believes all children, not only those who are poor, not just minorities, suffer from this lack of adult faith in their capacity to learn. Still, she chooses to work in lower-income schools because she knows these students need the extra support, and if they do not succeed in school early on, they will find it harder to do so later. They may drop out, she says, join gangs, die in the streets. "I am railing against that possibility," she says. "Their very lives are at stake . . . I am not perfect. I don't have all the answers. I get frustrated. And then I get back to work. That's what commitment is. What are we going to do? Just give up on children?"

We talk in her lovely classroom with its plants and colorful posters, the air smelling faintly of sandalwood. Her students work at their own stations, coming to show her their writing or counting or reading. She praises them and they glow and preen and start the next page. I see words like "dignity" and "philosophy" and "integrity" in their reading material, heavy stuff for a kindergartner, I catch myself thinking. "What does integrity mean?" she asks her class. Hands shoot up. "When your parent or teacher or nobody is looking and you do the right thing," a boy answers.

Alston said she did not write her book only for teachers, though there is much for them to ponder. It is her celebration of children. From it she hopes we are moved to re-examine our beliefs and reaffirm our commitment to them.

I feel a tap on my shoulder. Six-year-old Marlen is at my side, smiling. "I invite you to have tea with me," she says, gesturing toward a table set with silk flowers.

Why, I tell her, I would love to.

http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/scholasticprofessional/pdfs/Rocky_Mountain_News_20080306.pdf