Final paper

Modern science and methods have brought us to a sensitivity in our teaching that makes us aware of the complexity and importance of child development. In this blossoming field, researchers are still learning about the fragile processes and developments of our children. Simple attitudinal perspectives, like the subtle differences between a fixed and growth mindset, can affect the child forever. We as parents and educators are often very willing to supplement and support our students; “it is a parent’s lack of knowledge, not lack of interest in supporting their children’s education that prevent them from participating” (Olsen and Fuller 2013). We live in a time where parent are more than willing to help their child, we just need to champion the programs that can provide that support.

It is important to acknowledge all aspect of involvement: school, community, and family. Our goal is to cultivate an attitude of resiliency. Resiliency is the use of the resources of ordinary people such as those in the community, school, and family, often “in the face of great odds” (Van Langeveld 2016). Involvement in all three areas can add protective factors that will offset risk factors that are inherent to each child’s life.

II - Introduction

This program will provide students being introduced into the school system a protective factor by placing them on a strong trajectory championed by all three systems of support: family, school, and community. This program focus on the microsystem of interaction and aims to improve the initial experience and relationships of incoming students (Berk 2000). The kindergarten age children come into the school system with a variety of expectations and concerns. This program starts with a specific week-long plan to incorporate kindergarteners more readily into their new environment with the direct us of an otherwise untapped partner/resource group, older students. By planning for the first week of school and using the older student body of resources to accommodate the kindergartners, we can be more confident of a smooth transition into the commonly held full day kindergarten. This program proposes to use sixth grade students from the same school as surround care agents. Each kindergartener will be given one sixth grade buddy that will be trained to help introduce the new students to their surroundings and act as a resource during the first week. This will be beneficial to the entering students, the older students, and the kindergarten teacher too.

Since the adoption of full day kindergartens across the state (Wood 2016), the need is great to have a plan for this more intense transition. We will propose the change to a single school district so that the sample size data is large enough to analyze, but small enough to manage with care and scrutiny. The program will be presented top down and take much cooperation from staff, but the plan should be attractive to teachers as it will more smoothly make the first week more effective.

III - Rationale

The rationale for the creation of this program exists with the inconsistent experiences of students in the perceptibly same environment. Two students of similar skill and attitude may attend the same class with the same teacher and get different results with regard to their experience. The trajectory set by a bad day of school may handicap that child through the year because of a set inhibition. Often times, the reason for a child with poor performance can be traced back to detrimental attitudes or social behaviors of the child. If a child falls behind in learning during the first week in school, they are more likely to be behind by the end of the year. If that same child is behind at the end of the year, they are likely to still be behind in subsequent years. The goal of this program is to alleviate many of the social barriers that may accompany a new kindergarten student so that the teacher will more readily be able to differentiate and effectively teach that student (Ricci 2013).

Evidence shows that engagement is an important part of school. Recent studies show that engagement of students are declining, especially among boys. These disengaged students are at a risk for dropping out of school, sexual activity, substance abuse, and poor academic achievement. A pattern of engagement is vital to each student (Lippman and Rivers 2008).

Engagement can be described in three areas: behavioral, emotional and cognitive. Cognitive skill and processing skill are not addressed directly in this program. This main goal of the current school system is exactly this, the addition of knowledge and cultivation of intelligence. This program is interested in addressing behavioral (social) and emotional skills and needs of the kindergarten student. By using older students as a resource, we aim to provide a catalyzing environment in which kindergarten students will be less inhibited by social stigmas and negative expectations; this is the layer of intelligence that we can address to that teachers can focus on the knowledge side of their intelligence sooner.

Why do we focus on only kindergarten age children and not any child or person entering a new and scary environment? The reason is because five and six year olds are in a unique position where they have not yet learned to store information and recall is back to apply towards effective action. E.g. a kindergartener who has a bad experience at school may be able to relay that to his or her parents when they get home, but many children won’t be able to place the exact reason for their troubles. Even if they are advanced enough to effectively communicate the problems they have at school, they might not be willing to or have the recall to remember. Teachers have an important role of differentiating students to more effectively teach, but with large local class sizes and high teacher turnover, they could benefit from the added use of the program proposed.

IV - Type of Involvement

School involvement is the pivot point of the project. The program will be spearheaded by the faculty; teachers will be the officiators and overseers of the program. Specifically kindergarten and 6th grade teachers will observe the partnerships of individual buddy systems for the first week. The 5th grade teachers will also have a role in providing an analysis on the personality and temperament of their recently graduated students to provide the administrating faculty so that a good match can be made. This aspect includes dimensions of communication and decision-making (Epstein 2002).

Family involvement is important as well so that additional information can be given. The parents of both incoming and mentoring students will need to be aware of the program so that they can understand what their child will be prepared. The 6th graders’ parents will be given an opportunity to talk to their child about the upcoming responsibility that they will have to treat their kindergarten buddy kindly. This aspect includes Epstein’s aspect of parenting and learning at home because parents will have an opportunity to be prepared and instructed on how to be a mentor their kindergarten counterparts (Epstein 2002).

The community role of involvement comes into play when matching the younger and older students together. After gender, geographic location will play a large part in deciding who buddies with who. The proximity of their housing will afford opportunities to walk to and from school with one another. The pairs may also have the added benefit from already knowing of each other through other community or religious groups. The geographical matching of pairs will reinforce any community interaction held outside school hours. This involvement will use communication as well as collaborating with the community (Epstein 2002).

V - Identifying Partners

Front End Assessment

Front-end assessment is a way to look at the program before it is implemented and analyze the strength or weakness of the partners involved. A front-end assessment is a way to help find barriers and specific goals as they relate to the purpose of the program. With a healthy front end assessment, we will be able to see obstacles before they get there and make changes that we think will make our program successful.

For our front end assessment, we will have two approaches, one for each group of students. As the soon to be 6th graders graduate from 5th grade, we will send a notice home to parents signing of on their children being a mentor for the next year. This will be part of the 6th grade curriculum, so permission is not needed, rather, this is giving the parents an option to ask questions.

The next front end assessment will be directed at parents who have an applying kindergartner. The process of signing up from school already has survey and questionnaires associated with enrollment, so one more will be added informing the parent of the resource their child will be benefited with during their first week. This will also give parents an option to request a buddy if they already know an upcoming 6th grader. The parent will also be able to list any special needs that the faculty can take into consideration when matching. This information will be extremely beneficial to the matching team.

Goals and Objectives

Program: Using surround care in integrate kindergarteners to begin learning quickly and alleviate inhibition and discomfort.

Long-term Goals/Outcomes

1. Prove incoming kindergartners with a smoother and reduced-stress transition into full time school as compared to a student without a 6th grade mentor

2. Establish a growth mindset (Ricci 2013 ) in which participant and partners believe that student trajectories can change due to the perception and effort of everyone involved

3. Give beneficial experience to 6th graders as they take a younger peer under their wings

4. Increased social and academic performance throughout the year by kindergartners

Short Term Goals/Objectives

1. Receive information from previous teachers about each 6th grade student to improve matching capabilities of staff

2. Receive information from parents about each kindergartner to improve matching capabilities of staff

3. Each incoming kindergartner will have some mentor/buddy assigned before the school year starts

4. Hold two end of year staff meetings orienting next year’s teachers

5. Gather end of week evaluation from teachers

Identifying Potential Barriers

Barrier 1: Matching students

With a variable amount of student each year, we will likely not have an ever amount of students. Additionally, there will likely not be a perfect partner for each student. We will be working with imperfect data since much of the information and evaluation of incoming students will likely be incomplete or possibly unclear. To overcome the matching problem, the approach of ‘best match’ should be used. Children will be matched first be considering requests. Geographic proximity and gender should be considered next. Any reported attitudinal qualities should be used concurrently with geographic location if there is an unclear consensus. If a surplus of kindergartners exist compared to 6th graders, advanced 5th graders can be recruited. If a surplus of 6th graders exist, teacher should decide what children would be able to work together to co-mentor a student. This consideration is important so that older students don’t let the younger child feel alienated from the other two.

Barrier 2: Evaluation of success

The next barrier exists with the challenge of evaluation. A qualitative measurement is needed to analyze the effectiveness of the pairs. It will also be difficult to measure the effect of the program if no control groups exist. Even if the socializing partnerships remove barriers and improve learning, teachers may not know how the incoming kindergartner would have performed otherwise. The solution here is to survey the parents who have already had a kindergartner go through the process without the program and have them give feedback. If the mentorship is prepared carefully and the older kids show compassion, the students will benefit, but it is hard to say by how much. Tenured teachers will also have a better outlook to compare the program to previous years. A slower but possibly more effective experiment would be to have some teachers be a control group without using the program while others use the buddy system.

Barrier 3: Special cases

In matching the students, there will be occasional students with special needs. It will be more time consuming and difficult to find an appropriate match. A school specialist will need to be notified of each case. Some cases may require parental contact to help confirm proposed partnerships before they are set.

Barrier 4: Small sample/Slow evaluation

This program utilizes the first week of the school year to orient the kindergartners to unfamiliar situations but does not re-occur until the next year for the next class. For this reason, we can gather only one week’s worth of data for the entire year. This will be a slow process. We suggest monitoring the kindergartners’ progress through the year to see if the 6th grade mentorship connection still exists. We can take time to analyze test scores, if any, of kindergartners as compared to control groups not participating in the program to see if any academic benefit was gained by easing the transition.

Timeline

Evaluation of the Partnership

There are two levels of evaluation. An initial evaluation after the first week and a final year end evaluation. The initial evaluation will let us see the initial benefits or detriments of the program, if any. Evaluation will be created by the teachers for each pair of children. A qualitative measurement of any benefit created will be required for each pair. This will not only provide meaningful information regarding the effectiveness of the program, but will consequently cause the teacher to differentiate their new students, thus improving their teaching effectiveness.

Parental feedback will be sent home to their parents to gain any information from their perspective. Parent teacher conferences can also be utilized to gather information and suggestions.

The second evaluation of the partnerships will be made at the end of year. Both teachers and parents will be asked to give feedback on the program. This can be in the form of survey, supplemented with any faculty conversation. The students will be giving feedback all year, upon its request, and the adults who have listed and gather that information will have an opportunity to pass that information along to the officiating staff.

As stated before, surround care benefits may be qualitative and reared by observation or they may be quantitative and supported by test scores. If improvement to the transition of kindergartners into a new school is being reported and benefit was added to both sets of students, successes should be duplicated to further classes while being refined with each new generation of fresh students.

Works Cited

Berk, L.E. (2000). Child Development (5th ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon. 23-38

Epstein, J., et al (2002). School, Family and Community Partnerships, Your Handbook for Action, 2nd edition, Corwin Press.

Lippman, L., & Rivers, A. (2008). Assessing School Engagement: A guide for out of school time program practitioners. Child Trends: Reserch to Results, 2008-39. Retrieved April 4, 2016. Course Provided Material

Olsen, G., & Fuller, M. (2012). Parent Involvement in EDUCATION. In Home and School Relations: Teachers and Parents Working Together (4th ed.). Merrill.

Ricci, M. C. (2015). Mindsets in the classroom: Building a culture of success and student achievement in school. S.l.: Hawker Brownlow Education.

Van Langeveld, A. (2016). Resilience Overview. FCS 3180 Course Readings.