Pre-Service Teachers’ Perceptions of Use of an Online Curriculum by a Charter School with Juvenile Court Affiliation

Sandy CalvertOhio Northern University

OCTEO Spring Conference, March 20

LIFEWORKSExists to value, educate, empower and transform the lives of our students and their families

Lead, shape, educate andtransform youth into self-motivated, engaged, and successful citizens

(Taken from LifeWorks brochure)

• Middle/high school students• 30-55 students• Have been suspended or

expelled; have dropped out of school or are at risk of dropping out; are habitually or chronically truant; are disruptive in class; and/or are on probation with the juvenile court

Educating... Empowering... Transforming...(Taken from LifeWorks brochure)

• 68% male• 32% female• 98.1% white • 89.4% met poverty

guidelines and qualified for free or reduced lunches

• graduation rate is 89%; over 2 years 32 of 36 students

Educating... Empowering... Transforming...(Taken from LifeWorks brochure)

• Parents attend after school hours activities designed for their children and them. Instruction and hands on learning opportunities that are relevant to life are offered.

• Mental health and drug and alcohol counseling is offered daily (individual, group, family) using evidence based therapeutic programs.

• Teachers and aides are included in cross training sessions and have participated in the teacher mentor program.

• Juvenile court judge located on sight• Probation officers located on sight

• Robotics ~ Movie Making and Podcasting

• Screen Printing ~ Service Learning• Outdoor Activities including Archery, Canoeing, Bicycling, and other outdoor living opportunities (i.e. camping).

Field Experience Objectives1. Complete a field experience log for each day you are at LifeWorks. (30 hours) 2. Observe the interactions between and among the teacher and the students. What do you observe regarding what we have discussed in class or others? How does this experience differ from the typical classroom? Describe any skills or techniques you see being put to use.

3. Introduce yourself to other LifeWorks team members such as social workers, psychologist, aides, police officers, etc. Ask about their interest in the program and students; reasons for working there and hopes/concerns for the students.

4. Analyze the factors within the classroom setting as well as outside the classroom that can affect students’ success in meeting learning goals.

Pre-Service Teachers’ Perceptions -

Themes•Curriculum

• Effort/Attitude

• Teacher/Aides/Classroom

Maslow’s Hierarchy of NeedsThe Need for Self- Actualization• Intellectual achievement• Reaching full potential

The Need for Self-Esteem• Recognition & Approval of others

The Need for Belonging• Love & Acceptance from others

The Need for Safety• Freedom from Emotional & Physical Threat

The Need for Survival• Shelter, Food, Water, Warmth

Student Thoughts“These kids want to learn, but they also want someone to care for them and to believe that they can be something in society besides a mistake.”

“I realize these kids are just put in the wrong situations at the wrong time – and sometimes that situation is home, sadly.”

“…just how much different these students are from myself because they deal with so much more than I ever did at the high school age.”

“It amazes me the adult problems that these students have to deal with.”

“I think it is important for them to be able to connect with this school and the people in it. I think that this connection is not happening for most of the students, which I think is not helping the students develop.”

“Another thing I kept hearing the students say when I tried to help them were “I’m not smart enough for this” or “I’m too dumb for this stuff.” This seems to be a pattern with these students.”

“There are a lot of misconceptions I keep having about these students. These students come from a different world than I do so I need to keep that in mind when I am drawing conclusions from what I am observing.”

Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory of Cognitive

Development Culture

LanguageSocial Interaction

Development

Student Thoughts“The students tried to scare me away by telling me things such as “you won’t like it here” and “we are bad kids.”

“I feel that the children at Lifeworks are lacking a lot of the social skills that could help them to succeed more in society. They are confined to working in those cubicles and they are there so that they cannot talk and communicate with each other.” “I also feel like many of the students are suffering from learned helplessness as they come from difficult home lives and have been told many times that they are not smart. This means when it is time for them to do their lessons they pretty much give up even before they begin.”

“The importance of a safe and effective classroom environment is the course concept that really stuck with me today. These students need to have a place where they can get work done in a safe and quiet environment.”

“This environment makes it hard for even the most dedicated student to get work done.”

“The parole officers have an entire different set of policies than the teacher and aides do. Students need to know what is expected of them if they are to succeed.”

“There are hardly any levels of interaction between the students and the teacher. This is not helping the students develop key social skills.”

“The atmosphere of Lifeworks was one of boredom and attitude.”

Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Model of Development

MacThe Individua

l

MacrosystemExosystem

MesosystemMicrosystem

Student Thoughts“These students hate sitting at the computer all day. It is very difficult for them to read all of the information that is required to understand the subject matter, but they also do not have anyone there that can teach lessons. Without the motivation of a classroom teacher, motivation to learn material and stay on track is extremely low.”

“Most of the students in the class have drug or alcohol problems and that’s why the kids are in there. She explained that the kids struggle being motivated to complete their online classes. It is very difficult for them to sit a computer all day and not want to goof around. They usually complain about being very bored but they still do not complete any of their lessons.”

“Some students expressed to me that they hated looking at a computer all day and that if they had a real teacher they would like going to school so much more.”

“Students are more willing to trust the staff if they feel that they are in a safe environment and learning climate.”

“I also learned that just because kids come from bad home lives doesn’t necessarily mean that they are bad kids, they have just made a few bad decisions in their life.”

“…believe that these students are beginning to really trust us “interns” and are able to open up to us more and are more willing to cooperate than earlier in the semester.”

“I think the students are just really glad to get away from their computers for any reason and learning from a real person is a new and exciting change for them.”

“They are academically and socially in different places of their development and that needs to be adjusted for in your techniques and instructional strategies when helping the students.”

Student Thoughts – Online CurriculumThe Classroom

“The classroom consists of cubicles where the students work on online classes and are supervised by a teacher. The teacher’s main responsibilities are to grade the online class lessons, and to return the assignments for redo’s if they are not at least 70% correct. Students are expected to complete at least 2 lessons a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. However, this seems to rarely happen, as the teacher informed me that there is no real form of accountability for lesson completion.”

“The classroom was nice and roomy with a large table in the middle of the room, a smart board, a teacher’s desk and parallel lines of student cubicles along two of the walls.”

“The Smart Board I was informed that it is not hooked up so therefore it is unable to use.”

“Aurora, the online learning system that the students use was not working today so none of the students were able to work on their lessons.”

“The internet at Lifeworks goes down fairly often. The lack of motivation at Lifeworks is increased because of the faulty internet. Once the internet goes down (even for a brief period of time), the students don’t want to do any work for the rest of the day because they think their work will be lost.”

“I do not like the set-up of the classroom at Life Works. I don’t think it promotes learning at all. More times than not I think it causes problems. The students are secluded from the teacher and are on the computer all day every day.”

Online Curriculum - continuedThe Work

“The online school system that they are in right now does not lend itself to providing motivation at all because once a student completes a lesson, they just move on to the next one.”“They end up just clicking through the material and guessing on answers. Since there is no penalty for getting lessons wrong, and the student is simply sent back lessons for which they will change their answer with no basis for changing it. The end result is students like the one that I worked with…helplessly struggling with material that they do not have the skills to do. The lack of individual supervision and accountability has created an even bigger problem of learning deficits.”

“I think that it is a very common problem for the students at this school to encounter material that they are not equipped to handle. This is because they have no motivation to actually learn the material, and they get bored sitting at a computer all day long.”

“It is really hard to keep the students focused. Working at the computer for just a short period of time can be draining, and they have to work at the computer all day. They just get burned out very easily and therefore get frustrated and overwhelmed.”

“I really feel like the students are not being taught in the proper manner. Even if they had to do all of their work online, the modules that they go through are tedious and very similar. The students get bored very easily and I don’t blame them.”

“Students have to do a lot of reading of articles for their lessons. The problem is that a lot of the vocabulary is not explained to them and therefore they have no idea what they are reading. Unfortunately the students are also not motivated to look up the words and learn what they mean either. This makes it take a very long time for them to complete lessons.”

Work -continued“There are no tests with these online lessons and all the students have to do is click the multiple choice questions until they eventually just get them right.”

“The reading that was required was more than even I would be willing to do. I can’t blame the students for not wanting to do the work because I wouldn’t want to do the work. I feel as though these kids are the ones with the least motivation that are put in situations that require the most motivation to learn.”

“They all seem to have no clue of the basic concepts behind the math that they are doing. I have observed that many students simply click through the math lessons multiple choice and keep changing their answers until they get enough right to move on to the next lesson.”

“Students at LifeWorks that I have worked with feel that essays are daunting tasks that are nearly impossible to complete.”

“The lessons were very easy, so much so that they were almost insulting. There would be a whole lesson of around twenty questions asking to pick whether similar sentences were past or present tense and it was not challenging in any way. This was very interesting for me because during my time here I have been able to look at many different lessons available through Aurora. While this lesson was extremely easy, I have also viewed some lessons that appear to be very challenging and expect students to read great works such as Beowulf, and The Odyssey from a computer screen. Admittedly, I do not think I would be able to complete such a monotonous task since such works contain outdated language and are very confusing to read especially by oneself with no guidance. I do not really understand how the online program can have lessons that are so far on both ends of the difficulty spectrum.”

“I was glad that today I was able to spend the majority of class time helping out a student with the lessons they needed to resubmit. I feel that this process could be frustrating as a student because if they genuinely try to answer the question and have to redo it, they will probably not know how to do it the second time either since they do not have an actual teacher to help them out.

Online CurriculumThe Teacher

“There is only one teacher who cannot even really teach lessons because she has to watch the behavior of all the students and grade their lessons.”

“The teacher commented that the students do not view her as an authority figure, but they do view the probation officers as being in charge.”

“They are supposed to learn their lessons from online textbooks and respond to answers that are presented online. The role of the teacher is simply to evaluate their responses. I believe that the kids need “the human touch” more than children in a normal school environment.”

“Their assignments are mostly just solving problems on the computer, where in a regular classroom, the teacher would be able to help students make connections to life outside of school.”

“This gives these kids full reign to do whatever they want most times because the teacher cannot see them 75% of the time.”

“…created a new rule that the students cannot complete new lessons until all of their redos have been done and many students are using this as an excuse to not get work done.”

“The students are so detached from the teacher that it would be hard to keep an atmosphere of hard work going for too long.”

Midterm Project1. Develop a memo to the Director of LifeWorks consisting of observations and recommendations tied to theories discussed in class.

2. Present memo to Director

3. Participate in a debriefing discussion with the Director concerning the contents of the memo.

Memo Excerpt We have appreciated the opportunity to complete our required field experience hours at Life Works during fall semester. The experience has been invaluable as we work to apply the theories and practices studied in EDUC 4401. Since we are at the midpoint of our EDUC 4401 course, we would like to share with you some of our observations and offer recommendations. Our purpose in doing so is two-fold; to provide a different perspective on the practices at Life Works; and to potentially implement some of the recommendations within the second half of the semester. We found our observations and recommendations fit in five thematic areas: environment, respect, rewards and punishments, staffing, and technology. We address the five thematic areas below.

Environment at Life WorksObservations: 1. Overall “feel” of the school setting is chaotic. a. Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development (students need order in their lives)2. Students are punished or rewarded as a group rather than individuals. a. B.F. Skinner (Operant Conditioning) 3. Students seem to have no privacy when being dealt with by parole officers and aides. a. Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development (Trust v. Mistrust) 4. The overall attitude that emanates from the students and staff is negative. a. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (need for self-esteem and need for belonging)

5. Students have no self-regulation. a.Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory of Cognitive Development (product of home life) (low social skills)6. Students steal from the teacher and other students. a. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (need for a safe environment) b. Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development (Punishment and Obedience stage)7. Students talk openly of being hungry. a. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (need for survival)8. The main classroom with the current arrangement adds to the chaos a. Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Model of Development b. Mastery Focused Classroom

Recommendations •There need to be clear and concise, individual and classroom expectations that hold students accountable• Individualized punishment, not just group punishment• More of an “expectations based” environment than a “rules based” environment • Improve the classroom organization by either removing the cubicles or having a better monitoring software• Improve safety• Students should be able to have their own locker with a lock • The metal detector should be plugged in• Students should receive food over the weekend• Students should not get in trouble for spending time with other students outside of the classroom

Changes Resulting from MemoRestructuring of main classroom space so teacher can see all computer monitors and all students at all times. Cubicles removed.

Partnering with local church to provide weekend food bags to each student.

More intensive training for entire staff for consistency, fairness, and setting clear expectations.

Purchase of software to prevent access to unwanted sites on internet

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