NSCC School of Access Group
Research in Practice Increasing Student Project Participation
in an Individually Paced Adult Learning Classroom
Defining the problem:In an Individually Paced classroom the students
do not always work at the same rate as their classmates. There are
many
demands on time so that all students are not always present at the
same time. When working on an individual basis this fact does not
cause a major difficulty for other students, only the individual
is impacted.
The problem of attendance and commitment surfaced when a group project
was attempted and group meetings were necessary to maintain progress.
Decisions could not be made and updates as to what had been accomplished
were not always available. It was time to intervene. The resulting
question we will explore is: How can we increase student participation
in a pre-planned class activity? Reasons for negative behaviors:Before
attempting an intervention we had to determine some of the reasons
for the lack of student commitment.
- Lack of consequences
to the students as a result of negative behavior. In order to
overcome this we need to establish, and reinforce a set of
consequences.
- Peer
influence on other students. If they are encouraging poor attendance
it is a problem. If we can turn this around to use the peer pressure
to punish non-participation the teacher can then be the facilitator
not the enforcer.
- Getting the learners to take ownership
and accept responsibility for the project. If the instructor
is making all the rules and setting the guidelines then it
becomes his or her
problem if the goals are not met. The key is to step back and
allow the students to determine what must be accomplished in
each session.
If the session is not productive then the learners must determine
for themselves what went wrong and what would be done about it.
This may require skills the students have not yet developed
and some intervention
may be necessary to help them problem solve.
- Lack of
problem solving skills is a roadblock for many adult learners.
They often allow others to make the decisions for them and
have not had
to explore solutions for themselves. By giving over more control
of the project the students are forced to solve daily problems
themselves rather than depend on others.
- The ability of the instructor
to relinquish control. Our nature as teachers is to lead and
have others follow. By giving up control one runs the risk
of chaos in
the classroom. Allowing the students to make decisions and then
respecting those decisions and accepting the consequences is
a huge leap of
faith for many.
- Is project was relevant to the learners' personal
lives? If the relevance is not there then adult learners will not
buy into the project and other things will take prevalence.
Determining
the desired result:In discussing the behavior I was looking
for the following themes surfaced.
- The ever-present
issue of attendance was in the forefront as well as was time
spent on extra curricular activities, hall roaming and being
present
but not participating in the class. After much discussion we
narrowed our focus down to getting the students to be present
when meetings
were called and taking on the responsibility of meeting deadlines.
This paved the way to determining how to attain the desired
result.
Obtaining
the desired result:After much discussion we determined
that the key to increasing student participation is to allow
them
to take ownership of the project.
- I would contact
each student personally and express my difficulties with
the results to date, and call one more meeting to which I
would expect
all of them to attend.
- Turn over the control to the
learners and ask them to determine how they were going to
get the project completed, what roadblocks had to be overcome
and
what consequences there would be if the deadlines were not
met.
- Each
student would be asked to reaffirm his or her commitment
to the project and determine reasons why it was important.
- A
communication system would be set up so that each person
would be able to access the up to date progress even if others
were
not present.
- The students would be asked to set up
a timeline of due dates that they agreed upon and felt they
could meet.
- A schedule of brief meetings would be established
to determine next steps and troubleshoot arising problems.
The
process:
- The desired result is increasing the student
participation in a preplanned class activity and the vehicle
for our research on the topic is the cookbook a group of
Level 4 adult learners is developing. I had been working
on this project with the students for 2-3 months and the progress
was painfully slow and frustrating. Every time I tried to
get the group together to discuss progress several were missing.
I had to find a way to encourage the students to take ownership
of the project or abandon it altogether. The first thing
I had to determine was if the project was important to the
students or was it just important to me. If I did not have their
commitment then I would not continue.
- After meeting with the
students I asked them to spend some time making up the
timeline and distribute tasks to each person. This established
accountability. If a student was not doing his/her share the others would
let
him/her know.
- The template for the book was placed
on the shared drive so each person could work on it as
time allowed. A jump drive was also set up with the template
so a student could take it home to work on after school hours.
- A
drawer of the filing cabinet in the classroom was allotted
for the cookbook materials. Each student was able to access
the space at any time.
- Regular 5 – 10 minute
meetings were set for the beginning of each class to discuss
progress and next steps. After the meeting everyone went
back to work either on the project or other work as they agreed
upon in the meeting.
- I set up a system of keeping
notes on my observations during the process. I tracked
attendance, time spent working on the project, who was taking
the lead and other observations on the dynamics of the group.
The
Results:It is difficult to determine the degree of
success I had with the new approach to this project. Several
other
factors intervened at this time to skew the results. Some
of the students started jobs and were away due to work
commitments part of the time. Some students were pushing
to graduate
in June and were concentrating their efforts in that area.
A couple students were discontinued due to poor attendance
and progress. Only a handful of students (3) continued
to work diligently on the cookbook and put many hours into
it.
The original group consisted of 8 students. The most
important outcome of the intervention was that the cookbook
was completed
and received back from the printers the day before graduation.
The students are proud of their work and have returned
to see me on a regular basis to obtain books for friends.
I
believe the fact that I put the students in charge instilled
in them more pride of accomplishment. They have a better
idea of meeting deadlines and commitment to the group.
They did not ask for marks for this project. The resulting
book
itself appeared to be rewarding in itself. Each student
proudly displays the cookbook in his or her portfolio
so I feel it
has been a success. |
