Author(s): Brown, Kimberly E., and Frederic J. Medway
Published: May 2007 in Teacher and Teacher Education
URL to article
Research Focus Area: Asset-based best practices for serving Black and Latinx teens
Abstract:
This study examined the roles of school climate, teacher expectations, and instructional practices in one elementary school in South Carolina (USA) that produced effective achievement outcomes with poor and minority students. Survey data, teacher interviews, and classroom videotaping was used to identify school characteristics and instructional behaviors of six teachers nominated by colleagues as exemplary. The school was characterized by an emphasis on high student expectations, school staff cohesiveness, engaging instruction, high parent involvement, and multicultural instruction integrated with curriculum. The practices identified are consistent with literature on effective American schools; and the practices are key aspects of the sound instruction of poor and minority children. Teachers stated that teacher education programs did not prepare them to teach these students and that they had to learn this on the job.
Research Question(s):
What characterizes the climate in a school that effectively teaches economically disadvantaged minority students? In this school, what are teachers’ beliefs about effective instructional methods? For exemplary teachers in an effective school, how is school climate perceived and how do teachers communicate school climate to students? What expectations do these teachers have for students and how do these expectations influence their choice of instructional methods?
Methods:
Survey, Interview, classroom observation
Setting:
One elementary school in south Carolina that produced effective achievement outcomes with poor and minority students This study specifically investigated six exemplary teachers, nominated by their colleagues.
Key Findings:
- The PTQ survey data revealed that the teachers endorsed both traditionally oriented instructional methods and developmentally oriented (constructivist) methods with slightly more emphasis on the former than latter approach.
- In general, the teachers felt that climate influenced the overall environment and management of a school.
- Exemplary teachers believed that teaching required flexibility and originality in line with their endorsement of constructivist instructional approaches to learning.
- Exemplary teachers sought to individualize instruction, focusing on end goals when teaching a certain skill.
- teachers were sensitive to the fact that minority children often encounter attitudes and forces that discourage educational effort (e.g. because it does not pay) Themes identified from interviews of exemplary teachers:
- Sense of collegial cohesiveness
- Collegiality promotes the perception of a safe and supportive environment in which teachers can learn from each other and strive to improve their skills
- Hands-on approach to curriculum instruction works best
- teachers ensured that a student competed against a challenge rather than against others
- Overarching teaching philosophy that all children can learn
- Communicating that all students will be successful
- Exemplary teachers emphatically reported that when their students enter into the classroom that it is their responsibility to communicate to them that they will succeed
- Teachers went the extra mile to make sure that all of their students experienced success in multiple ways.
- High expectations for all students
- Teachers acknowledged that students would progress at different rates and in different ways.
- Parents play a vital role in student success
- Exemplary teachers characterized parent involvement as an important relationship that they were ultimately responsible for building.
- These teachers placed high value on parents helping their children with homework.
- Teacher education does not prepare teachers to work with diverse student populations
- In a remarkably unanimous response, teachers identified the need for teacher education training programs to restructure themselves and include coursework and experiences specific to teaching and educating minority students. Findings from classroom video tapes:
- Reading instruction was predominantly led by the teachers and focused on acquisition of discrete skills.
- Approaches were individualized for the more advanced students so that they confronted more complex concepts rather than going over mastered material
- most instruction, whether group or individual, cut across and integrated content areas such as language, science, reading, math, and the arts.
- Teachers made strategic use of group work
- Individual approaches predominated for math instruction, while group approaches dominated for reading, language arts, writing, and cultural awareness
- While the field is undecided about the appropriateness of ability grouping, participating teachers all reported that they used ability grouping as a way to structure the classroom in a way that would facilitate small group and individual instruction when necessary and not for the purpose of student tracking.
- Teachers made use of peer group support to encourage academic learning.
- Teachers used systematic assessment to prevent groups from being too rigid, and shifted group membership regularly
- Teachers often provided direct instruction, then made sure that the students understood the concept being taught, and finally spent extended time with small groups individualizing the instruction given
- Teachers placed high importance on integrating culture and an appreciation of multiculturalism into the existing curriculum
Limitations:
- This study merely captures key aspects of one school that was so unique in South Carolina (USA) that no control or comparison sites could be studied.
- Teachers were aware that they were selected as exemplary teachers and might have responded with socially desirable themes
- Teachers interviewed were volunteers, and there may have been some differences in study volunteers versus non-volunteers.
- This study only investigated the perceived school climate and expectations experienced by the teachers and did not directly investigate how the principal, parents, and students experienced school climate and expectations.