PSY 620P April 7, 2015

 Parent-child relationships  Peer relationships  School and community influences

Child Classroom Engagement Motivation Self-Esteem Achievement Goals Classroom Practices Curriculum Content Instructional Design Teacher Characteristics Beliefs Instruction Techniques Relationships with students School Curriculum Policies Demographics Organization External Relations School, home, community linkages

direct and indirect effects on child…

 At most schools, if a child is flailing academically, it is treated as a private matter. But at Success Academy Harlem 4, one boy’s struggles were there for all to see: On two colored charts in the hallway, where the students’ performance on weekly spelling and math quizzes was tracked, his name was at the bottom, in a red zone denoting that he was below grade level.

 Though it serves primarily poor, mostly black and Hispanic students, Success is a testing dynamo, outscoring schools in many wealthy suburbs, let alone their urban counterparts.  In New York City last year, 29 percent of public school students passed the state reading tests, and 35 percent passed the math tests.  At Success schools, the corresponding percentages were 64 and 94 percent.  Charter schools are publicly funded but privately operated.

 Curriculum Content  Work must be relevant to optimally engage students ▪ Historical reality of all students ▪ Developmental interests  Design of Instruction  Materials and activities allowing for scaffolded learning ▪ Appropriately challenging ▪ Integration of many cognitive operations ▪ Multiple modes of representing a problem ▪ Successive but integrated lessons

 Instructional Formats  Whole Group Instruction  Small Group Instruction ▪ Ability-based groups vs. ▪ Collaborative/cooperative groups  Individualized Instruction

 Beliefs about:  Role of teacher ▪ Weeder vs. cultivator ▪ Beliefs about intelligence and goal orientation  Self-efficacy ▪ Expectations for students’ performance  Differential treatment of students within same classroom based on ▪ ability level (high rec’d preferential treatment) ▪ Gender, race, ethnic groups, social class  Nature of Ability ▪ Entity vs. incremental views of intelligence ▪ How do these relate to goals?

Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) MathScience

 Instructional Practices  Classroom climate optimal when teacher is high in ▪ Supportiveness ▪ Control  Balance of Control and Autonomy Granting ▪ Promotes intrinsic motivation styles vs. learned helplessness ▪ Why?  Middle and high school teachers use of more control- oriented strategies ▪ Counter to the developmental quest for autonomy ▪ why?  Goodness-of-fit between student and instructional environment ▪ E.g., boys  reading; girls  science/math

 Trusting, caring, respectful teachers associated with optimal learning ▪ Why?   Feelings of security  allow children to approach, take initiative, engage, persist and take risk to develop positive achievement related self-perceptions  Parallels to attachment security

 Within-class versus between-class groupings  Direct and indirect effects on child  Mixed effects depending on outcome measure and grouping characteristic ▪ Negative academic outcomes for low-ability groups ▪ Why? ▪ Negative ability self-concepts for high-ability groups ▪ Why?

 School size  School resources  Associated with race and class  Academic and social climate  Educational policies and practices ▪ School ability orientation vs. school task orientation  Daily Schedule– Start / End Times

 Protective effects of school-home linkage  Why?  Reasons teachers and/or parents wouldn’t solicit connection?  School-Community linkage  Ways to do this? ▪ Service learning  Beneficial?

 Negative effects upon entry into middle school:  Declines in academic motivation, ▪ interest in school, ▪ achievement across early adolescent years (11-14);  Increases in test anxiety; ▪ focus on self-evaluation rather than task mastery  Increased school truancy and dropout  Middle school misfit developmental stage  levels of teacher control and reduced student autonomy  affective relationships between students and teachers  teacher efficacy  organization of instruction ▪ whole class instruction & between class ability groupings  grading practices (stricter grades)  motivational goals (emphasis on performance rather than mastery goals

Alfieri et al., 1996 T indicates children who have just transition from junior high school

 Mechanism?  Stage-environment fit theory  In what way do practices misfit with developmental stage in ▪ Middle school? ▪ High school?  How to optimize stage-environment fit theory in middle school?  In high school?

 Direct and indirect effects of neighborhoods  Mediating variables? ▪ family, school, peer networks  Mechanisms (Jencks & Mayer, 1990) ▪ Contagion ▪ Collective Socialization ▪ Resource Exposure  Developmental changes in effects  more exposure and effect of direct influences

 School  Cross-age peer tutoring  Early maturing girls at high risk for school dropout ▪ Even after controlling for previous motivation and academic performance ▪ Why?