|
'Having Our Say' lets middle school
students speak out on education issues
Raleigh, N.C.
- Researchers at the William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation wanted to know
more about middle school students, so they decided to let pupils become teachers. The Friday
Institute is a research and outreach arm of North Carolina State University's College of
Education.
Led by Dr. Hiller Spires, College of Education professor and senior research fellow at the Friday
Institute, the team wanted to understand what skills and tools students believe they need to have
in order to be successful and academically engaged in school.
"There is growing consensus among policy groups that if current generations of students are to be
competitive in the 21st century, our education system must be transformed to address the needs of
a connected global economy," Spires said. "As North Carolina prepares students for work and life
in the modern world, students need to be actively engaged in the design of their schools and
learning environments."
That is how the "Having Our Say" project came to life. Research results will be presented at the
annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in Chicago on April 13, 2007.
Project sponsors include the Friday Institute, N.C. Business Committee for Education (NCBCE), N.C.
Partnership for 21st Century Skills and EDSTAR, Inc.
Researchers collected survey data from 4,000 middle school students (from sixth, seventh and
eighth grades) from across North Carolina and held small, follow-up focus groups.
"Numerous surveys have assessed what skills teachers and business leaders think students need,"
said Janet Johnson, president of EDSTAR. "Noticeably absent from the dialogue, however, are
students' perspectives."
Students ranked using computers in general and doing research on the Internet as the school
activities they liked best and listening to teachers explain subject matter and doing worksheets
as activities they liked least.
The majority (75 to 90 percent) reported that they possess basic word processing and spreadsheet
skills, and that most of these skills were learned at school. For skills related to activities
outside of school, students classified themselves as high frequency users of listening to music
(83 percent), playing video games (76 percent), and using cell phones (71 percent). Using
computers was the one activity that all ethnicities stated as the one they liked best in school.
"Today's students learn in different ways than those of previous generations, and much of the
change is due to advancements in information technology," Kim Turner, doctoral research assistant,
said. "Rather than being empowered to choose what they want and to see what interests them and to
create their own personalized identity - as they are in the rest of their lives - in school, they
must eat what they are served."
Focus groups helped the researchers dig deeper into issues facing today's learners. A total of 48
students from the western, piedmont and coastal regions of North Carolina participated in the
groups.
"We thought it was important to hear students' voices in terms of what they need to be engaged
and inspired to achieve in school," John Lee, associate professor in middle grades education.
The majority of students noted that they use a variety of technologies outside of school, and they
would like to be able to use these tools in school. These students expressed a concern that
sometimes it appeared that teachers did not understand that technology is a big part of students'
lives outside of school. In general, students believe school is more fun and engaging when they
use technology to support learning.
"We found that students want to be engaged and stimulated in school," Spires said. "Students have
clear perspectives about academic engagement through the use of technologies in project-based
learning. Students expressed a vision for using what they deem as 'everyday technologies,' not
only in the classroom for academic engagement, but for preparation for future jobs."
Laptop computers were high on the list of classroom needs.
"Students clearly want to bring technology experiences that they have as part of a social network
outside of school into school and apply it to the learning process as a way to increase academic
engagement," Lee noted. "Demonstrating a sophisticated sense of what is needed to be successful
in society, they voiced concerns about their schools not being up-to-date in terms of facilities,
technologies and curricula."
After conducting the year long research project, a dozen students from across the state and their
chaperones were invited to the Friday Institute to create a video of the experience and
participate in a highly technical scavenger hunt, also referred to as "geocaching," using GPS
tracking devices. Karen Creech, from the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, collaborated on
the high tech educational activity. The day was an opportunity to learn and bring participants
and researchers together, and have a little fun in the process.
"These students will create our future," NCBCE Executive Director Tricia Willoughby said. "We need
to listen to them and use the tools and realities of their world to ensure that they stay engaged
in the education process."
Knowledge gained through the project can have a lasting impact, Spires noted.
"If we make student perspectives a regular part of the educational dialogue and action agenda, we can create a more responsive and innovative schooling process," she said.
"Our goal is for this work to be informative to educators and policy makers as we all help create
an educational system that can change and evolve with the time, and keep our students competitive
in a changing global economy."
www.fi.ncsu.edu/projects/havingoursay
|
© 2007 The Friday Institute. All Rights Reserved.