Students Worldwide Share Their Beliefs of

School

Through Students’ Eyes

Jim Harmon Euclid City Schools

Cleveland, Ohio, USA jharmon@euclid.k12.oh.us

@jimharmon

Why does school matter?

Project Questions

• Take a picture in response to:

1. What is the purpose of school?

2. What helps you succeed in school?

3. What impedes your school success?

History and Demographics •  2004 - school facilities crisis in Cleveland

-  9th graders: 5th grade reading level

-  Dropout rates as high as 67% •  500 middle/high school students

-  Cleveland and inner ring suburbs - Washington DC metro area (ESL students) -  Bo, Sierra Leone

-  Port au Prince, Haiti •  Over 40 languages / 200 ethnicities

Process of Project •  Students worked with mentors

•  Differences between social and professional networking

•  Selected photographs

•  Wrote responses

•  Peer and mentor editing

•  Public art show of student work

Cleveland, OH 2010

Focus on the Writing Process���

•  Define terminology - purpose, success, impediments

•  Eliciting responses - differentiation and problem solving - no set formula

•  Learn from past practice

•  Gauge writer confidence and respond

Strategies for ���Eliciting Student Responses

•  Get students to verbally describe what they see in photographs

• With what do they identify?

•  Physical description

• Move in the direction of metaphor

•  Transcribe for struggling writers to get ideas

Strategies for Revision •  Peer editing

•  Moodle-Workshop or NING

•  Read aloud into digital recording software

•  High stakes edit - pre-publishing

•  Writing conventions

•  6+1 Traits - Voice and Ideas

•  Published edit - provide feedback within network

•  Feedback from adults in the social network

Strategies for Publication to Social Network

•  Creating titles

•  Pulling keywords and phrases from writing

•  Choosing unstated big ideas

•  Extending the metaphor

•  Published Edit

•  Feedback from peers within social network

•  Feedback from adults within social network

Student Impact���What students have learned from each other

•  Improved writing skills

• More data for RTI

•  Increased contact with teachers and adult mentors after graduating from high school

• Opens world-view

•  Realization of shared challenges

•  Development of informal cohort

Teacher Impact���What teachers have learned about students

•  Parent is a BIG influence (yeah... “DUH!”)

•  Adults MUST preach “gospel of school’s significance”

•  Students will tell you what IS valuable about school •  TSE Video

•  Visual texts increases literacy engagement

•  Curriculum of students’ lives IS social networking

•  Student/Teacher relationship IS SYNONYMOUS with Student/School relationships

Our Next Steps • Work with schools on HOW this data impacts learning

•  Applications for RTI

•  Add additional geographically diverse locations •  Houston, Denver, Los Angeles, Afghanistan, Iraq

•  Continue to develop/revise existing curriculum

•  Incorporate and seek tax exempt status

•  Redesign the website

•  Develop additional tools to support the project

Make Things Better

This picture is of my grandmother that I took in front of her job. My grandmother is 71 years old and has worked in childcare for 23 years. She continues to work because she doesn’t have any money to retire and money is a constant problem in our house. I feel like if I go to school and work hard someday I can have a good paying job. I want to be able to make things better for her but also my mother. I’m going to school for me and my family.

Andranic

Web 2.0 Tools

• Ning

•  Voice Thread

•  Google Docs

Contact Information Jim Harmon, Co-Director Through Students’ Eyes

jharmon@euclid.k12.oh.us @jimharmon

http://www.throughstudentseyes.org

Hannah Reid, Co-Director Through Students’ Eyes hreid24@gmail.com

Kristien Zenkov, Co-Director Through Students’ Eyes kzenkov@gmu.edu