BEST
Summer Institute 2012BEST
Summer Institute 2012Helen Beattie
Many suggest that moving toward more “student-centered learning” is the key to school transformation. The irony is that all too often students are left out of this conversation. Youth and Adults Transforming Schools Together (YATST) has been providing a road map for high schools around the state to increase engagement in learning by involving students in the change process. Youth-adult partnerships and action research ground these efforts. Engagement in learning has been defined by the 3 Rs framework (rigor, relevance and relationship). To this framework, YATST has added the fourth critical “R”: Shared Responsibility.
This strand will be facilitated by the YATST Director and a student co-facilitator. Participants will explore the core practices and principles of YATST’s approach to high school transformation through varied activities and dialogue. You will conduct an assessment of current youth adult partnerships in your school and begin to shape a vision and path to increasing student voice. “The twin challenges authorizing student perspectives are a) changing the structures in our minds that have rendered us disinclined to elicit and attend to students’ voices, and b) changing the structures in educational relationships and institutions that have supported and been supported by this disinclination” (Educational Researcher, May 2002, p.4). This is no small task!
The YATST change paradigm is best captured by this quote from Margaret Wheatley (2002): “There is nothing more powerful than a community discovering what it cares about”. We would add, there is nothing more powerful than students leading this discovery process.
Practices participants will be exposed to:
• strategies to assess and expand authentic youth-adult partnerships in learning
• a school-wide action research process based on the 4 Rs
• a strengths-based change process paradigm and methods
• success stories from current and past YATST schools
Recommended system(s) to assure follow-up learning/coaching and administrative support
A wide array of self-assessment and curriculum materials will be provided as resources for subsequent school-based efforts. Schools interested in joining YATST will be supported to do so. YATST provides intensive, on-going training and coaching. Consulting is also available to any school.
Data system to measure effectiveness of the practices presented.
YATST is an Action Research model and therefore grounded on data as a means of assessment. Schools undertaking this model will be guided in these research methods. A comprehensive “Self-assessment and Best Practices” guide, consisting of rubrics for each of the 4 Rs. also serves as a means to measure the effectiveness of change efforts.
Helen Beattie ,