Podcast: Creating Cross-Grade Partnering Opportunities for Students

Students can gain many benefits from cross-grade mentoring and peer-pal opportunities in academic, social emotional, and life skills success. Research shows such programs can generate a school environment that is more inclusive and supportive. Hear the results reported by educators at both the elementary and secondary levels.

Watch the video, “How to Elevate Your Buddy Program” here.

Read the article, “This High School Matches Freshmen With Senior Mentors. They All Get Course Credit” here.

Subscribe to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast on iTunes or visit BarkleyPD.com to find new episodes!

Podcast Transcript:

[00:00:00.300] – Steve [Intro]

Hello and welcome to the teacher edition of Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud. The complexity of teaching is both challenging and rewarding, and my curiosity is piqued whenever I explore with teachers, the multiple pathways for facilitating student engagement in the exciting world of learning. This podcast looks to serve teachers as they motivate and support their learners. Thanks for listening. I’m delighted that you’re here.

[00:00:32.680] – Steve

Creating cross grade partnering opportunities for students. I was recently coaching and consulting with a small K-8 school, exploring learning opportunities that would impact student success in academic, social, emotional, and life skills. One of the options that we examined was looking at ways that students from upper grades could take on tutoring and mentoring roles with younger students. For example, we considered pairing grade eight with four, seven with three, six with two, and five with one. I’ve always been a promoter of the benefits that can be achieved by creating these experiences. Most of the learning that students engage in outside of school is in a multi age setting. In areas like athletics and scouting, choirs and bands.

[00:01:35.950] – Steve

Much can be gained by both the younger and the older student in these opportunities. Here’s the list of benefits I was able to find as I combed through some of the research. In the areas of academics, one benefit is a diverse perspective. Cross-age peer tutoring programs provide students to learn different perspectives that come from the different grade levels collaborating. They each can bring something unique to the learning opportunity. For example, the younger student may offer a fresh perspective or an innovative solution, while an older peer can provide a deeper understanding of the subject matter. Cross-age tutoring can provide reinforcement of skills. When older students tutor their younger peers, they revisit and reteach foundational concepts which can help them retain and apply that knowledge effectively. Cross-age tutoring can also offer individualized support. Tutors can adapt their teaching to cater to the specific needs and learning styles of the student they’re working with. The personalized approach can be particularly beneficial for students who are struggling. Studies have shown that peer tutoring, especially in cross-age settings, can lead to significant improvements in academic performance.

[00:03:14.730] – Steve

Students being tutored typically experience better understanding of the subject matter. They tend to have an increased motivation to learn, which actually has resulted in higher test scores. Additionally, the tutors benefit from experience as well as the teaching reinforces their own knowledge and understanding of the material. Cross-age tutoring has also shown to enhance communication skills. As tutors, students must explain more complex concepts in a way that the younger peer can grasp them. This process fosters clarity and adaptability in their communication. For the student being tutored, they frequently learned to ask questions and seek clarification, improving their active listening and comprehension abilities. This is another set of benefits that are found in the area of social-emotional, and life skills. These cross-age programs empower students to take on leadership roles and responsibilities. Older students, as tutors, are entrusted with guiding their younger peers, which promotes a sense of responsibility and accountability. Interacting with students from different grade levels can foster empathy and compassion. Older students often develop a greater understanding of the challenges faced by their younger peers, leading to a more compassionate outlook.

[00:04:48.730] – Steve

These programs can promote a sense of belonging and support within the school community. Students, both as tutors and two tutees, form meaningful connections with peers from various grade levels, which can combat feelings of isolation or alienation. This sense of belonging contributes to a positive school environment and enhances students well-being overall. Confidence and self esteem can be increased from these partnerships. Tutors gain confidence in their abilities to teach and help others. While the tutees experience increased self esteem as they gain new concepts and improve and enhance their learning. These improvements in self confidence can have a lasting impact on students academic as well as personal lives. These cross age match ups can also provide opportunities for practicing problem solving and conflict resolution. Collaborating with peers from different grade levels can expose students to various perspectives and ideas, which can lead to constructive discussions and problem solving. They can learn to navigate differences in opinion and resolve conflicts peacefully. These conflicts resolution skills are valuable life skills, aiding students in their personal relationships and even in future professional endeavors. I came across a program at the secondary level which reinforces this same list of benefits.

[00:06:31.340] – Steve

Cumberland Regional High School in Bridgeton, New Jersey, has a program that’s over a decade old that matches senior mentors with incoming high school freshmen. The freshmen and the senior mentors are enrolled in a class that meets for 80 minutes each day during the first semester. Freshmen get credits as a general course. For seniors, it’s an honors elective course. The overall goal is for seniors to provide guidance to their younger peers about day to day stressors and challenges, but also to teach incoming freshmen important academic skills, including study habits, organization, time management, goal setting, conflict resolution, interview preparation, and note taking. The freshmen complete projects throughout the semester. They use a college and career readiness program, which analyzes their skills and interest and possibilities for future careers. Students do a research project about potential careers, and they present their findings to the class. The senior mentors are graded based on weekly written reflections, in which they reflect on their work and progress with their freshmen. They also receive grades from their teacher who oversees the class based on projects they helped a freshmen complete one on one counseling skills during the weekly meetings with freshmen and the final exam.

[00:08:17.130] – Steve

Research would certainly support schools looking at such crossed-grade mentoring opportunities. The freshman year is often the most challenging socially and academically for students. The highest course failure rates generally occur in grade nine, and students who fail freshman year are at best, about half as likely to graduate with their peers who post better grade point averages. I like this quote from the high school principal: “One of the things that we tell our senior mentors is that the class is not academically rigorous, but it is emotionally rigorous because you’re not just responsible for yourself. You’re responsible for 2 or 3 other freshmen, and now their success means something to you. And them not doing well means something to you.” Wow. I find that really powerful to give high school students the opportunity to step into that level of responsibility and understanding about being of service to others. I’ll place the link to the article about that program in the lead-in to this podcast, as well as another link to an Edutopia blog that provides some suggestions for starting an elementary buddy program.

[00:09:59.400] – Steve

Several years back, I had the opportunity to work with a K-5 school that implemented Peer Pals. Here’s some of the comments that teachers shared with me after only 12 weeks of implementation of the program. A fourth grade teacher, wrote: “after the student’s first few Peer Pal meetings, I have been amazed with the results. All of my doubts have been erased. Low confidence students have found a leadership role as they work with their first grade peers, these students transform into confident mentors. As I walk through the classroom at our last meeting, I heard many fourth graders talk in a tone that I hadn’t heard before. A tone of self-assurance and fearlessness. They are proud of their relationships with their peer pals, and they take initiative to plan activities for their pals.” A first grade teacher wrote: “schoolwide relationships have strengthened. I have witnessed the fourth graders begin to step out of their fourth grade bubbles and take initiative to form relationships with students in younger grades. Today, as my students were waiting in the hallway to switch to their next class, our Peer pal first graders walked by and as they passed, huge smiles appeared on everyone’s faces.

[00:11:19.500] – Steve

Students were high fiving and giving fist bumps left and right. The strengthening of student relationships across the school is remarkable.” Lastly, another teacher at the school has noted: “Peer Pals has helped our excelling students as well as our struggling, less confident students. Our students that excel in academics have been able to use their skills to teach their younger pals. Our students who are struggling or who are less confident in their academics, have gotten a boost of confidence through being able to help their younger pal. The relationships that are forming through the program are solid and extremely beneficial to both age groups. I have heard students ask, ‘can I go and check on my peer pal to make sure they’re having a great day?’ Or, ‘can I check on my peer pal on their math facts?’ Students are truly seeing the rewards of helping others and building others up.” These peer pals and mentoring programs offer a great opportunity for a school wide program, bringing staff together to make these opportunities happen.

[00:12:42.270] – Steve

But if your school isn’t ready, I think individual teachers can reach out with just one colleague and generate an opportunity for your students to experience the many benefits that can come from stepping into these peer mentoring relationships. Give it a try. I’d love to hear your thinking about it. You can always reach me at barkleypd.com. Thanks for listening.

[00:13:18.820] – Steve [Outro]

Thanks for listening in, folks. I’d love to hear what you’re pondering. You can find me on Twitter @stevebarkley, or send me your questions and find my videos and blogs at barkleypd.com.

Podcast: Leading at All Levels Requires Focusing on the Environment

Just like classroom environment impacts student learning, school environment impacts staff learning and teaching. How does coaching assist teachers in understanding and influencing the environment and conditions that will support learning? What roles do instructional coaches, teacher leaders and administrators play in cultivating the needed school environment? Examine the differences in managing and leading.

Read about the 13 Components of a Positive Classroom Environment here.

Watch Simon Sinek’s full video here.

Watch Sir Ken Robinson’s full video here.

Subscribe to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast on iTunes or visit BarkleyPD.com to find new episodes!

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Steve [Intro]: 00:00 Hello, and welcome to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast. Instructional coaches and leaders create the environment that supports teachers to continually imagine, grow and achieve. They model an excitement for learning that teachers in turn model for students. This podcast is dedicated to promoting the important aspects of instructional leadership. Thanks for listening. I’m thrilled you’re here.

Steve: 00:32 Leading at all levels requires focusing on the environment. Many years back, I attended a conference on learning and the brain. The conference was mostly brain scientists talking to educators. They were sharing what they knew about the brain that influenced learning and pretty much, they were leaving it to the educators in the audience to figure out how that information might be applied in schools. Somewhere into the second day of the conference, an “aha” kicked in for me that’s influenced quite a bit of my thinking, learning, and coaching ever since. My “aha” was that in many ways, schools and classrooms were too focused on teaching and not focused enough on learning. As I considered why, I realized that you could approach teaching as a practice that could be neat, orderly, sequential, managed, and documented. In other words, you could take a required curriculum list of standards, you could put 180 boxes on the wall and spread it all out and now you had a scope and sequence.

Steve: 01:53 You could require teachers to identify in lesson plans what day which of those skills were being addressed. And the teacher would teach a standard, and then at the end of the standard test the standard and now you would have proof. Here’s the problem – you have proof that it was taught not proof that it was learned. And the reason is that learning is often messy, spontaneous, irregular, nonlinear, and complex. You see, teaching could be perceived as the teacher having control, but learning is really more outside the teacher’s control and more a component of the teacher creating all the right conditions for the learning to happen. That’s why folks sometimes use a gardening metaphor for teaching. The gardener or farmer can’t make something grow, but they work very hard to create all the right conditions for that growth to happen. I found an article titled, “13 Components of a Positive Classroom Environment.”

Steve: 03:18 In the article, I found this description: “a positive classroom environment is one in which students feel comfortable sharing their thoughts, taking risks, asking questions, and confronting challenges in their learning. An educator can create this type of environment by presenting clear classroom expectations, providing opportunities to improve social skills, building relationships with their students, and offering relevant content. In this type of a classroom setting, students feel as though educators value their input. From here, students become more active participants in the learning process, which makes for a more productive learning environment.” There’s the key folks, that last sentence. “From here, students can become more active participants in a learning process.” You see, it’s students that produce the learning outcomes. Teachers set the conditions, teachers impact the environment. As a coach to teachers, much of our work is exploring conditions for learning with the teacher. It’s really a key reason for having an extra set of eyes and ears or a video to capture what’s happening in the classroom. I suggest that the same is a key in our leadership roles with school staff. Whether I’m an instructional coach, a team, or PLC leader or an administrator, my focus is on creating the environment. Listen in as Simon Sinek, describes that leadership role.

Simon Sinek: 05:20 The fact of the matter is we are social animals and we respond to the environments we’re in. Always. Our very survival depends on our ability to cooperate and trust with the people that we live or work with, right? You can take a good person and put them in a bad environment, and that person will do bad things. You can take a person who maybe the group doesn’t trust, maybe they’ve even performed bad acts. You put them in a good environment, and they’re capable of turning their lives around and becoming remarkable members of society. In other words, it’s not the person hits the environment. Leaders are responsible for that environment. And I think leaders forget that. Leaders think that they’re responsible for the results. There’s not a leader on the planet that is responsible for the results. A leader is responsible for the people who are responsible for the results.

Simon Sinek: 06:07 And if you take care of that, take care of the people, take care of the environment, things go just fine. You know, we’re obsessed with this idea of like getting the right people on the bus as if it’s this game that you just sort of keep changing people out. You know, some sort of sort of mix and match or something, but we never ask which bus and who’s driving the bus, right? You know, because the bus matters. So I’m more obsessed with what happens to people when they come together in protected or unprotected environments and how we respond to those environments.

Steve: 06:42 So my earlier “aha” about teaching and learning is also true for managing and leading. You see, at times, school leaders are too focused on managing and not focused enough on leading. As I consider why, I realized that we could say the same thing that we said as an approach to teaching. You see, management as a practice could be described as neat, orderly, sequential, managed, and documented. Yes, I can manage the events, but again, the rub is that leading is often messy, spontaneous, irregular, non-linear and complex managing could be perceived as having control. Leading is more outside a leader’s control and more a component of creating all the right conditions for the staff to make it happen. Listen to the sentences that I read earlier about classroom management tweaked to applied to school leaders at all levels. A positive school environment is one in which the staff feel comfortable sharing their thoughts, taking risks, asking questions, and confronting challenges in their learning and teaching.

Steve: 08:16 An educator can create this type of environment by presenting clear expectations, providing opportunities to improve social skills, building relationships with their staff, and offering relevant, continued learning and coaching. In this type of school, staff feel is though leaders value their input. From here, staff can become more active participants in the teaching learning process, which makes for a more productive learning environment. Consider your role in generating the environment that supports a staff and community in generating the environment for students to flourish. Students who will be responsible for future environments for future generations. I’m going to close out this podcast with a message from the late Sir Ken Robinson, describing our roles in environment. As always, you’ll find the links to the resources in the lead-in to the podcast. Thank you for listening.

Ken Robinson: 09:29 So I think we have to embrace a different metaphor. We have to recognize that it’s a human system and there are conditions under which people thrive and conditions under which they don’t. We are, after all organic creatures, and the culture of the school is absolutely essential. Culture is an organic term, isn’t it? Not far from where I live, is a place called Death Valley. Death Valley is the hottest, driest place in America, and nothing grows there. Nothing grows there because it doesn’t rain. Hence, Death Valley. In the winter of 2004, it rained in Death Valley. Seven inches of rain fell over a very short period. And in the spring of 2005, there was a phenomenon. The whole floor of Death Valley was carpeted in flowers for a while. What it proved is this – that death valley isn’t dead. It’s dormant. Right at the surface are these seeds of possibility waiting for the right conditions to come about.

Ken Robinson: 10:46 And with organic systems, if the conditions are right, life is inevitable. It happens all the time. You take an area, a school, a district, you change the conditions, give people a different sense of possibility, a different set of expectations, a broader range of opportunities. You cherish and value the relationships between teachers and learners. You offer people the discretion to be creative and to innovate in what they do. And schools that are once bereft spring to life. Great leaders know that. The real role of leadership in education, and I think it’s true, the national level, the state level at the school level is not and should not be command and control. The real role of leadership is climate control, creating a climate of possibility. And if you do that, people will rise to it and achieve things that you completely did not anticipate and couldn’t have expected.

Ken Robinson: 11:39 There’s a wonderful quote from Benjamin Franklin: “There are three sorts of people in the world. hose who are immovable, people who don’t get it, they don’t wanna get it, they’re not going to know nothing about it. There are people who are moveable, people who see the need for change and are prepared to listen to it. And there are people who move, people who make things happen. And if we can encourage more people, that will be a movement. And if the movement is strong enough, that’s in the best sense of the word, a revolution. And that’s what we need. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.”

Steve: 12:21 Thank you for listening. You can subscribe to Steve Barkley ponders out loud on iTunes and pod B. And please remember to rate and review us on iTunes. I also want to hear what you’re pondering. You can find me on Twitter at Steve Barkley or send me your questions and find my videos and blogs. Barkley PD.