Abstract
The book Flat World and Education, written by Linda Hammond-Darlington, describes five essential practices that enhance success in schools. These measures have been effective in reforming the underperforming schools, especially in urban areas. The five practices include establishing small size classes or learning communities within the school fraternity, creating structures that enhance personal and strong relationships in the school, formulating intellectually, and comprehensive instructions for the learners, formulating a strategy for assessing performance based on assessment, and recruiting highly competent staff, especially teachers, who play a part in planning and problem solving processes. A successful organization should have strategies and policies that govern its performance; this helps to highlight emerging issues and correct mistakes to achieve objectives. Implementation of the five practices has proven to be successful not only in five New York High Schools, but also in some elementary schools (Dallington-Hammond, 2010, p.244).
- Small-sized classes or learning communities within the school fraternity
The small-sized classes are helpful in the learning systems as they help teachers and students to create personal relationships. A teacher can identify students’ weaknesses and formulate effective strategies to correct them. An education survey conducted in 1997 revealed that 83% of elementary school teachers and 60% of principals affirm that a class size should consist of at most 17 students. A small class size increases interaction among the learners and instructor, which makes the learning process enjoyable. The small class size encourages greater teaching flexibility than the big class sizes; teachers feel comfortable addressing a small group of students since it is easy to monitor their reactions to the studies. Instructors can conduct a thorough evaluation on students, which improves both their academic and personal performance.
Achieving a small class size requires planning and implementation of necessary strategies to achieve the expected goals (Schecter, 2011, p.250). The process entails a huge budget to increase the number of teachers and reduction of class sizes. Staffing measures play a significant role in achieving the class sizing decisions; this is because both the instructional and administrative decisions made by teachers determine the attendance rate of students in a school setting. One of the solutions to the existing class size challenge involves recruiting of additional teachers to the existing schools. This measure ensures that the number of students assigned to one teacher is manageable and maximizes the learning systems used.
Large school settings create a favorable environment for inappropriate behaviors among students. According to Dallington-Hammond (2010, p.244), the administrators in large schools allocate huge budgets for hiring security personnel and metal detectors to manage the large number of students. This creates inefficiency, which hinders high quality performance in schools with many students.
The government should focus on eradicating poverty among citizens as it contributes to low performing schools with many students. Recent studies show that students from low-income societies perform poorly in school, and the class sizes are big, which hinders the evaluation. The students from wealthy neighborhoods tend to perform well due to manageable class sizes, availability of resources, and the positive influence of the external environment. School size determines the curriculum available, the motivation that students derive from the system, and the support delivered by the teaching staff. It is essential to establish school settings that offer a comprehensive curriculum to maximize the students’ learning process.
The class sizes differ in public and private schools; the private learning institutions have smaller class sizes, which contribute to high performance levels (Schecter, 2011, p.252). The small class sizes are mainly due to the small number of students who afford the high amount of school fees required. The public schools are cheaper, which attracts the low and middle-income earners. The public administrators should focus on developing the available public schools to improve performance among students. Establishing the minimum number of students that should be enrolled in a public school can help reduce class sizes. Changing the enrollment plans can assist administrators to balance the number of students with the available school resources.
- Structures for Personalization
Facilitating personal and strong relationships between the students and teaching staff contributes to improved performance. Students increase their learning interests when they relate well with their teachers. Students acquire a feeling of importance and belonging, which motivates them to participate in the learning process (Gallego, 2001, p.312). The personalization aspect enables teachers to act as instructors rather than educators; it encourages students to engage in self-learning and problem solving studying, which increases their knowledge levels.
Personal relationships are essential in defining the personal characteristic of students; a teacher can identify the weaknesses in the class and formulate measures to solve them. The small class sizes allow students to establish long lasting relationships with students (Darling-Hammond, 2010, p.251). Facilitators can implement the progressive learning among students once they create personal relationships. The progressive learning involves active participation in the learning process to improve their skills, especially in decision-making processes. The progressive learning seeks to promote equality in the studying process; facilitators embrace the essence of respecting the students’ opinion and effort in the learning process. The teachers’ ability to recognize and appreciate the students’ efforts, ideas, and interests, creates a favorable environment that encourages achievement of learning objectives.
Healthy personal relationship in a class setting enables teachers to develop critical and social intelligence, which enables students to understand and participate in learning. This measure is essential in helping students to achieve both their personal and professional objectives. Students enjoy the learning process, which reduces cases of school absence or involvement in inappropriate behaviors. Studies show that students who have close relationships with their teachers have a similar relationship with their parents. This offers a favorable environment to maximize on both class and extracurricular activities. Students perform well academically and socially, as they acquire guidance from both school facilitators and parents. The children’s upbringing determines the type of relationship they are likely to form with their teachers. It is essential to ensure that children acquire the appropriate interactive tactics to facilitate the creation of healthy relationships with the school administrators. According to Schetter (2011), a child’s background should establish a guiding principle for appropriate education program. A child grows with a self-contained entity, which contains all elements of learning; this shows that it is the immediate society’s role to decide on the effective strategies essential for enacting positive attitude in the child’s life. Parents play a major role in enhancing a positive relationship between the teachers and students.
Studies show that the well performing schools ensure that their students have healthy relationships with the staff. Counseling sessions help students to identify their personal and professional interests, and they provide guidelines on the relevant steps to achieve an individual’s goals (Darling-Hammond, 2010). The counseling sessions equip students with knowledge on the existing challenges and on the appropriate ways to tackle them. The thinking strategies acquired through personal development instills leadership skills among students. The personal relationships between students and teachers enable individuals to identify their role models; this helps teachers to initiate positive trends that are useful in avoiding destructive acts such as drug dealing.
- Formulating a Strategy to Assess Performance Based on Assessment
The education performance and assessment issue has raised concern among policy makers, school administrators, and parents for several decades. The American governors and state school administrators issued some Common Core Standards, which seek to establish global benchmarked concepts required for success in today’s world. The standards aim to create fewer, higher, and deeper academic goals to ensure that students are both personally and professionally prepared. The assessments enable students to create, evaluate, synthesize, and apply knowledge in class work and other extracurricular activities (Schecter, 2011, p.258). Students should acquire well-developed thinking, skills required for problem solving decisions, design, and effective communication skills.
Figure 1: The change in skills requirement over years
The technological advancement over years has contributed to the emergence of trends in the professional world. Employers require high skilled personnel; schools have to match up with this demand by providing high quality education to the students. Assessments enable facilitators analyze the students’ performance, and make necessary recommendations. Allowing students to involve in the Problem Based Learning (PBL) is essential in the assessment process (Gallego, 2001, p.315). Conducting personal research studies enable students to acquire additional knowledge, which is applicable in their professional fields. The research projects enable students to attain different perceptions from the information gathered, which enables them tackle emerging challenging situations. The learning process through assessments on performance enable students to embrace the fact that there are no direct or ready formulas for solving problems; this encourages students to formulate alternative strategies to address challenges, for instance, through research and guidance from facilitators.
4.0 Formulating intellectually and Comprehensive instructions for the Learners
Well-performing schools allow students to engage in work internship programs during their educational process. This measure encourages the development of both personal and professional skills; students learn about following career related instructions. Students acquire leadership skills by acquiring knowledge from both educational and work areas. Self-reliance is an essential element in encourage success among students. The ability to follow instructions formulated by teachers encourages the self-reliance aspect and helps to build strong relationships between students and teachers. The facilitators should lead by example; the instructions formulated should be realistic and achievable. Students can set their teachers as their role models to be successful in their activities.
The intellectually challenging instructions increase creativity among students and encourage teamwork. This causes students to form groups to find solutions to the existing challenges. The teachers act as mere facilitators, which makes the learning process interesting. The process prepares students for career life, which comprises of several changes. Students conduct a meaningful learning session by making the process to be student-centered (Gallego, 2001, p.317). School administrators can increase the challenging instructions in their curricular activities; they help in keeping students occupied rather than engaging in destructive behavior such as gang membership.
5.0 Hiring highly Competent Teachers who collaborate in Planning and Problem Solving
A school’s teaching staff plays a major role in determining the students’ performance. Highly competent teachers have the capability to create long lasting personal relationships with students, which is an essential tool in facilitating learning. The traditional teaching practices did not evaluate the competency of teachers, which limited achievement of success in learning institutions. Teachers should allow all children to access high quality education; the learning programs should not only focus on those who acquire knowledge easily, but should also include the slow learners.
The government should ensure that the teachers recruited in both public and private schools, have the necessary skills to improve the education system. According to Darling-Hammond & Bransford (2005, p.18), a skilled teacher should include all students’ interests in the decision-making process. This ensures that the learning system is balanced, and students attain a positive attitude to learning. School administrators should organize frequent training sessions for teachers. This helps in increasing their knowledge to enable the keep up with the changing students’ perceptions. Creating a healthy environment for learning has a positive impact on students’ performance.
The teachers’ ability to build learning models facilitates the creation of positive attitude in learning (Darling-Hammond, & Bransford, 2005, p.42). Teachers should have adequate knowledge on class-work preparation schedules; this enables them identify the areas that require more emphasis for students to understand. Teachers should be able to identify students’ weaknesses, and formulate comprehensive strategies to handle them. Students have diverse characteristics and behaviors depending on their upbringing; a competent teacher should be able to combine all these behaviors and ensure that students relate well with each other and work towards achieving educational goals. Competent students should not only focus on classwork, but should expand their teaching areas, for instance, in extracurricular activities to gain a better understanding of their students.
References
Darling-Hammond, L. (2010). The flat world and education: How America's commitment to equity will determine our future. New York: Teachers College Press.
Darling-Hammond, L., & Bransford, J. (2005).Preparing teachers for a changing world: What teachers should learn and be able to do. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Gallego, M. A. (2001). Is experience the best teacher? The potential of coupling classroom and community-based field experiences. Journal of Teacher Education, 52(4), 312-325.
Schecter, B. (2011). 'Development as an Aim of Education': A Reconsideration of Dewey's Vision. Curriculum Inquiry, 41(2), 250-266.
