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"Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day…" - 5 new articles
A Look Back: New Study Reviews 25 Years Of Research Into What Helps Students Graduate – Here’s What They FoundFor the next several months, each week I’ll be republishing posts from the past that I think readers might still find useful. This post first appeared in 2016.
Paul Bruno tweeted out a link to an important new study (that is, unfortunately, behind a paywall) titled Factors that Promote High School Graduation: a Review of the Literature, by Jonathan F. Zaff, Alice Donlan, Aaron Gunning, Sara E. Anderson, Elana McDermott, Michelle Sedaca. I read it, and here’s my summary: First off, I’d strongly recommend this study be read side-by-side with last year’s report by American’s Promise Alliance, which examined why students drop-out (see New Survey On High School Drop-Outs Is Depressing, If Accurate). I think both studies complement each other – with this new one focused on what helps students stay, while the earlier one targets why they drop-out. They’re similar in many ways and different in a few others. This new report reviewed: research from the past 25 years on high school graduation, focusing on longitudinal, US-based studies of malleable factors that predict graduation. Through this systematic search, we identified 12 assets in individual, family, school, peer, and community contexts, which predict high school graduation… I don’t think anyone is going to be too surprised by what they found. I’m listing them in the order they are discussed in the study. However, I don’t believe the researchers list them in order of importance. I might be wrong on that, but I can’t find anything in the article that suggests there was a strategic plan for what was discussed at the beginning, middle and end: 1. Student motivation, particularly intrinsic motivation: No big surprise to me, especially since I’ve written three books on the topic. Also, see Best Posts On “Motivating” Students. 2. Student engagement: They identify it as “behavioral (e.g., attending class, completing assignments), emotional (e.g., identification with school, liking school), and/or cognitive (e.g., taking a strategic approach to learning, intellectual curiosity).” See The Best Posts & Articles On Student Engagement. 3. Youth expectations for “attainment”: In other words, do they expect that they are going to college. See The Best Resources For Showing Students Why They Should Continue Their Academic Career. 4. Do students feel that they are in control of their own destiny: “Youth who believe they control their academic outcomes (i.e., internal locus of control) tend to do better in school and persist when they encounter difficulties.” This reminded me of Maria Konnikova’s recent article in The New Yorker where see writes that resilient people see themselves as “the orchestrators of their own fates.” It may also speak to the importance of maximizing the use of choice – see The Best Posts & Articles About Providing Students With Choices. 5. “Parental Academic Involvement”: This includes both parents helping with homework or talking with their kids about school at home, as well as participating in activities at the school itself. See my fifty “Best” lists related to parent engagement here. 6. “Parent-Child Connection”: Do the parents and their children communicate well and regularly with each other? 7. “Positive Peer Norms”: Are students hanging-out with friends who are more likely to graduate or drop-out? 8. “Positive Student-Teacher Relationships”: See The Best Resources On The Importance Of Building Positive Relationships With Students. 9. “Small Schools”: I think big schools can apply this idea through developing Small Learning Communities, as we have done in our school. See The Best Resources For Learning About Small Learning Communities. 10. Participation in School-Based Extracurricular Activities 11. Career and Technical Education opportunities 12: Access To Community-Based “out-of-school” activities like Outward Bound Obviously, some of those factors are outside of the teacher and school’s control, but we can impact quite a few of them. What do you think?      Classroom Instruction Resources Of The Week
Each week, I publish a post or two containing three or four particularly useful resources on classroom instruction, and you can see them all here. You can also see all my “Best” lists on instructional strategies here. Here are this week’s picks: I’m adding this tweet to The Best Resources For Learning About Retrieval Practice:
I’m adding this tweet to The Best Ways To Finish The School Year Strong:
I’m adding this post to The Best Sites For Learning About World Refugee Day:
I’m adding this tweet to THE BEST RESOURCES SHARING RECOMMENDATIONS ABOUT “TEACHER TALK”:
Improving Reading with Sentence Fluency is from ASCD. This image from Wrong Hands could be used as an example for a classroom assignment:
 Infographic: “How the United States’ Minimum Wage Compares” Hans / Pixabay
I’m adding this infographic to The Best Resources On Why Raising The Minimum Wage Is Important:
 Check Out Google’s “Language Explorer”
Here is how Google explains its interactive “Language Explorer”: Google Language Explorer is an interactive website where anyone can explore the world’s rich diversity of languages. Here, users can discover information about thousands of languages through maps, search tools, and detailed data pages powered by the LinguaMeta data repository. I’m adding it to The Best “Language Maps.”  Genes Are Not THE Predeterminant To How Smart You Are
I’ve shared a lot about the nature/nurture debate, and you can those past posts at The Best Posts On The Nature/Nurture Debate. There are some who, apparently, continue to proclaim that genetics are destiny. A recent article in The Atlantic, Your Genes Are Simply Not Enough to Explain How Smart You Are, seems to do a good job stomping on that argument.  More Recent Articles
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