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"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn."
 -Benjamin Franklin

I always strive to teach students that they are not disposable.  Failure is fine, failure is the process of trying and learning. You don't have to produce art like Dali, but you have to try like him. My students have already felt the blow  of failing in their other high school, coming to a continuation high school and being the new kid.  I watch them sit and stare out the window, completely disengaged. I have to hook them in, but how? I've spent years trying new hooks and some worked some didn't.  Then I realized its not me, it's the students, they don't understand the importance of engagement. I need to make the students understand why they need to be engaged? How they can be engaged? And how engagement can shape their future.

Between 10 to 15 percent of California’s high school students attend alternative schools. Alt-Ed programs vary from community day, juvenile court, to the largest category, continuation schools.  These high schools offer a track toward graduation for a diverse population of students aged 16-18 who have slipped through the cracks: students who are not exempt from compulsory school attendance and are considered at-risk of dropping out before graduation. According to California’s Department of Education, there were 85,343 students who attended 435 continuation schools in California during the 2017-18 school year (California Department of Education, 2019).  Students at these schools have experienced dropping out. They know what it feels like to become disconnected from school. The goal and perhaps the challenge for continuation schools is to find a way to re-engage students who have demonstrated disengagement from academic culture.

Can California ever catch up in the world of education? California has numerous educational challenges, when deciding on my research project, I wanted something that would help close California's achievement gap.  The vast variety of student economical situations at home created the beginning of my second round of research. The students that participated in the first round of this study were in 11 or 12th grade.  Students reported their living situations as: 2% live in foster care or group homes and another 3% live in a home with one or more parents. 12% declined to answer. About 53% of the student population was eligible for free and reduced lunches. When looking at these numbers, the second round of research was right in front of me. They are hungry. How can they be engage when they haven't eaten? Would using a food incentive help these students? Considering the students socioeconomically status, it is obvious that some of the students don't have access to food. As student engagement is important, the health of the students becomes more important.

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WoW did COVID19 hit us all and hard! How can we finish our research project? How can we help our students in such a strange time.  My poor students are affected with so many disasters, earthquakes, fires, PG&E shutdowns and now COVID19!  What's next? As teachers we started out with big distant learning plans during the quarantine. I had 3 weeks of lessons done and handed out.  Not one student turned in their work.  I pondered over that for a while, then I realized these kids are home, scared and with parents and siblings that also crave attention.  And if they weren't at home, they were working to help their families out financially. When can they actually do there work? Zoom was a great tool for us to use, just to vent.  I let them vent their little hearts out. Sometimes they laughed, sometimes they cried.  Sometimes I cried! But I found it very therapeutic for them. They didn't need to be bombarded in the beginning with a list of assignments from every class, they needed to be heard, and Zoom was perfect for that.  An online video chatting program with abilities to share your screen and files.

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Great video to show you the magic of Pear Deck!

Pear Deck is an interactive presentation software that is perfect for students. It is  used to actively engage students on individual and social learning. Teachers create presentations using their Google Drive account and link them to Pear Deck, where they can present and the students can interact in real time. Great for remote learning and it made my students engage more in their learning.  We played games and had contests on Pear Deck.  My students loved it and found it easy to use.

Click here to read my reflections and journey through the Innovative Learning Program

Research

Design Process

Support and Next Steps