Effective Educational Practice: A Crucial First Step in Addressing the Needs of Traditionally Overlooked Students

Abstract

These students regularly encounter challenges that reflect a poor educational fit and their key needs are often overlooked in traditional school settings. These challenges include background factors such as poverty (Arnold & Doctoroff, 2003; Case, Fertigl, & Paxson, 2006;Rouse & Fantuzzo, 2009) and cultural differences (Bourdieu, 2008;Delpit, 2006;Garcia & Guerra, 2004;Jaeger, 2011;Lareau, 2003;Morrison, Robbins, & Rose, 2008;Rothstein-Fisch & Greenfield, 2000;Sternberg, 2004Sternberg, & 2007, as well as greater systemic inequalities such as funding (Biddle & Berliner, 2002;Condron & Roscigno, 2003), inequitable schooling experiences (Fram, Miller-Cribbs, & Van Horn, 2007;Giroux & Schmidt, 2004;Kozol, 1991), low teacher perspectives and expectations (Armstrong, 2010;Delpit, 2006;Garcia & Guerra, 2004), and low-quality curriculum (Baker, 2005;Freire, 2009;Garcia & Guerra, 2004) that lacks cultural relevance & responsiveness (Banks, 2006;.Despite these challenges, classrooms can support equity in access to excellence in education for traditionally overlooked students by (1) holding high expectations of all students while simultaneously providing high levels of support (e.g. Delpit, 2006;Howard, 2001;Ladson-Billings, 1992;Morrison, Robbins, & Rose, 2008;Swartz, 2009), (2) affirming and capitalizing on student culture and strengths, and (3) developing student efficacy and sense of empowerment (e.g. Banks, 2006;Benson, 2003;Ladson-Billings, 1992;Martinez, 2009;Matczynski, Rogus, Lasley, & Joseph, 2000;Morrison, Robbins, & Rose, 2008;Richards, Brown, & Forde, 2007;Rothstein-Fisch & Greenfield, 2000;Seidl, 2007;Sternberg, 2010;Sternberg, Gringorenko, & Bundy, 2001;Swartz, 2009).Such efforts require a foundation of best educational practices (Hattie, 2009), and Tomlinson's model of Differentiation (Sousa & Tomlinson, 2011) is a highly useful frame for considering both best educational practice and the needs of traditionally overlooked students. This is because it is a model that is grounded in research-based approaches in all areas of classroom practice; rather than being a formula or collection of strategies, it is an approach to thinking about teaching and learning where teachers "proactively modify curricula, teaching methods, resources, learning activities, and student products to address the diverse needs of individual students and small groups of students to maximize the learning opportunity for each student in a classroom" (Tomlinson, Brighton, Hertberg, Callahan, Moon, Brimijoin, Conover, & Reynolds, 2003, p 121).The school site I partnered with for this capstone project had a significant population of traditionally overlooked students (i.e. 40% or more of students were considered to be from backgrounds of poverty) and desired support in addressing the needs of both this group of students as well for all students. This capstone project was conducted with a practical action research design overall and an ethnographic approach to data collection and analysis. After spending significant time observing teachers,...