Greg Williamson: Improving achievement through student engagement
Young people can work with adults to create positive change in fundamentally different ways. Northwest Education, the magazine from the Northwest Regional Education Laboratory, describes projects in several states that show some of the results including work by OSR 13 grad, Greg Williamson.
In the current issue, Greg talks about the role of student engagement to improve learning.
Even a simple thing — such as like how a parents might talk to their student when the state assessment results come in the mail — can be a vehicle for student engagement. At Washington's Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) we asked students to write a guide for this conversation, and to help redesign the WASL (Washington Assessment of Student Learning) report card so students could explain it in their own language. All of these examples, and many more, become clear once we begin seeing students as partners, as resources, and as people who are learning ‘on the job.’ The results are useful products that help schools meet their improvement targets while helping students make ‘what we are asking you to learn’ relevant to their lives. Students can find a way to connect to their own strengths — especially if they don't think they have any — and teach one important thing to one other person. The feeling of success that comes from that is irrepressible.”
Greg Williamson and students from Black Hills High School present a workshop on youth participation in change at the OSR Annual Conference, Saturday, June 28.
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