workers and their credit recovery via laptops. Michele ... are of vital concern to the school district ... My experience in a barrio high school with high migrant.
Portraits of Migrants Achieving Success (MAS): Extending the academic day for the children of farm workers and their credit recovery via laptops
Michele Stafford Levy Broward College 2013
Purpose To describe migrant student’s experiences who have lost high school credits. Their school has given them a laptop with access to online curriculum in order to recover those lost credits through distance learning.This study will attempt to share their stories and to describe their experiences of online credit recovery.
Statement of the Problem • Addressing the unique needs of migrant students is a great challenge for schools • Considerations of culture, language, and mobility are a priority in migrant education programs • Challenges of credit accrual, dropout prevention, and postsecondary transition are of vital concern to the school district
Theoretical Framework • The Digital Divide refers to the gap between those who can effectively use new information and communication tools and is “broader than just access to technology” (Light, 2000).
• The lack of home access will only deepen the isolation associated with being low-income who are disconnected from economic opportunity (Wilhelm, 2000). • Laptop programs help students spend more time on schoolwork thereby extending the academic day (Carter, 2001).
• Motivation plays an important role in student work and student attendance (Carter, 2001).
Theoretical Framework • As long as student’s basic needs are being met, motivation has the potential to spell success for students (Maslow, 1968).
• Maslow inspired the “self-regulation theorists” like Bandura, Schunk and Zimmerman to pursue the phenomenon of motivation, self-regulation, and goalsdirected learning (Bandura, 1977, 1984, 1986, 1991; Schunk and Zimmerman, 1994, 1996).
• Bandura (2000) believed self-reactive influences are activated through cognitive comparisons requiring personal standards and knowledge performance (p. 210). • In other words, if people aren’t happy with the results of the goals they set then dissatisfaction intensifies and effects their subsequent performance motivation (p. 210).
Theoretical Framework • Goals enhance self-regulation (Schunk and Zimmerman, 1998). • Combining the work of Bandura, Schunk and Zimmerman points to effective goal setting which requires people to set long-term goals and break them into short-term, attainable sub-goals, monitor progress and assess capabilities, adjust the strategy and goal as needed, and set new goals once the present one is attained (Schunk, 2001). • Resiliency theory is the ability to bounce back successfully despite exposure to severe risks and the “self-righting nature”of human development (Benard, 1993; 1997).
Researcher Perspective • This study is an extension of the researcher-as-learner, classroom educator, and participant observer. • Resiliency theory is critical in at-risk communities. • What I know and have read about effective laptop programs and migrant technology programs. • Builds on my work with at-risk teens.
• My experience in a barrio high school with high migrant populations.
Conceptual Framework
for this
Study Elements Affecting MAS Students
The Digital Divide Digital/Media Literacy
Students at risk of failure
Home-School Connections Motivation, Self-regulation, self-efficacy Resiliency Theory Exemplary Migrant Technology & Laptop Programs
Visionary Tech Leadership
Literature Review Topics • The Digital Divide • The New Literacies • Exemplary laptop programs and migrant technology programs in the U.S. • Motivation • Self-efficacy • Self-regulation • Resiliency
Research Design • Descriptive multi case study within a case study • Qualitative using portraiture to describe • Emancipatory approach “Freire taught us that, for social transformation to take place, it is important for students to understand and give voice to their personal struggles. The realities children face are important factors in their social and academic development” (Darder, 2002).
Study Site and Group • Study site: Two rural high schools in the southwestern U.S. on the Texas-Mexican border in a farming community • Study group of 5 MAS students and 2 MAS teacher/coordinators – 1 male (Sr.) – 4 females (Jr. and Sr.) – 2 female MAS teacher/coordinators (one at each high school)
Research Question • How do MAS students interact in the laptop program? • How do they define success in terms of the laptop program?
Matrix of Data Collection Instruments Instrument
In depth Interviews
Focus Group
Beginning School Year
X
Middle School Year
X
End School Year
X
X
Data Analysis • Seidman’s In-Depth Interviews – 3, 90-minute interviews • Interview #1: Life histories • Interview #2: The Present (What is success to you?) • Interview #3: A Reflection on Project MAS (Have you been successful according to your definition?)
• Final focus group with MAS students – Students from both high schools will discuss their experiences with Project MAS
Data Analysis • In-depth Interviews and Focus Group – Analyzed and coded for themes (NVivo)
• Final Student Focus Group – Analyzed and coded for themes (NVivo)
Chapters 4, 5, and 6 •Presentation of the Data •Data Analysis • Implications and Reflections
Presentation of the Data
Purposive Sampling •Inductive •Semi-structured Seidman Interviews •Students who passed online courses were known as “completers”
Achievement Behavior Theory •No longer working in a deficit model •Patricia Gándara’s work Over the Ivy Walls •The commonalities of resilient students
Teacher Input • By October, signs of student success began to emerge • I began to interview the students who were completing courses • Thus the focus was on the “completer”
Data Analysis Meet the MAS students and teachers
Both High Schools Had Completers • One student, Bernardo, had completed two courses by mid year • Two females at the other high school had completed online coursework from home • Both MAS teachers informed this researcher that some students were experiencing success • Since the first attempt at MAS for TISD the year before produced no completers, the focus of this study was on the successful student
Philosophical Lens • Hispanic scholars like Henry Trueba and
Patricia Gandára prefer to not work in deficit thinking • The concentration on MAS completers was deliberate
• Delgado-Gaitan believed the central strategy to studies must be empowerment • Terms like “at-risk” were avoided and social work’s term “barriers” was used
Bernardo • Originally from Durango, Mexico, Bernardo was able to graduate on time after completing three courses from home using his NovaNET laptop
The Long Bus Ride • Bernardo lost his mother at the age of nine and his grandparents, who were migrant, adopted him. • Bernardo commuted on the city bus from the segundo barrio to the lower valley daily. • The fifteen-mile bus ride took an hour each way and cut into his study time • The MAS laptop supported him from home so that he could be with his elderly grandparents who adopted him
Great Insight • Bernardo said learning from home gave him great freedom, flexibility, and independence. • His technology skills were superior because his youth minister taught him how to edit digital video
Bernardo’s Dreams • Bernardo’s church youth group leader exposed him to technology • He has plans for college and would like to join the U.S. Air Force • The MAS program helped him graduate on time because of credits he lost his freshman year
Estrella • Her mother picked tomatoes in Mexico when she was a young woman • Estrella’s father holds down two jobs • She cried when asked if her family valued education • Estrella said her father had a rough childhood and she worked diligently for her parents
MAS Helped Accelerate • Estrella will be the first in her family to graduate from high school • Estrella (10th grade) failed World Geography in the regular classroom setting because of a comprehensive final exam • Learning from home meant she could experience small successes one test at a time
Laptop Learning • Estrella found the NovaNET program iterative and forgiving • This program ensures that student learning is in small segments and relevant to the test • One cannot go to the next lesson in NovaNET unless 100% is scored on the tests
Great Clarity in Goal Setting • Of all the MAS completers, Estrella’s concept of success was clear, it meant setting goals and attaining them • When asked who taught her this concept, she attributed it to her parents
Married Parents • Estrella’s parents have been married for twenty years • She attends church regularly • Estrella has plans to go to college • She used the laptop for acceleration after passing World Geography
Ana • Immigrated from Mexico in middle school • Ana’s father is a ranch hand and never went to school in Mexico • Her sister Olga is very bright and a nursing student at the local junior college
Schooling a Challenge • Since arriving in the United States, Ana’s grades suffered deeply • She entered middle school as an ESL student and was mainstreamed the year of the MAS study • Ana was more comfortable speaking Spanish and her grades in English were poor • She had not passed the state test at the beginning of this study
By the End of the Study • Ana used her laptop to drill using a skills bank • She passed five NovaNET classes from home • Ana used the TAAS test prep and passed several portions of the exam
Family • Ana’s parents are still married and she enjoys watching her sister conduct research on the Internet • She lets friends access their NovaNET accounts to work from her home • Ana took advantage of having a laptop at home and studied until all hours of the night
Miriam • Miriam also immigrated when she was in middle school but had a better grasp of English than Ana • Miriam’s parents were also married and she attended church as well • Her family stressed literacy, used the community library, and participated in Even Start
Miriam Took Action • She claims to have had a bad ESL teacher in middle school for two years who taught her nothing • During Miriam’s freshman year, the middle school students asked for her help
Miriam Passes a Petition • She helped the students by collecting signatures about the bad teacher • Miriam went to the principal and told him how terrible the learning situation was and the teacher was removed
Miriam Graduates Thanks to MAS • She had academic problems her freshman year • The MAS laptop gave her the support she needed by providing online coursework in order to graduate on time and she did
Rene • She was smart and quiet but she knew exactly what she wanted in life…to be a teacher • There was one tiny obstacle, Carlitos her seven-month old baby • Rene used the laptop for acceleration which the district was really shying away from
Rene Moves to Denver • One day Rene was gone and then another day she was back • It turns out the father of Carlitos dropped out of his G.E.D. program and joined his sister in Denver to work
Minor Distraction • Denver ISD would not accept her because it was year end • Rene moved back home and resumed her online coursework without skipping a beat
Learn at Your Own Pace • Rene’s parents were still married and her father worked in Idaho • When asked how she liked learning from home, she said the self-paced feature really appealed to her
The MAS Teachers Ms. Casas And Ms. Blanché
River High School • One of the NovaNET labs is in Ms. Casas’ room at River High • She was born in Juarez and majored in Spanish at the local university returning later for her teaching credentials • Ms. Casas taught in a migrant program in California at one point and presently enjoyed working with the MAS students in TISD
Involve MAS Parents • Ms. Casas believed a stronger parental component was critical to the survival of the MAS program • She provided a nurturing environment and was a strong student advocate
Involve MAS teachers • Both teachers wanted to be more involved in programmatic decisions and central office • By year’s end, MAS teachers were included
Tigua High • She has graced Tigua High’s halls for twenty years as a second career • Ms. Blanché is from this valley • Her father owned a cotton farm and she has had many jobs; from butcher to receptionist before becoming a vocational teacher • Ms. Blanché thinks MAS students should shadow community mentors
Parental Involvement • Like Ms. Casas, Ms. Blanché believes parents, schools, and communities working in tandem will create successful students • Jeffrey Canada’s program in Harlem views these three forces as crucial for kids (Chapter Six)
Focus Group Final MAS Focus Group
• The completers at the two high school MAS programs were able to meet • The MAS students had many commonalities • Their parents were married, they attended church, and they had completed three or more courses
How do you feel about MAS? • “NovaNET helped us finish from home” • “It makes it easier because you are learning on your free time” • “No end-of-course exams” • “No bad teachers to interfere with learning”
MAS Students Had Stories of “Bad” Teachers • Every MAS student experienced few classroom success at some point in their educational experience • Juggling barriers took its toll on their educational experience
Further Analysis of Emergent Data The Spiral Model for the Adolescent Immigrant and Convergent Theory
Convergent Theory Lawrence-Lightfoot and Portraiture
Modes for Documenting Emergent Themes 1. Repetitive refrains 2. Resonant metaphors (Dust devils and tapestries) 3. Themes expressed through cultural and institutional ritual 4. Triangulation converges from a variety of sources 5. Construct themes and reveal patterns among perspectives often contrasting dissonant with the actors
and
Dispel Purist Notions • Man cannot live by bread and water alone and NO single, one theory informs a study
Convergent Theory is More than Emergent Theory • In Qualitative Research emerging theory arise from the data called Grounded Theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) • Convergent Theory then converges multiple theories that are generated in the study
Theories Emerge
Theories Converge
MAS’ Convergent Theory Spawned the Educational Spiral of the Immigrant Adolescent
The Educational Spiral for the Adolescent Immigrant Reeve’s Assessment Theory
Resiliency Theory
Gándara’s Achievement Behavior
The Student Language, Academic, and Economic Barriers
Language, Academic, and Economic Barriers
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Bandura’s Motivation Theory
Migrant Parents
The Adolescent Immigrant Experience • Barriers and obstacles in life • Academic, economic, health, and educational hurdles must be overcome • Family, church, and community support played into the successes of the MAS students
• Federal and state funding helped the migrant students • District vision supported the technology and infrastructure • Teacher-Coordinator support integral
Grounded Theory • Emerged from the data collected • the immigrant students enter the country as they move through their school experiences, they encounter barriers and obstacles • With the help of parents or guardians, their basic needs are met (Maslow, 1971), • their comfort levels are elevated, and they are better able to learn
The Successful Adolescent Immigrant • • • •
accepted academic challenges set short and long-term goals continued up the spiraling system of education The MAS students at the center of this model overcame adversity because they were resilient and as they neared graduation, • received support from Tigua ISD through online coursework that assessed their knowledge in a self-paced environment
Why did you need MAS? • The participants in this study were involved in the MAS program for various reasons. • Some MAS students compensated for their poor 9th-grade performances as seniors, and some faced daily challenges in school. • However, the common, underlying reason these five students needed the MAS laptop program was because somewhere in their schooling they had failed a class or two. • They took advantage of the help provided by the school district, and they either finished early or on time. Their individual reasons for needing the MAS program were unique but, collectively, they presented resilient behavior to overcome formidable obstacles and barriers, both academic and personal.
How did you like learning with technology from home? • All in all, the five MAS students in this study greatly appreciated the program. They liked the flexibility of learning from home and the independence it offered. The students said the laptop was a convenient support system for overcoming obstacles like language barriers, babies, and fifteen-mile bus rides. • The MAS students believed that NovaNET was a highly structured online learning environment whose iterative nature made coursework easier. The school district’s server made the NovaNET ports available after 5:00 p.m. on the weekdays and throughout weekend. • The five MAS students in this study took advantage of the extended day and were collectively able to complete eighteen courses. They all enjoyed learning online and from home. They all helped their family with their computers. All of them agreed that they could not have done what they did without the help of their computer and the support from their parents, the MAS teachers, and Tigua ISD.
MAS Strengths and Challenges MAS Strengths
MAS Challenges
18 completed NovaNET courses
Poor attendance at weekly meetings among 5 students
CIS curriculum on goal setting & motivation
Only 1/3 of MAS students actively participated
MAS coordinator was a student advocate
Teachers not involved in program planning process by central office
MAS teacher was also a NovaNET teacher
Counselors must be more involved
MAS students shared laptop with family members
Stronger parent and adult literacy component
Online TAAS tutoring
No language software programs for ESL students like Rosetta Stone
Group identity formed at weekly meetings
Summer program for MAS students needed: technology skill building classes, job shadowing, summer jobs program
Teacher Input Critical to the study was the MAS coordinator’s perceptions
Teachers: How can MAS improve? • Mrs. Casas and Ms. Blanché shared their professional opinions about Project MAS • They both supported a strong parent component with a fulltime teacher dedicated exclusively to the project in order to maintain constant contact with the students, their laptops, and their families. • Both Ms. Blanché and Mrs. Casas found student retention the greatest challenge because MAS students were not attending the mandatory weekly meetings. • The teachers wanted to be more involved in the decisionmaking process and appreciated their inclusion in the software/courseware final review process. When I interviewed the two teachers at the end of the school year, they had just been asked to attend an in-service by central office, where they would view a demonstration by vendors from both Plato and NovaNET.
Teachers: How can MAS improve? • Tigua ISD wanted the MAS teachers’ input. They would decide whether they would keep using NovaNET or switch to Plato. Both teachers were grateful for the opportunity to give their professional opinions about the online coursework up for review and, ultimately, up for bid. This was a first step in enrolling the MAS teachers in the decision-making process by year’s end. • Finally, during the interviews, the MAS coordinators discussed the program and curriculum at length, enabling teachers to reflect on its strengths, as well as its challenges. For Tigua ISD, it was a year of both frustrations and triumphs, yet five MAS students completed eighteen core courses.
Personalizing the Model
Reeve’s Assessment Theory
Resiliency Theory
Miriam Rene
Gándara’s Achievement Behavior
9th grade
Estrella Mother’s Death
Bernardo
Long Bus Ride
Ana Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Migrant Parents/Grandparents
Bandura’s Motivation Theory
Bernardo Completes Three NovaNet Courses Reeve’s Assessment Theory
Gándara’s Achievement Behavior
Resiliency Theory
9th grade
Long Bus Ride
Mother’s Death
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Bandura’s Motivation Theory Migrant Grandparents
Rene Completes Five NovaNet Courses
Reeve’s Assessment Theory
Gándara’s Achievement Behavior
Resiliency Theory
December Baby
Migrant Work in Idaho
Brother in Prison
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Bandura’s Motivation Theory
Migrant Parents
Estrella Completes Two NovaNet Courses
Reeve’s Assessment Theory
10th grader Gándara’s Achievement Behavior
Resiliency Theory
Punitive Teacher
Father Works 2 jobs
Father adopted
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Bandura’s Motivation Theory
Migrant Parents
Ana Completes Three NovaNet Courses
Reeve’s Assessment Theory
Gándara’s Achievement Behavior
Resiliency Theory
Immigrated at 14 yrs.
Father had no education
English
Bandura’s Motivation Theory
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Migrant Parents
Miriam Completes Three NovaNet Courses
Reeve’s Assessment Theory
Migrant Advocate
Gándara’s Achievement Behavior
Resiliency Theory
Pregnant by the end of the study
“Bad” Teacher
Two Room Trailer
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Bandura’s Motivation Theory
Migrant Parents
Implications and Reflections
What did I learn? • Remain open to new and converging theories • Look for the new theories • Keep reading (Gándara’s, 1995) even though the literature review has been written • Share personal philosophies with colleagues (Doug Reeves, 2000) • Read outside of academic journals (Canada, 2004) • Don’t assume if someone is poor they have no tech skills (Stafford-Levy, 2004) • Teach students to be advocates for each other
What else I learned • Collaborative online projects for the migrant students holds great potential • MAS students should form a cohort to study together, travel to migrant conferences together, and support each other • Teachers and migrant students serve as student advocates and must be dedicated full time to the project
MAS’ Contribution to the Literature • Convergent Theory • The Educational Spiral of the Adolescent Immigrant
Implications for Further Research • Refer to Chapter Six, page 186. • How much knowledge is retained in online courses among high school students? • What happened to the MAS students after graduation? • Where did they go? • What did they do? • Will they be as tenacious after high school?
More Questions… • Why did Bernardo commute so far? • Who were these kids heroes and mentors? • Which parent had the most influence on you? • Why were there so few completers who were males?
The Most Salient Point to MAS In a highly controlled school climate like senior high, accessing online curriculum from home was extremely progressive.
The Challenges of Migrant Education “It is ironic that a lifestyle that marks us as ‘culturally disadvantaged and severely at-risk’ and encumbers us with the low expectations of a deficit-thinking society, is also the lifestyle that enables us to become resilient and invulnerable.” (Garza, 2004).
