How should middle schools and high schools be designed to have a maximum impact on learning - Essay Example

How should middle schools and high schools be designed to have a maximum impact on learning? How should middle schools and high schools be designed to have a maximum impact on learning? There have been several suggestions that have been made and aimed towards improving the current education system. American students in middle and high schools have been found to have less grades or level of leaning than students from other countries such as Finland and South Korea. When comparing with the Asian countries, education is an integral part of society and students often put numerous hours of input into their studies.

However, countries such as Finland have modified their system and have similar study hours to America, however, a significantly higher level of learning. This paper will make a critical analysis on middle and high schools and how these two educational institutes may be altered to enhance learning level of adolescents in America. One of the several approaches that have been suggested towards improving the education system include models which were aimed at mentoring research and aimed towards the improvement of self regulated learning (Schunk & Mullen, 2013).

There has been a substantial level of advancement over the years in academic mentoring research that has shown that the process is effective in creating mentors and proteges. This has been found to be one of the most effective methods of learning. Implementing self regulated learning in middle and high school is likely to have a positive influence on the way these students apply themselves towards a certain subjects. Schunk & Mullen carried out a study that was aimed towards analyzing methodologies of learning which involve mentors and adolescents in a self regulated learning environment (Schunk & Mullen, 2013).

A study that was carried out to assess this method utilized 94 pupils in 7th grade which were in middle school in Portugal (Perry et al., 2006). The classrooms in the study were selected randomly and they were each delegated a mentor. These were individuals who were between the age of 31-42 and they were asked to mentor a group of students comprised of 4 pupils. In addition the teachers were required to have more than 5 years experience (Perry et al., 2006). The program in this study was created to promote the following techniques which include self monitoring, goal settings, organizational strategies and strategic planning.

The outcomes that were used for assessment include self regulating strategies such as planning, evaluation and execution, students’ beliefs in their personal abilities and academic achievements in mathematics and language (Perry et al., 2006). The above mentioned outcomes were positively expressed and at a higher rate than students which had no mentors. Therefore this illustrates the impact a mentoring and self regulated learning system could have on middle and high school education. However, this system would require a substantially larger teaching staff, which is a problem as there is already a shortage of educators in the country (Perry et al., 2006). As mentioned above, some educational systems such as those in Asian countries have been focused on longer education hours in order to improve the learning of students.

However, there have been some studies which suggest that the appropriate break time allocation during studies may improve learning. Specifically, the hypothesis of these studies are based on determining whether support of social behavior in schools would be effective at improving the learning of these pupils. A research was carried out by Boyd & Anderson (2011) with the aim of illustrating the impact of tier interventions on students who engage in problematic behavioral traits and are antagonistic towards instructional activities (Boyd & Anderson, 2013).

These are both inhibiting factors of efficient learning in schools and interventions to improve r alleviate these negative attributes could have a positive effect on the students. Three tiers that were included in the experiment include Tier I which was for promotion of social behavior, Tier III for children involved in extremely antagonistic behaviors (Boyd & Anderson, 2013). Tier II was an intervention between the above two and was utilized at assessing the breaks are better theory in the study.

Therefore, students in this study were required to sign in and out and this measure was to aid them in following instructions. The teachers that participated in the study were supportive of this theory and stated that it was effective in improving the level of children’s ability for adhering to instructions. Instructions are a key element of learning and if students are taught to adhere to them they can improve their learning capabilities and attention (Boyd & Anderson, 2013). In summation, education is a key aspect of society and several aspects have been suggested to improve the system.

Several interventions have been suggested to improve the education system and the essay illustrates the importance of social behavior support and mentoring which have been both found to be effective. References Boyd, R., & Anderson, C. M. (2013). Breaks are better: A tier II social behavior intervention. Journal of Behavioral Education, 22(4), 348-365. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10864-013-9184-2 Perry, N. E., Phillips, L., & Hutchinson, L. (2006). Mentoring Student Teachers to Support Self?

Regulated Learning. The elementary school journal, 106(3), 237-254. Schunk, D. H., & Mullen, C. A. (2013). Toward a conceptual model of mentoring research: Integration with self-regulated learning. Educational Psychology Review, 25(3), 361-389. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10648-013-9233-3