National FORUM of Applied Education Research Journal (AERJ) 22 (3) 2009
National Insight: 5 Strategies to Reach and Teach At-Risk Students
Bryan Muschalek High/Junior High School Math Teacher Elgin Independent School District Elgin, TX
William Allan Kritsonis, PhD Professor and Faculty Mentor PhD Program in Educational Leadership The Whitlowe R. Green College of Education Prairie View A&M University Member of the Texas A&M University System Visiting Lecturer (2005) Oxford Round Table University of Oxford, Oxford, England Distinguished Alumnus (2004) College of Education and Professional Studies Central Washington University
The purpose of this article is to help educators reach at-risk students that are in the school systems. The five strategies discussed in this article will give educators a starting point in helping bring success into these at-risk students. In order to educate successfully, we need to find new ways to reach these 'T-generation' at-risk students and these five strategies will give an educator ideas to use to encourage and prompt life-long learning. _____________________________________________________________________
Five Strategies
Strategy One: Connection One of the toughest things to do as a teacher is to find that connection with students to have them excited to come to class. Many at-risk students will work harder at finding a way to get out of class than to be in class. The idea is to find a way to connect with these students to turn that around and have them work hard at being in class and wanting to learn. Connecting with the student might be a simple as giving them a few minutes of your time to just talk about how there day is going or maybe what the last movie they watched. In some instances, it is difficult to find this connection because the student fails to talk to you and does not feel comfortable expressing anything to you. In this situation, you have to become a 'good spy' by watching what they do outside of your class and pick on what they like or who they talk to and find out how you can initiate a conversation to connect with this student. Once a connection is made, this student will be willing to do some extraordinary things in the classroom for you and amazing outside of the classroom for you. Many times these students also tend to be your most discipline problems and once you connect and win them over many of your other students that press your limits will tend to stop. This is because the at-risk student will begin to model the good behavior for you and the other students will follow their lead.
Strategy Two: Motivation Many at-risk students have a motivational tool that a teacher can use to help support educating these students. Most individuals will work better and focus if they have something to work for or something that they might lose. A majority of at-risk students seem to be big sports fans to some extent, whether it is skateboarding, soccer, football, or etc. With sports being a large attraction for these students, many tend to participate in athletics or some extra-curricular activity that you may be able to use to motivate these individuals. If you are unable to motivate through athletics or band, being able to have them strive for extra time on the internet or some technology that they are deprived of at home.
Strategy Three: Success At-risk students have had many failures through out their life and therefore look at themselves incapable of doing anything right. One of the reactions that many at-risk students tend to show the most is throwing up their hands and giving up on the task because it is difficult to complete or succeed. It is much easier for a person to quit on a situation that seems difficult than to prevail and work at something in order to feel the success of accomplishing the task. Teachers and administrators need to find the smallest success that a student has had and make it seem like that student has saved the world. Then the student will begin to react to you in a positive way and not be so willing to react negatively by throwing up their hands in disgust. Once a genuine success is felt by the student, then the trick is to increase the difficulty of the tasks but not to jump to quickly or the student will delve back into the negative attitude. Strategy Four: Relating the subject area to real-life Whether it is an at-risk student or an honor roll student, neither want to learn something that they will never again use in the real world. An at-risk student will definitely enjoy learning a core subject more if there is a purpose or a logical use for the actual lesson in life. To help the understanding of subject matters, the teacher or administrators can organize with individuals around the community to come and speak in the classrooms on how the subjects they learn will correlate to the real world. Also, having at-risk students engage in a problem situation that is faced in actual day to day situations and have them work through them by using a lesson they have learned in class. Using real-life situations in classroom settings helps the students understand that they are being prepared for life as a successful and productive citizen.
Strategy Five: Clarifying the concepts At-risk students are apt to failure because of all the misunderstood words in the concepts that they are attempting to learn. One simple misunderstood word can delay the learning process and the ability to grasp a concept clearly. An individual's brain will stop processing information as soon as they read a word that they do not understand or are taught a concept they do not comprehend clearly. As a teacher, you can hear when a student has read a misunderstood word by listening to them read the instructions, passage, etc. out loud. Once they have read a word they do not understand they will begin to stutter, slow down, or even stop and look up in the air as to try and pull the definition out of the sky. As soon as this occurs, then the teacher needs to have the student glance back and find the word that the student misunderstood and show them the proper way to look a word up in the dictionary and find the correct definition. It is also good to have a dictionary lesson at the beginning of the school year in helping students learn how to use it appropriately. Help the student to realize that understanding the word will aid in reading and comprehension of the passage or instructions and also increase their vocabulary. These same reactions occur when a teacher is lecturing and the student misunderstands a concept. Also, while lecturing other ways you can spot lost students might be doodling or looking around. At this point, instead of going on you need to stop and review the material you have covered so far and ask random questions not directly to the lost student but allowing fellow classmates to clarify the concept. If you are able to capture the student before you get to deep into the concept then the student will have a chance to succeed in the class and build self confidence.
Concluding Remarks
In conclusion, at-risk students are more and more prominent today because of our education standards have risen and we are able to recognize these individual students that need our help to succeed. These five ideas to reaching these individual students is a framework for teachers to use in order to help reel the at-risk students excitement back into education. Once we excite an individual and bring back the arousal of exploration into a subject, then the sky becomes the limit and the student begins to set goals again for themselves and feel there is a possibility to reach these goals. Success brings out the best in anyone and dreams help the education world because many students still want to believe the idea that all dreams are possible. As educators, we still need to promote this idea and keep the excitement of becoming a life-long learner so that students can see the benefits of such a person.
Note: In June 2008, Dr. William Allan Kritsonis received the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Southern Christian University. The ceremony was held at the Hilton in New Orleans.
