Date of Award
4-1-1991
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Center for the Advancement of Education
Keywords
achievement, achievement problem, aptitude tests, classroom instruction, co-educational schools, curriculum, education, faculty, inner-city schools, instructional effectiveness, mathematics, New York, non-public schools, OLSAT, potential, project implementation, pupils, reading, research findings, S.A.T., school achievement, seminars, South American community, specialist consultation, St. Stephen Lutheran School, Stanford Achievement Test, students, teaching thinking skills, video taped lessons, West Indian community, workshops
Abstract
This report documents a project designed to improve pupils' achievement levels through teaching thinking skills across the curriculum at an inner-city, non-public school in New York. The Institution is co-educational and caters to the needs of a predominantly West Indian and South American Community.
An examination of the Otis Lennon School Aptitude Test (OLSAT) and the Stanford Achievement Test (S.A.T) scores (1988) for St. Stephen Lutheran School, Brooklyn (the school) revealed an achievement problem. The investigation diagnosed among other things that achievement problems were not with the weak students. It was the best students who were not performing up to potential.
The solution strategies developed were based on current research findings, consultations with specialist in the field of education, and information gathered from attendance at seminars and workshops.
As a result of the project implementation over an 18 month period (11/89 - 4/91): 38 percent of the grades were working to potential in both mathematics and reading. Overall, 88 percent of the groups were working to potential in mathematics, while an overall 46 percent of the groups were up to potential in reading. At least 65 percent of the school’s faculty exhibited all of the skills identified as most appropriate for effective classroom instructions. More than 50 percent of the video taped lessons conducted by tie mathematics and reading teachers, at the school. were rated good or better.