Date of Award
1991
Document Type
Practicum
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Center for the Advancement of Education
Advisor
Richard E. Manning
Committee Member
Polly Peterson
Keywords
absenteeism, active listening, after-school workshops, alienation, assignments, at-risk students, attendance, basic counseling skills, decision-making, disengagement, dropouts, effective message sending, extracurricular activities, failures, freshmen, goal setting, grades, high school students, isolation, locus of control, mentors, motivation, peer counseling, peer counselors, peer mentors, positive attitudes, record keeping, responsibility, role models, school community, school success, self-image, self-worth, target students, telephone contact, values clarification, volunteer students, workshops
Abstract
Practicum aimed to reduce absences, stimulate responsibility for assignments, and increase participation in extracurricular activities among disengaged ninth-grade students. Older students served as role models and peer mentors as they sought to establish that freshmen could control their own success or failure in the high school arena.
Five Intensive after-school workshops trained 20 volunteer 11th-grade students to serve as peer counselors. Emphasis was placed on a positive attitude toward helping others and confidently skills presented with basic counseling skills, active listening, effective message sending, values clarification, decision-making, and goal setting. Mentors were instructed in record-keeping tasks to aid in collecting data for this practicum and to determine their grades in the half-credit peer counseling course. Mentors met assigned targets students for lunch and talked with them on the telephone for the three-month implementation period.
Objectives of 98% average daily attendance, 100% participation in extracurricular activities, and 90% of the target group's classes showing no zeros in teacher grade books were not achieved. Positive outcomes were much improved attendance and grades for 12 of the 18 targeted freshmen and improved grades among the mentor group. Freshmen participants expressed an increased awareness of their availability to control their grades and of the value of involvement in the school community. It is hoped that a sleeper effect will result in increased extracurricular involvement next school year. Mentors felt the greatest benefits were showing disengaged students that someone cares and that if attitudes toward school could be improved, needless failures and dropouts could be prevented.