Welcome new students in foster care with buddy support and quick, low-burden informal assessments, while treating late records with caution¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 1 claim (1 for) · 1 study (1 associational), q2 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 1 claim rests on one study

Description¶

Because students in foster care experience many mid-year "first days," teachers adapt ordinary new-student practices (assigning a buddy, extra one-on-one time, learning interests) and use quick assessments to gauge level and progress. Teachers used a wide variety of assessments, from district-wide formal tools to informal ones such as having a new student read aloud or write a paragraph about herself; the report lists tools in Appendix B that shared the characteristics of being "timely, quick, and placing a relatively low burden on both teacher and student."

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Assessments must be timely, quick, and low-burden for both teacher and student, per the tools teachers described

Constraints¶

• Teachers disagreed about sequencing: some felt a child needed to feel safe and comfortable before formal assessments began, while others believed assessments were urgent given missing transcripts

Target Learners¶

• Newly entering K-12 students in the foster care system

Target Learning Goals¶

• Identifying academic strengths and gaps to target instruction from the beginning
• Helping new students feel welcome

Claims¶

• Arizona students in foster care changed schools during the school year at about four times the rate of other students [+W]

Related Strategies¶

• Classroom strategy set for supporting students in foster care: buddies, helper tasks, structure, earned rewards, small successes, sincere praise, kept promises, high expectations, clean slates, and assumption-free assignments

Examples¶

-

Key Sources¶

• The Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning. (2010). Ready to Succeed in the Classroom: Findings from Teacher Discussion Groups on their Experiences and Aspirations Teaching Students in the Foster Care System. Prepared for the Stuart Foundation. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED511840