Conditions for Success: Power2Learn
1. TEACHER LEADERSHIP. Students say they prefer it when teachers actively teach a Power2Learn lesson by asking questions and explaining the ideas; sharing personal stories and inviting students to share their experiences; and muting the PowerPoint voice-over for some or all of the lesson. One teacher said:
My Power2Learn class participated really well today because I did more to direct their activities and facilitate the discussion.
2. CHOICE OF VENUE. Context matters. In schools where advisory period is now used for Power2Learn, some students have objected to losing what was a time for talking with friends. They’ve also asked, “Why do we have to do work when we’re not getting any credit?” Other schools have solved the credit problem by teaching Power2Learn within a regular academic course (e.g., freshman English) or within the school’s for-credit seminar class.
3. EXPLAINING THE PROGRAM’S PURPOSE. Students find it helpful when teachers take time to explain how Power2Learn will help them. One girl said:
“Throughout a lesson, our teacher talks about how these ideas will help us in school and in life and how they’re still relevant to her as an adult-because all through life you have to manage your time and deal with stress.”
4. ACTIVE LEARNING. Some teachers have devised strategies for increasing students’ active involvement. One teacher, after his class watched a clip from the movie “Drumline,” made a masking tape “continuum” on the floor and told his students:
I want you to stand on the point that represents your opinion. This end of the continuum is VERY FAIR; the other end is ABSOLUTELY UNFAIR. My first question: “Was the band leader’s decision to discipline the whole band because of the actions of some, fair or unfair?” Okay-now move.
“Even my stick-in-the-mud students had to get involved,” this teacher said.
5. EFFECTIVE DISCUSSIONS. How much students get out of any lesson depends to a considerable extent on what the teacher does to draw out the learnings and help students apply them in other contexts. One teacher describes how, after a Power2Learn tower-building activity, she guided a class discussion to help students generalize their learnings:
At the beginning of the activity, students complained about the building constraints imposed by the instructions. In our discussion, I asked them for examples from life where they put more energy into complaining about a problem than into coming up with a solution. I challenged them to use what they learned from this to better focus their energies in my regular classes. That’s the real benefit of these lessons-developing a common vocabulary and set of understandings that can be transferred.
6. A CLASSROOM COMMUNITY THAT SUPPORTS AND CHALLENGES. To help build a community that supports and challenges, each Power2Learn class had to create a Compact for Excellence-rules for best work and respectful behavior. However, whether the Compact really influences behavior depends on what the teacher does with it. Many students said their Compact was just “words on the wall.” Said one girl: ” We never talk about it. We’ve got kids in our class who call other people ‘stupid.’” But in other classes, the Compact was a living document because of the teacher:
Our class really got involved in discussing how we treat each other. Our teacher sometimes reviews our Compact at the start of class and points to it when somebody isn’t following it.
7. GREATER ACCOUNTABILITY FOR APPLICATION. Students said they are learning practical tools like goal-setting and time and stress management but need reminders from their teachers to use them (“Let’s hear how you’re doing with the time management plan you made last week”). One boy commented:
It feels like we’re writing all these goals and things we should do, but then you walk out of class and forget about it. If we kept coming back to them in later lessons, it would help us use them more.
Students also felt they should take with them something from their Power2Learn folders (now collected at the end of class) that would remind them of their goals. Finally, they proposed having a “goal partner” because “you wouldn’t want to let yourself or that person down.” One school did this by creating “accountability buddies,” as a girl explained:
I’m Andrea’s accountability buddy. Her goal is to not get any referrals. Sometimes in class I’ll whisper, “Andrea, you’re about to get a referral . . . ”
