Assess Your School’s Level of Student Empowerment
Our job is not to prepare students for something. Our job is to help students prepare themselves for anything.
– A.J. Juliani
INTRO
This activity will guide your team to examine how student empowerment can be incorporated into students’ daily lives.
Are your students empowered to change your school for the better?
Are they encouraged to advocate for what they need when they need it?
OBJECTIVES
- Develop a shared understanding of student empowerment
- Highlight key strategies to support students’ sense of belonging and ownership of learning.
The below activity is designed for your leadership team.
STEP 1
Have your leadership team, review the provided article from Getting Smart to spark ideas of how student empowerment can be incorporated into students’ daily lives.
Have a group discussion using the following questions:
- What are you already doing schoolwide to empower your students?
- What could you begin to do in the coming months to ensure your students feel empowered?
- What could you do in the coming year?
STEP 2
Review the list of Do’s and Don’ts on the provided PDF (adapted from from the American Psychological Association) for motivating students to feel empowered.
Have a group discussion about how to introduce these tips into the classroom.
Discuss and work together to agree on a rating as a team, and provide evidence about how well your school is empowering all of your students using the following definition statements and scale.
STATEMENTS TO BE RATED FOR YOUR SCHOOL:
- Student Empowerment opportunities are routinely used in every classroom at our school and our students are:
- given the opportunity to regularly articulate the skills they will have when they leave school
- identify how these skills will support their future plans
- are actively using these skills to better themselves and their community.
- Over 80% of our students often report feeling empowered because of what they learn at our school.
SCALE
- Not at all
- Somewhat
- For the most part
- Totally
A score of 1 (one) reflects that there is little being done intentionally schoolwide, and a 4 (four) would suggest that you have explicit structures and practices schoolwide to support this.
Responses