Issue 167: Jan 31, 2012 Connections Newsletter

Acceleration is Critical to Instruction

Jennifer Partrick
Jan 31, 2012

Why is Acceleration Critical for Increasing Achievement for All Students?

Dweck (2006) stated that early in life we develop a mindset about what it means to be smart and how we become successful. She continues by stating that there are two options: a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. With the fixed mindset, we believe that we are either born smart or not, while those with the growth mindset believe that with persistence and constant effort they work their way to success. Students and teachers have mindsets about what being smart is. Unfortunately, teachers with a fixed mindset teach from the stance that some of their students will get it and others will not, and teach accordingly. Teachers with a growth mindset believe that all of their students can learn if they work hard and are given the right support in order to succeed. Acceleration provides the support students need in order to succeed, and regardless of your mindset, implementing Acceleration strategies will have a positive effect on student achievement.

Students who fail more than they succeed have little reason to try. They have little reason to put out any effort to learn or complete tasks. Why should they? These students have learned they are failures and act accordingly. Many of these students have a fixed mindset and believe that they are just not smart. However, we can counteract this! We can work with students and give them the necessary tools they need in order to succeed. Once students begin to succeed, they will put out more effort. Students begin to realize that the combination of effort and supportive tools leads to success. With more effort, there will be more success, and a wonderful positive cycle begins.

When we look at the root cause of student failure, three reasons arise. They are: lack of vocabulary necessary to thrive in classroom settings, little or no prior knowledge, and limited experiences. An effective and relatively easy way to counteract this is to use Acceleration strategies with these students. The purpose of Acceleration is to give struggling students the prior knowledge they need to succeed during regular classroom lessons via experiences, access to advance organizers that will be used during the lesson, and key vocabulary they need in order to understand content when it is presented in class. In order to support struggling students, consider acceleration.

How does Acceleration work?

First, identify struggling students. 1-3 days before a lesson will be taught to the class, use Acceleration strategies with these students. Introduce them to important vocabulary, give your struggling students experiences that will provide the prior knowledge that is critical for comprehension, and introduce any advance organizers that will be used during that lesson. Thus, when you introduce the new lesson to the entire class, the struggling students can now be part of the classroom discussion because they have some prior knowledge. They have heard important vocabulary before; they have a working understanding of the concept to be taught.

Acceleration can be done in different ways. If you who have flexible groups you can use part of this time for Acceleration, or meet with students before and after school in order to implement Acceleration, Support teachers can implement Acceleration, and it works really with summer school students, and in some schools, students exchange an elective class for an Acceleration Lab.

When students can participate in class, this gives them a sense of accomplishment. Students begin to feel good about school and then they begin to put out some effort. As they put out the effort they feel more success. Acceleration helps pave the way to success.

Tomlinson (2010) wrote that we know that every student that enters every classroom will be enhanced or diminished by the collective attitudes, decisions, and practices of teachers ( p.149). Will your students be enhanced or diminished by the decisions and practices that you make and apply?

References:

Dweck, C. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Random House

Thompson, M. & Thompson, J. (2005). Catching Kids Up with Acceleration. Boone, NC. Learning-Focused.

Tomlinson, C. (2010). Leading and managing a differentiated classroom. Alexandria, VA: ASC