Download pdf - Making Learning Meaningful through School-Community Partnerships

Running head: MAKING LEARNING MEANINGFUL 1

Making Learning Meaningful through

School-Community Partnerships

Stephanie Watson

Simpson College

May 9, 2011

MAKING LEARNING MEANINGFUL 2

We all remember what its like to sit through a class that is seemingly useless, and there

are reasons why phrases like, “I’m pretty sure my IQ just dropped ten points” or “I totally just

lost brain cells” or “That’s an hour of my life I’ll never get back,” exist: because students believe

they are true. And maybe they are. Too often, many researchers say, students are disengaged

from the teaching methods and material they are offered in school and they are missing the

chance to have meaningful experiences and challenging, pertinent knowledge (Jensen, 2006, p.

208, Cole, 2010, p. 15). And it is not fair, the author believes, to expect them to stay interested,

or to stay in school, or perform at their highest ability, or any other number of things educators

ask of them, if parents, community members, and teachers are not willing to take the steps to

make schooling worthwhile, to make what they are learning mean something other than a good

grade. Well-implemented school-community partnerships are one way in which teachers and

administrators are working to build these meaningful experiences. By turning traditional

classrooms into “contextual immersions,” students can start to “build identities as contributing

members of a larger community” and to see learning as rich and meaningful (Cole, 2010, p. 15).

The author chose this topic because she had an interest in finding ways to make content

relevant and interesting to all students—not just the college bound, not just the academically

inclined, and certainly not just the privileged. As a future teacher, building vibrant school and

community partnerships has the potential to make education into something that everyone

pitches in on, that everyone values, and that makes sense to one’s students. Research has shown

that if students do not see the point in learning something, they either will not learn it or will not

retain it for long (Jensen, 2006, p. 68). School-community partnerships are one way in which the

author is interested in exploring to alleviate this problem. This paper first outlines what school-

community partnerships are and how these partnerships can support classroom teaching. The


second part of the paper then moves into a discussion of a few research-based models of school-

community partnerships and the success rate of schools that have applied them. The last part of

the paper looks at what can be learned from research on school-community partnerships and how

educators can utilize this research to build better partnerships in the future.

What is a school-community partnership?

Most simply stated, a school-community partnership is a relationship that is created

between a school, district, or classroom and a community group, organization, or entity that

works together to support learning and student success. This type of learning, called community-

based learning, is active, connected with the classroom but taking place in meaningful, dynamic

environments (Cole, 2010, p. 15). Community-based learning is also longitudinal, involving the

building of a long-term community of support rather than just having students take part in one-

time community service projects. They are not merely made up of organizational sponsorships or

donations, or any other form of surface level involvement on the part of the community.

Successful school-community partnerships are about real relationships between students and the

community, ones that have the potential to turn “contextual immersions” into lessons that mean

something to students and that “build [their] identities as contributing members of a larger

community” and that make learning rich and meaningful (Cole, 2010, p. 15). School-community

partnerships are also each unique, because they offer “the full richness of authentic contexts,”

contexts that are specific to each students life and the community that surrounds them (Cole,

2010, p. 15).

Why should educators be concerned with increasing authentic interest in school and what

happens to a bored brain?


For a long time it was believed that the interchange between genes and the mind was one-

way. The common belief has been that our genes are fixed and thus our intelligence and our

tendencies are fixed as well. In his book titled Enriching the Brain: How to Maximize Every

Learner’s Potential, Eric Jensen (2006) proposes just the opposite idea. Through his own

research and the recent studies of neuroscientists, it has now been proven that people actually do

have the chance to change their brains, to maximize their learning potential, and even to

potentially raise their IQ scores through the occurrence of gene-environment interplay called

“gene expression” (p. 6). As Jensen points out, this theory has huge implications for educators.

Jensen refers to this “maximizing of gene expression” as enrichment, or “the positive biological

response to a contrasting environment, in which measurable, synergistic, and global changes

have occurred” (2006, p. 47). The results of proper enrichment, then, are an “enrichment

response,” which results in two happenings: the first enhances students’ ability to learn and

retain information and positively affects the cognition of average to gifted learners; the second

includes the possibility for enrichment to improve the cognition of those with impaired learning,

the disadvantaged, or brain damaged (Jensen, 2006, p. 81).

Central to obtaining the enrichment response, Jensen writes, is the application of the law

of contrast, or the law that says for learning to stick and influence gene-expression it must be

“novel, challenging, and meaningful” (2006, p. 80). While many teachers are good at making

classroom learning novel and challenging, the meaningful part often gets pushed to the side. And

so we have bored students. Or we have students that think, “School just isn’t for me.” Or they act

out. Or maybe even they drop out. And they do so because brains do not handle boredom well:

they want to novel and challenging tasks. In fact, Jensen records that “in animal studies, the

negative effects of boredom on the dendrites of brain cells are significant” (2006, p. 70). “In


fact,” he says, “there’s a greater negative from boredom than there is a positive from

enrichment” (Jensen, 2006, p. 70).

Why would a school or district consider establishing school-community partnerships?

Not many adults are forced to spend their days doing tasks that do no make sense to them

or that seem meaningless. A good question, then, is why do we expect it of our students? It has

been stated why learning must be meaningful to be enriching. But how to make learning

meaningful is probably the more difficult question. For learning to be meaningful it must address

students’ present lives and be pertinent to their future; in other words, it must be “worthwhile”

(Jensen, 2006, p. 67). Anna Gahl Cole (2010), a researcher from the University of Arizona who

studied a community partnership at an urban magnet school called the “Second Tuesday

Project,” points out that at the heart of school-community partnerships is the desire to make

learning relevant, meaningful, challenging, interesting, and novel for all students by “situating it

in local and familiar issues, contexts, and challenges.” “Curriculum is deeply connected to the

people, landscapes, cultures, and politics students can know and experience locally,” she says. In

order to create these “authentic learning community contexts,” schools must build local

partnerships that can enrich student learning. Many researchers go on to argue that community

partnerships bring about a sense of civic duty and connectedness. Community partnerships, they

say, can also increase student motivation and engagement while guiding students to see the

world as an interdependent place where they play a vital role (Cole, 2010, p. 15).

What does research say about the influence of school-community partnerships?

Research on school-community partnerships indicates that they have the potential to be

very powerful support systems for learning, but that it is easy for problems implementing the

programs to hinder their success. Jensen takes up this topic in his chapter called “School and


Classroom Solutions” (Jensen, 2006, p. 228). He cites complex learning projects, such a the

project Minuteman High School in Foxboro, Massachusetts which uses a school-community

partnership to annually involve 120 students from all different classes, teams, and groups in year-

long projects to design and build a house (Jensen, 2006, p. 229). “There’s no doubt,” he says,

“that, compared with what those students would have gotten in a more traditional school, their

curriculum is vastly more likely to lead to enrichment” (Jensen, 2006, p. 229). Career-based

learning is another avenue that can utilize the local community and provide enrichment that

students may not obtain in the traditional classroom. Jensen gives the example of David Douglas

High School in Portland, Oregon, a school of 2,600 students with forty-nine percent in poverty,

thirty-four percent are minority, and twenty-seven percent are ESL, that, incredibly, boasts

having eighty-four percent of the high school’s students pursue higher education opportunities

(Jensen, 2006, p. 229). This phenomenon can, at least in part, be attributed to their efforts to

establish career-based education and community mentorship programs that provide meaningful

curriculum and make learning relevant to students’ futures. Other examples of community-based

learning programs that can provide enrichment are after-school educational partnership programs

such as The Boys and Girls Club or programs such as 4-H (Jensen, 2006, p. 234-235).

Results from studies on school-community partnerships by The National Network of

Partnership Schools (NNPS), on the other hand, have been a little more conflicting. The NNPS,

established in 1995 by Dr. Joy L. Epstein of Johns Hopkins University, is a program that

provides professional development to enable school, district, and state leaders to develop

research-based programs of family and community evolvement (NNPS, 2011). Based on

Epstein’s theory of overlapping spheres of influence, the program emphasizes the importance of

schools, families, and communities recognizing the individual influence they have each have


over the growth of America’s children and urges each entity to work together to meet the needs

of America’s students (Sanders and Epstein, 1998, p. 3). Her theories have been the driving force

behind the implementation of NNPS for sixteen years now, integrating educational, sociological,

and psychological perspectives on social organizations, as well as research on the effects of

family, school, and community partnerships (NNPS, 2011). The Partnership Schools model

claims to be one of the few research-based approaches designed to help schools, districts, and

state departments of education organize, implement, and sustain goal-linked programs of family

and community involvement. The research identifies “essential elements for effective programs

and specific processes and paths that strengthen leadership for partnerships, program plans,

outreach to involve more families, responses of families and community partners, and impact on

student achievement and other indicators of success in school” (Epstein, 2005, para. 2).

Like Jensen, the NNPS found that children with well-developed social networks have

more positive educational outcomes than children without them (Sanders and Epstein, 1998, p.

2). In spite of the enormous amount of effort that has gone into creating partnerships across the

country, however, the conclusion of many of the NNPS’ reports have provided are not quite as

convincing as one may hope for. In 2007, for example, Steven Sheldon (another NNPS

researcher) reported that analyses of his study showed that in schools working to implement

school, family, and community partnerships, student attendance improved on average only .5

percent (p. 267). Moreover, his analysis suggests that it was the school’s effort to reach out to

families, not to the community, that was the driving mechanism that caused this effect (Sheldon,

2007, p.267). Better family involvement throughout middle school and high school was also

found to contribute to positive outcomes like “higher achievement […] more course credits

earned, more responsible preparation for class, and other indicators of success in school”


(Epstein, 2005, para.7). A possible conclusion from this study could be that working on school-

family partnerships may be more beneficial than school-community ones.

On a similar note, Anna Gahl Cole’s study of the “Second Tuesday Project” found that

without carefully guided conversations about the purpose of such projects, students are often

unable to fully benefit from the partnerships. Cole’s article examines the struggles and successes

of teachers and students collaborating with community organizations on the “Second Tuesday

Project”, a community-based research and service program at an urban high school (2010, p. 15).

The project takes place as part of the capstone course in The Human Services Program at

Jefferson Center High School, a magnet school that utilizes the school-with-a-school framework.

The capstone course’s central focus is a community-based research project (Second Tuesday

Project) that endeavors to increase understanding about the city’s efforts to improve the quality

of life for its citizens. Cole records that teachers describe the project as “a team based, multi-

disciplinary, senior level project that requires each student to research a specific social issue

within the Riverside community (i.e. homelessness, hunger, poverty, pollution, etc.) and

implement a plan to help resolve that issue.” Students perform secondary research on the issue at

a nearby university throughout the year and spend every second Tuesday of the month doing

research “in the field” by volunteering with an agency affiliated with their topic that oversees

their service. The students work in whatever capacity their mentors deem useful and are expect

to observe and record research findings throughout the year in support of their final research

paper and presentation. The conclusion of the project is a weeklong symposium of students’

research: students present their study to classmates, faculty, administrators, parents, and

community agency representatives (Cole, 2010, p. 16).


Cole used qualitative data from interviews, participant observations, and focus groups to

describe the experiences and perspectives of students and teachers participating in the project.

Cole found that the program (which was 2 years old) had problems with articulating goals and

purposes and she found that students were often (although not always) unable to make

connections between their volunteering experiences, what was needed to make a difference in

their communities, and how the experiences related to their work inside the classroom (2010, p.

24). There was one partnership that did have positive results across the board, however. The

relationship that was established with the local university seemed to have to most positive

influence on the students. One student explained how it felt to be allowed to take part in what she

saw as a prestigious academic community:

[When] People walk past, especially people who used to go to school here at Jefferson

Center and they say, “Oh, look at these seniors from Jefferson Center, look at them sitting

over here working, being smart. This is cool that you all are sitting over here doing your

work. What are you working on?” It makes me feel really smart, really smart – I love

it. (Cole, 2010, p. 19)

Implications from this study pointed toward the need for better planning and communication

between teachers, students, and community members involved. Students, Cole says, were not

taught how to look at their experiences reflectively or to analyze their role within the

community; without this component the students are simply left with a “contextual immersion,”

but no way to make meaning from it (2010, p. 22-24). It also seemed that looking into stronger

high school and university relationship might be an even more beneficial rout to take. Overall,

Cole found that the lack of communication and curricular planning as well as program flexibility

hindered the Second Tuesday Project from being completely successful (2010, p. 22).


Improvement in these areas will be integral to the success of the projects future community

education partnerships.

What can be learned about improving school-community partnerships from the research

presented above?

When comparing the studies of Jensen, the NNPS, and Cole, what seems to be essential

to the success of school-community partnerships is how well the program’s goals are articulated

to both the students and community organizations involved and how well the teacher and

administrators willingness to stay dedicated and focused on the task at hand. The prevailing

opinion also seems to be that researchers would benefit from having more information about the

specific activities that schools implement to involve families and community members. Sheldon

(2007) concluded that many researchers cite “weak evaluation design” as a large part of the

problem (p. 274). He calls for “more studies of partnership interventions in which researchers

used matched comparison groups that include pre- and post- designs,” (Sheldon, 2007, p. 274),

as well as more “focused and subject-specific measures of partnership practices, and not overly

general or superficial measures of involvement” (Epstein and Sheldon, 2006, para. 6). One could

also conclude from Jensen and Cole’s work that studies should consider researching the

qualitative results of school-community partnerships, focusing on how to provide an enrichment

response, which tells teachers, administrators, and parents what their kids are actually getting out

of the partnership, rather than data like attendance rates and high stakes test scores, which are

highly impersonal and, from what studies have shown, only slightly affected by school-

community partnerships. Sheldon promotes that, “These principals should help researchers frame

better questions and apply more rigorous methods to study partnerships, and help educators,

parents, an community partners to work better together to support student success” (2007, para.


4). Studies have shown that parents and community members are interested in finding way to

enrich their children’s learning experience, but they need “good, clear information from

educators in order to remain involved in their children’s education from preschool through high

school” (Epstein and Sheldon, 2006, para. 5).

Conclusion

Two obvious needs that research on school-community partnerships point toward are

improvement in research methodology and program implementation. Teachers in charge of such

programs must be committed to planning and clearly articulating partnership goals and

procedures with all parties involved and then following up with meaningful conversations that

help students’ analyze the significance of what they are doing, the impact they are making, and

how it all connects to content within the classroom. Studies have shown that students who

experience meaningful learning through school-community partnerships have slightly better

attendance rates (Sheldon, 2007, p. 274), feel more connected to the community in which they

live and learn (Cole, 2010, p. 15), and succeed at a higher rate than students who do not (Jensen,

2006, p. 229). By partaking in meaningful learning students in school-community partnerships

also experience and enrichment response, which enhances students’ ability to learn and retain

information and positively affects the cognition of average to gifted learners and includes the

possibility for enrichment to improve the cognition of those with impaired learning, the

disadvantaged, or brain damaged (Jensen, 2006, p. 81). Overall, the research indicates that many

of these partnership programs have a long way to go, but the possibilities for rich, meaningful,

engaging learning experiences seem to be making the journey exceedingly worthwhile.


References

Cole, Anna Gahl (2010). School-Community Partnerships and Community-Based Education: A

Case Study of a Novice Program. Penn GSE Perspectives on Urban Education 7 (1), 15-

26.

Epstein, J.L. (2005). Developing and sustaining research-based programs of school, family, and

community partnerships: summary of five years of NNPS research. National Network of

Partnership Schools John Hopkins University (n.p.). Retrieved from

www.partnershipschool.org/research

Epstein, J.L. and Sheldon, S.B. (2006) Moving Forward: Ideas for Research on school, family,

and community partnerships. In C. Conrad and R. Serlin (Eds.), SAGE Handbook for

research in education: Engaging ideas and enriching inquiry (p. 117-138). Thousand

Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Jensen, Eric (2006). Enriching the Brain: How to Maximize Every Learner’s Potential. San

Francisco, CA: John Wiley and Sons.

National Network of Partnership Schools (NNPS) (2011). Home Page. Retrieved from

http://www.csos.jhu.edu/p2000/

Sanders, M.G. and Epstein, J.L. (1998). School-Family-Community Partnerships in Middle and

High School: From Theory to Practice. CRESPAR 22, p. 1-46.

Sheldon, S. B. (2007). Improving student attendance with school, family, and community

partnerships. Journal of Educational Research 100(5) pg. 267-275.


Guiding Questions

1. What is a school-community partnership?

2. Why should educators be concerned with increasing authentic interest in school and what

happens to a bored brain?

3. Why would a school or district consider establishing school-community partnerships?

4. What does research say about the influence of school-community partnerships?

5. What can be learned about improving school-community partnerships from the research

presented?