DAP paper

Description

1) To what extent does your school’s mission statement align with Dewey’s vision of “education as a necessity of life” (please explore with bullet points or brief thoughts in outline form… this means your details are key -not your prose)

2) Describe how the culture of the school provides a social environment for learning (through the lens of Dewey). How would you explain this to an outsider/visitor?

· Clubs, groups, parent organizations, student affinity groups- cultures that support learning/democratic engagement/…?

3) Collect and share (in a list that you organize in APA format) various stakeholder comments from across the school/organization on how these different individuals & groups feel about the school/organization (eg: stressed, pleased, protective, disenfranchised …).

· **Be certain to use APA format to document personal communications so you have it for the future, these are data to be used later (E-mail, conversations, surveys, etc.)**

4) Describe how each stakeholder group (faculty, staff, parents, and students) is involved in each of these processes:

· leadership,

· communication,

· collaboration,

· decision-making process, etc.

(B) Initial Thoughts on Target Problems: What problems (2 – 5) emerge from the stakeholder comments that directly relate to the academic environment for your students in your classroom /school community that you feel are worthy of further investigation? You may not list programs or plans that your school has already begun to implement before you began this class. Problems must be within your power base to address. In education, it should be student-centered and not school-centered (ie: overall drop-out rates are not a student’s problem. A school’s test scores are not a student’s problem).

-NOTE: If you are an administrator, you may identify student-centered problems that pertain to the entire student body.-

Evidence of problems must be identified through the information that you have presented in your analysis in the first four questions (section A).

2) What facts do you know about the individuals, the school, the families, and the community that relate to the problem(s) for the students in your classroom?

a. Find administrative documents, information on school effectiveness, district reports- existing information in/on the environment

b. Substantiate information provided (NOTE: demographic info could be very relevant here)

3) Identify any personal *biases (both your own AND in the stakeholders) that may exist that could hinder or influence your expectations regarding problem topics (student-centered).

a. Evidence of problems you have identified should be aligned with the stakeholder information (this work isn’t about you- it’s about the stakeholders- as exemplified in the Paperclips documentary).

*Refer to Ethics pdf posted for this week.