Perception Survey: Do you have the ASCA Implementation Guide?

I have written before about the need for ALL school counselors to have these 4 guides to implement the ASCA National Model with fidelity. The latest release the "ASCA National Model Implementation Guide" is an absolute must if you are planning to apply for RAMP. I am a RAMP reviewer and was very disappointed reviewing the applications of 4 schools this fall because it did not seem that any of them had looked at the Implementation Guide. It is very useful to help school counselors develop brief high quality perception data surveys. Perception data is what informs us if students acquired the skills, knowledge, and beliefs of our target learning objectives (based on the ASCA Mindsets and Beliefs). My colleagues frequently complain that surveys take up a whole lesson but ASCA encourages to measure a few things well not give students long assessment instruments. I only pre-post a few units at each grade level annually but I try to gather quality perception data for each lesson or small group session. Below is an example of a Post-Survey I used after teaching a third grade Second Step tier 1 lesson. This would have to be modified if you wanted Pre-Post data because they would not have seen the stimulus. You could ask the last 3 questions Pre-Post if you are required to do that for every lesson. You could also do an informal pre-assessment by just a show of fingers (1 never to 4 almost always) "Do you think showing compassion makes the person doing it feel better?" The Implementation Guide stresses to use an even scale and not give students a middle (unsure) choice. This sample survey is completed by 80% of students in 5 minutes (there are always a few that need more time). It is important to give clear directions before students complete this type of survey if they are not used to scaling questions. This will speed up if you routinely assess knowledge, skills, and beliefs as recommended in the Implementation Guide.

Career Month - Spread it out to save counselor sanity

As I mentioned in a post at the beginning of the month we are focusing on April is STEMazing. It was my goal for every student in the school to have the opportunity to listen and ask questions of a worker in a STEM occupation. Learning about a career from someone who actually does the job is a very valuable activity. These career visitors in kindergarten through grade 2 are arranged by the teachers. The presenters speak to one class at a time and most only talked to one class but a few were generous and did two. I let the upper grades decide what would work best for their schedule with the understanding they would need to stay in the rooms to monitor behavior. My third grade team chose the Career Cafe format which we have used for several years. There are 4 teachers on the team and an extra class near (which I could monitor) by so I got 5 volunteers and students had a choice of who to hear during lunch. In grade 4 we have 3 classes and an extra room so students picked one of the four but they chose to do it the last 30 minutes of a day. In grade 5 we have only 3 classes so they chose an hour one Friday morning and had students attend all 3 and the students moved every 20 minutes. I asked the teams to spread it out so I had one of theses event a week in April to coordinate which did not have a major impact on the other components of the counseling program. I gave pre-post surveys to all teachers which they had students complete the last week of March and have begun the post-surveys this week. I taught all students a lesson on careers this month with a focus on the STEM cluster. This is our beautiful STEM Bulletin Board created by my fantastic volunteer. I still need to add some pictures of our career visitors. It serves as a reminder about STEM occupations and a thank you to our volunteers. I totally send the message to my staff that career development is a joint responsibility of counselors and teachers just like character education. I will ask teachers and the Advisory Council for feedback if they liked the career visitors concentrated in one month (my preference) or if we should go back to spreading it out next year. 

STEM Resources for Parents

We had a great speaker for parents last night from a local after school STEM program that offers programs to kids 4-14 to encourage STEM skills and careers, called Rosie Riveters. Research shows after school programs are a great way to encourage children in the STEM field but some of our girls don't want to do them because they already have a stereotype that this area is for boys! The organizataion chose the iconic logo because when kids say "I can;t" they respond "Why not?" They want kids to experience failure in a safe setting so they have tools later in life. The speaker shared that their groups with ages 4-7 and 8-10 are easy and lighthearted but the group of 11-14 girls was hard to engage. The older girls avoid engagement and showed lots less confidence. Other resources parents can use at home are https://talkingmathwithkids.com/  https://babbledabbledo.com/ http://www.science-sparks.com/ These sites give parents suggestions for how to make math, science, and engineering fun for kids at home. Another resource is this article offers great suggestions for science toys (geared to girls) http://www.amightygirl.com/b 

Girls and STEM

My school data profile shows that our female students scored significantly lower than males in grades 3 and 5 in math and science on our state standardized tests. This has been the trend the past two years in grade 3. My SMART goal this year will address this gap. Here is a resource you may want to check out if your school has a similar gap http://www.vsgc.gfb.pdf