Impact of Extracurricular Activities on School Culture for Students Who Are at Risk

Format

Individual Presentation

First Presenter's Institution

Frederick Douglass High School

Second Presenter's Institution

NA

Third Presenter's Institution

NA

Fourth Presenter's Institution

NA

Fifth Presenter's Institution

NA

Location

Ballroom D

Strand #1

Academic Achievement & School Leadership

Strand #2

Social & Emotional Skills

Relevance

Extracurricular activities have an impact on student achievement. Students who participate in these programs score higher on standardized tests, exhibit higher grades, and attend school at higher rates. Additionally, these students show leadership skills many other students do not have. Academic clubs during the school day also teach students responsibility. They must have the credits and grades to participate in these clubs and therefore they must learn to self-regulate and pace themselves in their success. These clubs also promote positive relationships between students and staff, as well as peer-to-peer. Those relationships improve student self-concept, self-esteem, and sense of belonging in schools.

Brief Program Description

Participants will be able to learn the ways to implement increased extracurricular activities in order to promote student achievement and an improved culture and climate in the school. Through viewing the implementation strategy at Douglass, participants will be able to implement a similar program at their schools.

Summary

The model of implementation of extracurricular activities at FDHS includes student choice for academic activities during the day, as well as the ability to display accomplishments at quarterly pep rallies for all clubs and activities. Students participate in academic clubs during the day by signing up at an activity fair in the Spring of the prior school year and are given preference based on their credits earned relative to their grade level. By engaging students in these clubs and activities, student attendance increases through a greater desire to come to school to participate in the activities they like and improved engagement among non-participating students so that they can participate in the future.

Participants will be taken through the step-by-step process for establishing academic clubs, the data from before and after the establishment of academic clubs, and student thoughts on the use of academic clubs in their schools. Additionally, recommendations for specific academic clubs and the skills they promote will be expressed so that participants can gauge which clubs work best for their schools and their student populations. At Douglass, the clubs for SY2016-2017 are: debate, robotics, urban agriculture, Japanese culture, and drama with potential expansion to guitar, coding, and writing in SY 2017-2018.

By viewing the successes in increasing student engagement, improving culture and climate, and improved social and emotional learning from these students, participants will be able to take this back to their schools with success and rationale. Additionally, recommendations for clubs will allow participants to make the program work for thier specific schools.

Evidence

At Frederick Douglass High School, we have used increased clubs, sports, and alternate activities similar to extracurricular activities to engage students and improve our culture and climate. Research supports the improvement in achievement from extracurricular activities, as well as improved social and emotional skills from extracurricular activities.

  • Achievement scores are higher among students who participate in extracurricular activities (Marchetti et al., 2016).
  • Participation in extracurricular activities has a direct relation to increase achievement and feeling that a school has a positive school climate among students (Martinez, Coker, McMahon, Cohen, & Thapa, 2016).
  • Students can learn self-determination from extracurricular activities as well, such as self-advocacy and leadership. This can result in enhanced achievement (Vinoski, Graybill, & Roach, 2016).
  • Participation in extracurricular activities can offset issues that negatively impact achievement, such as family and school poverty measures (Driessens, 2015).

Improved relationships between peers and students and teachers have vast positive impacts on achievement as well.

  • Positive peer-to-peer relationships can improve a student’s sense of belonging in school (Hornstra, van der Veen, Peetsma, & Volman, 2015).
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  • This includes student mentorships, which specifically helps improve younger student’s sense of belonging in school (King, Vidourek, Davis, & McClellan, 2002).
  • Sense of belonging is important for all students, but especially African-American students. Increased sense of belonging can improve achievement for these students (Hughes, Im, & Allee, 2015; Lam, Chen, Zhang, & Liang, 2015).
  • Conversely, negative peer relationships hurt a student’s achievement due to lowering of their self-concept, or their belief that they can successfully complete schoolwork (Jenkins and Demaray, 2015).
  • Poor self-esteem hurts school performance as well (Ma, 2003).
  • Self-esteem can be improved with positive peer-to-peer relationships (King et al., 2002).
  • If students feel a teacher does not care about them, they are less likely to achieve for that teacher (Mahoney, 2015).
  • Students feel greater belonging in school when they feel a teacher or another adult in the school building takes an interest in their wellbeing (King et al., 2002).

Biographical Sketch

The presenter, Jesse Schneiderman, is a teacher, culture and climate director, student activities coordinator, debate coach, and student government adviser at Frederick Douglass High School in Baltimore, MD. He is also a doctoral student in urban leadership at The Johns Hopkins University. He has run clubs and coached in his career, and has used student activities to increase achievement at FDHS.

Keyword Descriptors

culture, climate, student, activities, achievement, leadership, social, emotional

Presentation Year

2017

Start Date

3-6-2017 10:30 AM

End Date

3-6-2017 11:45 AM

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Mar 6th, 10:30 AM Mar 6th, 11:45 AM

Impact of Extracurricular Activities on School Culture for Students Who Are at Risk

Ballroom D

Participants will be able to learn the ways to implement increased extracurricular activities in order to promote student achievement and an improved culture and climate in the school. Through viewing the implementation strategy at Douglass, participants will be able to implement a similar program at their schools.