Illinois Wesleyan senior Jennifer Davis, one of the coach-leaders in the Promise and Potential Program, tutors a student at Bloomington Junior High School.

IWU, Bloomington Junior High Program Helps Students Find Academic Success

March 27, 2003

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — A mentoring program developed by Illinois Wesleyan University in partnership with Bloomington Junior High School has not only resulted in significant improvements among at-risk middle school students but has also shown clear advantages for teacher preparation.

The Promise and Potential Program is now in its first full year of operation following a pilot program in 2001-02 which resulted in higher grades, better attendance, and enhanced self-confidence, among other quantifiable improvements for the middle-school students.

Supported by a grant from the State Farm Companies Foundation, the students’ success is only part of the story, according to Robin Leavitt, professor of educational studies at Illinois Wesleyan. Leavitt coordinates the program for Illinois Wesleyan while Mary Aplington, head of the Student Services Department at Bloomington Junior High School, is the site coordinator.

Noting that neither mentor programs nor school-university partnerships are unique in themselves, combining the two endeavors, Leavitt says, does offer distinctive advantages. "The approach has multiple, even exponential, benefits for students, teachers, and the community," says Leavitt.

In its pilot year, 32 Illinois Wesleyan students, designated as "mentor-coaches," were paired with 70 Bloomington Junior High students and spent a total of 1,307 hours working with those students during school hours over a five-month period from January through May. Each coach was matched with two to four middle school students who had been identified by school counselors and teachers based on such factors as poor attendance, low grades and standardized test scores, and lack of self-confidence or self-esteem.

Coaches met with the students twice a week for 45 minutes during the school day, focusing not only on schoolwork but also on addressing any personal or social issues that were creating barriers to learning. Each coach-student pair worked together to create a portfolio that recorded the student’s successes and established future goals.

During May, the coaches spent additional time shadowing their students in classrooms so that they could get a better sense of the students’ participation and skill development. At the end of the term, the Illinois Wesleyan coaches wrote letters to the parents or guardians of their students in which they highlighted the students’ achievements.

From the middle school students’ standpoint, the mentor relationship had quantifiable positive results. For instance, 50 percent of the students improved their grades during the coaching period. The percentage of students with failing grade-point averages was cut in half, falling from 27 percent to 12 percent. A third of the mentored students improved their school attendance.

As Leavitt’s report on the pilot project noted, "The most significant increase in students’ grades and attendance occurred during the third quarter, at the height of the coaching intervention. These increases are statistically significant; that is, not likely to have occurred by chance, but as a direct result of the coaches’ intervention."

While the results were encouraging in terms of the impact on the middle school students, the project had equally positive benefits for prospective teachers, according to Leavitt. The Illinois Wesleyan coaches — most of whom were education majors or intended to become teachers — reported that the experience enhanced their understanding of both critical developmental issues and such contextual factors as family, income, race, and gender that impact school achievement.

In addition to pre-service teacher development, participating BJHS teachers’ professional development is supported. The State Farm grant funded several teachers’ attendance at a recent conference: School Improvement for Dropout Prevention: What Works and What Matters for Students in At-Risk Situations. Since that conference the teachers have met regularly among themselves and with their colleagues to discuss what was learned, and how it might be applied at BJHS.

Leavitt notes that the pilot year provided valuable information that Illinois Wesleyan has used to revise its teacher education curriculum.
"Over time we expect that the Promise and Potential partnership will produce a cadre of teachers uniquely prepared to meet the varied needs of individual students at risk for school failure," wrote Leavitt in her report on the pilot. "These future teachers will have had a supported experience with students new teachers find the most challenging. Illinois Wesleyan teacher candidates are learning to understand, connect with, and motivate disenfranchised students, helping them to access their strengths and realize their potential."

One key finding from the pilot project was the desirability of having the coaches work with students throughout an entire academic year. About one third of the 47 coaches this year are returning coaches, and/or committed to working with about 70 BJHS students for the entire academic year (2002-03). Two Illinois Wesleyan seniors, Jennifer Davis and Sara Voelker, both of whom were coaches during the pilot program, are serving as coach-leaders this year, helping to recruit and train coaches. Assessment data will not be available until the end of the academic year, but Leavitt is optimistic that the positive results from the pilot project will continue to be seen.

In April, Leavitt, Davis, and Voelker will present a paper entitled "Promise and Potential: Preparing Future Teachers to Meet the Diverse Needs of Students at Risk for School Failure" at the annual national meeting of the American Educational Research Association in Chicago.