This guide outlines how student involvement can be truly meaningful. SoundOut believes by engaging students as education planners, researchers, teachers, evaluators, decision-makers and advocates, they can become partners in the change process in the school and district.
This guide begins by introducing the elements of meaningful involvement and key characteristics of schools with this authentic involvement. It provides a description and useful visual of the degrees of student participation which can be used to evaluate individual activities. It also details each of the seven roles/activities students can take on; such as researchers, classroom teachers, and systemic decision-makers; with several real-life examples of each.
Of note are the descriptions of the skills that can be acquired by elementary, middle, and high school students, as well as the adults, participating in these seven types of activities. It also looks at the benefits and the barriers to success.
Check out Building Support for Student-Centered Learning: A Toolkit, for more communication tools to support student-centered approaches to learning and more student engagement resources.
Source Organization: SoundOut