User:Trick/Developmental Studies Center

Founded in 1980, Developmental Studies Center (DSC) is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Oakland, CA. DSC develops and disseminates literacy and community-building programs for use in elementary schools, and literacy, mathematics, and science enrichment programs for use in after-school environments. Its programs focus on helping schools and after-school sites to create caring, supportive learning environments in order to help all children acquire the academic skills they need to be productive and successful, and build and deepen their understanding of, and commitment to, values such as kindness, helpfulness, personal responsibility, and respect for others. In rigorous evaluation studies, DSC’s programs have been shown to improve students’ academic achievement, strengthen their pro-social inclinations and skills, and reduce their involvement in problem behaviors including drug and alcohol use. DSC’s programs have been adopted in a diverse range of schools and after-school sites nationally, including Title I schools serving low-income and minority youth.

History
DSC’s work has been supported by over $80,000,000 in grants from over 40 different philanthropic and governmental sources. That funding has enabled DSC to develop a set of programs that promote academic learning while also fostering children’s social, emotional, and ethical growth. These programs have been extensively and rigorously evaluated. A major evaluation of its community-building program for elementary schools (then called the Child Development Project; now called the Caring School Community program), conducted in the 1990’s in six school districts nationally, found that students in high-implementing schools, relative to their comparison school counterparts, showed: ·      a greater sense of the school as a caring community ·      more liking for school ·      stronger academic motivation ·      more frequent reading of books outside of school ·      stronger commitment to democratic values ·      better conflict resolution skills ·      more concern for others ·      more frequent altruistic behavior ·      less use of alcohol ·      less use of marijuana A summary of this study is reported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which helped fund the evaluation. Significantly, a follow-up study tracked students from both program and comparison schools through the middle grades and showed that the program had lasting effects on school success and high-risk behavior: While in middle school (where there was no comparable program), former program students showed: ·      higher grades in core academic classes (English, mathematics, science, social studies) ·      higher achievement test scores ·      a greater sense of community ·      higher educational aspirations ·      more liking for school ·      greater trust in and respect for teachers ·      greater involvement in positive activities such as sports, clubs, and youth groups ·      less delinquent behavior DSC has also created language arts programs that focus on decoding (i.e., phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency), reading comprehension, vocabulary, spelling, and writing—that together with the Caring School Community program constitute a complete school reform agenda. DSC has also developed in-school mathematics programs, and reading and mathematics enrichment programs specifically created for use in after-school environments.

Programs
DSC’s programs incorporate the latest research on effective teaching and learning and are aligned with national standards and those of key states. Each of DSC’s programs integrates a focus on building academic understanding and skills with strategies for creating inclusive classroom and after-school communities—communities characterized by caring connections among students, between teachers and students, and between school and home. Regular use of cooperative learning strategies—partner and small group work— for example, offers students opportunities to work together and learn about, practice, and consciously reflect on values such as personal responsibility, respect, fairness, caring, and helpfulness. Cooperative learning activities also help students build connections to each other and foster their sense of belonging to a school community in which they experience themselves as valued and contributing members. The major finding of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health was summarized as follows: “Attachment to school and family serve as protective factors against drugs, alcohol use, and violence. The most powerful predictor of adolescent well being is a feeling of connection to school.” The importance of “connectedness” and experiencing a strong “sense of community” in school has been amply documented. For example, compared to more affluent children, low-income children and children of color typically experience less of a “sense of community” in school—less of a sense of connectedness to peers and adults, and less sense of having “voice and choice” during the school day Research further shows that having such feelings of belonging and connectedness are extremely important for all domains of learning. For example, strengthening sense of community significantly enhances academic motivation and achievement ; enhances ethical, social, and emotional development ; and reduces the tendency to engage in problem behaviors. Strengthening sense of community also promotes school bonding—students’ affective commitment to the school and its goals and values. In-school learning. DSC has created six school programs that are designed to support teachers’ learning as well as students’, so that teachers with varying levels of experience can implement them successfully. These programs include: ·      The Making Meaning® reading comprehension program, which provides a structured, week-by-week curriculum at each grade level, K–8, for teaching nine comprehension strategies (e.g. retelling, visualizing, making inferences, summarizing) that are central for students to understand what they are reading, and that can be applied to a wide range of narrative and expository texts. The program also includes leveled libraries of fiction and nonfiction books—240 books at each grade level—for students to read during an Individualized Daily Reading period. ·      The Making Meaning® Vocabulary program which teaches high-utility words found in the Making Meaning program. Vocabulary lessons combine direct instruction in word meanings with engaging activities that require students to think deeply about words and use them as they talk with their partners and the class. ·      The Being a Writer™ program, designed for grades K–6, systematically guides students’ development of strong writing skills, builds their knowledge and appreciation of good writing, promotes their critical thinking and expression skills, and fosters their growth as caring and principled people. Using a “writers’ workshop” approach, the program provides explicit, systematic instructional materials with built-in assessments to facilitate successful implementation by teachers with varying levels of experience. ·      The SIPPS® decoding program —Systematic Instruction in Phoneme Awareness, Phonics, and Sight Words—is a state-of-the-art decoding intervention program for struggling readers in grades K–12, that is also used as a basic instructional program at grades K–3. Developed in close collaboration with Professor John Shefelbine of California State University at Sacramento, SIPPS is designed to help students develop word recognition skills efficiently and effectively ·      The Guided Spelling™ program, created for students in grades 1–6 by the authors of the SIPPS decoding program, helps students become thoughtful, independent, and knowledgeable spellers, who know how to spell irregular and high-frequency words, but also know how the language works and possess a variety of strategies to approach spelling challenges. ·      The Caring School Community™ community-building program was designed to help schools become caring communities of learners—environments that are characterized by caring and supportive relationships; respectful collaboration among students, staff, and parents; and a sense of common purpose and a clear commitment to norms and values of caring, respect, responsibility, and learning. The program includes four complementary components: class meetings, parent-involvement activities, cross-age/cross-grade “buddies” activities, and whole-school community-building activities. Caring School Community has been designated as a “select” social and emotional learning program by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) and as a research-based drug abuse prevention program by The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). The program is also included in the National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices and endorsed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (SAMHSA). As reported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, two evaluations funded by the federal Department of Education (one in San Francisco and one in St. Louis) found that schools implementing the program reported significant positive change in students’ academic achievement, feelings of belonging, sense of classroom as a community, and significant drop in discipline referrals, compared to schools that had not implemented the program. Learning after school. DSC offers four after-school enrichment programs that are focused on reading, math, and science. Specifically designed for out-of-school settings, these programs provide opportunities to build academic skills in ways that don’t feel like school. These programs include: ·      AfterSchool KidzLit® reading enrichment program, for grades K–8, includes 180 high-interest trade books that incorporate important social and ethical lessons. Each book is supplemented by a facilitator guide that includes discussion topics and activities such as music, art, drama, and games that let children explore the books in hands-on, interactive ways. ·      AfterSchool KidzMath™ mathematics enrichment program, for grades K–6, includes 50 games and 20 story-based activities that foster children’s mathematical and social learning ·      Math Explorer, for grade 6–8, was created by the San Francisco Exploratorium, a nationally recognized leader in inquiry-based education. Designed to engage young people in standards-based mathematics learning, the program invites middle school youth to develop, review, and practice important math skills while engaging in compelling projects, games, puzzles, art activities, and experiments. ·      Science Explorer, which was also created by the San Francisco Exploratorium, provides students in grades K–6 with a set of engaging experiments that use ordinary materials to explore everyday phenomena—such as bubbles, rainbows, optical illusions, and static electricity. Using processes that are integral to good science, the program helps young people develop skills such as measuring, classifying, predicting, forming hypotheses, and experimenting.

Professional Development
To complement its instructional materials, DSC provides aligned professional development in all of its programs for teachers and after-school youth workers. It also provides leadership training for principals. DSC offers a range of services in conjunction with each of its programs, including: ·      Initial consultation and planning ·      Summer institutes and follow-up workshops ·      Follow-up coaching, lesson modeling, and problem-solving ·      Workshops and support for principals and site directors DSC’s team of trainers is composed of current or former teachers, youth workers, principals and others who have used DSC’s programs in their own classrooms, schools, or after-school sites.

Funders
DSC has been funded by the following: The Annenberg Foundation, Inc. The Atlantic Philanthropies (USA) Inc. The Robert Bowne Foundation, Inc. Booth Ferris Foundation The Annie E. Casey Foundation Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services The Danforth Foundation The DuBarry Foundation The Ford Foundation William T. Grant Foundation Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund Walter and Elise Haas Fund The Horace Hagedorn Foundation J. David & Pamela Hakman Family Foundation Hasbro Children’s Foundation Charles Hayden Foundation The William Randolph Hearst Foundations Clarence E. Heller Charitable Foundation The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation The James Irvine Foundation The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Walter S. Johnson Foundation Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation W.K. Kellogg Foundation John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Lilly Endowment, Inc. Longview Foundation Louis R. Lurie Foundation The MBK Foundation Mr. & Mrs. Sanford N. McDonnell The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation A.L. Mailman Family Foundation, Inc. Charles Stewart Mott Foundation National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health National Science Foundation New York Life Foundation Nippon Life Insurance Foundation Karen and Christopher Payne Foundation The Pew Charitable Trusts The Pinkerton Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation Louise and Claude Rosenberg, Jr. Family Foundation The San Francisco Foundation Shinnyo-en Foundation Silver Giving Foundation The Spencer Foundation Spunk Fund, Inc. W. Clement & Jessie V. Stone Foundation Stuart Foundation The Stupski Family Foundation The Sulzberger Foundation, Inc. Surdna Foundation, Inc. John Templeton Foundation U.S. Department of Education The Wallace Foundation Wells Fargo Bank