Types of Students and Learning Preferences

Using results from a nationally representative online survey of 2,006 public and private school students conducted in 2016, the report picks out six dominant categories of students and suggests some ways to help them feel more connected and interested in school. The six dominant categories of students are as follows: subject lovers, emotionals, hand raisers, social butterflies, teacher responders, and deep thinkers. The report states that given that students are motivated to learn via different levers, student engagement and choice—among schools, teachers, courses, delivery options, instructional strategies, and so on—need to go hand in hand. 

Thomas B. Fordham Institute (2017). What teens want from their schools: A national survey of high school student engagement. Washington, D.C.: Thomas B. Fordham Institute. https://edexcellence.net/publications/what-teens-want-from-their-schools

Increasing Students’ AP Participation

According to a report by The Education Trust, it turns out that more than half a million low-income students and students of color are “missing” from AP and IB participation — students who would benefit from these advanced opportunities if they participated at the same rate as other students. This paper examines AP participation patterns nationally and then by school to estimate how many students are missing out. We also look at data for the much smaller IB program. It turns out that, each year, more than half a million low-income students and students of color are “missing” from AP and IB participation — students who would benefit from these advanced opportunities if they participated at the same rate as other students. We also attempt to understand why inequities in participation exist, by asking whether the problem is mostly inadequate AP course offerings in high-poverty or high-minority schools, or because low-income students and students of color are not enrolling in existing programs. The researchers state that the bottom line is clear – we need to continue to expand advanced offerings like AP and IB to schools that don’t yet have them. There’s a lot we can do to bolster participation in existing programs. The study states that we could almost entirely eliminate the national access gap by doing, at scale, what some individual high schools already have done: close race and income access gaps within schools.

The Education Trust, & Equal Opportunity Schools (2013). Finding America’s missing AP and IB students. Washington, D.C.: The Education Trust. https://edtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Missing_Students.pdf