Middle Schools Accommodate Student Diversity

¶ … Middle Schools Accommodate Student Diversity

Provide a brief overview of the article, its intended audience and its purpose.

In the article titled, Parental Involvement in Middle School, Hill (2009) is discussing those tactics which are most effectively promoting diversity. This is accomplished by looking at numerous pieces of literature on the subject and identifying the best approaches. The findings are showing how there are two strategies which are utilized to achieve these objectives to include: parental involvement and academic socialization. These factors have been proven to be effective at encouraging students to work together and have greater amounts of understanding towards each other. (Hill, 2009)

Analysis: Analyze the article's strengths and weaknesses, providing evidence to support your opinions.

The biggest strengths of the article are that it looks at numerous studies and sources of literature. This provides actuaries with more insights about the most efficient techniques and their lasting impact on middle schools. It is at this point, when everyone can see the long-term effects of diversity inside these educational institutions. (Hill, 2009)

The largest weaknesses, is that the author is taking a one size fits all approach by identifying some general trends. This is troubling as these ideas do not offer any kind of new information about the most effective techniques and its impact on students. These findings are hurting the quality of the research, by not providing a population sample which can be compared with the general trends. (Hill, 2009)

Evidence of this can be seen with Hill saying, "Although there is a growing body of literature focusing on parental involvement in education during middle school. This research has not been systematically examined to determine which types of involvement have the strongest relation with achievement." This is illustrating how the study is taking a more general focus on the problem by looking at parental involvement over other factors. In the future, this can hurt the conclusions and findings. (Hill, 2009)

Key Elements: Select one or two key ideas from the article and consider how you can effectively connect them to your research question.

The two most important ideas from the article are: increased parental involvement and improved academic socialization strategies. These ideas will help to promote diversity by having the student learn in a format and background they are comfortable with. Then, these concepts are reinforced using socialization to help the individual understand them from contrasting perspectives. This is the point that diversification is improving inside the classroom. The way that these ideas relate to the research question, is they are highlighting specific tools that are used to achieve these objectives. (Hill, 2009)

Reflection: Explain various ways that you could incorporate the learning theory expressed in the article into your teaching methods. Also, explain how the theory demonstrates Christian principles in teaching.