Special Article

Caruthers Elementary Is on the Path to Achievement with Kagan

Marla Dominguez
Principal, Caruthers Elementary

To cite this article: Dominguez, M. Caruthers Elementary Is on the Path to Achievement with Kagan. San Clemente, CA: Kagan Publishing. Kagan Online Magazine, Issue #54. www.KaganOnline.com

Webster’s Dictionary defines engagement as something that promises to meet or be present at a particular place and time. In education this is what we want of our students, to meet or be present at a particular place and time so that they synthesize and have a deeper understanding of what is being taught. In California, classrooms can be filled with more than 30 students, and likely in many of those classrooms, English might be the second language. Therefore, being present and actively engaged is crucial to student learning.

Caruthers Elementary School is located in the Central San Joaquin Valley in a rural farming community. The demographics include a total of 836 students, 85% Hispanic, 8% White, 6% Asian, 90% socioeconomically disadvantaged, 51% English Learners, and 7% students with disabilities. Our school district is in its second year of transitioning and implementing California Common Core State Standards. Last year, baseline data on the use of these standards was collected with the administration of the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CASPP) state test.

The school administration believes in a shared leadership model, and two and half years ago Kagan was brought forward as something that might be of interest. Never having heard of Kagan before, I started to ask around and what I heard time and time again from teachers was this was the best training they had ever attended in their second, tenth, or even 25th year of teaching. That had my attention, but I began to think things like their school isn’t like my school or our demographics are different. Still skeptical, I shared with my staff that there was Kagan training locally and asked if any were interested in attending. There was one major catch—it was during their Christmas break. Surprisingly, I had eight teachers jump at the chance to attend this training on their own time. This made me eager to get their feedback because this was going to give me information that I needed. These teachers came back very excited; every single one of them could not wait to practice their “structures” and I kept hearing about “PIES” and how they had changed their student groupings in class. Every one of those teachers not only came back to campus and implemented Kagan immediately, but they started to talk and share their successes with their colleagues. Soon I had staff member after staff member asking to attend the five-day training. I had so much interest from the staff that I decided to approach the superintendent with the idea of having the entire district trained.

Before school started in the fall of 2014, our entire district did the five-day cooperative learning training along with follow-up monthly coaching with a Kagan trainer. The administrative leadership team also attended Cooperative Meetings and Kagan Coaching at the Winter Academy in February 2015. Kagan is fully implemented at Caruthers Elementary and with baseline data from state testing, we are expecting to see increases due to the level of participation with instruction and implementation of structures in the classrooms.

We have seen a huge growth in our Transitional Kindergarten English Learners. From 2014 to 2015, there was a 95% growth in language acquisition as measured by the CELDT test. Mrs. Correia and Mrs. Rose, the Transitional Kindergarten teachers, attribute the growth to the Kagan Structures—especially Quiz-Quiz Trade, Inside-Outside Circle, and StandUp-HandUp-PairUp. They are finding that the students feel safe, they know exactly what is expected of them, and they have fun while learning.

Mr. Almeida, one of our sixth grade teachers (who previously taught 4th grade and special education), incorporates Kagan into every lesson and attributes some of his success as a teacher and students’ success to Kagan. Mr. Almeida shared his thoughts about Kagan with me:

“One of the toughest things to do as a teacher is to make sure all of the students are engaged during lessons. Throughout a normal day in my class, I am able to get more participation from each student with structures like RallyRobin and RoundRobin. Instead of having one student answering a question, I have all 22 speaking and listening, which is very important for a school like ours which has many students who learned English as a second language. Overall, I would say that Kagan is the most powerful tool I have. There are so many things I can do to get kids up and moving around instead of glued to their seats. Prior to my third year teaching, I was lucky enough to attend Kagan training and I feel it has opened my eyes to what teaching is meant to be. Most days I will have students use 3–5 different structures, but just about every lesson includes a structure. I try my best to switch them up to keep it new and exciting. My students in the 2014-2015 school year really improved their communication skills. On the CASPP, 80% of the class tested at or above standard in Communicating Reasoning. I give that credit to Kagan and having students constantly explaining how and why they are solving things as they do, as well as learning from other students’ ideas. School can be fun and Kagan is proof that students can have fun and still learn.”

Caruthers Elementary will continue on this path of achievement, and we plan for Kagan to be a part of that for years to come. Just as students in the classroom do teambuilding structures, we will continue to do teambuilding with our staff and continue to develop as a team. Today in education, there is a lot for which we are held accountable; at my school site, I have observed that incorporating Kagan allows you to do it all and do it well.