Dr. Keith M. Bell, Sr. College of Education and Human Ecology

The Ohio State Student Leadership Research Collaborative

RESEARCH QUESTION:

How do we clearly communicate what the school has to offer the student body?

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

Overall, communication quality is poor within our school. This claim is directly shown by the winning majority percentage of students who voice that communication is poor or that it needs improvement. This is also shown by the overwhelming majority of students who have had negative experiences with communication in Hamilton Township High School.

We have a large number of students that are willing to participate in various extracurricular activities if the quality of communication were to be improved. This correlates with the three line graphs, presenting data from our qualitative ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions.

People who are already involved that also have connections within Hamilton Township High School are more likely to be more informed of the opportunities provided. Those who are less involved in extracurriculars and academic opportunities are less likely to participate in those extracurriculars because the information is unavailable to them. This can be seen on the graph titled “School Communication vs. Third Party,” showing that students are not getting the majority of their information from the announcements or Google Classroom–both major sources of spreading information within our school. Instead of tactics put in place by Hamilton Township High School to inform (announcements, Google Classroom), a majority of students are informed by third parties such as family, friends, individual teachers, and coaches.

Students who are already involved in a large amount of extracurricular activities and academic opportunities have more access to opportunities, and usually have access to them before students who aren’t involved in many extracurricular activities. Furthermore, students who are involved in a large amount of extra curricular activities and academic opportunities are put above students who are not involved in many extracurricular activities and opportunities.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

- Involve teachers and staff as much as possible to maintain a student-staff relationship and keep communication afloat

- Monthly meetings between the clubs to discuss what they are doing within their group

RESEARCH QUESTION:

How do student-teacher relationships affect student engagement?

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

In a recent study, we found that almost 50% of teachers at Westerville South don’t enjoy teaching. Not only does this affect teacher methodology, but decreases student engagement, and student staff relationships. Our goal is to close the gap between these groups, build a more engaged student body, and make sure every student feels as if they have the necessary resources to be successful.

In a student-led survey, we found that almost 60% of students didn’t feel like their peers respected their teachers. Also, more than 30% of students want to feel more connected to their teachers.

We want to implement new activities and ideas to both teachers and students. For students, we want to run more assemblies, that have more fun activities and games. Also, we want to include a huge bulletin (digital or physical) in the lunchroom that holds important information, like where to find different resources, and news.

For our teachers, we would like to implement “office hours” for after school. Students could come in and ask academic questions, which would help boost academic scores and engagement. Lastly, we would like to enact weekly or biweekly tardy sweeps to try to keep kids in class, and decrease skips and tardiness.

RESEARCH QUESTION:

How can we improve career readiness for our students together?

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

I sat there in the bleachers during the senior night presentation for football. As many seniors walked across the field their speeches were read. When asked about their future plans, many read, “career path undecided.” This is when we realized that too many students are unaware of their potential options for their future and how to bring their dreams to fruition. We decided to research the perceived career readiness among our student body and alumni. We created surveys to ask current students about career preparedness and their ability to contact their career coach. 81% of freshmen and sophomores indicated they don’t know how to contact their career coach. 80% of seniors displayed they don’t know how to contact their career coach. Roughly half of our student body has indicated they’re uninformed about future career options. Alumni indicated they felt unprepared for their careers and felt that college was often the only option. We hope to work in conjunction with our administration to ensure that students feel informed regarding their future plans after Eastern High School. We aim to solve this problem by hosting a career fair where we bring alumni and successful community members into our school to speak to students. We anticipate that this will encourage students and allow them to be made aware of new opportunities. We also hope to offer life skill classes that will allow for more student engagement and interaction. We desire to build a community of success.