Frank Felicelli
Orange County
Cedar Ridge HS
Social Studies/ History

Some context

Unlike some public school educators I have been a quasi closet supporter of the controversial No Child Left Behind legislation that President Bush implemented during his first term in office.  Having been a high school teacher for 20 years I have seen my share of inefficiencies and institutional incompetence on somelevels that I agreed that something had to be done.

Freedom to be flexible is key

Many would bemoan the seemingly total institutional reliance on school report cards based on year-end assessments that have seemingly stifled teacher creativity in lesson creation—or so the criticisms go. The “we have to teach to the test” mantra that many secondary and all teachers bitterly complain about is a valid criticism that needs to be addressed.That said, one tangible benefit of NCLB has been the flexibility districts are allowed in implementing educational innovations as long as the district can justify the reason.

Single Sex Instruction in a Public High School    for 9th Grade World History Students

Why World History?

One innovation that Orange County Schools have experimented with has been the single sex educational model that is now practiced in nearly 500 districts (public and private) throughout the country. World History is a mandated core class that all high school students in North Carolina must pass in order to graduate. This class is a non-EOC course which means that there is no state generated year end assessment but rather students must pass the course and final exam that is primarily teacher generated. And since this course is a non-EOC course it allowed for more flexibility in instruction as long as the state-mandated course curriculum was fully covered.

My expectations

A perfect class to test my long held belief that sex segregation for 9th grade students (regardless of course content) would lead to significant and positive environmental changes in the classroom as well as improved content comprehension based on various assessment indicators.

Experiment began with gender separation through cooperative learning projects

Preparation for full implementation began with ad hoc gender separation through cooperative learning projects during the Fall and early Winter of the 2008-09 academic year.  Content heavy projects that required students to complete various written and sundry other responsibilities in cooperative gender segregated groups were implemented on 5 occasions throughout the 1st Semester.  Another component to our experiment was that in separating by gender we were compelled to mix honors and non-honors cohorts based on scheduling issues that we were powerless to alter. 

Surveys

Nonetheless, anonymous student surveys completed after the 5th project yielded mixed results in that some students “thought it was ok” but would not favor an entire semester whereas others stated various supportive comments that indicated surprise as to liking this method of learning.

Focus groups

Follow up focus group interviews revealed that for the students who liked attending class this way they believed they did better on the projects and were more focused in completing tasks without the distractions inherent to traditional coed classrooms.

Faculty added for formal implementation

With the results as they were, and with the permission of the administration, we added another faculty member to our midst and decided to more fully and formally implement the model in the second semester.  In order to live up to the letter of the directive we began the semester with 2 weeks of traditional coed teaching and then separated the students by gender beginning in week 3. 

Follow-up surveys

A follow up anonymous survey taken 4 weeks later was revealing and positive for the most part.  Parents were also encouraged to comment in a letter sent home with students requesting their anonymous input.  Only 11 parents responded and only one expressed any explicit opposition.

Field notes

... three teachers began full implementation for 7 weeks with the expectation that we would switch the classes at the natural break between the 3rd and 4th quarter. At this point the classrooms would switch teachers but maintain themselves segregated by gender for another 7 weeks until just prior to the end of the academic year. 

Field notes were taken several days a week and another anonymous survey was conducted just prior to the end of the 3rd quarter.  Additionally, representatives from central administration, Associate Superintendent Dr. Morton and Director of Secondary Instruction Stephen Weber, visited one classroom of girls and conducted a roundtable seminar discussion with this class in order to hear from them their thoughts on the model after several weeks of instruction.

Quantitative and qualitative summaries

>> Anonymous survey results in February

>> Anonymous Survey Results and selected comments March-April

>> Focus Group Survey Results February

>> Focus Group Survey Results April

>> Comments From Researchers Field Notes and Elicited Response

The notes on this page are excerpted from the larger project description, which contains additional contextual information and commentary.

>> Click here to see full document, entitled Single Sex Instruction in a Public High School for 9th Grade.

Findings

1.  My findings after nearly a school year of observation, anonymous surveys and post class focus group interviews indicates that the first point was as expected:  significant and positive environmental changes within the classroom did take place. 

2.  On the second point, the results were mixed.  For some students achievement in the classroom improved significantly in both improved test scores and engagement with the course content. 

3.  For others (mostly higher achieving students) the results were generally unchanged and the segregated setting had no effect on achievement or engagement. 

Teacher and student discussions

It should be noted that nobody was academically hurt or damaged by this experiment. By and large the students enjoyed the novelty of the model and being part of a research project.  Nearly all were pleasantly surprised that they actually preferred taking the core area classes in these settings.  In fact in one round table discussion with administrators from central office many kids expressed a desire to have single sex classes in their science and math courses rather than history class.

I had more than enough student volunteers to “sell” this model to rising 8th graders coming to Cedar Ridge next year to allay the knee jerk adolescent opposition to classes of all boys or all girls.

Formal implementation being considered

For the future our district is considering formal implementation and, perhaps with enough teacher-student-community support, we may have all 9th grade students take their core classes in gender segregated settings for this all important initial first year of high school.

Model will be implemented next year

Finally, since the results for both the students and the educators who participated in the model were so positive it was decided to implement this model again the next academic year with select students and classes.

Single sex instruction in public schools has arrived

For many educators who have looked beyond traditional pedagogical paradigms to facilitate learning and age appropriate development of middle adolescence this is a trend whose time has come. 

The Title Nine provision of the federal No Child Left Behind Act allowed schools to divide classes by gender beginning in 2006 and opened the floodgates of educator and school district experimentation in numbers that have exploded since this ruling was handed down. 

As part of ETLP, Cedar Ridge High School in Hillsborough has implemented the single sex instructional model in select World History classes with the view towards formal implementation based, in part, on favorable results of the ongoing study. For Cedar Ridge’s History Department, and specifically the faculty comprising the World History PLC, the early results have been positive and startling.

Classroom environments changed

Researcher field notes culled from interviews with the two other instructors and collected over several weeks of end of class impressions indicate several consistent themes.  First and foremost the environment of the classrooms changed significantly and in a positive direction.

Classroom behavior management problems descreased dramatically

All three instructors stated that classroom management issues dealing with off-task behaviors decreased dramatically.  Instructional time spent/wasted getting students to pay attention or to focus on the lesson allowed for more quality teaching opportunities.  

Discussions were more free flowing

Secondly, classroom discussions that are valuable and necessary for the comprehension of complex themes inherent in the social sciences were more free flowing and allowed the instructor to bridge the gap between historical occurrences and contemporary problems/issues with events occurring today.


Students surprised at their own positive experience

Nearly all students, regardless of gender, were surprised that this instructional model was a positive experience.  Many students volunteered to participate in a roundtable presentation to 8th graders at our feeder school so as to respond student misgivings.

Students surprised at their own positive experience

Nearly all students, regardless of gender, were surprised that this instructional model was a positive experience.  Many students volunteered to participate in a roundtable presentation to 8th graders at our feeder school so as to respond student misgivings.  

Breaking the paradigm

Essentially we are asking our students to be willing to break the paradigm of the traditional public school experience.  That is that all classes are meant to be conducted in traditional mixed settings and to do so any differently just isn’t the way things are suppose to be. Persuading anyone to abandon traditional paradigms is difficult enough but especially so for middle adolescents’ whereby fitting in and not doing anything outside what is culturally accepted practice is a tall obstacle to surmount. 


Success of the experiment enabled formal adoption of the single gender instructional model

The success of our implementation is now leading our school to formally adopt the model with select 9th grade World History classes for 2009-10.  Administration will request this permission from the school board shortly. 

For the 3 instructors, and for me personally, it is our hope that our initial successes evolve to a point where all core classes for 9th graders are offered in a single gender instructional model. 


Meeting social and academic needs

From a developmental viewpoint segregating by gender is not unusual and is actually preferred by the students.  Opportunities still exist within the traditional school day for boys and girls to mix and interact socially and this too is an important part of overall human development. That said, when so much is riding on academic success and achievement in our modern industrial society it behooves us to implement methodologies and practices that benefit our young people.