Looping
The practice of having teachers continue with the same students from one year to the next (for example, from sixth to seventh to eighth grade) is called looping. The multiyear relationships between teachers and students can be positive for both teachers and students. For example, looping enhances the teachers’ roles as advisers since they know students better and understand their unique needs. Other positive outcomes of the long-term relationships that come from looping include:
- A sense of belonging, which reduces anonymity
- Support and consistency that students need to navigate young adolescence
- Avenues for real communication, mediation, resolution, and deeper understanding of other perspectives that foster a sense of community
- Lessons about maintaining the relationships in their lives1
A limited number of studies have demonstrated the further benefits of looping, one being the increase of teacher-student connections and continuity and connection of instruction from year to year. One study found that in looped classes students showed higher test scores, self-efficacy, and better attitudes toward schools. Another seven-year study found that after looping began, student attendance and retention rates increased, disciplinary actions and suspensions decreased, and staff attendance improved.2
One model for middle grades improvement, called AIM at Middle-Grades Results (AIM), creates small learning communities whose teachers loop with the students for the long term and advise them on a wide variety of topics, ranging from academic classes to socialization, tolerance, and behavior. AIM’s approach to health is holistic and connects students to available health services through local community service agencies.3 To date, the research on the model is inconclusive.
One of the biggest challenges for teachers considering looping is that teachers must become familiar with standards in their subject for multiple years and must develop lesson plans to deliver new material each year. Although standards-aligned textbooks provide pacing guides and comprehensive lesson plans, many teachers like to tailor the lessons to their students. Some teachers may not want to change grade levels each year. Before considering looping, the professional learning community needs a long discussion so that the team can develop plans to address the fears and anxieties of parents, students, and teachers. The most common are:
- Parents fear having their child placed in a teacher’s classroom for two years if the relationship is not productive or healthy.
- Teachers fear that they will be assigned a student who will not respond to their teaching style or who will not comply with behavioral expectations.
- Students fear that they will be placed on a team without their friends and will therefore be unhappy for two years.
In truth, all parties knowing that this is a long-term assignment are actually more willing to do what is necessary to insure everyone’s needs are met. Teachers are more willing to resolve issues with parents, students are more willing to behave appropriately because of consistency, and parents are more willing to work with the teachers as they see their children happier.
In the Spotlight
Edna Hill Middle School, Brentwood Union Elementary School District, a 2007 Schools to Watch™-Taking Center Stage Model School
In addition to a daily, 18-minute advisory program that connects all students to an adult, Edna Hill Middle School teachers also loop with their students for three years. Both of these sustained relationship-building strategies help students in goal setting. In addition, the focus on goals, continuous progress, and accountability to one teacher helps students prepare for their student-led parent conferences.
Toby Johnson Middle School, Elk Grove Unified School District, a 2006 Schools to Watch™-Taking Center Stage Model School
Toby Johnson’s approximately 1,500 students stay in seven interdisciplinary teams named for colleges: the UC Berkeley Bear team, the UC Davis Aggie team, the UOP Tiger team, or the Sac State Hornet team. Teachers named the teams after local colleges and universities to help make a connection with the career awareness program and their college and career sequence. Each of the teams has 210 students and six teachers: two humanities teachers, a math teacher, a science teacher, a “Bridge” teacher who provides additional instruction in reading and language arts, and a P.E. teacher. If there are special education students, the RSP teacher participates as a member of the team.
Toby Johnson’s teachers loop so that students stay with the same team of teachers for both seventh and eighth grade. The arrangement allows teachers to build a deeper sense of ownership with students and parents, and it allows them to personalize their programs.
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Advisory programs (homeroom)
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Classified staff
Footnotes
1Robert C. Fenter, The Power of Looping and Long-Term Relationships, Middle Ground, February 2009, 29-30.
2Jaana Juvonen, Vi-Nhuan Le, Tessa Kaganoff, Catherine Augustine, and Louay Constant, Focus on the Wonder Years—Challenges Facing the American Middle School (PDF; Outside Source). Arlington, Virginia: Prepared by the Rand Corporation for the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, 2004, 26.
3Works in Progress: A Report on Middle and High School Improvement Programs (PDF; Outside Source). Washington, D.C.: The Comprehensive School Reform Quality Center, American Institutes of Research, January 2005, 81.