My school went through a complete overhaul a couple of years ago and developed a wonderful Advisory framework that I think could be adapted and modified at any school across the country. Below is a synopsis of this Advisory Program that we created. It is certainly not perfect and is constantly being tweaked, but overall, it is proving to be very successful.
A GOOD ADVISORY PROGRAM SHOULD MEET EVERYDAY
Students need to touch base with a caring adult on a daily basis who can follow up with them regarding their academic progress and social/emotional issues that they might be dealing with. There are some teachers who address this naturally, but daily advisement allows for ALL teachers to get in this routine.
GUIDANCE COUNSELORS ARE PIVOTAL
If you haven't figured it out yet, counselors are AMAZING people. The stuff that they deal with on a daily basis is mind boggling. I am convinced that they have their finger on the pulse of the student body and they can easily identify their social/emotional needs. Talk to your counselors and find out what students need because they are pretty intuitive regarding how the school is doing.
HAVE AN ESTABLISHED MISSION/CURRICULUM IN PLACE
If you are going to meet everyday, you should definitely have a mission and a plug and play type curriculum that won't add to teacher's plates. The mission for my school's advisement is to create a personalized learning environment by providing an adult advocate who will foster communication among students, staff, parents, and the community; provide academic guidance; prepare students for transitions through the utilization of life skills and encourage engagement in school. Let's face it, teachers have a time crunch the way it is and they don't need more to plan for. In my school's case, my counseling department went through a pretty rigorous curriculum writing process and aligned their curricular standards to those created by the American School Counselor Association. They had done all of this work prior to me arriving at the school, but really didn't have an appropriate medium to deliver it. Instead, they took advantage of various times throughout the year to cover some of the standards, but for the most part, the curriculum sat idle until our Advisory Program was put in place. Now, my counseling department is able to meet weekly to develop the lesson plans for the week. These lesson plans are shared on a Google Doc with all staff members and these plans include links to videos and other instructional materials so advisers don't need to seek out the information on their own.
BE EFFICIENT AND SPREAD THE LOVE
Anyone who has ever worked in a large high school knows that building a master schedule is tedious work. In our case, we have used advisement time to make the process more meaningful. We use our advisement time to map out 4-year plans and engage students in the registration process. By doing so, our master scheduling process becomes much more efficient. For two weeks out of the year, our students, staff, and parents are fully engaged in educational planning. It culminates with Advisement Conferences where parents and students come to the school and meet for 20-minutes with advisers to approve their child's schedule for the upcoming school year. For two years, we have had well over 85% attendance. Our Media Productions class puts together informational videos regarding various courses and our advisers have in-depth conversations with students about their course selections. By the end of the process, our students have made informed decisions regarding what they want to do in the future.
HAVE A VEHICLE TO DELIVER THE GUIDANCE CURRICULUM
I can't stress how important this is. Advisement is more than just sitting around, reading the daily announcements, and goofing off. It is serious business and students are held accountable for a number of items. My school uses Naviance, which is a career readiness platform that helps connect academic achievement to post-secondary goals. Its comprehensive college and career planning tools allow students to explore their options, enhance counselor productivity, and it allows administrators to track what students are doing. We use Naviance as a means for students to create SMART Goals, do personality and learning style inventories, create 4-Year Plans, request transcripts, and a whole lot more.
OFFER ADVISEMENT FOR CREDIT
We have raised the stakes on our advisement time by granting credit for those students who complete the necessary tasks and show up on a regular basis. This was a tweak that we made after the first year because we had a number of students and parents question why we were doing it. They didn't value it. When we began offering credit, it definitely gained credibility. Additionally, if students are going to be doing a lot of work during this time, they should receive credit for doing it well.
CONDUCT A NEEDS ASSESSMENT OF YOUR STUDENTS
Just like good classroom instructors formatively assess their students to identify their areas of strengths and opportunities, advisement programs need to identify the needs of students. Counselors at my school conduct a needs assessment on a yearly basis to identify what specific standards in their curriculum that they really need to address. They then plan accordingly and are able to deliver a strong program to all students.
ESTABLISH A FORMAT
Prior to starting the daily advisement at my school, we decided on the format that we would deliver the curriculum. What we came up with was a format in which we would assign advisers to approximately 18-20 students in the same grade level. Advisers would stay with these students all the way through their high school careers so they could establish great relationships with them. So far, this has worked very well. Additionally, by having single grade advisories, we are able to address specific information with students that is relevant to them.
MODIFY AND ADJUST
Advisement programs cannot live in a bubble. Continually probe your teachers to find out what works and what doesn't and really listen to them. They are on the front line and can really provide some great feedback.
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