Success after high school is not just about knowing how to find the right answers to algebra questions or read at a certain level. Academic behaviors like persistence or self-motivation are also important factors, especially for students moving on to pursue a postsecondary education. At Queens Community House (QCH), staff recognized that if students weren’t developing these capabilities their mission would not be realized. Queens Community House (QCH) has been helping students prepare for college since 1988. Working with students in transfer schools and Young Adult Borough Centers who have had a history of struggling in high school, the organization has worked hard to improve academic outcomes and increase students’ access to post-secondary education through counseling and advising, aided by partnerships.
In 2012 QCH asked Eskolta to help develop tools that would allow counselors and students to assess their college readiness. “For academics, there were clear measures,” says associate executive director Susan Matloff-Nieves, “but evaluating these other ‘soft’ skills […] would be difficult without the same defined standards to compare against.” Eskolta Senior School Developer Jessica Furer began her work with QCH by reviewing research on the non-cognitive factors that are not explicitly reflected in test scores. Jessica worked with a team of staff and students from QCH to develop and pilot two tools to assess these factors. The first was a reflection tool designed to allow students to recognize their own attitudes and practices, especially with respect to their beliefs about their own intelligence, their persistence, and their relationships with peers and adults. The second tool, a rubric, was designed to give counselors a way to identify students’ progress toward mastery of key skills.
The development of these tools was truly a collaborative process for QCH. The final workshop to test out these tools prompted a deep discussion about practical aspects of how and when the tools would be best used with students. The group agreed that these rubrics were useful during discussions with students and were helping both student and counselor to visualize mastery of the skills and behaviors. For the participants, this was the first time they had an opportunity to work with their colleagues in this broad way. Discussing and fine-tuning the instruments with their peers seemed to be a positive learning experience. Matloff-Nieves agrees; “Although it wasn’t our intention, I think it did have an effect of promoting professional development.”