Loop (education)

Looping is a process used in education in some elementary schools. When a class loops, this means that the class has the same teacher in two or more consecutive years. For example, a teacher who teaches a third-grade class in one year could teach the same students the following year for the fourth grade.

Waldorf (Steiner) schools often maintain a single primary teacher for a class for eight consecutive years, though in conjunction with numerous specialized teachers. [Heiner Ullrich, "Rudolf Steiner", "Prospects: the quarterly review of comparative education", v. XXIV, no. 3/4, pp. 555-572. UNESCO 1994.]

Benefits

Educational advantages to having a single teacher have been found, including:
*Teachers gain extra teaching time. [Ratzki, A. (1988, Spring). "The remarkable impact of creating a school community: One model of how it can be done." "American Educator", 12, 10-43.]
*Teachers increase their knowledge about a child’s intellectual strengths and weaknesses increases in a way that is impossible to achieve in a single year, [Jacoby, D. (1994, March). "Twice the learning and twice the love" "Teaching K-8",24(6), 58-59]
*improved standardized test scores. [George, P.S. (1987). "Long term teacher-student relationships: A middle school casestudy." Columbus, OH: National Middle School Association.]
*Long term teacher-student relationships have been noted to result in an emotional and intellectual climate that encourages thinking, risk-taking, and involvement. [Marzano, R. (1992). "A different kind of classroom: Teaching with dimensions of learning." Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.] [Zahorik, J.A., & Dichanz, H. (1994). "Teaching for understanding in German schools", "Educational Leadership", 5(5), 75-77.]

Disadvantages

Potential disadvantages of looping include:

*restricting the ability of teacher to perfect a lesson through repetition;Todd Oppenheimer, "Schooling the Imagination," Atlantic Monthly, Sept. 99]
*conflict/tension between students and teachers is not always resolved;
*lapses in an instructor's teachings aren't necessarily corrected later on by a different instructor;
*a single teacher defines the character of the individual class, meaning each class carries with it its own unique and observable strengths and weaknesses throughout the looping grades.

Example School

One school, DeGrazia Elementary School, which offers a looping program describes looping as helping to increase student learning for the following reasons:

#Research shows it gives students 4 to 6 weeks of added instructional time. By having more time in the year, we are able to focus on the individual needs of each student.
#The students will develop strong peer relationships that will result in positive dynamics with fewer behavior problems.
#The teacher becomes familiar with each child's strengths and weaknesses. Many young children have anxiety over change. With looping, they know the teacher, their peers, and how the class is structured from the first day of school.
#By being together for 2 years, the students feel more comfortable and will take more risks in learning new things.

References

External links

* [http://www.acfnewsource.org/education/in_the_loop.html "In the Loop" from "The Osgood File"]