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Creating Small Learning Communities: LessonsFrom the Project on High-Performing LearningCommunities About “What Works” in CreatingProductive, Developmentally Enhancing, LearningContextsROBERT D. FELNER a , ANNE M. SEITSINGER b , STEPHEN BRAND b , AMY BURNS b &NATALIE BOLTON ca Dean's Office , University of Louisville ,b National Center on Public Education and Social Policy , University of Rhode Island ,c Department of Teaching and Learning , University of Louisville ,Published online: 05 Dec 2007.

To cite this article: ROBERT D. FELNER , ANNE M. SEITSINGER , STEPHEN BRAND , AMY BURNS & NATALIE BOLTON (2007)Creating Small Learning Communities: Lessons From the Project on High-Performing Learning Communities About “WhatWorks” in Creating Productive, Developmentally Enhancing, Learning Contexts, Educational Psychologist, 42:4, 209-221,DOI: 10.1080/00461520701621061

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EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST, 42(4), 209–221Copyright C© 2007, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Creating Small Learning Communities:Lessons From the Project on High-PerformingLearning Communities About “What Works”

in Creating Productive, DevelopmentallyEnhancing, Learning Contexts

Robert D. FelnerDean’s Office

University of Louisville

Anne M. Seitsinger, Stephen Brand, and Amy BurnsNational Center on Public Education and Social Policy

University of Rhode Island

Natalie BoltonDepartment of Teaching and Learning

University of Louisville

Personalizing the school environment is a central goal of efforts to transform America’sschools. Three decades of work by the Project on High Performance Learning Communitiesare considered that demonstrate the potential impact and importance of the creation of “smalllearning environments” on student motivation, adjustment, and well-being. Findings abouthow to effectively create such small learning environments in middle and secondary schoolare presented. Of particular focus are the ways in which ecological changes that create smallerschools within large ones, teacher and student teams, and other personalization strategies mayengage diverse, socially, and economically disadvantaged students, in middle and high schools,to improve academic performance, reduce dropout rates, enhance developmental outcomes,and close equity gaps.

Personalizing the school environment is a central goal of ef-forts to transform America’s schools (e.g., Biddle & Berliner,2002; Carnegie Task Force on the Education of Young Ado-lescents, 1989; Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 2003;National Association of Secondary School Principals, 1996).Recently, however, some have called into question such ma-jor personalization efforts as middle schools or the creationof “small schools,” particularly the efficacy of the approachesadvocated for creating such conditions. Illustratively, severalstates and districts have begun to move away from what theysee as the ineffective model of middle school to a return toK–8 configurations (e.g., Philadelphia, Baltimore).

Correspondence should be addressed to Robert D. Felner, College ofEducation and Human Development, University of Louisville, Louisville,KY 40292. E-mail: r.felner@louisville.edu

In the current article we consider both the intent and po-tential impact of the personalization of school environmentsthrough the creation of “small learning environments” basedon more than 3 decades of work by the Project on High Perfor-mance Learning Communities to create such environments.(Felner, 2000; Felner et al., 2001). Small learning commu-nities are at the core of a wide array of recommendationsfor school reform and a number of labels that have been ap-plied to efforts to personalize school environments. To avoidthe confusion that might result from constantly shifting be-tween those labels we use the construct of “small learningcommunities” to apply to this concept.

Our emphasis is on features and issues that are commonacross all of these efforts whether labeled “small schools,”“schools-within-schools,” “houses and/or teams,” or em-bedded in larger frames (e.g., Sizer’s, 1997, advocacy for

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personalization within “Essential Schools). The label of“small learning communities” makes clear that the centralfocus across efforts is the creation of conditions that engagestudents, support learning, and enhance development.

COMPETENCE-FOCUSED MOTIVATION: THEIMPORTANCE OF SCHOOL CONTEXTS AND

NESTED SOCIAL INTERACTIONS

School reforms that seek to create more personalized envi-ronments are, whether implicitly or explicitly, attempting todevelop what Gtazek and Sarason (2007) labeled “contextsof productive learning.” Here student learning is seen to be aprocess that takes place in an interpersonal context, betweenstudents and teachers, and among peers (Wentzel, 1998).This transactional process is one in which both students andteachers are constantly engaged both in learning about thecore content and in how to understand and communicate withone another. It is important to note that, given our focus onstudent motivation, the personalization of the school contextis a critical strategy for bringing the learner in as a full and ac-tive participant in enhancing and shaping their own learning.This is accomplished by engaging the student more deeplythrough building on connections to the teacher and to peerswho are more actively committed to learning, as they arein personalized school environments (Felner & Adan, 1988;Felner, Ginter, & Primavera, 1982). Creation of a more per-sonalized context alters the regularities of the complex socialsetting of the school in ways that “unlock student energyand motivation” and that give students “a sense of growth, ofpersonal agency, of competence, of being someone whose in-dividuality is recognized and fertilized” (Gtazek & Sarason,2007, pp. 14–15). Small, personalized learning communitiesfoster productive learning both by removing developmen-tally hazardous conditions that may be present in the schoolcontext and by providing the opportunities-to-learn, oppor-tunities to teach, and learning supports that enable a schoolto become a positive, developmentally enhancing context(Felner & Felner, 1989; Felner et al., 2001).

A focus on the creation of small learning communitiesas a central strategy in school reforms that seek to activateand focus students’ motivation on learning and prosocialdevelopment during in-school time is made clearer when oneconsiders the far more complex understanding and definitionof motivation that has emerged in research on motivation.Elliott and Dweck (2005) articulated the core of this viewwhen they argue that achievement and adaptive motivationis better viewed as an element of a more general need forcompetence. They stated that their view “of the energizationof competence-relevant behavior is grounded in the premisethat competence is an inherent psychological need of thehuman being” and “we view the need for competence as afundamental motivation that serves the evolutionary role ofhelping people to develop and adapt to their environment”

(p. 6). These authors went on to note that socialization agentsand contexts, teachers, peers, and schools may all impact theindividuals’ motivation for and acquisition of competence.

Wigfield and Wagner (2005) extended these issues toyouth as they move into and through adolescence. Theypointed specifically to the general decline in intrinsic mo-tivation and perceptions of competence as students movethrough school, particularly in adolescence. They went onto note that the changes in instructional practices and socialrelationships that students experience as they move throughschool have negative impacts on students, as they are de-velopmentally inappropriate for early adolescents. In addi-tion, Wentzel (2005) concluded that adolescents who enjoypositive relationships with peers also tend to be engaged inand even excel at academic tests more than those who havepeer relationships problems. As we make clear next, oneof the most important rationales for, and effects of, creatingsmall personalized environments, when done well, is to makeschools more developmentally appropriate, the adults in themmore developmentally responsive, and the relationships withpeers more positive (Felner et al., 1982).

In the rest of this article we provide findings from ourown work that illustrate the ways in which creating smallcommunities for learning, when done well, can impact theseconditions in the ways called and that both stem the decline inmotivation seen among students (Wigfield & Wagner, 2005)and lead to more positive academic and developmental out-comes. Before that, we briefly consider why these goals maybe more critical than ever for America’s schools.

The Need to Support the Motivation of “AllStudents” For Achievement and Competency

The challenges confronting schools in the 21st century bringinto sharp focus the need for the transformation of schoolsettings into far more productive learning contexts. No ChildLeft Behind and the reports leading up to it, such as “A Na-tion at Risk” (1983) and “Goals 2000,” profoundly changedthe standards by which America’s schools are judged. Forthe first time in the history of America’s efforts at providingpublic education the goal is now nothing short of educatingall students, to high levels of proficiency. This is a profoundtransformation in the task for America’s schools and is ac-companied by earlier legislation (e.g., the Improving Amer-ica’s Schools Act, 1994) that calls for schools that enhancethe broader developmental and social outcomes of students,including socioemotional and behavioral adaptation, as wellas prevent substance abuse and violence. The difficulty ofthis task is brought into sharp focus by local and state re-ports that reveal that large numbers of schools and districts,particularly those with high concentrations of students fromimpoverished backgrounds, may have more than half of allstudents who score less than proficient on some measures.Further, both the levels of academic proficiency and socio-behavioral adaptation of many of these students decline with

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CREATING SMALL LEARNING COMMUNITIES 211

grade and schooling level. In turn, these declines in achieve-ment and learning are associated with a steady decline instudent interest in and motivation for schooling (Gtazek &Sarason, 2007; Wigfield & Wagner, 2005). Of course, theseaccompany the ongoing decline in the personalization anddevelopmental focus of schooling as grade levels increase(Felner et al., 2001). For socially and economically disad-vantaged students, where equity gaps in achievement andschool adjustment have consistently been found, such ad-ditional declines in the absolute levels of performance andadjustment, starting from already relatively lower levels, maylead to even greater probability of school failure, droppingout, and associated socio-behavioral difficulties (Felner et al.,1997, 2001; Felner, Primavera, & Cauce, 1981).

The change both in the charge for America’s schools andthe metrics against which they are judged brings with it sig-nificant challenges that will not be successfully addressedwith piecemeal reforms or singly focused solutions. In ourresearch (Felner, Silverman, & Felner, 2000; Felner et al.,1997, 2001) we found that transformational reforms are re-quired, adequate for addressing the multiple developmen-tal influences on motivation and the task of the creation ofproductive learning and developmental contexts. These re-forms need to be comprehensive, grounded, and informedby prior theory and research and able to create synergies ineffort that produce dramatically enhanced impacts for all stu-dent groups and subgroups of students. Students that schoolsneed to serve today have a far broader array of motivational,behavioral, emotional, and cognitive strengths, needs, andchallenges than in the past (DuBois & Felner, 1996). What isrequired of reform efforts to serve all students effectively isto redesign schools as contexts that promote positive devel-opment for all and that remove conditions that are develop-mentally hazardous. Given the understandings of the socialinfluences on motivation previously discussed, such trans-formations need to build into the fabric of the structure andorganization of schools the opportunities for teachers to havethe enhanced delivery capacity (e.g., time, the ability to worktogether and know students well) required to reach studentsin differentiated and personalized ways. With these issues inmind we now turn to our ongoing work toward these goalsand an overview of some lessons we have learned on how toachieve them.

THE PROJECT ON HIGH PERFORMINGLEARNING COMMUNITIES (PROJECT

HIPLACES)

In the next sections we provide and overview and summarizefindings from the larger Project on High Performance Learn-ing Communities (Project HiPlaces/The Project), developedby senior author Robert Felner (2000; Felner et al., 2001).This is a 3-decades-long effort to develop a model and thelarge-scale evidentiary research base for guiding school re-form, based in developmental theory and research. We seek

to help guide schools in the transformation to contexts inwhich “all students can learn and develop at high levels andbecome productive, successful citizens in a democratic so-ciety” (Felner, 2000, p. 273). The Project views academicperformance and achievement as nested in a broader viewof individual and contextually based competence, in whichacademic achievement is but one element of a larger set ofcompetencies for which the student has inherent psycholog-ical motivation and need.

Although we provide a brief overview of the full model inthis article, our focus is on what has been a core concern ofthe Projects since its inception:the effective creation of smallcommunities for learning, in middle and secondary schools.Of particular concern are key lessons we have learned about:(a) the importance of a comprehensive, theory-based, multi-dimensional approach to strategies for creating these smalllearning communities; (b) critical features and practices thatdefine effective small learning communities as they relate tostudent motivation, learning, and performance; and (c) whatit takes to get implementation of these features and practices,at desired levels of fidelity and intensity. Let us turn next toa brief overview of the Project data sources and methods.

Project HiPlaces: Theoretical Frame, Samples,Design, and a Focus on “What Works”

Several key features of Project HiPlaces (Felner et al., 2001)make it relatively unique and underscore the strength of theevidence base of the findings we report here. The Project hasbeen guided by sound psychological theory, a transactional–ecological model of development described by Bronfenbren-ner (1979), Felner and Felner (1989), and others (Sameroff& Fiese, 1989). The work has involved more than 3, 000separate annual assessments of schools and multiple longitu-dinal data sets and represents a broad array of studies of majorreform efforts that have been undertaken by foundations, dis-tricts, states, federal entities, and educational organizations.Included are statewide samples of schools at specific levels(elementary, middle, secondary) as well as multistate sam-ples engaged in a range of major reform efforts across morethan 26 states. Samples range from those that include schoolsat all K–12 levels to all of those at specific levels and, formore than a decade, all of the K–12 schools in an entire state.Because many of the studies and foundation initiatives haveincluded a particular emphasis on students in high-povertyschools many of our samples have oversampled students ex-periencing social or economic disadvantage. Illustratively ina set of studies focused on middle-level reform, across morethan 24 states, approximately 44% of the students were fromminority ethnic backgrounds, and 46% participated in thesubsidized school lunch program. Similarly, even in our on-going statewide sample, because of the demographics of thatstate, the subsidized lunch percentage is 33% (InformationWorks, 2006).

The substudies that compose the overall project haveranged from efforts that would meet the most rigorous

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standards of randomized controlled trials (RCTs), to thosethat are no less rigorous but more quasi-experimental in na-ture, to others that can best be described as what Bronfenbren-ner (1979) would call “experiments in nature.” The high levelof consistency and generalizability of the findings regarding“what works,” across samples, school levels, and designs, isa critical strength of the work and lends considerable eco-logical validity to it and the findings we describe here. Thesefindings have guided our efforts as we have moved recur-sively, with a focus on continuous improvement of the modeland approach, from demonstration, to scale-up, to dissemina-tion trials. A central tenant of the work is that the data, bothcollectively and for the individual school, must be sharedwith participating schools in ways, and with tools and pro-cess, that enable them to use the data for individual schoolimprovement efforts (Felner et al., 1997, 2001). This highlevel of utility of the data for the schools has resulted inconsistently high participation rates by all of the inhabitants(students, teachers, administrators) in each school and thefull set of parents of the students.

Across this work we have employed a core set of assess-ments and design elements that have enabled us to collect acommon core data set, that is, the High Performance Learn-ing Community Assessments (HiPlaces-A). The HiPlaces-Aprovide for a multimethod, multisource, multitrait assess-ment approach as recommended by Cronbach (Cronbach,Gleser, Rajaratnam, & Nanda, 1972) and others (Campbell& Fiske, 1959). Further, the use of this core data set is anintentional strategy to develop a set of common, generaliz-able understandings, across a wide array of reform initiativesthat, on the surface, often had different concerns, models, andaims. Across studies we have collected assessments of stu-dents’ academic achievement and performance—drawn both

FIGURE 1. Interdependence of the common nine dimensions of the High Performance Learning Community Assessment.

from the state/districts’ own measures and those provided byteachers in our samples. The HiPlaces-A includes measuresof school/teacher practices, school climate and regularities,students’ sociobehavioral functioning, developmental indi-cators and well-being, the nature and structure of the curric-ular being delivered, and other key elements of the schoolcontext. (Figure 1 shows the theory and measurement logicmodel and central constructs measured.)

An overarching concern of our work has been with un-derstanding the “opportunity-to-learn” (OTL; Porter, 1995)conditions and what we have termed the related “opportunity-to-teach” (OTT) conditions (Felner et al., 2001) that arepresent in classrooms and schools—these are central ele-ments assessed in the HiPlaces-A. In our model such condi-tions are seen to define the degree to which students are pro-vided with the necessary “developmentally enhancing learn-ing context,” with appropriate learning supports, resources,and the absence of developmentally hazardous conditions.These variables and conditions are often not attended to in thediscussion of school reform and “datasets” for decision mak-ing in schools. These conditions (OTL/OTT/Learning Sup-ports) are, within the Project, viewed as a key, third set ofstandards that were to comprise the triad of standards (alongwith student performance standards and curriculum frame-work standards) that were to define standards-based reform.

ASKING THE QUESTION OF “WHAT WORKS”IN REFORM AND SMALL LEARNING

COMMUNITIES—A MULTILEVEL APPROACH

Project HiPlaces (Felner, 2000; Felner et al., 2001) has fo-cused on answering the fundamental question about “what

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CREATING SMALL LEARNING COMMUNITIES 213

works” in the reform of K–12 education. In doing this wehave followed a hierarchical progression of trials, each levelof which is guided by one of four overarching questions thatreflect this developmental progression:

� If you did “it” would “it” work? (Initial experimen-tal/model plausibility trials)

� What is the “it” that matters and can we continuously re-fine our understanding of it as it occurs and matters acrosssettings and populations? What are the critical aspectsof fidelity and intensity as it is made manifest? (Modelrefinement and generalization tests)

� What does it take to get “it” to happen with fidelity andintensity? Requisite conditions and policies inside theschool and the contexts (e.g., district/state) that surroundit? These are scaling-up trials.

� What does it take to sustain and continuously improve“it”? (Issues of dissemination and institutionalization ofevidence-based practice in the field)

Creating Small Learning Communities InsideLarger Middle and Secondary Schools

In this article our focus is primarily on the first two ques-tions as they relate to creating small communities for

FIGURE 2. Pathways of influence among the HiPlaces Assessment’s dimensions and elements, school impacts, and student outcomes.

learning as the hub of more comprehensive, integrative wholeschool changes. This approach seeks to create small learn-ing communities inside larger schools. The creation of suchcommunities is a central element of the HiPlaces model. TheHiPlaces model (Figure 2), has eight primary elements orga-nized around a core focus. In the HiPlaces research, these di-mensions have been found to be inextricably interconnected.Although a school may have partial success in obtainingimplementation of any one element, we have found that suc-cessful and full, sustainable implementation, and maximumimpact, depends on the degree to which the comprehensivemodel is attained (Felner et al., 1997, 2001.). The effec-tiveness of the overall model has been presented by Felnerand his colleagues (e.g., Felner, Brand, Seitsinger, Burns,& Jung,2007a, 2007b; Felner et al.,1997, 2001) who haveshown that, as they followed large numbers of schools at allgrade levels and configurations, through their reform efforts,the levels of implementation (LOI) of the overall model thatwere present, as well as schools’ progress from initial effortsthrough to far higher LOI, are strongly related to the overallachievement, performance, and adjustment of students. Asshown in Figure 3, higher levels of implementation intensityand fidelity were particularly important to getting major gainsin achievement and adjustment among more socially and eco-nomically disadvantaged students. This pattern held both forthe overall model and for small learning communities.

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FIGURE 3. General trend impact of implementation levels for higher risk (e.g., minority and/or eligible for free or reduced-price lunch) students.

To aid in ensuring that a school has fully considered what ittakes to create small learning communities or any of the otherdimensions of the HiPlaces model, we have identified five“next level” operationalizing dimensions of change that allowfor the assessment of the fidelity and level of implementationof each:

1. Structural/organizational characteristics. These condi-tions in a school provide the opportunity for other thingsto change. They are necessary, but they are typically notsufficient (something that is true of each domain) to pro-duce dramatic change in the conditions inside the buildingthat students experience or in student outcomes. Often,reforms that seek to create “small schools” restructureorganizationally but with little attention to the other fourdimensions of change that need to accompany such orga-nizational changes.

2. Attitudes, norms, and beliefs of staff. Almost all of theexisting reform models, including those extensively con-sidered by RAND as part of their work on comprehensiveschool reform designs (Berends, Bodilly, & Kirby, 2002),emphasize the importance of staff buy-in, both initiallyand over time. What appears clear from our research (Fel-ner, 2000; Felner et al., 2001), and that of the RANDgroup, is that this is yet another necessary but not suffi-cient element of implementation.

3. Climate/empowerment/experiential characteristics andfeatures of the school and district. These conditions areseen by proponents of professional learning communitiesas critical to enabling their effective functioning. Theyinclude such conditions as the levels of stress, safety, andsupport for students; teachers’ experience of support; and

the degree to which teachers/administrators feel empow-ered to make necessary decisions for effectively imple-menting each area of the model.

4. Capacity/skills. People need to know how to do some-thing to do it well. Small learning communities that areeffective have teachers who are well prepared to engagestudents/parents, to provide standards-based instruction,to use common planning time/ work in teams, and to par-ticipate with community agencies.

5. Practice/procedural variables. These are the actual prac-tices, processes, and procedures that are used in the schoolcontext for instruction, decision making, leadership, ad-ministration, staff development, parent involvement, com-munity involvement, building and conveying high expec-tations, and so on, through each of the HiPlaces dimen-sions. We have found (Felner et al., 2001; Felner et al.,2001) these are often the last but among the most pow-erful changes that accompany creation of small learningcommunities. If practices and procedures do not changein the desired directions, schools will fall far short of fullyeffective implementation and the experiences of studentswill change little. Further, our findings show that practicechanges are typically dependant on the LOI of the otherdimensions.

Assessing change on these five components can be impor-tant to building leaders and staff who understand the degreeto which the decisions they are making are actually effectivein moving toward the desired reforms. Change on each ofthe five implementation dimensions serves to increase andstrengthen the overall capacity of the school, recursively,in each of the others. Although this article length does not

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CREATING SMALL LEARNING COMMUNITIES 215

allow us to go through the full set of studies, it is importantto understand that each of the recommendations we are mak-ing here about both the required nine major dimensions andthe five implementation dimensions is based on extensiveempirical analysis of our own data (Brand, Felner, Seitsinger,Shim, & Dumas, 2005; Brand, Felner, Seitsinger, Burns,& Jung, 2007a, 2007b; Burns, Felner, Brand, Seitsinger, &Jung, 2007; Felner et al., 2007a, 2007b; Jung, Felner, Brand,Seitsinger, & Burns, 2007; Seitsinger, Felner, Brand, Burns,& Jung, 2007). That is, these can be called research-based,rather than research-derived, conclusions. We have direct datathat show that schools that make significant progress in theimplementation of these dimensions, comprehensively andwith high fidelity, also show significant gains in student per-formance, achievement, and adjustment. Let us now providean overview of some of those representative data and studieshere.

Randomized and Quasi-Experimental ProjectHiPlaces Studies of Small LearningCommunities: Some Illustrative Findings ofImpact and Implementation

The initial work of Project HiPlaces began with the SchoolTransitional Environment Project (STEP). STEP began byconducting a set of RCTs to establish the basic features andimpact of creating small schools/small learning communi-ties, or “schools-within-schools,” in large middle and highschools. These studies (Felner et al., 1993) clearly estab-lished the importance of creating small learning communi-ties, within larger middle and secondary schools, as a strat-egy for enhancing the adjustment of students, particularlythose from higher risk backgrounds and environments. Thefirst phase of this work focused on the restructuring of thestructure, organizational norms, and advisory practices oflarge urban high schools to prevent the dramatic declines inacademic adjustment and sharp increases in behavioral andsocio-emotional difficulties that often accompany the tran-sition from K–8 and/or middle grade schools. Later repli-cations include both high schools and middle/junior highschools. Although schools from the full range of communi-ties have now been included in replications of Project STEP,the initial work was conducted in schools with high levels ofminority students living in poverty. Illustratively, the schoolsengaged in the initial work for Project STEP had approx-imately 60 to 80% of their students from minority back-grounds, approximately the same levels of family poverty,and dropout rates (in the high schools) exceeding 50%.

Project STEP (Felner & Adan, 1988; Felner et al., 1982,2001) sought to reduce the levels of developmentally haz-ardous conditions (e.g., flux and disorganization) that char-acterize large secondary school environments while increas-ing the instrumental and social support available to studentsfrom faculty and each other. High school staff and studentswere organized into teams of a maximum of 120 students

(less is preferable, with 90–100 being far better, along witha student/faculty ratio on the team of 25:1 or less) for allof their academic subjects as well as lunch, and kept in thesame area of the building for these classes. Teacher-based ad-visory programming also was implemented, where teacherswere engaged in providing instructional support and aca-demic competency building as well as providing a key linkbetween the student and the school (e.g., if students were ab-sent a teacher from the team made the call home and followedup).

The results of Project STEP were quite consistent acrossmultiple RCT and quasi-experimental replications and acrossmiddle/junior high/high school levels, and the effect sizes ob-tained were greater the larger and “riskier” the school pop-ulations. That is, in schools with higher levels of studentsfrom high risk backgrounds, where there were more “feeder”schools, and/or where the school sizes were larger, the posi-tive effects were even greater. Findings described in a seriesof published articles (Felner et al., 1993, 2001) showed, at thehigh school level, that STEP produced consistent declines of40 to 50% or more in the school dropout rate. These findingswere based on longitudinal studies of the full high school ca-reers of students in the program. Similarly, students in STEP-restructured school environments were found to have signif-icantly more favorable attitudes about school, teachers, andthemselves, including higher expectations, greater sense ofachievement motivation, academic efficacy, and fewer socio-emotional/behavioral difficulties than students who were notin such programs. Consistent with the views of Wentzel(2005), the changes in the peer context were critically im-portant contributors to the individual student outcomes as,for example, the overall achievement orientation of the en-tire population of students in these groups was greater thanthose in control/comparison samples and contributed to stu-dent outcomes over and above knowledge of student-levelmotivation.

Of importance, from a prevention perspective, the find-ings that emerged did so as much (indeed far more) becauseof declines in achievement and adjustment found among thenon-STEP groups as because of gains by the STEP students.That is, the students in the STEP project showed either someenhancements in, or little decline in, school going, school at-titudes and experiences, or socio-emotional adjustment. Butthose in the randomized control groups or other comparisongroups showed marked declines in all of these areas. Criti-cally, however, those in this first version of STEP/HiPlacesdid not show improvement in achievement or learning—something our next phase did produce. Still, as Wigfieldand Wagner (2005) noted, stopping the steady decline inmotivation and associated adjustment, typically seen amongadolescents and especially after transitions, was importantfor STEP. So, although not enhancing, the preventive effectsof STEP were powerful and important.

Further replications and extensions of the STEP modelto create smaller environments either as a stand-alone

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initiative or as part of more comprehensive HiPlaceschange have shown consistently strong and meaningfuleffects on dropout rates, school and socio-emotional ad-justment, experiences and motivation, school safety, sub-stance abuse and other risk behaviors, and related im-pacts (Felner & Adan, 1988; Felner et al.,1982, 1993,1997, 2001). STEP has been recognized by the AmericanPsychological Association as a program with a proven RCTbasis and as an evidence-based approach by a number offederal agencies and foundations.

ESSENTIAL FEATURES OF SMALL LEARNINGCOMMUNITIES

Given the success of STEP, what are the keys to its suc-cessful implementation? Earlier we pointed to the need toconsider five separate dimensions of implementation. Let usnow turn to these as they relate to the effective creation ofsmall learning communities.

Structural and Organizational Elements of SmallLearning Communities

After 2 decades, one of the most consistent lessons we havelearned is that the creation of a small learning environ-ment at the middle and secondary levels is more complexthan simply putting fewer students in the building. Amongthe structural/organizational changes that we have found tobe associated with the creation of effective small learningcommunities (Felner et al., 1993; Felner et al., 2001) areschool/grade enrollments, class size, student–teacher ratioson teams or grades, number of students a teacher is responsi-ble for across the day, instructional tracking/grouping, blockscheduling, common planning time for teachers, strategicplanning time for staff, span of classes covered by a team,and length of class periods and of the school day. It is be-yond the scope of this article to consider the import of eachof these variables separately, so we focus on a few that wehave found to be among the more important for their impacton students and effective change and in which the others arenested.

Interdisciplinary teaming (IDT) was an early cornerstoneof the STEP project. It was then built in to many of the rec-ommendations for middle- and secondary-level reform. Inconsidering the adequacy of IDT, it is important to keep inmind that creating teams is not a goal in itself but one elementin the strategy for transforming the social–developmental as-pects of schools to create “small, personalized communitiesfor learning.” Effective IDT reduces the levels of develop-mental hazard in educational settings by creating contextsthat are experientially more navigable, coherent, and pre-dictable for students. IDT can also create enhanced capacityin schools for transformed instruction through enabling thecoordination and integration of the work of teachers with

each other, including in instruction, and as ongoing sourcesof professional development and support for each other.Further, our findings show that, particularly in middle andsecondary schools, adequate IDT structures and practicesare strongly linked to creating the capacity for teachers tomore effectively engage parents and community organiza-tions as well as for more effective decision making by teach-ers and administrators (Brand et al., 2005; Seitsinger et al.,2007).

But all IDT is not equal. In seeking to arrive at an op-erationalization of what it means to have adequate or highlyimplemented levels of IDT, we have found it important to con-sider the teaming structures, practices, and process presentin schools as they predicted the degree to which other imple-mentation elements were successfully realized, as well as thestudent outcomes that result.

Team structures. Across the schools we have workedwith, we have identified at least six structural elements ofIDT that, interactively, shape the potential impact of teamstructures in small learning communities:

� The frequency of teachers’ common planning periods.� The length of these planning periods (the combination

of length × frequency has threshold levels below whichthere is almost never any impact).

� The ratio of “core” and overall team teachers to the numberof students on a team.

� The absolute number of teachers and students on the team(“span of responsibility for teachers”).

� The percentage of the school day that is “covered by team-ing.”

� The length of time the school and teachers have beenteaming together.

Table 1 shows what appear to be the critical levels of eachof the structural elements to begin to be adequate for fullyrealizing the constructs and outcomes of concern. It alsoshows these elements in the order that they appear to become

TABLE 1Critical Levels of Structural Elements of

Interdisciplinary Teaming

Structural Element Critical Level

Frequency of common planningtime

4 to 5 times a week or 3 times a weekfor longer than 40 min eachmeeting

Length of common planning time Up to 40 min each time for 4 to 5meetings a week

Student-to-teacher ratio 24 to 25 : 1No. of students per team 80–120% of school day with the team 60–80%Length of time school and

teachers teaming together3 or more years

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CREATING SMALL LEARNING COMMUNITIES 217

meaningful. That is, in our work, as we have previously de-scribed, knowledge of the conditions that are “lower” in thistable is only meaningful when considered in the context ofthe IDT conditions that appear above it. Thus, if one askswhether it is better to have 80 students on a team than 120,the answer is clearly yes, if all of the prior elements in Table1 are the same. But it also appears that having 120 studentson a team that has 5 days per week of common planning time,for 50- to 60-min periods, and where the student-to-teacherratios are less than 24 or 25 to 1, is far better than having80 students on a team that has inadequate levels of planningtime and poor student-to-teacher ratios.

In general, our findings indicate that more positive levelsof each of these variables are associated with the following:

1. The probability teams will implement teaming activ-ities that focus on curriculum integration, coordina-tion, and collaboration around student needs and assign-ments. Small team sizes and sufficient common planningtime particularly relate to higher levels both of soughtteaming practices and of enhancement in instructionalpractices.

2. More positive ratings of school climate as reported bystudents.

3. More positive self-reports and teacher reports of studentmental health and behavior problems.

4. More positive changes in student achievement.

It is also important to understand that in cases whereschools attempt to implement these structures but do thempoorly (e.g., implement one/two short common planningtimes per week), they may either have no effect or even lead tosome negative impacts, especially on teacher attitudes. Poli-cymakers and practitioners should also be aware that despitesome of the correlational patterns we discuss in this article,the more general pattern of association between implementa-tion of these structural changes and the impacts that emergeare typically not linear. Moreover, even when adequate levelsof teaming structures and conditions are in place in schoolsor teams, consideration of the direct relationship betweenthese conditions and both other elements of implementation(e.g., instructional change) or student outcomes may appearto be weak or nonexistent. Given these findings, how then canwe make the comments we have made about the importanceof teaming? Once again the answer emerges when we con-sider and understand the interconnectedness of the elementsof school reform. Separate or small groups of elements maybe necessary but insufficient to activate each other or havemuch effect, but as the levels of implementation reach a crit-ical mass, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Inthis case, 1 plus 1 may be zero, and 2 plus 2 may be less than4, but 4 plus 4 may be 16. Let us now turn to these otherelements of teaming.

Practice and Process Aspects of SuccessfulSmall Learning Communities

Team practices. For small learning communities tohave the impact on students that we seek, we have found thatteacher practices and attitudes must change in some specificways. Not surprisingly, adequate levels of common planningtime are necessary to enable teachers to more effectivelywork together to become professional learning communitiesand create massed impact. But unless the teachers know whatto do with the time, it has far less impact than we seek. InProject HiPlaces we have identified a set of practices in whichteachers engage within their team and/or with other teachersin their grade level/school that are linked to student outcomesdirectly or to critical shifts in other conditions that are, in turn,directly related to student outcomes. In these studies (e.g.,Brand et al., 2005; Seitsinger et al., 2007) we have identifiedat least five dimensions of teacher practice that appear to bestrongly related to the emergence of instructional changes,increased parental contact, and other teacher/climate condi-tions that appear to be critical mechanisms for producingthe student outcomes associated with the implementation ofhighly effective small learning communities.

Although teachers may do other things with common plan-ning time, the five dimensions of team practice we have foundto be most critical for teachers to work on together to obtainthe highest levels of the potential impact of small learningcommunities on students are (a) curriculum coordination andintegration; (c) coordination of student assessments, assign-ments, and feedback; (c) work together in engaging parents(but not meeting with them during team time!); (d) coor-dinate together the development of common performancestandards; and (e) work as a team to integrate their effortswith other building resources (e.g., counselors, librarians,reading/special education specialists, etc.).

Professional development, teacher “buy-in” andteacher decision making. We have often found thatschools that have implemented all of the aspects of teamstructures presented in Table 1 at even high levels may obtainno changes either in the ways in which teachers work togetherduring team time or in student experiences and outcomes.Given our dimensions of implementation, it should not besurprising to learn that our findings show that if the teacherpractice and school procedural dimensions are to emergeat high levels, then several variables need to be present inaddition to structural opportunities and facilitating condi-tions. Teachers must be prepared to teach students at thetargeted developmental levels, must show attitudes that re-flect this preparation through endorsement of the conditionsand practices consistent with small communities for learning,and must have been provided with professional developmentopportunities that help them know how and what they may doin their IDTs. They also need to be provided with conditionsin the building that support their making decisions about how

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218 FELNER ET AL.

FIGURE 4. Pathways of influence among team structures, practices, teacher experiences, and student outcomes.

to use team time in the ways they find effective and consistentwith both their preparation and attitudes. Figure 4 provides asimplified model of how these conditions appear to interre-late as they are associated with shifts in classroom practiceand parental contacts.

Figure 4 also shows what we have found to be the recipro-cal nature of the workings of the elements of reform. That is,across our samples and schools, at all levels, it appears thatwithout adequate professional preparation and buy-in fromteachers, the modification of team structures yields far lessthan it would otherwise produce. In addition the impacts ofproviding extensive and sound professional development op-portunities and experiences, and supportive attitudes aboutpositive buy-in to the reforms, are far less without the requi-site team structures in place. The presence of adequate levelsof team structures provides the opportunity for teachers toactually implement what they have bought into and learned,as well as to share what they have learned with other teach-ing staff, thus enhancing the overall capacity of schools to begenuine learning communities (Fullan, 2005).

The school as a developmental setting for teach-ers: Staff decision making, expectations, efficacy, andexperiences. Understanding the school as comprising adevelopmental setting in which there is an interdependentecology now provides for moving to and obtaining yet ad-ditional defining features of the focal recommendations. Letus consider but two of these: empowerment of teachers andadministrators for effective leadership and decision making,and creating a climate of high expectations and achieve-ment. Across studies (Brand et al., 2005; Felner et al., 2007a,2007b) we find strong associations between the presence ofdesirable team structures and practices and whether teachersin teams report feeling effective, are less “burnt out,” havegreater resources and supports for reaching students, and

are able to more fully utilize their skills. We also find thatteachers who are in teams that produce these feelings have farhigher expectations for students, including their achievementorientation, orderliness, and overall behavior, and about theirown possible impact on students and the degree to which theyvalue and focus on diversity (see Figure 4). It is importantto note that students also experience these differences, asteacher reports of expectations are strongly associated withthe expectations that students report that teachers hold forthem, along with the levels and types of experiences thatteachers provide students relating to support, diversity, andacademic challenge. Teachers who feel effective, empowered,and unburdened by fear and unnecessary stresses can raisetheir expectations of the outcomes that are attainable withstudents. We also find that students who have such teach-ers experience them as more supportive, as having higherexpectations, and as being available to them.

Implicit in this is the recognition of the reciprocal influ-ences among attitudes about schooling and students; the prac-tices employed by teachers; and leadership/decision-makingprocesses, climate, and student outcomes (Figure 4). Thismodel may be particularly useful for helping educators tothink through the possible sequencing of the impacts of smalllearning communities; it is to a more complete exploration ofthis sequence of change that we turn next. Here, we have at-tempted to show that structural, practice, and climate/attitudechanges relate to the emergence of student changes, and inturn, these have a reciprocal influence on the full set of prac-tices and experiences of teachers such that they may producecontinuous refinement of each other and the conditions thathelped set them in motion. Thus, for example, as studentoutcomes improve, they positively affect the feelings thatteachers have about their jobs and work, which in turn are as-sociated with continuing improved in instruction and studentoutcomes.

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CREATING SMALL LEARNING COMMUNITIES 219

Enhancement of Teacher and Student Motivationand Competencies Through Small Communitiesfor Learning

Earlier in this article we presented an overview of student mo-tivation for competency and achievement that clearly showedthe importance of reducing the predictable decline in suchmotivation as youth move through school (Wigfield & Wag-ner, 2005), as well as the key roles of socializing contexts andpeers (Wentzel, 2005) in supporting and maintaining positivemotivational states. But before we close, it is important to il-lustrate more clearly some of the key mechanisms by whichthe creation of small learning communities may act to havesuch effects.

Consistent with the transactional and ecological modelthat underpins our work it should be no surprise that as shownin Figure 4, there are direct and reciprocal influences betweenthe degree to which teachers and student feel empowered,effective, and competent. As should also be clear, the creationof small learning communities creates a context in which suchteacher and student experiences and adjustment are moreprevalent (Felner et al., 1982; Felner & Adan, 1988; Felneret al., 2001).

For teachers we find that the presence of the structural or-ganizational conditions previously described, when they alsofeel well prepared for teaming, and with necessary levels ofa sense of control over decision making, combine to providefor far higher levels of expectations of students as reportedboth by teachers and students. Teachers, feel less burnt-out,are far more able to be effective in reaching students andhelping those who need help, and create instructional changewhen they have adequate levels of team time and are engagedeffectively with each other around curriculum, assessment,and student support. That is, when teachers have each otherand feel like they are both responsible for and have far greatercontrol over their own teaching and ability to influencestudents across a more substantial portion of the day (be-cause of the reach of the team), they are more likely to holdfar higher expectations for those students, to engage themin positive ways, and to convey those expectations to stu-dents through both higher levels of support and richer, morechallenging and effective instruction.

Of particular importance here is that although these pat-terns hold for all students, for students at higher risk, eitherbecause they came to school with lower levels of academiccompetencies as assessed by the HiPlaces-A or who comefrom sociodemographic backgrounds that predispose to risk(e.g., poverty and social/ethnic minority status), the degreeto which teachers are likely to express higher expectationsor a greater sense of efficacy concerning their ability to helpsuch students is particularly marked, and this pattern hasbeen consistent across our studies and at all grade levels,but particularly so in middle and secondary schools. Thatis, consistent with the views of Bandura (1986), as teachersfeel effective because of the shared responsibility and sup-

port they now have within their team, they raise both theiraspirations for what they can accomplish and their expecta-tions both for themselves and their students. Further, withintheir own smaller learning community, their feelings of au-tonomy, relatedness, and competence is enhanced by havingboth greater responsibility for making decisions about howthey will work together with students, and through havingcritical levels of social and instrumental support of the otherteachers on the team (Cauce, Felner, & Primavera, 1982).Ryan and Deci (2000) made clear that such greater levelsof self-determination would predict higher levels of teachermotivation and well-being, including job satisfaction. Thesepatterns of motivational enhancements are exactly what wehave found across all of our analyses of the subsamples ofparticipating schools and initiatives.

As the creation of small learning communities leads teach-ers to feel more effective, experience the climate of the schoolmore positively, and raise their expectations of students, wehave found clear gains in a range of factors relating to studentmotivation, achievement, and adjustment. First, of course, aswe found as early as Project STEP and across multiple repli-cations of our own work (Felner et al., 1982, 1993, 2001),and in work of others (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2003),critical levels of student engagement and connectedness tothe school are increased. In our work and that of others,these conditions have been shown to strongly link to a widerange of student outcomes, from motivation and persistencein classroom work to persistence in school more generally.Similarly, we have found that teachers’ reports of schooland classroom climate, work stresses, and sense of efficacyare strongly related to students’ experiences of the schoolclimate and experiences. This is particularly so with regardto student achievement motivation and orientation, sense ofteacher support, reports of teacher expectations of them, andtheir own sense of efficacy in terms of their ability to do betterin school based on effort. In turn, these student experiencesand motivational sets have been strongly linked to studentsocioemotional, behavioral, and academic adjustment and at-tainment (Brand, Felner, Shim, Seitsinger, & Dumas, 2003).

It is also the case that as student experiences, behaviorsand performance improve they act, recursively, to influencecontinued improvement in teacher experiences and sense ofefficacy. Further, as Ryan and Deci (2000) noted, when stu-dents feel more effective and able to determine their ownoutcomes they are also more likely to be committed both tothe setting and the tasks they confront in it. Such studentcommitment enhances the experience of teaching for teach-ers and their own commitments to the goals of the setting andthe welfare of students.

SUMMARY

In this article we have considered the need for a compre-hensive and integrative approach to educational reforms

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220 FELNER ET AL.

generally, through the specific illustration of the creationof small learning communities. We have sought to provideexamples of the ways in which the findings we are obtainingin Project HiPlaces make clear the importance and utility ofsuch an approach as well as help us to understand the natureof the conditions and elements that are important for achiev-ing significant gains in student achievement, performance,and socio-emotional well-being.

For policymakers and school leaders, the HiPlaces find-ings offer a systematic lens through which to consider theefficacy of many of the major efforts that are experiencingintense scrutiny and questioning. Our findings suggest thattesting of the impact of each element of a significant reformseparately or in small subsets might lead one to conclude, in-accurately, that an element that is necessary but not sufficientfor obtaining a desired result is useless and ineffective. Formiddle and secondary reform to attain the kinds of transfor-mation across the school required to engage students in learn-ing, maintain, and enhance both the engagement and motiva-tion of teachers and students, and to create high performance,productive small learning environments that serve the needsof all children, it appears essential to create manageably sizeschool environments in ways that carefully consider whetherthe changes, as implemented, are adequate for enabling theemergence of the full set of impacts sought. This is espe-cially true in environments that are very large, impersonal,or structured in ways that reduce capacity. Further, of partic-ular note for those concerned with addressing the persistentand stubborn problem of equity gaps, personalized environ-ments when fully implemented consistently show the largesteffects, both on motivation and socio-emotional/academicoutcomes (Figure 3), for students experiencing eco-nomic and social disadvantage (e.g., minority or povertybackgrounds).

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