Wednesday, October 5, 2016

What Now?

When 5-Star Students was created, our core belief was that students involved in their school would be successful during their time on campus. After 8 years of data collection and program enhancements, we have absolute proof that engaged students are more successful than those not involved.

Originally, most educators and administrators agreed with our theory, but now that we have the proof the big question is “what now”?

To answer the question of how to get more students involved, review our “5-Point Plan” below.

Step #1: Have your students take an Interests survey, a built-in feature within 5-Star Students. This allows you to gauge student interest levels for different activities and help locate new pockets of interests. This can be a valuable tool when addressing non-involved students later.

Step #2: Collect Activities data. This step consists of entering club lists, athletics rosters, performing arts groups, etc. into the 5-Star Students program. The process will give you a great idea of your on-going student participation on campus.

Step#3: Collect Event data. Select a sampling of school events throughout the year and check-in/scan attendees to see who is involved at the spectator level. Attending events often provides a low-risk way for students to be involved on your campus.

Step #4: Ask students to take surveys about your activities and events. A great way to improve your programs is to get input. Both positive and negative data will help.

Step #5: Compare your resulting involvement data with key factors like Demographics, Attendance, GPA, Discipline, etc. This will allow you to see both positive and negative areas. You can also set bench marks for future comparisons

If you need any help getting your "5-Point Plan" started, please drop us an email. We would love to help!

Survey Of Student Engagement (SSE)

5-Star Students is proud to partner with Advanced Education Measurement to develop the Survey of Student Engagement (SSE). Dr. Bryan Shelly designed the SSE to ensure that schools could quickly collect the most valid, reliable information possible on student engagement, self-esteem, and attitudes towards their school, teachers, peers, and future.

The SSE robustly measures the factors most related to student success in just 10 carefully selected questions, so that schools can quickly capture critical information. With the SSE results and professional data analysis, schools can track whether their programs are helping students become more engaged, whether their self-esteem is rising, and so on during the course of a year.

For more information, please visit 5starstudents.com/SSE

  

House System

Current class competition systems, used by many schools, result in older students competing against younger students. Often, the number of students in each grade level can vary by hundreds.

In the Harry Potter books, made famous by JK Rolling, students at Hogwarts were separated into 4 different houses. Gryfindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. This allowed the school to organize students of all different ages, genders and talents to be together on the same team.



This type of "house" system has been used at schools and universities in England for quite some time. In the US, Harvard and other Ivy league schools also have a deep tradition of school houses.

5-Star Students is excited to offer schools the ability to organize students into houses (or groups). This allows the separation of students by something other than just grade level.  Points and involvement data can be viewed by group, providing insights into group success.

Take the Diamond School Challenge!

Is your school doing all it can with 5-Star Students to increase student involvement on campus? Follow our list of Diamond School criteria below and be recognized for your efforts!


  • Administer the Interests Survey
  • Use a point system for activities or events
  • Offer incentives or rewards for involvement
  • Track at least 4 different types of activities
  • Administer at least 1 voting poll
  • Administer at least 1 feedback survey for an event or activity
  • Establish school web page to promote your involvement program
  • Establish points leaderboard for individuals to access their point totals
  • Track an average of 3 school events per month
  • Track participation in at least 80% of school activities
  • More details at 5starstudents.com/diamondschool