What is advisory?
The generally accepted definition of advisory is that it is a small cohort of students that meets regularly for the purpose of providing every student with an adult that knows them well and a safe environment as a home base.
How large are advisories?
Best practice limits advisory groups to 10-14 students. In many schools, advisors share two advisory groups or have two in one room. Having that many students in one room is not considered a best practice, although it is understood that sometimes it is unavoidable. A huge group leads to student perceptions such as “Personally I don’t see being in a large group. It defeats the purpose of being in a teacher advisory group". If you do find yourself in a position where you have to house two advisories in one room, those advisors should work closely with one another to manage the advisories so the perception of the students is that it is still a small caring group and that there is consistency in expectations.
What do you do in advisory?
That really depends on the vision statement of your school. There are four main functions of advisory and most activities align with one of the four: administrative, affective, cognitive or metacognitive.
Administrative activities are really the functions of the old homeroom. Things like passing out papers discussing the student handbook, discussions about fire drill protocols etc. are all administrative functions.
Affective activities build connections between co-advisees and between the advisees and the advisor. Team building activities, advisory competitions, getting to know you activities, service learning projects and advisory celebrations such as birthdays all create a feeling of a safe home base for students.
Cognitive activities support students academically such as grade checks, preparation for student-led conferences, educational goal setting and the development of the personalized learning plan.
Metacognitive activities such as developing a personal learning statement, discussing growth mindset, and using peer critiquing help students to understand themselves as learning.
Will Advisory help prepare students for life beyond high school?
This is one of the most critical roles of the advisor is to understand the college and career goals of students and help guide them to achieve those aspirations. Whether it is guiding them toward a high school internship, online course or dual enrollment college course, the advisor will help students to prepare for life after college. Part of the training to become an advisor should include an understanding of how to advise students as well as what aspects of college and career counseling are best left up to the guidance counselors. Having advisors work closely with guidance can maximize the exposure students get to career and college advising.
What is the role of Advisory in the process of developing a student's Personalized Learning Plan?
As many states start to move toward personalized learning plans for all students, the advisor will become an integral part of the process. In fact in a 2014 study in Vermont all administrators and 75% of advisors interviewed felt that advisory would be where the personalized learning plan was developed. Link to video Developing personalized learning statements, goals, preparing a personalized curriculum, archiving work, reflecting on work and preparing for student-led conferences will all happen in advisory.
How long are advisory periods?
The answer to that questions depends on the design of each school's advisory program. In a 2014 study of the 62 high schools in Vermont, 53 schools that had some form of advisory. Of those schools, over half held advisory every day for between 15 and 30 minutes.
How are advisory groups formed?
The first thing to consider is whether advisory groups are comprised of students all in the same grade or mixed groups. In the aforementioned 2014 study 80% of the advisories asked, said they used a same grade advisory configuration. They cited developmentally appropriate curriculum as the main reason they chose the single grade advisory model. The schools that had mixed-grade advisories cited the peer mentoring of older students to younger students as the greatest benefit to the mixed-grade model. Some single grade advisory models achieve that with structured peer mentors through an advisory buddy systems when younger grade advisories are matched with older grade advisories.
Once the model is developed, the advisories are best populated by a team of ninth grade teachers who have input from their sending schools. In the Twin Valley advisory system, we tried to balance the diversity of the group by considering girls and boys, learning diversity, a wide range of student interests, and students from a range of towns. In smaller schools this is possible, but even in larger schools students should be assigned to advisories so that a wide range of students are represented in each advisory.
How are English Language Learners placed in advisory?
This is a topic of much debate and there is little research (other than research about success of mainstreaming ELLs in classes) that supports or refutes mainstreaming ELLs in advisory. That said, there are many benefits to distributing the ELL population throughout the advisory system just like with all students. Certainly being inclusive of all students helps them to adjust to new environments in a non-academic setting while developing new relationships outside of their existing friends (that are often members of their culture group). This can help them to improve their English and allow them to develop their voice as a member of the advisory.
Furthermore, mainstreaming allows all students and advisors to develop empathy and understanding of many of our underserved populations. By including ELLs with all advisors, some advisors that might not have extensive contact with that population in their specific disciplines, have the opportunity to develop awareness of their needs and strategies for working with them. Granted, with the purpose of preparing and implementing the PLPs as part of the advisory program, there are higher stakes in advisory that just team building. With students that may be ones or twos on the WIDA scale, advisors working together with the ELL staff to develop a curriculum that will synergize both the advisory and ELL program is best. As with any aspect of advisory, having professional development opportunities to prepare advisors, and ongoing support is critical to the success of the program.
Can students change advisories?
Changing advisories is highly discouraged. It is hoped that all students and teachers can learn to get along and appreciate the differences that each person brings to the advisory. Most students only want to change because they like a teacher better or their friends are in a different advisory. However in the event that a change must be made, a process which encourages mediation first, should be followed.
How can we be sure all advisors are equally effective?
This question gets at the heart of the training, support and evaluation of the program. Advisors need to have adequate training and ongoing support in order to be effective advisors. There needs to be a designated advisory coordinator, preferably a half time position. There also needs to be articulated evaluation criteria for advisory and feedback systems that seek input from students, parents and advisors.