Research behind Kaleidoscope Connect
The Kaleidoscope Connect framework is based on the best youth development research for treating, teaching, counseling, neighboring, and parenting children and teens. (i.e. Hawkins and Catalano’s Communities that Care, Benson’s Developmental Assets, Kretzman and McNight’s Building Communities from the Inside Out, Peterson’s Rule of Five, Pittman’s Dashboard, Werner’s Children of Kauai, the Positive Youth Development movement, Social Norming, and others).
The critical components of Kaleidoscope Connect’s implementation have been developed from the application of research-based programs that foster and build systemic social relationships with individual teachers, counselors, and other caring adults within and outside of the school environment.
Original Research
Fostering Resilience in Middle School Students
The University of Montana Department of Psychology, led by Dr. Jacqueline Brown, is conducting a research study with middle school students in Western Montana.
Preliminary results suggest that when looking at traits of resilience, positive resilience scores (RSCA Mastery and Relatedness) are increasing, whereas negative traits (RSCA Emotional Reactivity) are decreasing. Consequently, overall students are exhibiting increases in their ability to relate to other people and positive internal characteristics from the beginning of the first year that Kaleidoscope Connect was implemented, to the beginning of the second year of implementation.
On the other hand, students are showing decreases in their level of vulnerability and tolerance, indicating that they are better able to deal with difficult events in their life over time. Furthermore, when examining scores of problem behavior (BESS), average mean scores are decreasing over time, suggesting that student risk for problem behavior is decreasing.
This poster was presented at the 2018 University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research.
Supporting Research
Defining Webs of Support: A new Framework to Advance Understanding of Relationships and Youth Development
Kaleidoscope Connect emphasizes the importance of Webs of Support for youth to thrive, as supported by America’s Promise Research Brief from February, 2017.
PROMISING PRACTICES BRIEF: Improving Student Engagement and Attendance During COVID-19 School Closures
This ED-funded brief by Insight Policy Research and American Institute for Research provides a resource to states and districts on promising practices in measuring and improving attendance and engagement during extended school closures. Brightways Learning shared strategies that our Global Academy uses to engage families and students remotely and measure attendance through distance learning. See page 24.
Research Behind ClassBright Evaluate
Dr. Daniel Lee, Associate Professor, Department of Educational Leadership at the University of Montana, and Lisa Kerscher, Education Director at Brightways Learning, investigated the extent to which an online standards-based teacher performance evaluation system helped to promote self-reflection about teaching and, subsequently, improve instruction. Read the findings in their research paper, published in the Academia Journal of Educational Research in January 2020.