Peer Leadership

Teaching Team: Darren Huck & Wendy Davis

School: Woodstown High School, Woodstown

Grade Levels: Seniors

Academic Focus/

Core Curriculum Standards:

Comprehensive Health and Physical Education: 2.1, 2.2

Language Arts Literacy: 3.1 – 3.4

Responsibility,
respect, leadership, and good citizenship.

Peer Leadership is an elective senior-level course in which students receive the training and experience to help freshmen navigate the transition to high school. Any junior may apply during the course- selection process. Interested students are required to complete a contract, written application, and be interviewed by a committee of teachers. Based on the results of these, the students are selected to participate in the course.

Peer Leadership is a preventative approach to problems affecting teenagers in the school and family settings. The purpose is to allow and encourage students to discuss, explore, and share their feelings concerning these problems. The students meet formally and informally with groups of freshmen to assist them in making a transition to the high school environment and resolve the difficulties they encounter.

Target Audience: The freshman class who are helped in their high school transition.

Timeline: The course is a full year meriting five credits

Project Scheduling:

Peer Leaders meet every day during their 4^th period. In addition to that, one-on-one meetings between peers and freshmen are scheduled once per week.

Equipment Needed:

Smart Board,hand-outs

Comprehensive Health and Physical Education:  Leadership is one of the most important values taught to and by the peer leaders. Through their work with freshmen, they develop leadership skills and promote wellness and safety to those they mentor.

Language Arts Literacy: Peer leaders are responsible for writing up their own lesson plans that they will teach to their freshmen. In addition to that they act as group leaders and peer counselors. 

Technology: Students have computers and internet available to them to help develop ideas for effective teaching strategies. In addition to that, peer leaders can utilize the internet to find out about ways in which their community could be assisted.

Consumer, Family & Life Skills: The role that the peer leaders play motivates them to be responsible not only for their own actions, but also to communicate that responsibility to other students in their school.

Hurdles Encountered:

Hurdles: The primary hurdle faced for the peer leadership program is scheduling times to meet with freshmen and to always have meeting places available.

Solution: Keeping open lines of communication with fellow teachers, and exercising flexibility and patience allows the peer leadership program to run smoothly

Performance-based Education: Peer Leaders design and carry out lesson plans for their freshmen. Through this, they learn to be creative and organized.

Cooperative Learning: The ten peer leaders work in pairs to develop activities and lessons that they present to their freshmen. 

Interdisciplinary Approach: Students combine skills in language arts literacy, leadership, self-management, interpersonal communication, and character & ethics skills.

Personal Growth Outcomes:

This project teaches students to be responsible for their actions and the actions of others. They develop strong characters by being role models for students who are at a crucial stage in their development. In addition to that, peer leaders learn the values of respect and community-building. 

 Celebration: There is an end- of-the-year celebration in the works that will bring together the peer mentors and the students they worked with. There will be pizza, ice cream, and various activities.

Recognition: The local press will be alerted of the projects that the peer leaders are doing.

Key Findings: In the past peer leadership has brought about academic improvements, improved social interactions, and a decrease in discipline infractions. New results are always occurring and often come at an individual level.

Local organizations call on peer leaders for help in organizing walks, carrying on fundraisers and participating in walks.

Parents go out of their way to encourage peer leaders to put in as much time as possible into the program. Meetings occur after school and sometimes happen at outside sites. 

Through the course of the project, peer leaders keep journals to record their experiences. Constant reflection allows the peer leaders to learn what the best methods are in helping out freshmen at Woodstown. In addition to journals, during the peer leadership class, students have many opportunities to discuss the outcome of recent meetings and share various experiences and emotions.