The final strategy in the 6+1 Model for High School Reform, celebrating student success, brings closure to the progression of strategies that constitute the model and reinforces the previous strategies on self-efficacy, motivation, and engagement. After tracking student progress on important learning goals and intervening as necessary on results from formative assessment, students, teachers, and entire faculties should be invited to celebrate success as it becomes evident and sustained.

It is satisfying to see that one's hard work has paid off, and that sense of satisfaction translates into continued engagement and increased levels of self-efficacy for both students and teachers. Individual students should be recognized for achieving personal learning goals, and teachers and teacher teams should be recognized for reaching class, course-level, or school goals. But, as is the case with most things in education, there are things to be learned from research about ways to celebrate success that produce long-term, positive results.

Background Research on Providing Recognition