Diane Jackson, the Efficacy Coordinator for the Detroit Public Schools, describes the efficacy model used for educating America's youth and training teachers. Excerpted from the video series Schools That Work: The Research Advantage, Videoconfernce #7, Preparing Students for Work in the 21st Century (NCREL, 1992).
"We're training our children to have 21st century skills, and the efficacy model states that confidence leads to effective effort lead to development, and when we talk about effective effort, we're talking about commitment, commitment to study for long periods of time, not only in elementary, but middle, as well as high school, as well as college. What we're interested in teachers being are able to shift their paradigm to begin to see children in a different way, and we want our kids to come to school to learn and not to prove anything but to come to improve. So, I think if we can communicate that to teachers, that the efficacy process will help them to learn how to improve for themselves as well as their children's strategy to improve."