LARGO, Fla. — Inside Mrs. Harmon's classroom at Mildred Helms Elementary IB World School, learning is different. At least, that's what fifth grader David Crawford thinks.
"It's a massive, like, difference from fourth grade to fifth grade. Like you gotta like, pick seats, choose who you sit by," he said. "And it's like, maybe, like freedom for us."
Mrs. Harmon's approach is redefining how students learn best.
"It is a little bit of a shell shock when they walk in. Because we've not experienced this before," she said.
For the energetic students who like to move, there are bouncy seats. A hit for one of her students.
"He just needs that movement. He is focused, he is working, but he just needs to be able to still move in order to stay focused. If he wasn't moving, I would probably lose him," the teacher added.
Her students move around throughout the day. Some of the activities involve going around the entire classroom. Then there's learning through music, a big hit for some of her students. The day also includes games, appealing to the more competitive students like Baron Bradley.
"You learn more. To be like, do this again, like you can like win. And so it makes me excited, then you don't know if you can win, lose, or whatever," he said just after finishing one of the game quizzes in class.
"It just makes me feel more challenged. And so I have more of a goal to get to," Casey Gardner, another student, mentioned.
She's also seeing a newly piqued interest. Mrs. Harmon also heads a boy's book club. David Crawford is one of the members.
"You read a lot of books. You get questions about them. There're competitions, like at the end of the year, like one big competition game and you go against all the other schools and like a county you go up against. If you get to the top three, you go on to the next competition," he explained.
Many of David's teammates are so excited about the competition they don't even realize reading was just made fun.
"I have some of those reluctant readers that want to join the club because they want to be a part of that competition. And then I actually get them to read five books by December, which they probably wouldn't normally do," said Mrs. Harmon.
Those simple changes are crucial for these young minds.
A recent study from Helios found there's about a 10% difference in English test scores between Florida boys and girls.
Taking an even closer look, in the 2021-2022 school year, 30% of Florida's Black male students scored proficient on the ELA Assessment, lower than every other demographic.
"What does that do in the end? It limits the possibilities. When they get to high school, do they drop out more? Do they not have the opportunity to go to college? And so that's why it's so important to be thinking about these gaps earlier in school," said Paul Perrault, the Senior VP of Community Impact and Learning for Helios.
From that study, Perrault and the team at Helios want to change how young boys, especially Black boys, learn inside the classroom. He said their research zeroed in on four areas of focus.
"First, tailored academic support for boys, unique needs. And so that means more opportunities to move around and get up and having kind of lesson plans that allow for that. Positive teacher relationships and how can you build that relationship? It seems so natural, normal, but that is, you know, something that really helps boys achieve more," he explained.
Inside Pinellas County Schools, those recommendations are at play. Perrault explains the other two keys to success.
"Looking into more research-based practices. In our work, really highlights opportunities, Pinellas Education Foundation and Pinellas Schools are doing some of those things. Really thinking about students' diversity. We come from different backgrounds. Sometimes, we learn differently. So, making sure that we think about that as an asset and bringing it into the conversation as well."
Pinellas Education Foundation is laser-focused on putting that research to work. It's not just inside Mrs. Harmon's classroom.
Jim Myers, Pinellas Education Foundation Board Member and Chairman of its Closing the Gap Committee, said this is much more widespread throughout the county.
"We've been working on this for about 10 years now in partnering with the school district. Our foundation provides grants. This year, we gave grants to 22 different elementary schools. And we helped provide training and partnering with our district. And through this effort, last year, for example, we were able to affect or impact over 4,000 students and nearly 300 teachers do this gender-based training," he explained.
Mrs. Harmon was one of the teachers in the training.
"It really gave me a lot more that I could bring into the classroom, a lot of a lot more strategies that I know these boys need," she said.
Her adaptive classroom also wouldn't be made possible without the Foundation.
"I appreciate the foundation for, you know, giving us the money to be able to buy the interesting seats that are in the room and have all of the flexible seating. I've been able to purchase books that are more interesting to the boys, and it's a part of our library now a lot of graphic novels," she added.
Myers visited the classroom with ABC Action News, seeing the research-based suggestions at work.
"The thing that stood out to me was the engagement. All the kids were engaged and listening to what the teacher was doing, they were involved in answering questions that were asked, and then I think that learning environment is so important, you know, given options for different seating types, and having movement was a big part of what they did," he said.
Mrs. Harmon is seeing results. Inside her own classroom, the gender-based achievement gap closed by about 6%, going from 8% to 2% in a year.
