Category: academic success

academic success, academics, early childhood education, student learning

Making Meaning

cdeacons

I’m teaching an Early Childhood (ECE) class about diverse children, families and communities this semester.  The entire first half of the class focuses on children in peril and the implications for classroom practice.  Most of my students in this class are juniors and seniors and this is a required course for them.  They are all so committed to serving children and families and this is their first deep dive into some of the difficult issues they may encounter in their future careers.

Although the students in my class have already completed at least 2 years of college, I have found that most of them are so used to memorizing and regurgitating facts, that it takes some work to get them to start thinking about how they think, recognizing their biases, and helping them to develop their own ideas and informed opinions. To encourage this transformation, I have an activity I introduce the first day of class that we build upon throughout the semester. This activity is actually adapted from one I use with first-year students in our college transition course in the module about developing critical thinking skills.

On the first day of class, I explain that we will be discussing children and families living in peril and that I really want my students to think about how they are thinking about what we will be discussing. We then discuss aspects of learning and critical thinking skills. I introduce them to Bloom’s Taxonomy of Critical Thinking and we talk through the different levels so that they begin to recognize the difference between memorizing and applying information. At their tables, students discuss the differences between the different levels of critical thinking, where they think they are on the pyramid, and what this means for their futures in the field of early childhood education.

When I ask how many people take notes as they read, fewer than 1/2 raise their hands. I pass out a modified version of the Cornell Notes template and explain that I will be expecting them to take notes as they read while thinking about the relevance of what they are reading. We watch a brief video in class and I have them practice taking notes. They exchange notes with a partner and provide feedback. One or two students do a really good job providing great insights into how the information from the video relates to their college success and futures as ECE professionals. Because so many of the students struggled to provide meaningful insights (which is expected at this point), I pass out a “Bloom’s Cue Questions” worksheet a colleague shared with me a few years ago.

As class concludes, I assign the first reading of the semester with the hopes that through the use of these critical thinking tools and application of today’s lesson, my students will begin to take their critical thinking skills to the next level. If this happens, what they will experience in this class over the course of the semester will be transformational for them.

academic success, academics, self-improvement, student learning

Gotta Love Professional Development

cdeacons

NCLCA 2018 – Niagra Falls, NY

Another great conference!  So great to meet new colleagues and to connect with older ones.  I picked up so many ideas at this event.

This year, my presentation was about self-directed learning and the data analysis I completed over the summer examining first-year student behaviors and academic success. Working on the front lines with first-year students, it is clear that college success is less about academic preparation and more about student habits related to self regulated learning. The following are a few slides from my presentation:

Aside from re-connecting with colleagues and hearing about the innovative approaches other institutions are taking to improve student learning, I really enjoyed meeting the keynote speaker, Andrea Vahl, to gain insights regarding how we can improve our social media presence to drive engagement with students, parents, and former learning center employees. This is so important because as state appropriations continue to dwindle, we must develop other sources of financial support to continue to support students in increasingly innovative ways.

academic success, student learning

Beyond Growth Mindset

cdeacons

I’m wrapping up my visit to San Antonio, TX and the First Year Experience Conference 2018 – waiting for my flight home and thinking about the past 4 days.  This is always such an outstanding conference.  Getting to connect with colleagues and friends from across the country and hearing about their programs, successes, and failures.  It’s funny how trends catch hold.  2017 certainly seems to be the year of the “growth mindset” with particular emphasis on teaching and learning.

Researchers like Carol Dweck and Barbara Oakley have done some great work related to growth mindset, metacognition, and an individual’s capacity to learn, and I’ve attended several sessions this week expanding their work. Given the numbers of academically underprepared students attending college today, it’s important that practitioners understand the power of the growth mindset related to student success.  At EMU, we added growth mindset mini-lectures/ activities into everything we do – first-year experience course, supplemental instruction, success coaching, tutoring, peer mentoring, etc.  It was a great first step.

We witnessed several “aha” moments in our professional development sessions with our success coaches, peer mentors, tutors, and other academic support staff.  Student workers were eager to share their new knowledge with our students.  Some students really embraced the new techniques.  Others were reluctant adopters.  Many viewed the strategies as tedious.  The thing these students failed to recognize is that while we can teach them about neuroplasticity, and share learning techniques to help improve learning, without effort and continued practice students will not see improvement.

So, the old saying about “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink” really manifested itself this year.  We tried to lead lots of horses to water – most just looked around and stomped their feet.  Some tried the water and it paid off.  Participation in supplemental instruction (SI) sessions for our gateway biology course increased from 203 visits in fall 2016 to 409 visits in fall 2017.  Students earning a D, F, Incomplete (I), or withdrawing (DFWI) from the course decreased from 41% in fall 2016 to 25% in fall 2017.  Of course, we cannot attribute this dramatic decrease in DFWI rates to our increased focus on metacognition and learning to learn, but we like to think it contributed.  We’re in the midst of a thorough review and hope to have some statistical insights soon.