Kay McClenney started off the keynote presentation at the ncat conference by having people stand if they fit into some of the demographics of students that she studies: people who got a degree while attending college part-time, worked more than 20 hours per week, were first generation college graduates, dropped out or stopped at some point, English was their second language, they were minorities in most situations in college, etc... For a large presentation, it's an effective attention-grabber, demonstration of relevance, and a way to get people to wake up in the morning.
With her focus groups, they ask students if they have thought about dropping out. Typical answer: "yes, about every 20 minutes". So the follow-up question is "What keeps you in school?" and the answer is almost always about personal and meaningful relationships with a mentor, coach, or other students. This is one reason that I have been interested in projects like the first-year seminar experience courses and the NSSE data. A lot of factors of student engagement involve building relationships with others. [And it's okay if some experiences that are designed to build relationships are made mandatory - students complain, but will do them anyway.]
I hope she puts her presentation online - she had a good slide listing the characteristics of the least engaged students: male, had taken less than 30 credits, were not seeking a credential, were part-time. There were about 8 or 9 of these low-engagement characteristics.
Her main point here is that "students don't do optional" - so we need to make relationship-building high-impact activities mandatory, make outside-class activities inescapable, and integrate student support services into courses. Two comments on this. Some students DO optional, but those are typically the high-achieving students who don't need those connections and services as much. Second, I think that we need to look at these activities and services to make them relevant and engaging before we try to make them mandatory. No one likes busy work. Student government, Paternoville, fraternities, THON, student clubs, etc... are optional activities that are engaging and build strong relationships. In all of these cases, they are also student organized and therefore students may feel ownership. So maybe the relationship is to other students and the activity itself.
Chris Long, Wayne Anderson, and I had a good discussion about the keynote afterward. Nothing too new here, but it got me thinking a bit.
With her focus groups, they ask students if they have thought about dropping out. Typical answer: "yes, about every 20 minutes". So the follow-up question is "What keeps you in school?" and the answer is almost always about personal and meaningful relationships with a mentor, coach, or other students. This is one reason that I have been interested in projects like the first-year seminar experience courses and the NSSE data. A lot of factors of student engagement involve building relationships with others. [And it's okay if some experiences that are designed to build relationships are made mandatory - students complain, but will do them anyway.]
I hope she puts her presentation online - she had a good slide listing the characteristics of the least engaged students: male, had taken less than 30 credits, were not seeking a credential, were part-time. There were about 8 or 9 of these low-engagement characteristics.
Her main point here is that "students don't do optional" - so we need to make relationship-building high-impact activities mandatory, make outside-class activities inescapable, and integrate student support services into courses. Two comments on this. Some students DO optional, but those are typically the high-achieving students who don't need those connections and services as much. Second, I think that we need to look at these activities and services to make them relevant and engaging before we try to make them mandatory. No one likes busy work. Student government, Paternoville, fraternities, THON, student clubs, etc... are optional activities that are engaging and build strong relationships. In all of these cases, they are also student organized and therefore students may feel ownership. So maybe the relationship is to other students and the activity itself.
Chris Long, Wayne Anderson, and I had a good discussion about the keynote afterward. Nothing too new here, but it got me thinking a bit.
I am not buying the whole "students don't do optional" idea. You point to good examples of when they do optional. But the issue is, are the optional things we want them to do compelling and if not, how do we make them compelling?
Are we giving our students enough credit?