1 Tips for Improving College Student SuccessSteven Brint
2 Dimensions of the College Teaching & Learning Challenge
3 College Graduation by Income QuartilesSource: Bailey & Dynarski (2011)
4 Differences in 6-Year Graduation Rates by Race-Ethnicity
5 Structural Factors at Play* About two-thirds of the variance in six-year graduation rates in the United States can be explained by the average SAT/ACT score of entering freshmen. * Declines in K-12 preparation are associated with non-completion at community colleges. * At all institutions, seat deficits and high advising ratios are associated with lower completion rates.
6 Academic Disengagement at UCSource: Brint & Cantwell (2014)
7 A Quiz: What Are the Qualities of Superior College Teachers?
8 What Are the Qualities of Superior College Teaching as Evaluated by Students? Choose 3Course Structure Communication 1) Intellectually Challenging 2) Clear Objectives/Requirements 3) Value of Reading Materials 4) Fairness in Evaluation 5) Usefulness of Suppl. Materials 6) Easily Manageable Workload 7) Frequent Assessments 8) Stimulation of Interest in Subject 9) Enthusiasm 10) Availability & Helpfulness 11) Timely Feedback 12) Well-Prepared & Organized 13) Command of Subject Matter 14) Clarity of Explanation
9 What Are the Qualities of Superior College Teaching as Evaluated by Students? Choose 3Course Structure Communication 1) Intellectually Challenging 2) Clear Objectives/Requirements 3) Value of Course Reading 4) Fairness in Evaluation 5) Usefulness of Suppl. Materials 6) Easily Manageable Workload 7) Frequent Assessments 8) Stimulation of Interest in Subject 9) Enthusiasm 10) Availability & Helpfulness 11) Timely Feedback 12) Well-Prepared & Organized 13) Command of Subject Matter 14) Clarity of Explanation
10 The Bottom Line College instructors need to shift away from a subject-matter-centered approach to a student- understanding-centered approach. The question is not what are the key lessons of the field, but what are the communication practices that help most students to learn these lessons.
11 Structural Keys to Teaching for Student SuccessEstablish and Teach to Learning Objectives Provide Active Learning Opportunities Utilize Online or In-Class Reading Quizzes Consider Not Allowing Computers in the Classroom
12 What is a Learning Objective?* What do you want students to know and be able to do by the end of class? * These key understandings and abilities need to be very prominent in course work. Students should have ample opportunity to demonstrate them. * Learning objectives can be developed for a single class or a section of a course, as well as for the entire course. * Reading, lectures, and class activities should all address learning objectives. * Learning objectives should not be seen as strait jackets, but rather as strong guidelines.
13 Question Give an example of a learning objective for one of your classes and how you have embedded it in reading, lectures, and/or class activities?
14 Traditional Lectures vs. Interactive Engagement (Hake 1998)
15 Some Approaches to Active Learning* Think-pair-share opportunities. * Divide class into quadrants and give a point to students in a given quadrant who answer a question. * Clicker questions: Ask those who answered a particular way to say why. * Jigsaws: Group the class. After first discussion, have members rotate to another group. * Other Possibilities: debates, group project reports, concept illustration contests
16 A Think-Pair-Share ExerciseQ: What is your most persistent frustration in teaching -- and what might be a solution to it based on what we have discussed so far? Or have we failed so far to find a solution?
17 Active Learning Can Be Challenging for Shy or Less Prepared Students* Shyness & insecurity are issues *Nevertheless, the research evidence is strong that interactive engagement is important for students’ engagement and learning -- and particularly for first-generation and low-income students. * Clickers allow for anonymity while fostering active engagement. * Think-pair-share and other small group practices provide partnership opportunities that reduce individuals’ sense of exposure.
18 Reading Quizzes/Pre-Class Reflection on Reading: Unpopular, but EffectivePennebaker, Gosling & Ferrell (2013): The impact of daily online quizzes with instantaneous feedback on wrong answers. Results: 1) A 50 percent reduction in the achievement gap between higher and lower income students. 2) Experimental groups’ exam performance was about half a letter grade above previous semesters, based on comparisons of identical questions. 3) Students in the experimental group attended their other classes at higher rates and performed better than students in the control group.
19 Consider Not Allowing Computers in the Classroom…
20 Communication Keys to Teaching for Student SuccessUse hooks to capture student interest. Question your assumptions about what students know. Draw on your students’ interests to motivate their understanding. Change your mode of instruction every minutes.
21 What is a Hook? course topic.* A hook is something surprising that stimulates interest and is related to a course topic. * It can be something that everyone believes that is not true, or something that no one has thought of that is true, or a series of related phenomena that people don’t usually connect. It can be a surprising fact. It should concern something that students care about. * For example, as a way to introduce the idea of ritual as a mechanism for reinforcing and empowering social identities, I might ask my students, what do a football game, a religious ceremony, and a rock concert have in common?
22 A Hook Example: Using Superheroes to Teach Materials ScienceSuveet Mathaudu, asst. prof., materials science, UCR
23 Question Who can give an example of a hook that you have used in class to stimulate your students’ interest?
24 Using Lessons from Cognitive Science* Before beginning instruction, teachers should determine what beliefs and misconceptions students currently have about the subject. * Inspect your assumptions about whether students know the words, examples, and ideas that you plan to use. When in doubt, define and provide examples. * Examples related to students’ experiences and interests promote better transfer of understanding than rote learning. * Instruction is more effective when it encourages students to elaborate on what they are learning. * Modes of instruction and activities in class should change every minutes to facilitate focus and transfer of knowledge.
25 Varying Modes of Instruction
26 The One-Minute Quiz 1) What was the muddiest point I made today?2) What was the clearest point I made today? 3) What point was most valuable to your understanding? 4) What point was least valuable to your understanding?
27 The Student Side of the Equation
28 Student Utilitarianism is Rampant* Utilitarianism = Doing these least amount of work to achieve a satisfactory result. * Very few students have an intrinsic interest in learning. Many do not enjoy reading. * Worse: The students who give low evaluations tend to be the ones who think that the class is requiring too much work. This leads to “dumbing down” of courses to the lowest common denominator.
29 Future Doctors of America GPA Protection SocietyAs costs have increased, so has grade inflation – and study time has declined.
30 The Solution The solution to student utilitarianism is excellent, engaging teaching combined with high expectations and sufficient accountability.
31 Performance Fears Are Also Rampant* As compared to East Asian students, American students tend to think that poor performance is a result of limited ability rather than too little effort. * “Stereotype threat” – the sense that people like me are not good at this subject -- can lead students to under-perform on tests that threaten to confirm stereotypes. * Some students find college classrooms to be uncaring and inhospitable places that they would prefer to avoid if they could.
32 Addressing Student MindsetsYeager & Dweck (2012) found that under-represented and first- generation freshmen exposed to messages about brain malleability and growth in abilities over time, followed by written reflections on these messages, were 4% more likely to complete 12 credits or more by the end of term compared to a control group of their peers who read bland informational messages about the culture of the campus community.
33 References Babcock, Philip M. and Mindy Marks “The Falling Time Cost of College: Evidence from a Half-Century of Time Use Data.” Review of Economics and Statistics 93: Bound, John, Michael F. Lovenheim, and Sarah Turner “Why Have College Completion Rates Declined?” American Economics Journal: Applied Economics 2: Chingos, Matthew M Can We Fix Undermatching in Higher Education? Would It Matter if We Did? Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Crouch, Catherine H. and Eric Mazur “Peer Instruction: Ten Years of Experience and Results.” American Journal of Physics 69: Feldman, Kenneth A “The Superior College Teacher from the Student View.” Research in Higher Education 5: Hake, Robert R “Traditional Methods vs. Interactive Engagement: A Six-Thousand-Student Survey of Test Data for Introductory Physics Courses.” American Journal of Physics 66: Pennebaker, James W., Samuel D. Gosling, and Jason D. Ferrell “Daily Online Testing in Large Classes: Boosting College Performance While Reducing Achievement Gaps.” PLOS One. Steele, Claude M. and Joshua Aronson “Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test Performance of African Americans.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69: Wesch, Michael A Vision of College Students Today (film). Yeager, David Scott and Carol S. Dweck “Mindsets that Promote Resilience.” Educational Psychologist 47: