Intentional Design for Intellectual Development in the Sophomore Year

1. Intentional Design for Intellectual Development in the Sophomore Year Molly A. Schaller, Ph.D. Jimmie Gahagan, Ph.D.

2. Organization of Our Time We will be: • Examining what we know about sophomores as it relates to an integrative learning experience, success and retention • Understanding the unique developmental factors that affect a student’s second year of college • Exploring a developmental framework for working with second-year students • Shaping curricular and co-curricular experiences to meet the intellectual needs of second-year students

3. Importance of Integrative Learning in the Second-Year of College “Integrative learning is an understanding and a disposition that a student builds across the curriculum and co-curriculum, from making simple connections among ideas and experiences to synthesizing and transferring learning to new, complex situations within and beyond the campus.” (AACU Integrative Learning Value Rubric)

4. Sophomore Self-Efficacy • Academic Self-Efficacy as a central construct: • The self-evaluation of one’s ability or chance for success (or both) in the academic environment (Chemers, Hu & Garcia, 2001; Robbins et al., 2004) • Poor predictor of success in 1st semester • Good predictor at end of 1st year (Gore, 2006) • By the sophomore year, students have often gained enough information about abilities and the expectations of college to make a more accurate assessment.

5. Connect Strengths to Academic Success (cont) • Lack of sophistication and accurate analysis of one’s own abilities seen in first semester often changes in second semester or in second year: • In first year many students see world in Absolute ways (Baxter Magolda, 1992) • By second year about half use Transitional Knowing: the world is suddenly not simply black and white, but there are areas that are unknown

6. Is there a common Sophomore academic experience? • Kuh and Hu (2001) • effort and student reported learning and personal gains increased in a linear way from the first through to the senior year. • Sophomores significantly lower than seniors on • cooperation among students, • reading and writing, • effort sum (total amount of effort put into school), • gain sum (total perceived gains from school), • active learning, and • faculty contact.

7. Common Sophomore Academic Experience? • Kuh and Hu (2001) • effort and student reported learning and personal gains increased in a linear way from the first through to the senior year. • Sophomores significantly lower than seniors on • cooperation among students, • reading and writing, • effort sum (total amount of effort put into school), • gain sum (total perceived gains from school), • active learning, and • faculty contact. Actually decreased from First to second year!

8. Satisfaction with Advising (Schreiner, 2010) • Fewer than half of the sophomores surveyed met with their advisor regularly in their sophomore year • 60% of the sophomores were satisfied or very satisfied with advising – but this is the lowest level of satisfaction with any college experience • Negative student comments about advising far outweighed positive ones

9. Developmental Framework

10. Developmental Framework • Epistemological Development • How is it that students view knowledge? • Key to understanding the pedagogical challenges with sophomore students • Includes moral development – as the question of frame of reference is a key to understand the inherent pressures facing students • Psycho/social development • How one sees self in relation to the world or others • impacts choices on many levels.

11. Key Challenges • Academic Self-efficacy • Shifting view of self • Shifting view of self in relation to future • Disengagement • Balancing developmental challenge with developmental support

12. Epistemological Development

13. How do “typical” sophomores make meaning? OR

15. Creating Epistemological Moves Baxter Magolda Learning Partnerships Model • Situate learning in student’s experience • Validate students as knowers • View knowledge as co-constructed

16. How do “typical” sophomores make moral choices? OR

18. Career Decision Making V. Gordon (1998) • Very Decided: confident, knowledgeable, satisfied with current decision • Somewhat Decided: may or may not be comfortable with choices, may lack information about self or occupations, may have been thwarted • Unstable Decided: high goal instability, high anxiety, have chosen a path – may keep them from seeking help

19. Career Decision Making (Gordon, 1998) • Tentatively Undecided: have vocational maturity, aren’t worried about undecidedness, may be relatively well adjusted or may be avoiding, may need more exploration • Developmentally Undecided: expanding possibilities, need to gather information • Seriously Undecided: have external locus of control and identity, moderate levels of state & trait anxiety • Chronically Indecisive: have external locus of control and identity, high levels of state & trait anxiety

20. Support students in their major decision • Utilize a full continuum of approaches • Majors fair • Use sections of English, communication, others to read and write about interest exploration • Exploratory Studies Program • Intensive Academic Advising for students who struggle • Track and examine high drop-out majors

21. Learning Outcomes for Advising • From Schaller & Tetley (2012) • Random Exploration Students will describe their course selections within the context of future goals. Students will identify their own strengths and limitations. Students will collect information about possible major choices or career direction. Students will express how pressures and external expectations are affecting their choices in college.

22. Discernment in the Sophomore Year • Tetley and Schaller (2012) • Students seem prepared to explore • Students seem to engage in a complex selecting out and adding in So, for Focused Exploration: Students will reflect about self as learner, self in future and self in society. Students will synthesize relevant information from various curricular and co-curricular experiences into their view of self. Students will apply active decision making approaches

23. Learning Outcomes Continued So, for Focused Exploration: Students will reflect about self as learner, self in future and self in society. Students will synthesize relevant information from various curricular and co-curricular experiences into their view of self. Students will apply active decision making approaches • For Students who have made a Tentative Choice: Students will identify areas for future exploration

24. Implications for Advising • Sophomore students will often: • Need confirmation and contradiction • May seek advisors who will “give the right answer” (actively avoiding mentoring) • Need help in finding strengths, identifying interests, and recognizing differences between own desires and those held for them • Need additional exploration prior to decision making

25. Implications for Pedagogy • Sophomore students will often: • Be ready and prepared to seek “understanding” • Be ready and interested in gaining insight from peers • Resist approaches (both stand and deliver AND active involvement) • Need to understand why faculty are structuring their approaches

26. Implications for Curricular Design • Sophomore students will often: • Have more “distant” experiences with faculty in the sophomore year than any other year • Need relationships with faculty to be structured through curricular expectations • Want to build upon what they have learned in the first year, but not know how to do this • Need assistance in making connections • Value and get a great deal from additional experiences that connect to real world

27. Implications for Structure of Involvement • Sophomores students will often: • Be searching for ways to be involved in important work • Resisting or withdrawing from involvement that is not connected to a bigger picture • Not be able to easily find a role in organizations, and need assistance in making those connections • Be ready for significant leadership roles • Not know how to balance, but feel very responsible

28. Support students in academic challenges • Take academic support to courses – via supplemental instruction, tutoring, learning communities • Study courses with: 1) high enrollment; 2) high levels of d’s, f’s, and w’s; • Pay specific attention to students who start with developmental coursework, reach out or require academic success coaching is second year • Utilize sophomore only sections

29. Implications for Communication • Set expectations for engagement • End of first-year discussions across campus • Summer communication • Ongoing monthly emails • Social Media • Retention software carried over to second year

30. Implications for Frontloading “I think my sophomore year kind of left me more stranded, because your freshman year there were so many things that were reaching out to you that you come back your sophomore that it’s just like you’re on your own.” • Meeting them where they are • Welcome Back to Campus • Providing resources • Traditions

31. Exploring the Role of Parents and Families • Parents/Family Weekends • Ongoing Communication • Parental Tips • Academic support • Living situation • Personal wellness • Finance • High impact practices

32. Preparing Students for the Sophomore Year: A Matrix (Schaller, 2011)

33. Key Data Sources • Explore the following: • Who returns to the second year? • Majors, 1st year academic progress and gpa, gender, race, age • Who leaves during or after the second year? • What are the challenging courses in the sophomore year? Look at : Ds, Fs, and Ws • What does your first year institutional data tell you about your sophomores? • Listen specifically to sophomores: • Ask for comparisons between the first and second year • Ask what they find particularly good and particularly challenging about the sophomore year

34. The Role of High Impact Practices in the Sophomore Year Experience

35. Student Engagement Trifecta What students do -- time and energy devoted to educationally purposeful activities What institutions do -- using effective educational practices to induce students to do the right things Educationally effective institutions channel student energy toward the right activities Source: Kuh, 2009, 29th Annual Conference on The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition, Denver, CO

36. High Impact Activities • First-year seminars • Common intellectual experiences • Learning Communities • Writing intensive courses • Collaborative Assignments & Projects • Undergraduate Research • Diverse/Global Learning • Service-Learning • Internships • Capstone Courses and Projects Source: Kinzie & Evenbeck, “Setting up Learning Communities That Connect with Other High Impact Practices,” Washington Center, Learning Community Summer Institute. And Kuh, 2008

37. Marked by 6 Conditions • Time on Task • Activities demand students devote considerable time & effort to purposeful tasks. • Most require daily decisions that deepen students’ investment in the activity. • Faculty and Peer Interaction • Nature of activities puts students in circumstances that essentially demand interaction with faculty and peers about substantive matters over a period of time. Source: Kinzie & Evenbeck, “Setting up Learning Communities That Connect with Other High Impact Practices,” Washington Center, Learning Community Summer Institute.

38. Marked by 6 Conditions • Interaction with Diversity • Participation increases the likelihood that students will experience diversity through interaction with people who are different from themselves. Students are challenged to develop new ways of thinking & responding to novel circumstances. • Frequent Feedback • May be faculty, internship supervisors, peers, others. Close proximity may provide opportunities for nearly continuous feedback. Source: Kinzie & Evenbeck, “Setting up Learning Communities That Connect with Other High Impact Practices,” Washington Center, Learning Community Summer Institute.

39. Integrative Learning “Connecting skills and knowledge from multiple sources and experiences; applying theory to practice in various settings; utilizing diverse and even contradictory points of view; and, understanding issues and positions contextually.” Source: Huber & Hutchings, Mapping the Terrain, 2004, AAC&U

40. Integrative Learning Integrative learning experiences… • Occur, most often, as learners address real-world problems • Involve internal changes in the learner • Include the ability to adapt one’s intellectual skills • Provide an opportunity to understand and develop individual purpose, values and ethics Source: Integrative Learning Value Rubric, AAC&U

41. Integrative Learning a Practical Analogy Classroom Experience Beyond the Classroom Experience Source: Dr. Irma Van Scoy

42. Guiding principles for implementing high impact practices • Reflection • Planning • Collaboration/Communication • Limitations and Resources

43. Critical Reflection “Critical Reflection is the process of analyzing, reconsidering & questioning one’s experience within a broad context of issues & content knowledge.” Barbara Jacoby, 2012

44. The Importance of Reflection • Increases the value of the learning experience • Encourages learners to make meaning out of the process they are engaged • Enables the learners to relate the new material of learning to prior knowledge and hence a better understanding of the discipline • Enhances the learner’s meta-cognitive awareness

45. Strategies for Fostering Reflection Includes four core elements of reflection: • Continuous • Connected • Challenging • Contextualized Source: Eyler & Gyles (1999)

46. Reflection Map Source: Eyler (2001)

47. Key Factors to Consider in Planning Reflection • Who are you and who are the students • What is the context for the reflection • Learning outcomes – what do you want students to learn from your activity • Goals for the reflection • Timing • Methods • Location • With whom – individual, pairs, group • Documentation • Celebration

48. Planning Framework • Self-Assessment • Reflection • Goal Setting Helping students become more intentional in their engagement

49. Student Engagement Plan Goals • Articulate the role that beyond the classroom activities plays in their overall learning • Connect relevant experiences and academic knowledge • Thoughtfully connects examples, facts, and/or theories from more than one experience, field of study, and/or perspective • Appropriately applies experiences to solve real life problems. • Articulates how his/her experience and content preparation provide a rationale for decisions/actions.

50. Strategies for Effective Collaboration • Look for strong academic partners – “An Academic Champion” • Build Partnerships around institutional and departmental mission and goal statements • Clearly define academic partners role and commitment: i.e. Partnership agreements • Clarify roles and communication patterns