What is the value of getting to know each student?

Students are impressed and feel connected to an academic program when they receive personal attention (Davis, 2007). Models have been established that demonstrate a significant connection between student satisfaction as it relates to student success and retention (Sanders & Burton, 1996). Availability of the right kinds of academic and personal support strongly influence a student’s decision to withdraw from or continue on at an institution (Rickinson & Rutherford, 1995). Getting to know each student as an individual has the potential for enhancing our recruitment efforts.

What do faculty and instructors need to get to know their students?

To get to know each student our faculty and instructors need:

1. to know the student’s name
2. be able to visually recognize the student
3. be able to relate to the student’s past experiences
4. connect with the student’s perspectives and abilities

What are the outcomes from this effort?

The outcomes from getting to know the student as an individual include:

1. Utilization of available knowledge to construct adequate academic scaffolding and personal support for each student
2. Enhanced, personalized learning and environment for students
3. Increased retention of students at the institution

What methods could we utilize to get to know each student?

One method, as suggested by a colleague in the Department of Music, would be to include a photo of students on the course rosters — providing a visual reference for memorization of names and the ability to have personalized conversations with every student. Potential risks to such a practice include government regulations regarding privacy as well as issues with technical implementation and support. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) sets standards regarding use and sharing of student records. School officials are enabled, under 34 CFR § 99.31, to provide private information to other school officials with “legitimate educational interest” (U.S. Department of Education, 2007). Though ideally, permission to access individual student details should be granted by each student to specific third parties.

The risk to including photos on course rosters in regards to technical implementation and support is that student information and course management systems used by the majority of higher education institutions do not have support for displaying an avatar/photo of members of the community, interaction outside of individual courses, nor do they support a detailed individual profile. Modifying the existing systems to include these features would require significant ongoing financial and time resources.

Institutional data resources and integrated infrastructure appear to be unable to accommodate or rapidly adapt to our current and evolving needs for getting to know each student as an individual in order to have a positive impact on retention. So, what else could we do?

Consider using established social networking tools

Go where the students are. Students are using online social networks like Facebook. These social networks enable students to voluntarily post information about themselves, to join specific groups within the community, sign-up to attend events, and to become ‘friends’ with other community members.

Faculty and instructors could follow the lead of John M. Dunn (who has 203 friends at WMU on Facebook) and Diether Haenicke (who has 963 friends at WMU on Facebook) and open a Facebook account and start interacting online with students and colleagues at WMU.

Faculty and instructors could create a Facebook group for their course and during the first week of class encourage their students to join the group. Student participation with the activity should be voluntary — but, incentive could be given to students to encourage them to join (e.g. credit towards 10% of an exam score — a chance to bump their points by a full grade on one exam). From there faculty and instructors could learn more about each of their students, relate weekly lessons to things the students are experiencing in their day-to-day lives or had experienced in their past.

Ice breakers could include: post five things we don’t know about you, tell us about your favorite book, what do you hope to do after graduation? etc…

Ultimately the result is a strengthened and enhanced university community grounded in the practice of getting to know every student as a unique individual.

References

Why is this needed?

While the WMU news and the university home page provide announcements about specific institutional related events (e.g. graduation, board meetings, presidential appearances etc.) many of us have observed and commented on the absence of a community calendar for communication of campus events for student groups, departments, offices, etc.

In order to know what is happening on campus we need to visit too many different Web sites.

One source for all event information would be ideal for our marketing efforts and promotion of events, public speaker series, and meetings that are academically oriented.

What features should our community calendar have?

1. The calendar for the entire university should be accessible from one location (e.g. http://www.wmich.edu/calendar/)
2. The calendar should be accessible privately in the portal, and publicly from the Web
3. Any member of the university community should be able to add an event to the calendar
4. A filter for displaying specific types of events should be available
5. A search tool for locating future and past events should be available
6. The calendar should feature RSS feeds, for those who want to subscribe to announcements for specific types of events, or individual/group promoting an event
7. The filtered results from the calendar should be re-usable on departmental Web sites using RSS/PHP/Syndication/Content Management

How should we go about creating a community calendar?

1. We should organize a small group to complete a needs assessment of other features the calendar should include.
2. Review potential open source or commercial product offerings
3. Consider development or modification of a calendar tool in house
4. Implement a beta of the calendar
5. Try it for 3-6 months
6. Review feedback from the community
7. Make necessary changes
8. Launch the finished tool

Related posts:

• Create your own chalkboard wall calendar
• Community open houses

What are the advantages of this idea?

Students who have been on campus for several years and advanced through their academic programs can be a huge help to under class men by providing relevant concrete examples that will assist in the adoption of new concepts and materials, share effective study skills, bridge relationships between faculty mentors and new students, as well as providing the social support that could make the difference in a student completing their degree. The upper class men gain new relationships and insights about learning and instruction methods while adding strong examples of leadership and collaboration to their personal resume.

What are the values of peer tutoring as indicated by established research?

The benefits of peer-tutoring include improvements in learning (e.g. critical thinking, meta cognitive skills, reflection on experiences, aid learning, empower students/increase autonomy), skills development (e.g. ommunications skills, literature reviewing ability, composition improvement), academic achievement, and improved social outcomes (Falchikov & Blythman, 2001).

In a review of the literature, Topping found that a significant amount of research had been conducted into the effectiveness and value of peer learning/tutoring. While establishing a peer tutoring network and providing sufficient training would consume significant time and resources, and some might consider the quality of peer-instruction to be inferior when compared to that of an experienced instructor or faculty member, studies of the effectiveness of peer tutoring in schools indicated “substantial cognitive gains for both tutees and tutors (Topping, 1996). In terms of cost effectiveness, when compared to other models, peer tutoring was found to be four times as cost-effective (Topping, 1996). A model of peer tutoring titled “The Personalized System of Instruction” (PSI) presents an effective method for applying a large scale support/scaffolding structure across a curriculum. Application of the model has been found to yield “higher class marks … and higher final examination performance” (Topping, 1996). Most importantly is the positive impact the PSI has on graduation rates while decreasing overall dropout rates (Topping, 1996).

Conclusion

Establishing, marketing, and promoting a large scale peer tutoring network is a logical next step for our institution in conjunction with our efforts to increase student success. The research indicates that peer tutoring is a proven and effective method for enhancing skill sets and knowledge building while having a positive impact on retention and matriculation.

References

Learning theory

Reflecting on how I learn and methods I have used to teach others, I would say that we learn better by working with a peer or expert and in the context of our work or area of academic study. Wenger suggests that humans are social beings who gain knowledge through participation, interaction and pursuit of active engagement with the external world — such interaction results in personal meaning (Wenger, 1999). If we were to utilize Wenger’s social theory of learning and consider the aspects of community (learning as belonging), identity (learning as becoming), meaning (learning as experience), and practice (learning as doing) we could adapt an effective strategy for nurturing and supporting a social learning community at WMU.

Knowledge creation and sharing

One aspect that appears to be essential to creation, growth, and support of a social learning community is the practice of creating new knowledge and sharing resources. According to Kock if we desire to “foster knowledge creation and sharing, learning organizations should establish a culture that is conducive to those activities that promote knowledge creation and sharing” (Kock, 2005). So what kinds of actions can be taken to establish such a culture? Kock cites research done by Senge, Nevis et al., and Roskelly: taking some risk and experimenting, adoption of new management practices that stimulate creativity, and actions that stimulate social interaction will help to promote knowledge creation and sharing.

Asking students to share what works for them

By asking the top students from each academic college to share their academic strategies and habits we are taking an important first step towards developing an institutional wide social learning community. Rather then telling students what will work for them, we are asking those who are successful to share what they have discovered worked best for them in their areas of academic study. New insights and perspectives into what moderns students do 1) to get things done, and 2) to access and retain new knowledge can be advantageous to both our faculty (e.g. adopting or building awareness of alternative methods for helping students to learn) and the student peers who are pursing a similar area of academic study (e.g. peers can learn effective methods and strategies to improve knowledge retention and application).

How to share the knowledge…

The audience interested in the information we are talking about in this post include students, instructors, parents, and high school students. Many of the effective habits and plans shared by our “leading students” may be applicable beyond the scope of their academic area of study. Hence, having a Web site, blog, wiki or online forum where the information is shared and developed that is accessible to everyone (i.e. members of WMU, high schools, and the surrounding region) would be ideal. To make this work we should pursue a collaborative relationship between all of our colleges, programs, and offices and deliver a unified message through one Web site, an e-mail campaign, and strong marketing.

References

1. On October 31 each academic and administrative office will have a huge bowl of candy
2. Management and support staff will be present to meet and greet students
3. We will hand out candy
4. We will take an interest in the student’s academic area of study (i.e. personal attention and contact)
5. We will encourage students to visit other offices on campus (i.e. building awareness of services)
6. A punch card will be available at each site
7. Students who visit five or more sites can register to win a cool prize (e.g. iPod, laptop, gift certificate to the book store, free passes to a show at miller, dinner at a local restaurant)

The outcomes of this promotion are an increased awareness of on campus support services, enhancement of our community, connection with students, and a warm/good/ happy feeling that we did something great just because we could.

Sadly this week, Jerry L. Bloemsma, a wonderful, kind and thoughtful person that many of us knew died unexpectedly. I did not know Jerry personally, but I had gotten to know him a little — over conversations at the mail counter. He was always helpful and friendly. His familiar presence at the Bernhard Center will be missed. My deepest sympathy goes out to Jerry’s family.

One of the hardest parts of getting to know and love my associates at this university has been seeing some of them fade away. I remember Mark Perkovic and Thomas Amos. There are so many good people here who have done great things and inspired others.

Last night, one of my favorite blogs shared a video about one professor at Carnegie Mellon University who was diagnosed with cancer and literally was giving his “last lecture”. (video included below) While our mortality is quite humbling, each and every day is truly a wondrous gift, full of opportunity.

Today I am going to think about what my last, last words would be…

How do to this

There are a lot of great ideas on campus. In order to foster an open community where individuals feel comfortable and free to share their thoughts we have to do three simple things: ask, listen, and be willing to support and act upon the idea.

Things to avoid

There are behaviors and characteristics that we should avoid because of their negative effect on being open and individuals ability to feel comfortable with sharing their ideas: micro-management, dishonesty, being secretive, ulterior motives, setting up roadblocks, obstructionism, finding fault, manipulation, etc. Each of these negative actions and behaviors result in an environment where people don’t feel comfortable sharing ideas — people end up feeling oppressed, depressed, unhappy, under appreciated, and unintelligent.

Idea challenge

What do you think you could accomplish by being open, able to listen, and willing to collaborate?

I would like to know what your ideas are about the following topics:

• How could we improve parking on campus?
• How can we help students to understand and support university budgeting and planning?
• What things could we do to make students like and enjoy attending WMU?

WMU could declare an official ‘chalk the walk’ day — as a community building/enhancing event. We could provide students with bright colored buckets of chalk at major sidewalk intersections. Attach balloons sporting WMU school colors and a short intro page providing suggestions for what to draw: “sketch a cool picture, write the name of your home town, or to write the name of your major”. The result of the activity would be students creating something collaboratively, sharing ideas and preferences — making connections with each other and feeling connected with fellow students.

According to the nice folks at the WMU Physical Plant, we have approximately 39 miles of side walks on campus with an estimated surface area of roughly 28 acres (1,235,520 sq ft.). There is also over 23 “lane miles” of streets on campus (lane mile = 12′ X 5280′).

What this means is we have a really huge blank canvas available to us.

How much would this cost?

Materials
If we were to purchase the required materials from Amazon.com:

• a bucket of 24 sticks of sidewalk chalk can be purchased for $5.95.
• A tank of helium can be purchased for $29.99.
• An 11″ brown balloon, 11″ black balloon, and an 11″ yellow balloon can be purchased for $0.19 each.
• 500 yards of yellow curling ribbon can be purchased for $2.79.
• 50 sheets of construction paper for $2.79.
• 4 pack of assorted sharpie markers $9.78.
• 4 pack of black sharpie markers $6.79.

If we setup roughly 25 chalking locations, the total cost of the project would be: $215.14 + setup time. Otherwise said, this is an inexpensive way to build community and encourage student interaction.

An easy way to set a world record is to pick a specific action and then have lots of people do it. For example, in 2004 the London District Cathollic School Board set the record for Most Snow Angels at 15,851 — Western has 25,000 students, we could make a lot of snow angels. In 2006, 406 people set the world record for shaking maracas — we could easily beat that record while having fun shaking things up. Another way to set a record is to make something really big. In 2007, Smurfit Kappa Van Dam Golfkarton B.V. set the world record for the largest cardboard box at 32’11″ x 12’2″ x 7’3″. Do you think our students in engineering and paper science could compete at this level?

There are over 40,000 records in the Guinness World Records database that we could consider. I am certain we could also be creative and innovative and come up with new ideas for records too.

How much does it cost to make an attempt at breaking or setting a world record? According to the Guinness World Record FAQ:

Generally, nothing! The only time Guinness World Records might expect payment is if you need to use our Fast Track or Fast Review service – and if members of our staff have, by arrangement, attended your event.

Also, while all successful record breakers receive, free of charge, a certificate recognizing their achievement, we do make a charge for any additional copies if they’re requested.

WMU could create a free account on the Guinness World Records Claimant Login page, form a group to consider what our first attempt should be, publicize the attempt, participate in the event, then sit back and smile at a job well done.

Through a blog, each student could write about their academic and social experiences at WMU. Over four years of writing, each student could look back and utilize previous posts to reflect on as well as demonstrate their personal growth throughout their college experience. Parents could subscribe to their son or daughter’s blog through an RSS feed, or visit the blog on a regular basis. Mom and dad could easily know what their family is up to without having to feel like they are nagging or pestering their child. In addition, when mom and dad did call their son or daughter — they would be able to have a richer conversation: “Bill, we read that you went to the homecoming opener at Waldo Stadium and ran into your old friend Jeff — that is SO COOL! What are you guys up to this weekend?”.

WMU could be one of the first universities to partner with Blogger, WordPress, or MoveableType to deliver a rich blogging service to students. The technology used to support blogging is very easily to integrate and deploy.

Academically, blogs could be used to support student information technology literacy — students will learn electronic communication and collaboration skills. Blogs can be used to do group work — each student could invite other students to be guest authors on their blog. Course work could be made a part of blog activity too — instructors could assign students short papers or research projects and require students to post individual and/or group work on blogs. Finally, instructors could even use Mashups (a single source that combines multiple blog feeds) to create collaborative learning environments.

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