Building Community in the Classroom

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Building Community in the Classroom

• Transforming Developmental Students into
  Successful College Learners and Participants
• Dr. Paul and Kimberly Nolting, Academic Success
  Press, Inc. www.academicsuccess.com

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Long Term Teaching Goal for
Education Faculty
By the Completion of a Students DE Course Series

Instructor
Level of Responsibility Ownership
Student
Timeline of a Students DE Course Series
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Agenda

• Psychosocial factors related to student
  persistence
• Self-efficacy Theory and Application
• Sense of Belonging Theory and Application
• Social Support Theory and Application
• Self-regulated Learning
• Includes examples of instruction and curriculum
  as well as collaboration with counselors.

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Goal Nurture these skills and attributes before
students enter into college level courses
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Psychosocial Factors Related to Student
Persistence
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Self-efficacy

• Belief in ones ability to accomplish a specific
  task or reach a specific goal
• Students make personal interpretations of their
  past accomplishments and failures and set their
  own goals based on these interpretations.
• These goals become their personal standards.
• Self-efficacy can be developed and taught.
  Ames, 1990 Bandura, 1988 Tollefson, 2000

Students with low self-efficacy get overwhelmed
easily manifest defensive or learned
helplessness behaviors.
Students with high self-efficacy attempt tasks
and persist when the tasks get difficult. They
figure out different ways to get the task done.
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Self-efficacy Academic Performance
A persons interpretation (include feelings) of
his or her academic performances and past
learning experiences
alters or shapes
Current learning environments, behaviors and
self-beliefs that affect self-efficacy
Current learning behaviors and academic
performance
influences
Responses to these experiences can either
re-affirm current self beliefs and a persons
interpretation of events or change the self
beliefs and interpretation. This is important in
helping students acquire stronger self-efficacy
and/or manage math anxiety. Bandura Pajares
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Measuring Task-specific Self-efficacy

• The more specific the task, the more accurate
  measurement of self-efficacy. (Pajares, 1995 and
  1996)
• Pre and post measurement
• Pre measurement may ask why they are confident or
  not confident of learning the task.
• Post measurement may include questions asking why
  the students felt either stronger, same, or less
  self-efficacy after completing the task.

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Samples (Self-efficacy Believes in Academic
Settings, Pajarec, 1995, 1996)
Source Question Answer Options
Reading for understanding a section from a history textbook about what led up to the American Revolution How confident are you that you will be able to organize the reasons for the revolution into a timeline? Into a who, what, how, why matrix? 1 (Im sure I can) to 5 (Im sure I cant) with intervals of 1
Writing a paragraph about a significant person in your life How well can you use concrete descriptions and specific examples to write a paragraph about a significant person in your life? 0 (not well at all) to 7 (very well) with intervals of 1


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Samples (Self-efficacy Believes in Academic
Settings, Pajarec, 1995, 1996)
Source Question Answer options
Solving a discount word problem How much confidence do you have when it comes to solving discount word problems? 0 (no confidence) to 9 (complete confidence) with intervals of 1
Self-efficacy about a math test How sure are you about earning at least a B on this math test? 1 (Im sure I can) to 5 (Im sure I cant) with intervals of 1
Note that some students will go down in confidence/self-efficacy at some point because they have inflated self-perceptions, particularly students just out of high school. Reality hits about learning in college and their self-perceptions are more realistic. If they change their learning behaviors, their self-efficacy should increase. Insert pre and post questions about why they assessed their self-efficacy they way they did. This provides insight about their struggles. Note that some students will go down in confidence/self-efficacy at some point because they have inflated self-perceptions, particularly students just out of high school. Reality hits about learning in college and their self-perceptions are more realistic. If they change their learning behaviors, their self-efficacy should increase. Insert pre and post questions about why they assessed their self-efficacy they way they did. This provides insight about their struggles. Note that some students will go down in confidence/self-efficacy at some point because they have inflated self-perceptions, particularly students just out of high school. Reality hits about learning in college and their self-perceptions are more realistic. If they change their learning behaviors, their self-efficacy should increase. Insert pre and post questions about why they assessed their self-efficacy they way they did. This provides insight about their struggles.
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Instructional Formula for Building
Self-efficacy

• Short-term learning goals
• Strategies to make progress toward the goals
• Experiences on which students can shape new
  images of their ability to learn. Ames, 1990

Learning strategies help students to engage in
real learning and value knowledge.
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Example Reading for Personal Involvement

• Long term goal
• Read, understand, and apply chapter one in
  Navigating College
• Short term goal
• Skim chapter for overall picture and to develop
  an interest in topic

• Strategies to reach short term goal
• Read introduction
• Read chapter objectives and write questions (in
  the margins) that reflect how you react to them
• Read quotes with pictures and write your response
  next to each of them.
• Read bold subtitles or italicized words. Select
  at least five and write your personal reaction
  for each one in the margin.

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Example Writing an Explanatory Paragraph

• Long term goal
• Write an explanatory paragraph about what you
  learned after meeting with your instructor
• Short term goal
• Develop the content outline

• Strategies to reach short term goal
• Provide set of questions (for selecting content)
  that leads them through the process from topic
  sentence, 2 major support ideas and details to
  support each major idea.
• Provide a structural outline for them
• Model the process with small group writing
  workshop.

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Sense of Belonging Mattering and
Marginality

• Mattering refers to individuals feeling that he
  or she counts, makes a difference others being
  interested in us and being concerned with our
  fate.
• Marginality refers to not fitting in, not
  important, and not being accepted.
• Rosenberg and McCullough Schlossberg, 1989
  Rayle and Chung, 2007.

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Collegial Relationships

• Many students need strategies and guidance in
  developing collegial relationships with faculty
  and students.
• Incorporate out of class activity that involves
  developing collegial friends. This can become a
  how to writing activity, whether paragraph or
  essay.
• Students can develop basic research reading on
  the topic of getting along with professors and
  developing collegial friends. Then they can
  discuss what they find and learn in class.

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Social Support

• Research relates a students social (friends and
  family) support to college persistence.
• New college students are in a new environment
  that detaches them from social supports on which
  they depended in the past or, at the least,
  changes the dynamics.
• Research has linked level of support with the
  level of tenacity to face tough academic
  situations and the accompanying academic stress.
• Social support involves emotional and information
  support people.
• Rosenberg and McCullough Schlossberg, 1989
  Rayle and Chung, 2007.

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Counseling and Faculty CollaborationBuilding
Social Support System

• Invite counselor in for two classes to talk about
  building a support system of at least two people
  to help when college gets tough and to celebrate
  victories, both small and large.
• Counselor can provide follow up support as they
  see possible.
• Navigating College chapter focuses specifically
  on this process.
• This can be a descriptive paragraph Describe a
  significant person in your life
• Students can read a simple biography of an
  important person and discuss (not write) what
  they learned from the book in class.

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Counselor and Instructor CollaborationSelf-perce
ption as a College Student

• Bring awareness to the power of students self
  talk.
• Provide strategies and guidance to reshape
  negative self talk into productive.
• Counselor provides expertise and presents chapter
  on productive attitudes.
• Design small group or individual activity based
  on chapter.
• Role play
• Writing dialogue for skit

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Principles for Productive Learning Self-regula
ted Learner
Attempt to control their behavior, motivation,
affect and cognition. They have an academic
thermometer.
Have goals to accomplish and these goals are
standards by which they assess how they are
doing. Individual student is in control of
his/her actions.
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Guiding Process of Self-regulating

• The self-regulated learner asks..
• In chapter Planning Productive Academic Study,
  there are sets of self-regulated questions.
• Students can practice writing short answer
  questions with these questions while actually
  applying them to the strategies that they are
  practicing.

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Active Learning

• Collaborative learning home/task groups
• Pair share- work problem-review notes
• Student tutoring/teaching
• Students put problems on board before class
• Student roll play

• Collaborate with counselors in the instruction of
  these areas.
• Create a meaningful learning experience that
  nurtures well adjusted,
• involved and academically prepared students

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Conclusion?

• Integrate curriculum that supports students in
  developing necessary psychosocial attributes into
  the skills courses.
• Design activities that nurture collegial
  relationships that can be carried on to the next
  semester.

• Collaborate with counselors in the instruction of
  these areas.
• Create a meaningful learning experience that
  nurtures well adjusted,
• involved and academically prepared students