Self-Understanding and the First Year Experience

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Self-Understanding and the First Year Experience

• Phyllis Curtis-Tweed, Ph.D.
• Assistant Provost for Student Success,
• Assessment, and Research, Medgar Evers
  College/CUNY
• Spring 2006 Thomson/Wadsworth e-Seminar

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What is Self-Understanding?

• Who am I?
• My skills, talents, capabilities, interests,
  goals
• Understanding the world in which I live
• Community
• Family
• opportunities

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Developing Self- Understanding

• Understand context for growth and development
• Family
• School
• Community
• Work
• Other influences

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Supporting Growth

• Understanding of personal potential
• Talents/Strengths
• Career interests/choices
• Perception of options
• Should I go to graduate school?
• How high should I aim?
• Sense of agency

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What is Agency?

• An awareness of ones ability to autonomously
  structure and process experience (Damon and Hart)
• Includes responsibility, evaluation, and
  prioritization (Charles Taylor)
• Affected by transactions between the self,
  contexts for life experience, perceptions of
  contexts and resultant behaviors (Curtis-Tweed)

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Agency Development
CONTEXT FOR EXPERIENCE
SELF
PERCEPTION SELF/CONTEXT
BEHAVIOR
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Agency as Content and Process

• Behavior
• Perception
• Mediating influences
• Impact of personal traits- e.g. temperament and
  intelligence
• Contextual influences e.g. family, community,
  culture, school

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Mediating Influences and College Life

• Academic
• Level of preparation
• Contextual
• Financial Independence
• Dependents

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Benefits of an Enhanced Self-Understanding

• Empowers with a sense of strengths and talents
• Choice of careers
• Understanding of context
• Options for behavior
• Expectations in college for performance and
  behaviors
• Maximizes personal agency
• Ability to plan, set realistic goals, achieving
  goals

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Characteristics of the College Student

• Traditional/non-traditional
• Full-Time/Part-Time
• First-time/Returning Transfer
• Residential/Commuter

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Changing Times
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The Non-traditional mix

• A new Generation Gap
• Technological gaps
• Differing goals
• Level of maturity
• Classroom effects
• Pedagogical
• Classroom Management

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The Challenge

• Your mission should you decide to accept it
• is to facilitate the development of
  self-understanding
• in order to promote the successful transition
  into college life
• with a varied population

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Strategies for Facilitating the Transition into
College Life
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Areas of Responsibility

• Institutional
• Understand who students are to provide services
  and programming to support student success
• Instructional
• Provide experiences that promote self-discovery,
  goal-setting/planning and life long learning as
  well as academic excellence
• The Student
• Commitment, follow-through, work

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The First Year Experience

• Develop a first year experience program that is
  intentional.
• Challenging and Supporting the First Year Student
  (Upcraft, Gardner, Barefoot, et al., 2005)
• Foundations of Excellence Project
  (www.fyfoundations.org)

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An Aspirational Model

• PHILOSOPHY
• ORGANIZATION
• LEARNING
• CAMPUS CULTURE (2 year institutions only)
• FACULTY (4 year institutions only)
• TRANSITIONS
• ALL STUDENTS
• DIVERSITY
• ROLES AND PURPOSES
• IMPROVEMENT Foundations of Excellence Project,
  2005-6

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Campus-wide Involvement

• Administration
• Faculty
• Student Life
• Peers
• Assessment/Evaluation

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Identify and Address Constraints

• Faculty buy-in
• Campus-wide communication regarding first year
  programming
• Provide support services that are reflective of
  students needs
• Develop assessment and evaluation plans
• Modify programs as needed

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Promoting Self-Understanding at the Instructional
Level

• Freshman students often need College 101
• Study skills
• Social Interaction skills
• Develop basic skills
• Time Management
• Freshman Seminar Options
• A separate course
• Learning Communities
• Embed in Content courses

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Activities to Promote Self-Understanding

• Strengths Assessments
• Readings to stimulate thought and growth
• Discussion, small group work (with directions)
• Reflective Writing
• Pre/post reflective assignments to examine change
• Chat assignments (with caveats)
• E.g. Blackboard

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Assessment

• Instructional
• Formative
• Are students are getting it?
• Summative
• How well did students grasp the overall goals of
  the course?
• What is your criteria for success?

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More Assessment

• Questions
• How effective is the course?
• Does the course align with program and college
  goals?
• Does it contribute to retention?
• Tools
• Qualitative
• e.g. focus groups, surveys
• Quantitative- locally-developed or external-
• e.g. EBI FYI evaluation

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Recommended Assessment Tools

• College Students Experiences Questionnaire
  research Program. (CSXQ- College Students
  Expectations Questionnaire) http//www.indiana.edu
  /cseq/csxq_generalinfo.htm
• Cooperative Institutional Research Program
  (CIRP). http//www.gseis.ucla.edu/heri/freshman.h
  tml
• FYI (First Year Initiatives survey) Educational
  Benchmarking Inc. (EBI) website. www.webebi.com

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More Recommended Assessment Tools

• Kolb Learning Styles Inventory.
• Hay Resources website
• http//www.hayresourcesdirect.haygroup.com/Learni
  ng_Self-evelopment/Assessments_surveys/Learning_St
  yle_Inventory/Overview.asp
• NSSE National Survey of Student Engagement.
• NSSE institute website http//nsse.iub.edu/inst
  itute/index.cfm?
• Your First College Year (YFCY).
• Higher Education Research Institute (HERI)
  website http//www.gseis.ucla.edu/heri/yfcy/

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Conclusion

• Self understanding involves developing
  information about self and context and using that
  information to plan, and achieve goals for
  college success and beyond
• Colleges can promote self-understanding by
  developing an environment that supports student
  differences/ needs and provides instruction and
  services that promote personal growth.

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Questions and Answers