Advising For Student and Institutional Success

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Advising For Student and Institutional Success
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OVERVIEW

• Access for Success Summary
• Advising
• You as the Advisor
• Your Roles and Responsibilities
• What you will be doing
• Key Categories of Student Concerns
• Building your Strengths as an Advisor
• Questioning as a Tool
• The Mechanics of Advising
• Conclusion

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Access for Success Summary
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Advising For Student and Institutional Success

• Purpose for implementing Access for Success
  (AFS)
• To better inform potential students of programs
  realistic program previews
• To determine and expand services available to
  students.
• To advise students regarding their chosen
  program.
• To encourage and direct students into harnessing
  their strenghts.
• In Summary
• TO IMPROVE STUDENT SUCCESS

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VIDEO SEGMENTSTUDENT ADVISING
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Advising
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Academic Advising Defined

• Academic advising is a systematic process
  designed to help new and returning students reach
  their highest academic potential at College of
  the North Atlantic
• Academic advising is a process that helps
  students receive information, consider options
  and make choices.

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Why Advise?

• Advising is a key to student retention.
• Advising will assist first and second year
  students, who are usually overwhelmed by the
  college experience, to make appropriate academic
  decisions.
• Advising is the link between the institution and
  the learner.

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Why Advise?

• Advising can and will make a difference.
• Advising will assist and show students how to
  gather information, how to make decisions, and
  how to test results.
• Advising is vital to the long-term success of the
  institution.

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You as the Advisor
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Your Roles Responsibilities as an Advisor

• You will focus on student success by encouraging
  students to become responsible for their own
  learning and to approach their education in an
  organized and meaningful manner.

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Your Roles Responsibilities as an Advisor

• Your involvement with the student may be viewed
  in the following three ways
• 1) Informational, where the focus is upon
  informing the students, providing data, usually
  about deadlines, procedures, or policies.

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Your Roles Responsibilities as an Advisor

• 2) Explanatory, where the focus is upon helping
  the student analyze options available in the
  college environment.
• 3) Referral, where the focus is upon
  analyzing/evaluating the student issue(s), and
  making appropriate referrals.

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As an Advisor you will???
Group Discussion
What will you be doing as an advisor?
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As an Advisor you will

• Assist students in the development of clearly
  defined educational plans.
• Explore students short-term and long-term goals
  as they relate to program choices.
• Assist in the selection of courses for the
  students program of studies.
• Assign or review the students course schedules.

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As an Advisor you will

• Assist students with the transition to college
  life and integration into the college setting.
• Monitor and inform students about their academic
  progress.
• Assist in the identification of learning options,
  graduation requirements, academic policies and
  procedures.
• Assist students in following through on their
  educational and career goals.

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As an Advisor you will

• Help students problem solve around pertinent
  academic issues.
• Identify factors which place the student at risk
  academically and to make appropriate referrals
  when necessary.
• Maintain ongoing contact with students throughout
  the semester.

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As an Advisor you will not

• Be counseling students - please be sure to
  refer students with personal issues that you do
  not feel comfortable with to the counselor.

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Key Categories of Student Concerns Helping
students get connected by focusing on their
strengths
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Its about how you make them feel!

• higher education has traditionally focused on
  helping students overcome their deficits (e.g.,
  through remedial programming) as the key to
  helping students succeed.

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The Strength Based Approach

• The Strengths Based Approach advocates that
  attention and effort be directed toward the full
  development of a students strengths.

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FIVE Cs OF STUDENT CONCERNS

• All basic student topics for advising falls into
  five basic areas of concern
• COURSE SELECTION
• CONNECTION
• CONFUSION
• CONFIDENCE
• CAREER SELECTION

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FIVE Cs OF STUDENT CONCERNS

• COURSE SELECTION
• Which courses
• When
• Possible Questions
• What do you feel that you do well?
• What are your interests?
• What courses did you do that you particularly
  liked?
• What experiences have you had that you have
  excelled in?
• experiences did you do?
• The purpose of this questioning is to identify
  strengths and build on them.

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FIVE Cs OF STUDENT CONCERNS

• CONNECTION
• Becoming part of campus academic, social and
  community
• Possible Questions
• What kind of extracurricular things were you
  involved in in school?
• What do you like to do with your spare time?
• What are your Hobbies?
• Becoming connected to the Class, Campus and the
  Social Community

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FIVE Cs OF STUDENT CONCERNS

• CONFUSION
• What is expected?
• What is Normal?
• What is happening to me?
• Possible Comments/Questions
• Give yourself time to absorb all of this new
  information.
• Please come see me again tomorrow when you have
  more questions my door is always open!
• Heres my card with my contact information.
• This will assure the student that what is
  happening to them is normal and is to be
  expected.

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Five C - continued

• CAREER SELECTION
• Which careers will fit and fulfill me?
• What factors need to be considered?
• Possible Comments/Questions
• You must have had a job in mind when you decided
  to come here?
• Semester two would be a great time to discuss
  this further?
• The idea is to get the student thinking about
  what factors need to be considered to make a good
  decision when pursing a career.

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Key Points to Remember

• Connect students to the Campus
• Students Number one problem is confusion
• Good advisors ask good questions
• Many students lack confidence
• Through advising students learn their strengths
  and improve confidence

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Applying the Strength Based Concept
Group Exercise

• Split into two groups.
• On the next slide there is a scenario for each
  group.
• Your groups task is to apply the concepts of the
  Strength Based questioning Approach to
  effectively advise the student. (Develop a
  minimum of 3 questions)
• 10 minutes

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Applying the Strength Based Concept

• Group 1 - 18 year old, female single parent in
  Office Admin.
• Group 2 - 53 year old, female entering Office
  Admin.
• Your groups task is to apply the concepts of the
  Strength Based questioning Approach to
  effectively advise the student. (Develop a
  minimum of 3 questions)

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Building Your Strengths as an Advisor
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What Makes an Effective Teacher?

• Drawing out/active learning
• Good communication
• Drawing on your own strengths
• Enthusiasm!
• Solid grasp of subject matter

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Drawing Out

• One of the most effective ways to start drawing
  students out is to give something of yourself
  first.
• Find a connection let the students know youve
  been there.
• Draw on your own past experiences.
• Develop a relationship Trust/Openness Showing
  Care

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Active Learning

• Dont confine advising to your office.
• Make advising more informal, such as
• Have lunch
• Talk in the corridors
• Have advisors participate in extra-curricular
  activities with the students (Student Council,
  Campus sports teams, etc.)

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Good Communication

• Listening
• Repeating back what they have said
• Body language
• Be upfront
• Sense of humour
• Caring
• Give and take

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Common Ground Everybodys Main Strength

• No matter how different we all are as instructors
  and advisors, we all, at one time or another,
  have been students.
• We should all be able to remember this, and put
  ourselves in the students situation.

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Enthusiasm!

• How?
• Dealing with different students with different
  needs, backgrounds, cultures, etc., and
• Knowing you have the opportunity to
  influence/help students, especially at-risk, to
  get where they need to go.

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Have a Solid Grasp of Subject Matter

• Know AFS
• Know your own program
• Know the opportunities available after the
  program
• Know where to find information for students

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Draw On Your Own Strengths

• Activity
• Reflect on your own strengths, and list three.
• Look at those three strengths, and ask yourself
  if they can be used in teaching/advising.

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QUESTIONING AS A TOOL
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QUESTIONING

• Open the door to new areas for discussion
• Help a student explore concerns
• Help identify issues

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QUESTIONS ALLOW YOU TO DISCOVER

• KNOWLEDGE
• FEELINGS
• POINT OF VIEW
• BIASES
• PREPARATION
• MOTIVATION
• STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
• EXPECTATIONS

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FOUR TYPES OF QUESTIONS

• Open-Ended Questions
• Closed-Ended Questions
• Clarifying Questions
• Key-Word Questions

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OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS

• Lead to talk
• Invite conversation
• Reveal valuable information about the student

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CLOSED-ENDED QUESTIONS

• Lead to students history
• Give factual information
• Supply yes or no answers
• Lead to specifics about a student

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CLARIFYING QUESTIONS

• Make the conversation clearer both to you and to
  the student
• Ask for more detail
• Communicate to the student that you are hearing
  and are trying to understand concerns
• Uncover and clarify what is actually on the
  students mind

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KEY-WORD QUESTIONS

• Continue the students train of thought to add
  more detail.

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SAMPLE QUESTIONS

• Group Exercise
• Define the question type for each question on the
  following slides. (Open-Ended Question,
• Closed-Ended Question, Clarifying Question, or
  Key-Word Question)

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SAMPLE QUESTIONS

• 1. What family and/or childcare commitments will
  you have this term?
• 2. If you plan to work this term, how many hours
  will you be working?
• 3. Will your part-time job interfere with your
  courses?

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SAMPLE QUESTIONS (Continued)

• 4. Where do you see yourself in five years? ten
  years?
• 5. If you have a career in mind, what are the
  kinds of things you would need to know to be
  successful in it?
• 6. How would you describe your past experiences
  with school?

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The Mechanics of Advising
Weeks of the Term
Initial meeting is a Getting-to-know-you session
10-15 minutes Review results of entrance tests
Discussion of student progress 10-15 Minutes
Ongoing monitoring and intervention (if required)
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CONCLUSION
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CONCLUSION

• Advisors need to hear as well as listen.
• Advising the whole student means focusing on
  personal (within limits) as well as academic
  areas.
• Focus on Strengths
• Questions help to achieve a better understanding
  of the student as a whole.

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Support Elements of Academic Advising

• Career inventory specific to College of the
  North Atlantic Programs (Program Awareness
  Inventory (PAI) )
• Student Success Inventory student perceptions
  of his or her success skills (Partners in
  Education Inventory (PEI) )
• Academic Achievement Testing measures student
  achievement in Reading Comprehension, Writing,
  Arithmetic, and Elementary Algebra (Accuplacer (
  Academic Readiness)
• Distributed Learning AFS Website (Password
  required) http//dls.cna.nl.ca/afs/

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REMEMBER

• WE DIDNT COME OVER ON THE SAME SHIP BUT WE ARE
  IN THE SAME BOAT (UNKNOWN)

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QUESTIONS?
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THANK YOU!
Those who say it can not be done should not
interrupt those doing it!