Student Learning and Development

Rethinking our Expectations of Students

Dan

Recently, I had the opportunity to talk to a colleague about her frustrations after working for six years in the field: “they still don’t get it” she said referring to the challenges she had with ending hazing on her campus.

Sadly, “they” will never get it. “They”, as a term we use to generalize a population, is all too encompassing and far reaching for any student affairs professionals – even the best out there! Particularly for traditional aged students (though possibly applicable to many adult students), the developmental challenges of life and the dynamics of engagement in a campus community renders most students not quite ready to have some of the discussions we need to have in order to affect change. These students have ways of knowing that have been informed by years and years of other influences before they come to our campus. “They” are bigger and stronger than any one of us. It’s not impossible to influence a “they” but spending all of our time beating ourselves up because we haven’t been successful is not a good strategy.

So then how do we implement and sustain change? We have the conversations with students that help them develop the skills they need, including interpersonal development, critical thinking, practical competence, etc, so that when they have the opportunity to make decisions they make ones that are in the best interest of others, not just themselves. These conversations likely don’t happen in masses. They tend to happen one on one or a few on one. They also tend to happen only with the leaders or the worst students out there, disregarding many of the students “in the middle” who need to have the conversations the most.

So, maybe it’s time to rethink our expectations that “they” should get it. What does this mean?

It means rethinking how we educate the masses. It means developing the competence and confidence to have the conversations needed to affect and sustain positive change. It means making sure those conversations are tailored to the audience. It’s going to mean rethinking concepts of advising and helping and the time we spend with students. It also means that we have to realize that this is not personal, it’s not about us and that we are not failures when things don’t change drastically. We are only failures if we continue to tackle the same issues in the same ways and hope for better results. They’re going to stay the same age, you’re going to get older and frustrated. “They” will win.

 

Student Affairs’ Role in Increasing Student Self-Efficacy

Dan

I’ve been spending some time exploring the concept of self-efficacy, particularly as it relates to the role of student affairs professionals. Self-efficacy can be defined as  “the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations. In other words, self-efficacy is a person’s belief in his or her ability to succeed in a particular situation” (http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/self_efficacy.htm).

It appears increasing self-efficacy may also be a tactic to helping students along other developmental processes such as identity development, self-authorship, and moral development. Basically, if we can help students develop self-efficacy, then we can help them:

1. Do well academically.

2. Develop a sense of confidence to succeed in a diverse college environment (sometimes in spite of hurdles they have overcome).

3. Become sound and ethically grounded leaders

4. Intervene when there is a problem.

The University of Memphis Division of Student Affairs has adopted self-efficacy as one of its learning objectives, which we call the Vision for Students. Self-efficacy can be mapped back to any of the six CAS Learning Domains, particularly cognitive complexity and its dimension of critical thinking. We can also find that self-efficacy is implicit as we seek to develop the Student Learning and Development core competency in the ACPA/NASPA Professional Competency Areas for Student Affairs Practice.

I’m fortunate to have a great supervisor who studied self-efficacy of women in STEM programs. I recently interviewed her to learn more about self-efficacy and the recording of this 14 minute interview can be found here.

What do you do to influence students’ self-efficacy? How can we be more intentional about prioritizing self-efficacy as a desired student affairs goal?

We’re Losing Our Minds! Learning as Primary vs. Hopeful Byproduct

Dan

Keeling and Hersh (2012) explain as colleges and universities move toward a focus on increased graduation rates and meeting students’ expectation to “get me a job”, we forget what should be primary to our existence and purpose in society: helping students learn. While graduation rates and job placement numbers matter, are we satisfied that students enter society without some of the basic skills they should have learned under our guidance? Many of our graduates lack essential skills. Does college/university really accomplish what the world needs it to?

Student affairs needs to ask the same question: if we cannot prove that students learned as a result of our programs, what value do we have?

We are at a point when all we do should be about learning. We should not just hope it occurs. Keeling and Hersh (2012) tell us this. Guiding documents of student affairs tells us this – in fact, in a recent essay, Jim Barber and I explain that while not always first on our mind, learning has always been a byproduct of good work in student affairs. In the ACPA/NASPA Student Learning and Development competency, at the basic level, we are expected to “Identify and construct learning outcomes for both daily practice as well as teaching and training activities”.

What else do we need to hear before we’re just being negligent about our work in student affairs? Why are people still not prioritizing learning? Why don’t we use language that more meaningfully connects what we do to learning? Why don’t we view our role as educators? Really, why has this been so hard?

It’s hard because we can’t see or feel learning as much as we can see a student happy with her residence hall experience or relieved after we’ve provided her with counseling services for stress management. Student affairs folks like happy – that’s not a bad thing – but when we see her happy we can also meet our other obligation by asking her (in some way) what it was she learned as a result.

What will it take for you to prioritize learning? If you already do, what are the strategies you use to infuse learning more strongly into your work?