Session Descriptions                                                                                             

PRE-SYMPOSIUM SESSIONS (Oct. 21, 2010) 

GENERAL SESSION (all attendees)

Student Retention: Identifying Root Causes of Attrition and Systemic Strategies for Promoting Persistence to Graduation

Presenters: Joe Cuseo, Aaron Thompson, Michele Campagna, Julie McLaughlin

Research suggests that the causes of student attrition emanate from four common roots: academic, motivational, psychosocial, and financial. Serendipitously, retention principles that effectively address the roots of attrition also promote the realization of other student-success outcomes, such as deep learning and whole-person development.

This workshop will synthesize research on student retention and learning, identify core causes of student attrition, and supply a systematic set of strategies for promoting student persistence to graduation. It will enable you to:

• Identify the key antecedents of attrition.
• Apply high-impact practices for addressing the underlying causes of attrition.
• Delineate strategies for designing and delivering a well-coordinated, campus-wide retention plan.

SESSION ONE (Choose one)

Reaching and Teaching Non-College Ready Students

Presenters: Aaron Thompson

There is a significant number of student (traditional and adult learners who enter into college. Research shows that more than half of students (60%) who enter community colleges are underprepared. In addition, there are many four-year institutions that have liberal or open enrollments accepting students who need remedial assistance.

Clearly stated goals and objectives of a course are vital in facilitating the learning process of all students but espectially those who are underprepared. This session will focus on research-based strategies for college success for all students in their first year. Specifically, this we will concentrate on learning strategies and learning outcomes that are needed for students taking developmental coursework in their first year.

 

Gaining Faculty and Administrative Buy-In

Presenters: Joe Cuseo and Julie McLaughlin

This workshop focuses on the development of a strategic plan for promoting faculty involvement in student retention and student success initiatives. It will include specific action strategies for provising faculty rewards and incentives, faculty development programming, and new-faculty recruitment and orientation. Both extrinsic and instrinsic motivational strategies for stimulating change in faculty attitude and behavior will be examined from three major directions:

• Ground-up (grass roots) support from individual faculty members
• Top-down support from high-level administrators
• Side-in support from mid-level managers (e.g. college deans and department chairs)

 

PERSONAL CONSULTATION (optional to pre-symposium participants. Limited space available)

Individual Consultation Sessions

Consultants: Joe Cuseo, Aaron Thompson, Michele Campagna, Julie McLaughlin.

You will have the opportunity to meet one-on-one with any of the conference experts in scheduled consulting sessions. This is an opportunity to get advice on particular first-year issues as they relate to the program at your institution. Bring any materials that would be helpful for your meeting with the experts. Visit the information about our speakers in helping you choose who would best fit your situation. Speaker Information click here.

 

SYMPOSIUM DAY 1 (Oct. 22, 2010)

GENERAL SESSION (all attendees)

Building or Remodeling a Comprehensive First-Year Experience Program:
Pervasive Principles & Powerful Practices

Presenter: Joe Cuseo, Aaron Thompson, Michele Campagna, Julie McLaughlin

This workshop will provide a blueprint for constructing or fine-tuning a first-year program that addresses the full range of factors that promote student success. The workshop will:

• Articulate the intended outcomes of a substantive first-year program, including student retention, academic achievement, and whole-person development.
• Identify research-based principles that are likely to exert the most potent impact on student learning outcomes.
• Infuse research-based principles and high-impact practices into the key components of a comprehensive first-year program, such as: orientation, first-year curriculum, co-curriculum, and assessment.
• Specify the key roles that different campus constituents play in the delivery of an effective first-year program, including: academic advisors, instructional faculty, academic-support professionals, and student development professionals.
  

A comprehensive, connected first-year program that effectively supports students’ transition to higher education can provide the foundation for college success beyond the first year. It can initiate habits of mind and behavior that students will continue to use throughout their undergraduate experience, which can generate a cumulative effect that culminates in higher degree-completion rates and greater gains in student learning between matriculation and graduation

 

SESSION ONE (Choose one)

Critical & Creative Thinking: Promoting Higher-Level Thinking in the First Year of College and Beyond

Presenter: Aaron Thompson

First-year programs should promote the development of students’ critical thinking skills. By proactively and intentionally cultivating higher-level thinking skills during the first year of college, students can establish a strong foundation to apply and refine these skills across the curriculum and co-curriculum.

This workshop will demonstrate how you can introduce higher-level thinking in the first-year seminar and first-year curriculum.  It will operationally define higher-level thinking and delineate its key skill subsets, such as: analytical thinking, multidimensional thinking, critical thinking, and creative thinking.  You will learn practical strategies for advancing the development of these skills through classroom-based learning experiences and out-of-class assignments.

 

Effective Academic Advising: The What, Why, Who, and How of It

Presenter: Joe Cuseo

A strong case can be made that high-quality academic advising can greatly impact student success. Advising can influence a host of variables that are known to be strongly correlated with student retention and persistence to graduation, such as: (1) students’ educational planning and decision making, (2) student utilization of campus support services, (3) student-faculty contact outside the classroom, (4) student mentoring, and (5) student satisfaction with the college experience.

This workshop will articulate why greater institutional support of academic advising is important, and will outline a plan for enhancing the quality of academic advisement programs. You will learn strategies for improving advising at four foundational levels:

• Recruitment and selection of advisors.
• Orientation and development of advisors.
• Recognition and reward for advisors.
• Assessment of individual advisors and the overall advising program.

Only when sufficient institutional commitment is made to securing each of these foundational features of effective academic advising will the quest for high-quality academic advisement be attained, and its potential for promoting student success be fully realized.

 

Peer Mentoring: A Powerful Tool for Promoting Student Transition and Success

Presenter: Michele Campagna

A great deal of research has shown that peer mentoring programs are instrumental in promoting first-year transition and success. Peer mentors are often used in first-year programs to assist with the instruction of the first-year seminar, in conducting outreach, facilitating orientation programs, peer academic advisers and even serving as academic coaches. A particularly powerful aspect of peer mentoring programs is that they are mutually beneficial for all student involved. That is to say, peer mentors often gain as much from their peer mentoring experience as the first-year students who are receiving peer mentor support.

This session will provide an overview of the research on peer mentoring programs and the variety of roles that peer mentors can play in contributing to the retention and engagement initiatives on your campus. During the workshop you will learn about:

• Recruiting, selecting and training techniques.
• How to maintain a self-sustaining program by building buy-in.
• The assessment of peer mentoring programs and assistance with how you can develop an evaluation and review plan that will allow you to enhance this peer initiative on your campus.

SESSION 2 (choose one)

Designing an Effective Training & Development Program for First-Year Seminar Instructors

Presenters: Michele Campagna & Julie McLaughlin

The training of instructors is a critical element to offering a successful first-year seminar to students on your campus. They are the most effective when they address your college's institutional culture, the curriculum, and enhance instructor pedagogy. Much like your first-year seminar, instructor training programs are most effective when purposefully based on an established training curriculum.

Through this session, you will learn the following:

• What are the key elements of an instructor training program?
• How do I develop an instructor training curriculum?
• How do you assess whether your training program is helping your instructors develop effective pedagogy?
• How do you develop intended learning outcomes for your instructor training program?
• What are some strategies for securing administrative and faculty support for your instructor training program?

Training programs are sometimes challenging to establish since they require support from administrators to conduct and buy-in from faculty to attend. Recognizing this, the workshop with provide you with resources and ideas for developing, implementing, assessing a sustainable instructor training program on your campus.

Teaching the First-Year Seminar to a Diverse Student Audience

Presenters: Joe Cuseo & Aaron Thompson

The effectiveness of first-year seminars depends not only on the content covered, but also on the instructional process used to deliver its content. This workshop will articulate how an effectively taught first-year seminar can set the tone for students' undergraduate experience, capitalize on student diversity to promote deeper learning and higher-level thinking, and promote the success of all students in their first-year of college and beyond.

You will learn classroom activities and course assignments that implement the most powerful principles of human learning and student success. Specific educational issues to be addressed include:

• What to do on the first day and week of class.
• How to promote students' intrinsic motivation for learning.
• How to utilize engaging, student-centered pedagogy.
• How to facilitate peer collaboration and teamwork among diverse students.

 

SYMPOSIUM DAY 2 (Oct. 23, 2010)

SESSION THREE (Choose one)

Assessing First-Year Seminars & First-Year Programs: Evaluation for Proving Impact, Improving Effectiveness, and Establishing a Baseline for Value-Added Assessment

Presenter: Aaron Thompson

Effective assessment serves two primary objectives: 1) to prove your program’s overall impact or value (summative evaluation), and 2) to improve your program’s quality (formative evaluation). Summative evaluation can establish program credibility and ensure program viability, while formative evaluation can provide frequent assessment needed for ensuring continuous program improvement.

In this workshop, you will learn assessment strategies relating to both summative and formative evaluation. The following issues relating to assessing first-year seminars and first-year programs will be addressed:

• Identifying high-priority student learning outcomes.
• Obtaining frequent feedback to assess whether students are progressing toward achieving the program’s intended learning outcomes.
• “Closing the loop,” i.e., using assessment results to make intentional changes that result in improved student achievement of the program’s intended learning outcomes.

 

Creating an Effective First-Year Experience Course for Community College Students

Presenter: Julie McLaughlin

Come and learn how Cincinnati State Technical and Community College went from no first-year program to a three course option with a built in quality improvement component and documented program success, and increased their student retention by 20% as well.

This workshop will help institutions who want to create a first-year experience course, or want to expand their their current first-year offerings. It will outline the history of the CSTCC program and how it went from a one-credit course with required topics to three course options with standardized syllabi and course schedules.

You will learn:

• How the college community's perception of the course was changed.
• What the advisory committee's role was in leading the course through the quality improvement process.
• The required components of the courses and standardized syllabus, policies, course topics and course schedules.
• How the mandatory instructor training process works.
• The evaluation process and data that supports the success of the program.

Summer (Common) Reading and its Relationship to the First-Year Experience

Presenter: Joe Cuseo

Summer (Common) reading experiences have the potential to magnify student learning by increasing the quantity and quality of conversations student have about their shared experience. Formal, classroom-based discussions about a common reading may also "spill over" to informal, out-of-class student conversations, which can multiply the educational impact of their reading.

This session will examine the pros and cons of using a popular literary work for summer/common reading. Reading alternatives, that center squarely on the transition to higher education, will be explored. These alternatives can serve as a more direct and meaningful prelude to a first-year experience program by serving the following functions:

• Motivational - inspiring and exciting new students about their upcoming college experience. How college will be distinctively different from prior educational experience, and how it has the potential to improve the quality of their life.
• Contextual - providing new students with an overarching "big picture" context that helps them make sense of their upcoming experience. Enabling them to "see the forest before they get lost in the trees."
• Anticipatory - readying new students to "hit the ground running" when they first step foot on campus, alerting them to high-impact strategies that can have a direct and immediate impact on their success during the critical first term of college.