What makes students successful? As this is an age old question with students, teachers and professors; but more importantly what is the true answer to this question? If you take this question to the streets and ask students, teachers and professors; the answers vary widely. So instead I asked my self this question. I thought of many different things that I find are helpful to promote my personal student success. As I collected my thoughts in notes, I came to the realization that students need more then just one thing to be successful; thus making all answers to the question worth a look. But more importantly how do we address the issue of student success so that way it reaches the student and then becomes a helpful resource.

As many may know, Dr. Steven L. Berg has a vision to help students succeed via a web page. I looked at the web page with many different envisions about how to help a variety of students succeed with just one web page. I personally believe that it can be done and will be done.

We need a collaboration of resources all linked together to help students. Resources on “How To…” to help students with different projects and papers. We also need to have links to helpful, yet credible, sites to help students with research that is credible. We need links to teachers as well as teacher cooperation. The list of what can and will be put on the site to help student success is endless, because like the question of helping student success; the answers are wide ranging.

So ask yourself, what would help you or your students succeed? And how can we address the problems that students have with being successful today?

–Lisa Gilson

One strategy I employ is humor; often humor that is self deprecating or makes fun of faculty (in general; no specific faculty members).  By trying to show that I do not take myself too seriously, I hope to break the ice by revealing my humanness; alleviate tension, fear, and anxiety; and encourage a sense of trust.  (See Lei, Cohen, and Russler, 328 for a more extensive list of the benefits of humor).

I am also taking the strategy of introducing students to blogs before insisting that they fulfill the course requirement of accepting the invitation to become a contributor to the Ocelot Scholars blog and becoming a member of HASTAC.  Some students have been gradually fulfilling these requirements as they have become comfortable doing so, but I will wait until there is more comfort with the overall course structure before forcing this technology onto them.

I am also aware that one of the key components of my classes tends to enhance student fear:  the lack of clear directions.  Rebecca Cox identifies three components of faculty who are successful in helping students complete their assignments.  First, there are high expectations that challenge students and require them to participate in class.  Second, clear directions for assignments are given.  Third, “a more personal and encouraging relationship with students” was enacted.  This third point was deemed the most important.

While I believe I do a good job with the first and third point, the second issue is problematic.  As students are making decisions about how they will approach their coursework, I am not very helpful.  I provide guidance and encouragement but no answers.  Once they have a subject or project in mind, I will coach them through the process.  It is not until the final phases of the project that clear directions are given.

Students who are present and maintain contact with me throughout the semester are generally satisfied with the guidance they receive even when they are frustrated when I have no answers to give them at the beginning of their projects.  Those students who do not meet with me as required typically maintain their fears and do not do well in the course.

Because I am aware of the limitation of my teaching style (which is also one of the key benefits), I work hard to establish the positive, encouraging relationships with my students.  Providing tea and cookies is not merely an attempt to nourish them physically while they work.  The refreshments are a concrete way I can demonstrate that I care about student success.

Given the highly unstructured nature of the Ocelot Scholars project coupled with the fact that no one associated with it has every attempted such a project, it is important that I do everything I can to create a positive atmosphere in which my students can thrive.  If I want students to take risks that will cause fear and discomfort, the least I can do is to make the classroom environment as comfortable as possible.

–Steven L. Berg, PhD

Works Cited

Berg, Steven L. “Could Faculty Go the Way of Kodak?” Etena Sacca-vajjena. 22 January 2012. Web. 22 January 2012.

Cox, Rebecca.  “Promoting Success by Addressing Students’ Fear of Failure.”  Community College Review 37.1 (2009): 52-80. Academic Search Premier. Web. 22 January 2012.

Lei, Simon A., Jilian L. Cohen, and Kristen M. Russler.  “Humor on Learning in the College Classroom:  Evaluating Benefits and Drawbacks from Instructors’ Perspectives.”  Journal of Instructional Psychology 37.4 (2010): 326-331. Academic Search Premier. Web. 22 January 2012.

I hope your quarters and semesters have started off well. i am back again teaching Public Speaking. Earlier in the year, I posted some questions about recording speeches  (which has since been worked out with the university. whew.) this time, I am wondering what you all do to liven up your classrooms.

I teach a two-hour class, twice a week. We do a bit of discussion and/or an ice breaker at the start of class to get them thinking, then discussion of principles in the text, then a group activity of some sort and more discussion or a turn in front of the class speaking. Each class has some sort of activity component that gets them up and speaking to one another and interacting with one another.

My problem is, I have never had a class this lethargic, even at 9am. We’ve have something like 4 classes and although we’ve not had dead silence in class, I’ve never had a class this quiet, this reluctant to perform, to joke, to laugh.  Public Speaking is a class folks have to take, so in more ways than one it’s a captive audience. But the activities I’ve planned and tweaked over the years which have done very well in other classes are working, but not amazingly well.

I don’t know if this is a winter doldrums problem, which is especially exacerbated in the quarter system when it feels as if you have no time to get all your work done, and then the sun decides to set at 2:11 in the afternoon. I don’t know if this is a me problem or a student problem. But it would be nice to hear what kind of advice y’all all would have for how to address this problem!

–Kimberly Singletary

In her response to my request to repost her essay, Professor Singletary wrote:

Sure. Repost away. I would be interested to hear what your students would have to say. Let them know maybe, that since posting, I decided to re-tweak the syllabus to give them the opportunity to lead a portion of the class session for extra credit. I’m hoping that giving them a chance to challenge themselves (for a small reward) will up the energy a bit – or maybe give me a little bit of a break. ^-^

Let me know how it goes, please!

Students have been warned:  I plan to explode the boundaries of traditional classroom experiences and will adopt student centered strategies that are appropriate for the 21^stcentury.  Even if they have previously taken a class from me, Winter 2012 classes will not be taught like any course they have ever taken.

After I explained my vision for the Ocelot Scholars Project to her, one of my colleagues commented, “You are really taking on the role of project manager.” She is correct. I will not be teaching the class so much as I will be facilitating the work that will lead to a successful project outcome. While completing the project, my students will not only learn the required course concepts, but they will also develop skills that will allow them to succeed in the 21^st century; skills such as critical thinking, synthesizing information, creativity, team work, and flexibility.

In addition to setting up the framework for the Ocelot Scholars Project, there are other ways I plan to challenge more traditional forms of education. For example, I have invited my early American history students to help design the syllabus we will use and I have asked my early modern world students for help in picking a theme for the course. Although this is not the first time I have co-designed syllabi with students, I suspect that these students have not been previously given the opportunity to have such an opportunity to influence a course they are about to take.

Earlier this week, one of my history students sent me a link to Sir Ken Robinson’s Changing Education Paradigms. As Sir Robinson rightly points out, traditional educational practices prepare students from an agricultural background to successfully advance during the industrial revolution. I am not sure that any of my current students live on farms and none need higher education to succeed in an industrial revolution that reached its zenith in 1908 when Henry Ford began to mass produce the Model T.

During the industrial revolution and the years immediately following it, teaching students how to work in an organization where employees hired into entry level positions, moved up through the ranks, and then retired from the only company for whom they had ever been employed might have been a reasonable educational goal. However, such a career path is not the case for a skilled 21^st century workforce. Therefore, if students are to have a transformative educational experience, I need to teach as if the world has advanced since Henry Ford developed the production line.

In order to allow students to develop 21^st century skills in my classroom, I need to be willing to advance my own skills. When Dr. Cathy N. Davidson, the author of Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work , and Learn, was directing my graduate work at Michigan State University, she taught me impeccable research skills. But the world has changed since the 1980s and those skills that initially made me an effective scholar are no longer effective.

Under Dr. Davidson’s direction as well as others, I became an effective teacher who won the Excellence in Teaching Citation. Because only six were given out each year, this citation was the most prestigious award that Michigan State presented to a graduate teaching assistant. Yet if I were to try to teach my classes today as I did then, I would be a very poor professor who does not serve his students well. Again, the world has changed and I have had to change with it.

While adapting to a quickly changing world is scary, it is manageable because, even in the 1980s, Dr. Davidson was taking a student centered approach to education which allowed me to develop what we now call 21^st century skills.

Whether we take it as curse or challenge, we are living in interesting times. My students have been warned and so have I. As I look to the future, I am reminded of the scene where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid  jump off the cliff and free fall into the gorge below. I appreciate their fear.

Recently, I shared my fear of stepping into the abyss with a current student who plans to take another class with me during Winter 2012. I told him that we would have a great success or we would crash and burn. His response was enlightening: “Either way, we are going to learn something.” And learning something as part of our education is not so bad.

–Steven L. Berg, PhD