Assisting Students on Probation: The Seminar as Intervention

Editor's Notes

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• #6: MG For the majority of the 80% of students that take U101, it is an optional course. If you take music and engineering majors out of the mix, because they don't typically have many electives open in their schedule, that percentage goes up to 90% of first-year students enroll in U101.  With 268 sections offered, we are the largest course offering on campus at the University of South Carolina.  We offer 24 section types based on student's majors and interest areas, as well as general sections anyone can take.
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• #8: MD Course design and individual meetings with students were guided by the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) of Human Behavior Change (Prochaska and DiClemente, 1983) which recognizes that behavior change occurs through a series of stages with unique milestones along the way. Further, motivational interviewing (Miller and Rollnick, 2002) and the Appreciative Education Theory-to-Practice Framework (Bloom, Hutson, and He, 2008) guided instructor interactions with students. Through the use of motivational interviewing, instructors facilitated opportunities for students to observe for themselves the ways in which their current behavior was inconsistent with their ideal future states. On the other hand, the appreciative education framework is an intentional, collaborative framework aimed at helping students optimize their educational endeavors and set and achieve goals.
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• #12: MD – intro that we’re going to spend some time talking about the theory behind the way we design this course.
• #13: MG As Mike mentioned earlier, students on academic probation experience many emotions, and among those emotions is shame. In his book, Peter Stearns defines shame as an emotional experience that depends on group standards and group enforcement. Shame also requires an audience, or at the least an imagined audience.   For our students, the feelings of shame came from being labeled by the institution that originally accepted them and told them hey you can do this, and is instead now saying your performance does not meet our requirements. The institution serves as the first audience for our students. Other audiences could be parents, siblings, other family after receiving a letter at home over winter break about their academic standing. Additionally, friends could be another audience for the shame they are feeling when talking about what classes they are taking this semester or how their first-semester went.  When I committed to being the peer leader for this spring University 101 section, I did not anticipate seeing connections between and incorporating material from my psychology classes to support these students. 
• #14: MG One of the things I brought to the classroom was the work of Brene Brown. You may have heard of her from her 5 New York Times Bestselling Books, her TED Talks, or her Netflix special. But if you haven’t heard of her, Dr. Brown is a researcher and storyteller focused on courage, vulnerability, shame and empathy.  I was first introduced to Brene Brown during the fall semester before I was a peer leader for this academic recovery course. In my psychology of marriage course, I read one of her NYT bestsellers, Daring Greatly, and was immediately impacted by her work on shame.  In early meetings with Mike when we were planning for our class, I couldn’t help but notice the connection between what these students must be feeling and what Brown's research taught me. Two big ideas I knew that I wanted to share with my students were that shame thrives in secrecy and vulnerability does not equal weakness. On the very first day, we spent time talking about and acknowledging our student's feelings. We talked about what they may have been feeling after receiving a letter at home from the University informing them that they were on academic probation and we talked about the vulnerability it was going to take to be a successful member of this class. They had each faced different struggles to get them to this point, but now that we were all here together, we encouraged them to own it, not be afraid to talk about it and work with us to figure out what they needed to be successful moving forward.  Brene Brown says, “If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can't survive." Mike and I made it our mission to create an environment where shame wouldn’t survive and where our students were free to be vulnerable and become the very best versions of themselves. 
• #15: MD Reluctant Lack of knowledge/do not want to consider change Rebellious Aware of the problem Often invested in the problem/problem behavior Invested in making their own decisions – “don’t tell me what to do” Resigned Lack of energy or investment Given up on the possibility of change Overwhelmed by the problem Rationalizing Appears to have all the answers Not considering change because of personal risk May believe their problems are someone else’s fault
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• #17: MD Highlight Philosophy -Get to wanting them to feel comfortable to talk with us about anything so we need to be willing to hear everything
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• #20: MG For the first couple days of class, we wanted to get to know our students and help our students get to know us. In U101 we love a name tent, and we asked our students to give us a little more than just their preferred name; we also asked them to put their favorite movie, favorite food, dream job and three words they would use to describe themselves. After everyone had the chance to create their name tent, we went around the room and had each person share out their name and any two corners of their name tent. To continue getting to know one another and start to build community in our classroom, we did an activity called I Have a Link where students share about themselves and when someone has something in common, or "a link" they hook arms and now that student begins to share about themselves until another student has a link. In the end of the activity, we all had found links to one another. This demonstrated to our students that even though we were all very different and unique individuals, there were many things that connected us all together.  We also spent time talking about what makes a college course great, and what makes courses not so great. When we talk about the best and worst classes, we talk about what the instructor did to make a class the best or worst and we also talk about what the students in the class did to make a class the best or worst class. From there we were able to set mutual expectations for the semester—what did we as instructors expect from our students and what did our students expect from us to make this class the best class.  As with all courses, it was important for us to go over our course syllabus and assignment packet. By having the assignment packet and syllabus on the first day of class, they knew what we expected of them moving forward through the semester.  And lastly, the yarn ball activity is another chance for us to build community within our class where they make connections with one another and with us as their instructors. 
• #21: MG This is an overview of topics we covered throughout the semester. With every new semester teaching, there is always the challenge to stay relevant, fun and meaningful when it comes to designing your course. There is an added challenge in designing a course for student’s who’ve already taken a U101 course in the fall but failed.  As an example of being willing to talk about everything so our students know they can come to us with anything, when talking about money management, we talk about how to not blow all your money at the bars by sharing tips like taking only a set amount of cash rather than your credit card. With that day we incorporated GPA calculations based on what grades they are hoping to receive in their current classes and how their GPAs will affect their scholarships and for some, how this may impact their ability to remain students at Carolina.  We devoted an entire class period to talk about study skills. This day was completely peer leader led. The year prior, I created a lesson plan for my U101 students to get out of the classroom and walking around campus while incorporating different study skills. I took my students to my three favorite study spots on campus. At each study spot I talked about a different way to study for exams. The lesson ended at the Student Success Center in the library where students were not only able to find out where the student success center is located but also what services they provide to support students. 
• #22: MG Another topic I want to highlight is goal setting. We broke it down for them like this... at the top of the worksheet, students would write their someday goal, then their one-year goal, then their semester goal, and finally at the bottom their right-now goals. Some students could easily identify their someday goal, like working for the BAU in the FBI, but then it was more challenging to think about the steps along the way to meet that someday goal.  Although ambitious and excited about their future, these students needed help focusing on what do I need to do in the here and now and in the near future to make that goal a reality? On the flip side, some students had a difficult time articulating their someday goal. For these students, we started at the bottom and thought about what they are hoping to accomplish in the days and weeks that lie more directly ahead of them such as making a good grade on an exam or finally submitted the application for a part-time job. We encouraged them to continue thinking about what their someday goal could be as we know that can inform the rest of their goals. Additionally, students who have a hard time articulating their someday goal have a hard time finding the value in right now goals since they do not see the benefit in the long run. For some of our students, no one had asked them what their goals were or where they saw themselves in five years. It was important that we gave those students the space to reflect. 
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• #24: MG On the first day of class, along with their syllabus, students received assignment packets that detailed the requirements of these assignments. The five reflection journals and the passport to success were assignment woven throughout the semester.  The midterm reflection essays were a more formal way for Mike and I to check-in on our students by asking them to articulate their needs, struggles, successes and goals.  The Article Synthesis Group Presentation gives our students the opportunity to work as part of a team and not only learn more about topics relating to study skills and the science of learning, but to also teach that information to their classmates.  The final project was two parts and had an incentive... if a student had no or one absence, they only had to complete part one of final. Most students did end up having to complete both parts of the final project. For the first part of the final, students created a personal user manual based upon what they had learned and discovered about themselves throughout the semester. Required components included their name, purpose statement and self-identified strengths and weaknesses. Students were encouraged to get creative and have fun with the other components to complete the assignment by including information such as warnings like "finds uncertainty frustrating," or sharing their motivators, values and personal inventory results.  For part two of the final, students were asked to complete a temperature reading. The temperature reading idea also came from my psychology of marriage course where I learned about Virginia Satir, a leader in the world of family therapy, and her family camp experiment. At family camp, the participants started each day with temperature readings that included four components (appreciations, bug/possible solutions, new information & hopes and wishes). We adapted these four categories to fit our students to help them reflect on our class and their time thus far at Carolina:  1. Appreciations: what did this experience teach you? What did you learn from this whole year? 2. Bugs/Possible Solutions: What hurdles do you still need to overcome? How will you do so? Who can help you? What do you need to improve or learn to get there? 3. New Information: What do you know about yourself now that you didn’t know in August? What brought you to these conclusions? 4. Hopes and Wishes: What's next and how are you going to get there?
• #25: MG After the semester had already begun, Mike and I realized we had made, what my elementary art school teacher calls, a happy accident- we had forgotten to include an attendance policy in our syllabus. So, we asked our students to design the attendance policy with what they thought would be the most fair. This turned out to be really great because it led to a discussion on the importance of accountability. Class GroupMe that Mike and I were both in – share reminders, things happening around campus like a basketball game or organization fair  Our students were required to meet 1:1 with either Mike or myself around the midpoint of the semester. 1:1 meetings are one of my favorite parts of teaching because it gives me a chance to get to know them better. In my 1:1 meetings, some students needed more personalized attention on how to prepare for exams, how to balance their schedule, or just talk to me about how their life is going in their second semester.  Detail some small assignments  The Goal Setting Action Plan is an example I talked about earlier is an example of a smaller assignment incorporated into our class. Students think about the small steps necessary in order to achieve larger goals. 
• #26: Another example of a small assignment is the Syllabus Map. Students are asked to bring all the syllabus from each other their classes. We have this worksheet that allows the students to go through each syllabus and pull out important information like professors' information, the weight and type of assignments, attendance policy and assignment due dates. We have students complete this worksheet for each of the classes they are currently enrolled in. 
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