Peggy Ruth Geren, Ed.D.
Augusta State University
The
transition from high school to college is difficult for many students. In 1999,
the dropout rate for the freshman to sophomore year in public four year
colleges and universities was 33.3% (ACT: Newsroom: News Release: National
College Dropout and Graduation Rates, 1999. http://www.act.org/news/releases/2000/02).
Many of the variables contributing to students’ rocky transitions from high
school to college are beyond the control of the college teacher. But some of
the difficulties arise because students may not have good study strategies.
They may not know how to analyze themselves as learners or how to read and
analyze course material. This paper
will describe some methods for identifying college students who may be at risk
for academic failure, and it will suggest some
simple cognitive strategies which
can be modeled and explicitly taught by college instructors.
Introduction
In 1999, the dropout rate for the freshman to sophomore year in public four year colleges and universities was 33.3% ( ACT:Newsroom: News Release: National College Dropout and Graduation Rates,1999.http://www.act.org/news/releases/2000/02) .The transition from high school to college is often difficult for many students because of the increased freedom in their personal lives and increased difficulty in their academic lives. Some do not successfully make the transition and others succeed but encounter trying times during the process. Many colleges and universities respond by offering freshman orientation courses, and some have overhauled their academic advising process to spot students at risk ( O’Banion, T. A Learning College For the 21st Century. Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press.1997 ) Not all students take advantage of orientation courses, and not all colleges have focused advising processes. Thus, professors play a pivotal role in early identification of students at risk of failure. Such students can then be advised of cognitive strategies and study skills that foster academic success. The following discussion addresses such strategies and skills and with the identification of students at risk of academic failure.
Identifying Students At Risk of
Failure
Students who are at risk of
academic failure are not often easy to identify at the beginning of the school
year. Freshmen are excited about the new environment and may at first find it
easy to adjust to a typical academic load. By midterm, however, students may
become overwhelmed, and professors should be especially sensitive to early
signs of trouble, such as absenteeism, moodiness, and poor personal hygiene. It
is sometimes hard for professors who interface with a large number of students
to notice warning signs, but some steps can be taken to heighten awareness of
these signs so that early interventions can take place.
Absenteeism is a somewhat obvious first sign
of trouble, and taking roll is important, if time consuming. Simple sign-in sheets or powerbook spread
sheets are some options instructors may use in lieu of calling roll. Professors
may also have several assignments come due before midterm, and absences may be
noted when these are turned in and
handed back.
Absenteeism is only one indicator of potential academic problems. Others include changes in affect and neglect of personal hygiene. Instructors in freshman and sophomore courses should learn to read their students. Non verbal cues are important, and it is important for instructors to establish a “baseline” sense of their students during the first weeks of the term. Gestures, stance and posture, facial expressions, eye contact, vocal intonation, and use of physical space contain messages. Changes in demeanor and hygiene may indicate stress. This is common information; the difficulty for instructors lies in finding ways to get to know students well enough to note body language and changes in demeanor.
During the first weeks of the term, instructors should try to learn students’ names. Students may use an index card to give the instructor some mnemonic pegs , such as a rebus made of their names or a significant fact about themselves. This practice, at the very least, focuses the instructor’s attention on individual students. It also sends a message that the instructor is interested in individual students, thus making it easier for a student to make an initial contact with an instructor when trouble is on the horizon.
Group study sessions are another way for instructors to observe students more closely, and may serve the additional purpose of teaching domain specific cognitive strategies and study skills. Regularly scheduled “ lunch with the professor” in the student center or another informal setting offers another way for students and instructors to know one another. And often, simply asking, “How are things going?” will cause a student to open up and share any personal difficulties or worries which might impact their academic performance.
It is extremely
important to establish routine lines of communication at the beginning of the
term, and to remind students to use these channels whenever questions and
concerns arise. Email and class bulletin boards are effective tools for
communicating among class members as well as between instructor and students.
The class bulletin board also helps the instructor maintain a sense of commonly
shared difficulties. Most colleges and universities will have some campus- wide
software, such as Intrakal or Anlon, which allows an instructor to set up a
class bulletin board with ease.
Typically, there
is little contact between a student’s academic advisor and her or his
instructors, and academic advisors can certainly be a second line of defense
against academic failure. Some colleges, such as the Community College of
Denver, have completely overhauled their advising systems to identify students
at the point of entry who may be at academic risk. These students are then
monitored and assisted in a number of ways designed to address their individual
risk factors. (O’Banion, pp.213-214)
Interventions
While
instructors may not be able to address the many risk factors in their students’ lives, they certainly can
incorporate and model explicit metacognitive strategies and skills in their
classes. They can also assist students in becoming self-conscious learners.
One approach is to ask students to develop a written study strategy for
the first exam. They should describe their particular study conditions and
strategies as well as ways they have found ineffective. They should include a
reasonable target grade and a schedule of days and times they will reserve for
study. These plans may change, and students’ initial estimations of themselves
may prove to be false. But the exercise helps raise awareness of the planful
nature of academic success. Once students have feedback from their first exam,
they can be walked through the exam, noting the kinds of information or
question format which proved to be most difficult. They can then develop a new
study strategy, incorporating any changes.
The explicit teaching of
study skills is important for students at risk. These study skills can be
broken into two broad categories - verbal and quantitative. College students typically have to read
voluminous amounts of difficult material, and they have to master technical and
mathematical information . Both the
degree of difficulty and the quantity of material to be mastered are
significantly greater than at the high school level. Instructors may find it
well worth their time to explain how to read effectively. For example, teaching
how to skim the first sentence in each paragraph as well as chapter subheadings
sets up a general framework of meaning before the student
plunges into reading the whole chapter. Another
approach to reading long assignments is to read the conclusions at the end of
each chapter before reading the chapter in depth. If students can be walked
through this process at least once, they may see how an overview of a chapter
makes the reading more intelligible as they go along. For many students, a long
chapter to be read is an onerous task: they simply plunge in and try to slog
through it.
There is one more step in
previewing a chapter that can be used with certain textbooks. Many texts put
important words in bold print. Glancing at each word in bold print and either
reading the accompanying text, or looking it up in the glossary can give the
reader a notion of what the author felt was the most important terminology to
be gained from the chapter. So when reading a large amount of material for
class, a student can read the first sentence of each paragraph of a chapter,
read the conclusion at the end of the chapter, study the words in bold in the
chapter, then read the text in depth. With this previewing employed as a
strategy, the student will gain more from the reading, and may not have to go
back and review it at a later date.
There
are some additional strategies which
are valuable when studying for technical subjects such as science or math. In a
well-written text the author often refers to any graph, table, or figure before
it appears on the page. A student can save time in reading if he/she first
looks at each graph, figure, and table. The student can be taught how to learn
a great deal of information from these sources in a short period of time. Using
the example of a statistics table, the student should first look at the title
in order to see what is being depicted. Then a short cut is to look for an
asterisk next to any of the numbers. A statistically significant finding is
usually accompanied by an asterisk, and that is the most important result in a
statistics table. Combinations of the
other numbers in the table can be used to recreate the study, but often just
add confusion for those who are struggling in the subject. Many students are
required to take an introductory probability and statistics class but will
never major in those subjects. Simplifying the reading of the tables will
facilitate learning what to some is a foreign language. The students can then
read the accompanying text if further clarification is necessary.
Another
simplification strategy for the study of technical subjects deals with looking
at graphs and histograms before reading the text. The first step is the same as
for reviewing statistics tables – simply read the title. The next step is to
look for any peaks or low points. Graphs are usually used to depict trends from
one extreme to another, so the student should look at each extreme before
worrying about the other lines or bars in the figure. Once the student has read
the title in order to learn what is being compared, and then has looked at the
peaks and valleys, the material should become clear. If the material is still
unclear, the student can then read the text to get a better understanding of
the concept being presented.
Reading
the text is preferred by many, as opposed to looking at tables and graphs. For
these students, mathematical equations are often difficult to decipher even if
explained in detail by the instructor. One method that can enable the students
to better understand this abstract terminology is to make it concrete through
the use of words. The student can write out the equation using the English
language in place of symbols. An easy example is a2 + b2
= c2. This can be translated into “The length of one side of a
triangle times itself, plus the length of the other side of a triangle times
itself, equals the length of the hypotenuse times itself.” This translates what
is to some a foreign language, into the English language. This same process can
be used for every formula regardless of the complexity. Once a student is
capable of translating a formula from symbols into words, that student can
follow the words to complete the calculation.
Science and mathematics have
subject specific languages which may
seem unintelligible to the neophyte student. One strategy that students can use
in order to decipher such material is to circle any words in the text that they
do not understand. There is a good chance that the instructor will be using the
same terminology and the student can ask the definition during or after class.
Students can also circle such words as they take notes in class. These practices call the students’ attention
to what it is they need to find out about. If instructors are teaching subject
matter with a unique or technical vocabulary, some time should be set aside
during each class to answer questions of clarification.
Conclusion
The general term for what has been described in the
previous section is Cognitive Behavior Modification. Many neophyte students
simply do not know how to look at themselves as learners, to think about how
they learn, to set goals, to actively apply strategies, and to monitor
themselves as they advance toward a goal. The degree of self regulation required
at the college level is frequently not what students are used to. Instructors
are in a position to notice when problems are brewing and they can model the
kinds of skills which are necessary for academic success. Strategies can be as
simple as having a student and teacher work a math problem on the board as each
takes a turn verbalizing what the other is doing . And instructors can call
explicit attention to themselves as they model strategies; for example, one can
ask, “ Did you notice what I did when I got stuck on this problem? What do you
say to yourself when you get stuck? “
A valuable, succinct resource for instructors who wish to provide some
metacognitive scaffolding for their students is Self-Talk for Teachers and Students by Brenda Manning and Beverly
Payne ( Allyn & Bacon, 1996). This work, while aimed at elementary and
secondary teachers, contains many generalizable strategies as well as an
excellent research base .
One
third of all freshmen entering four year public colleges and universities will
drop out before the sophomore year. This represents an enormous loss of
resources, both human and economic. It seems that one rational response to this statistic is to suggest ways that
college instructors might better prepare themselves to recognize students at
risk and to foster students’ study skills and metacognitive abilities. The
suggestions given in this paper
imply that instructors must do more
than organize and prepare lectures. They must also address students’ processing
skills.
References
ACT : Newsroom : News
Release : National College Dropout and Graduation Rates, 1999. www.act.org/news/releases/200/02.
Retrieved9/28/02.
O’Banion,T. A Learning
College For the 21st Century. Phoenix, AZ:Oryx Press.
Press.1997.
Manning, B. & Payne, B. Self
– Talk for Teachers and Students. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. 1996.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we all want our
students to be successful, but college poses unique problems to young people
that include freedom, and volumes of new academic material. Instructors and
advisors can help student to achieve by learning to recognize early warning
signs of academic problems, and various strategies for the students to employ
in order to make the new environment of college easier to master. These strategies
include teaching the students to better handle the learning of large amounts of
quantitative and verbal information. With the help of attentive college
faculty, the transition from high school to college can be facilitated and our
young people will be better prepared to achieve success at the college
level.