Danger, Will Robinson!!

In a June 27th article in the Huffington Post by Lori Day, Why Boys Are Failing in an Educational System Stacked Against Them, Day joins calls to attend to the concerning trends regarding males in the US educational system.  She notes statistics from "experts", one of which is, Michael Gurian, that boys get worse grades, dominate the disciplinary incidents, are remarkably more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD, and more.  Michael Gurian has published numerous position articles and books where he takes research on gender differences related to learning, and brain development and advocates specific parenting and teaching methods based on his interpretation of the research; however, a cursory search turned up no empirical studies on the parenting and teaching methods he promotes.  This doesn't mean Gurian should be disregarded, but it does throw up a cautionary flag.

Day also cites Richard Whitmore claiming that our educational system now forces earlier literacy development, and that boys develop literacy later than girls.  However, that is not a consensus among educational researchers.  To date, there is mixed evidence regarding gender difference in language development; some evidence suggests girls have a slight advantage, accounting for a very small 3% of the variance (Galworthy, et al., 2000), and other research shows no difference at all.  Richard Whitmore has also written a number of works based on government statistics and such, and advocates for specific gender based education.  Again, though, a cursory search found no empirical studies to support Whitmore's recommendations.

Day also comments that boys have certain gender-based learning styles and that education should compliment those styles.  She is careful not to advocate for radical changes, but she does advocate for greater understanding and focus on the needs of boys.  This is a valid concern, however her claim that boys have particular learning styles is not.  There is no empirical evidence to support claims that people have different learning styles.  Students have certainly developed different skills in different contexts, but teaching to specific learning styles does not consistently improve grades according to empirical research.  There could be something there that accounts for the variance in performance, and maybe we are having difficulty identifying it from within our cultural and scientific lenses, but it doesn't appear to be learning styles per se.

Day then compares her own experiences as a parent of a daughter but a sister growing up with two brothers, and she does this quite humorously.  She notes the behavioral tendencies of boys to engage large areas of space in their play and compared that to girls taking less (in general).  She notes evolutionary psychology premises that this is due to male brains being wired for "hunting", which is premised on the fact that male brains show slightly more cortex devoted to spatial reasoning than females.  It's easy to explain things in this way, because our interpretations are culturally bound and tend to support cultural notions already in place, and this is a noted criticism of evolutionary-based conclusions.  

I comment on this  because there is clearly something going on in terms of males performance and retention in the educational system, and I concur with Day that we definitely need to address it, but it doesn't do much good to hype methods, exemplars, and facts that are not supported by research.  Indeed, that can do more harm than good.

Engaging the amygdala...

In a June 20th Chronicle of Higher Education article, Eric Hoover discusses the college admissions process in light of the fact that traditional age college applicants do not yet have fully matured pre-frontal cortex and do have highly active amygdala.

The amygdala is central to memory and processing emotional reactions; hence why emotional moments and subjects tend to be remembered more easily. It my also help explain why we have a hard time objectively considering ideas that elicit an emotional response from us or why adolescents are difficult to argue with. With a highly active amygdala, adolescents are likely to process information through their emotions, or at least attend to the emotional aspects of that information, more so than the details. Due to it's role in memory, it may make it harder for adults to transfer (encode) information that is processed as emotionally incongruous into Long Term Memory. There is also the fact that emotional responses tend to inhibit reasoning, planning, and logic, all functions of the pre-frontal cortex. In this way, the pre-frontal cortex provides mechanisms to manage emotions and impulses, although this a fairly large oversimplification.

The pre-frontal cortex is the "control and command" center of the brain, and without it at full capacity, traditional age college students experience greater difficulty with higher order functions, particularly those that require extensive and intensive concentration, metacogition, etc. when there is little emotional interest in the subject. This is where we gain our objectivity and a greater ability to process separately emotions and information.

Hoover talks about how the admissions process is overwhelming to many traditional age college students because of the higher order functions required of the many different forms, deadlines, essays, etc. in light of the emotions experienced in terms of "getting accepted" and "getting accepted to _________", etc. In essence he encourages adults and admissions counselors to help traditional age applicants chill out, reduce their emotional intensity, and develop scaffolding systems to help cope with the higher function demands, such as creating realistic plans to complete applications on time.

This is more important than that, though. The fact that traditional age college students are still developing their pre-frontal cortex has great implications for all areas of the college. Traditional aged students, in this context, have difficulty with complex systems, procedures, etc. Desk workers often seem to get confused about forms that make complete sense to us. The Resident Assistants can have greater difficulty enforcing policies that have emotional meaning to them, i.e. alcohol, drugs, visitation, etc. Faculty members may give assignments that involve content that is rather esoteric and emotionally irrelevant to students and feel disappointed at the lack of enthusiasm or effort given to the assignment. Students may not be self-aware enough or able to reason effectively enough amidst all the emotions to consider seeing a counselor or an adult for help.

In terms of behavior, student's risk taking and their desire for emotionally intense experiences often trumps their reasoning and impulse control. This impacts areas of Student Conduct, Residential Life, and faculty, who often deal with the indirect consequences of this area of student behavior. Increasingly, though, faculty are directly dealing with inappropriate student behavior in the classrooms. The science tells us our approaches should first engage the amygdala, and work with them on the emotional level. We should simultaneously provide mechanisms or experiences that support, but not exclusively rely on, the development and exercise of the pre-frontal cortex. We have become so accustomed to our own ability to reason and manage emotions, that we take it for granted. We frequently talk about students just not "getting it" referring to that cognitive gap that we sense when students reject or simply don't understand the salience of the reasoning behind our rules, expectations, decisions, etc.

Given the science, we may be the ones not getting it. If we take for granted that traditional age college students will relate to information and experiences in ways similar that we do, then that gap may be more about us not understanding them.

"Reverse Transfer?".......Huh?

In a June 19th article by Donna Ekal and Paula Krebs in The Chronicle of Higher Education (article), Ekal and Krebs describe efforts at their respective institutions to account for students who successfully transfer from community colleges (without having earned an AA degree) to 4-year institutions. Within current guidelines, those students are not counted as successes and ultimately lower perceived rates of retention and success.

While I had to do a double-take when I read Reverse Transfer, reading it a little too literally, I am intrigued by the idea. The author's institutions track those transfers and award AA degrees once they have completed course requirements (of the AA degree) at the 4-year institution. The authors contend this is the "ultimate win-win solution." The community college's data on successful matriculation is made more accurate and the students get their AA degree to boot. The authors also say it is a win for the 4-year institution in that the self-esteem of the transfer student is increased by getting the post-transfer AA degree. I'm not sure if there's data to back that up or if it is just a reasoned speculation, but it would be interesting to know.

I say that out of more than just curiosity. If receiving an AA degree boosts esteem, then it could be a useful strategy to increase retention at 4-year institutions. They could designate a point within a major curriculum or completion of Gen Ed requirements (or something similar) where they award the student an AA degree or some similar type of recognition of their achievement. This may very well challenge some sentiments related to feelings of "hand-holding," "coddling," etc. and in some cases, this could be true. However, I believe it is clear that the reality of increasingly diverse student populations and range of preparedness, dwindling state funds, and other issues, requires us to adopt more facilitative approaches to higher education, where the onus is on faculty and administration to facilitate success as compared to the more traditional approach where students are expected to sink or swim.

Considering joining the Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership (MSL)?

(this is s a draft of an article for ACPA's Commission on Assessment and Evaluation's June newsletter.)

Founded at the University of Maryland, the MSL came about to help (a) enable educators to enhance their leadership development initiatives, and (b) provide benchmarking data to help improve practice. It is administered on multiple campuses and identifies environmental features that contribute most to leadership outcomes.

The principal investigators are Dr. John P. Dugan (Loyola University Chicago), Dr. Susan R. Komives (University of Maryland), and Dr. Julie E. Owen (New Century College at George Mason University), and in the 2006 administration, over 60,000 respondents participated from 52 institutions, making it one of the largest studies of college student leadership.

The MSL uses the revised Socially Responsible Leadership Scale (SRLS-R2), based on the Social Change Model of Leadership (SCML), and featuring 8 core values:



This model of leadership is based in a context of facilitating social change; thus the scale may not measure all aspects of leadership across the varied contexts in which leadership takes place. Nonetheless, MSL staff report that many campuses that do not use the SCML still found the results useful.

The reliability and construct validity of the SRLS-R2 instrument, based on the MSL 2006 administration, is adequate, with Cronbach's Alpha values ranging from .77 to .83 for individual scales; however a comprehensive understanding of the instrument’s validity is difficult without other measures of validity (i.e. concurrent, predictive, convergent, etc.). This is more or less important depending on the inferences drawn from the data; nonetheless, the MSL is still a useful instrument as the 2006 results show.

Different schools have used the SRLS and MSL in different ways. Trinity College used the SRLS to evaluate the effectiveness of a single program, measuring pre-post scores of all 11 participants, and showing changes in mean with no comparison to other groups.

Drake University used the MSL to evaluate the overall effectiveness of their leadership development efforts, reporting statistics comparing first year, junior and senior students groups, regardless of involvement in leadership programs. Clear and significant differences between class cohorts were found resulting from either their involvement or simple maturation.

An exemplary model is UC Berkley’s approach, using MSL data to compare pre-post scores related to individual programs with overall campus averages, thus providing a reference point with which to interpret the program’s impact. They also engaged a deep qualitative analysis of related artifacts (reflection papers, portfolios, etc.), and they were able to (with IRB approval) match individual MSL data with internal assessments. This resulted in a tremendously rich and deep understanding of the impact of their programs.

The 2012 MSL includes several new features:

• New "MSL Insight Reports": User-friendly, strategically targeted reports designed to facilitate the translation of MSL results to practice on individual campuses.
• Direct communication between MSL Researchers and participant calls to help interpret results.
• The survey has been shortened and refined to improve reliability and validity of measures.

For more information on the MSL, SRLS, or the Social Change Model of Leadership, visit the following websites:

MSL - http://www.leadershipstudy.net/
SRLS - http://www.srlsonline.org/

Reflective Engagement Model

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For a while now a growing number of folks have held that traditional RA programming was missing the boat in terms of facilitating actual learning. Even the best of programs often more about providing information and exposure than processing, developing meaning, and integrating new knowledge with their established knowledge, etc.

A few years ago the Res Life staff at U. Delaware began an ambitious program where they mandated residents attend both 1 on 1 interviews with resident assistants and large scale programs that were directly rooted in value-laden learning outcomes, related to privilege, oppression, critical thinking, advocacy and more. Professional staff developed highly sophisticated Learning outcomes, learning goals and pedagogical strategies for each hall and developed delivery materials, all approved by faculty, which the RA staff were required to both implement exactly as structured and score their residents according to a specific rubric evaluating residents’ developmental level.

They ran into difficulty, mainly because they adopted a highly prescriptive, highly academic, and value-based expectation upon students in a social setting where it was not expected or accepted. They broke the rules. Residence halls exist within a social framework that permits such things in classrooms, but not in residential areas.

While their approach may have been too prescriptive on a number of levels, they did make sound arguments around 5 fallacies of traditional RA programming:

· Fallacy #1: Programming is educational. We use educational very loosely and can rarely answer clearly about the specific knowledge, skills, understandings, etc. that we want students to learn from any given program.

· Fallacy #2: Residential education is best designed by Resident Assistants. Based on Astin, but misinterpreted…peers have greatest influence, but doesn’t mean they are always the most qualified to exert that influence. Hence why we spend such great effort and value on role modeling.

· Fallacy #3: Programming should be based on the students’ interests. Do students know what they do not know? If yes, would you allow students to choose what courses need to be taught for their degree?

· Fallacy #4: Programming is the most effective means of delivering education in the residence halls. When you assess programming based on content learned and not attendance statistics, fallacy #4 is apparent; when you consider all the factors inherent in learning like motivation, attention, prior knowledge, dual-coding, seductive details, social context, emotion, metacognition, memory processes, etc. it is obvious that typical RA programming remarkably ineffective and ill designed.)

· Fallacy #5: High program frequency and high program attendance equals success. (small percentage, same over again)

This leaves us with the question, how can we better facilitate learning with each resident?

There are many theories involved in learning, but the most central of all is how students construct knowledge, or what meaning they construct as they integrate their knowledge, experiences, values, beliefs, etc. This involves questioning, reflection, perspective taking and acting, and is a significant factor in identity development (something rarely addressed in our Identity Development models). What we need a cutting edge, learning centered approach that engages every resident at multiple points in their residential experience in activities that facilitate their ability to develop and integrate meaningful concepts regarding the multiple relationships, roles, and responsibilities in their life.

The goal of the Reflective Engagement Model of programming is to do just this by re-applying the value of Astin’s finding that peers exert the greatest influence on peers but within a context that is both more congruent with how learning occurs (i.e. Schema theory, Zone of Proximal Development, etc.) and with what is socially acceptable (i.e. living and learning vs. teaching and lecture) in the residence halls. It is also based on the perception that students today are arguably more expecting of and responsive to individualized attention.

The Reflective Engagement Model is tailored to specific department and institutional learning outcomes. In this case it is designed in terms of the UNLV Housing and Residential Life mission of developing self-directed individuals and learning outcomes of the UNLV Co-curricular Agenda and the General Education Outcomes of UNLV.

The following learning outcomes are designed facilitate the achievement of the “self-directed individual”, which is the developmental essence of the UNLV Housing and Residential Life mission statement. These outcomes are grounded in the theory and models surrounding schema, zone of proximal development, self-authorship (as well as others) and adapted from the Co-curricular Agenda and UNLV’s Student Expectations (general education outcomes).

· Problem Solving - Every student will identify, reflect on and analyze a problem/source of conflict from different perspectives, question their role in it, develop possible solutions and take action to resolve it.

· Self Reflection and Cognitive Integration - Every student will reflect on and integrate their experiences, values, beliefs, strengths, weaknesses, and their personal perspectives and style, and articulate themselves in terms of a unique, evolving and self directed cultural being.

· Goal Setting - Every student will identify and commit to personal goals in the areas of (a) academics, emphasizing academic skills and career exploration and development, (b) Community Involvement and Leadership, (c) Personal Wellness, and (d) Time Management

· Interpersonal Relationships - Every student will reflect on their successful and unsuccessful personal relationships with Friends Faculty and Staff, and Parents and Family, and identify aspects that make those relationships meaningful, including what they learn from and appreciate in others and what they themselves bring to their relationships.

· Multicultural Perspective Taking - Every resident will explore different perspectives on local, national, and global issues and reflect on their interrelatedness and explore issues of leadership, civic engagement, as well as environmental and social justice ethics, etc. related to them.

They are worded in terms of behaviors because it is easier to measure and we presently have no mechanisms to measure individual resident’s actual learning. But these behaviors could be triangulated with other assessments to give a very useful picture. It can even be used to implement an early warning/intervention system.

Based on these outcomes, instead of current programming requirements, RA’s conduct reflective interviews, designed and scripted by professional staff to address specific learning outcomes, with each of their residents once per month. These interviews are designed lead students to (a) reflect on concrete experiences and current student knowledge, (b) engage students in higher cognitive analysis of the experience, (c) integrate those experiences with their sense of self, (d) connect with departmental and campus resources and personnel, (e) set goals for future experiences, and (f) establish stronger more intimate relationships with student staff and other residents. These interviews are structured around a timeline that corresponds with typical student experiences throughout the year, such as academic and personal goal setting at the beginning of the semester, and problem solving during their second month, etc.

· Aug-Sept. - Self appraisal and goal setting

· Oct. - Problem solving – approach and step by step model

· Nov. - Meaningful relationships

· Dec. - Goal review and evaluation

· Jan-Feb – Self appraisal and Goal setting

· March - Current issue – multicultural perspectives

· April-May – Goal review and evaluation (a bit more in depth – end of year)

So far we have seen exceptional results, including:

· Greatly enhanced relationships with RA’s and residents – supported by EBIs, Floor Surveys, retention, etc.

· Greatly enhanced value for RA’s due to deeper intimacy and connection with residents (and in my perspective, a noticable increase in developmental growth of RA’s compared to traditional model)

· Increased student involvement – not in the sense of leadership positions per se. but involvement in more interactions with others

· Decreased behavioral issues

· Rising GPA, rate of increase seems to be outpacing rise in Overall housing and other theme floors.

· No meaningful decrease in perception of the number of programs and activities available to them

It surprises me, though, how steadfastly staff and faculty within our field cling to the traditional models of RA programming despite the current research on learning and cognition and even the research on residential programming that shows it is ineffective. Despite proclamations otherwise, too many professionals and faculty in student affairs are not experts in student learning, and until we are, we will never be able to fully realize our potential and our responsibility to truly facilitate student learning.

The age old fear of aging...

"Why some teens behave recklessly"

I haven't looked at the actual study yet, but I think this is interesting.

One aspect that the article doesn't say they looked at or not, is what percentage of teens act recklessly (however they defined it)? If it is more than 15%, which I think it would be in order for the generalization that teens are reckless to come to be, then it begs the question why do the other population of teens act recklessly?

I wonder because I certainly did act reckless, but never was pessimistic about my likely lifespan. I could say, though, that I didn't want to grow old and feared it. Perhaps that is not particularly teased out in this study...

Or perhaps we built up the generalization based on 15%, which would be a sad statement for us. :-)

To those struggling in Iran:

I hope you find strength in the weakness of others, courage in their fear.
That is the birth of bravery.
I hope you find voice in the thunder of others, a calling only you can hear.
That is the difference that makes us one.
I hope you find girding in the compassion, respect and dignity offered to you by strangers;
Such is the measure of humanity.
I hope you find the warmth of liberty after this eclipse, alchemy of light from dark.
That is the course of freedom.