SLLO Reflections: What’s the Big Idea?

As the director of Student Life Studies, I have a unique perspective on student learning. I see the departments, advisors, and students coming to our office for student learning assessment help. They want to improve their programs to meet the needs of today’s students. I also see what’s happening on the institution level: Accreditors want to know what students are learning in their college career.

For many years, staff in student affairs were not really plugged into student learning assessment. They were focused on student services and student development, both of which are necessities on college campuses. In recent years, though, there has been a shift in higher education that demands we also focus on what students are learning. It’s not always just about putting on a great program or providing a needed service; it’s about what students are learning from those activities. In addition, it can be about what the student leaders are learning from being in charge of those programs and events. We know students are learning; we need to be able to show the learning.

Universities are being asked to provide evidence and documentation that students are, in fact, learning something, not just in their classes, but also in the rest of their experiences. Obviously, students should learn their discipline, but they should also be able to communicate effectively, work well with others, and make good decisions. Faculty may have an easier time assessing learning, particularly as it relates to discipline knowledge. They are seeing students for an extended period of time, require some sort of artifact (test, papers, projects), and provide feedback along the way for students to improve performance. Depending on the situation, faculty may incorporate communication opportunities (written paper, oral presentation), group projects, and ethical dilemma case studies in the courses. I like to think that students then have the ability to transfer that information to different settings and improve over time. Student affairs staff can also develop these skills in students, beyond the confines of the classroom walls.

So, what is the Big Idea? The big idea is that learning takes place in all kinds of settings, all the time, and in all kinds of ways, and we need to make it our focus and reason for being. The future of our country (and the world) depends on it. In We’re Losing Our Minds: Rethinking American Higher Education, Keeling and Hersh argue that America is being held back by the quality and quantity of learning in college. Graduates can’t communicate, solve problems, comprehend complex issues, accept responsibility, understand others’ perspectives, or meet employer expectations (p. 1). There is a crisis in student learning (“there is not enough higher learning in high education” [p. viii]) that we need to acknowledge and address in new ways. In brief, some of their principles include:

•          Higher learning requires the collective effort of the entire faculty and staff. We need to agree on ends (outcomes) and means (rigorous thinking, writing, reading, ethical behavior, etc.).
•          Higher learning occurs horizontally, across experiences in and out of the classroom, as well as vertically within major and disciplines, and in ways that are necessarily cumulative. Higher learning is synergistic and requires integrated design.
•          Assessment is an intentional process of helping students learn, including how to seek, use, and internalize assessment processes and results.
•          All learning—intellectual, developmental, social, and emotional—happens through changes in the brain. There is guidance about developing pedagogies to help students learn more effectively.
•          The individual learner matters in the learning. Students’ readiness is a complex construct that influences persistence, achievement, learning, and success.
•          Students’ individual levels of engagement and investment in their college education are also fundamental factors that affect achievement, persistence, and success. (pp. 21-22)

All of us should be concerned with the value (rather than just cost) of higher education and how to improve the learning among college students of today. Student affairs professionals have a significant role in preparing students to be the thinkers, learners, and leaders of tomorrow. It is a big idea that requires new thinking and engagement, right here, right now.

- Darby Roberts

When the Learning Clicks

There are times in our student affairs careers where our outlook on life and student learning are positive and full of hope. Then there are times like Justin mentioned earlier this month, when students just don’t get why tracking and documenting their learning is so important. But when the “ah-ha” moments do come, they come in such an awesome way it deserves a poem.

 

The hustle and bustle of each day can sometimes cause students to forget

How they learn, how they grow, what makes them tick

But life provides several moments of awe, where their brain wipes off the dust

And they open their minds to the world around them

 

With no bright lights or crowds of cheerleaders students step cautiously into the unknown

And they begin the dance of trial and error as they navigate challenges they face along their journey

And they dance and dance until it all makes sense

This is when the learning clicks

 

-Tracie Lowe

“waHeat” Thins to the Karate Kid: When Students Don’t Get It

“waHeat” Thins. An interesting comic relief between Baby Stewie and the dog Brian, from the Fox show, Family Guy for the troubles we see when two people do not see eye to eye on pronunciation.

However, it is easy to see the analogies we can come up with for our students

Many times as student affairs professionals we have close contact with students whether in 1:1 situations, general meetings, or exec team meetings. We tend to have these moments when students don’t get it. That “it” is sometimes defined as the big picture or the purpose, programming activities
,of a student organization, or the intent verses the impact in an opinion or belief in leading the team or student organization effectively. Sometimes no matter how hard we try, when working with SLLO, there are times we find our students not getting the concepts or how SLLO can be beneficial.

I think back to my undergraduate years when I was a resident advisor and one of my duties was being the secondary advisor to my hall council. It was tough trying to run a meeting and or trying to let the Hall President know how to effectively delegate tasks and put on hall/campus programming. For me it was a lot of trial and error that gave me the experience on how to talk with the exec team to assist (coax them) to get things done.  I also found myself not realizing what I was getting out of this position/collateral assignment that was given by my Hall Director. I more so saw this as busy work.

However, during this time, I would have meetings with my Hall Director giving her updates on what was going on with the Hall Council and also myself
,being the secondary advisor in conjunction with being a Resident Advisor/student. My Hall Director would continue to tell me that I should try this and that and be more intentional with tips and strategies to better impact my students and get more out this position. However, I found myself sticking to my own ideas, beliefs, and realizing that I could handle this. I began to give myself pressure not to fail. And fail we did, but winning happened as well near the end of the year.

In hindsight, I know I could’ve started off winning if some of the resources that SLLO offers now in terms of the rubrics were available to me back then. So now being someone in the field with experience and knowledge that believes that the SLLO rubrics do work, I find my old undergraduate self in these students. I can not tell you how many disagreements I have been in on where the “WaHeat Thins” commercial was a real life example of getting students to understand that their experiences and interpretations are important. However, the lesson that needs to be learned is that going your own way sometimes can set you up for a hard fail. Yet, when we use the SLLO rubrics in developing our student leaders, the student and the advisor can track their development and the see the “Ah-Ha!” moments come through loud and clear.

That “Ah-Ha” moment reminds me of the original “Karate Lessons” from Mr. Miyagi. Need a refresher, check this out.

It was interesting to see how frustrated Mr. Miyagi got when trying to teach Daniel that the most remedial tasks have a plan and purpose in the scheme of things. How many times do we lose our patience when teaching students that there is a purpose? Only if we had more obedient Daniels in real life where they didn’t get confused, or blow up and get frustrated to see what the purpose of the SLLO rubrics is. Documenting their progress; giving examples of how they completed the rubrics in SLLO is purposeful and can be eye opening. As we’ve talked about before when discussing SLLO, learning is not a sprint and students are not going to immediately get the reasoning behind doing the rubrics. But if you can help students persevere like Mr. Miyagi did with Daniel; that revelation can come at the end. And that end is when all of the activities, documenting, and or conversations you have done with your student leaders comes together in one fluid form allowing them to know Karate or in our case, know leadership and life skills.

- Justin Varghese