Tag Archives: student success

Faculty Matter Tip #10: This one is for you – the importance of self-care

By Amy Strage, assistant vice president, Faculty Development

Our lives – as well as those of our students – are complex, and the final weeks of the semester always seem to bring a large number (and great variety) of unexpected and challenging complications and disruptions.  It can be very difficult to keep our many spinning plates  “strategically counterpoised”, a phrase I borrow from our colleague Cindy Baer, Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature. As research on stress and coping suggests, it is much easier to marshal the energy and patience and compassion to arrive at good solutions when we don’t already feel exhausted and tapped out.

Faculty Matter Tip #10 – This one is for you – the importance of self-care

The gist of this week’s tip is fairly simple. Most of us are familiar with the instructions on the laminated card found in airplane seat-back pockets: Put your own oxygen mask on first, and then help others around you with theirs.  As we approach the Thanksgiving Break and then the final push of the semester, we encourage you to tend to your own needs – for sleep, for exercise, for nutritious food, for calm, for uplifting and affirming human contact, for spiritual renewal, for opportunities to connect with what matters most to you, for time to catch your breath.

SJSU has an institutional membership to the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity.  This entitles all faculty to free access to a number of resources focused on self-care and work-life balance. Our own Center for Faculty Development also offers sessions on these and related topics. Coming up later this month: Self-care and time-management strategies for the end of the semester and beyond, Monday, Nov. 28, from noon to 1 p.m., and Tuesday, Nov. 29, from 3 to 4 p.m., in IRC 210.

Note:  Below, please find pasted a section of an earlier Faculty Matter post, to remind you of the many resources our students can draw upon as they gear up for the next few weeks:

Peer Connections provides one on one appointments for peer mentoring and tutoring. They also offer several workshops a month on academic success skills. The Writing Center offers one on one tutoring for writing, online resources, and workshops. The Communications Center has drop-in and one on one appointments for oral and written communication. There are also numerous tutoring centers in the departments and colleges listed on the Tutoring Hub.

Educational Counseling provides one on one appointments, workshops, and online resources for academic success. The library has technology workshops. In addition, the library offers resources to support students in research, including details online to help the student define the type of resources and help they need and how to connect with a librarian. The library also has laptop and I-pad rentals, meeting rooms that can be reserved for teamwork or collaboration, and online resources on referencing and literature reviews and tutorials on plagiarism. The Spartan Success Portal has a range of online, academic success modules.

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College of Science Releases “The Scientist” Newsletter

Biological sciences majors Bianca Opara, left, and Dania Abid share their findings at the College of Science Student Research Day.

Biological sciences majors Bianca Opara, left, and Dania Abid share their findings at the College of Science Student Research Day.

The College of Science released the 2016 edition of its “The Scientist – Science in Our World and Beyond” newsletter. The newsletter includes articles on student, faculty and staff activities in each of its departments as well as news about research grants, faculty awards and progress on a new interdisciplinary science building.

Read the full newsletter online: The Scientist 2016 (PDF)

Faculty Matter Tip #8: What to do when students do poorly on your midterm

At this point in the semester, your students have probably taken midterms designed to gauge their mastery of course contents thus far. For some of you, the results may be somewhat surprising, and even disconcerting.  In our last FacultyMatter Tip, we pointed out a number of resources on campus that your students (and you) might turn to for additional academic support. In this week’s missive, we take a slightly different tack:

Faculty Matter Tip #8 – What to do when students do poorly on your midterm

What if the problem is that, despite your best intentions, YOU misestimated the difficulty of the exam, and a very large proportion of your students did poorly?  How can you keep students from becoming discouraged, from giving up, and from disengaging?  How can you help them get back on track?

Research linking students’ motivation, the effort they are willing to put into studying, and their success points to the importance of their sense of efficacy – that is their sense of control over their academic fate.

  • When students feel that they know what it would take to do well, they are far more willing to try hard than when they feel it is all a mystery and a matter of luck.  
  • When they can’t figure out a “formula for success’, they are much more likely to get discouraged and disengage.  Then they – and you – can get caught in a vicious circle.

Assuming your students did not do as well as they (or you) had hoped or expected, what can YOU do to help them (re)gain a sense of control in your class?

Begin by trying to figure out what went wrong:

  1. Might you have missed cues prior to the test that students were not “getting it”, that their command of the material was too weak and ephemeral, and that they needed more time learning the material before they could effectively prepare to be tested on it?
  2. Was your guidance about what and how to study clear and accurate?
  3. Did you underestimate how much time it would take a reasonably well-prepared student to complete the test?

Pros and cons of different solutions:

If you think the answer to (1) above might be “yes”, consider revising your course timeline a bit, and spending some time re-teaching the materials they seem to have not “gotten.”  If students’ ability to succeed with up-coming material depends on their mastery of material from earlier in the course, it is important to allow time to help students understand and learn what they clearly hadn’t fully grasped by the time of the test they took.  It may be worth “sacrificing a day” to make sure students have a firmer grasp of the material and to make sure you are not going to expect them to build upon a shaky foundation.

If you think the answer to (2) or (3) above might be “no”, consider spending some class time clarifying expectations and then offering some version of a “re-do” of the midterm. This will give students the chance to show you – as well as themselves – what they are capable of learning and producing when they are truly prepared.

Many common “solutions” (such as simply adjusting the test grading scale, or providing opportunities for extra credit unrelated to the material students were tested on, or permitting students to throw out their lowest test grade) may provide some relief (in the form of more points and better grades), but they do not provide opportunities for students to revisit and ultimately master the material in question, and so they do not result in students developing a sense of efficacy in the class.

We are happy to organize conversations around this topic – please let us know if this sounds like something that would be of interest to you.

Please add your own strategies using the comment link below.

Campus Community Invited to CSU Teaching and Learning Symposium

San Jose State University is hosting the 2016 California State University (CSU) Teaching and Learning Symposium, Oct. 21 and 22. Faculty, students and staff are invited to attend. The theme this year is “Promoting Student Success Through Innovation, Creativity, Diversity and Teamwork.”

Registration for the conference is $50. The Office of Diversity, Inclusiveness and Equity has offered to cover the cost of attendance for the first 30  community members who respond to the Center of Faculty Development invitation to register. Call or email Gina Marin at gina.marin@sjsu.edu or call 408-924-2303 for more information.

Conference registration is available online and the $50 fee includes:

  • Hands-on workshops, pre-conference sessions and a welcome reception, on Friday, Oct. 21, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
  • A keynote address by Kathryn Plank, Otterbein University, as well as dozens of symposia, paper sessions, posters and lightning talks, on Saturday, Oct. 22, from 8 am. To 4:30 p.m.
  • Meals and refreshments both days.

The conference is open to participants from all 23 CSU campuses. Attendees will have a chance to talk with colleagues from throughout the CSU as well as other higher education institutions. Visit the conference website for more information or contact Gina Marin with questions (gina.marin@sjsu.edu or 408-924-2303).

 

September 2016 Newsletter: Faculty Find Themselves at Home in Residence Halls

Photo by David Schmitz Faculty members Wilson Yuan, far left, Carolyn Glogoski, center right, and Cristina Tortora, far right, pose for a photo with a student on Move-In Day in August. They are part of the Faculty-In-Residence program this year.

Photo by David Schmitz
Faculty members Wilson Yuan, far left, Carolyn Glogoski, center right, and Cristina Tortora, far right, pose for a photo with a student on Move-In Day in August. They are part of the Faculty-In-Residence program this year.

When some San Jose State students arrived with family and friends for Move-In Day on Aug. 20 and 21, they learned their next door neighbor in the residence hall might not be a new student, but a faculty member.

A collaboration between Academic Affairs and Student Affairs, the new Faculty-In-Residence program launched this fall with nine faculty members who will live in the halls, eat meals with students and plan activities to help them acclimate to university life. The program is one of many initiatives in SJSU’s Four Pillars of Student Success plan that is focused on improving student engagement and advising. The faculty members, who are provided with housing to forge connections with students outside the classroom, will be planning activities and working with students about 10 hours a week.

Carolyn Glogoski, an associate professor in the College of Applied Sciences and Arts Occupational Therapy department, said she was looking forward to connecting with first-year students through the program. A 27-year veteran at SJSU, she said she was a first-generation student from a working class background which allows her to relate to many SJSU students.

“Transitions are so difficult so we want to look to see if we can develop connections that will help them to seek support,” she said. “Professors can seem intimidating and students have to do more on their own in college. It’s so very different from high school.”

As part of the pilot program, the faculty members will be working closely with housing staff, specifically resident advisors and residential life coordinators, to develop activities throughout the semester to engage students.

Cristina Tortora, a new faculty member in the College of Science Mathematics and Statistics department, said she had already connected with some students who were interested in starting a running club.

“I enjoy living at the university,” she said. “I am new as well so I will get to know the students and the campus.”

She was especially interested in connecting with international students as she herself comes from Europe by way of Canada.

“If they have an issue, I hope they will be comfortable coming to me,” she said.

Steven Del Chiaro, a lecturer in the College of Social Sciences Psychology department, said his career in higher education started in housing and the Faculty-In-Residence program will allow him to have one foot in Student Affairs while still teaching.

His area of focus in psychology is student development and career development.

“The stereotype of faculty is that they are unapproachable and they should be revered,” he said. “We can help to put more of a human face on the faculty, get students more engaged in class and help students find their own strengths.”

The team of Faculty-In-Residence sent surveys to students to see what types of activities they most want to see with a goal of creating a mix of social, educational and recreational programming. The faculty members also plan to develop assessment tools to determine which activities are most successful during the pilot year so the program can be improved next year.

“The biggest challenge will be having students get used to having a faculty member around,” Del Chiaro said.

Both Glogoski and Del Chiaro have the ultimate ice breaker – they both have a dog living with them in the residence halls that draws the attention of the students. Glogoski’s yellow Labrador Cammie is a trained service dog while Del Chiaro’s Boerboel/Ridgeback mix Chiana is a therapy dog, both whom occasionally visit classes with their owners as a teaching tool.

“During Welcome Day while students were moving in, they were so excited that Cammie would be in the dorms with them,” Glogoski said. “And parents were pleasantly surprised that we (faculty) would be in the dorms, too.”

Photo by David Schmitz Faculty members Wilson Yuan, far left, Carolyn Glogoski, center right, and Cristina Tortora, far right, pose for a photo with a student on Move-In Day in August. They are part of the Faculty-In-Residence program this year.

Photo by David Schmitz
Faculty members Wilson Yuan, far left, Carolyn Glogoski, center right, and Cristina Tortora, far right, pose for a photo with a student on Move-In Day in August. They are part of the Faculty-In-Residence program this year.