Hi! Please write at least one paragraph in response to the article on writing interventions you read by Yeager and Walton here. You can simply put it in the comments below, but make sure to clearly write your full name at the beginning of the response– we need this for our bookkeeping!
Your response can be to whatever strikes you. Do you have questions? Are you excited? Why? Are you skeptical? Why?
Adin Dobkin:
This semester, I came into the classroom with a decent understanding of how I liked to conduct relations with students, something I figured out while in graduate school for creative writing, where the manner in which one gives feedback needs to (or at least should be) carefully adjusted in order to make one’s point in a digestible way that remains positive. In working with the model course, and in seeing students’ issues this semester, I’ve better realized that the manner of these relations isn’t always enough to encourage receptivity in a writing classroom. For instance, I noticed how students write with a level of specificity I often don’t otherwise encounter with them when talking about their problems in school, which speaks to the value of these interventions even as writing exercises on their own. However, something I have continued to struggle with (and I realize this is a far larger problem than my classroom, or even City Tech or CUNY) is how to balance the role of the 1101 classroom as a de facto universal filter for the student population, as well as how to best balance questions of teaching “stunting” with teaching composition itself, whose curriculum already already needs to be expanded on an ad hoc basis to accommodate students’ hit-or-miss expertise on particular topics (for instance, grammar).
Thanks, Adin. I have to admit that I’m not sure what you mean by “teaching stunting,” which is the most middle-aged sentence I’ve ever written (I do know the word, just don’t understand how you’re using it here.)
The amount of work comp has to do as a class is (and has always been) an issue. Believe me, we’re trying to do some work with other departments to share that load. It’s also just… hard. We have to make some hard decisions about what to teach– and it’s also why the course goes on for two semesters. That said, the UVI is very particularly set up to help students see the importance of Comp and to help their retention in Comp courses, so I think it will benefit us, as you mention, on a Comp-specific level. I’m wondering what you thought of the article?
Carrie – you made me laugh with your comment about “teaching stunting” because Adin – I also do not understand your meaning in this context. I also had to adjust my ideas about what to cover in the classroom with the needs of the particular student population in my ENG1101co class. I worked with the math “Jump Start” pilot program, and it was a very different cohort of students than I had expected. I asked to work with that program again as my students taught me (and the math people) so much about their needs. I have such a clearer idea of what to do next semester, and this UVI program will definitely help.
Whoops! I only just now recognized the autocorrect—studenting!
Whoops—I just noticed this autocorrect. Studenting, not stunting!
Carolyn McGown
(a mix of summarizing and my thoughts)
Some small interventions can have lasting positive impact
They’re not magic, just simple
The abstract outlined several studies in which students were treated/taught aspects of values, changing brain/mind capability, growth over time, shared experiences of struggling at first. Each of these studies resulted in students doing markedly better compared to control groups.
As a former grade-school teacher (in an urban setting Title 1 school), I found that interventions like these are not popular. Schools and districts want “big” things, with big names; schools and districts seem attracted to expensive, complex programs. Things that are simple (and logical) don’t often get any footing. I saw – firsthand – how working on the way kids see themselves, see learning, see growth, etc had a huge impact on how hard they tried and on how well they did.
Attributions – the person either can or cannot do a thing; ability/etc is fixed.
> Instead: Difficulty at first is normal during transitions; Performance improves over time; Mental capacity is malleable
Stereotype threat – the person is not expected to do well bc of their race/etc; worry about fitting in (+ being one of very few)
> Practice: Self-affirmation theory; Writing about one’s own values
Best to keep interventions short. Mixing targets has additive benefits – so social-belonging exercises WITH self-affirmational exercises.
Scaling up successful interventions is often problematic. Once they become big and formulaic, they seem to lose effectiveness (possibly because the instructor is following a mandated sheet rather than thinking through the rationale and personalizing the strategy).
Having taught my first term of 1101Co, I would LOVE to try one of these strategies. I came up against so many disparate issues among my students. For most, writing was simply not something they liked or felt competent in. For others, they seemed “lost” in navigating college and managing time. While this isn’t a targeted piece of the studies, I think that some of the strategies could help with this – ie, helping students find their footing, develop planning and management skills, etc.
Thanks for this! A lot of food for thought here. Students often seem to berate themselves, so I do think the idea of affirmations is a good one. And yes, I do worry about scaling the study up!
I’m excited to use these theories and specific writing exercises in my classroom. I will definitely have my students write about what values are personally important to them, and how their future selves can be academically successful. I love the idea of “a “pen pal” program to support younger students, … (writing) letters to middle school students endorsing the belief that intelligence is malleable”. How can I set that up? Any ideas? I will also definitely have my students write brief essays every few weeks, analyzing/describing how the materials they studied in class can be applied in their lives. That is always a difficult bridge to make, and having the students analyze it themselves is brilliant.
The article talks about several workshops that students attended. I would love to get access to the materials used in those workshops, to see how they could be adapted to my 1101co students. Possible?
As a Mental Health Counselor (my other profession) as well as English & ESL teacher (49 years!), I am particularly interested in these interventions. I know how people’s beliefs about themselves profoundly affects every aspect of their lives. I have always focused on teaching my students and my clients how the brain learns – that it’s simply a process to understand and accept, rather than a requirement of “intelligence”. Understanding the steps involved and allowing them – particularly at the beginning when materials are unfamiliar and therefore uncomfortable – always delivers results. The oft-repeated idea in the article to teach that the brain is malleable, not fixed, perfectly supports this. Although I have always spoken about this with my students, after reading this article, I will more actively engage my students with the writing topics spoken of in the article. Active learning is always preferable to passive learning, and these ideas actively engage students.
“Is it possible to change students’ attributions so they see poor grades as the result of a temporary and not permanent cause?” Absolutely, and it’s such a joy to see the results! In a Speech & Public Speaking course I also taught this past semester, I had one student who had difficulties with a specific presentation assignment. He allowed it to demoralize his sense of sense, and I learned that he was toying with the idea of dropping the course. I spoke with him directly, helped him evaluate what was causing his difficulty and asked him to re-do the presentation before deciding to drop the course. He did – twice more – and got an “A”. He learned something much more important than how to give a good live presentation – he learned to never give up on himself. That is something that he will have for the rest of his life, in every area of his life. What a joy to have observed the change in him! That is what I wish for every student of ours. The ideas in this UVI program will definitely help more students achieve that inner success.
Regarding the mentoring program – we had a student mentor this past semester. The mentor was very personable and kept in touch with the students by email, as well as visiting my classroom once a month. The focus was on the college experience and how to navigate through it. However, the mentor didn’t personalize any of the information; for example, discussing how he felt during his first year and how he was able to change that. Although students asked questions during his meetings, they weren’t very engaged with him and I did not see any appreciable difference in my students’ work ethic or motivation, which was very low. I wonder if we can help the mentors to open up more personally with the classes they mentor?
In conclusion, this UVI program and the article have clearly gotten me more focused on my students’ inner lives and how to bring out more confidence. I have always worked at motivating my students to want to learn, and I’m excited to implement the writing exercises suggested in the article, as I have no doubt that they will bring good results.
Susan– as you’ll see from the slideshow, which is part of the UVI Training, (https://edpuzzle.com/assignments/656757ef313e9b419d99213f/watch) asking students to write about their values every few weeks will be too much– they may get sick of thinking about it! Try to keep it to three times a semester. Also, do remember that this project asks you to use a SPECIFIC survey with particular questions that fit the fairly strict guidelines of a UVI. This will be available in the English Dept office by Jan 26. I would ask that you don’t do your own values activities until you’ve completed this survey.
I think it’s great to have students write letters. HOWEVER, I think you should stray from asking students to write with a particular outcome in mind (ie: “intelligence is malleable.”) That’s your thinking, not theirs, and you’re kind of asking them to figure out what they think the teacher wants. With this in mind, perhaps asking the student to give advice to younger students, whatever they may be, will be much more engaging. And try not to edit their advice, even if it seems like they’re saying something you don’t agree with. We can talk more about this.
While reading through the various studies, I couldn’t help but think of situations where these techniques (different ways of thinking about how we learn) would come in handy. For example, explaining to freshmen that the first year is tough but their grades will improve is something I have done often. The act of normalizing an adjustment period is more powerful than I thought. I also agree with the idea that learning (or the capacity to retain and apply knowledge) is rarely about inherent talent, but more about determination and “stick-to-itiveness.” When I was a swim coach, parents of young kids would compare their kids’ performances often only in relation to other kids who were often faster, had more trophies, etc… Super toxic. Quantitative results rarely align with qualitative ones. Did you learn something you didn’t know before? That’s what’s up.
Absolutely, Carrie.
I had no intention of substituting my own values activities for those that we’ll be giving for UVI. I will be giving the UVI values activity on the first day of class on Monday.
I like your idea of the students giving advice to younger students – an activity I will give them later in the semester, and again, I have no intention of editing their ideas. That would defeat the purpose. In the same vein, when I wrote about the idea of “intelligence is malleable”, that was a discussion for this forum – not for my students to write about.
Gotcha!! I do love the idea of malleability and intelligence!
I read this piece with interest, and was struck by connections with the work Matt Brim and Jessica Murray have done at CSI, around educational narratives, collegiate trajectories, and belonging; self-regulated learning and metacognition, approaches which informed my early work at City Tech); and growth mindset. Ultimately, I find greater utility and value in UVI than in some of these other approaches, and I think this is because there is respect for the whole student, and an intentional distancing from any deficit or patronizing language. Finally, and relatedly, the article and methodologies encouraged me to reflect on both the student experience and the faculty and staff experience at an institution for higher learning. Talk about scaling up…
Geez, I know! I have so many questions about scaling up, so we’ll see how that goes. It’s not a given that this project, which has proven on many occasions to work well on a class-by-class level, can be scaled up to a department, a college or a university system!
I found Yeager and Walton’s article, “Social-Psychological Interventions in Education: They’re Not Magic,” especially interesting because I often think about how students’ perceptions of school and themselves affect their engagement and motivation. However, I am skeptical of implementing the ideas within the article in our current context simply because of the complicated process that the authors explain is necessary “to scale social-psychological interventions effectively” (291). The high school where I teach requires all students to take a 25 minute, once-a-week session on socio-emotional learning called Advisory. Each year, teachers are assigned Advisory as a duty and are given limited training. The teachers assigned do not have any special expertise in the Advisory curriculum that the school uses. Often, those same teachers see it as something, as Yeager and Walton warn against in their own article, “to get through” or sometimes execute the tasks haphazardly or in ways that most likely do not “reproduce the intended psychological or education experience” (288). My concern with CityTech’s Retention and Engagement Project is its brevity and lack of in-person collaboration. While I see that the UVI training is an attempt at “creating an equal collaboration between researchers…administrators…and educational practitioners who have profound knowledge or metis of local students and contexts,” (291) I’m worried that some of us may not be entirely prepared to implement such interventions so quickly. However, I do realize I am only on step two of this training which at this point is simply reading the article and commenting here. I am certainly on board with the intentions of this project especially because of the emotional investment that goes into teaching our English courses and my desire to assist in whatever ways I can to help lessen if not close the accessibility gap within higher education.
Some of the points the authors made at times seemed obvious: a sense of community leads to “feelings of belonging” and future success (286), and interventions necessitate that students aren’t simply told that they are valued or that education is important for their personal growth, but that they arrive at such conclusions from within—even if guided there externally in some capacity (289). I understand that the way we support our students can be effective at helping them feel more a part of the school community and personally invested in and accepting of their ability to grow; that is mainly why while I am somewhat skeptical regarding practice, I am also hopeful.
I have a few questions:
Do we have data on what percentage of CityTech students experience feelings of inadequacy, a lack of school community, or stereotype threat? For example, I can see how a student’s inability to align his or her own personal values directly with the desire to obtain a college degree can be an obstacle for our students, but I also think there are issues beyond those addressed in the study. And while I have seen barriers outlined in interventions 1 and 2 (277) among our own students, is our training also going to attempt to discover other “barriers to learning” (275) that might not be addressed in the study but potentially present within our CityTech student body?
It’s possible my questions will be answered in Step 3 or through the surveys and faculty forms, but these are just some of the things I am thinking about at the moment. I am looking forward to growing as an educator through this training, so thank you for the opportunity.
Devon, honestly, the scaling up is the question here. We did do a more hands-on 4-hour synchronous training last time, and we had good success, but it’s not that practical (I guess unless that’s the only thing that works) and we are hoping that a one-hour asynchronous training will work. But, you’re right, we really don’t know. That’s part of what we’re trying to figure out.
In response to your question: The UVI actually doesn’t only deal with a lack of alignment with student goals or values. It does (hopefully) help alleviate stereotype threat, etc, simply by listening to students. We don’t have data directly on stereotype threat, but we do have data on affective barriers to learning– that is, at least 60% of our students feel deficient as learners for what we can only assume are a variety of reasons. If you read our UVI study, you’ll see more details on that. This is why we developed the “procrastination station,” which helps students with a variety of affective barriers. While use of this site is not required, this study will also study the effectiveness of that site.
Good Question, by the way. And just one addendum– I’m sure you’re right– our students have a number of affective barriers to learning, and this study can not speak to all of them. It’s an ongoing effort– and one we’ve just begun, so all input is helpful!
I saw the station in the model course, and think I might even benefit from some of the activities. I’m excited to use it this semester. Will check out the CityTech study. Thanks Carrie.
The review is exhilarating. Even as someone sympathetic to the currents of thought guiding these theories, I would never have guessed that such light-touch interventions could yield such conclusive results, and that the results would have compounding effects. I do want to begin using them immediately.
Some of the tone of concern surrounding scale felt less salient to me, though given the large list of diverse and unexpected pitfalls, it’s understandable. The benefits–if we believe them, and I think I do–seem profound enough to risk imperfect implementation. Plus, some degree of trial-and-error seems necessary, especially when so much of the long-term success seems instructor-dependent, and inexperienced instructors (like me) may need a take or two to nail it.
Although I actually may have a direct example of one of these pitfalls from our own model course. At the start of last semester, I used the worksheet that asked students to list their values. I have no trouble believing that this reaffirmed students’ sense of self, thereby avoiding a degree of negative stereotyping, but the formulaic format did engender many formulaic responses. I’m afraid that it did feel like “a lesson to ‘get through,'” which may not have set the tone for a site for original and exciting encounter. On top of that, I wonder if it led some students to name and claim some values that didn’t necessarily mesh with the spirit of critical inquiry that I hoped to develop, and once those values were stated and claimed, I felt mindful of contradicting them, which might have had its own weird knock-on effect. I’ve since been using quite a lot of in-class writing, during which I ask students to put away everything except paper and pen. I have a (entirely unsubtantiated) feeling that a blank page’s freedom increases students’ sense of ownership over their classwork, and, in turn, their education within the class, thereby changing the class from a necessity into something with direct personal value. Just a feeling. Also, this semester I started by orienting the class towards the deeper utility of writing as a mode of inquiry into self and world, and I am very eager to ask students to consider their values now that frame is in place.
I’m also especially looking forward to teaching a conception of intelligence-as-constructed, as opposed to intelligence-as-innate. I actually slightly disagree with one of Yeger’s smaller examples, that we “should lead students to believe that when they experience setbacks their ability can improve, not necessarily teach them neuroanatomy.” The latter seems like kind of a useful, value-neutral way to demonstrate the former. Last semester I actually did teach a slightly digressive (and totally no-stakes) lesson on synapse formation and “insulation,” and it seemed to be pretty effective, especially for avoiding exactly one of the pitfalls Yeger names, i.e. leading students to feel they are in need of extra attention. Scientific ~objectivity~ allowed me to skirt that.
Ok this is probably too long already, but I’ve been reading bell hooks, and am feeling revitalized by her insistence on the classroom as a fundamentally exciting place, which kind of feels like the organic expression of the principles demonstrated in these studies. Yeger discusses the powerful effect of students feeling like they belong; hooks discusses the necessity of creating a mutually invested classroom community. 1 = 1, achieved through different means, maybe. And there’s something about teaching directly toward unforced engagement that feels related to all of these effects discussed. Alright. That’s enough. Bottom line is I’m excited.
— John Arthur Boyle
Arthur– great and thorough response! And I’m glad you’re excited. As far as the values exercise (also a UVI,) I don’t think it’s quite as effective as the goals UVI we’ve landed on here. And as you’ve seen in the readings, a key component of UVI administration is not telling students what their values should/ should not be, despite what you’re hoping to impart in the class (clearly, you didn’t police values, as you mentioned– I’m just clarifying here.) One thing you could do in this scenario, is tell students what you value and why– and why you think it’s important to the class– maybe on a different day.
Also, keep in mind, even if this does feel like a lesson to get through, and even if students aren’t saying anything particularly insightful– it still works. We think this is because it plants a seed, and students start to consider why school/this class/ this career is important to them. It works just as well even if they lie!
One thing I’m left thinking about is the relationship between UVI’s and addressing structural issues in education. In the introduction to their article, the authors acknowledge suspicion surrounding UVI’s, wondering, in the words of their skeptics, how small interventions could reverse structural issues of inequality (pg. 274). I wonder that too, but less suspiciously.
I’m not sure if I missed it in the article, but I wonder if there have been studies or attempts at delivering UVI’s to not just students but also those working in administrative positions and if so, how this has impacted reform on the structural level. Earlier on page 274, the authors state how the efficacy of UVI’s are dependent on a series of interrelated forces, and invoke an analogy of an airplane taking flight to illustrate this point. I wonder, if given a new audience and a new context, how the efficacy of UVI’s might change and what the benefits might be for structural improvements in addressing inequality.
As far as I know, there haven’t been studies of UVIs distributed to admins. We have asked faculty to do them, but haven’t catalogued the responses. It’s a great idea!
Other UVI-type interventions have been used in workplace settings, but they haven’t been studied as thoroughly.
What stood out to me with the Yeager and Walton study is the following quote,
“When social-psychological interventions have lasting effects, it can seem surprising and even “magical,” leading people either to think of them as quick fixes to complicated problems or to consider them unworthy of serious consideration.”
What struck me about this quote is the entire issue of magic and the error of thinking that solutions can be magical and seem like quick fixes. What I have learnt in my experience in higher education is that one size does not fit all and that no action with any student, especially in social-psychological matters should be seen as a quick fix. Issues in social-psychological development are far-reaching and need attention and cannot solved in one go.
Further, complicated social-psychological problems need to be addressed by a bevy of committed practitioners such as the professor, school counsellor, academic advisor and a host of others to ensure the success of a functional student.
Absolutely! And we’re not trying to do all of those jobs– this intervention is just one component, and it seems to work very well to help students increase motivation, but obviously it does not solve problems of, say, trauma, or systemic inequality.
The study’s third and fourth interventions caught my attention. Here, at the outset of the term, I’m thinking, as I so often do around this stage in a semester, about how much of the initial encounters we have (and the university has) with our students is about establishing rapport and, even more important than rapport, trust. Interventions that demonstrate our interest and respect for our students’ values help to build this trust by actualizing inclusivity. Trust encourages feelings of belonging, and these help facilitate buy-in which, in turn, helps motivate students toward success. The sooner such dynamics are put into motion, the better, so I’m very much looking forward to putting these UVI approaches into action in my classes.
This is an interesting study that goes beyond he pedagogy of writing. What especially appreciate the authors examples. YOU don’t get that too often in a reference heavy study. My favorite one is: “Consider a passenger jet that speeds down a runway and lifts into the air. It can seem surprising even to an experienced flier how an object that weighs many tons could fly. This is because the miracle of flight relies on numerous interrelated forces, some more obvious than others. It is not hard to see that a plane needs an engine, wings, and a pilot to fly. Similarly, a student needs content to learn, a teacher to teach, and a place or community to support that learning. These factors shape the objective school environment and create essential capacities for success.” The author wants to convey that students are a component of the learning experience and are taking this educational journey with their professor. My biggest obstacle for the first 2 weeks of the semester is to convince students That come to the “table” with so much to offer. It is my duty to them frame those ideas, academically. reaffirmations are so positive. We all can use it from time to time. We are only human after all.
In my opinion, first-year college students struggling academically has a lot to do with their prior academic experiences and who and what is their introduction to college. Yeager & Walton argue, “Although we believe that social-psychological interventions can be scaled effectively to reach larger numbers of students, how to do so is not simply a matter of handing out a worksheet” (p. 10). I agree with this statement. I would like to add that adjusting our pedagogical and rigid practices that impact our ability to reach students who are in need of these interventions. All of our students are not the same and do not have the same knowledge and/or level of knowledge in certain things. Ideally, we’d like our students to come to us with a certain level of knowledge, skills etc. As someone who has taught high school and currently teaches middle school and college freshmen/sophomores, I believe in these interventions. However, I think they need to occur more, before college and in college. Yeager & Walton also argue, “a student needs content to learn, a teacher to teach, and a place or community to support that learning” (10). The reality of education is not all teachers teach, not all students learn and depending on the teacher, classroom environment, student’s life outside of school etc they may not have the support needed to learn and excel.
I have some questions:
In response to “increase forces that promote a behavior, for instance by giving students incentives for better grades” (p. 11), can these incentive impact students’ work ethic? What happens when students are or become incentive focused?
In response to “relatively brief messages can affect students’ views and behavior” (p. 11) How can we make faculty aware of how they communicate can affect student? e.g. I already have my degree, I’m going to get paid whether you come or not
Hi! in response to your questions: Yeager and Walton are not promoting these incentives (if you read on.) Also, other research shows us that extrinsic incentives (money, etc) not only don’t work, but they can often negatively impact engagement (there was a famous study where students were promised Pizza Hut pizzas if they read more, and in response, they read less. INTRINSIC incentives (doing this work will help me achieve my goals/ align myself with my values/ be creative) are shown to be much more effective, as long as they align with the students’ goals and values.
In the case of your second question, Y and W are saying that the brief message in the UVI has proven useful in combatting other, more negative messages students recieve. As far as encouraging faculty to not communicate negatively with the student, it is our hope that interventions like this one affect faculty as well. I’ve never met a faculty member who doesn’t care if people don’t show up to their class. That said, there is plenty that can be done to help improve student/ teacher communication in teacher training, but if a faculty member isn’t interested in attending those events, a department can’t do much (unless the department has gotten student complaints about the faculty in question).
I read this article right before jumping into one of my sections of 1101 in which we discussed Baldwin’s “A Talk to Teachers.” During this discussion, I asked students to reflect on their own personal experiences to determine whether any of the issues outlined by Baldwin are still relevant today. One student spoke about her own identity as a first-generation, Latina student, expressing anxiety about the fact that she does not fit the social mold of the typical, successful college student: namely, a student who is monied and white. She went on to state that she knew her anxiety about this was unfounded—that she, in other words, can be successful in her own right despite the negative stereotypes she has encountered throughout her life. But even though she was, at an intellectual level, aware of this simple fact, she could not fully escape the FEELING of not belonging. I think this is, in part, what these interventions reviewed by Yeager and Walton aim to address. In light of this, I am excited and grateful to be participating in this study. Moreover, I have been thinking about how classroom discussions like the one I just had can be among the “stealthy” interventions we undertake to mitigate things such as stereotype threat and the host of other social-psychological barriers students at City Tech face.
I love (love love love) “A Talk to Teachers,” though I cannot read it aloud to my students without tearing up!!