A PURPOSEFUL SOPHOMORE YEAR: DESIGNING FOR EXPLORATION Molly A. - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

A PURPOSEFUL SOPHOMORE YEAR: DESIGNING FOR EXPLORATION

Molly A. Schaller, Ph.D. Students in Transition 2016

First Person: 1 minute

Second Person: 1 minute

Third Person: 1 minute

For

• reclosed

Perceiv ived Con

• nstr

train ints

Fai ailu lure

Environmental Dis isconnect

Too Many Choices

Why SOPHOMORE YEAR? Why DESIGN for EXPLORATION? Why VOCATION? HOW?

Why Sophomores?

Why Sophomores?

1) BECAUSE OF FYE → We have learned a great deal from First Year Experience Programs → Intentional Design has worked well in the First Year → FYE has helped us to see Second Year/Sophomore Student needs

Why Sophomores?

2) It is DEVELOPMENTALLY APPROPRIATE

The Pressure Cooker: The Sophomore Year

• First Year Learning
• Epistemological

Development

• Insights into Self
• Major Selection
• “Adulthood”
• Career Future

How do “typical” sophomores make meaning?

• There is an answer!
• I need to find it.

Truth

• I need to figure it out.

Answers are more elusive.

OR

For more on this see Baxter Magolda (1992) or after!

Random Exploration

• Exuberance
• Lack of Reflection

Focused Exploration

• Frustration
• Reflection Begins
• Increasing

Responsibility

Schaller, 2005

Random Exploration

• Exuberance
• Lack of Reflection

Focused Exploration

• Frustration
• Reflection Begins
• Increasing

Responsibility

Schaller, 2005 Sophomore Year Opportunity: for Exploration

The Pressure Cooker: The Sophomore Year

• First Year Learning
• Epistemological

Development

• Insights into Self
• Major Selection
• “Adulthood”
• Career Future

Key Questions: Do students stay with the pressure long enough to resolve key issues? Do students have the experiences needed to make insightful decisions? Do students have a complex enough understanding of the world to make insightful choices?

Why Design for Exploration?

• Lessons from FYE
• If we don’t design we have no chance of

supporting students through this time of search and exploration

• Our current design is not working
• Without design students who are at risk

when they enter are at greater risk by end of the sophomore year

2014: About 1 in 5 sophomores are experiencing a “slump” in motivation, grades, or satisfaction with the college experience

Schreiner, 2015

Sophomores Slumping? (SCHREINER, 2015)

Dissatisfied with…. Percent

My grades 19.9% Advising 20.3% My living situation 20.3% My health 18.4% My interactions with faculty 13.1% My peer relationships 12.8% The whole college experience 12.3% The amount I’m learning 14.1%

Sophomores Slumping?

Schreiner (2015) SES 2014 – N=4472

Sophomore year is worse or much worse than first year 17.7% Courses are worse/much worse than first year 21% Getting grades below a B average 16.4% Still unsure of my major 9.9% Surviving…barely 27.3%

What are you seeing in the second year/sophomore year?

Why Vocation?

Why Vocation?

“Preparing graduates for employment is crucial, but not to the point that we neglect the longstanding commitment of higher education to nurture a sense of purpose and social responsibility” (Wells, 2016, p. 57).

From Cunningham (Ed.), At This Time and In This Place

Habits of Inquiry and Reflection Fellows for Vocation – 2015-2016 Committee

• Take our Learning Outcome for Vocation examine effectiveness

in meeting the SLO

• Explore ways to expand options
• Started with Language of Vocation

“Language of Vocation” we shared with students at University of Dayton:

• Place where your deep gladness

and the world's deep hunger meet - have to be connected in vocation

• A Calling
• Discovery of gifts
• Quest for authentic existence
• Purpose in life: why am I here?
• Search, discernment, reflection
• Inclined toward the common

good

• Passion/ joy/ purpose directed
• utwardly
• Evolves over time
• Multiple vocations with a

common thread

• Life choices - job, work, career,

profession,

• Human flourishing

“Language of Vocation” we shared with students at University of Dayton:

• Place where your deep gladness

and the world's deep hunger meet - have to be connected in vocation

• A Calling -
• Discovery of gifts
• Quest for authentic existence
• Purpose in life: why am I here?
• Search, discernment, reflection
• Inclined toward the common

good

• Passion/ joy/ purpose directed
• utwardly
• Evolves over time
• Multiple vocations with a

common thread

• Life choices - job, work, career,

profession,

• Human flourishing

How Vocation?

• Sharon Daloz Parks says that college affords the

“…space to explore the big questions and answer…(with) hospitality to the questions and to the students asking them, we validate both” (p. 170, Henry, 2016)

• Moline, writes that “many are grappling

personally with the question, ‘How should one live?’” (as cited in Henry, p. 171).

In other words…students are primed, ready and have begun the questions of vocation.

Have we helped?

Structures That Help

• “Educating students to live as whole

persons and responsible selves requires the resources of the entire college community” ( Kleinhans, 2016, p. 119)

Structures That Help

• All must be involved
• Faculty have a special role
• Student Affairs and other staff have a

special role

VOCATION PURPOSE MEANING PASSION

Begin in recruitment through alumni experience

USE THE LANGUAGE

Clydesdale (2015) Recommends

• 1. Focus on sophomores and juniors
• Anticipate trial and error
• Difficult journeys
• Skill development [teach decision making, ruling out, exploring

new, reflect and evaluation]

• Increase inputs [inventories, experiences, mentoring,

identification of cultural/family expectations]

• Support contemplation [structured reflection, quiet time or

“disconnect”]

Clydesdale (2015) Recommends

• 1. Focus on sophomores and juniors
• 2. Generate experiences that combine challenging

conversations, personal affirmation, and authentic community

• 3. Themed housing, internships, service learning,

retreats, programming

• 4. Attend to the “practical aspects of trajectory

recalibration and test launching” [so not a clear process, straight line]

We must prepare

• urselves and our peers

Through faculty and staff development programs: Book reads, mini-grants, course development programs, cohorted programs, communities of practice

Mentoring Environments

(Daloz Parks, 2000/2012)

A Network of Belonging

• A trustworthy place where the young adult can try and fail or succeed while

experiencing support and challenge.

Big Enough Questions

• An attitude of inquiry where questions of meaning, purpose, and faith are

welcome and pursued with vigor.

Encounters with Otherness

• Experiences with those “outside one’s own tribe.”

Habits of Mind

• Habits that invite genuine dialogue, strengthen critical thought, encourage

connective-holistic awareness, and develop the contemplative mind.

Mentoring Environments Cont.

Worthy Dreams

• Imagined possibilities that orient meaning, purpose, and aspirations

within the young adult.

Access to Images

• Images of truth, transformation, positive selves/others, and

interrelatedness.

Communities of Practice

• Humanizing practices that include hearth, table, and commons.

Models for Academic Advising

Process Includes: (1) exploration of life goals, (2) exploration of vocational goals, (3) program choice, (4) course choice, and (5) scheduling courses

(O’Banion, 1994)

Models for Academic Advising

Process Includes: (1) exploration of life goals, (2) exploration of vocational goals, (3) program choice, (4) course choice, and (5) scheduling courses

(O’Banion, 1994)

If our focus is here…

Models for Academic Advising

Process Includes: (1) exploration of life goals, (2) exploration of vocational goals, (3) program choice, (4) course choice, and (5) scheduling courses

(O’Banion, 1994) We may need to establish structures to get us here…

• Exploratory studies

activities

• Intro to the major

activities

• Career Planning
• Career Advisor

Network

• Examination of

transcripts

• Career or other

counseling

• Strong Interest

Inventory

• Career Planning
• Service Learning
• Internship
• Social Science Courses
• Study Abroad with

good reflection

• New classes
• Speakers
• Retreats
• Service Learning
• Internships
• Positions on Campus
• Organizations and

Activities

That which you love That which the world need

That which you can be paid for

That which you are good at

• Exploratory studies

activities

• Intro to the major

activities

• Career Planning
• Career Advisor

Network

• Examination of

transcripts

• Career or other

counseling

• Strong Interest

Inventory

• Career Planning
• Service Learning
• Internship
• Social Science Courses
• Study Abroad with

good reflection

• New classes
• Speakers
• Retreats
• Service Learning
• Internships
• Positions on Campus
• Organizations and

Activities

That which you love That which the world need

That which you can be paid for

That which you are good at

What can you do?

What will you do?

“Passion is its own purpose. Passion can be a bit disdainful of reasonableness and

• productivity. And passion is among the

most sacred and fragile gifts the gods bestow on us…is is sacred because it promised the possibility of new life” (Kegan, 1994, p. 354).

University of Dayton Student Learning Outcome

Vocation: Using appropriate scholarly and communal resources, all undergraduates will develop and demonstrate ability to articulate reflectively the purposes of their life and proposed work through the language of vocation. In collaboration with the university community, students’ developing vocational plans will exhibit appreciation of the fullness of human life, including its intellectual, ethical, spiritual, aesthetic, social, emotional, and bodily dimensions, and will examine both the interdependence of self and community and the responsibility to live in service of others. (Habits of Inquiry and Reflection, 2006, p.8)