Day One of Our Discussion on Self-Determination, Grit and Academic Resilience in Adult Learners

Submitted by Michael Cruse on Mon, 10/05/2015 - 06:58
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Hello Colleagues:

Today, we begin our week-long discussion on the topic of positive psychological interventions that foster self-determination, grit, and academic resilience in adult learners.  When we began planning this event, our main focus was on adult with learning disabilities in transition to postsecondary education and two specific publications, the Learning to Achieve:  A Professional’s Guide to Educating Adults with Learning Disabilities and Promoting Grit, Tenacity, and Perseverance: Critical Factors for Success in the 21st Century.  As we brought together our panel of experts, we found that their experience brought a breath and depth to the discussion that makes it applicable to all learners, as well as their teachers.

We want to welcome our guest discussion leaders:  Beth Tuckwiller, Stel Gragoudas, Lindsey Anderson, and Philip Trejo, and our student panelists, Mary Zrara and Alexis McGee. Our discussion leaders comprise researchers and practitioners with deep experience in the topic and its application in teaching and learning.

Student Panelists:

  • Mary Zrara began taking classes at Academy of Hope in January of 2014 with the goal of earning her high school credential. She is originally from the South Sudan and came to the United States in 2004. Currently, she is in the process of starting a nonprofit called “Eve’s Road” whose mission is to feed the elderly and children and provide them basic necessities in both Africa and the United States. She serves as an example to her classmates through her dedication to regular attendance and active participation in the classroom.  Mary also serves as a Student Leadership Association representative for her program at Academy of Hope and as the student representative on Academy of Hope’s Board of Directors.  She is happily married and has one daughter who is 12-years-old.

  • Alexis McGee began classes at Academy of Hope in the fall of 2013. Alexis has her high school diploma from Woodrow Wilson High School and is currently taking college preparatory classes at Academy of Hope. Her goal is to attend college in order to study business before opening her own restaurant or nightclub.  Alexis is an active member of the National Federation for the Blind, which advocates for equal rights for people with low vision or blindness. She was born and raised in Washington, DC.

Here is how we have organized the week’s discussion:

  • Monday, October 5: Welcome and introductions of our panelist; invitation to Community of Practice members to ask questions based on the two resources (Learning to Achieve and OET’s sent out prior to the event, and provide reflections on their experience.)

  • Tuesday, October 6: Beth Tuckwiller will provide information on the brain and positive psychological interventions with learners, and along with and Lindsey Anderson, highlight the intersection of positive psychology and grit.

  • Wednesday, October 7:

    • Stel Gragoudas and Lindsey Anderson will discuss the Learning to Achieve self-determination model.

    • Student panelists will share their perspective and experiences.

  • Thursday, October 8:

    • Phil Trejo will discuss academic resilience, and related resources for learners.

    • Student panelists will share their perspective and experiences.

  • Friday, October 9:  LINCS Moderators Mike Cruse and Cynthia Zafft will summarize the discussion and provide next steps.

Thanks for being with us, Beth, Stel, Lindsey, Philip, Mary and Alexis. We are looking forward to a lively discussion!  To get us started, I’d like to ask our panel members to introduce themselves and comment on how they first became interested in their respective topics.  

Mike Cruse, Disabilities in Adult Education Moderator

and

Cynthia Zafft, Postsecondary Completion Moderator

Comments

Hello everyone!  My name is Beth Tuckwiller, and I am really excited about this event! I think these kinds of conversations in which we consider the more “nonacademic” variables involved in learning are a critical piece of our continual evolution as educators (and students!). I am an Asst. Professor of Special Education and Disability Studies at The George Washington University. I am always thinking about how additional academic disciplines related to education (e.g., psychology) can inform innovative and multidisciplinary frameworks and interventions in the research and practice of special education. Considering how multidimensional and inherently interdisciplinary the education of individuals actually is, I believe it is very important to think this way. I happen to focus primarily on students with high incidence learning differences (e.g., learning disabilities, emotional disabilities), and I have a specific interest in the transition of these individuals through adolescence into young adulthood as they move out of K-12 settings and into postsecondary settings.

I participated in a community of practice several years ago in which the conversations were focused around the importance of “engagement” for adults to be invested in their work and have a sense of meaning and purpose in their lives. Part of this dialogue included a discussion of the psychological data that suggests that when we engage our strengths in whatever it is we are doing (e.g., work, learning, leisure), we feel a greater sense of meaning, we grow and develop at a faster rate, and are more engaged with our life experiences. I thought about how we often fail to systematically identify and apply a “strengths” framework in special education; rather, we often focus on trying to improve areas of weakness. Although I agree that we certainly want to help learners improve areas in which they struggle, I think we really need to meaningfully augment that work with an intentional focus on helping people systematically identify their inherent strengths (we all have them!) and putting them to work in their lives. This strengths focus naturally dovetailed with another of my professional and personal passions: positive psychology. This field asks us to explore all of the things that “go right” in our development, and to understand the positive factors which contribute to overall life well-being. I know that we all want the learners we work with to not just improve in an academic sense, but to also have the knowledge, skills and dispositions to cultivate well-being over the course of their lives. I now focus my work on investigating specific positive variables in adolescent and young adult learners with differences to understand how growth mindset, grit, and optimism overlap with self-determination and to explore how these variables link to both academic (e.g., graduation, G.P.A.) and nonacademic (e.g., life satisfaction, community participation, well-being indices) outcomes in adulthood. I hope to bring a systematic and intentional focus on the identification and cultivation of positive constructs into our conversations about transitioning adolescents and young adults.

Just wanted to say hi, I am Philip Trejo, I have been passionate about student support programing and what can we do better and differently to increase the odds of student success. About 10 years ago as a special education teacher and interventionist, I really began to learn more about academic resiliency and how I could incorporate that into my programing supports for students. I look forward to reading the various comments/questions and learning from others as well and we will be discussing academic resiliency in detail Thursday of this week.

Respectfully Submitted,

Philip Trejo

Hello everyone and thank you for joining us!  I am the Special Education Coordinator at Academy of Hope Adult Public Charter School in Washington, DC.  I've began working with the ideas of self-determination and grit when I was teaching high school students with learning disabilities here in DC.  My area of focus for a long time was helping students to prepare for their lives after high school through the transition process.  I found that many of my students had become very comfortable with letting other people make decisions about their lives, while others wanted to take control over their own lives, but simply did not know themselves well enough to make good plans or have the skills to carry through on those plans.  This led me to a lot of work with my students in the area of self-determination, work that sought to help them to learn about themselves, make plans for their lives, take action on those plans, and evaluate the actions they were taking.

At about the time that I started in my doctoral program at The George Washington University, I started working with highly disengaged youth.  I realized that teaching them self-determination was not going to be enough as they had ways of thinking that often led to behaviors that sabotaged the plans they were making for their lives.  It was actually Beth Tuckwiller who introduced me to the concept of grit while I was talking to her with some of the struggles that my students were having.

Ever since learning about the concept, I have been learning all that I can to better understand it and begin thinking about ways that we might help to facilitate the development of grit (and self-determination) in learners. I am currently working on better understanding the current thinking of adult learners related to these topics through my doctoral research.  I look forward to discussing with all of you how these ideas might intersect and what we might be able to do to support our learners in the development of these important mindsets.