Today, our discussion on self-determination and grit will expand to include academic resilience. Phil Trejo is a school administrator with a background in teaching academic resilience to learners of all ages. He is going to share with us the Four C's of academic resilience: Confidence, Control, Composure, and Commitment.
To begin, let's look at a definition of academic resilience. Academic resilience is defined as the ability to effectively deal with setback, stress or pressure in the academic setting, according to Andrew J. Martin and Herbert W. Marsh, learning researchers at the University of Western Sydney, Australia.
Does this definition make sense to you? What is your understanding of Academic Resilience (AR)? What are your questions on the topic? Phil will share some additional information about AR today, but we're interested in hearing about your background and experience in working with students to develop their sense of AR.
Best,
Mike Cruse
Disabilities in Adult Education Moderator
Comments
In my journey of 20 plus years in education I have served as a special education teacher, a reading interventionist, building principal, director of professional development at the community college level and a rural school superintendent. While serving as a special education teacher, I quickly realized that more of the same was not going to get significant results for struggling students and student with learning disabilities. I was drawn to topics such as character education, non-cognitive skill development, growth mindset, the work on grit and academic resiliency.
I used bits and pieces but not very well thought out or deliberate until serving as a middle school principal. The school had 75% of the students not reading at grade level and no reading intervention programs. So I worked with a teacher who volunteered to co-teach a reading intervention class with me. We selected 13 8th graders who had the lowest reading level (Two grade levels or more behind). To get to the point, this was the first time that I intentionally incorporated academic resiliency, non-cognitive skill development, and growth mindset strategies to a student support program. During the first three weeks we didn’t even do any reading, we got to know the students, did goals setting, talked about how reading was relevant to their goals in life and really focused on developing a different mindset and related effort to achievement and success in life.
The results were students averaged a 2.5 grade level increase in less than a year. These were students that experienced years and years of frustration and believed they were just not good at reading. Since then I have tried to reading anything I could on the topic and developed ways to incorporate it into student support programing. Since then I have used academic resiliency strategies to increase the percent of student testing proficient or above by 32% within two years. At a district level was able to increase Reading and Writing by 29% and Math by 18%. Academic resiliency, Growth mindset, or non-cognitive skill development isn’t a magic bullet yet it is a force multiplier in improve the odds of success for the students who struggle most.
Simply put, whatever we want to call it, it is targeted supports that boost the skills required to experience success in a specific situation, an academic setting. The research proves that such strategies increase course completion rates, higher GPA’s, student retention and ultimately degree attainment. What is the most challenging part of doing this well is that everyone comes to us with different skills, backgrounds and experiences so making the support specific to the individual is critical.
A visual representation of factors affecting Academic Resilience (AR) is the Student Motivation and Engagement Wheel.
Phil, can you share more about how you have used this graphic to help conceptualize AR when working with teacher and learners?
Thanks,
Mike
Martin and Marsh have done a great deal of work in academic resiliency. From my position, I want to make something as simple as possible. When working with students, the motivational wheel is a great visual reference on what to try to increase and what to try to minimize for the student. It can be a simple guide to assist in planning activities, conversations and resources to invest into.
Phil, congratulations for following Einstein's conclusion about doing "more of the same" and expecting different results! :)
We in the Four Corners of Colorado have come to similar conclusions and are requiring all of our adult students entering our STEM Prep project to complete socio-emotional training. Apparently, when students learn to develop a sense of self, to negotiate their needs, develop real goals, and learn to take responsibility for their own learning, academic achievement soars.
Do you have any shareable curriculum, materials, or plans that "incorporate academic resiliency, non-cognitive skill development, and growth mindset strategies in a student support program?" I have just joined this conversation, and maybe you've shared that in earlier comments. Thanks for your great ideas with hopeful results! Leecy
Leecy,
https://www.mindsetkit.org/ This is a great site for a teacher, parent or student to learn more about mindsets and specifically a growth mindset. I do have some other resources I can share but I am so sorry I need to meet with a student in a few minutes.
Phil
Thanks so much, Phil. Glad you are giving students first priority. That is as it should be. I certainly use and share the mindsetkit with folks here. Leecy
The definition is solid from my perspective. Bouncing back from academic setbacks is exactly what we need to help our struggling students be able to do. Students who struggle because of a learning disability, opportunity gap, poverty or any other reason are going to have to work harder because of their lack of academic skills, circumstances or resources, so stress, setbacks and failures are a given. What are the key foundational skills required to be successful in an academic setting and how best to provide them is what academic resiliency is all about.
I am not a researcher or scholar. What I am is a practitioner who digs into the educational research and figures out how to turn theory into practical practices for increased student success. What is powerful about the academic resiliency model is that there are assessments that can pinpoint some general areas to focus on for each specific student. That is powerful because it allows for targeted supports rather than a shotgun approach. The research is pretty clear, in general you can improve the academic success of your most struggling students by about 20% if you approach this intentionally
So to dig deeper and provide some solid takeaways. The following reflection questions would be a great start:
Questions for reflection
1. What does academic resilience have to do with adult learners?
2. What has been your experience in providing adult learners with academic resiliency supports and what have been the results?
3. Do you measure academic resilience with learners, and if so, what tools do you use?
4. What recommendations do you have for teaching about academic resilience?
5. What would you recommend to practitioners who are interested in incorporating academic resilience into their student support programming?
Sorry I have to supervise lunch right now. I’ll be back as soon as I can.
Great questions, Phil! Turning theory into practice is the only path to success! Leecy
What I would suggest to start incorporating academic resiliency/non-cognitive skills would be the following.:
Focus on building relationship, that sense of membership and getting to know students as an individual.
Grow mindset activities and discussions. This helps with students gaining an internal locus of control. That effort will be one of the largest factors in their success. Also this will increase their sense of control which helps with motivation/persistence.
Goal setting. There is so much power when students work through the S.M.A.R.T. Goal process. This also reduces anxiety because they have an actionable plan. Also helps with organization, breaking a goal into small, manageable chunks.
I would also work with students on planning, organizational tips and time management. Too many underestimate the amount of time outside of class that it takes to be successful, thus they bite off more than they can chew and it is much better for them to start slow in order to go fast.
This would be a good start. There is also an older book that has been used by some TRiO programs call the Empowered Student. It’s old, cheap but wow, what a great resource. There are pre and post quizzes for each chapter such as goal setting, time management and so forth.
As you start to dive into this topic you will find a plethora of materials out there that are free or nominal cost. The amount of time you invest in this based on the risk level of the student group.
I have worked with programs and school district on how to incorporate this into current programing or as stand-alone programs but that takes a day to train instructors and at least one follow up.
Good teachers touch on many of the strategies that help to foster non-cognitive skills/academic resiliency (self-determination) the key is knowing what is needed and how will you know they are getting it and making all this relevant to their success.
Questions for reflection
What does academic resilience have to do with adult learners?
Academic resiliency, non-cognitive skills, or growth mindsets will improve the odds of success for any struggling learner at any age.
2. What has been your experience in providing adult learners with academic resiliency supports and what have been the results? While at the community college level we use it to increase remedial math completion rates by 18%. I have also provided trainings for several community colleges and the Colorado Literacy Coalition.
3. Do you measure academic resilience with learners, and if so, what tools do you use?
The assessment piece is the part that I feel really separates academic resiliency from the other models out their because of the pre-test which tells you the specific areas that a student might need to increase their success rate. There are several that you can purchase and I have developed one of my own because I have never had the budget to purchase their assessment packages.
4. What recommendations do you have for teaching about academic resilience?
Do your own research on the topic based on what it is you wish to accomplish and how much time and resources you are able to invest. K-12 is starting to get on the Growth Mindset bandwagon and higher education has been embracing Academic Resiliency because their focus has shifted to what percentage of students are completing.
5. What would you recommend to practitioners who are interested in incorporating academic resilience into their student support programming? Start reading and Google and YouTube is your friend. What you will start to find is that many counties have been incorporating academic resiliency into public education for years such as England and Australia.
The more you learn about the topic and the different models, I feel you will see they are more the same with the goal of improving student success rates and called by many different names.