The Big Picture

As you are walking across campus to prepare for the registration process at the beginning of the semester, you take a deep breath and walk into a familiar scene of excited, confused, anxious and nervous kids. They are all trying to understand the process, where to go, who to see, locate housing, all while at the same time asking: how do I get to that building? At the end of all of the chaos, those newcomers attend a welcome to college type ceremony and start anew as an official 'college freshman'.

The 'newbies' come to a college classroom for the very first time and hear instructors give classroom expectations, preview the syllabus (maybe), go over some policies and procedures, then they begin to teach. In the college environment, we often expect our students to 'get it' or already possess many classroom strategies in test taking, note taking or have good study habits.  As some institutions are going into their second month of the semester, instructors begin to measure student progress and notice that there are a few students who are 'at risk' or 'not attending' class for a number of reasons. As teachers try to analyze and determine intervention or remedial actions to assist students in getting on track, many discover areas of weakness in their first time students. These areas of weakness seem to stem from the lack of note taking, test taking and studying habits. So how do we as instructors assist our students in being successful in these areas to ultimately get them to making good grades, earning high GPA, and to graduating with a degree?

See the Big Picture: assisting our students with the resources they need to be successful to matriculate through college and completing graduation. How do we accomplish this task? By improving teaching and learning to address the needs of students and conducting needs assessments or surveys to assess students prior to beginning class instruction. Picciano states "The improvement of teaching and learning will succeed (or not) depending on what goes on in the classroom" (Picciano, p. 78). Using  data collected at the beginning of a semester on the new incoming students, will help instructors to develop the right strategies and curriculum to help them become successful.

As instructors we have to change the way we see our students and understand that they are operating in a way that mimics their familiar high school routines. Helping them to understand that they do have to work hard in order to earn good grades. Now, understandably, their are some students who just get it and catch on and are very successful, but there is a large percentage of students who are challenged with adapting to this different environment. Showing them the big picture - getting them to visualize graduation day in full regalia - and then building useful strategies and techniques in the beginning that they will use over time and become second nature thereby creating successful students.

What does collecting data on new incoming students have to do with the Big Picture you may ask? Well, instructors would want to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses of their students to assess how to proceed with class instruction. Using data from assessments gives them opportunities to minimize students becoming at risk or failing completely by developing strategies to improve teaching and learning.  Also,"by identifying the gaps between entering students’ expectations and their level of engagement in the first year of college", instructors can target their efforts to create educationally effective programs for their new students (Miller et al. 2005; Upcraft et al. 2004). 

Picciano, A. (2011). Educational Leadership and Planning for Technology (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson

Miller, T., B. Bender, J. H. Schuh, and Associates. 2005.Promoting reasonable expectations: Aligning student and institutional thinking about the college experience. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/National Association of Student Personnel Administrators.

Upcraft, L. M., J. N. Gardner, and B. O. Barefoot, eds. 2005.Challenging and supporting the first-year student: A handbook for improving the first year of college. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.