Dec. 10-14

This week at DGS, I had my onsite evaluation with Keith. It sounds like he would like to keep me around next semester and that there are opportunities to get involved with the office in a different way, maybe through Pre-Law advising or through National and International Scholarships.

I also attended that IlliAAC Conference. IlliAAC is the organization on campus for academic advisors. I became a member and had the privilege to attend this brief conference. There were 3 sessions in which you could choose to attend different speakers. Dr. Wise was the keynote speaker. This was a great chance for me to network, show my face, and learn. I attended a discussion about Academic Advisors as lifesavers. They specifically talked about how to help students who were struggling. I also went to a talk by two people at The Career Center. They talked about their return rates for appointments and some of the strategies that they do to boost their return rates. Finally, I went to a session on study abroad to learn about programs that are offered. Overall, this was a really good experience for me. All of the sessions were important to me. Study Abroad is helpful because up to this point, all I have been able to tell students is "Go to the study abroad office. They will help you figure out what program is good for you because there are a lot." Now I can at least speak to the variety of programs and what those programs are about and some of the financial aspects involved as well.

I appreciated hearing from The Career Center (TCC) on student return rates because I always tell each of my students to come back in another time if they have more questions. However, I have never made it a set goals for a student to come back whereas the counselors at TCC set a percentage goal for return rates. Thus, they are more deliberate and strategize how to get students back into the Center. They don't want students to come back just to boost their numbers, but they grounded their efforts in a recent dissertation by someone in EPOL and her work on self-efficacy after returning back for a second appointment at  TCC.

Finally, I received some strategies on how to help failing students get by and to help them better succeed. Overall, I took away that communication with the student is key and that tough conversations are going to happen but they are necessary.

I spent 6 hours at the IlliAAC Conference, 1.5 hours reading and blogging, and 20 minutes with my internship evaluation. 

I read an article this week about advising in different spaces (Arms, Cabrera, & Brower, 2008). Undeclared students were the participants. The three locations of advising were at a traditional central advising office, a traditional residence hall, and at a living-learning community. No matter the location of advising, the students were equally engaged with their advisors but students in living learning communities with access to their advisors had the most enriching educational experiences. These are discouraging findings because DGS has advising at satellite locations including the undergrad library, a cultural center, and a living learning community. Like the article says, in theory, satellite locations for advising sounds like a great idea, but at these findings do not make it seem like it is worth the resources it might take to provide such advising. I am somewhat surprised by these findings. I am surprised because it seems more and more, students want service, and they want it now. With more technology, they want information and help promptly, and if advising is everywhere on campus, it is reasonable to hypothesize that students would be more engaged with advising because they would utilize those services for quick help. More research would be helpful in understanding why there is not stronger engagement between students and advising at locations outside of the central advising office.

Arms, J. H., Cabrera, A. F., & Brower, A. M. (2008). Moving into students' spaces: The impact of location of academic advising on student engagement among undecided students. NACADA Journal, 28(1), 8-18.

Dec 3-7

This week, I received feedback on the blog post I wrote last week. I spent time making edits to my post. I also shadowed another advisor in her advising appointments. I wanted to shadow at this time of the year because I guessed that some of the questions students are asking are a little different than what they were asking during express advising. I thought they might be asking about summer classes, current classes, and very random questions rather than asking to course plan for next semester. One of the students that the advisor met with was one of my students for express advising so I was happy that he made a follow-up appointment for an important decision he was making. Another student was on probation and so the advisor and I did some debriefing after the appointment so that I could see how the advisor filled out the form. From that appointment, I realized how important it would be for any probation student to meet with their advisor more than any other advisor because that advisor knows best what the student is going through and what the issues are. Some of those issues can be personal or embarrassing so the student may not want to tell multiple advisors. I also looked over two petitions and made my decisions about those. Finally, I went to the staff meeting on Friday.

I read "Assessing the Effectiveness of a College Freshman Seminar Using Propensity Score Adjustments" by Clark and Cundiff (2011). This article affirmed my questions about freshman seminars. I have never been convinced that they are useful. From personal experience, I don't even remember what material was covered in my freshman seminar. I have a very small recollection about anything in that class. However, I taught GS 101 to large lectures and all DGS students must take it once. As I was putting together my presentation on registration, I kept thinking that the students will not retain any of this information but they also won't ask any questions about it either. I questioned the purpose of GS 101. This article studied the effects of a freshman seminar class on GPA and retention rates. They found that the students who took the freshman seminar and those that didn't were not different a year later on GPA or retention rates. This is a concerning finding considering that freshman seminars take up resources and students have to pay tuition towards the credit. While the freshman seminar sounds like a good idea in theory, this study seriously questions the seminar's importance. Being that University of Illinois is a research institution, I would hope that it took the time to research the effectiveness and importance (or lack thereof) of freshman seminar classes before implementing them.
I also read "The Development, Implementation, and Assessment of a Systematic Academic Advising Program for Exploratory First-Year Students". I liked this article because it gave an overview of the effectiveness of the undeclared program at Penn State. The students who completed certain guides to help them discover a major were more prepared in their advising appointment to register for classes and think about a major choice compared to students who simply read the guides but did not complete them. The goal of these guides was to increase the amount that the student contributed to their own educational path. Thus, they found the guides to be helpful, if the student did them, because the student was active in the exploration process. I really enjoyed learning about the program at Penn State and it was exciting to see that it has been successful. I think a program like this could be helpful for DGS because throughout my internship, I would read petitions where they would be accepted and sometimes part of the reason was because they were freshmen so they just didn't know the information. In my opinion, this is a poor excuse in most cases and it seems like the program at Penn State could help eliminate the lack of information students know.

I spent about 3.5 hours shadowing and debriefing about appointments, 45 minutes reviewing petitions, 1.5 hours editing my blog post and reading past DGS posts, and 45 minutes in the staff meeting. I also met with the Director and spoke with her about my career and being a reference for me as I start to apply to jobs. I had another advisor review my resume and give me feedback. I spent about 45 minutes working on these career plans. I also read materials for 30 minutes on autism that the advisors received when they had a guest speaker come in on a day that I am not at DGS. I blogged and read for about 2 hours.

Clark, M. H. & Cundiff, N. L. (2011). Assessing the effectiveness of a college freshman seminar using propensity score adjustments. Research in Higher Education, 52, 616-639. doi: 10.1007/s11162-010-9208-x

Sams, W. P., Brown, L. S., Hussey, R. B., Leonard, M. J. (2003). The development, implementation, and assessment of a systematic academic advising program for exploratory first-year students. NACADA Journal, 23(1&2), 75-84.