Helping Students Reach Their Potential

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Helping Students Reach Their Potential

• Based on Talk by Constance Staley
• (University of Colorado, Colorado Springs)

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Universities are repositories of
knowledgeFirst-year students bring in a
bitSeniors dont take much awaySo the
knowledge accumulates.
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The Quarter-Life Crisis

• Our kids have absorbed the cultural values of
• More Easy Fast Fun
• The Three Stages of Life
• Stage 1 The dream--the lure
• Stage 2 The works, sweat and toil
• Stage 3 The achievement, fulfillment and
  satisfaction
• Too Many people want to skip Stage 2

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Why Dont Students Achieve Their Potential?

• 1. They think they already have
• 70 See themselves as above average
• 48 earned As in high school
• 2. They dont know what their potential is
• The ones that did worst thought they did ok,
  while the ones that did best thought they did a
  bit worse
• Self knowledge is more important than
  self-confidence --
• Simon Cowell

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Why Dont Students Achieve Their Potential?

• 3. They dont know how
• Entity Theorists
• knowledge is fixed, performance is the goal.
• IQ 35 effort, 65 ability
• Need to prove I already have it
• Incremental Theorists
• Intelligence is cultivated through
  learning,learning is the goal
• IQ 65 effort, 35 ability
• Need to increase my ability

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Why Dont Students Achieve Their Potential?

• 4. They procrastinate, cant prioritize, or
  suffer from perfectionism.
• 5. Theyve figured out the system
• Teachers dont want me to form my own
  opinions--they want me to parrot back their
  opinions
• Study for the test, not to learn

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Why Dont Students Achieve Their Potential?

• 6. Theyre overwhelmed
• 7. They dont get it
• The way to learn is
• You have a challenge
• What do they know about the subject?
• Insight (new knowledge added here)
• Action is taken

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Three Stages of Faculty Life

• 1. Its about me (my tenure, my research, etc.)
• 2. Its about we (working collegially)
• 3. Its about them (learning and the students)