What G/T Kids Need to Succeed in College Dr. Nancy Breard Converse College

1. What G/T Kids Needto Succeed in CollegeDr. Nancy BreardConverse College

2. SourcesBerger, S. (1998) College Planning forStudents, CEC.Conley, D. (2005) College Knowledge, Jossey-Bass.Csikszentmihalyi, M. and Schneider, B. (2000) Becoming Adult, Basic Books.

3. College - eligiblevsCollege - ready

4. High schools focus on enabling students to meet admissions requirements.

5. But - are students able to meet the expectations they encounter in entry-level college courses?

6. Students have instructors who • Move at a much faster pace • expect students to spend a lot of time on their own reading and reviewing • provide harsh feedback

7. Expect students to cite sources correctly • require students to support opinions and assertions • challenge students’ assumptions

8. High schools are designed to graduate students!

9. More than 90% of ninth graders say they plan to attend college. The reality is approximately 66% enter college from high school.

10. Over 600,000 students a year leave college before completing a degree or take longer than 4 years to graduate.

11. For the most part, standards developed by states failed to connect with postsecondary success.

12. The single most important factor in college success is the academic challenge of the courses students take in high school especially for racial and ethnic minorities.

13. The subject that is most predictive of college success is the level of mathematics completed. That means students need to go beyond Algebra II and should take a high level mathematics course the lastyear of high school.

14. For G/T students this means academically challenging courses the senior year rather than choosing an easy schedule and/or requesting early dismissal.

15. Time spent studying:33% of 17 year olds spent 1 hr./day compared to43% of top 5% of freshmen spent more than 20 hrs./wk.

16. The amount and pace of reading in literature, history and humanities - students are shocked to find they must read a book/week AND understand it well.

17. Students are required to write papers (sometimes lengthy) in many courses besides English.

18. What Can We Do?

19. PolicymakersBreak down the barriers between high school and college by creating a seamless K-16 system.

20. High School EducatorsEducators can assign semi-independent work to be completed outside of class, using class time to help students integrate, consolidate and build on basic understandings in seminar-like settings.

21. Post Secondary Faculty and AdministratorsAdmissions requirements must be clear about the knowledge and skills required for college success. Faculty can interact with their high school colleagues sharing course materials and student work to promote dialogue.

22. StudentsThey will need to seek rigorous courses and educational experiences that hone their knowledge, skills and habits of mind essential for college success.

23. ParentsThey will need to understand the requirements for college success and assist their students in acquiring the knowledge, skills and attitudes by attending parent-teacher nights, appointments with the guidance counselors, reviewing checklists for college success and expecting their students to do quality work.

24. Three years of research by twenty top U.S. universities resulted in Knowledge and Skills for University Success (KSUS) standards. These standards convey what it takes to succeed in entry-level college courses. These are generalizations, not necessarily dogma.

25. Gifted High School Students often lack • study skills (habits of mind) • time management skills • money management skills • guidance from counselors who understand gifted students and requirements for college success

26. How are habits of mind (often considered more important than specific content knowledge) developed? • Challenge • Cognitive coaching • Exciting dynamic teaching • Teacher-student connections in a learning community

27. What about our gifted students from minority populations, from poverty, from a background of underachievement?

28. These students need advocates who will help them see college as a goal and guide them from middle school through graduation to negotiate the system to get to college.

29. “Learning to Like Challenge”For adolescents “work acquires a host of negative connotations that persist through high school.”Strangely adolescents who see what they do as work have better quality of experience than those who see it as play.

30. “Workers” accept work as necessary and see themselves following the norms and traditions of the community. They have learned to derive enjoyment from productive work.

31. From Marx to Freud there is the strong belief that work is a person’s major means of self-expression and source of deep satisfaction. In addition, it is daily, unlike leisure activities that may also be enjoyable.

32. Studies have found that people most enjoy what they are doing when their skills match the task. A balance between high levels of challenge and high levels of skill are reported when tasks/activities are enjoyed.

33. This enjoyment is part of the Flow Model of motivation. There are a cluster of subjective dimensions in addition to challenge and skill. • Clarity of goals • Immediacy of feedback • Losing one’s self in the task

34. Those who regularly experience flow are described as having an autotelic personality - defined as “a tendency to become involved in activities for their own sake” or intrinsic motivation.

35. “Talented students…with autotelic personalities - tended to have a more positive view of their lives, especially during activities such as studying, doing homework, or working.”

36. In Flow Theory ANXIETY is defined as high challenge, low skill and, teenagers report the most negative motivation - a strong desire to be doing something else.

37. RELAXATION is the opposite and is defined as low challenge, high skill. Unfortunately downtime does not lead to growth.

38. FLOW is defined as a balance of high challenge, high skill. It is the only condition where high challenge is linked to enjoyment. It is here that teenagers learn to enjoy challenge which is necessary for them to reach their goals.

39. APATHY, the opposite of flow, is defined as low challenge, low skill, and teenagers report the lowest quality of experience.

40. Classroom ActivitiesStudents feel greatest challenge taking tests and quizzes; next in order of challenge are individual work, group work and last lecture and videos.

41. Individual work is viewed as positive perhaps because of the high level of control students experience working alone.

42. A disturbing finding is the low quality of experience reported while listening to teachers lecture since lecture consumes 25% of all classroom time. Learning is DOING.

43. CourseworkStudents find math the most challenging and important to their future goals. At the same time, students report wishing to do math less and enjoying it less than other subjects.

44. Students strongest motivation, enjoyment and positive affect occurs in art classes, but they view these classes as least important to future goals.

45. Of all academic and nonacademic subjects, the lowest levels of nearly affective and motivational measures - challenge, enjoyment, importance - are reported during history class. Perhaps the low ratings reflect how history is presented, structured and sequenced!

46. Our task is clear.We need to • Educate guidance counselors about gifted students • ensure that all the G/T students are taking rigorous courses through all four years of high school

47. provide advocates for G/T students who are at risk • work in our districts to promote alignment of honors courses with the standards provided by KSUS

48. …and miles to go before [we] sleep. Apology to Robert Frost