A Comprehensive Strengths-Based Approach to the First-Year Experience

1. A Comprehensive Strengths-Based Approach to the First-Year Experience Laurie A. Schreiner, Ph.D. Eileen Hulme, Ph.D. Azusa Pacific University 2006 Annual Conference on the First-Year Experience

2. Strengths-Based Education: A Paradigm Shift • “Survival of the fittest” • “Deficit remediation” • “Strengths-based education”

3. Strengths Philosophy “Individuals gain more when they build on their talents, than when they make comparable efforts to improve their areas of weakness.” --Clifton & Harter, 2003, p. 112

4. What Are Strengths? • Talent + Knowledge + Skills = Strength • Talents are naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied • By refining our dominant talents with skill and knowledge, we can create strength: the ability to provide consistent, near-perfect performance in a given activity. --Clifton & Harter, 2003

5. The Highest Achievers • Spend most of their time in their areas of strength • Have learned to delegate or partner with someone to tackle areas that are not strengths • Use their strengths to overcome obstacles • Invent ways of capitalizing on their strengths in new situations

6. FROM: Problems Attendance Preparation Putting into the student Average TO: Possibilities Engagement Motivation Drawing out from the student Excellence The Focus Changes

7. Why A Strengths-Based Approach Promotes Student Achievement Strengths Awareness  Confidence  Self-Efficacy  Motivation to excel  Engagement Apply strengths to areas needing improvement  Greater likelihood of success

8. Identifying Strengths • Clifton StrengthsFinderTM (The Gallup Organization) • Text for First-Year Students: Clifton & Anderson (2002) StrengthsQuest: Discover and Develop Your Strengths in Academics, Career, and Beyond • Advising questions

9. Evidence of Students’ Strengths • Pay attention to yearnings • What is most satisfying? What do you enjoy most? • Describe a successful day • Describe key achievements in your life • Look for rapid learning -- what comes easily? • Watch for “flow” or “soaring” events--times when excellence was achieved without conscious thought

10. Building Strengths • Identify the natural talent themes • Ways of processing information • Ways of interacting with people • Ways of seeing the world • Habits, behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs that can be productively applied • Affirm those themes with significant others • Develop the themes by learning knowledge and practicing skills • Apply the strengths to new or challenging situations

11. Strengths-Based Approaches to the First-Year Experience • First-Year Seminars • Advising • Residence education programs • Orientation • Leadership courses or programs • Mentoring programs • Technological interventions

12. Strengths-Based Approaches to the First-Year Course • Lots of ways NOT to do it! • Concentrated modules (4 is typical) • Peer mentors, strengths counselors, or other outside-of-class mechanisms • StrengthsQuest as a text • Approach is infused in other material throughout the term

13. One Approach • Four class sessions (1-1/2 hour each) • Identify strengths through Clifton StrengthsFinder outside of class • Use StrengthsQuest text and exercises • Journaling and out-of-class assignments • How to communicate with others and work in teams, based on your strengths • 30-minute interview with advisor to discuss strengths and how to capitalize on strengths to overcome obstacles • Written personal success plan is part of course requirement

14. Results of Empirical Study Significant differences between the 8 treatment sections and the 8 control groups in: • Satisfaction with total advising experience (5.68 vs. 4.65, p < .001) • Perceived helpfulness of personal success plan (5.64 vs. 5.17, p < .05) • Course evaluations (5.70 vs. 4.74, p < .001) • Perception of instructor (5.99 vs. 5.48, p < .01) • Cumulative GPA after one semester and after one year First semester: 2.84 vs. 2.51 (p < .001) First year: 2.77 vs. 2.43 (p < .01) • Retention after one year 77.6% vs. 65.9% (p < .05)

15. Azusa Pacific University Approach • 927 first-year students • Peer leaders were trained to run all the strengths groups outside of class • 4 class sessions • Designed videos on their strengths • Journaling • Strengths counseling appointment

16. Results Significant differences in: • Relating what they are learning to who they are as unique persons • Seeing others in light of their strengths • Planning their future around their strengths • Applying strengths to achieve academically • Academic self-efficacy • Positive self-concept

17. What is a “strengths-based” course? • Instructor is teaching from his or her own strengths • Instructor shares his/her strengths with students and how they are used to be successful in the discipline • Instructor encourages and assists students as they identify their own strengths • Instructor teaches students to apply strengths to course assignments

18. Instructor provides variety and options in course assignments, according to students’ strengths • Instructor assigns work outside of class to identify and build students’ awareness and development of their strengths • Teams are created in class that capitalize on diversity of strengths

19. Infusion of a Strengths Approach Throughout the First-Year Seminar • Identity and Values • Relationships, Team-Building, and Conflict Resolution • Academic Applications: Learning Styles, Applying strengths to academic challenges • Diversity Issues • Career Planning Process • Managing Stress • Leadership

20. “Good advising may be the single most underestimated characteristic of a successful college experience.” --Light (2001)

21. What Is Academic Advising? “…assisting students to realize the maximum educational benefits available to them by helping them to better understand themselves and to learn to use the resources of the institution to meet their special educational needs and aspirations.” • David Crockett, USA Group/Noel-Levitz

22. Three Major IssuesAdvisors Typically Confront • Course selection • Adjusting to the demands and requirements of college • Choosing a career

23. Advising with Impact • Advisors who are: • Knowledgeable • Accessible • Concerned • Advising that is: • Strengths-based • Planning-centered • Goal-directed

24. Strengths-Based Advising How is it different? • Operates from a different foundation: that by becoming aware of their strengths, students will be more motivated and academically engaged • The focus shifts from problems to possibilities • The framing of advising tasks and questions shifts

25. How Is It Different? • The feeling a student experiences in the advising session is different • They feel understood and known by their advisors at a much deeper level • They experience higher motivation levels since their choices reflect and tap into their strengths • They are significantly more satisfied with advising • Students gain confidence and a sense of direction from the advising session

26. Steps in Strengths-Based Adivising • Identify and affirm students’ talents • Build students’ awareness of how these talents can be combined with skills and knowledge to develop strengths • Set goals with students, helping them see that strengths establish pathways to goals • Develop an action plan

27. Residence Life Programs

28. Orientation

29. Leadership Programming

30. Using Technology

31. Adapting a Strengths-Based Approach to Your Own Campus • Work within your “sphere of influence” • Determine outcomes in advance • Plan the evaluation before the implementation • Allow plenty of time • Ownership and buy-in throughout the faculty, staff and executive administration – begins with understanding their own strengths • Need help with evaluation instruments?

32. For more information… Laurie Schreiner, Ph.D. Eileen Hulme, Ph.D. lschreiner@apu.eduehulme@apu.edu Noel Academy for Strengths-Based Leadership and Education Engaging Learners, Inspiring Leaders Azusa Pacific University Azusa, CA 91702-7000 (626)815-5349