{"id":3404,"date":"2011-07-08T10:24:39","date_gmt":"2011-07-08T17:24:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www2.nau.edu\/news-p\/wordpress\/?p=3404"},"modified":"2012-10-26T11:18:47","modified_gmt":"2012-10-26T18:18:47","slug":"first-year-learning-initiative-puts-effort-into-student-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/first-year-learning-initiative-puts-effort-into-student-success\/","title":{"rendered":"First-Year Learning Initiative puts effort into student success"},"content":{"rendered":"

A national wakeup call and a culture shift in higher education form the backdrop for a new Northern Arizona University initiative that seeks to boost the effectiveness of first-year courses.<\/p>\n

Professor\u00a0Michelle Miller<\/strong>, incoming chair of psychology and a prominent voice in course redesign, is playing a central role in NAU\u2019s First-Year Learning Initiative, which intends to increase student engagement and retention by revamping courses across a broad range of disciplines.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is about something we all want to accomplish,\u201d Miller said, \u201cwhich is more students coming to college, more students succeeding in college, and more students gaining the skills that they\u2019re going to need to succeed in their lives and careers.\u201d<\/p>\n

If that goal seems ambitious, then consider this: Working on an initiative that began to take shape only in March, Miller\u2014who was named a\u00a02011 Distinguished Teaching Fellow<\/a>\u00a0at NAU\u2014and initiative co-creator\u00a0Blase Scarnati<\/strong>\u00a0are joined by a group of highly motivated peers who hope to revise 28 courses in time for the fall semester.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s intense,\u201d Miller said. \u201cI\u2019ve never seen anything like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It seems that she and the rest of the initiative team are leading by example.<\/p>\n

Effort, it turns out, is the key to student success in those crucial first-year courses. At least, that\u2019s a conclusion reached by the authors of\u00a0Academically Adrift<\/em>, a recent publication that \u201creally rocked me back on my heels,\u201d Miller said. The book, written by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, argued that large numbers of students\u2014nearly half, in some categories\u2014showed marginal gains during their first years in college. Implicated were courses that required little reading, sparse writing and generally little effort.<\/p>\n

Retention may be one factor explaining why such courses would be in the curriculum, Miller explained. As tuition revenue rises in importance, there is increasing pressure to retain students\u2014pressure that can, for some faculty, influence grading.<\/p>\n

But students still leave, and Miller said it\u2019s not just because they can\u2019t do the work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n

\"Michelle<\/a>
NAU professor Michelle Miller is playing a central role in the university’s First-Year Learning Initiative, which intends to increase student engagement and retention by revamping courses across a broad range of disciplines.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\u201cOne of the biggest predictors of who stays at NAU is grades,\u201d Miller said, explaining that it\u2019s natural for some struggling students to try another college if their first choice isn\u2019t working out for them. \u201cWe need to elicit more effort that leads to learning that leads to better grades.\u201d<\/p>\n

The apparent contradiction is explained by what Miller calls \u201cthe paradox of rigor,\u201d a principle that has emerged from her own experience.\u00a0 Simply put, \u201cif you make things easy,\u201d she said, \u201cgrades will go down. It doesn\u2019t have integrity and it doesn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea of getting back to basics represents a changing culture in higher education, Miller said. \u201cIt\u2019s becoming OK for us to step up and say there\u2019s no substitute for student effort, and we can set up the environment to get that effort from them.\u201d<\/p>\n

To do so, Miller and Scarnati, an associate professor of historical musicology and an expert in first-year courses, have been working with a contingent of faculty.<\/p>\n

Their focus quickly narrowed to three areas: socializing, design and alignment.<\/p>\n