Content Proposal Reflection

Content Proposal Reflection - April 2010

I wanted the Wordle representation of my Thesis project to highlight certain terms. Student, retention, and service are the main themes of my thesis and final project and these are prominently revealed. The next most important terms are college, staff, and faculty. These 6 terms are the key to this service being meaningful for education and institutions and this Wordle rendition expresses the focus of my thesis and final project with great emphasis by focusing on these terms.

Master's Degree - Months 1-4 Reflections

Reflections on Months 1-4:

Likes/dislikes:

During this process I have had to face myself many times and think about how my perceptions and desires are often flawed and inconsistent with how I like to think I am.  I could say I disliked many things, but in the end what I would consider dislike is actually when I faced a challenging experience.  What I truly felt was the pressure and challenge of doing something new or having to do something I was uncomfortable with.  Growing up, all I wanted to do was play soccer and I knew in order to play at the highest level I had to challenge myself or find someone to challenge me, and even though I did not always like it I knew it would take me to the goals I placed before myself.  For this reason, I have loved this process.  It has made me do things I would not have done on my own, while providing information and skills I would not have had the time to gather.

How they apply to your thesis:

My thesis is more about providing a service to colleges.  Much of what I have learned has broadened my perspectives and given me knowledge I will use, but it has not directly applied to my thesis.  I did learn many things will apply to my classroom and how I seek to educate my students.  Of the classes that affected my thesis the most it would have to be Emergent Technologies in A Collaborative Culture.  I am seeking to use Web 2.0 tools to provide my service.

How they apply to the content proposal:

Everything I have learned has influenced my proposal in some form or another.  The integration of Social Networking in Retention first came to mind in a few of the classes, and I learned a lot about how connecting individuals is important to success. 

What learning theory applies to your style/belief of teaching and learning:

This being my first education class it was nice to start out learning about Multiple Intelligence Theory, and even though I do not fully agree I am able to see why someone would align with it.  That being said, I have recognized in my students certain abilities that are stronger than others.   I do believe Multiple Intelligence Theory does have some validity and will seek to include ways for each type to be taught in my classroom.

How does this help with your delivery of instruction:

This has allowed me to encourage my students to earn their degrees in areas more aligned with how they learn and what they are passionate about.  In teaching Audio and Video Technology, I find my students are primarily experiential learners.  They like to get their feet wet, get their hands on the products we introduce them to, and practice the techniques that make projects successful, and I seek to provide an atmosphere that encourages this.

Reflecting on my Master's experience

"Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are."
Bernice Johnson Reagon

This experience has been quite challenging and very fulfilling.

During the first four months I experienced a high level of apprehension and tension from the unknown of online Master’s education.  There was plenty going on.  In my first week of classes we left to Georgia on a planned visit to family and I started my work without any Internet service.  With this being an online education requiring high speed Internet I was stressed out.

One of my positions at the college is the Women’s soccer coach, so in early August when our college started again I was busy with 2 practices a day, coaching the ladies, preparing for games, planning travel, driving to games, managing supplies, and maintaining the facilities.  Along with coaching, I am the Director of Chapel Arts, where my responsibilities encompass managing the audio and video technology we use a couple of times a week, training and managing the video team who records our services, learning a new console we use for sound and training the staff, working with the worship teams and speakers, and planning future events.  As the semester moved along my responsibilities transformed into working with special projects, conferences, and events.  While still coaching the women’s team, I taught one class in the fall and one class in spring during this process and enjoyed working with the students.

In August my wife and I learned our four-person family, my wife, my two daughters, and me would be expecting a fifth member, a third daughter.  The excitement was palpable with the anticipated arrival.  As I looked at the schedule I realized my wife would be delivering during the same week I would be finishing my Master’s degree classes.  Fear and trepidation filled my heart as I tried to figure out how I was going to be able to support my wife, fulfill the responsibilities of my job, recruit and prepare my soccer team for the coming season, provide enough time and involvement in my daughters, and continue the success I have experienced in the Master’s program.  The unknown was starting to take over my psyche. 

The greatest wife on the planet, helped me regain my focus and I started to take it one day at a time.  Now with the light at the end of the tunnel having completed my thesis, 11 classes behind me and 1 to complete, and my final project close to completion I can feel the sun shining and the can smell the clear crisp smell of the coast.  Soon I will be fishing off the docks of Georgia reflecting on a life-changing journey, victorious battle, and wide-open future this process has given to me. 

"The true measure of a man is not how he behaves in moments of comfort and convenience but how he stands at times of controversy and challenges."

Martin Luther King Jr

Wk2 Reading - Art of Possibility, Chapters 4-6

Chapters 4-6 of Art of Possibility have challenged me all the more.  It is amazing to read the information in this book and recognize myself in its words.  How do I place value on myself?  I would have to say I am driven by my accomplishments.  But, what accomplishments, and at what point do I finally reach satisfaction or contentment?  In Chapter 4, Being a Contribution, has taken me back to a place I hope to stay.  "Naming oneself and others as a contribution produces a shift away from self-concern and engages us in a relationship with others that is an arena for making a difference."  When I look at myself in the mirror and ask myself if I accomplished enough today, the answer is very difficult, if not impossible, to gauge.  How much is enough?  What entails accomplishment?  On the other hand, the question of whether I was a contribution is very easy to handle. 

This idea of contribution transitions into chapter 5, Leading From Any Chair, which discusses the leadership rule of granting greatness.  If my greatest desire is to be a contribution and I am able to challenge my soccer team, students, and family to focus their efforts on being a contribution, it is in my best effort to contribute to their success by granting them opportunities and train them how to be a contribution.  This empowering allows those around me to experience greatness in themselves.  Maybe this is implementing a strategy from on of my players in a game, maybe it is allowing my daughters to share an idea for the family to invest in, or maybe it is giving my students the chance to work on a project they are passionate about.  By humbly granting greatness and fueling the passions of others, you become great.

Chapter #6 points at our perspectives of our own importance.  Any leader has the potential of putting themselves in a place of savior.  I can see in myself the arrogance of thinking I am the answer to the problem, or I am the only one who can fix this, or my way is the only way this will work.  Rule #6!  Don't take yourself so seriously.  Now I know I am not incompetent to solve problems, but at the same time if I am constantly solving problems I am not granting greatness.  The dilemma stems from the idea of accomplishment.  In the workplace you must accomplish the tasks, and if you don't the job will be given to the person who is.  If a company structures itself around the idea of teamwork, the goal is not that an individual would accomplish the task, rather the task would be accomplished through the contributions of each team member.  What a great philosophy.

Wk3 Introduction of My Thesis

     Despite the lofty ideas of higher education bettering a society, colleges and universities are a business. If a college does not have the funds needed to operate, it will close and the students will be forced to find a new place to earn their degree. Of those who enrolled in a four-year institution, the U.S. Department of Education (2002) reported only 55% of all undergraduates who began their studies at a given four-year institution in 1995-96 with the goal of a bachelor’s degree completed that degree within six years at that same institution (including 59% of Caucasians and 41% of both African Americans and Hispanics). This means that nearly half of all students fail to achieve their goal of graduation from their first-choice college with a bachelor’s degree. Studies show there are many factors leading to attrition, and many of these key factors can be addressed if the right people know the student is considering transferring or dropping out.

     From a practical perspective, it costs a university more money to recruit a new student than it does to retain a student who already attends the college. In their book Increasing Student Retention: New Challenges and Potential, Levitz, Noel, and Saluri (1985) suggest it takes three-to-five times more money to recruit rather than to retain a student. This statistic is further augmented when carried out over four years of enrollment if the student persists until graduation. The cost of recruiting a student is divided by each year the student attends an institution; therefore the longer a student stays at an institution the less of an impact of the investment on each student.

     A 2007 report by Noel-Levitz, Inc. shows average expenditures for two-year public, four-year public, and four-year private institutions for recruiting a single student. The total costs include: enrollment staff salaries, benefits, capital costs, supplies, publications, consulting, vendors, and supervision. Two-year public institutions invested $121 recruiting each student, the least amount of all institutions surveyed. Four-year public institutions were next on the list at $398 per student; four-year private institutions average $1,941 spent on recruiting each student.

     If a four-year private institution invests $1,941 on a student and that student transfers or drops out after their freshman year, the institution invested the total amount on that student in one year. However, if a student continues at an institution the recruiting investment is divided by four years, the cost is reduced to $485.50 per student. This example clearly links two financial pieces of institutional income, enrollment and retention. If enrollment is able to recruit a record number of students for an institution, but also has a record number of retention losses the increase in revenue is erased and possibly creates a larger deficit. Because of this, retention strategies must play into institutional budgeting as strongly, or stronger, as enrollment strategies.

     The task then is to improve retention. Students are not retained for many reasons. Some of the major reasons are a lack of connection to the campus, not feeling the college cares enough about them, or believing that interest in their personal success was lacking. Studying and surveying students provides colleges and universities the information necessary to improve and build effective retention strategies and programming.

     Survey results show that the most common areas of ok improvement include integration into campus social life and faculty academic advising. Richard Halpin (1990) believes there is a need for students to be connected to their institution, stating, "while little can be done to influence 'background characteristics' or 'environmental' circumstances of community college students, the creation of institutional mechanisms to maximize student/faculty contact is likely to result in greater levels of integration and hence persistence" (p. 31). The New Jersey Institute of Technology is one institution that was able to improve their retention by addressing this concern. Through, “the development of academic and co-curricular support and individual student intervention programs, NJIT has increased its freshman to sophomore retention rate to about 83%, a 10% increase” (Bloom & Kelly, 2008, p. 1). This is a major accomplishment that had a direct positive affect on the revenue of the institution.

     In order to have an effective program staff and faculty must be trained to notice retention risks. College staff have a responsibility to provide for the needs of the students while faculty have a responsibility to provide a quality educational experience. Laurie Schreiner (2009), director of the doctoral programs at Azusa Pacific University in a research study published by Noel-Levitz, Inc., suggests it is important to connect the student with the campus as soon as they arrive, because the college experience has a significant impact on their decision to persist at a university. She states, “comparing this factor across the four class levels, its greatest predictive ability was among first year students. Clearly an important part of starting students off right is to help them feel at home on campus” (p. 4).

     Not only does the campus life need to be effective at connecting the student, Michael Cain (1999) adds, "the teaching faculty is the key to the …college’s work. Other factors in the system, such as the support staff, administrators, politicians and students might help draw up the route for the trip, but it is the faculty members that drive the bus." (p. 47) If the student connects with their faculty, especially in their degree field, they will have a connection with their desired career path. Much of this connection revolves around the impact and opportunity the degree will offer the student upon graduation. Studies consistently show faculty play the largest part in helping students connect due to their knowledge and involvement in the industry; yet communicating with a large number of diverse advisees has the potential to be a daunting task for even the most committed faculty.

     Social networking has the potential to provide an early connection for new students with the campus through publicizing intramurals, clubs, socials, volunteer opportunities, student organizations, and other events. One company seeking to bridge the gap between social networking and college staff and faculty is Inigral.com. This company builds pages for institutions using an application on facebook.com called “Schools on Facebook” to open up a social portal for students, faculty, and staff (Inigral.com, n.d.). This institutional page is designed for the institution to connect future, current, and past students with the campus. Using the second most visited site on the Internet, facebook.com, Schools on Facebook has the potential to reach the majority of college students. This could be a large step to improve communication and connection between colleges and students.

References:
Astin, A.W. (1993). What matters in college? Four critical years revisited. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc.

Bloom, J., & Kelly, K. (2008). Increasing enrollment of first-time-full-time freshman (FTFTF) in STEM majors, year two. Retrieved February 18, 2010, from http://icee2008hungary.net/download/fullp/index.html

Cain, M. S. (1999). The community college in the twenty-first century: A systems approach. New York: University Press of America.

Evelyn, J. (2002, April 26). For many community colleges, enrollment equals capacity. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 41.

Gordon, V. (1985). Students with uncertain academic goals. In L. Noel, R. Levitz, & D. Saluri (Eds.), Increasing student retention: New challenges and potential. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 127.

Halpin, R. L. (1990). An application of the Tinto model to the analysis of freshman persistence in a community college. Community College Review, 17(4), 22-32.

Inigral.com. (n.d.). Schools on facebook. Retrieved March 8, 2010, from http://inigral.com/

Levitz, R., Noel, L., & Saluri, D. (1985). Increasing student retention: New challenges and potential. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.

Noel-Levitz, Inc. (n.d.). Retention revenue estimator: Estimator for four-year institutions [Worksheet]. Retrieved September 18, 2009, from https://www.noellevitz.com/Papers+and+Research/Retention+Calculator/

Noel-Levitz, Inc. (2007). 2007 Cost of recruiting report: Summary of findings for two-year and four-year institutions. Retrieved March 15, 2010, from https://www.noellevitz.com/Papers+and+Research/Papers+and+Reports/ResearchLibrary/Recruiting+Cost.htm

Noel-Levitz, Inc. (2007). Student retention practices at four-year institutions. Retrieved January 10, 2010, from https://www.noellevitz.com/search/results.aspx?query=student%20retention%20practices

Noel-Levitz, Inc. (2009). Benchmark research study conducted fall 2008: Mid-year retention indicators report. Retrieved October 20, 2009, from https://www.noellevitz.com/Papers+and+Research/Papers+and+Reports/ResearchLibrary/Benchmark-Student+Retention.htm

Seidman, A. (2005). College student retention: Formula for student success. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.

Schreiner, L. A. (2009). Linking Student Satisfaction and Retention. Retrieved from https://www.noellevitz.com/Papers+and+Research/Papers+and+Reports/ResearchLibrary/Linking+Student+Satisfaction+and+Retention.htm

Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0: New tools, new schools. Eugene, OR: International Society for Teacher Education.

Tinto, V. (n.d.). Student success and the building of involving educational communities. Retrieved January 15, 2010, from http://aiea.syr.edu/vtinto/

Tinto, V. (n.d.). Student retention: What’s next. Retrieved January 15, 2010, from http://aiea.syr.edu/vtinto/

U.S. Department of Education. (2002). Descriptive summary of 1995-96 beginning postsecondary students: Six years later. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center of Educational Statistics, 28-32.

Wk4 Free Choice - My Pitfalls

In many journeys there are pitfalls along the way.  A friend of mine once shared a story of leading a group through the wilderness with a flashlight and a topographical map.  With it being dark he missed one line and a couple of his body's took a step off a 10 foot cliff.  Now, I don't feel anyone has led me astray, but over the past 11 months there have been times where struggles have come and it has felt like I was falling down during this Master's journey.  The first week of classes I was extremely anxious because of a planned vacation to a place where there is no internet service, not a good idea when you have to turn your assignments in online.  Every class had a barrier to hurdle, learning Flash, music theory, being on video, thesis papers, final projects, etc., but along the way there has been encouragement.

My wife, who already has her Master's degree, has been amazing to watch our two young girls, clean the house, take on more responsibility.  She has empowered me to continue in my quest.  My professors have challenged me to learn new things and step out to new areas of the Education field.  My family has supported and encouraged me along the way.

There have been and are yet to be more hurdles.  My degree finishes up on April 25th, but I will be in the hospital with my wife as she delivers our third daughter.  My job has crazy hours at times and I have had to work 60 hours some weeks along with the 20-30 hours of homework.  I coach the Women's soccer team at Oklahoma Wesleyan University and have to travel for recruiting, teach skills and tactics in practice, and met with my returners to motivate them.  We had to give up our dogs, cut back on what we are involved in, and accept more dirt than we would like.  But, in the end, it will be worth it.  The skills I have gained will allow me to expand my skills, open up opportunities, and have provided a new level of satisfaction in myself.  I have made this goal, and soon will accomplish it.

In many journeys there are pitfalls, the key is to claw your way out, learn from it, and continue the adventure into the unknown.  Here I go!

Wk3 Free Choice - My plans

How can you plan for life?  Most successful professionals say you should have a 1 year, 5 year, and 10 year plan in order to have direction for where your life will end up.  I am sure they are right and due to their success it must be working for them.  I guess I could have put in mine that I would be married by 25, but that would have been wrong; I would be a senior pastor when I was 30, but that would have been wrong; I would have two children, but that is soon to be wrong; I would be out of debt and wealthy by now, yeah right!  Then again, I am not sure I would have liked to have known how and where I am today.  I love that I was married at 27, I didn't meet my wife until then.  I love that I have two beautiful daughters and another due April 22nd.  I love that I am in the midst of earning my Master's degree, which was never in my plans.  I love where I am and I am proud of WHO I am. 

Adventure is not really knowing what might happen, but seeking it anyway.  I am on its path.