Yesterday I had the opportunity to present the resilience information and strategies to the Nittany Success Center tutors. This was a really good fit for this information. These wonderful students have the opportunity everyday as they work with struggling students to reinforce some of the important lessons about resilience. From identifying language cues that  represent unproductive mindsets to strategies to help with test anxiety and other emotional impacts on learning, tutors received important information on the research behind resilience as well as practical strategies to use with tutees.  Getting this information into the hands of students who help other students is a good way to multiply the outcomes! They are a great bunch of students! I was grateful for the opportunity.

As an important reminder, these outcomes are not intended to be generalizable in any way. They are specific to Penn State students who participated in the survey and represent opportunities for improvement interventions for those participating campuses only.

To get some background on the participating campuses and the overall project, please see this posting written at the start of the project.

Yesterday, I had a wonderful conversation with Dr. Leo Flanagan, Co-Managing Partner at the Center for Resilience Advisory (CFRA) to go over the results of the survey and the derived model.  Here is a summary of the findings:

1. There were no statistically significant differences in the survey results across the campuses. There were some differences across ethnicity groups, but the samples were too small to work into the model.
2. Overall, our scores were lower than those in corporate environments by half to a full point across all dimensions. Since we are the first higher-ed group to take the survey, we will have to wait for other college results to make comparisons. Right now, we are the benchmark!
3. Looking at the survey results and taking into account what we’ve learned from other projects involving growth of internal attributes, helping students become stronger at critical reflection would be an important aspect to consider in future work with students. We have found in multiple projects at York that critical reflection plays a key role in growth and change. Self-reflection was one of the lowest scores in the resilience survey.
4. The derived predictive model looks at the ten resilience factors measured in the CFRA survey (The Resilience Profile©) and their impact on each of the three areas measuring burnout from the Maslach Burnout Inventory – Student Version. Six resilience factors were found to have very strong correlations with low burnout and therefore could become the areas of focus in future interventions. From the CFRA report, “These were:
   • Balanced Goal Setting
   • Cultivating Support (building empathy)
   • Engaging Others In A Higher Purpose
   • Focus
   • Pragmatic Optimism
   • Grit
   With the exception of Grit, each of these factors can be reliably increased in undergraduates to improve their resilience enabling them to succeed while thriving.”
5. Perhaps most surprising (or not) were the high scores on cynicism. Dr. Flanagan urged caution in this area as cynicism can act as a contagion spreading throughout communities, and as such, would be an important aspect to address early on.  As levels of cynicism rise, levels of emotional exhaustion also increase which can impact a sense of agency and accomplishment. These factors significantly contribute to burnout. Engaging students in finding  a sense of purpose and meaning as well as developing a sense of self-efficacy and agency in their own lives can be an important antidote to cynicism.
6. Mindfulness practice can help students to develop a sense of inner calm and focus. These practices can easily be folded into classroom routines with brief focused breathing or listening activities to begin the class. See the other sections of this website for practical strategies in each area.

In sum, these are the key suggestions for participants in the project: 1) addressing cynicism by building a sense of purpose within empathetic and caring communities (student-derived!), 2) helping students to achieve balance, focus, and perseverance in the pursuit of their goals, and 3) giving them tools to leverage optimistic mindsets in the midst of challenges. These are the main messages of this project and key to achieving these goals is building the skill of critical self-reflection through which meaningful change can take place.

In general from extant research from Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, UC Berkeley, Stanford, and CFRA, students become more resilient by being able to work through the challenges that they face. They are more likely to be able work through those challenges when they avoid burnout (previous paragraph), build positive inner resources, develop mindsets that encourage self-efficacy, growth mindset, and internal locus of control, and have strategies at hand to employ when difficulties arise. 

Again, our sincere thanks go out to Dr. Flanagan and everyone at CFRA for their  support and expertise throughout the project! It is my hope that the good work begun at the campuses can now continue in a more focused way based on these outcomes!

Over spring break, I had the privilege of teaching a lesson on building resilience to students at York College. Many thanks to Dianne Creagh (Director of FYS at YCP) and Greg Stoutenburg (Instructor of Philosophy at YCP) for the invite and opportunity. Coincidentally, I was reading the book Buddha’s Brain (Richard Mendius and Rick Hanson) and really loved the metaphor they use about building a raft to represent internal strength and growth. This idea fits in really nicely with the way I have approached resilience-building – namely as an active process in which students have a lot of agency to make choices for their own lives.

It was great to meet the students of YCP, and I hope they found the session useful and practical. They each wrote themselves encouraging notes at the end of the session which I’ll mail in a few weeks to remind them of some of the key ideas of the session.

Penn State York lecturer in mathematics, Joan Smeltzer and I are working with her Spring 2018 Math 21 (College Algebra) students on resilience. We’ve submitted an IRB proposal hoping to share results at a conference of developmental educators in April (PADE Conference)

Our study plan is as follows: students in both sections of Math 21 receive general instruction about building resilience along with information about one strategy called “Thinking Like an Optimist” from the work of Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania. In this strategy, people practice thinking in the ways that research shows optimists think in difficult times: they 1) think that the difficulty is time bound; 2) that the difficulty doesn’t encompass their entire lives; and 3) they can do something.

Students will have just taken an exam and gotten back the results – so the in class discussion in both sections will be about  how to use this strategy to do better in the next exam. In one of the sections, we will take the activity even further and students will map out on a time management grid, specific times that they will dedicate to studying math between this day and the next exam. Time spent in the Alexs software system will be tracked and exam scores compared. We are trying to get a sense of how much instruction on resilience might be needed to make a difference for students.

On January 15th, 2018, faculty from the Penn State Western campuses (Fayette, New Kensington, and Beaver) gathered to participate in a workshop day devoted to building positive environments that foster resilience and learning. Penn State’s Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence is sponsoring the day. Suzanne Shaffer (York) is presenting, in collaboration with Cheryl Tkacs (Fayette) and Deborah Sillman (New Kensington). The morning session provided an overview of resilience with a focus on building group connections and support. The afternoon session explored the role of mindfulness in building up inner resources that support the development of resilience.

This was a very positive and rewarding day with faculty. Evaluations were quite positive and encouraging, stating that the day was meaningful and practical. It was wonderful to work with the faculty at the western campuses for the first time! Their passion for the work they do with students was palpable and contagious!

Dr. Margaret Mbindyo of Millersville University came to my LL Ed 005 College Reading class last Wednesday evening to speak to the class about her experiences and research on resilience.  Her talk was so well-received by the students and many commented on how her presentation resonated with the work we were currently doing on the topic. The most moving part was to hear about her own experiences growing up in Kenya and how much she and her family struggled to help her obtain her education.

She exhorted the students to “Aspire to something!”  which I believe they took very much to heart. I believe we all felt very uplifted and encouraged by her story. Students were very appreciative and thankful for her time with us.

Thanks Dr. Mbindyo for sharing your heart, your time, and your expertise with us!

Well, our 21-day Gratitude Challenge is officially underway – After one day of posts, we have some data to share for our group!

It will be interesting to see how this progresses throughout the next 21 days!! 35 posts on day one! People can post to the group journal space or to their private space. Read more about the activity at an earlier post

Here’s the group’s final data. It was a good experience especially through the holidays to be reminded to stop and say thanks for all the many good things!

Thanks to Jackie Schwab at Mont Alto for making me aware of this opportunity through UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center! For the last three weeks of the semester (November 27th – December 15) anyone interested may participate in a joint gratitude journal exercise.

A tremendous thanks goes out to Kristy Hove for coordinating the Lehigh Valley participation and to the 200+ faculty and students in the HDFS first-year experience courses at LV who participated in the project!!! Two sessions were offered on Friday November 10th – one on the value of group and informal student-to-student support and the other open session for the campus with a general overview of resilience and strategies to help students build up inner resources and navigate challenges.

Power of Student-Student Support
For the group support session, I focused on activities to set a peaceful environment and build awareness and connection between students in the class as follows: Awareness Meter *, Fast Friends *, Inclusion of Other in Self Scale*, Friendly Wishes for Each Other *, Anchor Breathing, Fortune Teller *, and Taking in the Good*

We used as a guiding principle the research by Dr. Barbara Fredrickson and researchers in her PEP lab at UNC Chapel Hill on positivity resonance, a very powerful approach to making connections. According to her research, if we share positive emotions with another which generate feelings of mutual care, we can derive a plethora of benefits including better mental and physical health and resilience, among others.

We ended the session with a series of reflective exercises: QICS (Question, Insight, Connection, Surprise), Setting an Intention (As a result of the session, I would like to continue to do…), Generating Mutual Care (answer 2 questions – In order to support your classmates, what would you be willing to do… In order to feel supported, you’d like your classmates to do… for you), and finally, students filled out a card with a friendly and encouraging wish for themselves. They placed it in a sealed, self-addressed envelope which I’ll mail to them by finals week.

Building Inner Resources and Strategies to Build Resilience

In the large open session for the campus, I started with a general overview of resilience and the important fact that our levels of resilience can change. With the proper support and good strategies that help us grow stronger internally and deal effectively with issues as they arise, we can become more resilient as we work through our daily challenges. Students received the strategies bag and we alternated between information on building resilience and practicing strategies.

It was a great day, and I’m grateful to Kristy Hove and the HDFS FYS faculty and students for making it such a wonderful experience!

Handouts and the presentations are available at this link.

Resources

Awareness Meter, Friendly Wishes (Mindful Games; 2016, Greenland, S.)

Fast Friends (https://rascl.berkeley.edu/uploads/page-gould_2008_journal_of_personality_and_social_psychology.pdf)

Fortune Teller – Hope Labs – https://www.slideshare.net/hopelab/wizbiz-fortune-teller-how-to-13153534

Fredrickson, B.L., (2013), Love 2.0. Plume, New York, NY.

Inclusion of Other in Self Scale (http://ww3.haverford.edu/psychology/ble/continuous_ios/originalios.html)

Taking in the Good – Rick Hanson – http://www.rickhanson.net/take-in-the-good/

Just had a really wonderful session on resilience with 27 of our Penn State York awesome Lion Ambassadors! We may not think that the high achievers also need to strengthen their levels of resilience, but in fact, these are a group of students who may hold hidden at-risk factors. They are very used to doing well in school, and at some point in college, they experience their first class that is challenging, or their first lower grade on an assignment or test and can quickly lose confidence and a sense of self-efficacy.

Carol Dweck’s research on growth/fixed mindset can come into play here. If students have been praised over time for how well they do in school, they may start to believe that quality is a fixed aspect of personality rather than something that can grow with hard work and/or new approaches. If their grades start to “slip” they may think that the earlier appraisal of their levels of intelligence may have been “wrong” and maybe they aren’t as “smart” as people thought they were. Instead, Dweck describes a different way to think about ourselves as learners – namely that we can grow beyond the current level of ability in any area that we pursue – with effort and persistence, we can improve. We may be struggling in organic chemistry, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t “smart”. Being “smart”, according to Dweck, means having a growth mindset that says, “With hard work and good support, I can learn more than I know right now!”

These students can also put too much pressure on themselves inside and out of the classroom – juggling classes, work, family & friends, and co-curriculars. Our approach to building resilience in this project means working through the challenges, but also learning to thrive – that means taking time to be healthy (in mind, body, and emotions), finding balance, and working on building positive emotions, beneficial relationships, and learning to manage stress levels.

We worked on several techniques and strategies together that I hope simply reinforced the idea that it’s important to care for ourselves everyday so that when the challenges come (and they will!), we are more prepared to face them!

Yesterday, I had the wonderful good fortune to be introduced to Dr. Margaret Mbindyo of Millersville University (Thank you, Dr. Dzubak!) Her PSU doctoral thesis (2011) is entitled: Relationship Between Academic Resilience and College Success: Cross-National Experiences Of Low Income/First Generation Students investigates the question why some students are able to overcome challenges while others cannot. Her own journey from poverty in Kenya to her doctorate at PSU is a testament to her own resilience and a driving force behind the message she shares so enthusiastically with students and colleagues: namely  that with hard work, personal, social, and institutional support, and with a desire to move forward, all students can grow in their ability to be more resilient through the challenges they face.

It was a pleasure to talk about this project with her and she has graciously agreed to come to campus to speak with our students on Wednesday November 29th!

1. I’m traveling this week to Millersville University to talk with Drs. Cora Dzubak (Formerly of Penn State York) and Margaret Mbindyo on the resilience project. Stay tuned on any possible collaborations!
2. Nov 1st, I’ll be speaking to our campus Lion Ambassadors about building student resilience. Sometimes the best and brightest are more at-risk when their internal expectations are challenged by new and difficult material. Also, these student leaders can make a difference in informal conversations with other students who may be struggling at any given point in time.
3. Nov 9th, I’ll be traveling to Lehigh Valley to do several presentations for students on building resilience
4. Spring 2018, I’ll be working with our students tutors on resilience for themselves and their tutees.

Professor Joan Smeltzer invited me to her Math 21 and Math 4 sections last Friday to present resilience information to the students. It was a very timely talk at this point in the semester as students are getting tired and feeling especially vulnerable if math isn’t their strong suit.

I geared the presentation toward math specifically and included Dweck’s work on mindset as students often think of themselves as “not being good at math.” So we challenged those assumptions and asked them to consider changing their mindset to include the following::

Found a really useful article on math resilience highlighting the challenges that even those who are math majors face!

WARD-PENNY, R., JOHNSTON-WILDER, S., & LEE, C. (2011). EXIT INTERVIEWS: UNDERGRADUATES WHO LEAVE MATHEMATICS BEHIND. For the Learning of Mathematics, 31(2), 21-26. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41319562

I also had a chance to update the presentation in terms of student engagement – added this activity(Strategies Cup) as a metaphor for the work we can do all the time to strengthen our overall inner resources and have solidified this approach which seems to make sense at this point:

For the last five years, I’ve been working on a Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (SoTL) project to help my college reading students succeed academically.  I’ve also used it as a model for other faculty who are interested in pursuing SoTL. This journey led me to research being conducted on lifelong learning and eventually to this resilience project.

In 2012, I paired my LL ED 005 College Reading strategies course with a Psych 100 section taught by Dr. Mark Casteel. The intention of the pairing was to make the learning in LL ED more concrete and lasting when applied to actual course content. Students started off strong, holding their own against a group with better academic preparation. However, they couldn’t maintain the successes over time. They simply ran out of steam.

What next? If reading strategies alone couldn’t do the trick, what was still missing?  As I explored the problem and talked with colleagues in the field, I was led to the Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory (ELLI) developed by researchers at the University of Bristol (Deakin Crick, Broadfoot, & Claxton, 2004). Thus began the journey towards incorporating strategies to build inner resources for students – a one-two punch as it were – giving students the academic strategies needed to DO the work of college while developing attributes to help them BE effective lifelong learners.

The following year, I integrated the use of ELLI into the LLED course which was now paired with Dr. Santiago-Blay’s BiSc 003 Environmental Science course. Students in the paired course and those only in BiSc 003 took a content pre/post test and also ELLI pre/post. The results were very interesting!

In terms of content and other academic measures, LL ED students were holding their own throughout the course and even made gains such that there was no statistically significant difference between their scores on the content post-test (non-graded) and others in the general course (p=.79). 84% of the LL ED students passed the course with at least a “C” or better. Most telling was that 84% of these students were retained fall to spring as compared to 74% of their peers with similar SAT reading scores (average 359) who had not taken LL ED.

To build lifelong learning into the course, I used this framework:

Students took ELLI pre- and post-semester and we saw statistically significant gains in all areas of lifelong learning except Learning Relationships for those taking LL ED. For those in the control group (only taking Bi Sc 003), no statistically significant gains were made pre- to post-semester in any dimension of ELLI.

These results were published in 2015 (Shaffer, Eshbach, & Santiago-Blay).

These results were promising, but obviously the small sample size was an issue, so I wanted to build up the data set to see a more complete picture. Over the next few years, I was able to pair the LL ED with an Anthropology course (Dr. Orleth-Diener) but then the administrative side of creating paired courses became too challenging, and so the campus went back to the standalone model in 2015. I incorporated ELLI into the course each year and here are the results pre- to post-semester for the LL ED group over time (n=90):

In 2015, I was also able to start some benchmarking by collecting first-year student ELLI scores (n = 176). We now had a more robust sample against which to make comparisons. A subset of these students also took ELLI post-semester to expand the control dataset as well (n=47). Finally, In academic year 2016-17, I was able to collect ELLI data on a sample of our seniors (n=66) and so we could begin to make some comparisons between groups.

Control Group ELLI Scores Pre- to Post-Semester

There were no changes in the control group pre- to post-semester which begs the question, “Do students grow in these dimensions of lifelong learning as a result of simply taking college courses?” In the short term (1 semester) it seems that not much change registers.  However, when we compare our first year student scores with our senior scores, we do start to see some changes happening.

Comparison of First Year and Senior Benchmark ELLI Scores

What began to emerge as important were the low Resilience scores across the board. Also, when looking at senior benchmark scores, Resilience is the dimension where the largest gains are made. I interpret this to mean (and the existing research seems to support this) that students become more resilient by virtue of learning to navigate challenges. So by the time students reach their senior year, they simply have been through enough challenges that they have grown more resilient. The research also emphasizes the role of support in helping students to navigate the challenges that arise. I believe that this is one of the hallmarks of a Penn State York experience! We have small class sizes that give students ample opportunities to get to know their faculty members, and we have wonderful support staff in advising, career counseling, financial aid, student services, the library, the Nittany Success Center and all other support offices,  ready and willing to help students when needed.

So with this expanded information before us, it was time to begin working more intently with resilience as an attribute that we wanted our students to acquire. Thus began the working relationship with CFRA and the current project!

Deakin Crick, R., Broadfoot, P., & Claxton, G. (2004). Developing an Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory: The ELLI project. Assessment in Education, 11(3), 247-272. doi:10.1080/0969594042000304582

Deakin Crick, R., & Yu, G. (2008). Assessing learning dispositions: Is the Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory valid and reliable as a measurement tool? Educational Research, 50(4), 387-402. doi:10.1080/00131880802499886

ELLI Vital Partnerships http://www.elli.global/

Gill, S.,  Shaffer, S.C.,  Seidel, A. (Manuscript in process). Additive effects of mindfulness practice and critical reflection on lifelong learning attributes. Penn State York.

Moore, T. & Shaffer, S. C. (Accepted 10/16). Awakening the learner within: Purposeful prompts and lifelong learning measures in a first-year composition course;  Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.

Shaffer, S.C., Eshbach, B.E., & Santiago-Blay, J.A.; (Fall 2015). A dual approach to fostering under-prepared student success: Focusing on doing and becoming. InSight: A Journal of Scholarly Teaching; Vol. 10;The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) Park University. Parkville, MO.

I caught up recently with Keysha Whitaker of the Penn State Berks Campus who has been working with students on her campus in terms of resilience and other success measures for many years. Even though Berks could not formally participate in the resilience project this year (they already had a focus for their FYS that had been agreed upon before the end of the last academic year), Keysha wanted to make sure she incorporated some of the material into a recent workshop on her campus called, Keys to Academic Resilience: A Positive Mindset and Support System On the Road to Greatness. There were 60 students in attendance and she said it was well-received!

This session was part of a larger series offered at Berks called On the Road to Greatness Workshop Series. It was developed by the Office of Student Support Services to share practical ideas for academic success with first year students. These interactive workshops are meant to help students understand their individual learning styles and present information to enhance the development of skills necessary for academic success. The theme this year was developing your individual path towards academic success, helping students develop an action plan for achieving their goals in higher education. Other topics in the series include goal setting, test taking strategies, time management, the importance of making positive choices, communication skills for success, career exploration, learning styles, improvement of memory and grades, and stress management.

For the resilience workshop that Keysha gave, she used some of the slides from my IST 111 presentation and shared her handout with me to be offered for others to use. I added it to our Canvas group!!  It has been so great to meet and work with so many wonderful colleagues dedicated to student success through this project! This sharing of resources and good ideas made me nostalgic for the early days of my career where sharing seemed to be much more widespread! For me, this kind of positive contact with colleagues has been a welcome shot in the arm! Thanks Keysha!

Here are some gems from her handout

Inspiring Quotes

Some thoughts on a positive mindset . . .

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing . . . to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” – Viktor Frankl

“The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.”  – William James

4 Key Beliefs (Taken from “How Kids Learn Resilience” in The Atlantic, June 2016)

1. I belong in this academic community.
2. My ability and competence grow with my effort.
3. I can succeed at this.
4. This work has value for me.

Thanks for the good work, Keysha and for generously sharing your approach and resources in our conversation!

October 9th was the first session with students at the York campus. IST 111 is a 1-credit first-year experience for students exploring the Information Sciences and Technology major. Thirteen students participated in a session going over the basics of resilience, exploring the ways in which they normally manage life challenges, considering their strengths and weaknesses from the 10 elements from CFRA’s research, and trying out strategies to build resilience and inner resources. We are still awaiting results from the survey, so students did not have their actual data yet, but we talked about it in terms of their own perceptions of strengths and weaknesses. The session lasted about 1.25 hours and was well-received by  students and the faculty member teaching the class.

It was a good first attempt and clarified for me the approach I’ll use going forward: namely that we’re talking about this in two ways – 1) learning how to build inner resources all the time so that we are stronger internally and 2) learning effective strategies to cope and manage when difficulties arise.

As an aside, another faculty member (not in the project) came by my office the other day and shared some concerns she had about focusing on resilience. Her concern was that students might get the erroneous message that students shouldn’t feel difficult emotions. I assured her that this couldn’t be further from the truth – Life is difficult and the associated emotions are often painful and confusing. Being resilient is finding way through the difficult times – not by ignoring the difficult emotions, but by learning to recognize, honor, and manage them as best as we can – not to be derailed by them. People can grow in resilience by working their way through difficult times – sometimes with guidance and extra support when needed – and this approach also looks at ways to help people thrive in the process!

Human Development & Family Studies (HDFS) faculty at Altoona, Mont Alto, and York have been working with their students in various courses this semester to develop an understanding of the value of resilience for themselves as students and future professionals in the HDFS field (and for their future clients) where burnout can be an issue.

Drs. Lauren Jacobson-McConnell, Sonia Molloy, Jackie Schwab, and Robin Yaure have been using the CFRA resilience survey  with students in their HDFS classes. Students are completing activities and reflections meant to bolster resilience levels. Thanks to a grant from the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence, faculty at Mont Alto and Altoona are also using the ELLI lifelong learning survey along with critical reflection assignments to help triangulate the resilience scores.

Here are a few more details on what’s happening in those classes

HDFS 420 (Schwab) – The first exercise was to promote mindfulness and support asking students to reflect on a practice shared by Brene Brown (June, 2017) called “She is doing the best she can.” While the goal of this exercise is part of our communication and conflict resolution material, it fits in well with the building resilience efforts.  This simple practice fits in both with positive psychology and mindfulness pillars of resilience and ‘self-control’ and ‘cultivating support’ factors that define resilience (Flanagan, 2017). 

HDFS 311 (Schwab) – ‘Balanced goal setting’ class activity.  I asked the class to reflect on their goal setting habits.  Then they wrote answers to the “Four Questions” (Flanagan, 2017) and kept this for future reflection.  I also had them complete the Professional Development Self-assessment I (which I use every year) and asked them to select three skills to improve.  We added those to the back of the four questions handout (from J. Kasar, N. Clark, D. Watson, & S. Pfister, 1994).

HDFS 129 (Yaure) –  I gave students a handout with the ten factors of resilience from the CFRA.  I then asked them to identify the top three elements that are most meaningful to “you in terms of how you think you would be most successful”, identify which they felt BEST at, and which they felt they needed to work on most. I did not specify how many of the elements should be identified for the last two questions, and would change that next time. I am going to follow up with a discussion/activity on grit and then focus since those came up most often for the top 3 and would therefore be good to work on, respectively.

Drs. Amber Seidel (HDFS York) and Joseph Seidel (Engineering Harrisburg) have been working on a joint project looking at study approaches and levels of resilience.

Stay tuned for more details on their projects and what they are learning!

Phase one had us gathering interested parties. In phase two, we deployed the survey. Now CFRA is crunching the numbers and working up the data to be shared back to students and campuses! Students should start to receive their scores in about 3 weeks. What story will the data begin to tell us? In which areas of the existing model should we focus our classroom work? Stay tuned!

This first post was actually part of our Fall 2017 Newsletter on Teaching @ Learning Penn State York I’ll re-post it here since it is a good summary of the project so far!

FOSTERING RESILIENCE

York is leading a pretty exciting project happening this fall across multiple Penn State campuses. Faculty from Altoona, Mont Alto, Harrisburg, Fayette, Lehigh Valley, and York are incorporating a survey into their classes to measure resilience with the hopes of understanding various aspects of the trait and its impact on student success and retention.

In May, Dr. Leo Flanagan of the Center for Resilience Advisory (CFRA) came to York to give a workshop to 38 faculty, staff, and administrators from five Penn State campuses on building student resilience. During the daylong session, he presented CFRA’s model which includes 10 factors that define student resilience.

During the session, participants received an overview of the model and examples of interventions to address the different areas.

After the session, interested faculty joined a cohort which met several times over the summer to develop individual research projects or classroom-based approaches for using the tool with students.

Desired outcomes of the project are as follows:

To develop:

1. a predictive model of student resilience at the campuses which would allow for more targeted and timely interventions
2. benchmark resilience data to be reported to the participating campuses to support retention processes
3. a deeper understanding of the role of resilience as it impacts student success at the classroom level through action research and Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (SoTL) projects

Faculty are investigating the connections between resilience and student success within disciplines or other academic areas such as HDFS, Engineering, Math, First-Year Experiences, and academic support courses.

I want to thank those people who attended the workshop in May and those participating more fully in the fall projects who are listed here with their campuses:

• Amber Seidel (HDFS, York)
• Joe Seidel (Engineering, Harrisburg)
• Kristy Hove & LV faculty teaching FYS courses (Lehigh Valley)
• Robin Yaure (HDFS, Mont Alto)
• Jackie Schwab (HDFS, Mont Alto)
• Lauren McConnell (HDFS, Altoona)
• Mary Prescott (Counseling, Hbg)
• Sonia Molloy (HDFS, York)
• Joan Smeltzer (Math, York)
• Ann Fetterman (PaSSS, York)
• LeighAnn Fry (PSU 008, York)
• Danielle Mitchell (FYS, Fayette)
• Jay Precht (FYS, Fayette)
• Michelle Kaschak (FYS, Lehigh Valley)
• Keysha Whitaker (Engl, Berks)
• Deirdre Folkers (IST, York)
• Suzanne Shaffer (College Reading, York)
• Jorge Santiago-Blay (Biology, York)
• Andy Landis (Chemistry, York)
• Fulgentius Lugemwa (Chemistry, York)
• Amy Krtanjek (Engineering, York)
• Judy Higgins (Business, York)
• Anne Greenawalt (English, York)

We will continue to meet over the course of the semester to share approaches and interventions as well as lessons learned which we will share with the wider PSU community in SP or FA 2018. Stay tuned for what we learn!

This and related projects are being supported through grants from the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence, Teaching & Learning with Technology, and from the generous support from the folks at Penn State York and CFRA who are working with us gratis to build the predictive model for higher education.