Student Success

Empowering Students So They Can Succeed!

Teaching Philosophy / Creative Teaching / Faculty Development / Classes I Teach / About Me
Presentations / Student Success Projects / OER Textbooks / Hobbies / Professional Growth / Mentoring

I Create and Support Programs
That Help Students
Make Powerful Connections
Between College and Career

Creating pathways for students to connect the classroom to career has always been a priority for me. In 2023, I began working as a Teaching Assistant Professor for Student Success. My first project was to create and teach a class on ePortfolios. To bolster our skills and efforts at using ePortfolios, a team was assembled to participate in the prestigious Association of American Colleges and Universities Institute on ePortfolios. As part of the institute, we decided to move from just focusing on one class to promoting ePortfolios as a college-wide initiative. To support that mission, our team created robust technical support for the ePortfolio platform and I am currently building and Open Education Resource textbook, Professional ePorfolios. This book can be used by any faculty in whole or in part for the ePortfolio projects.

Several years ago, I participated in the High Impact Practices Institute. I was part of a committee to create a HIPS master plan for campus. I am now part of the newly formed HIPS Collaborative whose charge is to look holistically at how the U of A can implement high-impact student success practices campuswide. I will serve alongside other faculty to highlight ePortfolio use on campus.

Designing a curriculum for a course designed to help students connect their strengths to the university and their community was another challenge. To meet that challenge, I developed the second-year course to combine the best practices of interpersonal communication, metacognition as a tool of learning, and life design to support students in this wayfinding part of their lives.

All the initiatives support student success. They are intended to help students make sense of the things that they are learning in college and how those things can connect with their future goals. I believe that these programs will help students to value the education they are receiving and will help them to make lifelong connections with each other and with the university.

I cannot imagine any higher calling than serving our students on their journey of self discovery.

Below you will see some of the coverage from the University of Arkansas news about our efforts.

Created Resources for Faculty and Students

As part of the American Association of Colleges and Universities' ePortfolio Institute Team, we contributed to the following:

An OER textbook: Building a Professional Portfolio
A website of resources: portfolio.uark.edu
Two Podcasts: Beyond a Resume, Part One: ePortfolios in Higher Education and Beyond a Resume, Part Two: ePortfolios in Higher Education.
New micro-certificate, known as The Professional Agility and Career Essential, or PACE for Fulbright College
Development of Professional ePortfolios as an online course.

https://news.uark.edu/articles/70368/multiple-new-u-of-a-eportfolio-resources-available-for-students-and-faculty

Accepted Into the Prestigious ePortfolio Institute

https://news.uark.edu/articles/62937/u-of-a-team-accepted-into-institute-on-eportfolios

Led the UA Team in the Association of American Colleges and Universities Institute on ePortfolios

https://www.aacu.org/newsroom/e-portfolio-institute-participants-2023

Designed the Second Year Experience Course

This course is designed to help student grow as professionals as they find their purpose and their path.

Piloted Professional ePortfolio Course

Worked alongside of Angela Williams to design and implement a course on Profesisonal ePortfolios.

Outlined ePortfolio Infrastructure

Launching WordPress as a primary platform for building and hosting ePortfolios
Creating a support structure for technological assistance
Writing an Open Education textbook: Building a Professional ePortfolio
Informing faculty on best practices of ePortfolio use
Creating a centralized communication hub for ePortfolio resources
Sharing stories of successful use of ePortfolios from U of A students
Systemizing documentation of students' knowledge of General Education Learning Objectives

Co-Hosted High Impact Practices
Show and Tell as
HIPS Collaborative Member

As a follow up to the High Impact Practices Institute, the Collaborative was formed to elevate and showcase high impact practices on campus. I will serve along many other faculty to highlight, develop, and showcase HIPS. I will focus heavily on ePortfolios on campus.

Read the full article.

HIP EPortfolio Award

Award for performance expectations set at appropriately high levels — awarded to the E-Portfolio HIP Team, including:

Lynn Meade, a teaching assistant professor in Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences Student Success
Takama Statton-Brooks, director for residence education for University Housing
Alex Dowell, an instructional designer for Global Campus

Co-Facilitated the Instructor Coach Program

Program Goals

Serve as "first responders"
Bridge gap between students and resources available on campus.
Foster a sense of belonging for students
Facilitate the building of communities that match students' interests
Empower students to advocate for themselves
Assess student progress and engagement
Ensure students have a support network and feel valued on campus

As Team Lead of Teaching Camp, I Focused Trainings on Student Engagement

Lynn Meade, TFSC co-director, said, "We chose student engagement as our topic because it is one thing that all teachers, regardless of department, have in common — they engage students. Engagement is at the heart of student success. This camp was not only about engaging with students, but also about engaging with other faculty. One of our goals of the camp was to build bridges by developing interpersonal and professional relationships between faculty in different departments."

https://news.uark.edu/articles/64924/faculty-talk-about-student-engagement-at-teaching-camp

Created ePortfolio Partnerships

As the lead for the ePortolio Initiative on campus, I collaborate with other faculty who teach portolios to share resources and to promote portfolio work on campus.

I wrote this article to highlight the eportfolio work of student success, music, journalism, and world languages. Because of this collaboration, we will be doing an academic presentation together to celebrate High Impact Practices on our campus.

Facilitated Interdisciplinary Discussions

Students success is increased when faculty collaborate to make classes student-centered. I co-facilitated a session between math and engineering faculty with the objective being to redesign calculus classes.

“This was a terrific experience and truly embodied the One University spirit of our 150 Forward strategic plan. It is always rewarding to interact with like-minded colleagues, with a shared goal of helping our students be more successful. It is my hope that this workshop will serve as a catalyst for future collaborative efforts.” Kevin Hall, associate dean for academics in the College of Engineering

Wrote an Open Education Resource Textbook for Student Success Coaches

When our team identified a need to provide quality training for campus coaches, we decided to write a book and a companion course over the following topics.

1. Coaching Foundations: Facilitating Meaningful Conversations. This module consists of these topics: What is coaching, how to have a coaching conversation, listening is the key to coaching

2. Promoting Student Resilience: Coaching Students Toward a Growth Mindset While Building Failure Immunity. This module consists of these topics: Promoting student resilience, nurturing growth mindset in our students, coaching students to use design thinking for wicked problems, helping students build resilience

3. Mental Health: Supporting Student and Educator Concerns. This module consists of these topics: Mental health introduction, setting up meetings and boundaries, when students over disclose, your own mental health

4. Advocacy Strategies: Empowering Student Voices. This module consists of these topics: Finding the right balance, support or challenges, success road mapping advocacy plans, building bridges by leveraging student services

5. Teaching Students How to Learn: Coaching Students to Become Self-Regulated Learners. This module consists of these topics: Coaching self-regulated learners, helping students create a plan to learn, encourage students to try out new learning strategies, helping students reflect on learning.

To access the book click here: Coaching Connections

Designed a Coaching Connections Certification Program

This five-week course consists of reading, reflecting, discussing and applying key knowledge areas critical to coaching and supporting students.

Served in Student Facing Student Success Events

Worked with the Student Success Team

Presented at Student Success Conferences

TRIO Conference 2023

I present to student services personnel on making meaningful connections with students and with faculty.
Presented at the State TRIO Conference for Student Services Personnel