New England Board of Higher Education » Landmark College

Climbing the Walls: Adventure Education and Perspectives in Learning

John O. Harney — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 12:48:21 +0000

The classroom lecture/discussion model has become shallow and brackish. It should no longer be the standard.

Most educators recognize the value of practical experiential learning and strive to develop assignments that engage students in a meaningful way and help them to deepen their understanding of rote content and derive some meaning from it. In an age where multiple streams of information input compete for student attention, active learning activities have become even more important. Such lessons need not be overly cumbersome, but should, for a time, involve students in a shared “nontraditional” activity which can then be used to process and apply course content.

Landmark College in Putney, Vt., serves a population of students who learn differently and for whom college success is fraught with some additional obstacles. As a college, we are tasked with exploring pedagogical methods for mining new levels of self-awareness in students. All faculty seek to get their students “out of the classroom” to apply course concepts in a practical realm. This type of approach, often reserved for higher-level courses, is particularly valuable for our first-year population who are vulnerable after ongoing challenges at the high school and college level. These students are ripe for self-discovery and our program seeks to deliver.

Like many first-year seminars, "Perspectives in Learning" is a course specifically designed to scaffold and explicitly delineate the interconnections between disciplines. Its goal is to teach skills that can be generalized across the curriculum and to support learning. In addition, it aims to promote increased metacognition and awareness of diversity.

In a unit addressing theoretical models of memory (encoding, prioritization, storage and retrieval) and classification of long-term memory (declarative/non-declarative), students are “brought to the wall.” That is to say, the entire class embarks on a shared experience that, at first, seems to have little to do with the content or study skills, but is ultimately one of the most valuable lessons of the course. It not only brings students to apply the theoretical concepts to novel situations, but shifts the class dynamic through collaboration and group process.

Layers of collaboration

The class meets at the campus Rock Wall for a collaborative lesson with Landmark’s adventure educator. The adventure education tenet “challenge by choice” still remains true. However, students are required to participate in the climb. They must be present, wear a harness and shoes and engage actively in some way. The shared experience is the key.

The lesson occurs in three phases: Content Review, the Climbing Experience, Process/Reflection. Prior to the climb, students have done all the traditional exercises, read articles, developed visual models and representations of each concept. These models are reviewed just prior to the climb and used for reference and review. The experience begins as the adventure educator takes over the class and directs the brief safety lecture and instruction on equipment and procedure. The great shift occurs as students begin to gear up.

Harnesses, it seems, are the great equalizer. Everyone looks awkward. But happily, new leaders emerge. More vocal class members suddenly need support from the typically less visible students. Some are deftly buckling and shoeing and others are looking befuddled by the tangle of webbing. Eventually, course-specific terms are matched with the new lingo. Gris-gris, locking cam and “red is dead” are identified as new semantic learning. We don't sit in a room and look at pictures of these terms and memorize definitions and descriptions. We use them in a active way and introduce the terms while using the equipment and terminology.

The lesson is designed to have students access the different memory systems and learn to recognized and discuss the differences and the importance of using them in concert. Those already experienced with the tricky locking carabiners are celebrated as having a functional “procedural memory” for such things; and, everyone is expressing the retrieval of “emotional memories” of past fun or fear in relationship to rock walls. Eventually, this buzz calms as belayers settle in and the business of climbing begins. Students on the ground support those on the wall with encouragement or direct instruction. Students not climbing find their roles as anchors or photographers. There are so many ways to be involved that it is impossible to avoid collaboration in this process.

You bring yourself to the wall—it’s personal

When students finally come back down to the mat, they smile, they shake their arms and fingers and the processing begins. At first, they just relive the climb, talking about challenges and exciting moments. Then with prompting, they shift to the process pages posted on the wall or easel. This is where they record examples of how the different memory pathways were in use during the activity. This work can be hard as they still want to talk about the episodic and emotional experience rather than dig in to focus through a more academic lens. This is supported by another level of collaboration. Students tease out ideas together as they stand in front of the poster pages labeled with prompts. What was semantic? Procedural? Reflexive? What was retrieved? What was encoded? Responses differ among students and generate debate. Analysis deepens as they are asked how their experience relates to the brain’s prioritization of information. Some will admit that recent emotional burdens faded in the endorphin rush as someone realizes “I forgot about that Psych exam I have been so stressed about. I just let it go. Their task is to apply this observation to the target information (survival information trumps emotional and academic data) and identify how to use this knowledge in the future.

At some point, students’ will comment on each other’s “approach” to the wall. This is often a concrete observation of a student’s behavior that reflects their general approach to other challenges. When climbing, some students are notably haphazard in their approach, some attack the wall until they find their rhythm. (You were all over the place on the way up, but you rang that bell!). Still others stare at the wall and plan their route carefully before even touching it (Dude, you stood there forever, but then went up like a spider monkey!) Some folks need prompting to begin the climb, and their technique improves as they ascend. Some, when stuck at the crux, focus quietly scanning the options; others call for help (what now!), And a few, give up too quickly, fearing the challenge. In many cases, however, student behavior when attempting the climb can be related to their approach to other challenges in their academic life such as writing assignments or research. These tendencies on the wall are identified by other students and, for many, it is only a few quick steps to relate it to in class behavior. (Impulsive responses, giving up too easily on in class tasks). These are genuine and honest insights and are shared and received in a positive way.

The class is over by now and students hang out to talk. While students have a better understanding of the vocabulary and how this experience and academics meet, it is these final metacognitive revelations that tend to be revisited in class after class. The group dynamic has shifted as everyone has a greater understanding and appreciation for each other. The moments and their meaning are discussed openly and freely among students as they continue to collaborate and support each other throughout the semester.

Different angles

This activity, like so many lesson plans, has evolved and been used to address other course concepts. The gym is an overlooked facility as a tool for integrating curriculum. With imagination, a skillful teacher can help find the relevance and richness in any experience.

In the past, this same activity has proved valuable in helping students understand the function of specific brain structures. Students can visualize and discuss brain activity when they climb blindfolded and need to use touch (parietal lobe) to create maps of the holds (hippocampus) and plan moves (frontal lobes). (And let’s not forget the sheer exhilaration of climbing blind–limbic system! Amygdala!) These discussions highlight how even specialized parts of your brain are always at work and do so in concert with each other. The next leap is finding a way to capitalize on this knowledge to aid in academic learning. In general, lessons such as this create “teachable moments” and bring students to an understanding that concepts in the course can be generalized to other areas of their life.

Shake it up and get out

Even in-class collaborative groups can become stale as students get stuck in roles or simply can’t find a role at all. The wall changes this. In its essence, it presents a different level of collaboration and gives a concrete experience of a student's learning style. Students whose areas of competence are revealed at the wall are then suddenly freed to take more risks in classroom work groups. Likewise, those typical classroom heroes who struggle on the wall give up some of their in-class macho and proffer more respect and space to the others.

Since Landmark College’s inception, the unique mission and standards for teaching have always held faculty accountable for lessons that engage and inspire students. This approach has become even more valuable as technology has turned the traditional classrooms from self-contained incubators of structured learning, to an estuary of fast flowing competing information. This phenomenon is not unique to Landmark. The classroom lecture/discussion model has become shallow and brackish. It should no longer be the standard.

All learners approach information differently, even if they are not explicitly identified. Experience is central to the learning process, and collaboration adds many dimensions to classroom learning for all students. This requires that faculty be innovative and be encouraged to step out of their own rote curriculum and out of the classroom. They must shake up activities, create the teachable moments, make students stretch and, yes, sometimes, let them climb the walls.

Rebecca Matte is an assistant professor in First Year Studies at Landmark College. The photo of the climbing wall was taken by Russell Durrenberger, one of Matte's students.

A Way to Promote Student Motivation and Autonomy

John O. Harney — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 10:47:00 +0000

The case for greater transparency in grading practices in the first year

Vermont’s Landmark College has been exclusively serving students with Learning Disabilities since 1985 when it opened its doors for a dyslexic population of college-ready students. Our mission now also includes those with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and those on the autism spectrum. Landmark serves a specific population of student for whom college success often poses challenges; however, there are other reasons that students may go to college without the necessary skills to realize their full potential, or indeed, stay to finish. This diversity of learners now includes many groups, such as: adult learners and veterans returning to college, “first-generation” students, and those with psychological challenges. Targeted support in the first year is critical for all at-risk students, and teachers at Landmark excel in this area—we have to. With my first-year-experience classroom at Landmark College as my lab over the years, I have worked to develop systems to support students, which include a way to communicate explicit expectations when assigning work and transparency of grading practices.

I have learned from observing my students over the years that motivation increases through self-regulated learning. The process of evaluating, monitoring and finally directing one’s own learning is a powerful one. But students need the information to evaluate—and they need it from us. As teachers, we can make explicit and available—throughout the term—our grading criteria, the assignment and test grades, the missing assignments and the current overall grade for student use. Listing the grading percentages on our syllabus is a great place to start, but is not enough by itself. I decided to try giving my students the tools they need all semester, which I hoped would allow them to independently evaluate and monitor their progress. With some simple techniques for transparency and alignment of my assignment and grading systems, I hoped that my students could ultimately really own the grade they earn.

I have always incorporated a certain level of monitoring and self-evaluating into my freshman seminar course, primarily through self-reflective writing; students respond in journal format to a regular academic “check-in” with themselves. I have them do it during class for the first few weeks of the term: They open the grading program during class and reflect on categories such as attendance, homework completion or class engagement. I also ask them to look at their current overall grade and discuss it (in writing) while including a statement about goals they have set for themselves for the semester. With regular “check-ins,” patterns often begin to emerge by mid-semester, and the reflections provide students with an opportunity to notice these and relate them to their overall grade; lateness or attendance issues may be affecting the grade, for example. Or is it a pattern of homework-completion issues? Low test grades? Noticing and acting on patterns as they arise enables the student to achieve better outcomes by implementating adaptive strategies—in other words, directing their own learning.

These in-class reflections had been working well, but I realized I needed to streamline the information students most need for taking ownership of their learning. I needed to better align the assigning with the grading.

Giving an assignment or a test and then grading it are two sides of the same coin. It has taken me several years to perfect a simple and useful way of marrying the two through a transparent and user-friendly system. I align my assignment language exactly with that found in the grading program. Many professors use a website of some kind for their classes; I use mine to post all of the term’s assignments, among other uses. I also use the college’s grading program, on which all grades are entered. I have discovered that I can join the two easily and quickly by using a simple formula; since standardizing the system is a key component of easy access for students, I did so by making assignments and grades on both the website and the grading program labeled and dated the same way. I number the assignments from #1 all the way to the end of the semester, and each contains the date assigned and name or abbreviated content of the assignment (“HW #5, Feb. 14: Goals Essay”).

For ease, when I write the assignment into my course website, I also add it to the grading program. Now, in both places with identical dates and language, both are easily available to students for cross-referencing, and it’s very little extra work for the teacher. Of course, this would work fine if you have all your assignments listed on your syllabus as well. This system adds depth to my periodic academic “check-ins” because students have the current information they need to fully understand how they are doing in the course—and why—as they move through the term.

Sound easy? It is! Students can open the grading program alongside the assignment language. Where there is a zero next to an assignment, they can easily look up the description and due date on the website by finding the number of the assignment. They can conversely locate the graded assignment and see what they received for it. They can understand immediately how a specific grade affects the current overall grade, and may thus become empowered to ask about opportunities to, for example, revise a paper, or schedule an office hour appointment. Once the students use this system a couple of times, they learn to take advantage of it with regularity to check-in with themselves, and they can begin to become more autonomous in their ability to regulate their own learning process.

Motivation may increase as students have the tools to take ownership of the work and the grade. As a bonus, I no longer have students asking me for an assignment they may have forgotten to write down, a due-date, or how a grade will affect their overall grade; the onus has been squarely placed on the student.

Students who attend Landmark College often need extra support in meeting their potential as learners, especially in the first year. But this system, in the true sense of Universal Design, would benefit any college freshman at any institution. In creating an ongoing user-friendly system for my students, I provided a quick and easy way for them to get a read on how they are doing at any given time as they move through the semester, and I have seen it become a valuable tool for these freshmen, specifically in terms of increasing self-knowledge, self-advocacy and empowerment—goals for any student. By demystifying the grading process, we teachers have the opportunity to offer our students the ability to more fully understand their own learning patterns and therefore to set and achieve their academic goals.

Sophie Lampard Dennis is an associate professor at Landmark College

Holistic Support that Promotes Student Learning

John O. Harney — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 10:00:33 +0000

For decades. the cost of serving college students, from community colleges to Ivy League institutions, has been a barrier that has blocked access for many who want an education. With a recent massification effort aimed at producing more college graduates for the workplace, the enrollment numbers have increased and student debt load has become a real concern. Tuition costs are often perceived as the primary factor that prevents students from graduating, particularly when they struggle to be successful early in their college years.

Vermont’s Landmark College since 1985 has been exclusively serving students with learning disabilities, Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity/Disorder and other diagnosed disabilities, and it too has felt the economic pressure of tuition costs, at times even topping the list of most expensive private colleges in the country. Landmark College serves one population of underprepared students; however, there are other reasons that students may go to college without the necessary skills to realize their full potential- or indeed, stay to finish. This diversity of learners now includes: first-generation college students (whose parents never enrolled in higher education), ESL students, adult learners and veterans returning to college, and those with psychological challenges, to name a few.

We know that lack of college-preparedness, whatever the cause, often expands a student’s college stay, which drives up the cost of their education. Once identified, student challenges can be effectively addressed using a holistic and collaborative approach. The expense of an education, while often tagged as the primary barrier, is not necessarily the sole factor that impedes academic success.

Barriers to student success are complex and overcoming them must involve first assessing and then addressing the needs of the learner. This process can most successfully happen with a holistic approach; students are best served when they are placed in the center of multiple existing campus services. This model works especially well because teachers and other professionals share an understanding of common barriers. Not to be undervalued, this approach allows for greater success in assessing current student challenges, determining the best resources and providing continued academic support.

We are not proposing curricular or programmatic change as the “student-centered” models often promote. Instead, we are suggesting a different way of considering a student’s academic challenges, as well as examining how existing services can work together to benefit the student.

Understanding what college students need in various learning environments will help those who work with them to identify the barriers that they face. Because effective learning is complex, it requires more than simply attaining academic skills. It is easy to become bogged down in thinking that if a student is struggling academically, it must be a skill-acquisition issue, but there are three other critical areas that can be recognized in the learning process. We have developed a framework that identifies the four main domains that all students must manage in order to be academically successful, and which professionals can use in a collaborative and holistic process with struggling students.

Within the first year of college, it is especially important for students to grow in the following four areas: the attainment of academic skills, the development of social and emotional maturity, the regulation of self, and the ability to activate and maintain motivation.

Figure 1: The Four Domains of Learning

Ideally, learners must have adequate control over all four areas in order to perceive, process and express their understanding of the complex new content presented in college classes. Students, especially those who are underprepared, may require support in one or more domains, and in order for professionals to offer the needed support, it is necessary to identify the area(s) in which the student is challenged. For example, is this student capable during class, but not turning in any work? If so, challenges with self-regulation, such as planning and prioritizing, should be considered. Once determined, collaborating and communicating across existing campus resources becomes paramount, for example, a homework support setting, coaching services or working in groups with peers will be of benefit.

This simple framework illustrates both the spoken and frequently unspoken barriers that a student may be grappling with, particularly during the first year in college. Although each domain is independently distinguishable, they more commonly overlap in both negative and positive ways. For example, skill attainment is often driven by motivation, and motivation is often related to a social and/or emotional factor. Students who find themselves unable to regulate these areas independently will require concerted support from various resources on campus. Once the underlying barrier is addressed, skill attainment will more readily occur. If all professionals, such as faculty, advisors, resident deans, academic support personnel and counseling staff, understand the significance of these four domains, and can collaborate meaningfully, there will be greater efficiency in pinpointing the challenging areas and providing targeted on-going support.

The Four Domains of Learning Explained

In the area of academic skill attainment, a range of skills is required of students. In many ways, this area is the most easily recognized area of challenge, because students will typically ask for help with reading, writing and thinking. They want help understanding the content being covered in class or what is required of them to be successful in the course, and will pose questions like, “Could you explain this content in more detail? Or “In what style would you like this paper written?” These clearly represent academic skills and can be addressed during an office hour visit, in the academic support center on campus, or even with peer support.

While skill-based academic barriers are often transparent, social and emotional ones tend to be less obvious to both the learner and those working with him or her. As a result, a challenge in this domain is often overlooked (by the professional) or avoided (by the student) in an academic setting. This area of development dictates the emotional state held by the learner toward a particular academic task at hand. For example, a student who had a negative past experience with a topic or subject area may negatively interfere with skill acquisition during new experiences with that topic or subject. This barrier may be masked, or deflected by the student and can seem to be projected on to the teacher or an assignment; it can allow students to set themselves up for failure. For instance, instead of understanding that a past failure in math contributes to thinking that one will always be a poor math student, the learner may say, “This class (or teacher) is awful,” or “this assignment is ridiculous.” This critical domain can be thought of as the “elephant in the room” because it is often unspoken or left unaddressed. It is, therefore, important to realize that there is always an emotional component to learning. Advisors, counselors and faculty can work in concert to provide the appropriate support, which will usually involve helping the student to recognize his or her emotional connection to the subject or assignment.

Our emotions are not only linked to our overall perception of ourselves as learners, but they will also affect our level of motivation to activate learning. Low levels of student engagement are commonly expressed by teachers as those learners being “unmotivated.” Increasing numbers of faculty talk about students’ “lack of interest” in class or assigned work, and they can feel as if their students need to be entertained in order to get motivated. But motivation is more complex than levels of participation. Being motivated to learn is directly linked to our ability to comprehend the concepts, and to understand the relevance of learning the content when it is placed in a larger context. Students are not afraid to claim they are not motivated in a particular class, and may even blame the teacher with statements like, “This teacher is so boring.” It is easy for faculty and advisors to focus energy on defending the work of the teacher, whereas supporting the student by strengthening comprehension and relevance of the material individually or in small groups may be more productive. In addition, helping students set both personal and academic goals can enhance motivation, especially at the freshman level; this productive activity can occur cross-departmentally with advisors, counselors and of course instructors.

Lastly, challenges within the domain of self-regulation can be quite common among first-year college students, and if not addressed, can become a formidable barrier to success. The support offered must, therefore, include comprehensive collaboration across campus resources within the academic and residential program. The profound nature of this barrier encompasses the inability to plan, organize, prioritize and exercise will power to complete tasks. This can be the result of a lack of independent practice while living at home prior to college, or more seriously, the challenge of managing these executive skills as the result of Attention Deficit Disorder. Added to the difficulty in assessing this area is the fact that many students struggling within this domain will not come to class regularly and then find themselves falling behind to such an extent that it is impossible to catch up. Professionals need to identify these students early, because it can quickly become too late to help them with the skills they need to be successful. Even if they attend class regularly, they may have trouble completing assignments and handing work in on time. Coaching services, resident deans, academic support staff and advisors on campus represent resources for both the student as well as the classroom teacher. Providing structured support in the areas of breaking down complex assignments and time management strategies including use of a planner/assignment book are beneficial to this student. Of all the barriers to academic success, this represents the most urgent of the four domains because it has a profound effect on overall performance.

Addressing Underprepared Learners

As campuses enroll an increasingly diverse set of learners, the issues surrounding underprepared students must be addressed. Coupling the budgetary constraints currently plaguing colleges with the expense of delivering the programming that academically challenged students need—and considering the ensuing retention issues that colleges face—makes it time to support new thinking. Once a student is admitted, colleges and universities are called upon to fully meet her where she is academically. With targeted ongoing support, both the student and the institution can benefit, because underprepared students can more quickly reach their academic goals, thereby reducing cost, and the retention rate of all students should increase. Postsecondary educators today are in a position to make a real shift that meets the needs of current students. By fully utilizing existing campus resources within a collaborative system, the possibility of academic success that all students strive for can be reached.

Sophie Lampard Dennis and Dorothy A. Osterholt are professors in the First-Year Studies Department at Landmark College in Putney, Vt.

Supplemental materials

Assessing Common Student Responses
Questions for Assessment Used by Professionals

Two New Presidents Among Latest Comings and Goings in NE Higher Ed

John O. Harney — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 17:56:55 +0000

Landmark College hired Endicott College dean of arts and sciences Peter Eden to be the new president of the Putney, Vt. two-year college for students with learning disabilities, effective July 1.

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The Massachusetts Board of Higher Education approved John O’Donnell as the next president of Massachusetts Bay Community College. O'Donnell, current president of Stark State College in Ohio, will succeed Carol Berotte Joseph who is leaving MassBay after six years to become president at Bronx Community College in New York. He was president of the Regional Campuses of the New Hampshire Community Technical College System and commissioner and CEO of the New Hampshire Community Technical College System.

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Saint Joseph College appointed Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences Vice President for Academic Affairs/Provost Michelle M. Kalis to be the Connecticut college's provost and professor of biology and pharmaceutical sciences.

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Judy A. Beal, a longtime nurse educator who specializes in the changes in 21st century nursing, was named dean of the Simmons College School of Nursing and Health Sciences, effective July 1.

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The University of New Haven appointed Michigan State University chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Ronald S. Harichandran to be dean of its Tagliatela College of Engineering, effective Aug. 1. The university also appointed Marsha K. Ham, executive director of the lifelong and distance learning division at Ohio University, to be associate vice president and dean of University College, starting Aug 1.

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Annemarie Seifert, associate vice president for student affairs and enrollment management at Georgia Southern University, was appointed associate vice chancellor for student development at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

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Hartford Seminary corporators elected four new trustees and affirmed the appointment of Timur Yuskaev, director of the Islamic Chaplaincy Program at Hartford Seminary, as a faculty trustee. The new trustees are: attorney and financial consultant Christel Ford Berry; Imam Salahuddin M. Muhammad, a Muslim chaplain for the New York State Department of Correctional Services; Sydney A. Perry, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven and the Jewish Community Center of New Haven; and James K. Robertson Jr., senior partner with the Carmody & Torrance law firm in Waterbury, Conn.