Vodicka & Murray-McDonald                                  Recasting the Tutee as a Winner: Generating Self-Efficacy in Learning and Writing Tutorials

23/Th                         2:15 PM                                                      Van Sweringer

 

Type_Presentation:         60-minute Concurrent Session

PresentationTitle:         Generating Positive Self-Efficacy for College Reading and Writing

ProgramStrand_Primary:     Brain Compatible Teaching/Learning

ProgramStrand_Secondary:   Learning and Study Strategies

 

Presentation_description:

How do people enter into Halls of Fame? Perseverance? Drive? It may be difficult to visualize for those who lack confidence in their reading or writing abilities. Experience an awakening in promoting self-efficacy. Participants will gain knowledge and inspiration from models and theories of positive psychology and affective learning.

 

Purpose of the Session

There is a tool for learning and student success that is easy for student support staff and faculty to overlook.  The wonderful thing is that this tool is free and we already have it. This tool is the mind, where one has the opportunity to develop a positive sense of self-efficacy.

 

College educators and support staff have the opportunity to assist students in moving past limiting thoughts and behaviors. This session will cover the ways in which we could scaffold students to become successful in the day-to-day accomplishments that ultimately lead to a more engaged college experience. 

 

This session is ideal for anyone concerned with student success. Instructors, professors, administration, support staff, advisors, and academic program coordinators will all benefit from this workshop. Participants will leave prepared with unique approaches to help their students understand their thinking patterns and reach the ultimate Hall of Fame— self-actualization through positive self-efficacy.

 

Learning Objectives

Participants will learn about self-efficacy and the important role that it plays in scaffolding student success at the college level.

Participants will learn new strategies and approaches to helping students overcome limited thinking and pinpointing studentsÕ current beliefs and obstacles. 

Audience members will learn techniques for identifying poor attitudes toward reading and writing and ways to address these attitudes in tutorials. 

 

Significance to the Field of College Reading and Writing

The main theoretical models for this presentation include Positive Psychology (Seligman) and Self-Efficacy (Bloom) which will benefit faculty and staff at all types of colleges and universities and from all departments.  Both models will be discussed as they pertain to college learning.

 

Handouts will be provided in order to promote further investigation of the theories and models.  Handouts will include the following:

1.   Description of each theory and how they pertain to student success   

     at the college level.

2.   Bibliographies featuring helpful websites, articles, and texts.

3.   Specific strategies for promoting self-efficacy in the areas of college reading and 

     writing.

 

Relevance to CRLA Members and Conference Attendees

Many CRLA conference participants attend the conference with the goal of learning new ways to address problems that they encounter during their day to day work with college students. This presentation will open up the audienceÕs minds to a new way of helping students become better learners. Participants will leave the presentation with a fresh perspective and unique and innovative strategies and approaches that they will be able to apply right away in their work with students.

 

This presentation will involve active audience engagement. Everyone has a story to tell about their experiences working with college students. What characteristics determine an individual with positive self-efficacy? What about a lack of self-efficacy, or someone ÒlostÓ in between? Participants will be invited to share some of their stories and complete a short activity in which the attributes and traits positive self-efficacy are determined. (This activity led by Christine Vodicka, M.Ed.).

 

In addition, Mary Murray, Ph.D., will lead the group in an activity in which studentsÕ papers are Òdecoded.Ó Participants will be given examples of writing from students with high and low self-efficacy.  Participants will then determine the student who hates writing, the student who enjoys writing, and, lastly, the student who enjoys writing but needs more preparation.

 

This presentation was inspired by the presentersÕ personal experiences with the positive transformations of their students (due to enhanced self-efficacy). The experiences all share the same common denominator—shift in beliefs. Both presenters feel passionately about the role that the mind plays in learningÉor not learning. 

 

PresenterBio:

Christine A. Vodicka, M.Ed. is the Coordinator for the Tutoring and Academic Success Center at Cleveland State University. She received her M.Ed. and BA from Kent State University. In addition to being a Reading Specialist, she specializes in Curriculum and Instruction. For twelve years she has helped a diverse population of learners reach their ultimate attainment.

 

Presenter2_Bio:

Mary Murray McDonald has directed the CSU Writing Center and Writing Across the Curriculum Program for nine years. She received her PhD and MA from Purdue University in Rhetoric and Composition. Her research interests include designing pedagogical materials for urban students, writing assessment, the teaching of grammar, and the writings of thomas Merton. Her book Artwork of the Mind was published by Hampton Press in 1995.