Supplemental Instruction: Review of the Research Concerning the Effectiveness of SI from the University of Missouri – Kansas City and Other Institutions from Across the United States
Arendale, David. “Supplemental Instruction (SI): Review of Research Concerning the Effectiveness of SI from The University of Missouri-Kansas City and Other Institutions from Across the United States,” in Mioduski, Sylvia and Gwyn Enright (editors), PROCEEDINGS OF THE 17th and 18th ANNUAL INSTITUTES FOR LEARNING ASSISTANCE PROFESSIONALS: 1996 AND 1997. Tucson, AZ: University Learning Center, University of Arizona, 1997. Pp. 1-25.

Supplemental Instruction (SI)

Review of Research Concerning the Effectiveness of SI from The University of Missouri-Kansas City and Other Institutions from Across the United States
David Arendale, University of Missouri, Kansas City
 
Goals, Purpose and Audience for Supplemental Instruction (SI)
The Supplemental Instruction (SI) model of student academic assistance helps students in historically difficult classes master course content while they develop and integrate learning and study strategies. Goals of SI include:

• Improve student grades in targeted historically difficult courses
• Reduce the attrition rate within those courses
• Increase the eventual graduation rates of students.

federal funds for dissemination of SI until the NDN was discontinued by the U.S. government. National and international dissemination continues. As of November 1995 faculty and staff from 614 institutions across the nation had received training to implement their own SI program. SI is active at 115 institutions in 12 countries (Australia, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, Marshall Islands, Malaysia, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, South Africa, Sweden, United Kingdom, and West Indies).

Claims of SI Effectiveness Validated by the U.S. Department of Education

Claim 1. Students participating in SI within the targeted historically difficult courses earn higher mean final course grades than students who do not participate in SI. This is still true when differences are analyzed, despite ethnicity and prior academic achievement.
Claim 2. Despite ethnicity and prior academic achievement, students participating in SI within targeted historically difficult courses succeed at a higher rate (withdraw at a lower rate and receive a lower percentage of D or F final course grades) than those who do not participate in SI.
Claim 3. Students participating in SI persist at the institution (reenrolling and graduating) at higher rates than students who do not participate in SI.

Description of the SI Program

A. Goals of SI
The three closely-related goals of Supplemental Instruction (SI) are

• Improvement of student course grades
• Reduction of attrition rates in historically difficult college courses
• Student persistence toward graduation.

Nationally, high student attrition among first year college students continues to be a trend (American College Testing Program, 1996). Tinto (1987, p. 1) predicted in 1986 that of the nearly 2.8 million students who entered higher education for the first time, more than 1.8 million will leave without receiving a degree. Tinto, regarded by many as the expert in student retention in post-secondary education, has identified four significant factors in the dropout of students (1989, p. 47). Many students felt socially isolated on campus. Students had difficulty in adjusting to the new environment. Students suffer from incongruence (i.e., they were not able to link the knowledge received from class lectures to what they already understood). The final factor was that students had difficulty in the college environment. The SI program can be part of a broad institutional response to help address these four problems. The SI review sessions provide a safe environment for students to discuss and process the course material. Students in SI become acquainted with each other as they interact. The SI leader facilitates the discussion so that students can make adjustments, discuss what they do not understand and discover strategies for mastering difficult material.

C. Intended Audience for SI
SI targets “historically difficult” courses rather than high-risk students. At many campuses historically difficult courses are typically defined as difficult, entry-level courses in which the unsuccessful enrollment rate (the percent of grades of D, F, and Withdrawals) is more than 30 percent. Examples of these courses at UMKC include: General Chemistry I, Western Civilization I and Foundations of Philosophy. Since a new SI program often places an emphasis on entry-level courses, SI has often served primarily first year and sophomore level students. However, the program has been effectively implemented in courses where students are likely to fail at the graduate and professional school level (e.g., Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Business, and Law) both at UMKC and other post-secondary institutions. Despite academic discipline or grade level, SI has been effective. This history of success with SI in upper division courses is important because some institutions implement SI to retain first-generation and low-income professional school students. Each institution can adjust the definition of “historically difficult courses” to meet their own institutional objectives and needs. SI is effective with students from a variety of ethnic, economic and academic preparation backgrounds.

The following are departments within the College of Arts and Sciences or professional and graduate schools where SI has been offered at UMKC (Number Inside Brackets Represents Number of Different Courses): Art [1]; Biology [3]; School of Business [3]; Chemistry [6]; School of Dentistry [1]; Economics [2]; Foreign Language [3]; History [6]; English [2]; School of Law [5]; Mathematics [3]; School of Medicine [3]; School of Pharmacy [2]; Philosophy [1]; Physical Science [1]; Political Science [2]; and Sociology [2]. SI Programs from other institutions report its use in similar areas and use in Engineering, English-as-a-Second Language and other disciplines.

Courses are designated as “historically difficult” if there is a continuous record in preceding semesters that students receive a high percentage of D or F final course grades or withdraw from the course. The purpose of attaching SI is to assure that the course is no longer difficult for a large number of students. It does not, however, lose its “historically difficult” status for services. Once the D, F and withdrawal rate has been reduced, the SI service is continued since nothing has been done to change the course per se. Data suggests that when SI was not provided for the course (e.g., cannot find a suitable SI leader), the D, F and withdrawal rate returns to the original baseline. The only condition under which a decision is made to discontinue SI is when a change of course instructor results in uniformly higher grades and, subsequently, lower levels of student participation in SI. The campus SI supervisor continuously monitors the impact of SI in every course where it is offered through comparative data for students who attend SI and those who do not attend.

Definition of “historically difficult” course relates to a single factor: the percent of students who complete the course successfully. It is irrelevant whether the high rate of poor grades and withdrawals is a function of the course content, the instructional method, the hour the course is offered, or the population to whom it is offered.
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The critical factor is that students have academic difficulty. SI reduces that difficulty. There is no claim that SI addresses every need.
It should be noted that there is substantial evidence that attrition follows poor grades. Students tend not to withdraw from courses or drop out of college when grades are acceptably high. In 1990, Noel and Levitz from the National Center for Student Retention published a research study that suggests a strong correlation between grade point averages and persistence in college (Table 1). SI is designed to increase student academic performance that is generally indicated by higher final course grades.

Table 1: Dropouts and Persisters: Separated by College Grade Point Average

(N of Students = 3,874 and N of Institutions = 43)

Since there are no students who are pretested into the SI program, and since SI is open to all students in the targeted class, students are not subjected to a remedial stigma. “One way of integrating all students is to make sure our learning communities are open communities” (Tinto, 1990, p. 22). Despite the student’s previous academic success, SI sessions are designed to benefit everyone. “Successful institutions know that ultimately student retention is a by-product of student success and satisfaction” (Noel, Levitz, & Saluri, 1985, p. xiii). Rigorous evaluation suggests that SI helps to provide that success and satisfaction. Effective assistance is particularly important during the first year of college when students need “front-end” academic support (Upcraft, Gardner, & Associates, 1989). The SI model uses collaborative learning (Johnson, et al., 1991; Tomlinson, 1989; Whitman, 1988). SI leaders are trained in proactive learning strategies. Based upon a recently completed annotated bibliography of more than 800 citations on collaborative learning (Tumey, 1993), the SI model is well represented in the professional literature.

E. Features: How the SI Program Works
(1) Scope: Academic assistance programs exist on almost all college campuses today. These programs may include special counseling and academic advising, one-on-one tutoring, remedial or developmental courses and study skills courses. The central purpose of these programs is to support and retain students. Sometimes, SI supplements these offerings; in others, SI replaces one or more components of an existing academic assistance program. In either case, the addition of SI serves to enhance the total campus retention effort. Besides the previous definition of a historically difficult course (30 percent of students receive a D or F final course grade or withdraw), at UMKC these courses would include one or more of the following characteristics: large in size; mostly lecture with little opportunity for question/answer; or a “gatekeeper” course that must be passed before the student can enter an academic degree program.

(2) Curriculum and instructional approach: SI sessions are structured to maximize active student involvement with the course material. The SI leader neither relectures nor introduces new material. Instead, the SI leader guides students in using their own class notes and reading materials to help students clarify course concepts. Although the SI leader provides structure and guidance, the responsibility for processing course material remains with the students.

Although faculty members who teach courses targeted for SI are very supportive and involved in the program, they do not receive information regarding the names of their students who participated. While the faculty member is welcome to observe occasionally the SI session, they are not encouraged to make it a regular practice. The SI supervisor must be sensitive to the possibility that some professors may be unintentionally biased with scoring examinations and awarding final course grades based upon student participation in SI.

It is important to ensure that SI not only avoids being viewed as remedial, but also avoids being labeled as compensatory. The incentive for students to participate in SI is increased academic performance. At UMKC, the staff feels it is important that students not receive extra credit for attending SI. Not all students can attend SI due to conflicting class or work schedules and family duties. Nor can all afford the additional tuition expense.

(3) Learner activities: At least three or more hours of SI are available each week per course. During the SI session, the SI leader models application of study strategies such as note taking, graphic organization, questioning techniques, vocabulary acquisition, and test prediction and preparation. Students learn to trust each other to verbalize what they do understand and clarify what they don’t understand. At the beginning of the semester, the SI leader provides the structure for the study session. However, as the semester progresses, the students assume responsibility for the structure by creating informal quizzes, visual models, note cards or time lines, brainstorming, designing paired problem solving activities or predicting test questions. This is a powerful use of collaborative learning strategies.
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(4) Learning materials: Students come to the SI session with their course notes, textbooks, and course handouts. The SI leader may occasionally provide a work sheet as part of the planned structure for the session. The SI group itself, however, becomes the primary learning resource as students clarify and add to each other’s knowledge base through discussion and problem solving. During training, adopters receive a SI Supervisor’s Handbook. This handbook helps the supervisor in all phases of implementing the SI program. The SI supervisor receives a training notebook to give to SI leaders. Additional resources include monographs related to SI, video tapes related to SI training and management, various survey forms, and supplemental materials.

(5) Staff activities and staffing patterns: The SI program is administered by a professional staff member (e.g., a faculty member, learning skill staff). SI supervisor duties include: selecting courses targeted for SI; gaining faculty approval and support; identifying SI leaders; training SI leaders; evaluating the performance of the SI leader; collecting data on the SI program; and analyzing and reporting the results of the program. SI leaders are usually students who have previously taken and performed well in the targeted class. Sometimes learning center staff members, other students or community members conduct SI. The faculty member, however, must approve the leader as content competent. The SI supervisor assesses the SI leader’s communication skills, time restrictions and attitude. Once selected, the SI leader must attend a twelve hour training course; attend all sessions of the targeted class and take notes; complete all assigned readings for the targeted course; schedule and conduct at three or more SI sessions a week during the semester; provide a plan for the SI session using the strategies learned in training; and attend regular meetings with the SI supervisor. Successful SI sessions occur when the SI leader is able to facilitate the group so that students are the ones who generate the answers to questions raised during the sessions.

(6) Staff Development Activities: SI supervisors attend a three and one-half day training workshop that cover the areas of implementation and management, training, supervision, evaluation, and study strategies. Four workshops are hosted at UMKC each year. Upon request, additional workshops are conducted in the field throughout the year by the UMKC staff and its Certified Trainers. Follow-up technical assistance is provided by telephone or occasional requested site visit. The UMKC staff follow up all adopters with telephone calls and a newsletter. Continued professional development is available through professional development seminars hosted by UMKC and through special interest groups dedicated to SI that is offered at several national educational conferences and at UMKC each year. SI leaders begin their development with a twelve hour training workshop held by the SI supervisor before the beginning of each semester. Continued training is conducted at regular meetings scheduled by the SI supervisor. Informal training occurs because of the supervisor’s observation of the SI leader conducting a session. Feedback and specific suggestions for improvement are given to the SI leader then. This observation by the SI supervisor is more frequent at the beginning of the semester.

(7) Management Activities: Data are collected from all targeted courses and form the basis of the end of the semester report. Adopting schools are encouraged to send these reports to UMKC regularly. If a report form suggests unsuccessful implementation, technical assistance from UMKC is provided via the telephone.

For the first two weeks of the semester, SI leaders are observed by their SI supervisor during SI sessions. After that, the SI supervisor will observe a SI session approximately every two weeks throughout the rest of the semester. The SI supervisor holds SI leader staff meetings every two to three weeks to receive informal feedback, discuss problematic areas and collect roll sheets and any handouts that have been generated by leaders for their SI sessions. Other campus programs across the nation report that they meet with their SI leaders once a week, and others meet less frequently.
At the end of Fall, 1991, the “student assistant SI supervisor” was made an official part of the SI model. In the past, UMKC has had only professional staff members serving as SI supervisors. Due to the expansion of
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the number and types of courses covered by SI at UMKC, the decision was made to hire a student who had been a SI leader for several semesters to serve in a supervisory role. This replaced the need to hire an additional professional staff member. This practice of hiring students to help the SI supervisor was originated by the SI Program supervisor at the University of Louisville when the SI program grew beyond the supervisory time available from the professional staff. UMKC decided to test this approach at UMKC and hired the first student assistant SI supervisor during Spring, 1991. This has been very successful. The critical qualities needed in the student assistant is a successful record as a SI leader themselves and their maturity to objectively observe, supervise and manage other SI leaders. When UMKC receives telephone calls from SI supervisors asking about how to remedy the problem of supervising an expanding program, the student assistant SI supervisor is suggested. This is another mechanism for keeping the program cost effective. Also, students seem to like the opportunity to move up to a supervisory position after serving for several semesters as SI leaders. This builds a career ladder within the SI Program that may attract and retain some leaders.

F. Significance of SI Program Design as Compared to Similar Programs
There are several key elements of SI that differentiate it from group tutoring and other forms of academic support: the SI program is attached to specific courses that are historically difficult for students; participation in the SI program is voluntary; the SI leader attends all targeted course sessions; the SI leader is trained in specific teaching/learning theory and techniques before the beginning of the term; the SI program is supervised by a trained professional staff member; the program is offered only in classes in which the faculty member invites and supports SI; the SI leader facilitates and encourages the group to process the material rather than acting as an authority figure who lectures to participants; and the program is evaluated rigorously.
A major difference between SI and other forms of collaborative learning is the role of the SI leader. Rather than forming study cluster groups and then releasing them in an unsupervised environment, the SI leader is present to keep the group on task with the content material and to model appropriate learning strategies that the other students can adopt and use in the present course and in other ones in future academic terms (Dimon, 1988; Johnson, et.al, 1991).

Potential for Replication of the SI Program

A. Settings and Participants (Development and Evaluation Sites)
Over 300 institutions currently use SI. Table 2 summarizes the 614 initial adoptions from U.S. institutions that either planned or implemented the SI program. An additional 115 institutions abroad have received training as well.

Table 2: SI Adoption Sites by Regions in the United States: January 1982 to September 1995

More than 1,100 individuals have been trained as SI supervisors since 1982. This does not include the number of student SI leaders that have been trained each semester on the campuses using the SI program. The average number of SI targeted classes on each campus is 15. The number of students impacted by the SI program nationally each semester is approximately 300,000. Individual programs are assessed through the SI reporting method. Nearly 100 programs each year submit reports concerning the implementation of SI at their home campuses. In addition, each year UMKC conducts a telephone survey to assess the status of the SI program at each adopting site. The results of this survey show that adopting institutions continue to maintain and build their SI programs.

B. Resources Available from UMKC to Help Institutions Implement SI
UMKC is well equipped to respond to requests for SI awareness materials and training. Besides printed materials, the UMKC staff and Certified Trainers provide video tapes for awareness and training purposes. Twelve Certified Trainers are located throughout the U.S. They have completed the SI supervisor training, implemented successful programs on their own campuses and completed additional training to become Certified Trainers. The Certified Trainers and UMKC staff conducted 34 SI awareness presentations and were hosts to 14 SI supervisor training workshops during the 1994-95 academic year. In addition, the staff from UMKC and the Certified Trainers have been active in publishing articles about the SI program. Although UMKC serves as the main demonstration site, all Certified Trainers and most active SI supervisors host interested visitors at their campuses. UMKC staff has provided materials to professionals for use in completing doctoral dissertations concerning SI (Kenney, 1989; McGinty, 1989; Pryor, 1989). The SI supervisor’s training handbook has been updated and expanded to 150 pages in length. UMKC has eight training or awareness videos available for dissemination. Evaluation of these products, presentations, and training workshops by users is consistently in the outstanding range on a Likert scale. New research findings from the UMKC site and from SI supervisors in the field are disseminated throughout the SI network via a quarterly newsletter.

C. Requirements for Successful Implementation of SI
To estimate the cost of implementing SI at an institution, three factors needed to be considered. First, will the institution need to employ new personnel to implement the program, or can it use existing personnel? Second, will the SI supervisor need assistance from other personnel? Third, what types of support will be forthcoming from the adopting institution in terms of release time and use of facilities? Despite the number of SI’s to be implemented, one person from the institution needs to go through the three and one-half day training workshop with the UMKC staff or one of its Certified Trainers. The SI supervisor needs to have release time for each SI that they will supervise. The time commitment required of the SI supervisor will vary over the course of the semester. During the first two weeks of the academic term, the SI supervisor attends all lectures in the targeted course and all SI sessions. After this first intensive period, the SI supervisor’s time commitment diminishes.

When a new SI program is being implemented on a campus, it requires more time than when the program is established. When starting up the program, the SI supervisor will need to work more intensively with faculty members, administrators and other staff members. UMKC finds that during the first two weeks of the semester it takes about six hours per week to supervise each class where SI is offered. During this initial intense period in the semester, a person could not be expected to supervise more than seven classes where SI was being offered. This is the reason UMKC recommends that institutions only begin with a few sections of SI in order for the SI supervisor to become comfortable with implementing the program. There is an economy of scale as the program grows larger; therefore, it is not necessary for the administrative support to grow at the same rate. Also, the introduction of the “student assistant SI supervisor” has also provided a cost-effective strategy to manage the time and expense with administering a SI program.
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Data gathered through reviewing individual program reports and a telephone survey suggest that SI leader salaries vary greatly by institution. If a SI leader is paid hourly, their preparation time and their time in the SI session are documented. A small private community college in New York is currently offering two SI’s a semester and pays a minimum wage, $4.25 an hour. A medium sized college in New Jersey pays $7.25 an hour and manages approximately ten SI’s a semester. A large public university in Utah offers $4.50 to $6.00 an hour and conducts 200 SI’s yearly. It appears that the mean wage for SI leaders is approximately $5.50 per hour. Other institutions prefer to offer a semester stipend. UMKC’s SI leaders are paid $850 to $950 each semester (higher pay for returning SI leaders). A medium sized college in Illinois classified their SI leaders as equivalent in status to laboratory assistants on their campus and pays them $2,000 per semester. SI leaders are not always rewarded monetarily. A medium size university in Kansas rewards their SI leaders by giving them academic credit from their school of education.

D. Costs for Implementation and Operation of the SI Program
During the 1980-81 academic year, UMKC provided SI services to 566 students in 10 courses at a cost of $34,500; an average cost of $60.95 per student. The total program costs increased in FY 1995-96 since SI was offered in 41 courses, additional supervisory personnel were required and wages had increased since 1980. However, the average cost per student had decreased to $46.89 since more students were served (1,454) and increased reliance was made of student assistant SI supervisors. Personnel costs include salaries for a full-time SI supervisor, a student assistant SI supervisor, part-time secretarial assistance, and SI leaders ($850 per course is the UMKC rate). However, these are variable costs since some institutions might have other ways to cover them. If a preexisting academic support program with full-time staff is already in operation on a particular campus, the program could be installed at a considerably lower cost. SI leaders can be paid through work-study, academic credit, partial tuition waiver, preexisting tutor budget, or other means. The program costs would vary by the number of SI courses and the rate of pay for SI leaders.
Longitudinal research studies suggest that SI increases both re-enrollment and graduation rates. (Please see data tables #8, #9, and #10). The following rationale illustrates the use of SI to increase enrollment and revenue.

1. During FY 1995-96, SI operated in 41 content courses. These 41 courses had a total enrollment of 3,637 students. Over 40 percent of these 3,655 students (1,454 students) attended SI review sessions during the semester.
2. Students who attended SI review sessions at UMKC re-enrolled and graduated at a rate ten percentage points higher than students who never attended SI review sessions. (See data tables #8, #9, and #10). Research suggests that the learning strategies and critical thinking skills students develop through SI are transferred to future academic work.
3. Applying the ten percent point difference between students who attended SI review sessions with students who never attended, one can infer that last year 145 students re-enrolled at UMKC that otherwise would have dropped out. (1,454 students x 10% = 145)
4. Minimally, the average undergraduate student (12 credit hours) spends $1,750 each year on tuition, fees, bookstore purchases and other related expenditures. Those 133 students provide $253,750 in additional revenue. ($1,750 x 145 = $253,750) Full time students in the professional schools average $4,000 in annual expenditures.
5. Each year new groups of first-year students attend SI sessions. Taking only the last four years, over 5,302 students have attended SI. As mentioned above, research suggests that nearly ten percent of students would have dropped out of the University had they not attended SI review sessions. Thus, some 530 additional students are now in the pipeline due to SI participation.
6. The economic impact of SI for these 530 additional students is considerable. With a minimal expenditure of $1,750 each year in tuition, fees, and other expenditures, the aggregate yearly impact is $927,500. This only assumes that the student persists for one additional year in school. The yearly impact would be

much higher if the student persisted longer than just one additional year, especially if the student graduated from the institution.
The economic impact with graduate and professional school students would be considerable since they are full-time and pay higher fees. Because of the nature of the curriculum which tracks cohorts of students through the academic program, students who withdraw after the first year in their program cannot be easily replaced by new students. The lost revenue from these empty seats in the cohort of students would continue until the entire group graduated from their program.
 

Evidence for Supporting SI Claims of Effectiveness

A. Claim Statements of SI 
Claim 1. Students participating in SI within the targeted historically difficult courses earn higher mean final course grades than students who do not participate in SI. This is still true when differences are analyzed, despite ethnicity and prior academic achievement.
Claim 2. Despite ethnicity and prior academic achievement, students participating in SI within targeted historically difficult courses succeed at a higher rate (withdraw at a lower rate and receive a lower percentage of D or F final course grades) than those who do not participate in SI.
Claim 3. Students participating in SI persist at the institution (reenrolling and graduating) at higher rates than students who do not participate in SI.

B. Description of Methodology for Each Claim

1. Design
The basic design of the various quasi-experimental research studies compares performance of the voluntary treatment group (SI Participants) with the control group (Non-SI Participants). Additional analyses compare SI-participants and non-participants in terms of their motivation to participate, their prior academic achievement and their ethnicity. Dependent variables include final course grades, reenrollment and graduation rates. The research does not meet the standards for true experimental design, but results have been replicated across many institutions. For the foregoing analyses, all students within the targeted SI courses are included, both those enrolled in UMKC and those enrolled in other institutions where SI has been adopted and evaluative data have been collected. The first six sets of studies use data from the UMKC program: historical data (Table 3); disaggregation of data by motivational control group (Table 4); disaggregation of data by prior academic achievement (Table 5); disaggregation of data by ethnicity (Table 6); frequency of SI attendance upon mean final course grade (Table 7); and longitudinal follow-up (Tables 8, 9 and 10). Two sets of studies contain data from other institutions that have implemented SI: cross-institutional (Tables 11, 12, and 13); and disaggregation of data by ethnicity (Tables 14 and 15).

2. Population
The population studied for this report includes all students enrolled in courses in which SI was offered, those who participated in SI and those who did not. The population represents students from UMKC and from other institutions in the U.S. where SI has been adopted and effective data collection efforts have been made.

3. Instruments and Procedures
Course rosters and background data (e.g., ethnicity, standardized entrance test scores, high school rank) for students enrolled in SI targeted courses were obtained. A student survey was administered the first day of the course to find out the motivation level of the students concerning SI. Another survey was administered the last day of the course to gain information from SI-participants (e.g., evaluation of the SI program) and Non-SI participants (e.g., reason for not attending SI). Faculty members in the targeted courses provided a list of students and their grades on the first major examination in the course. Final course grades, reenrollment and graduation data for students were also obtained after the semester for students enrolled in the targeted classes.
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The procedures followed at UMKC were recommended to other participating institutions. Due to differing administrative structures of the many schools participating in the study, not all were able to gather data in precisely the way that UMKC has recommended. However, all reported their data gathering procedures and evaluators determined that data included in the study were precise enough to meet reasonable standards.

4. Data Collection
The UMKC national SI director was in charge of all data collection and analysis. This person was responsible for the collection, analysis, writing, and distribution of periodic reports on the SI program’s effectiveness. The national SI director receives the semester reports from the institutions that send reports to UMKC each year. A variety of instruments and procedures were used to obtain the information needed for an analysis of the data related to student enrollment in the targeted courses. The SI staff was carefully instructed in proper use of confidential student data. All university protocols were followed.

5. Data Analysis
Standard statistical methods were used in analysis of the data for comparing students. The level of significance was set at p<.01 when independent t-tests were employed for comparing final course grades. A significance level of p<.05 was set when using the chi square tests for comparing the percentage of A and B final course grades; the percentage of D and F final course grades and withdrawals; and the percentage of reenrollment. The chi square level of significance was set at less than p<.01 for the graduation study.

With the chi square, using nominal data, this research study used p<.05 to heighten the sensitivity of the measures. If an effect were present, the researchers did not want to overlook it. On the other hand, when using interval data, the researchers sought to enhance the specificity of the statistical test, not wishing to claim an effect that may not have been present. Additionally, the researchers used p<.05 in measures there were thought of as a preliminary, screening test. In more precise efforts to specify effects, the researchers used p<.01.

C. Description of Results for Each Claim
Data from UMKC.
Study #1: Academic achievement for UMKC students enrolled in SI courses.
Since 1980, UMKC has offered SI in 375 courses at the undergraduate, graduate and professional school level. An analysis of data on grades and withdrawal rates (Table 3) found that the SI-participants: earned significantly higher percentage of A & B final course grades; significantly lower percentage of D & F final course grades and withdrawals; and significantly higher mean final course grades than the Non-SI participants. Each cell within Table 3 compared the SI and Non-SI groups. For instance, in 1995-96, 40 percent of the students in SI classes participated in SI; SI-participants had a higher percentage of A & B final course grades (71% vs. 49%), lower percentage of D and F final course grades and withdrawals (29% vs. 51%) and a higher mean final course grade (2.75 vs. 2.47) than non-SI participants. These results have been replicated each year in a variety of courses at varying levels at the institution.
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Table 3: SI UMKC Data: FY 1980-81 to 1995-96 (N=375 SI Courses; 14,667 SI-Participants)

Non-SI Motivational Control Group.
Creation of the Non-SI motivational control group permitted comparison across the three groups: SI Participants, Non-SI Participants (Motivational Control), and Non-SI Participants (All Others). The following differences were seen in the academic performance data in Table 4. Students using SI services: (a) have entry data (high school class rank percentile, and college entrance test scores) comparable to data of the other groups; (b) have significantly higher average course grades compared to both Non-SI groups (p<.01); and (c) have considerably fewer D and F grades and withdrawals than either of the Non-SI groups (p<.05).

While it is clear that the highly motivated perform at higher levels than the less motivated, motivation alone does not account for the majority of the differences between the SI and Non-SI students for the measures investigated. There are significant and substantial differences between the SI group and the motivational control group in both course grade and percent of unsuccessful enrollments.
 

Table 4: SI UMKC Data: Winter 1996 (N=1,593)
Comparison of SI Group, Non-SI (Motivational Control) Group, and Non-SI (All Others) Group

Table 5: UMKC Students of Differing Levels of Previous Academic Achievement:
Fall Semester 1989 to Winter Semester 1990 (N=1,628)

Table 6: Effectiveness of SI With UMKC African-American Students: Fall 1987 (N=110)

*Level of significance of difference: 0.05 using chi square test. **Level of significance of difference: 0.01 using independent t-test.
 

Study #5: Frequency of SI attendance upon final course grade.
Research suggests that increased frequency of SI attendance correlates with higher final course grades (Table 7). Astin (1993) suggests that most educational outcomes are dependent upon both the frequency and the intensity of interactions and activities in the college environment.

The following table suggests that higher levels of SI attendance was positively related to higher final course grades. If students attended SI sessions twelve or more times, the mean final course grade was slightly lower that other SI attendance groups. However the 12+ attendees received a higher mean final course grade (2.64) than the non-SI attendees (2.37). Interviews with these SI attendees suggests that a large group were students who had planned to withdraw from the course, but persisted through frequent attendance at SI sessions.
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Table 7: Frequency of SI Attendance Upon Mean Final Course Grades: Winter 1996 (N = 1,590)

Table 8: Reenrollment Rates of UMKC Students Enrolled in SI Courses, Fall 1989 (N=1,689)

Table 9: Reenrollment & Graduation Rates of UMKC Students Enrolled in SI Courses 1989 to 1996

Table 9 cont’d: Reenrollment & Graduation Rates of UMKC Students Enrolled in SI Courses 1989 to 1996

Table 10: Graduation Rates of Fall 1989 UMKC First-Time, First-Year Students Cumulative Graduation Rate By End of Four Time Periods

Table 11
National SI Field Data: FY 1982-83 to 1995-96 N=270 Institutions; 4,945 Courses; 505,738 Students)

Table 12 National SI Field Data: FY 1982-83 to 1995-96 (N=270 Institutions; 4,945 Courses; 505,738 Students) Data Separated by Broad Academic Disciplines

Table 13 National SI Field Data: FY 1982-83 to 1995-96 (N=270 Institutions; 4,945 Courses; 505,738 Students) Data Separated by Academic Departments

Table 13 cont’d

Teaching Reading in a Learning Assistance Center
Caverly, David. “Teaching Reading in a Learning Assistance Center ,” in Mioduski, Sylvia and Gwyn Enright (editors), PROCEEDINGS OF THE 17th and 18th ANNUAL INSTITUTES FOR LEARNING ASSISTANCE PROFESSIONALS: 1996 AND 1997. Tucson, AZ: University Learning Center, University of Arizona, 1997. Pp. 27-42.

Teaching Reading in a
Learning Assistance Center

David Caverly, Southwest Texas State University


Joe comes to your Learning Center with this piece of text he cannot understand (see Figure 1). What would you do to help him read it? More importantly, what would you do to help Joe learn how to transfer what you teach him to succeed in any piece of text? The answer to these questions is simple: teach him how to read. Easy to say, but hard to implement. To be an effective teacher of reading, you have to consider everything you know about the reading process and the teaching of reading, then orchestrate it into a developmental reading program. In this paper, I will review nine principles we in the field have learned in the last half century about the reading process and six scaffolds on the teaching students to read, and then suggest a specific developmental reading program for a learning center built upon this knowledge. This should help the Joes of our world.

Clostridium Septicum (Vibrion Septique)

Clostridium septicum is a grampositive, motile, sporulating, strictly anaerobicrod, the cells of which have somewhat pointed ends. Capsules are not formed. Spores are located subterminally or centrally and are formed readily in culture media free of fermentable carbohydrate and rarely in the animal body. The cells are arranged typically in long chains within the body butoccur singly or in chains and groups in culture. Colonies have arborescent or rhizoid margins with deep opaque centers.

Clostridium septicum ferments carbohydrates with production of abundant gas, is moderately proteolyticin that it produces H2S and liquifies gelatin, but does not produce indole or digest coagulated proteins. Cultures may be divided into immunologic groups on the basis of cellular and lagellar agglutinogens. Cross reactions occur with CL, Chauvoei, and animal pathogen, the cause of black leg in cattle and horses. Colstridium septicum has been recovered not only from human gas gangrene but also from gasgrenous and highly fatal infections in domestic animals. In laboratory animals, subcutaneous innoculations are followed by development of an edematous, destructive local lesion and by septicemia which is usually rapidly fatal. Pathogenicity is related to production of specific toxin, which in relatively large doses is highly lethal. Locally the toxin produces a marked edema and nacrosis. Specific neutralizing antitoxin which has therapeutic value has been produced.

Figure 1: Sample college text (author unknown)

What Have We Learned about

the Reading Process and Teaching It?

Many students enter higher education under-prepared for the reading demands that are placed upon them. When pressed to read, they often select ineffective and inefficient strategies with little strategic intent (Caverly & Orlando,1991b; Wade, Trathen & Schraw, 1990). Often, this is due to their level of reading strategy knowledge and lack of metacognitive control. Another reason might be their inexperience coming from the limited task demands of high school and lower division college coursework (Chase, Gibson &Carson, 1994; Orlando, Caverly, Swetman & Flippo, 1989; Wade et al.,1990). To help these students, we as college reading teachers often teach specific reading techniques. Research over the last several decades suggests instead we should be teaching our developmental students a strategic approach to study-reading informed by those principles we have learned about reading and learning.

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Regardless of your philosophical perspective to how students learn, it is generally accepted that four general factors interact to form the reading/learning process. These factors can be depicted (see Figure 2) as a tetrahedral model (Brown, 1980; Caverly & Orlando, 1991b; Jenkins, 1979; Nist, 1985):

Self Factors

At the apex of this tetrahedron are factors related to “self,” the contribution made by the readers background knowledge, attitude, interests, and motivation on their ability to understand any piece of text. Unless readers contribute these factors proactively, understanding can fail.

Schema Theory

The effect of a reader’s background knowledge on reading comprehension is typically labeled Schema theory (Anderson & Pearson, 1984). This theory argues what you know affects what you understand. For example, consider how you as a competent reader are able to understand this text:

If the balloons popped, the sound would not be able to carry since everything would be too far away from the correct floor. A closed window would also prevent the sound from carrying since most buildings tend to be well insulated. Since the whole operation depends on a steady flow of electricity, a break in the middle of the wire would also cause problems. Of course the fellow could shout, but the human voice is not loud enough to carry that far. An additional problem is that a string could break on the instrument. Then, there could be no accompaniment to the message. It is clear that the best situation would involve less distance. Then, there would be fewer potential problems. With face to face contact, the least number of things could go wrong.

Figure 3: Sample Text. (Bransford & Johnson, 1972)

I suspect if you are like most readers seeing this for the first time, there are few if any words you do not recognize in this text. Still, you are unable to understand. Much of your confusion comes from your inability to access an appropriate base of knowledge-that is, the correct schemata. Without engaging those specific knowledge bases (recalling them from your long-term memory), comprehension clunks along and, for some readers, fails altogether.

However, once you recognize the focus of this passage as being about an electronic Romeo, then you can recall what you know about Romeo and Juliet from Shakespeare’s play, what you have seen in movies and books about Lotharios strumming guitars under a lover’s window, what you know about electronic guitars with attached wires, what you know about helium filled balloons, and what you know about five-story

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buildings. Orchestrating all of these separate bases of knowledge, and using a picture as a schemata activation point (see Figure 4) you should now be able to understand the text.

Figure 4:


Understanding now occurs because you as a reader are able to engage your schemata (Anderson & Pearson, 1984). If the author does not provide enough semantic cues to activate your schemata and/or the teacher is not available to do so, you must take on the responsibility of engaging your own schemata. Therefore, one of the reading techniques we must teach Joe is how to engage his schemata (Mulcahy, 1987). Some useful instructional strategies for teaching students how to activate their schemata have emerged through procedures like Reciprocal Teaching and Cognitive Apprenticeship training (Shuell, 1996) to be discussed later in this paper.



Word Recognition

The effect of limited background knowledge on understanding often manifests itself for the reader in ineffective word recognition abilities and/or weak vocabulary knowledge. Naively, developmental students assume that if they could pronounce all the words (decoding) or if they only knew all the words (vocabulary density), understanding would come. Many students vainly attempt to learn words by writing them, a definition and three sentences on 3×5 cards. Or, they practice word recognition tactics like context clues, affix or phonemic analysis, or dictionary skills in an attempt to improve their ability to recognize new words. The result often is college developmental students who can say all the words, but comprehend little. For example, look at the text in Figure 1. As competent readers, you and I can probably say each word, but typically can not understand most of the words, let alone comprehend the text. Thus, recognition includes more than an oral translation.



A second principle we have learned is that word recognition is necessary but not sufficient to effective reading. If you accept comprehension as the goal of reading, word recognition is the foundation of reading proficiency (Daneman, 1991; Stanovich, 1991).Of those word recognition tactics available to readers (context clues, affix analysis, phonemic analysis not phonic analysis, and dictionary access), phonological recoding via phonemic awareness seems to be the most important at the beginning stages of learning how to read (Stanovich, 1991). Later, ability to use context clues, affixes, and dictionaries become more effective strategies in recognizing words and certainly in learning new words. Therefore, perfect automaticity in word recognition seems less important at the state when we see most readers than strategic flexibility in word recognition tactics. If readers run across an unknown word, he or she decides is important to understanding the text (based on its frequency

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and placement in the text),then context clues seems to be the first strategy of choice. If , however, there are not enough context clues to aid in recognition, then examination by affixes, phonemics, and/or a dictionary (note, in that order) can best lead to understanding the word. However, the focus on the word in these latter three tactics often cause a reader to “win the battle but lose the war.” Because of the inordinate amount of time needed in these latter three tactics to understand the word, they can interfere with the whole passage understanding. Thus, word importance (an answer only available through context clues) must take precedence before affixes, phonemics, and/or dictionary word recognition strategies are applied. Therefore, we need to teach Joe strategic flexibility in word recognition. However, teaching students like Joe to use context clues does not necessarily help them learn new words(Simpson & Dwyer, 1991).



A strategic approach to word recognition fosters efficiency in reading. A strategic reader would first determine the importance of the word to the text. If it were deemed important, then this reader would use context clues to make an educated guess. If insufficient clues are available, then this strategic reader would look for a little word within the bigger word using affix analysis. If this was ineffective, then finally this reader might look it up. Moreover, if the word is deemed important beyond the current task demand, this strategic reader would use vocabulary development strategies. Word recognition must only be considered as a means to the end of vocabulary development and comprehension of print.



Vocabulary Development

A third principle we have learned from the research over the last half century is the connection of vocabulary knowledge to successful reading. We can draw three main conclusions about vocabulary knowledge and successful reading performance (Ruddell, 1994;Simpson & Dwyer, 1991): (a) there is a strong positive correlation between vocabulary knowledge and comprehension (however, this might be more a measure of integrated schemata in the form of background knowledge, rather than isolated vocabulary recognition); (b) there is an equivocal relationship between teaching vocabulary and improving comprehension (that is, sometimes teaching vocabulary improves comprehension, while sometimes it does not); and (c) there are several variables interfering with this relationship (e.g., what it means to know a word, how we measure vocabulary, how we teach vocabulary, how many words do we know, or how we learn vocabulary). For example, it is estimated that we come to school at age 5 with about 5,000 words in our listening vocabularies and we leave college with about 50,000 in our listening and reading vocabularies (Just & Carpenter, 1987). This means the average reader learns 2,700 to 3000 words a year, or 7 to 8 words a day. Obviously, most readers do not memorize word meanings on 3×5 cards every day for 16 years. Rather, proponents of vocabulary development (Simpson & Dwyer,1991; Stahl, 1986) argue we follow four tenets as we learn new words. First, we learn both a definitional and a contextual understanding of words. That is, we form a link within one schema for a word and then decontextualize that word by forming links to other schemata. This decontextualization occurs through extended experiences with the word in a variety of contexts.



Second, students must be active processors of words learning the fine distinctions separating the word used in various contexts. Instructional strategies such as Concept of Definition maps (Schwartz & Raphael, 1985), Semantic Feature Analysis (Anders & Box, 1986), and association through graphic organizers particularly when created by students (Carr & Mazur-Stewart, 1988) are very effective at helping students learn to be active processors.



Third, learning a word comes often from multiple exposure over time. Good readers have good vocabularies because they see words in a variety of contexts innumerable times. This is particularly true when they read authentic text which provides a rich context of recognizable words, image-evoking cues, and even incidental learning from just one exposure to words (Nagy, Herman & Anderson, 1987; Ruddell, 1994). Poor developmental college readers as well can learn from this authentic, meaningful contexts (Schwanenflugel & Stowe, 1989).

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Fourth, motivation for learning words is developed through students self-selecting words to learn and social discussions about new words. Using a strategy called a Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy, Stewart (Stewart, 1992) found a sense of ownership and pride in learning vocabulary.

So, we have to teach Joe how to develop his vocabulary. However, vocabulary development theory (Pauk, 1984; Tonjes, 1991) suggests that we have three different vocabularies (see Figure 5): an expressive vocabulary (those words we use in our speaking and writing), a receptive vocabulary (those words we use in our listening and reading), and a frontier vocabulary (those words we don’t know).

Figure 5: Different vocabulary knowledges (Pauk, 1984)


It is general consensus that vocabulary development takes place over time as new concepts move from frontier to receptive to expressive. Instructionally for Joe, we need to form a link in our schema for new words and then provide an opportunity to reinforce that link through meaningful practice where the word is decontextualized from a specific example in a particular text to broader applications in a variety of texts. Successful instructional strategies have emerged for facilitating this movement including concept of definition maps, semantic feature analysis, and structured overviews(Ruddell, 1994; Simpson, Nist & Kirby, 1987).

Affective

A fourth principle we have learned about reading development is the importance of students’ interest in, motivation for, and attitude toward reading. Recent research has documented that many college developmental readers have a history of failure, but there are some suggestions that negative interests, motivations, and attitudes can be overcome (Hirsch, 1994; Stallworth-Clark, Scott & Nist, 1996;Stevenson, Stanfill, Burleson, Cyrus & McCarthy, 1996). Currently a substantial effort is underway in the research community exploring the affective issues surrounding reading (Baumann, Allen & Shockley, 1996). In the near future, we hope to know much more about a student’s decision to read.



Material Factors

A second vertex on this tetrahedron considers material factors, that is, the contributions made by the text which affect readers’ understanding. A fifth principle we have learned over the last half century is that reading must be adapted for different types of material. Pragmatically, there are two major types of text: expository and narrative (Pearson & Fielding, 1991). Within expository text, information is presented, usually to inform. Within narrative text, a story is being told, usually to entertain. We have learned that both texts have a microstructure and a macrostructure which organize information at the sentence level and paragraph level respectively (Nist & Meeley, 1991). Little research has been done on the effect of microstructure on college students’ understanding, so we will focus on the macrostructure.



Narrative Text Material

We have learned that narrative text material has a specific structure representing how the story is told. Typically called a story grammar (Thorndyke, 1977),a simple story consists of several elements: a setting, problem, goal, action, and outcome. Research (Kintsch, Mandel & Kozminsky, 1977; Stein & Nezworski, 1978) has demonstrated that well-formed stories (with explicit story grammar elements) are more easily

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understood than ill-formed stories (implicit or missing story grammar elements), particularly among developmental readers. Moreover, teaching developmental students to recognize the story grammar or organization of narratives generally improves their comprehension(Idol, 1987; Nolte & Singer, 1985; Singer & Donlan, 1982).



Expository Text Material

Within expository text material, two major factors are present which potentially affect a reader’s understanding: ordination and relationships. Most of expository prose is organized hierarchically (i.e., topics, main ideas, and details)into super-ordinate, co-ordinate, and sub-ordinate ideas (Meyer, 1975).Explicitly organized text, called “considerate” text, is easier to understand than “inconsiderate” text (Armbruster & Anderson,1984; Colwell & Heldfelt, 1983; Kieras, 1985; Schumm, Ross & Walker,1992). In many textbooks super-ordinate main ideas are explicitly stated less than 60% of the time (Armbruster & Anderson, 1984; Chase et al.,1994). A major weakness in developmental readers is their inability to find main ideas when they are explicit or to infer them when they are implicit(Englert & Palincsar, 1991; Meyer, Brandt & Bluth, 1980; Wade et al., 1990). Much of teaching developmental students to understand expository text material is teaching them how to recognize and infer the main ideas (Johnson & Afflerbach, 1985). Some have argued (Kameenui, 1986) and successfully demonstrated (Brown & Day, 1983; Day, 1980) that this ability is actually a summarization tactic. Teaching summarization consists of helping students learn a five-step process of: (1) deleting trivial information;(2) deleting redundant information; (3) providing a super-ordinate term for members of a category; (4) identifying any main ideas that serve as the super-ordinate term; and (5) creating your own super-ordinate term if the author does not. Some have had success teaching students to recognize main ideas using direct instruction (Baumann, 1984; Casazza, 1993), teaching students the metacognitive strategic value of a given technique (Holley& Dansereau, 1984; Schunk & Rice, 1987), or using text headings(Grant, 1993).



A second factor of expository text that affects developmental students comprehension are the relationships between the ideas. Meyer (1975) identified five general patterns of text structure present in expository material (collection or categorization, comparison/contrast, cause/effect, description, and problem/solution). Developmental readers who are unable to recognize these structures perform poorly on comprehension measures (Bartel, 1993/1994; O’Hear, 1991). When the author makes these patterns explicit through the use of signal or transition words (Dee-Lucas & Larkin, 1990) or the teacher provides maps (Dansereau, 1980), comprehension improves significantly. Still, authors and teachers are not always helpful.



Much like ordination, students can be taught to recognize structural patterns through the use of maps of varying shapes. For example, students can be taught to use hierarchical or tree diagrams for depicting categorization patterns or description patterns, charts for comparison/contrast patterns, herringbone diagrams for cause/effect patterns, and flow charts for problem/solution patterns. This can directly improve their comprehension (Pearson & Fielding,1991).



Strategy Factors

Strategies versus Tactics

A sixth principle we have learned is that reading in a study situation is as much a strategic process as it is a comprehending process. That is, informational reading (i.e., study-reading)is different from entertainment reading or persuasive reading. Several theorists have helped us understand study-reading by differentiating between study tactics and study strategies (Derry & Murphy, 1986; Paris, Wasik &Turner, 1991). A study tactic is usually defined as a study-reading technique used without purpose or without monitoring (e.g., underlining or highlighting without review). A strategy, on the other hand, is reading in a systematic, planned manner. For example, before reading identifying the purpose for reading and selecting an appropriate study-reading tactic to attain that purpose; during reading systematically applying the tactic, and monitoring its

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effectiveness; and after reading recursively selecting another tactic or set of tactics if unsuccessful, as well as reviewing and reflecting on the purpose if successful (Paris, Cross & Lipson, 1984). A study-reading strategy, therefore, is an methodical, premeditated, evaluative approach to a task and material demand within the constraints of self-awareness of strengths in background knowledge, attitude, interest, and motivation. That is, it is an interaction of the four vertices of the tetrahedral model (Caverly & Orlando, 1991b).



Literally hundreds of empirical studies have examined the effectiveness of individual study-reading tactics or collections of tactics performed together. We can conclude from this research that study-reading tactics are for the most part equivocal in their effectiveness in improving reading comprehension, remembering, and transfer to reading beyond the experiment to the college classroom (Anderson & Armbruster, 1984; Caverly & Orlando, 1991b). The lack of a positive effect for a given tactic might be due to the fact that it is typically taught in isolation away from authentic text and often applied unstrategically (Derry & Murphy, 1986; Harris & Pressley, 1991). Therefore, a more productive approach would be to teach tactics as part of an overall strategy. (Paris et al., 1991).

Metacognition

A seventh principle is the importance of metacognition in any strategic approach. Metacognition consists of students’ declarative knowledge about the elements of the reading process and cognition, or how well students understand their role in the reading act; procedural knowledge about self-regulation as students monitor the reading act moving toward a particular goal; and conditional knowledge or control over when and where to apply specific strategies (Baker & Brown, 1984; Nist & Meeley, 1991; Paris et al., 1991). In many ways, it is the developmental students ability to manipulate and monitor the two-way, three-way, and four-way interactions between the four vertices in the tetrahedral model depicted in Figure 2 above (Caverly & Orlando, 1991b). Research has demonstrated that successful college readers have metacognitive abilities while unsuccessful readers do not (Wade et al., 1990).

Awareness, knowledge, and control of their role in the reading process seems to be necessary for developmental students’ successful reading comprehension. Wade and Reynolds found three types of awareness are necessary and can be taught: task awareness (aware of the purpose for reading); strategy awareness (aware of what strategies are available for accomplishing this purpose); and performance awareness (aware of how effective each of these strategies is for accomplishing the purpose).



Specific strategic reading behaviors can help develop metacognitive knowledge. Mapping, notemaking, and summarizing are effective in helping students develop metacognitive abilities (Paris et al., 1991). Still, teaching just metacognitive strategies and not their connection to cognitive strategies does not seem to improve reading comprehension (Garner, 1994; O’Neill, 1992; O’Neill & Todaro, 1991). Moreover, a sense of competence and control seems to be necessary for developmental students to create a sense of self-efficacy and have success with metacognitive and cognitive strategies (Nist & Simpson, 1994; Paris et al., 1991).



Task factors

An eighth principle we have learned is that task factors also affect understanding. In some contexts, research has found little if any need to read (Orlando et al., 1989) as professors in lower division classes restate what was present in the text. More recentresearch has found task demands have increased with professors expecting more and more (Chase et al., 1994) or extremely complex task demands within upper division classes (Caverly & Orlando, 1991a). Also, higher levels of academic literacy (Pugh & Pawan, 1991) within ill-structured domains of knowledge as might be experienced in graduate or professional schools(Spiro, Coulson, Feltovich & Anderson, 1988) require even different cognitive and metacognitive abilities. It seems no one reading strategy can be applied to all task demands, suggesting that flexibility and competence in a variety of reading strategies is warranted (Caverly & Orlando,1991b).

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An Instructional Plan for Teaching Reading

in a Learning Assistance Center

What might you teach Joe that is informed by this research to help him succeed in this piece of text ? A useful analogy is to use scaffolds in your learning assistance center that can provide support for Joe as a developing reader until he is able to succeed on his own. This support appears in the form of six scaffolds:

Assessment Scaffold

At the outset, use a scaffold of authentic assessment to evaluate Joe’s ability to read. Any screening or diagnostic instrument you select should evaluate his ability to (a) engage his prior knowledge; (b) strategically recognize words in authentic contexts; (c) explain tactics for developing vocabulary; (d) justify attitudes, interests, and motivations for reading;(e) explain how to strategically approach a wide range of texts; (f) recognize and use story grammars in narrative material as well as ordination and relationships in expository material for comprehension and retention; (g) self-regulate the reading act in terms of declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge; and (h) identify and defend a variety of reading strategies. If you don’t find a test that authentically assesses all of this, then locally develop your own (Caverly & Nicholson, 1993). You might duplicate a chapter from a typical freshmen level textbook and ask Joe to take it home to study. When he returns, give him an objective/subjective test as might be found in the teacher’s guide. Score and discuss with him his success. Typically Joe will do poorly. This leads to the second scaffold.

Metacognitive Scaffold

A second scaffold builds from Joe’s understanding of his role in the reading process and his ability to read. We have found most developmental students are naive regarding their role in the process assuming an external locus of control (Stevenson et al., 1996; Swan, Mitrani, Guerrero, Cheung &Schoener, 1990). Therefore, we build from a foundation of Joe’s understanding of whatever strategies he is currently using. However, we place these strategies in question by testing the viability of these strategies against the task demands placed upon them by higher education. We ask Joe to assess his performance on the assessment measure using the strategies he used. Next, we discuss what other options might be available using what we call a demand model (Caverly & Orlando, 1991b). That is, research has deemed certain study-reading strategies more efficient but less effective (e.g., reading once, re-reading, or underlining/highlighting), others more effective but less efficient (e.g., outlining, mapping, PLAN), while still others are somewhere in the middle of this effectiveness/efficiency (e.g., notemaking, summarizing, generative questioning). Then, we demonstrate his internal strengths in terms the role of his prior knowledge (i.e., schema theory) in understanding, the role of metacognition in the monitoring of that understanding, and the need to expand his reading strategy repertoire. Third, we discuss the role of the author and the support he/she provides via the rhetorical structures used in their prose. That is, we introduce the third scaffold; a sound instructional regimen.

Instructional Scaffold

To proactively improve Joe’s reading ability, we begin an instructional regimen. Joe can be taught directly how to self-regulate or take control over his strategic approach to reading (Baumann, 1984; Casazza, 1993; Grant,1993; Hock, Schumaker & Deshler, 1995; Paris et al., 1991; Winograd & Hare, 1988). He also can be taught strategic reading indirectly using Reciprocal Teaching (Palinscar & Brown, 1984) or a Cognitive Apprenticeship model (Collins, Brown & Newman, 1989; Shuell, 1996). I favor these latter two instructional regimens as developmental students are taught to make their “thought processes visible” thus helping them metacognitively understand what strategies they are selecting, evaluate the effectiveness of such a choice, and monitor its effectiveness. Beginning with modeling, the teacher takes on most of the cognitive load of a strategy he/she is demonstrating. Together with think-alouds, the teacher (this can be you/atutor/or instructional media) should demonstrate a given strategy and the thought processes required to orchestrate the interactions between considering what oneself brings to the reading act, the quality of the material, which tactic to select, and how effective one’s performance is toward the task. Joe during this modeling stage is not overtly active, but is led to see the “big picture” which helps him recognize the purpose of the strategy.

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During this modeling stage, the teacher considers his/her strategies for reading and creates a tactic to model for Joe. Strategies are internal, covert conceptions of external, overt tactics. The teacher must infer what he/she does when applying a strategy and create a tactic to demonstrate it. For example, one tactic I might use to identify text relationships inexpository prose is to look for signal words. I have taken an internal strategy and converted it to an external tactic that I can model to students like Joe. Note, I also have to model how I knew the material was expository, my motivation, interest, and attitudes towards learning, why signal words versus any other tactic, and how effective it is in helping me identify the text relationships.



Next, the teacher uses coaching (i.e., guided practice) as learning opportunities are created for Joe to master the learning objectives of the strategy. Typically done in small groups, the teacher, Joe, and some of his peers, provide hints or reminders about the strategy as it is applied in authentic materials.



This suggests that the teaching/learning context is more effective if not done individually, isolated from other developmental learners. If I would arrange for Joe to come to my learning assistance center when one or two other developmental readers are available, I am more likely to have success. Not only can Joe commiserate and identify with other students having similar reading problems, but he is more likely to ask when he does not understand. This is only true if a collaborative climate of working together toward a common goal is established in this study group.



Sometime, hints by the teacher or peers are contradictory allowing for negotiation, discussion, dialogue, and reflection helping Joe and his study group to gain a deeper understanding (Tharp & Galllimore, 1989). This deeper understanding allows Joe and his study group to begin to convert the teacher’s tactics into their own strategies. Discussion allows them to evaluate what they saw and heard during the modeling and to test out their coming cognitive and metacognitive knowledge.



Moreover, peer scaffolding allows Joe and his peers to be placed within a “zone of proximal development” (Vygotsky, 1962). That is, in a small study group with the aid of his peers and the teacher, Joe is better able to perform higher level cognitive and metacognitive strategies on more difficult tasks that he would be able to do alone. This is important while he is still learning how to perform the tactic. Joe need an opportunity to experiment with this newfound knowledge within a supportive learning environment. Moreover, if authentic materials are used, Joe can begin to see the generalizability of the strategy to a variety of task demands.



Next, independent practice and fading are provided as Joe and his study group develops competence and self-efficacy. Unlike traditional apprenticeships which are task specific and training oriented, a Cognitive Apprenticeship instructional model requires developmental students like Joe to generalize a newly learned strategy to a variety of tasks and is more independence oriented (Rosenshine & Meister, 1994). All students in his study group are asked to apply the newly learned strategies to authentic tasks in other college classes. This connotes that the transfer goal of fading is fostered when the developmental student is enrolled in regular college classes. The practice of a remedial semester at some institutions reduces the opportunity for students to transfer their new knowledge and to decontextualize it to a variety of learning task demands. Joe and his study group are then asked to return with an evaluation of the effectiveness of the strategy and to discuss how they adapted it to the variety of learning tasks in which they were placed. During this fading stage, the purpose of instruction is for the teacher’s ideas to become the student’s ideas.



Also during this fading stage, Joe will be required to do sustained reading practice like sustained silent reading (SSR). Ask him to read non-required material for at least ten minutes, five times a week. Then, each week ask him to summarize what was read initially. Later on as he gets proficient, ask him to react to what he read. This self-directed response writing provides Joe with independent practice, further application of reading strategies introduced, and the multiple exposures to print needed for his vocabulary development and metacognitive

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evaluation of strategies. You can even have Joe e-mail “bookbuddies” from his study group or at other institutions around the country to expand their cultural and social interactions (Caverly & Broderick, 1993a; Myers, 1995; Nicholson, Peterson & Caverly,1995; Peterson, Caverly & McKool, 1994).

Strategy Scaffold

Which study-reading strategies should you to teach Joe? I suggest examining the research literature. Tadlock (1978) argues that SQ3R (Robinson, 1970)incorporates what we have learned about cognitive information processing. However, other analyses argue that SQ3R does not teach students to engage their prior knowledge, does not teach students to monitor their understanding based upon the task demands, and it requires several semesters of instruction before student ownership (Anderson & Armbruster, 1984; Caverly &Orlando, 1991b). In other words, teaching SQ3R is not recommended.



Another useful strategy for engaging the reader’s background knowledge is the KWL-Plus strategy (Carr & Ogle, 1987). In this technique, students engage their background knowledge, set purposes for reading, attempt to categorize what they know prior to reading, monitor their understanding for whether the purposes were reached, and then create a map of the information. This strategy is more comprehensive than SQ3R incorporating before, during, and after reading tactics into one strategy. However, this strategy is teacher dependent and does not necessarily foster independence.



A more global strategic approach we can teach students is first and second degree MURDER (Dansereau, 1980). These strategies incorporate both general and specific textbook study tactics (i.e., first degree MURDER) as well as the stating of a goal for study, managing one’s concentration, and monitoring progress toward the goal (i.e., second degree MURDER). Through a series of studies, Dansereau and colleagues (Dansereau, 1980; Holley & Dansereau,1984) have documented the effectiveness of this strategic approach particularly for low and middle ability level readers.



Another global strategy is PORPE (Simpson & Stahl, 1987). This comprehensive study strategy prepares students for planning, monitoring, and evaluating content area text as they prepare for essay exams. Research suggest students who learn to use PORPE perform better than control students on recognition and recall measures. Moreover, students tend to use effective strategies like PORPE when they see the transfer to success in the traditional curriculum (Simpson, 1996).



A fifth strategy, PLAN (Caverly, Mandeville & Nicholson, 1995),is a strategic approach to study-reading that leads students to perform specific reading tactics before, during, and after reading. The “P” step asks students to Predict the rhetorical text structure of the text by previewing and constructing a provisional map. That is, students preview the title and the introduction, predict what they believe the chapter will cover, and then construct a map with the chapter title as the trunk of a tree and the major branches of the tree represented by the structure of the chapter. Next, they preview the subtitles of the chapter and again add minor branches to this map to reflect this new knowledge gained by the subtitles. Then, they preview the highlighted words, graphics, and summary adding to the map each time new knowledge emerges.



Second, students are asked to engage and evaluate their prior knowledge using an “L” step which consists of Locating on the map where background knowledge exists or where it does not. That is, which branches on this map are old ideas and which are new. We ask them to evaluate these branches by placing check marks next to old ideas and question marks(?) next to new ideas.



Third, students read the chapter and perform the “A” step which stands for Adding new knowledge. As students read, they add new branches to this map as a notemaking or metacognitive strategy. They are taught to specifically focus into wherever new information has a question mark from the “L” step and to add a new, minor branch to the map when they understand. Moreover, students are taught to confirm those branches they

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checked as old information to verify their existing knowledge. If that existing knowledge was incorrect or if new examples are provided that extend existing knowledge, students are taught to make changes in their map.



Next, students perform the “N” step which occurs after reading. Here students Note whether the macrostructure of the material is indeed what they predicted prior to reading (i.e., typically they predict a categorization pattern). If the structure is different, they construct a new map to better represent the author’s rhetorical structure.



This PLAN for reading provides a cognitive and metacognitive support structure for students as they come to understand what their role is in study-reading material at the college level. It builds from the SQ3R reading strategy, but incorporates current knowledge about schema theory, metacognitive processing, and macrostructures within expository prose. Like MURDER, it guides students to identify the important information in the text and to create a semantic map to represent the text structure, but it also guides their metacognitive monitoring of their understanding. Like PORPE, it guides students to predict and prepare for a specific task demand though it is more generic in its approach to a variety of task demands including objective as well as subjective tests. Unlike all of these other strategic approaches, however, students are taught not to be concerned over whether they follows PLAN exactly. Rather, they are taught the PLAN strategy as a solid procedural scaffold from which they can construct their own reading strategies to fit any task demands placed upon them in the future. Indeed, practice has documented that students tend to create a plan for reading (Caverly et al., 1995).



An extension of this strategy, PLANet (Caverly & Peterson, 1996), has been suggested where students are taught to place double question marks(??) during the Add step of PLAN next to words they have identified during reading they do not know and believe are important to know. They are taught to access the World Wide Web to search for first, a definition to form the link with one schema, and then, for examples of the word in a variety of sites (via search engines) to decontextualize the word. This process can reduce the lifetime of experiences poor readers need to quickly develop their vocabulary.

Writing Scaffold

A fifth scaffold for supporting students as they develop in a learning assistance center is journal writing. Here, students are encouraged to consider their existing declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge and to document how that knowledge changes in their interactions with an expert’s strategies. Sometimes that expert is a teacher, a tutor, print, or even technology (Caverly & Broderick, 1991a). Each learning center visit should begin with a pre-learning journal which is used to engage prior knowledge and to establish a framework to which they will add or change new procedural knowledge. While students are learning new strategies through direct instruction or the Cognitive Apprenticeship model, they should stop and complete a peri-learning journal by adding to their pre-journals what they have synthesized about the strategies. Third, students should be required to apply these newly learned strategies to their classes and to complete a post-lab journal to confirm their application and understanding. Writing models the thinking, considering, and re-considering that is necessary for students to construct their own strategic approaches to text. Use of electronic (e-mail) can foster this process by easing the burden placed on the student and the teacher in attempting to arrange for synchronous meetings. Moreover, e-mail gives developmental students a skill for the twenty-first century, often a skill many of their more reading capable peers have yet to learn (Anderson-Inman, Knox-Quinn & Tromba, 1996; Broderick & Caverly, 1989; Caverly &Broderick, 1991b; Caverly & Broderick, 1993b; Myers, 1995).

Technology Scaffold

To support these five scaffolds, use technology (Caverly, 1996a; Caverly,1996b). Use networked computer to organize and map rhetorical text structures via outlining programs (Anderson-Inman, 1995/1996; Anderson-Inman & Horney, 1996/1997; Caverly & Broderick, 1991a; Caverly & Broderick,1992; Caverly & Buswell, 1988). Using a computer strengthens students’ confidence in their growing ability to use language, and it allows students the opportunity to experiment with their new strategies as they come to understand their

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applications within a variety of material (Anderson-Inman & Horney, 1996/1997; Anderson-Inman et al., 1996; Caverly & Broderick,1989; Caverly & Broderick, 1991a; Caverly & Broderick, 1994).

Conclusion

Developmental reading education can be effective if it incorporates sound research, practice, and assessment (Stahl, Simpson & Hayes, 1992). Incorporating this research and the instructional implications via these scaffolds into the instruction of reading within a learning assistance center can foster improvement among your developmental students.



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Using MBO to Create, Develop, Improve, and Sustain Learning Assistance Programs
Christ, Frank . “Using MBO to Create, Develop, Improve, and Sustain Learning Assistance Programs,” in Mioduski, Sylvia and Gwyn Enright (editors), PROCEEDINGS OF THE 17th and 18th ANNUAL INSTITUTES FOR LEARNING ASSISTANCE PROFESSIONALS: 1996 AND 1997. Tucson, AZ: University Learning Center, University of Arizona, 1997. Pp. 43-51.

Using MBO to Create, Develop, Improve, and Sustain

Learning Assistance Programs



Frank L. Christ, University of Arizona



Introduction. In 1972, I designed and coordinated one of the first, if not the first comprehensive learning assistance program at a postsecondary institution. This program, called a Learning Assistance Support System, LASS, was implemented at California State University, Long Beach [Christ 1980]. LASS not only served the learning assistance needs of CSULB, but became a model program for the other eighteen colleges and universities in the California State University System and assisted more than 100 postsecondary institutions to adapt LASS to their institutional needs and resources through consultation and training. Looking back over eighteen years of service to students, faculty, staff, and administration of CSULB, I can state unequivocally that one of the major reasons for the growth, persistence, administrative support, and quality of LASS programs and services was due to a management approach called Management By Objectives (MBO). Later in this paper, as I outline and describe five steps in initiating and implementing MBO for learning assistance programs, I will discuss specifically how MBO was instituted, modified, and implemented at CSU Long Beach. In addition, I have reproduced, in Appendix A, two mission statements used by the Learning Assistance Support System (LASS) at CSU Long Beach. The first, for the academic year, 1982-83, contains that year’s primary mission statement and its seven goals.

But first, we need to look at tasks that learning assistance program managers perform, some management styles of learning assistance managers, and what models for learning assistance program management are available to learning assistance program managers. Then, after offering some definitions of MBO and describing MBO as a five-step process, I will list the advantages and disadvantages of using an MBO approach and conclude with reasons why learning assistance program managers should consider using MBO as a useful management approach for successful learning assistance programs.

Tasks of Learning Assistance Program Managers. In 1959, a nationally recognized management consultant and trainer created a chart outlining what managers do (Oncken, 1959). Adapting Oncken’s ideas for learning assistance programs, a list of nine managerial skills emerge that managers must develop and use in dealing with people, resources, methods, and facilities as planning, organizing, directing, coordinating, controlling, and modifying a program’s development, marketing, finances, and research occurs to achieve results that are specified in the program’s managerial objectives. Describing what managers do, not only dramatizes the complexity of management and the many competencies that a manager must master to perform effectively, but also emphasizes that all of these skills focus on a program’s managerial objectives.

Types and Styles of Learning Assistance Program Managers. Since achieving managerial success depends mostly on the program manager and his or her competencies, let’s look at some different types of learning assistance managers and their managerial styles.

There are some learning assistance program managers who will be hired or promoted because of prior effective performance in other administrative areas. Some will require new knowledge and skills that they did not possess at the time of their hiring. Some will learn to manage by managing and others will be fortunate to have a mentor to assist them in becoming successful managers. Many will learn as they manage. This last group of learning assistance managers can be characterized as “day to day” or “seat of the pants” managers; as “trial and error,” “crisis to crisis,” or as “do it myself” types. Then there are the

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apathetic and unmotivated managers who are frequently burned out; and finally, there are managers who have found or developed a management approach and are systematically using it to manage their programs.

Management Models. Assuming that an ideal manager is one who uses a management approach, what choices are there? There are a number of management models that learning assistance program managers can choose from. All come from the business sector and, since education is a public not-for-profit organization, must be adapted for use in public educational institutions. The latest two models are called Reengineering and Total Quality Management (TQM). Other models are Quality Circles (QC), Management By Objectives (MBO), and Management By Results (MBR). Reengineering, TQM, and QC are all derived from the original work of Edward Deming as adapted by others. Adaptations of MBO and MBR for use in the public sector, specifically in higher education, can be found in Brenneman (1975), Deegan and Fritz (1975), Harvey (1974, 19760, and Shatzberger (1972). Although TQM and QC will not be discussed in this paper, a brief list of recommended readings is included at the end of this paper.

MBO: Some Definitions. Management By Objectives (MBO) was defined by Dale McConkey as “a systems approach to managing an organization.” (McConkey, 1983). Brenneman (1975), writing in a book devoted to higher education management, defined MBO as “a dynamic process, designed to enable institutions and people to operate in terms of results.” Mali (1986), defined it as “a participative system of managing in which managers look ahead for improvements, think strategically, set performance stretch objectives at the beginning of a time period, develop action and supporting plans, and insure accountability for results at the end of the time period.” James Harvey (1974), in a text specifically concerned with MBO in postsecondary programs, defined it as “both a broad concept and a system. MBO as a concept simply connotes the setting of goals and objectives, the determination of the best way to accomplishing evaluation of whether those goals and objectives are accomplished… a method whereby an administrator and his subordinates identify areas of responsibility in which a person will work, set some standards for performance in quantifiable terms and measure the results against these standards within a specific time frame all within the context of the mission, goals, and objectives of the organization.” Deegan and Fritz (1975), in their classic postsecondary text, MBO GOES TO COLLEGE, defined MBO as “a total system of management, an attempt to incorporate all the things a manager ought to be doing into an organized effort. Deegan and Fritz go on to state that MBO is “not any one of the many tools a manager will find helpful from one situation to the next; it is the whole toolbox.” For Deegan and Fritz, MBO is planning by objectives, organizing by objectives, directing and supervising people by objectives, motivating by objectives, and evaluating by objectives.

MBO Process: Five Steps. The MBO process can be divided into five steps: 1) ownership, 2) goal setting, 3) monitoring the process, 4) evaluating the process, and 5) revising the process. Each of these steps will be described as they were implemented by the Learning Assistance Support System at CSU Long Beach.

Step One: Ownership. To develop a sense of ownership, the entire LASS staff participated in the writing of the mission, goals, and objectives statements that formed the basis for program management. Staff included a director, assistant director, facilities manager, volunteer learning skills facilitators, and student aides. In addition to an all day meeting each semester, weekly staff meetings were used to get staff suggestions and approval as the MBO statements were written. Since the program was relocating to a larger area, staff was also involved in the design of the new Learning Assistance Center. When the first MBO document was ready for implementation, a meeting was scheduled with the Vice-president who had oversight for the learning assistance program. At that meeting, the Vice-president was given a copy of the program’s MBO and briefed on its contents and its congruence with the mission and goals of the

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division. Although it was anticipated that there might be changes to the document, the Vice-president accepted it as written. He commented that this was the first and only MBO document submitted by anyone of his program sectors. Each year thereafter, the director met with the Vice-president to submit the goals and objectives for the new program year and to review the results of the goals and objectives of the past year. Ownership of the learning assistance program was established not only with LASS staff through participative planning, but also with the university through its acceptance by the Vice-president to whom LASS reported.

Although both Deegan and Fritz (1975) and Harvey (1974) advocate a readiness survey before embarking on an MBO process, this was not implemented at CSU Long Beach. In retrospect, it appears that the director and staff fortunately were ready for managerial accountability and participative management. Such a survey, however, is strongly recommended for any program manager considering an MBO process.

Step Two: Goal Setting. The most time consuming step in the MBO process is the development of a program’s mission and goals statement and then writing objectives along with the individual tasks, timelines, and staff oversight responsibilities of each objective to accomplish a program’s mission through the completion of program goals. In writing a program’s mission statement, the mission statement of the institution should be read carefully so that a program’s mission and goals are congruent with it.

Examples of a learning assistance program mission, along with concomitant goals and selected objectives are reproduced in Appendix A from the mission, goals and objectives of the Learning Assistance Support System at CSU Long Beach for the years 1990-91 and 1982-83. The documents are different because they were written under two different directors. However, both mission, goals and objectives statements were approved at the division and university level with copies filed in the Vice-president’s office.

LASS statements of its objectives followed the Deegan and Fritz (1975: 162-164) classification of objectives into three distinct categories: 1) routine, 2) problem solving, and 3) innovative. In addition, a fourth category, professional development, was added. Routine objectives are the regularly recurring operational concerns that learning assistance program managers deal with on a daily basis. These include facility development and maintenance, support of learning skills and tutorial services, management of program materials, and implementing public relations activities. Problem solving objectives are based on staff observations, as well as administrative, faculty, and student concerns. Some typical problem concerns are tutor training and other support personnel, demonstrating program efficiency and effectiveness to faculty and administration, and updating a program’s five-year plan to reflect institutional changes. Many of these objectives are the result of feedback from program staff, faculty, and administration. The third type of objective, innovative, reflects new projects such as developing a five-year plan, creating a web presence for the program, offering learning assistance programs and services to fraternities, sororities, alumni, and other special populations, and developing on-line teaching/learning skills programs for student and faculty use. Finally, professional development objectives focuses on opportunities for individual LASS staff members to develop their academic potential through self study, attendance at conferences and workshops, participation on institutional committees, and in professional associations such as the College Reading and Learning Association (CRLA).

For all objectives, action plans were developed. These action plans detailed the tasks to be undertaken to complete each objective and included both a completion date and the name of the staff member responsible for completing them.

Step Three: Monitoring the Process. Instead of filing the mission, goal, and objectives document in a cabinet in the director’s office, LASS displayed them prominently on the walls of the LASS staff

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meeting room. In this room, nicknamed the “war room” by an ex-military faculty member who was touring the center, anyone: students, faculty, administrators, and visitors, could see a large wall display of LASS’ mission, goals, and objectives statements and how much progress was being made toward completing the tasks for each objective (Christ, 1979).

Another wall display labeled “LASS Departmental Interrelations,” showed the type and number of interactions between LASS and the sixty-five academic departments and service sectors of the university. Some of the interrelations that were monitored for each of these departments and programs included number of liaison contacts, program mailings, faculty meeting presentations, center tours, number of course support activities, tutor representation, and both student referrals from and to LASS.

A third display was a 2×4 foot wall chart that graphed center usage so that at a glance one could see daily attendance, weekly totals for the current semester, similar totals for the preceding year, and semester by semester tallies for the past five years.

Weekly staff meetings were held in the “war room.” As part of the agenda for each meeting, staff were updated on any progress or lack of progress that was made toward fulfilling its annual objectives and in maintaining its interrelationships with departments and university programs. In addition, fluctuations in center attendance were immediately noted. Thus, any problems that surfaced each week were recognized, discussed and actions taken to remedy them.

Step Four: Evaluating the Process. At the end of each academic year, the entire staff of LASS, including all student aides, reviewed its progress toward meeting that year’s objectives. This feedback became the basis of the following year’s objectives.

In addition, an outside evaluator was invited to evaluate the managerial rationale and processes of LASS (Christ, 1978).

Through this systemic process of monitoring and evaluating the goals and specific objectives of each academic year, LASS was able to refine and revise its objectives for each successive year and thus allocated its resources to reflect the new set of objectives.

Step Five: Revising the Process. This step is an inevitable outcome of steps three and four, following logically from regular feedback and staff discussion. It is the cybernetic aspect of a systems approach to learning assistance (Christ, 1971) and leads to better client service and program accountability.

Advantages and Disadvantages of MBO. Using MBO has both advantages and disadvantages. Among its many advantages for the institution are the following:

1) each staff member’s responsibilities are clearly defined resulting in less supervision of subordinates and increased morale among staff

2) communication between management and staff if ongoing with participative planning a reality as problems are identified and solutions are tried

3) appraisal of managers and subordinates is based on results

4) service to LASS clients (students, faculty, administrators) becomes overtly accountable and is congruent with the division and institutional mission and goals

5) greater satisfaction from improved managerial efficiency and effectiveness



Among the disadvantages associated with MBO are the following:

1) MBO process takes time in initiating, planning monitoring, evaluating, and revising

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2) it has the potential to be a paper shuffling exercise, especially when the process is not monitored and evaluated



Why MBO for Learning Assistance Program Managers? Since all learning assistance program administrators are interested in serving the teaching/learning needs of their institutions and since accountability and cost-effectiveness is becoming increasingly more important in these times of shrinking budgets and downsizing staffs, using MBO as a management tool will assist program managers to design and implement more accountable services to students and faculty. This can result in a better match between resources and program needs as well as increased satisfaction from students, faculty, staff, and administrators. Using MBO can assist the inexperienced manager to achieve program accountability and coincidentally gain the confidence of higher administration.



Next Steps: Becoming an MBO Manager. If you decide that MBO is useful to you as a management process, the following nine steps will help you to develop and implement it successfully

1) Orient your staff to MBO, its potential, its advantages and disadvantages

2) Locate your institutional mission and goals statements

3) Develop your program mission, goals, and objectives collaboratively with your staff

4) Get administrative approval to use MBO

5) Develop tasks for each objective with timelines and staff responsibility

6) Monitor your MBO progress weekly

7) Evaluate your progress at the end of each semester and academic year

8) Consider using an outside evaluator

9) Revise your objectives annually.

Appendix A

Mission & Goals Statement of the Learning Assistance Center at California State University Long Beach: 1990-91

The Learning Assistance Center is a comprehensive university service established to impact proactively the effectiveness and efficiency of student learning in order to enhance the retention of all students, traditional and under-represented, and to strengthen their academic performance.

The Center serves students and faculty by providing a wide range of learning assistance services including: skills assessment, learning strategies and techniques, course tutoring, Supplemental Instruction, self-paced tutorials, development of learning materials, training of learning assistance personnel, and referral to other services and programs as appropriate.



The following seven goals reflected specific management emphases of the Learning Assistance Center:

1. to function as an information clearinghouse for and referral service to all campus programs and services that can assist students to achieve academic success;

2. to assist learners to learn by providing accessible environments for a dynamic interface with LAC personnel, equipment, materials, and learning facilities;

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3. to prevent learning failures and increase learning sophistication by providing programs and services for learners to “learn how to learn” for long-term retention and application;

4. to publicize LAC programs and services to all students, faculty, staff, administration, alumni, and parents of students;

5. to adapt the LAC to the needs and expectancies of the institution consistent with the written goals and available resources of the institution;

6. to demonstrate the viability of the LAC as a campus change agent in developing and implementing approaches to learning and instruction; and

7. to provide training to Learning Assistance professionals.



Mission Statement for Learning Assistance Support System (LASS) of CSU Long Beach for the year 1982-83

Primary Mission/Goals

To mobilize for effective use by students, staff, faculty, and administration, all existing campus, community, and CSU resources-including people, facilities, equipment, materials, programs, research, and information-to support individuals, departments, and other campus groups who desire to learn more in less time with greater ease and confidence.

Specifically, the Learning Assistance Support System has six goals:

1) To assist learners to learn by providing accessible environments for a dynamic interface with equipment, materials, and learning facilitators

2) To prevent learning failures and increase learning sophistication in personal learning skills by providing programs and services in “learning to learn”

3) To recruit and train personnel for LASS programs and services

4) To publicize programs and services of LASS to the campus community including students, faculty, staff, and administration

5) To continue to adapt LASS to the needs of the institution consistent with the articulated goals and available resources of the institution

6) To demonstrate the viability of LASS as a campus change agent in developing and implementing approaches to learning and instruction that are individualized, personalized, cybernetic, mathemagenic, and accountable.



Objectives:

[Key, based on Arthur Deegan and Roger Fritz, MBO Goes To College, 1975. R=Routine; PS=Problem Solving; I=Innovative. Year in parenthesis following the objective indicates first year of its statement]

Based on the mission and goals of the Learning Assistance Support System, the following 37 objectives are stated for 1982-83:

(R) 1.1 To continue the physical development of the Learning Assistance Center (1976)

(I) 1.2 To develop and begin the implementation of a five-year plan for computer stations in the

LAC (1982)

(R) 1.3 To support campus-wide tutorial services (1973)

(I) 1.4 To update and computerize Learning Assistance Center catalogues of materials in Personal

Lrning Skills, Academic Aids, Personal Efficiency Skills, Standardized Test Preparation, and LASS Training (1980)

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(R) 1.To refine the LAC materials collection (1975)

(I) 1.6 To collaborate with Associate Deans of School-Based Programs to develop learning

environments that meet the needs of students at each school (1982)



(PS) 1.7 To explore with foundations and other funding agencies way and means to get resources

(1976)

(R) 2.1 To present 75 learning skills workshops and orientations each semester (1975)

(R) 2.2 To collaborate with minority program personnel in designing and providing learning skills

programs for EOP, Upward Bound, and Student Special Services (1982)



(I) 2.3 To further computerize the diagnostic/prescriptive study skills survey used by the LAC

(1973)



(I) 2.4 To develop special learning skills programs for Native Americans, MESA (Engineering),

and Indo-Chinese students (1982)

(R) 2.5To continue working with the Adult Re-entry Program (1980)

(R) 3.1 To recruit and train at least five potential adjunct facilitators for the LAC (1974)

(R) 3.2 To offer learning assistance training and experience to students in the M.S. Counseling

Program (1974)



(I) 3.3 To collaborate with Associate Deans of School-Based programs in recruiting and training

students from each school as tutors and peer learning skills facilitators (1982)



(R) 3.4 To offer learning assistance training, experience, and/or special project work to students in

both the undergraduate and graduate course offerings of Directed Studies through the

Instructional Media Department (1975)

(PS) 3.5 To recruit and train students as LAC aides, support personnel, and tutors (1975)

(PS) 3.6 To explore the feasibility for alternative staffing to present use of financial aid students as

support personnel and tutors (1982)

(PS) 3.7 To complete the LASS Administrative Handbook (1978)

(R) 4.1 To implement at least 20 PR activities that reach campus personnel as learners (1980)

(R) 4.2 To brief all section heads of the university on LASS programs and services (1975)

(I) 4.3 To develop wireless tours of the LAC for special target populations (1976)

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(R) 4.4 To update existing LAC audio tour (1982)

(PS) 4.5 To design, print, and distribute skills mini-bibs to appropriate campus personnel and offices,

as well as academic departments involved in general education requirements (1981)



(I) 4.6 To familiarize Associated Student leaders with LASS programs and services and to explore

ways and means of working together (1981)



(PS) 4.7 To give faculty an opportunity to inspect and instructor/verify existing and potential

program materials (1982)



(R) 5.1 To support campus International Students with special learning assistance programs and services (1975)



(R) 5.2 To continue to offer learning assistance support to veterans and military personnel (1975)



(R) 5.3 To continue to support faculty development with workshops, new faculty orientation, and

instructional/learning strategies (1975)



(R) 5.4 To continue to assist schools and departments in individualizing their course offerings through the use of

the LAC (1973)



(I) 5.5 To explore learning assistance support of Extended Education students (1981)



(I) 5.6 To explore learning assistance support of campus fraternities and sororities (1981)]





(R) 6.1 To continue to demonstrate efficiency and effectiveness of LASS through an evaluation of its programs

and services (1976)



(R) 6.2 To further define and elaborate an evaluation plan for LASS including a recurring needs assessment system

(1975)



(R) 6.3 To continue to have at least one evaluation of LASS by an outside consultant (1973)



(PS) 6.4 To update the LASS five-year plan (1975)



References



Brenneman, D. Sonders, “Management by Objectives: A Process for Educational Administration” in C.P. Heaton (editor) Management by Objectives in Higher Education. Durham, NC: National Laboratory for Higher Education, 1975.



Christ, Frank L. “An Audio Tour of a University Learning Assistance Center,” Technological Horizons in Education Journal, Vol. 6, No. 1 (January, 1979), pp.50-51.



Christ, Frank L. “Learning Assistance at a State University: A Cybernetic Model,” in Kurt Lauridsen (editor), New Directions for College Learning Assistance: Examining the Scope of Learning Centers, No. 1. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1980, pp. 45-56.

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Christ, F.L. “Management is Evaluation,” Audiovisual Instruction, Vol. 23, No. 8 (November, 1978), pp. 26, 62.



Christ, Frank L. “Systems for Learning Assistance: Learners, Learning Facilitators, and Learning Centers, in F. L. Christ (editor) Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Conference of the Western College Reading Association, Vol. 4, 1971, pp. 32-41.



Deegan, Arthur X. and Roger J. Fritz, MBO Goes to College. Clearwater, FL: Art Deegan and Associates, 1975.



Harvey, L. James, Managing Colleges and Universities by Objectives. Littleton, CO: Ireland Educational Corporation, 1976.



Harvey, L. James, Management by Objectives in Higher Education: A Guide to Implementation. Washington, D.C.: McManis Associates, Inc., 1974.



McConkey, Dale, How to Manage by Results (4th ed.). New York: Amacom Book Division, 1983



Mali, Paul, MBO Updated: A Handbook of Practices and Techniques for Managing by Objectives. New York: John Wiley & Sons. 1986.



Oncken, William Jr., “Appraisal of Managerial Performance,” Frontiers of Industrial Relations. Pasadena, CA: California Institute of Technology, 1959.



Shatzberger, Martin, “Some Reflections on Higher Education Administration” in Paul Hamelman (editor), Managing the University: A Systems Approach. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1972.



Quality Management Readings

Baldridge, J. Victor and Michael L. Tierney. New Approaches to Management. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1979.



Capezio, Peter and Debra Moorehouse. Taking The Mystery Out of TQM: A Practical Guide to Total Quality Management. Hawthorne, NJ: Career Press, 1993.



Deming. W. Edwards. Out of the Crisis (2nd ed.). Boston: MA MIT Press, 1986.



Heterick, Robert C. (editor) Reengineering Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: Sheltered Groves, Camelot, Windmills, and Malls. Boulder, CO: CAUSE, 1993.



Hubbard, Dean L. (editor) Continuous Quality Improvement: Making the Transition to Education. Maryville, MO: Prescott Publishing, 1993.

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Helping Students to Learn How to Learn
McKeachie, William J. “Helping Students Learn How to Learn ,” in Mioduski, Sylvia and Gwyn Enright (editors), PROCEEDINGS OF THE 17th and 18th ANNUAL INSTITUTES FOR LEARNING ASSISTANCE PROFESSIONALS: 1996 AND 1997. Tucson, AZ: University Learning Center, University of Arizona, 1997. Pp. 53-58.

Helping Students Learn How to Learn

W.J. McKeachie, University of Michigan



What do students need if they are to become effective life-long learners?

First-let’s look at the opportunities they may have for learning. What are the possible ways in which adults may learn? Then, let’s examine what they need in order to use these opportunities effectively. Finally, how can we help them if they are to become better learners?

Those are the three topics I shall try to address in this talk.

I. Possible ways of learning

Even in this electronic age, reading remains as a major way of learning. We learn from books, newspapers, magazines, professional journals, instructional manuals. Even the World Wide Web requires reading.

Just as important as reading is listening. While post-college learning will probably involve fewer formal lectures than characterizes most college learning, one still learns a great deal by listening to family members, friends, television and radio programs, supervisors, and fellow workers.

A third method of learning is observing. We watch other people and learn from the ways they do things. We not only learn from observations of others but also from observation of our own behavior and its successes and failures. We learn from observing behavior on television and in films. In learning certain skills, such as high jumping, cooking, carpentry, and even mathematics, videotape may be an important instructional device.

We also learn by talking and writing. Often hearing or seeing our own thoughts can clarify our thinking, cueing new associations, making gaps clear even to ourselves. But, more important, talking and writing are important ways of getting responses to our ideas–responses that may correct, elaborate, or reinforce our ideas. Questioning, explaining, defending are all important mechanisms of learning and memory. And with the increasing popularity of e-mail and the World Wide Web, writing is an even more important skill than in previous years.

Reading, listening, observing, talking, and writing all involve learnable skills. If we are to help students become effective life-long learners, such skills are among the basic elements needed, but there are elements that are also important; so let’s examine what some of them are.



II. What is needed to be an effective lifelong learner?

Five elements:

First, motivation. It does no good to have skills if one isn’t motivated to use them. While people learn all the time, there are differences between learning a basketball score and learning something that will be useful at other times and places. Our problem is not that adults don’t know how to read, but rather that many don’t want to read.

Second, a knowledge base that provides a conceptual structure for further learning. The best predictor of ease of learning is prior knowledge.

Third, skills for further learning. I have already discussed the basic skills, but there are skills for learning from reading, listening, observing, and writing that go beyond basic comprehension. One can comprehend and learn something, but the manner in which it is learned makes a big difference in whether or not what was learned can be remembered and used at a later time and place.

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Fourth, strategies for efficient learning. There are a variety of ways to approach a learning opportunity. What works best depends upon the learner, the material, and the goals of learning. Having requisite skill is not enough if the skill is used at the wrong time in the wrong way.

Fifth, metacognitive strategies. By “metacognitive”, I mean thinking about one’s own learning and thinking. Metacognitive strategies include planning, checking to see if your initial plan is working, and choosing an alternate strategy if the planned approach isn’t working. The currently popular term for this is “self-regulation”. It can be as simple as checking an arithmetic answer to see if it makes sense or as recognizing that a paragraph is unclear and rereading it to figure out what it means.

Let’s take each of these and discuss what students can learn that will contribute to life-long learning.



III. What can we teach?

First: Motivation. We teachers often talk about motivating students. Actually people are always motivated-even if it’s only motivation for sleep. The problem is not that they are not motivated; the problem is that they are more motivated for other things than for learning that will be useful at other times and other places.

How can we help them become motivated for further learning? One of the basic theories of motivation is that motivation for an activity depends upon the value or goal likely to be achieved by that activity and by the expectancy that a given activity will lead to that goal. Most people value learning, but if they feel that they are not good learners, they are not likely to be motivated for learning activities of the sort that we are talking about when we talk about life-long learning. All of us have spent years in school. We learned many things, but inevitably our learning in school is, also associated with feelings conditioned over hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pleasant or unpleasant experiences. If most of the experiences have been unpleasant, is it any wonder that those individuals may not be attracted to further learning opportunities?

What can we do to help them become motivated for continued useful learning? First of all, we can develop their intrinsic interest in learning. Most people enjoy learning if they feel that they can learn effectively and if they see learning tasks as relating to their own lives and interests. One of the reasons many people do not engage in the sort of learning activities that seem to us useful and important is that they feel incompetent. Thus we need to help students build confidence in their own learning ability.

One of the barriers to a sense of competence is the belief that learning ability is inherited. “If I wasn’t born to be a learner, there’s no use expecting that I’ll ever be an effective learner.” I sometimes encounter student-athletes who say, “I’m an athlete, not a learner.” Other students say, “I’m just not a math-science person.” To counter these attitudes we need to teach students that intelligence tests measure abilities that are learnable. Nobody comes into the world with ready made skills for reading, writing, learning or thinking. Everyone has to learn them, and they are learned through practice.

If you want to be a better learner from reading, read a lot. You’ll learn material that you read, which will increase your ability to learn more of the material; you’ll increase your reading ability; and you’ll also increase your vocabulary, which is a major factor in learning and thinking. If you want to become better at math, spend more time practicing your math skills, and you’ll turn out to be better at math than some of those who are now better than you at math. And if you want to be more intelligent, practice these and other skills for learning, and you’ll be more intelligent than some of those whose IQs are now above yours.

A second step is to teach students how to evaluate their own learning so that they can assess their work and feel that they are making progress. Feeling that one is gaining skill and mastery is an important source of motivation for learning.

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Third, we need to give students experiences in a wide variety of learning situations-experience that is interesting and satisfying. Although personal choice is an important motivational variable, even required experiences can lead an individual into areas that they find enjoyable but otherwise would not have attempted. For example, one classic study showed that students who took required physical education courses participated in a wider variety of recreational activities in later life than students who did not have such a requirement.

Fourth, we can teach strategies for motivating oneself. One such strategy is to list one’s life goals–the things one would like to have noted in an obituary. Then if those goals are to be attained, what must be done in the next year? in the next month? in the next week? today?

Finally, students learn from models. Our own enthusiasm for learning can have a powerful effect upon students. The last issue of Change magazine contains reports of former students’ memories of their professors 30 years after leaving college. Enthusiasm was one of the memorable qualities. One alumnus said, “I will never forget this teacher, not only for how he influenced me personally, but professionally as well. You felt his joy, you believed in his commitment to the subject because it was manifested in the very air of the classroom.”

Second: Organized, conceptual knowledge. I understand that some of you are teaching basic skills rather than dealing with content courses; so you may feel that it is up to the professor to provide structured knowledge. You are right. Nonetheless, your students will probably encounter some professors who are not very organized or who simply stress memorization of definitions and facts, and in such courses it will be up to the students to develop methods of identifying concepts and developing a framework that can serve as a basis of further knowledge. Thus teaching students how to construct outlines, how to develop graphic representations of relationships, or how to look for organizing principles in textbooks or other sources-all of these are important tools for students if they are to build on college learning for life long learning.

A third area that is vital for life-long learning would probably have been placed first by many speakers on this topic. That is skills for learning.

In the preceding section I mentioned a variety of skills that are important for continued learning-reading, writing, listening, observing, thinking, as well as mathematical, mechanical and motor skills. I don’t have time to discuss these individually, but I should like to point out some basic commonalities.

The first is that skills develop through practice, and generally that practice is more effective if there is some feedback; i.e. the learner needs to know whether their efforts are good or not so good-they need to identify mistakes as well as good elements of what they have practiced. As teachers we can provide feedback for practice in our courses, but students also need to learn that they can get feedback from their peers as well and we can help train our students to give feedback to one another. But eventually learners must be able to evaluate their own learning; so we need to teach our students criteria by which they can judge their own progress or lack of it.

A second principle is that for many kinds of learning, it helps if learners think about what they are learning and make it their own and not something simply stored for the moment. Let me illustrate this in the area of learning from reading. One can read a chapter of a book or a journal or magazine article with general understanding but forget it within a few hours. If one wants to learn in ways that will result in memory that can be retrieved whenever you need it, he or she needs to elaborate it-to process it deeply–to relate it to other things one knows. Probably the best form of elaboration is to explain something to someone else. As we teachers know from personal experience, one learns a great deal about a topic when teaching it. Other elaboration strategies are summarizing, questioning, trying to think of relationships to other things one knows-anything that involves increasing its meaningfulness. And similarly learning from writing or

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observation or listening will be more likely to be remembered if one thinks about it and relates it to other learning.

Thinking about what one is learning is particularly important because basic skills for learning, such as reading and writing need to be supplemented with domain specific skills–reading in social science as compared with reading in science or humanities, writing a research report vs. a literary essay or a business letter. Moving from one area of learning to another is more efficient if one has some ability to be thoughtful about likenesses and differences between reading, writing, or other skills in different contexts.

Students may have good skills for learning, but if they do not have skills for finding the information they want to learn, their skill will be of little avail. Therefore we also need to help students how to use the library and how to search electronic sources such as the World Wide Web. And perhaps just as important is to teach them to think about other persons who may have the information they need.

One of the important skills that is least likely to be taught explicitly is skill in learning in groups and from peers. The first requisite is recognizing that one is confused and being willing to ask others for help. (Karabenick & Sharma, 1994), but there are also skills of working in groups that are useful and fairly common sensical that are often not known or disregarded by students who get together to prepare for an exam. These skills are just as useful in working with groups after college as during college. Here are some examples:

Be sure that each member of the group knows the purpose of the group meeting and comes prepared for the task. For example, one of the most effective peer learning methods, The Learning Cell, (Goldschmid, 1971; also described in my Teaching Tips) requires each member to come with a set of questions to be answered during the group meeting.
At the conclusion of the meeting, summarize what has been done, what needs to be done before the next meeting, and who has agreed to do what.
Check with each member to be sure that they agree and that they have accepted responsibility for their assignment. Don’t assume that silence is consent.
Make sure that tasks are shared equitably.
Skills are important, but skills are not sufficient for learning if they are not used appropriately. Thus we turn to strategic learning, our fourth element in learning effectiveness.



Strategies for Learning

I have already described one important set of learning strategies-strategies for elaboration or deep processing, such as summarizing, explaining, and questioning. There are also strategies for maintaining attention. Attention probably evolved as a way of insuring that human beings became aware of possible threats in the environment such as predatory animals or attacking enemy tribes. Thus attention is greatly affected by changes in the environment. Generally speaking if everything were quiet and there were no unusual movement around, our ancestors were safe. If they knew they were in a territory in which there were threats their attention would be heightened to pick up even the smallest sound of a breaking twig or a momentary movement. Thus the two factors that are most important for attention are change and motivation. What implications does this have for learners? What can we teach that will be helpful? If we take the principle of change, one practical strategy is to change activities briefly if one finds that one is losing the ability to pay attention to a reading assignment. Simply sitting up in an attentive posture or moving around for a few minutes or getting a drink of water will help. In a lecture one way of changing the situation from a

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monotonous voice is to ask a question. Another is to take more notes, and, if the material is easy, to write examples, possible applications, or references to other learning in addition to the basic notes on the content.

Note that I’ve given you some basic theory about attention as well as some attentional strategies. Research suggests that if learners understand why things work, they are better able to adapt them and use them in new situations. So let’s now turn to a little theoretical background for our next set of strategies-organizational strategies.

One of our limitations in learning is that while our brains have an unlimited capacity for storing information, we have only a limited capacity for handling information at any one time; i.e. at a given time we can only handle so many stimuli coming in or some many things to remember. George Miller, a past-president of the American Psychological Association, wrote a famous article called “The Magic Number 7, plus or minus 2,” in which he pointed out that we can deal with only about 7 bits of information in a variety of areas; e.g. we can only repeat back about 7 numbers if they are read to us one after another; we can only comprehend about 7 different objects if they are shown to us on a screen momentarily. But even though you can process only 7 random numbers that you hear, if I give you the numbers 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12…etc. , you can process an infinite number. The secret, of course, is organization, and among the important cognitive strategies we can teach our students are organizational strategies. Teaching students to “chunk” things into groups or categories, teaching them to look for the organization of a textbook chapter before reading it; teaching them to organize their notes of lectures or reading and perhaps to use graphic organizers-all of these can contribute to learning effectiveness.



Metacognitive strategies

The fifth set of elements in teaching students how to learn is metacognition. Metacognitive strategies include:

Planning
Self-monitoring
Self-regulation
We can help our students to be more effective learners if we teach them to take a few moments before starting a learning task, such as a reading assignment, or attending a lecture, to think about how they can best approach it. They need to plan.

If it is reading, they need to think, “Should I look over headings or the conclusion before beginning to get an idea of what the reading is all about?” If it is a lecture, the question might be, “Should I do some reading or review before the lecture so that I will be better able to organize what the lecturer says even if the lecture is difficult or the lecturer goes too fast?” One important planning habit is to develop a time schedule for achieving one’s goals for the day, or the week, or the month.

Once the learning is underway students need to check themselves to be sure their plans are working-self-monitoring. If they are working on math, does the answer make sense? If they are reading, do they understand the material well enough to explain it? If the answer is “No”, they need to go back and review what they have done or seek help from someone who does understand. (Self-regulation)



Conclusion

We can only hope to get students started in the areas I have outlined, but if students actually get some experience while under our supervision, they are likely to find that their performance improves. One of the greatest incentives for continued development is the sense that one is making progress. Thus increased competence feeds into increased motivation for learning, and increased motivation leads to increased practice and competence.

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References



Goldschmid, M.L., (1971). The learning cell: An instructional innovation. Learning and Development. 1 (5), 1-2.

Karabenick, S.A. & Sharma, R. (1994). Seeking academic assistance as a strategic learning resource. In Pintrich, P.R., Brown, D.R., & Weinstein, C.E. (Eds.), Student Motivation, Cognition, and Learning: Essays in Honor of Wilbert J. McKeachie (pp. 189-212). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

McKeachie, W.J. (1994). Teaching Tips: Strategies, Research, and Theory for College and University Teachers (9th ed.). Lexington,MA: D.C.Heath/Houghton-Mifflin.

5C’s of LAC Director as Manager: Compassion, Commitment, Connections, Credibility, Catalyst
Sheets, Rick A. (1997). Learning Assistance Center Director as Manager. In S. Mioduski, and Gwyn Enright (Eds.), Proceedings of the 15th and 16th Annual Institutes for Learning Assistance Professionals: 1996 and 1997 (pp. 82-84). University of Arizona, AZ: University Learning Center

Learning Assistance Center Director as Manager
RICK A. SHEETS, ED.D., PARADISE VALLEY COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Compassion
Commitment
Connections
Credibility
Catalyst

Show Compassion (Care & value of self, staff, students, and others)

Staff

Use a team-building approach to listen, encourage ideas and brainstorming

Care about each member on your team birthdays, lunches, etc.

Take time to be real and show friendship

Honor diversity in differing needs, skills, learning preferences, and attitudes

Value input and feedback from every team member

Clarify how decisions are made

Encourage honesty and frankness

Model problem-solving vs. Blaming

Encourage and support professional growth and development opportunities–i.e., journals, workshops, classes, degrees, new careers, conferences, visits to other centers, internships, retraining



Self:

Value yourself too (Analogy presented as a Keynote for NADE in San Antonio: In an emergency situation on an airplane the tendency is to help others find their oxygen mask first–BUT in order to help others, it is imperative to “Put your own oxygen mask on first!”



Have Commitment

To students, to life, to college, to goals, to others through striving for excellence, quality, and innovation

Keep your visions as a direction, but live in the here and now, not in a dreamland (when this…), nor in the past (what if… or if only…)

Provide for LAC staff (for personal, professional, and educational goals and opportunities):

support (modeling, encouragement, and listening)

training (in-house and external)

resources (appropriate, e.g., financial, time, physical)

Provide for students:

services (e.g., tutoring, materials, study skill workshops, testing, and special need services) and other resources

strategies for independence in learning

a safe zone in which to learn and grow

Provide support for faculty:

tours or orientations of LSC in LSC, if possible (brief or expanded)

in-class presentations tailored to specific request or needs (e.g. test-taking skills using the faculty member’s input regarding student needs, type of test)

flyer showing ways faculty can help you help them



Tools:

Quality Management (TQM – Total Quality Management)

Employee Development (support employee professional, educational, and personal growth and development)

Commitment to Excellence (book by Peters and Waterman)

Management By Objective (MBO) (Frank Christ model presented later in the week at this institute)

(Use the best of the models above)



Build Credibility

Program

Supports students’ needs

Should be certified through CRLA’s (College Reading and Learning Association) International Tutor Certification Program (ITCP)

Has success documentation (e.g., use statistics, retention numbers, perception surveys)

Director – may come in the back door–no LAC, Adult Ed., Dev. Ed., etc.

Background: Training/Experience

Developmental Education (National Center for Developmental Education, Kellogg Institute, Appalachian State University (704) 262-3057

Teaching methodologies (i.e. Andragogy vs. Pedagogy) Contact: Andragogy Associates, Dr. Gene Kerstiens, (310) 541-7626

Learning Styles (4MAT, Canfield, Kolb)

Instructional Design (4MAT, Contact Excel, Inc.
(800) 822-4MAT

Counseling (Confronting techniques, Listening and Referral Techniques)

Basic Skills Methods Training/Certification (Reading, Writing, Mathematics, Computers)

Awareness of LAC history (tutoring support is not new to education)

Reference materials available for self, staff, faculty (e.g., New Directions for College Learning Assistance, books by Martha Maxwell)

Keeping up to date in field:

Learning Assistance Research, Journals, & Articles

Attending National and Regional Conferences (e.g., CRLA (College Reading and Learning Assistance), NADE (National Association for Developmental Education), WI (Winter Institute, SWADE (Southwest Association for Developmental Education), MCLCA (Midwest College Learning Center Association)
NOTE: WI Resources has more than 50 linked associations for you.

LRNASST – Winter Institute’s own listserv, a discussion group free to anyone focusing on Learning Assistance Center issues (Contact Sylvia Mioduski at The University of Arizona (520 621-1206).

With Administration

Statistics, Usage reports

Tracking, testimonials

In-house research, surveys

Do projections, go for grants or collaborations

If not generating FTE’s, show retention of existing FTE’s

With faculty

Have faculty give content tips for tutors

Have faculty recruit tutors for future semesters with current students

Faculty liaisons or advisory group (e.g. in place of committee)





For Tutors

CRLA’s – ITC (mentioned above)

Tutor’s Guide (a videotape series of 14 brief sessions for tutoring students in a University setting – available through Great Plains National (GPN P.O. Box 80669 Lincoln, NE 68501-0669 Phone: (402) 472-2007 or Toll Free: 800-228-4630 Fax: 800-306-2330 Email: gpn@unl.edu, website: http://gpn.unl.edu/))

Encourage tutors to prepare for own enterprise–private tutoring



Develop Connections (collaboration and networking or breaking down barriers)

Build a support network (internally and externally)

Develop Faculty, Administrative, and User buy-in to the LAC Program and Services

For faculty:

Have faculty give content tips for tutors

Have faculty recruit tutors for future semesters with current students

Faculty liaisons or advisory group (e.g. in place of committee)

For Administration:

BE A SHOWCASE OF STUDENT SUCCESS for tours or dignitaries

Develop guest packets for visitors

Attitude–positive and directed with a focus on serving students

Approach–to problem solve not blame

Atmosphere–inviting, safe, and

Listen to all–LAC tutors and staff, students, faculty, others (including custodians, groundskeepers, visitors, etc.)

Providing all with a chance to buy-in



Be a Catalyst (Change agent)



Change as a constant:

Change is the only constant in our mortal universe (as mentioned in movie, Jurassic Park as Chaos Theory, also known as a Systems Approach



Change as a process:

Change has both negative and positive aspects and is a process



Change as innovation:

Leaders or followers

Innovators–gives buy-in to all



Change as an opportunity for leadership, such as in technology or trends:

When dealing with change–WATCH OUT!

Technology i.e., CAI (Computer-Assisted Instruction), VC (Video Conferencing) Nets (Networks), Listservs, WWW (World Wide Web), small computer labs support for Instructional design, CBI (Computer-based Instruction), Hypercard, and Presentations (such as others you will see later this week by Brad Hughes and Lucy MacDonald)

Expansion at my college, PVCC–analogous to Eastern Indian Folktale of Six Blind Men and an Elephant (each department was designing the expansion of our college from the point of view of their area and needs and was blind to the reality of the big picture.)

This Winter Institute will provide a special opportunity for everyone to gain in any of the above areas in a safe environment of new friends and colleagues who will understand, encourage, mentor, and support your efforts for SUCCESS!

Learning Styles: A Force in Effective Teaching
Smith, Karen . “Learning Styles: A Force in Effective Teaching,” in Mioduski, Sylvia and Gwyn Enright (editors), PROCEEDINGS OF THE 17th and 18th ANNUAL INSTITUTES FOR LEARNING ASSISTANCE PROFESSIONALS: 1996 AND 1997. Tucson, AZ: University Learning Center, University of Arizona, 1997. Pp. 59-62.

Learning Styles: A Force in Effective Teaching

Karen G. Smith, Rutgers University



Although discussions about the uniqueness of each learner have been taking place in all levels of education for many years, we continue to attempt to understand the distinctive features of individuals that affect their ability and their ways of learning. If we are better able to understand the unique ways students learn, then we will be better able to design effective learning activities.

The emphasis in schools has changed from decade to decade, although changes in teaching methodologies or pedagogy in higher education have been far less noticeable. In the 1930’s, progressive educators concentrated on the needs of the child. In the 1940’s a nation at war developed a curriculum that was society-centered. In the 1950’s and early 1960’s, scholars led the way toward a discipline-centered approach. In the 1960’s and early 1970’s the total curriculum came into focus with an emphasis on the humane in the schools. The 1980’s and 1990’s brought about a return to the basics and educational accountability. Throughout this entire period, educational literature referred to the child as a “unique individual” without providing supporting evidence to help the practicing teacher truly understand this “uniqueness” and any relevance of this concept to their teaching activities.

For many years, instruction and learning have been viewed as direct correlates. If one is present to an acceptable degree, then the other should naturally follow. In other words, if the teacher is working hard and presenting the content well, then students should learn. Only in the last fifty years or so are we becoming more widely accepting of the notion that is expressed by Benjamin Bloom’s model of learning (1976), that three important elements and interdependent variables account for the greatest degree of variance in student learning. He identifies these behaviors as 1) cognitive entry behaviors, or the extent to which the student has already learned the basic prerequisites to the learning to be accomplished, 2) affective entry characteristics, or the extent to which the student is or can be motivated to engage in the learning process, and 3) the quality of instruction, or the extent to which the instruction to be given is appropriate to the learner.

Bloom’s model helps us to recognize the need for understanding more about the “cognitive entry behaviors” and “affective entry characteristics” which each learner brings to the instructional setting. While college entrance test scores, high school grade point averages, and the high school transcript provide some clues to the cognitive ability of our students, the student’s motivational capacity is yet to be understood. Bloom’s model, however, is focused on school learning primarily from the instructional perspective. While it deals with prior learning and motivation, the nature of the learning task, and indicators of learning effectiveness, it is not directly concerned with the wide variety of approaches that a teacher may use in creating a learning environment. Nor does it consider variations in student learning style.



What are “learning styles”?

Through the support of the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP 1979), an instrument for learning styles assessment was developed and a monograph published. In this monograph James Keefe defined learning styles as “… characteristic cognitive, affective, and physiological behaviors that serve as relatively stable indicators of how learners perceive, interact with, and respond to the learning environment.” About the same time Gregorc (1979), in his early work on the development of a learning styles instrument stated, “Styles are hypothetical constructs that help you to explain the learning (and teaching) process. They are qualities in the behavior of individual learners that persist regardless of the teaching methods or content experienced.”

[page 59]

A few years later Dunn and Griggs (1988) identified specific characteristics of learning style in their definition: “… learning style describes the way a classroom would be organized to respond to individual needs for quiet or noise, bright or soft illumination, temperature differences, seating arrangements, mobility needs, or grouping preferences. It suggests the patterns in which people tend to concentrate best — alone, with others, with certain types of teachers, or in a combination thereof. It suggests the senses through which people tend to remember difficult information most easily — by hearing, speaking, seeing, manipulating, writing, or notetaking, experiencing, or again, a combination of these. Learning style also considers motivation, on-task persistence, or the need for multiple assignments simultaneously, the kind and amount of structure required, and conformity versus nonconformity levels.”



What factors do learning styles encompass?

Some discussions of learning style appeared in the literature as early as 1892, but they were consumed with a preoccupation with determining the one perceptual mode that would best improve student learning. Specific research on cognitive styles was greatly expanded in the United States after World War II at Brooklyn College, the Menninger Foundation, and the Fels Institute (NASSP 1979). Continued efforts to explain the underlying processes of learning and teaching reflect two lines of research. One group retains dominant interest in the cognitive dimensions of style. The other is concerned with applied models of learning and teaching and multidimensional analysis of styles. As Keefe (1987) first clarified for us, learning styles are still considered to exist in three domains: cognitive, affective, and physiological.

Cognitive styles are information processing habits representing the learner’s typical mode of perceiving, thinking, problem solving, and remembering. The affective domain of learning style encompasses personality traits that have to do with attention, emotion, and valuing — with the processes of motivation. Motivation is the end-project of attention, activity and interest. Affective learning styles are these same motivational processes viewed as the learner’s typical mode of arousing, directing, and sustaining behavior. Physiological styles are biologically based modes of response that are founded on sex-related differences, personal nutrition and health, and reaction to the physical environment. Physiological factors are among the most obvious influences on pre-college learning.



How can learning styles effect classroom learning?

Faculty are drawn to the notion of learning styles through an awareness of their own learning processes and preferences and the recognition that their students often exhibit very different processes and preferences in the learning environment. Faculty are readily cognizant of their successes and failures with different groups, even when those groups are taught the same way, revealing clearly that students learn differently.

However, excepting some isolated situations and the work of a few particular individuals, learning style has not significantly affected educational practices in higher education. Until only recently, the academy’s emphasis on research in its traditional disciplines has not fostered the study of teaching and learning. Yet the need to improve educational practice is great, especially in light of today’s diversely prepared students and the current emphasis on effective teaching and assessment of outcomes. Learning style can be an extremely important element in the move to improve curricula and teaching in higher education.

Few who recommend that faculty be both informed about learning styles and willing to respond to the diversity represented in their classrooms are prepared to advocate that teachers teach to style. Modification of teaching style and diversifying classroom methodologies and activities can be implemented with some ease and impact the learning effectiveness greatly. The following chart, adapted from Claxton and Murrell 1987, illustrates how teacher behavior can respond to learning style.

[page 60]

The concept of learning style is not important as an isolated concept but because it is one of several critical variables that faculty and other professionals can use in dealing with the complex issues of teaching and learning. Understanding and recognizing the concept of styles is one way to help faculty think more deeply about their roles and the organizational culture in which they carry out their work. Effective educational practices are more likely to be the result when faculty have both a deep understanding of their own discipline and a general understanding of learning styles and how style impacts on learning performance.

[page 61]


References

Bloom, Benjamin S. Human Characteristics and School Learning. New York, McGraw-Hill, 1976.

Brookfield, Stephen D. The Skillful Teacher: On Technique, Trust, and Responsiveness in the Classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc. Pub., 1990.

Claxton, Charles s. & Patricia H. Murrell. Learning Styles: Implications for Improving Educational Practices. College Station, TX: ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 4, 1987.

Cole, Charles C., Jr. Improving Instruction: Issues and Alternatives in Higher Education. College Station, TX: ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 4, 1982.

Cross, K. Patricia. “A Proposal to Improve Teaching.” AAHE Bulletin 19, September 1986.

Dunn, Rita & Shirley A. Griggs. Learning Styles: Quiet Revolution in American Secondary Schools. Reston, VA: National Association of Secondary School Principals, 1988.

Eble, Kenneth E. The Craft of Teaching: A Guide to Mastering the Professor’s Art. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc. Pub., 1976.

Ericksen, Stanford C. The Essence of Good Teaching: Helping Students Learn and Remember What They Learn. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc. Pub., 1984.

Fuhrmann, Barbara Schneider Anthony F. Grasha. A Practical Handbook for College Teachers. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1983.

Gregorc, A.F. “Learning/Teaching Styles: Potent Forces Behind Them.” Educational Leadership 36, 1979.

Keefe, James W. Profiling and Utilizing Learning Style. Reston, VA: National Association of Secondary School Principals, 1988.

Keefe, James W. Learning Style: Theory and Practice. Reston, VA: National Association of Secondary School Principals, 1987.

Lowman, Joseph. Mastering the Techniques of Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc. Pub., 1984.

McCarthy, Bernice. The 4 Mat System: Teaching to Learning Styles with Right/Left Mode Techniques. Tucson: Zephyr Press, 1987.

Menges, Robert J. and Marilla D. Svinicki (ed.). College Teaching: From Theory to Practice. New Directions for Teaching and Learning Number 45: San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc. Pub., Spring 1991.

Mosston, Muska & Sara Ashworth. The Spectrum of Teaching Styles: From Command to Discovery. New York: Longman, 1990.

National Association of Secondary School Principals. Student Learning Styles and Brain Behavior: Programs, Instrumentation, Research. Reston, VA: National Association of Secondary School Principals, 1982.

National Association of Secondary School Principals. Student Learning Styles: Diagnosing and Prescribing Programs. Reston, VA: National Association of Secondary School Principals, 1979.

Smith, Karen L. The Learning Styles Webpage. , 1996.

Svinicki, Marilla D. The Changing Face of College Teaching. New Directions for Teaching and Learning Number 42: San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc. Pub., Summer 1990.

[page 62]

No full text

No full text

Some Sources and Resources for Writing Centers
Hughes, Brad. “Some Sources and Resources for Writing Centers,” in Mioduski, Sylvia and Gwyn Enright (editors), PROCEEDINGS OF THE 17th and 18th ANNUAL INSTITUTES FOR LEARNING ASSISTANCE PROFESSIONALS: 1996 AND 1997. Tucson, AZ: University Learning Center, University of Arizona, 1997. Pp. 72-81.

Some Sources and Resources for Writing Centers

Clark, Beverly Lyon. Talking About Writing: A Guide for Tutor and Teacher Conferences. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1985.

Clark, Irene. Writing in the Center: Teaching in a Writing Center Setting. 2nd ed. Dubuque, IA: Kendal/Hunt, 1992.

Clark-Thayer, Susan, ed. NADE Self-Evaluation Guides: Models for Assessing Learning Assistance/Developmental Education Programs. Clearwater, FL: H&H Publishing Company, 1995.

Farrell, Pamela B., ed. The High School Writing Center: Establishing and Maintaining One. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1989.

Flynn, Thomas, and Mary King, eds. Dynamics of the Writing Conference: Social and Cognitive Interactions. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1993.

Galica, Gregory S. The Blue Book: A Student’s Guide to Essay Exams. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991.

Goldsby, Jackie. Peer Tutoring in Basic Writing: A Tutor’s Journal. Bay Area Writing Project. Berkeley: Univ. of California, 1981.

Haring-Smith, Tori. A Guide to Writing Programs: Writing Centers, Peer Tutoring Programs, and Writing-Across-the-Curriculum. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, 1985.

Harris, Muriel. Teaching One-to-One: The Writing Conference. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1986.

___, ed. Tutoring Writing: A Sourcebook for Writing Labs. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1982.

Hawkins, Thom, and Phyllis Brooks, eds. New Directions for College Learning Assistance: Improving Writing Skills. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1981.

Kinkead, Joyce A., and Jeanette G. Harris, eds. Writing Centers in Context: Twelve Case Studies. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1993.

MacDonald, Ross B. The Master Tutor: A Guidebook for More Effective Tutoring. Williamsville, NY: Cambridge Stratford Study Skills Institute, 1994.

Maxwell, Martha. Evaluating Academic Skills Programs: A Source Book. Kensington, MD: MM Associates [P.O. Box 2857, White Flint, Kensington, MD, 20891], 1993.

___. Improving Student Learning Skills: A Comprehensive Guide to Successful Practices and Programs for Increasing the Performance of Underprepared Students. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1979.

___, ed. When Tutor Meets Student: Experiences in Collaborative Learning. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994.

Meyer, Emily, and Louise Z. Smith. The Practical Tutor. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Mullin, Joan, and Ray Wallace, eds. Intersections: Theory-Practice in the Writing Center. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1994.

Murphy, Christina, and Joe Law, eds. Landmark Essays on Writing Centers. Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press, 1995.

Murphy, Christina, and Steve Sherwood. The St. Martin’s Sourcebook for Writing Tutors. New York: St. Martin’s, 1995.

Murphy, Christina, Joe Law, and Steve Sherwood. Writing Centers: An Annotated Bibliography. Bibliographies and Indexes in Education, Number 17. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1996.

Neuleib, Janice P. The Writing Center: How To. ERIC ED 159666.

Olson, Gary, ed. Writing Centers: Theory and Administration. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1984.

Reigstad, Thomas, and Donald A. McAndrew. Training Tutors for Writing Conferences. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1984.

Shaughnessy, Mina P. Errors and Expectations: A Guide for the Teacher of Basic Writing. New York: Oxford UP, 1977.

Stay, Byron L., Christina Murphy, and Eric H. Hobson, eds. Writing Center Perspectives. Emmitsburg, MD: NWCA Press, 1995.

Steward, Joyce, and Mary Croft. The Writing Laboratory: Organization, Management, and Methods. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1982.

Wallace, Ray, and Jeanne Simpson, eds. The Writing Center: New Directions. New York: Garland, 1991.

Selected Articles

General (Definitions, Defenses, Philosophy, Theory) and Tutor Training

Baker, Tracey. “LD College Writers: Selected Readings.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 19.3 (1994): 5-7.

Balester, Valerie. “Electronic Discourse for Writing Consultants.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 18.9 (1994): 10-12.

Birdsall, Mary Pat. “Using Response Journals for Problem-Solving in the Writing Center.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 17.8 (1993): 12-16.

Brannon, Lil, and C.H. Knoblauch. “A Philosophical Perspective on Writing Centers and the Teaching of Writing.” Writing Centers: Theory and Administration. Ed. Gary A. Olson. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1984. 36-47.

Broder, Peggy F. “Writing Centers and Teacher Training.” WPA: Writing Program Administration 13.3 (1990): 37-45.

Bruffee, Kenneth A. “Peer Tutoring and the ‘Conversation of Mankind.'” Writing Centers: Theory and Administration. Ed. Gary A. Olson. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1984. 3-15.

Carino, Peter. “Early Writing Centers: Toward a History.” The Writing Center Journal 15.2 (1995): 103-115.

___. “Open Admissions and the Construction of Writing Center History: A Tale of Three Models.” The Writing Center Journal 17.1 (1996): 30-48.

___. “What Do We Talk about When We Talk about Our Metaphors: A Cultural Critique of Clinic, Lab, Center.” The Writing Center Journal 13.1 (1992): 31-42.

Carnicelli, Thomas A. “The Writing Conference.” Eight Approaches to Teaching Composition. Ed. Timothy R. Donovan and Ben W. McClelland. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1980. 101-131.

Chappell, Virginia. “Hands Off!” The Writing Lab Newsletter 6.6 (1982): 4-6.

Clark, Irene Lurkis. “Collaboration and Ethics in Writing Center Pedagogy.” The Writing Center Journal 9.1 (1988): 3-12.

___. “Maintaining Chaos in the Writing Center: A Critical Perspective on Writing Center Dogma.” The Writing Center Journal 11.1 (1990): 81-93.

___. “Portfolio Evaluation, Collaboration, and Writing Centers.” College Composition and Communication 44.4 (1993): 515-524.

Clark, Irene L., and Dave Healy. “Are Writing Centers Ethical?” WPA: Writing Program Administration 20.1-2 (1996): 32-48.

Cosgrove, Cornelius. “Explaining and Justifying Writing Centers: An Example.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 17.8 (1993): 1-4.

Ede, Lisa. “Writing as a Social Process: A Theoretical Foundation for Writing Centers?” The Writing Center Journal 9.2 (1989): 4-12.

Fitzgerald, Sallyanne, Peggy Mulvihill, and Ruth Dobson. “Meeting the Needs of Graduate Students: Writing Support Groups in the Center.” Writing Centers: New Directions. Ed. Ray Wallace and Jeanne Simpson. New York: Garland, 1991. 133-144.

Grimm, Nancy Maloney. “Rearticulating the Work of the Writing Center.” College Composition and Communication 47.4 (1996): 523-548.

___. “The Regulatory Role of the Writing Center: Coming to Terms with a Loss of Innocence.” The Writing Center Journal 17.1 (1996): 5-29.

Hain, Bonnie. “Training Tutors to Read Technical Writing.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 18.9 (1994): 15.

Harrington, Judy Stamos. “Multicultural Awareness Training for Learning Assistance Staff.” Journal of College Reading and Learning 23.2 (1991): 34-46.

Harris, Muriel. “Collaboration Is Not Collaboration Is Not Collaboration: Writing Center Tutorials vs. Peer-Response Groups.” College Composition and Communication 43.3 (1992): 369-383.

___. “Talking in the Middle: Why Writers Need Writing Tutors.” College English 57.1 (1995): 27-42.

Healy, Dave. “Countering the Myth of (In)dependence: Developing Life-Long Clients.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 18.9 (1994): 1-3.

___. “A Defense of Dualism: The Writing Center and the Classroom.” The Writing Center Journal 14.1 (1993): 16-29.

Hobson, Eric. “Maintaining Our Balance: Walking the Tightrope of Competing Epistemologies.” The Writing Center Journal 14/1 (1992): 65-75.

Leahy, Rick. “Of Writing Centers, Centeredness, and Centrism.” WPA: Writing Program Administration 15.3 (1992): 41-56.

Leahy, Richard. “What the College Writing Center Is-And Isn’t.” College Teaching 38.2 (1990): 43-48.

Leahy, Rick, and Roy Fox. “Seven Myth-Understandings about the Writing Center.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 14.1 (1989): 7-8.

Lunsford, Andrea. “Collaboration, Control, and the Idea of a Writing Center.” The Writing Center Journal 12.1 (1991): 3-10

Maxwell, Martha. “The Effects of Expectations, Sex, and Ethnicity on Peer Tutoring.” Journal of Developmental Education 15.1 (1991): 14-16, 18.

Munger, Roger H., Ilene Rubenstein, and Edna Burrow. “Observation, Interaction, and Reflection: The Foundation for Tutor Training.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 21.4 (1996): 1-5.

North, Stephen. “The Idea of a Writing Center.” College English 46 (1984): 433-446.

North, Stephen. “Revisiting the Idea of a Writing Center.” The Writing Center Journal, 15.1 (1994): 7-19.

Okawa, Gail Y., et al. “Multi-cultural Voices: Peer Tutoring and Critical Reflection in the Writing Center.” The Writing Center Journal 12.1 (1991): 11-32.

Powers, Judith K. “Assisting the Graduate Thesis Writer Through Faculty and Writing Center.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 20.2 (1995): 13-16.

Powers, Judith K. and Jane V. Nelson. “Rethinking Writing Center Conferencing Strategies for Writers in the Disciplines.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 20.1 (1995): 12-15.

Powers, Suzanne. “What Composition Teachers Need to Know about Writing Centers.” Freshman English News 19.2 (1991): 15-21.

Riley, Terrance. “The Unpromising Future of Writing Centers.” The Writing Center Journal 15.1 (1994): 20-34.

Rodis, Karen. “Mending the Damaged Path: How to Avoid Conflict of Expectations When Setting up a Writing Center.” The Writing Center Journal 10.2 (1990): 45-57.

Shamoon, Linda K., and Deborah H. Burns. “A Critique of Pure Tutoring.” The Writing Center Journal 15.2 (1995): 134-151.

Smith, Louise Z. “Independence and Collaboration: Why We Should Decentralize Writing Centers.” The Writing Center Journal 7.1 (1986): 3-10.

Steward, Joyce S. “To Like to Have Written: Learning the Laboratory Way.” ADE Bulletin 76 (1977): 32-40.

Thompson, Thomas C. “Personality Preferences, Tutoring Styles, and Implications for Tutor Training.” The Writing Center Journal 14.2 (1994): 136-149.

Williams, Sharon. “Sentence Errors in the Writing Conference: The Little Red Caboose.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 18.2 (1993): 13-14.

Yahner, William. “Explaining and Justifying Writing Centers: One MORE Example.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 18.2 (1993): 5-7.

Tutor Evaluation

Bowden, Darsie. “Inter-Activism: Strengthening the Writing Conference.” The Writing Center Journal 15.2 (1995): 163-175.

Carino, Peter. “Posing Questions for Collaborative Evaluation of Audio Taped Tutorials.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 14.1 (1989): 11-13.

Davis, Kevin. “Evaluating Writing Center Tutors.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 16.7 (1992): 1-6.

Gaskins, Jake. “Using ‘Process Recordings’ to Train Tutors.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 19.2 (1994): 14-15.

Leahy, Richard. “Using Audiotapes for Evaluation and Collaborative Training.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 18.5 (1993): 1-3.

Ethics

Behm, Richard. “Ethical Issues in Peer Tutoring: A Defense of Collaborative Learning.” The Writing Center Journal 10.1 (1989): 3-12.

See Clark, “Collaboration and Ethics” in the general and tutor training section.

Pemberton, Michael. “Writing Center Ethics.” A regular feature in The Writing Lab Newsletter, 17.9 (1993) and following.

“Sharing Records: Student Confidentiality and Faculty Relations.” [Voices from the Net] The Writing Lab Newsletter 18.2 (1993): 8-9.

“Sharing Records, Part II: Political Considerations.” [Voices from the Net] The Writing Lab Newsletter 18.3 (1993): 6-7.

Sherwood, Steve. “White Lies in the Writing Center: The Fragile Balance Between Praise and Criticism.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 18.4 (1993): 1-4.

Professional and Administrative Issues

Balester, Valerie. “Revising the ‘Statement’: On the Work of Writing Centers.” College Composition and Communication 43.2 (1992): 167-171.

Fitzgerald, Sallyanne H. “Playing the Budget Game: The Story of Two Writing Centers.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 18.5 (1994): 14-15.

George, Diana. “Talking to the Boss: A Preface.” The Writing Center Journal 9.1 (1988): 37-44.

George, Diana, and Nancy Grimm. “Expanded Roles/Expanded Responsibilities.” The Writing Center Journal 11.1 (1990): 59-66.

Harris, Muriel. “Theory and Reality: The Ideal Writing Center(s).” The Writing Center Journal 5.2/6.1 (1982): 4-8.

Healy, Dave. “Writing Center Directors: An Emerging Portrait of the Profession.” WPA: Writing Program Administration 18.3 (1995): 26-43.

___. “Solutions and Trade-offs in Writing Center Administration.” The Writing Center Journal 12.1 (1991): 63-79.

Olson, Gary A., and Evelyn Ashton-Jones. “Writing Center Directors: The Search for Professional Status.” WPA: Writing Program Administration 12.1-2 (1988): 19-28.

Perdue, Virginia. “Writing-Center Faculty in Academia: Another Look at Our Institutional Status.” WPA: Writing Program Administration 15.1-2 (1991): 13-23.

Sherwood, Steve. “How to Survive the Bad Times.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 17.10 (1993): 4-8.

Simpson, Jeanne H. “The Challenge of Innovation: Putting New Approaches into Practice.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 18.1 (1993): 1-3.

___. “What Lies Ahead for Writing Centers: Position Statement on Professional Concerns.” The Writing Center Journal 5.2/6.1 (1985): 35-39.

Spooner, Michael. “Circles and Centers: Some Thoughts on the Writing Center and Academic Publishing.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 17.10 (1993): 1-3, 10.

Wright, Sharon. “Mapping Diversity: Writing Center Survey Results.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 18.10 (1994): 1-4.

Writing Center Evaluation

Lamb, Mary. “Evaluation Procedures for Writing Centers: Defining Ourselves Through Accountability.” New Directions for College Learning Assistance: Improving Writing Abilities. Eds. Thom Hawkins and Phyllis Brooks. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1981. 69-83.

Masiello, Lea. “Qualitative and Quantitative Strategies for Assessing Writing Center Effectiveness.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 16.6 (1992): 4-6.

Maxwell, Martha. “Does Tutoring Help? A Look at the Literature.” Review of Research in Developmental Education 7.4 (1990): 1-5

Neuleib, Janice. “Evaluating Writing Centers: A Survey Report.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 11.4 (1986): 1-5.

Research

Kail, Harvey, and Kay Allen. “Conducting Research in the Writing Lab.” Tutoring Writing: A Sourcebook for Writing Labs. Ed. Muriel Harris. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, 1982. 233-245.

Kiedaisch, Jean, and Sue Dinitz. “Learning More from the Students.” The Writing Center Journal 12.1 (1991): 90-100.

MacDonald, Ross B. “An Analysis of Verbal Interaction in College Tutorials.” Journal of Developmental Education 15.1 (1991): 2-4, 6, 8, 10, 12.

North, Stephen. “Designing a Case Study Method for Tutorials: A Prelude to Research.” Rhetoric Review 4.1 (1985): 88-99.

___. “Writing Center Research: Testing Our Assumptions.” Writing Centers: Theory and Administration. Ed. Gary A. Olson. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1984. 24-35.

Severino, Carol. “The Writing Center as a Site for Cross-Language Research.” The Writing Center Journal 15.1 (1994): 51-61.

See Severino, “The ‘Doodles’ in Context,” in ESL section.

ESL

Aakin, Marian. Tutoring ESL Students. New York: Longman, 1982.

Burt, Marina K., and Carol Kiparsky. The Gooficon: A Repair Manual for English. Rowley, MA: Newbury House, 1972.

Clark, Irene. “Working with Non-native and Dialect Speakers.” Writing in the Center. 2nd ed. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt, 1992. 119-142.

Connor, Ulla. Contrastic Rhetoric: Cross Cultural Aspects of Second Language Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996.

Harris, Muriel, and Tony Silva. “Tutoring ESL Students: Issues and Options.” College Composition and Communication 44.4 (1993): 525-537.

Huckin, Thomas N., and Leslie A. Olsen. English for Science and Technology: A Handbook for Nonnative Speakers. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983.

Kaplan, Robert B. “Cultural Thought Patterns in Inter-Cultural Education.” Language Learning 16 (1966): 1-20.

___. “Cultural Thought Patterns Revisited.” In Writing Across Languages: Analysis of L2 Text. Ed. Ulla Connor and Robert B. Kaplan. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1987.

Leki, Ilona. “Twenty-Five Years of Contrastive Rhetoric: Text Analysis and Writing Pedagogies.” TESOL Quarterly 25 (1991): 123-142.

___. Understanding ESL Writers: A Guide for Teachers. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1992.

Longman Dictionary of American English. New York: Longman, 1983.

Powers, Judith K. “Bending the ‘Rules’: Diversifying the Model Conference for the ESL Writer.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 17.6 (1993): 1-3, 8.

___. “Rethinking Writing Center Conferencing Strategies for the ESL Writer.” The Writing Center Journal 13.2 (1993): 39-47.

Raimes, Ann. Grammar Troublespots: An Editing Guide for ESL Students. New York: St. Martin’s, 1988.

Severino, Carol. “The ‘Doodles’ in Context: Qualifying Claims about Contrastive Rhetoric.” The Writing Center Journal 14.1 (1993): 44-62.

Shen, Fan. “The Classroom and the Wider Culture: Identity as a Key to Learning English Composition.” College Composition and Communication. 40.4 (1989): 459-466.

Thonus, Terese. “Tutors as Teachers: Assisting ESL/EFL Students in the Writing Center.” The Writing Center Journal 13.2 (1993): 13.26.

Computers in Writing Centers and On-Line Writing Labs (OWLS)

Purdue University On-Line Writing Center, World Wide Web, URL=http://owl.english.purdue.edu/

University of Wisconsin On-Line Writing Center, World Wide Web, URL=http://www.wisc.edu/writing/

Coogan, David. “Towards a Rhetoric of On-Line Tutoring.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 19.1 (1994): 3-5.

Hult, Christine, and Joyce Kinkead, eds. Special Issue of Computers and Composition 12.2 (1994), devoted to the use and implications of bringing computers into the writing center.

Spooner, Michael, and Eric Crump. “A dialogue on OWLing in the Writing Lab.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 18.6 (1994): 6-8.

Writing Centers and Writing Across the Curriculum (including satellite centers)

Adams, Katherine H. “Satellite Writing Centers: A Successful Model for Writing Across the Curriculum.” Writing Centers: New Directions. Ed. Ray Wallace and Jeanne Simpson. New York: Garland, 1991. 73-81.

Besser, Pam. “Bridging the Gap: The Theoretically and Pedagogically Efficient Writing Center.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 16.3 (1991): 6-8.

Chase, Geoffrey. “Integrating the Writing Center into the Curriculum.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 9.6 (1985): 1-3.

Devenish, Alan. “Decentering the Writing Center.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 18.1 (1993): 4-7.

Dinitz, Susan, and Diane Howe. “Writing Centers and Writing-Across-the-Curriculum: An Evolving Partnership.” The Writing Center Journal 10.1 (1989): 45-51.

Fitzgerald, Sallyanne. “Successes and Failures: Facilitating Cooperation across the Curriculum.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 13.1 (1988): 13-15.

Hayhoe, George. “Beyond the Basics: Expanded Uses of Writing Labs.” Tutoring Writing: A Sourcebook for Writing Labs. Ed. Muriel Harris. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, 1982. 246-253.

Haviland, Carol Peterson. “Writing Centers and Writing-Across-the-Curriculum: An Important Connection.” The Writing Center Journal 5.2/6.2 (1985): 25-30.

Hollis, Karyn. “More Science in the Writing Center: Training Tutors to Lead Group Tutorials on Biology Lab Reports.” Writing Centers: New Directions. Ed. Ray Wallace and Jeanne Simpson. New York: Garland, 1991. 247-262.

Howard, Rebecca M. “In-Situ Workshops and the Peer Relationships of Composition Faculty.” WPA: Writing Program Administration 12.1-2 (1988): 39-46.

Hubbuch, Susan M. “A Tutor Needs to Know the Subject Matter to Help a Student with a Paper: ___Agree ___Disagree ___Not Sure.” The Writing Center Journal 8.2 (1988): 23-30.

Hughes, Bradley T. “Reaching Across the Curriculum with a Writing Center.” Illinois English Bulletin, 74.1 (1986): 24-31. Rpt. In From Access to Success: A Book of Readings on College Developmental Education and Learning Assistance Programs. Ed. Martha Maxwell. Clearwater, FL: H&H Publishing, 1994. 175-180.

___. “Writing Center Outreach: Sharing Knowledge and Influencing Attitudes about Writing.” Writing Centers: New Directions. Ed. Ray Wallace and Jeanne Simpson. New York: Garland, 1991. 39-55

Impson, Beth, et al. “Integrating WAC and Tutoring Services: Advantages to Faculty, Students, and Writing Center Staff.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 16.2 (1991): 6-8, 11.

Kiedaisch, Jean, and Sue Dinitz. “Look Back and Say ‘So What’: The Limitations of the Generalist Tutor.” The Writing Center Journal 14.1 (1993): 63-74.

Kinkead, Joyce. “Outreach: The Writing Center, The Campus, and the Community.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 10.3 (1985): 5-8.

___, et al. “Situations and Solutions from Tutoring Across the Curriculum.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 19.8 (1995): 1-5.

Leahy, Richard. “Writing Assistants in Writing-Emphasis Courses: Toward Some Working Guidelines.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 16.9-10 (1992): 11-14.

___. “Writing Centers and Writing-for-Learning.” The Writing Center Journal 10.1 (1989): 31-37.

McAndrew, Donald A. “From Writing Center to Center for Writing: A Heuristic for Development.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 9.5 (1985): 1-5.

Moreland, Kim. “The Writing Center: A Center for Writing-Across-the-Curriculum Activities.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 10.3 (1985): 1-4.

Pemberton, Michael. “Rethinking the WAC/Writing Center Connection.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 15.2 (1995): 116-133.

Powers, Judith K. “Assisting the Graduate Thesis Writer Through Faculty and Writing Center Collaboration.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 20.2 (1995): 13-16.

___, and Jane V. Nelson. “Rethinking Writing Center Conference Strategies for Writers in the Disciplines.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 20.1 (1995): 12-15.

Scanlon, Leone J. “Recruiting and Training Tutors for Cross-Disciplinary Writing Programs.” The Writing Center Journal 6.2 (1986): 37-41.

Sullivan, Patrick. “Do You Object to Tutors Assisting Your Students with Their Writing?” The Writing Lab Newsletter 10.4 (1985): 6-8.

Waldo, Mark. “The Last Best Place for Writing Across the Curriculum: The Writing Center.” Writing Program Administration 16.3 (1993): 15-26.

Wallace, Ray. “Sharing the Benefits and the Expense of Expansion: Developing a Cross-Curricular Cash Flow for a Cross-Curricular Writing Center.” Writing Centers: New Directions. Ed. Ray Wallace and Jeanne Simpson. New York: Garland, 1991. 82-101.

___. “The Writing Center’s Role in the Writing-across-the-Curriculum Program.” The Writing Center Journal 8.2 (1988): 43-48.

Wilson, Lucy, and Olivia LaBouff. “Going Beyond Remedial: The Writing Center and the Literature Class.” The Writing Center Journal 6.2 (1986): 19-27.

Yarmove, Jay. “Interlock: A Proposal for a ‘Cosmopolitan’ Writing Center.” The Writing Lab Newsletter 11.10 (1987): 8-9.

Associations

National Writing Centers Association (NWCA)
Michael Pemberton, NWCA, Dept. of English
University of Illinois
608 S. Wright St., Urbana, IL 61801
217-333-8796
email: Michaelp@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu

Regional Associations: See Directory, below.

Periodicals

The Dangling Modifier (published twice each year) (for tutors and by tutors)
ed. Penn State University Writing Center
219 Boucke Building, University Park, PA 16802
Phone: 814-863-3240

Focuses: A Journal Linking Composition Programs and Writing-Center Practice
ed. William C. Wolff
Appalachian State University, Boone, NC 28608

The Writing Center Journal (WCJ) (published twice each year)
ed. Dave Healy
General College, University of Minnesota
128 Pleasant St. S.E., Minneapolis, MN 55455-0434

The Writing Lab Newsletter (WLN) (published ten times during the academic year)
ed. Muriel Harris, Dept. of English
Purdue University

To join the NWCA and receive a year’s subscription to both the WCJ and the WLN, send $35.00 (payable to the NWCA) to Michael Pemberton, Treasurer, NWCA. See address above under National Writing Centers Association.

Conferences

See The Writing Lab Newsletter and The Writing Center Journal for announcements.

The NWCA organizes sessions on writing centers at the convention of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) (held every November) and at the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) (held every March). For information about both conferneces, contact NCTE at 1111 W. Kenyon Road, Urbana, IL 61801-1096.

A national conference on peer tutoring in writing is held every fall, at various locations around the country. The 13th annual conference was held in October 1996, in Oklahoma City.

Directory

In 1992, the National Writing Centers Association published a directory of writing centers across the country. Contact the National Writing Centers Association, at the address given above, for more information. A new directory is reportedly in the works.

Writing Center Discussions on the Internet

To subscribe to and participate in Wcenter, a lively international discussion “list” about writing center practice and administration, send an e-mail message to: listproc@listserv.ttu.edu Leave the subject line blank. In the message window, type a two-line message:

subscribe wcenter

set wcenter mail ack (use your actual first and last names, not your e-mail address; don’t use the brackets)

If you have problems subscribing, write to Fred Kemp at ykfok@ttacs.ttu.edu



To subscribe to a discussion list about tutoring in writing centers, send an e-mail message to:



listserv@tc.u;mn.edu Leave the subject line blank. In the message window, type a two-line message:

subscribe writ-c (use your first and last names)

set writ-c repro

This list is coordinated by Dave Healy at the University of Minnesota (healy001@maroon.tc.umn.edu).

Directory of Grammar Hotlines

To receive a copy of a “Grammar Hotline Directory,” which is updated every January, send a first-class SASE (business size) to Grammar Hotline Directory, Tidewater Community College, Writing Center, 1700 College Crescent, Virginia Beach, VA, 23456. Single copies are free; multiple copies cost $1.00 each.

Bibliographies

Murphy, Christina, Joe Law, and Steve Sherwood. Writing Centers: An Annotated Bibliography. Bibliographies and indexes in Education, Number 17. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1996.

For an excellent introduction to writing center literature, see Kinkead, Joyce A. “The Scholarly Context: A Look at Themes.” Writing Centers in Context: Twelve Case Studies. Ed. Joyce A. Kinkead and Jeanette G. Harris (Urbana, Il: NCTE, 1993). 238-251.

For an extensive bibliography on writing labs/centers through 1986, see Olson, Writing Centers: Theory and Administration.

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