Optimizing Teaching, Learning, and Service

What defines student success in career education?

1) Graduation
a. Associate
i. SUNY 2 year grad rate: 12.7%; 3 year grad rate: 24.9%
ii. CUNY 2 year grad rate: 2.3%; 3 year grad rate: 10.8% (15,000 students for both rates)
iii. Independent rate: 2 year grad rate: 31.4%; 3 year grad rate: 38.9%
b. Proprietary: 2 year grad rate: 22.2%; 3 year grad rate: 27.4%b. Baccalaureate
i. SUNY 4 year rate:61.2%; 6 year rate: 65%
ii. CUNY 4 year rate: 49.6%; 6 year rate: 57.6%
iii. Independent: 4 year rate: 62.4%; 6 year rate 68.6%
iv. Proprietary: 4 year rate 56.5%; 6 year rate 60.8%
2) Employment and further education
3) Low student loan default rates
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What defines the students who currently attend college?
Baby Boomers
Post War boom and abundance
Value money over benefits
Created the sixty-hour work week
Have a strong connection to self
Seek challenges that cement status
First generation who had to work harder to be economically better off than their parents
Generation X
Latch key kids marked by freedom and independence
Very independent since both parents work
View freedom as ultimate reward
Prioritize work and family life—seek shorter work days
Value interesting work and self development

Millennials
Everyone is a winner
Accustomed to collaboration
Play by own rules
Socially conscious
Want to know why and how work has meaning to them
Want to know the meaning of their work
“One should be able to do what he/she wants if he/she believes there are no consequences to anyone.”
Academic manifestations:
Lateness
Ignore syllabus and school rules
Expect rules to be waived or rewritten for them as well as accommodations
Means to Best Engage Millennials
Greater need for interaction
Higher expectation for services (counseling, ADA accommodations, tutoring, walk-in services, and a “now” versus “later” mentality)
Illustrate how assignments and courses relate to student, career, and the greater world
Want flexibility in their lives (class, work, internships, final exams). Need to explain how desired flexibility may burden others, why things are done in a certain way, and listen to their reasons.
Provide feedback that is appropriate. Understand that negative feedback is not known to Millennials. Even wrong answers are right. Provide feedback about what is right and what is wrong and why.
Understand some students are outliers who resemble depression-era traditional students due to low socioeconomic roots. Parents have high expectations, are career and money driven, and have strong family connections. Tend to be community oriented. These students tend not to use students—often because they are unaware of them and how these resources can help. Challenge in classroom is integrating outliers with millennials.
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Teaching and Learning
Differentiated learning: paradigm where teachers make pedagogical and methodological accommodations to meet the needs of students in order to build upon their strengths and remedy academic skills gaps.
Consider adjustment to classroom dynamics that place students into groups to decenter the instructor and focus learning emphasis on students. Make classroom as interactive and technologically appropriate as possible.
Consider incorporation of technology into lessons that traditionally considered disruptive (i.e., cellphones). How can these be used as classroom resources?
Instructional Mantra: All students can learn.