What’s the top priority at your institution? If yours is like many higher education institutions, it probably has something to do with student engagement and success.
According to Hanover Research, “Higher education institutions, faced with declining enrollments and mounting financial pressures, are prioritizing retention and implementing targeted interventions to drive student success.” The higher education graduation rate is hovering below 60%, so “targeted interventions” are becoming more and more crucial.
What targeted interventions should you implement to help students stay engaged? Here are four options that tap into building digital literacy to consider as your institution strives to increase student engagement.
Attending college has a high ROI, especially when paired with digital literacy
Many students come to college and need to work to support themselves and sometimes others, too. They may be surprised at how hard it is to balance their school work and job. And educators may be surprised at how early the tenuous work-school balancing act begins.
“Many students balance college and jobs,” said Jon Maruc, the higher-education editor at The Hechinger Report. “[Emily Fourmy Cutrer, president of TAMU-Texarkana], who teaches a freshman seminar, said six students in her class of 20 told her they worked 40 hours a week, eight worked 30 or more hours and the rest worked at least part-time.”
Especially if students are financially supporting others, they may choose earning money over going to class. Why? Because students “don’t understand the cost-benefit of going to college,” said Alan Seidman, author of Crossing the Finish Line: How to Retain and Graduate Your Students, “and we do a bad job of explaining that.”
Learning digital tools to foster/cultivate digital literacy at your institution has a huge ROI, and it’s something worth specifically pointing out to students. Digital literacy has practical benefits like applicable skills students can apply directly to the workplace.
For example, the New Media Lab Experience at Mesa Community College (MCC) gives students the opportunity to create multimedia projects for a variety of disciplines. Through these projects, they learn digital skills that are increasingly in demand in the modern workplace.
“What was very interesting to us was just the thought and vision that [MCC’s interim president Sasan Poureetezadi] had around equipping students … with a skill set that was, and has become even more, in demand by today’s employers,” said Bradley Buchanan. “The digital economy is interesting today; most people have a multitude of devices, so when they interact with content on the web, they are looking to engage at a deeper level.”
When your institution offers digital literacy experiences, you can confidently say that your institution prepares students for a modern economy. And when students understand how attending your institution will help their future, they’re more likely to stay engaged.
Offer attractive programs
Of course, if you’re going to claim attending your institution has a high ROI, it’s vital that you offer great programs that really will help your students’ futures. It needs to be obvious to students—even before they set foot on campus—that attending your institution is worth it.
“Educators and advisers in the nation’s capital are trying to maximize the number who complete college,” said Nick Anderson, a reporter covering higher education at the Washington Post. “The first step, they say, is to ensure students get there.”
Start by rethinking your offerings. Are your programs giving students a great experience? Do your students have the opportunity to create interesting, relevant, and modern projects? Are your classes offering digital creative training? In your recruitment efforts, highlight your study abroad programs, digital creative projects, fascinating classes, and engaging atmosphere. And be sure to deliver on your promises.
“The students find it extremely engaging to use Adobe Creative Cloud to get their work done in any class, anywhere across the curriculum,” said Todd Taylor, director of the writing program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “Nursing, business, public health. Even physics, chemistry, religious studies, and anthropology are using these tools not to learn how they work, but to help support teaching and learning.”
Help professors create engaging classrooms for first-year students
According to CollegeAtlas.org, 30 percent or freshman drop out after their first year of college. How can you specifically help freshmen stay engaged?
It’s important to tap into motivation says David Gooblar, a lecturer at the University of Iowa. Here’s how he breaks down the three main variables that influence student motivation:
- Value: What do students care about? Every semester, Gooblar assigns a low-stakes writing exercise in which students explain what they want to achieve, why they are taking the course, what they want to improve, and how they hope the class will help them in the future. Then, based on the results, he adjusts his curriculum to better meet the students’ needs.
- Expectancies: Is the student capable of completing the steps needed to attain the goals of the course? Can the student reasonably expect to succeed? If the course is too challenging, students may achieve neither the professor’s goals nor their own.
- Environment: How supportive is the classroom environment?
One way professors can tap into motivation is by assigning digital creative projects. These projects are valuable because they teach soft and hard skills that are applicable to the modern workplace; they are flexible and can be adjusted depending on students’ confidence with technology; and they encourage a supportive classroom environment as students collaborate, create, and learn together.__