Supporting Transfer Students Series: Topic Intro | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
Supporting Transfer Students Series
Part 3:
Strategies for Encouraging Academic Engagement in Transfer Students
Overview
Academic engagement is important to transfer student success in college (e.g, Lester, Leonard, & Mathias, 2013). Lester et al. (2013) defined academic engagement as “academic activities that include meaningful connections with faculty members as well as academic challenge and learning” (p. 213). The study also indicated that transfer students tended to view their engagement in academic activities as their primary focus, eschewing social activities on campus unless those activities were directly related to their classes, interactions with instructors, or opportunities within their majors. While both types of engagement are important, this resource will focus on encouraging academic engagement.
| Strategies | Explanations | Teaching Suggestions |
| Diversify your course design | Transfer students may represent a variety of ages, experiences, backgrounds, and knowledge; they may understand and approach the classroom in vastly different ways from each other and from their peers on more traditional pathways, and may therefore have more diverse needs within the classroom. | Designing activities that welcome a variety of approaches and perspectives. For example, “learning journals” are termlong projects where students are provided with a set of open-ended prompts that facilitate the development of critical reflection skills by allowing them to consider their learning throughout the course. Designing flexible final assignments that allow students to choose a topic or medium creates opportunities for students to curate a project relevant to their skillsets and interests. This also gives them more autonomy over their education. |
| Flexible attendance policies | Consistent class attendance is important for sustaining success with community college and transfer students and maintaining accountability. However, keep in mind that transfer students may have significant extracurricular demand on their time that might at times make attending class difficult. | Be flexible when possible, especially if your attendance policy is graded. Consider:
Be sure to articulate these expectations and guidelines in the syllabus and communicate with your students why they are in place.
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| Normalize asking questions | Fauria & Fuller (2015) found that transfers students who participated in class discussions or asked questions during class were more likely to be able to persist to graduation. | In-class sharing can be a vulnerable experience for students grappling with new material. Peer collaboration helps ease student anxiety around sharing in large groups since they have already worked in small groups. Being consistent with your expectations for engagement and setting this standard at the beginning of the quarter will yield the best results. Many active learning strategies inherently foster this atmosphere of participation. Acknowledge students for trying to participate and approach all interactions positively! |
| Encourage goal setting | Have a discussion with your students about what they will know, what they will be able to do, and the types of attitudes and social/career skills that they will develop by the end of your course. Be sure to revisit these goals throughout the course to track student progress and encourage metacognition. | Conduct a diagnostic assessment (e.g., a short quiz or in-class writing exam) at the beginning of the term at gauge your students prior knowledge and experience. After explaining the course goals and your intentions behind the design, give your students time to ask questions and/or clarify your expectations. |
| Martin, Galentino, & Townsend (2014) found that transfer students who set clear academic and career goals for themselves were more likely to be successful in their 4-year universities. | Have students write personal and career goals that they want to achieve during the term, and then have them connect those goals to the learning outcomes of your course. Consider recording your students’ personal goals and modifying the course content to support your students’ interests or supplying supplementary materials throughout the quarter. SMART Goals is a common and effective framework for this. | |
| Create opportunities for personal and career relevance | Have students consider how your course will fit into their degree programs, and more importantly, their future career plans. | Encourage them to integrate the concepts of your course with their personal/career interests and activities (e.g. work, extracurricular activities, volunteering, experiential- or service-learning, and discipline-specific organizations and activities). Be sure to create opportunities for students to share these connections either during class, in an assignment, or with you during office hours. |
| Implement authentic activities and assignments | Consider designing your course around authentic assignments and practical tasks. The goal of these assignments are to help students not only understand what they are learning, but why they are learning it, and how it will apply to their work in the future. Consider designing and implementing projects that mirror real world tasks completed by professionals in the field. | Design inquiry- or problem-based projects, or other authentic assignments that allows students to engage in the types of writing and problemsolving common in their disciplines and/or careers. For example, you could provide students with a case study describing a real world and/or field-related problem, and have them work in teams to develop a solution. For more suggestions on developing inquirybased projects, see our “Strategies for Covering Content Series”. |
| Assignments that allow students to interact with established members of their discipline or professional in their career area are also effective authentic assignments. | Offer experiential or service learning opportunities, and encourage students to explore internship opportunities outside of class, as these (CCCSE, 2012; Ishitani & McKitrick, 2010). Creating opportunities for students to work on or earn credit for submitting applications rewards students for their extra work. | |
| Activate prior knowledge | Transfer students may have extensive prior experiences and knowledge, particularly veterans and nontraditionally-aged students (Durosko, 2017). Tap into students’ prior experiences and prior knowledge and help them explore how they can apply it to the new content of your course. | For example, you could have students complete a short survey or diagnostic assessment where they outline their prior experience with the course subject, and then use the results to design activities or homework tasks where students can apply that knowledge to course material. Creating projects where students can deliver mini lectures on course topics also allows students to share their prior knowledge and have more agency over the class’s learning. |
- Additional Resources
- Transfer and Reentry Center
- Student Academic Success Center [SASC]
- SASC’s Writing Assistance Services
- Veteran Success Center
In addition to this resource, we would also suggest referencing our “Supporting First-Generation University Student Series,” as the experiences of transfer students often parallel those of first-generation students more broadly.- Citation
- Center for Educational Effectiveness [CEE]. (2018). Supporting Transfer Students Series. Just-in-Time Teaching Resources. Retrieved from https://cee.ucdavis.edu/JITT
- References
- Center for Community College Student Engagement [CCCSE]. (2012). A Matter of Degrees: Promising Practices for Community College Student Success (A First Look). Austin, TX: The University of Texas at Austin, Community College Leadership Program.
Center for Teaching, Vanderbilt University. (n.d.). Teaching first-generation college students. Retrieved from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/teaching-first-generation-college-students/
Durosko, H. (2017). Five ways to support veteran transfer students. Journal of College Admission, 235, 42–43.
Fauria, R. M., & Fuller, M. B. (2015). Transfer student success: Educationally purposeful activities predictive of undergraduate GPA. Research & Practice in Assessment, 10, 39–52.
Ishitani, T. T., & McKitrick, S. A. (2010). After transfer: The engagement of community college students at a four-year collegiate institution. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 34, 576–594. https://doi.org/10.1080/10668921003723223
Lester, J., Leonard, J. B., & Mathias, D. (2013). Transfer student engagement: Blurring of social and academic engagement. Community College Review, 41(3), 202–222. https://doi.org/10.1177/0091552113486347
Martin, K., Galentino, R., & Townsend, L. (2014). Community college student success: The role of motivation and self-empowerment. Community College Review, 42(3), 221–241. https://doi.org/10.1177/0091552114528972
Richardson, E., Fatherly, S., & Thomas, J. (2017). Transfer Experiences: Creating Transition Pathways for All Students. Poster session presented at the conference on Diversity, Learning, and Student Success. Retrieved from http://www.aacu.org/sites/default/files/files/dlss17/Poster17.pdf