Browsing by Subject "emerging scholars program"

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    Pathways of persistence: A review of postsecondary peer cooperative learning programs
    (University of Minnesota, General College, Center for Research on Developmental Education and Urban Literacy, 2004) Arendale, David R.
    This chapter focuses upon a subset of the broader educational practice of peer collaborative learning, specifically postsecondary peer cooperative learning programs that embed study strategy practice within their activities. These practices have demonstrated higher student outcomes including increased student persistence towards graduation. Adoption of such research-based practices has become more essential since institutions cannot waste scarce resources upon programs that may not contribute both to increased student success as well as increasing the institution’s economic stability through lower student dropout rates and the loss of tuition dollars.
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    Peer educators in learning assistance programs: Best practices for new programs
    (Jossey-Bass, 2011) Wilson, Wendy; Arendale, David R.
    Peer educators have a critical role to play in the delivery of a wide variety of important programs on college campuses. Nowhere is this more evident than in learning assistance programs. These programs, typically housed in a learning center or learning assistance office, include tutoring and mentoring and often take the form of individual and group support in study skills, note-taking, writing and math skills. There has also been a growing use of peer educators in collaborative learning programs, such as Supplemental Instruction. These programs bring students together to learn course content with one another. While any group of students can meet together to study for an exam, results are much higher when the groups are focused and structured (Arendale, 2005). A good first step in beginning a program is examining the major peer learning programs that are used by colleges across the U.S. There are four commonly implemented and well-validated peer learning programs in higher education in the U.S., with both unique features and common operating principles: Emerging Scholars Program, Peer-led Team Learning, Structured Learning Assistance, and Supplemental Instruction.
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    Postsecondary peer cooperative learning programs
    (National College Learning Center Association, 2018) Arendale, David R.
    Peer collaborative learning has been historically embedded in education. As both pedagogy and learning strategy, it has been adopted and adapted for a wide range of academic content areas at the elementary, secondary, and postsecondary levels due to its benefits. The professional literature is filled with reports of individual instructors integrating this approach into postsecondary classrooms in diverse ways. This is due to claims by some programs that following their specific protocols increase student academic performance, persistence rates, and bolstering institutional revenues as a result. Rather than attempting to cover the entire range of collaborative learning practices, this section is focused on four national peer learning models. The four student peer learning programs selected for this chapter were the only ones that met the following characteristics: (a) implemented at the postsecondary or tertiary level; (b) clear set of systematic procedures for implementation to replicate by another institution; (c) evaluation studies have been conducted and available for review; (d) intentionally embeds learning strategy practice along with a review of academic content material; (e) outcomes include increased content knowledge, higher final course grades, higher course pass rates, and higher college persistence rates; and (f) replicated at another institution with similar positive student outcomes. The following programs met these seven characteristics: (a) Emerging Scholars Program (ESP), (b) Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL), (c) Structured Learning Assistance (SLA), and (d) Supplemental Instruction (SI).
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    Postsecondary peer cooperative learning programs: Annotated bibliography 2018
    (Unpublished manuscript, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, 2018) Arendale, David R.
    This 2018 annotated bibliography reviews seven postsecondary peer cooperative learning programs that have been implemented nationally and internationally to increase student achievement. An extensive literature search was conducted of published journal articles, newspaper accounts, book chapters, books, ERIC documents, thesis and dissertations, online documents, and unpublished reports. Peer learning programs in this bibliography meet the following characteristics: (a) program must have been implemented at the postsecondary or tertiary level, (b) program has a clear set of systematic procedures for its implementation at an institution, (c) program evaluation studies have been conducted and are available for review, (d) program intentionally embeds learning strategy practice along with a review of the academic content material, (e) program outcomes include both increased content knowledge with higher persistence rates, and (f) program has been replicated at another institution with similar positive student outcomes. From a review of the professional literature, nearly 1,500 citations emerged concerning seven programs that met the previously mentioned selection criteria: "Accelerated Learning Groups" (ALGs), "Emerging Scholars Program" (ESP), "Peer-Assisted Learning" (PAL), "Peer-Led Team Learning" (PLTL), "Structured Learning Assistance" (SLA), "Supplemental Instruction" (SI), and "Video-based Supplemental Instruction" (VSI). Nearly one fourth of the entries in this bibliography are from authors and researchers outside of United States. Guidance is provided to implement best practices of peer learning programs that can improve academic achievement, persistence to graduation, and professional growth of participants and facilitators of these student-led groups. The literature reports not only positive outcomes for the student participants of such programs, but includes outcomes for the student peer leaders of these academic support programs such as skill improvement with leadership, public speaking, and other employment skills along with an impact of their future vocational choices including a career in teaching at the secondary or postsecondary level. Educators need to investigate these peer learning programs to discover effective learning practices that can be adapted and adopted for use in supporting higher student achievement for students of diverse backgrounds. [This annotated bibliography is a revised and expanded version of ED565496, ED545639, ED489957, and ED574832]
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    Postsecondary Peer Cooperative Learning Programs: Increased Diversity, Sophistication, and Effectiveness
    (National Center for Developmental Education, 2014) Arendale, David R.
    Postsecondary peer cooperative learning activities often share common goals of increasing student learning and persistence towards graduation. These approaches range from simple activities created independently by individual classroom teachers to comprehensive programs adopted by many institutions in the U.S. and internationally. Since Dr. Martha Maxwell first reported on these approaches, peer-learning activities have grown in their diversity, sophistication, and effectiveness. This chapter identifies their historical development, theoretical underpinnings, key characteristics, and future areas for investigation and growth and describes best practices of the four major national models of peer learning, requirements for their successful implementation, and a critique of their utility. Dr. Maxwell and others designed increasingly sophisticated systems for the evaluation and certification of these approaches. What started as a simple strategy to help students learn more in the classroom and achieve higher grades has become an important tool to increase college graduation rates while also providing a feedback system for professional development of course instructors and those who facilitate the student peer learning groups. Peer learning groups following best practices not only increase academic engagement with and mastery of historically challenging academic content, but also build supportive learning communities. They are an important contributor to the learning ecosystem in postsecondary education.