Using Students Strengths to Navigate Transitions

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Using Students Strengths to Navigate Transitions

• Laurie A. Schreiner, Ph.D.
• Professor of Higher Education
• Azusa Pacific University
• 2007 NACADA Conference Session Code 199
• October 20, 2007

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Transition Change

• What transitions do students typically navigate
  during their college experience?
• How do we typically help students navigate those
  transitions?

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What helps during transitions?

• Comfort zones
• Relationships social support
• Knowledge
• Sense of control
• Strategies coping skills

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• Good advising may be the single most
  underestimated characteristic of a successful
  college experience.
• --Light (2001)

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• academic advising is the very core of
  successful institutional efforts to educate and
  retain students. Quite simply, good advising
  should not be left to chance.
• --Tinto, 1999

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• At its best, good advising is a relationship that
  enables students to get the most out of their
  college experience to maximize their potential
  and succeed.

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Characteristics of Effective Advisors

• Mission
• Rapport
• Empathy
• Individualized perception
• Advocate
• -- Don Clifton

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Paradigms Shaping Higher Education

• Survival of the fittest
• Deficit-based remediation
• Strengths-based development and application

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The dominant paradigm

• There are certain skills required to be
  successful in college.
• At entrance, we need to measure students
  abilities in these key areas.
• Students need to spend most of their time in
  their areas of weakness, in order to achieve.

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The problem?

• Spending most of your time in your area of
  weaknesswhile it will improve your skills,
  perhaps to a level of averagewill NOT produce
  excellence.
• This approach does NOT tap into student
  motivation or lead to student engagement.
• The biggest challenge facing us as educators how
  to engage our students in their own learning
  process.

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The Heart of It All Student Motivation

• Quality of effort ? success
• But motivation is the fuel for quality of
  effort it generates and directs energy and
  effort
• So student motivation is the best predictor of
  the persistence that leads to success
• Thereforethe best approaches to helping students
  persist and succeed focus on motivation

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Strengths Philosophy

• Individuals gain more when they build on their
  talents, than when they make comparable efforts
  to improve their areas of weakness.
• --Clifton Harter, 2003, p. 112

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What Are Strengths?

• Talent x (Knowledge Skills)
• Strength
• Ways of seeing the world and interacting with it
  that enable excellence.

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Start With Talent

• naturally recurring patterns of thought,
  feeling, or behavior that can be productively
  applied.
• --Clifton and Harter, 2003

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Develop Strengths

• By refining our dominant talents with skill and
  knowledge, we can create strength the ability to
  provide consistent, near-perfect performance in a
  given activity.
• --Clifton Harter, 2003

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How does a talent become a strength?
Strength
Talent
x Investment
Predisposition
Developed
Requires Effort
Investment is a MULTIPLIER of talent! Investment
includes time spent practicing, developing
skills, and building knowledge
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Excellence A Central Value and Goal

• Excellence academic achievement, persistence,
  and maximum development of students.
• Excellence occurs only when individuals
  capitalize on their strengths and talents, and
  invest the time and energy needed to excel.

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Strengths-Based AdvisingFoundational Principle

• Encourage students to pattern their behaviors and
  choices after high achievers

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The Highest Achievers

• Spend most of their time in their areas of
  strength
• Focus on developing and applying their strengths
  and managing their weaknesses
• Use their strengths to overcome obstacles
• Invent ways of capitalizing on their strengths in
  new situations
• This is our objective in advising students to
  help them achieve their fullest potential!

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High Achievers Principle 1

• They spend most of their time in their areas of
  strength
• Identify the areas of greatest talent
• Determine the environments where those talents
  can flourish
• What brings out your best?

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High Achievers -- Principle 2

• They INVEST their energy and effort in developing
  and applying their strengths
• Strategies
• Determine the knowledge and skills needed to
  combine with the talents so that strengths are
  developed
• Combine other areas of lesser talent with areas
  of greatest talent to further develop strengths

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But what about weaknesses?

• A weakness is anything that interferes with your
  performance or the performance of others
• Not the same as an area of lesser talent!
• Managing weaknesses includes
• Acquiring skills and/or knowledge
• Partnering with someone who has those talents
• Using one of your strongest talents to overcome
  the weakness

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High Achievers Principle 3

• They use their strengths to overcome obstacles
• Help students identify the talents that have led
  to success in the past or in other areas and
  then apply them to new challenges
• Sometimes those talents are not in academic areas
  but students can learn to transfer them to
  academic settings

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High Achievers Principle 4

• They invent ways of capitalizing on their
  strengths in new situations
• Action steps are in the StrengthsQuest book
  these can be a good start
• But the best practice is having students invent
  their own way of using their strengths in new
  situations

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The Focus Changes

• FROM
• Problems
• Attendance
• Preparation
• Putting into the student
• Average

• TO
• Possibilities
• Engagement
• Motivation
• Drawing out from the student
• Excellence

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Strengths-Based Advising

• How is it different?
• It operates from a different foundation that by
  becoming aware of their strengths, students will
  be more motivated and academically engaged.
• The focus shifts from problems to possibilities.
• The framing of advising tasks and questions
  changes.

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How is it different?

• The feeling students experience in the advising
  session is different
• They feel understood and known by their advisors
  at a much deeper level
• They experience higher motivation levels since
  their choices reflect and tap into their
  strengths
• They are significantly more satisfied with
  advising
• Students gain confidence and a sense of direction
  from the advising session

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Why strengths-based advising promotes student
achievement

• Awareness of strengths ? greater self-efficacy
  and motivation ? more likely to persist with
  academic tasks
• Positive emotions ? greater capacity for problem
  solving and creativity
• Developing and applying strengths ? wider
  repertoire of coping skills and strategies ?
  greater likelihood of success

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Steps in Strengths-Based Advising

• IDENTIFY Assess and identify strengths.
• AFFIRM Increase students awareness and affirm
  their strengths.
• ENVISION Discuss aspirations and how their
  strengths can help them reach their goals.
• PLAN Generate an action plan for meeting goals.
• APPLY Help students identify the skills and
  knowledge that will develop their strengths.
  Teach them to apply their strengths to challenges
  they face.

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Step 1 IDENTIFY

• Ways of assessing and identifying strengths
• Advising questions
• Instruments

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Questions to Identify Strengths

• What did you learn with the greatest ease in high
  school?
• What was your favorite assignment?
• What subjects do you enjoy studying the most?
• What did your teachers compliment you about?
• What do your friends say they like best about
  you?
• What fascinates you?
• Tell me about a time in your life when you
  accomplished something you were proud of.

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Instruments to Identify Strengths

• Clifton StrengthsFinder
• Values-In-Action (VIA)
• Can take a strengths approach to
• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
• DISC

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Outcomes from Using an Instrument to Identify
Strengths

• Provides a common language to talk about
  strengths
• Validates and affirms students experiences
• Jump starts the conversation and provides a
  springboard for discussion

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Clifton StrengthsFinder

• Online instrument published by The Gallup
  Organization
• Identifies 5 signature themes of talent that can
  be developed into strengths
• 34 possible themes
• Strong construct validity and meets expectations
  for reliability
• Used with over 4 million people in 17 languages
  and 275,000 college students

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Step 2 AFFIRMIncreasing awareness of strengths

• Which of your strengths do you feel are most
  characteristic of you?
• Talk to at least three people who know you well
  how do they see your strengths operating in your
  life?
• In what settings do you most frequently use these
  strengths?
• How have these strengths helped you succeed in
  the past?

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STEP 3 ENVISIONDiscussing aspirations

• If you didnt have to worry about money and knew
  you could not fail, what would you love to do?
• Where do you see yourself five years from now?
• What are your dreams and life goals?
• How could you use your strengths to achieve these
  goals?

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Step 4 PLANGenerating a personal success plan

• Given where you see yourself in five years, what
  are your goals for this year? This semester?
• Academic
• Interpersonal
• Physical
• Spiritual (meaning and purpose)
• SMART goals Specific, Measurable, Attainable,
  Realistic, Timely
• Which of your talents can you build on to help
  you achieve in those areas?
• What campus resources or activities would help
  you reach your goals?
• How will you INVEST your time, energy, and effort
  to reach those goals?

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Planning the courses to take in college Making
motivation the focus

• As students plan their academic path, clarify the
  following issues and match them to courses and
  majors
• Learning styles and strengths
• Intellectual interests and curiosities
• How they want to change in college
• Their desired college outcomes
• What do they want to know and be able to do as a
  result of their college experiences?
• How much time and energy are they willing to
  invest?

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Career planning

• One of the central goals of advising is to help
  students make informed academic and career
  decisions
• The role of the advisor is to teach effective
  decision-making skills
• Most students are unaware of the career planning
  process and have given little thought to it
• Too many students have chosen careers initially
  because of input from parents and peers

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Strengths-based career planning

• Which of your strengths do you want to be able to
  use every day in your career?
• What environments will allow you to play to your
  strengths most?
• In what types of careers do you think your
  strengths will grow and flourish?
• Who can you interview or job shadow to see how
  they use their strengths in their work?

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Step 5 APPLYStrengths-based problem solving

• What challenges are you facing right now?
• In the past, which of your strengths did you rely
  on to get through difficult times?
• When you have struggled with similar problems in
  the past, what strengths have helped you resolve
  them?
• How could you apply ONE of your strengths to help
  you deal with this issue?

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A Template for Advising

• Who are you?
• When are you at your best and using your
  strengths to the fullest?
• What do you want to get out of college?
• Why is that important to you? (and why are you
  here?)
• Where do you want to be five years from now?
• How can you use your strengths to get there?

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Challenges of Strengths-Based Advising

• Students are usually unaware of their strengths.
• They may resist exploring their strengths for
  fear they dont have any.
• Some students are convinced they must overcome
  weaknesses in order to succeed.

• Students may have been criticized for their
  strengths and may actually believe they are
  weaknesses.
• Focusing on strengths may seem too prideful to
  some students.

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Expected Outcomes of Strengths-Based Advising

• Students commitment to their own personal and
  intellectual growth
• Increased recognition of students strengths
• Greater rapport between faculty and students
• Greater engagement of students in their own
  learning and in their total college experience
• Increased student success
• Increased student persistence to graduation

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For More Information

• Noel Academy for Strengths-Based
• Leadership and Education
• Engaging Learners, Inspiring Leaders
• www.apu.edu/strengthsacademy