This semester I am observing Marci Sanchez’s Tuesday/Thursday 8:30 a.m.-9:30 a.m. Counseling 98: Learning Community Experience/Community College Experience. The Counseling College Success course is paired up with English 85 as part of the English Learning Communities. The ELC program has had excellent retention rates and has done my favorite student affairs thing; built community for those students. I decided to make time in my schedule this spring to observe because I learned over winter break that the graduate program I was part of less than a year ago added one more course requirement and changed the degree to Master of Science in College Counseling and Student Development. It originally was called Master of Education in College Student Affairs (CSA). I am scheduled to take the additional course in summer of 2009.
During my time researching and writing about the field of student affairs, I discovered that I also have a passion to engage students about the college experience at the classroom level as well. I’ve really enjoyed sitting in her class. I hope down the road I can be part of the ELC teaching community or teach one of many counseling college success courses colleges offer. I think understanding more of the faculty site of the house will make me a better college leader and advsor to students.
Since being part of Marci’s class I have learned:
- what needs to be in a syllabus such as information on learning accommodations, attendance policy, late work policy and grade chart.
- how to use Career /Personality assessments such as CareerDimension.com and the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI)
- how to write class objectives and be flexable at the same time.
- teaching “College Success” really comes down to helping students understand why they are in college in the first place and helping them to over come the fears they carry with them about learning.