This interactive session will explore how changing student demographics are leading to newly developing student “readiness gaps” in three main categories: academic, social/emotional, and executive/organizational. In the session, we will take a multi-disciplinary perspective and leverage the audience's experiences to uncover new ways of reducing the gaps for all students - with a focus on non-traditional students.
The wage premium for college graduates in 1983 was 42 percent. Today it stands above 80 percent—meaning that college graduates can expect to earn roughly one million more dollars than high school graduates over their lifetimes. Along with this increased value of a college degree is the increased interest in college by non-traditional students. This means more students and a wider variety of students are attending college (low-income first/generation students, adult learners / working students, international students, online students).
One the challenges with these new types of students or non-traditional students is that they often come with unique readiness gaps. We group readiness gaps into three groups:
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Academic
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Social/Emotional
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Executive/Organizational
Academic Gaps
Academic gaps are due to poor foundational knowledge in areas such as reading, writing, and math that impede incoming college students from mastering coursework in more complex subject areas.
Social-Emotional Gaps
Social-emotional gaps exist for a number of reasons, but often times stem from to a lack of connectivity (particularly for first-generation college students, commuters, community college transfers) and inability to manage stress (exacerbated for adult learners/working students by jobs, family responsibilities, etc).
Executive/Organizational
Gaps in organizational skills or executive functioning show themselves in the form of poor time management and an inability to schedule or plan ahead. The term indicates intentional and practiced behaviors that become a habitual way of working toward more thoughtful and intelligent action” including: Intellectual openness, Inquisitiveness, Analysis, Reasoning, argumentation, proof, Interpretation, Precision and accuracy, Problem-solving
Reflection
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What are the growing groups of non-traditional students at your university?
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What are the gaps they have: Academic, Social-Emotional, Executive Gaps?
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What are some solutions to these gaps?
Q&A/Group Discussion
Action: break into groups and select one non-traditional student type
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Part-time
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Re-admit and re-entry
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Commuter
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Veteran
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Senior citizens
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Online/distance learners
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Works full-time while enrolled
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Has dependents other than a spouse/partner
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Adult learners (25 years and over)
Action: collaborate on the top gaps for the non-traditional student profile
Academic
Social Emotional
Executive Gaps
Action: collaborate on the top gaps solutions for the non-traditional student profile
Academic
Social Emotional
Executive Gaps
Action: report one solution to the group