Peter Felten and Leo Lambert from Elon University gave a one-hour session about their book: creating relationship-rich teaching. Lambert began by talking about the new majority of students and how our teaching should evolve. They spoke about the adult learners, first-generation students, and students of color that are the emerging majority at many institutions. What Felten and Lambert did was interview thought leaders and students from across the country. This is part of their book that I have and I am almost done listening to! It is excellent! Lambert said one of the first takeaways from the study was that “all students must experience genuine welcome and deep care.” Lambert emphasized that welcome must be frequent, relentless, and part of the landscape in a genuine way. The second principle Lambert mentioned was that “relationships are a powerful means to inspire all students to learn.” The example quote a participant read showed how a nursing student was caught and captured by an engaging class. The third principle was that “all students must develop webs of significant relationships in college.” The quote was from the president ok Oakton Community College. Lambert explained that ideally students have a “constellation of mentors and colleagues” that are going to help students find mentors and engage in many kinds of mentoring conversations. The fourth principle was “all students need meaningful relationships to help them – and to challenge them – to explore the big questions of their lives.” The quote was not what do you want to be after you graduate but WHO do you want to be. This caught my attention as I often as what and now who. I also appreciate how Felten emphasized the more in their title: “creating more relationship-rich teaching and learning” because we are already trying, and there are opportunities to expand and improve instructor-student and student-student experiences. Felten’s example was from a quote that was part of the study: “what if we treat all students like we treat honors students?”
Felten described the Persistence Project at Oakton Community College. During the first three weeks of the semester, the goal is to learn and use student names, articulate high standards paired with support, return an assignment with formative feedback, and meet one-on-one with each student for ~10 minutes. This is impressive! Felten mentioned that they tried modifying the last step and spreading out the one-on-one meetings… and the effects were not maintained. Felten mentioned a faculty member at Elon that shifted Zoom office hours to 9 pm… and got a great response. Another instructor set up an auto-email when office hours begin. Felten and Lambert came up with this phrase: relational + simple + sustainable + kind to frame our interactions moving forward. Felten did something neat I would love to replicate and adapt: a progress bar on the screen that gave people quiet time for reflection as they read the prompts on the slide that Felten had discussed! This gave participants a chance to write before the breakout groups. After 15 minutes, a group level discussion was started. One comment had to do with being kind to ourselves so that it is sustainable. A re-framing of how are you was suggested: “what’s going on in your world?” Felten uses “what is your story?” followed by active listening. Felten also mentioned that several students interviewed repeated phrases that their mentors mentioned. Expressing belief in students’ capacity is very important, Felten stressed and cited the work of Rendon. “Students watch us relating to their peers” mentioned Felten. Marcy Bullock talked about helping students realize they are not alone. Lambert concluded by citing examples from the book that showed how individuals started great efforts to create change on their own. Lambert ended with a call to keep human relationships in mind. I have enjoyed the book and this session was a nice overview. There are so many great examples in the book with student voices and instructors and staff making changes to how they welcome and support students and each other. While I may not be able to establish the Persistence Program steps, I can start somewhere with each class I teach and getting to know participants as humans.
