Numerous studies have demonstrated that education plays a role in reducing recidivism. The Colorado Department of Corrections is seeking to ensure that every individual released from prison has at least a GED, and that those who have graduated from high school or have a GED have the opportunity to learn a skill before they are released. And working with the state’s institutions of higher education, many offenders are now being released with college credits.

In some cases, however, students have difficulty staying focused, get into trouble, fail to achieve success, skip class, become disruptive, and exhibit other distracting behaviors. When students get off track, we may need to meet with them and talk with them about their issues. Because these conversations may be negative, they are called Difficult Conversations. In many situations, difficult conversations can take a negative turn and turn into a confrontational tone or cause the student to discount your feedback and make the situation much worse than it was at the start of the process. In other cases, a difficult conversation that is effectively delivered can actually cause a positive reaction by the student and become a turning point in their educational career. What makes the difference? In this seminar you will learn the essential strategies and behaviors that will help you successfully conduct difficult conversations.

This webinar will provide definitions of academic advising that connect the advising program mission to the institutional mission. The session will share relevant, desirable, and measurable learning outcomes for effective academic advising, along with five critical skills/attributes that are essential to effective advising relationships. The organization and delivery of academic advising will be reviewed, including a description of 7 organizational models for advising services and how advising services can most effectively be delivered. The importance of advisor development, assessment, and recognition/reward will be stressed. The webinar will conclude with an ideal model for organizing academic advising services in ways that can increase first-year students in the community college.

This intensive workshop will share effective theory-based programmatic and individual interventions that have resulted in campus environments of support that increase persistence for students of color. The primary focus will be on students who are Asian Pacific American, Black/African American, Latino, and Native American/First Nations. In addition to providing an overview of theories that are critical to student success (e.g., Validation Theory, Attribution Theory, Stereotype Threat), the session will provide individual and programmatic strategies that can enable educators to support and challenge students to take greater responsibility for their own learning, development, and persistence.

This webinar will provide an overview of learning communities and take participants step-by-step through a planning process for learning community development. Participants will learn how to create a learning community development team and will walk away with a clear idea of how to build a timeline for implementation. Our expert speaker will also provide resources for continued work after the webinar.

Doing one or more of these activities in the context of an academically challenging curriculum that provides opportunities for active, collaborative learning increases the odds that students will be prepared to persist to graduation and develop higher order thinking skills. In fact, students who participate in these experiences often out-perform their peers who do not participate – even when these peers are better prepared academically and at significantly less risk for attrition.

1. Retention 101: Student Outcomes and University Benchmarks
2. Learning Communities: Creating Environments that Retain, Engage and Transform Learners
3. Student Engagement in Class: Increasing Learning and Persistence