IUPUI
UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE
NEWS
Vol. 1, No. 6, 2014
Innovate Inspire Invigorate
Click to Read
DEAN’S PERSPECTIVE This fall, 3,584 beginning freshmen slipped relatively seamlessly into the IUPUI community. Along with feelings of nervousness and excitement about starting college and selecting a major, they brought with them a vast repertoire of knowledge, skills, habits, and beliefs that were shaped through four years of high school and honed through relationships with family, friends, teachers, guidance counselors, coaches, and employers. For some lucky students, there is quite a bit of alignment between the cultural, social, and academic “norms” of high school and college, and they tend to do just fine. For most students, there are some surprises—and we in University College devote much of August, September, and October to intervening, guiding, coaching, and reassuring students as they navigate these challenges. What I appreciate most about the Indiana College Access and Success Network (ICASN) is that it provides us with an annual opportunity to gather with colleagues from across secondary and postsecondary education to discuss this transition and to collectively strategize on how best to help all students prepare to navigate successfully through the first year of college. Though our institutions are geographically so close— and students pass through our campuses so routinely—it is striking how infrequently academic advisors interact with high school guidance counselors or how seldom college faculty interact with the high school teachers that prepare their students for our gateway courses. ICASN helps to create a higher level of shared understanding across our professional networks, which ultimately should translate into a smoother transition for the thousands of students that we serve. The IUPUI National Mentoring Symposium took place in early October. Through the hard work of staff and students in the Bepko Learning Center, this event has grown from an internal training forum for our student mentors to a national event. The Mentoring Symposium provides a great opportunity for students, faculty, and staff working in peer mentoring programs to meet together to participate in professional development to improve their strategies and methods for mentoring students and to share research findings pertaining to peer mentoring. Mentoring programs enhance learning and make a difference in students’ lives, and I am pleased that University College serves as a hub for peer mentoring on our campus.
KATHY E. JOHNSON, PH.D. DEAN, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE ASSOCIATE VICE CHANCELLOR FOR UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION
University College News is a monthly e-publication that brings readers in-depth stories about academic programs and successes of IUPUI University College. Its par tnerships with other IUPUI schools and depar tments help University College build stronger learning outcomes. The News is sent to the IUPUI campus community, friends of University College, and Indiana businesses. University College is the academic unit at IUPUI that provides a common gateway to the academic programs available to entering students. University College coordinates existing university resources and develops new initiatives to promote academic excellence and enhance student persistence. It provides a setting where faculty, staff, and students share in the responsibility for making IUPUI a suppor tive and challenging environment for learning. Hermes Creative Awards and Marcom Awards are given for projects that possess creative concepts, exceptional writing and design, and emerging technology.
CONTACT Email hbennett@iupui.edu Address IUPUI University College 815 West Michigan Street Suite 3140E Indianapolis, IN 46202 Telephone 317-274-5036
CONTENTS BUILDING FROM THE FOUNDATION
04 - 05
INNOVATIVE METHODS FOR EARLY COLLEGE CREDITS
06 – 09
BEST PRACTICES IN COLLEGE PREP
10 –13
14 –17
CULTURAL COMPETENCY CREATES SUCCESS
18 – 21
TODAY’S HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
22 – 25
THE RIPPLING EFFECT OF MENTORING
26 – 27
COMFORT, CHALLENGE, AND CONFIDENCE
28 – 31
MENTORING: THE FUTURE OF MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
32 – 35
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE NEW EMPLOYEES + SERVICE ANNIVERSARIES
36 – 37
HEART HEALTHY
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ACCESSING HIGHER EDUCATION EQUITY IN INDIANA
IUPUI
DEAN, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE: KATHY E. JOHNSON EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: HARRIETT BENNETT
UNIVERSITY
COPY EDITOR: LYNN TRAPP
NEWS
DESIGNERS: DEREK DALTON, JEREMY PRATHER
Vol. 1, No. 6, 2014
C O N T R I B U TO R S : PAU L W ESS E L M A N N , M C K E N Z I E SCOT T- L EW I S, ROSS P E T E RSO N -V E ATC H , J O E P R E DA , J. R . RUSS E L L ,
COLLEGE
WRITERS: HOPE MCGOWEN, JEREMY PRATHER, ADAM STATEN
PHOTOGRAPHERS: JEREMY PRATHER, ARIANA CASALE, HOPE MCGOWEN, DEREK DALTON
AJ MCADAMS, JOHN RIHM, APRIL PRICE, KEVIN BERKOPES, MARK MINGLIN
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BRIDGE TO
COLLEGE SUCCESS 2
3
BUILDING FROM THE
FOUNDATION BY HOPE MCGOWEN
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The transition from high school to college is often a complex stage of life for students who are either preparing for college or just entering college. However, what these students and others do not realize is that it also can be complicated for the educators who want to help students successfully navigate this transition. Recently, educators from K-12 and postsecondary institutions came together at the 2014 Indiana College Access and Success Network (ICASN) summit. Attendees spent the day immersed in the perspectives and ideas of their colleagues. The beauty of a conference like ICASN lies in the outcome: high school teachers gain knowledge about what will best prepare students for the learning environment they will face in college, and postsecondary educators acquire a deeper and fuller understanding of education at the secondary level. The sharing of their different educational functions and goals creates an understanding partnership between the educators and the ability for both groups to better bridge the gap between high school and college education. This year’s conference topics were: Access, Educational Equity, and Success in Indiana; Dissecting Cultural Competency and Global Awareness; Leveraging Dual/AP Credit for STEM College Readiness; Today’s High School Students, and The Bridge from High School to College: Best Practices in College Prep. Presented in the following pages is a brief perspective on each of these topics by several of the session presenters.
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Innovative ethods for Early College Credits BY ADAM STATEN
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ducation has the unique ability to change someone’s life. It is an invaluable resource that can transform people and the direction of their lives. Like most things that are worthwhile, there are costs affiliated with higher education, both tangible (money) and intangible (time, energy, school/work/life balance). In an attempt to make college credits a bit more attainable and affordable, to make college more time efficient, and to expose high school students to the rigors of a college curriculum, high schools are looking at creative ways
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to address these issues. One solution? AP/Dual Credit classes. Another reason for offering high school students the opportunity of AP/Dual Credit classes is the steady increase of the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) job fields. According to Joe Preda, former principal of Decatur Central High School and now director of guidance there, preparing students for STEM jobs should be an essential component of high school education. Says Preda, “STEM fields are the way our society is headed. Students need to be extremely familiar with career options in STEM fields in order to succeed.”
High school students hoping to acquire college credits and experience higher level curricula work have several options: honors and advanced placement, concurrent enrollment, college instructor at high school, early college high school, distance education, the on-site model, and the immersion model. The successful completion of these courses allows students to obtain college credits while enrolled in high school. Taking these courses in high school also allows students to test out of or bypass corresponding classes when they enroll in college full-time after graduation.
These innovative methods for high school students to obtain college credit were a topic for discussion at this year’s Indiana College Access and Success Network (ICASN) conference held on IUPUI’s campus in early October. Experts came together to share their experiences and knowledge regarding educating high school students and early college credit options. According to Preda, the positives of these methods far outweigh any negatives that may come from offering high school students the advanced classes. “Students in those classes receive invaluable exposure to a college-level curriculum and the invaluable experience that comes with doing college-level work in a college-level class,” he states. Their lives are enriched, and they are better prepared for college life and the rigors of a college curriculum. According to one of the organizers of the
conference, J. R. Russell, Director of Special Programs for Academic Nurturing (SPAN ) at IUPUI, there are other positives that come with students taking these advanced courses. “Early enrollment through immersion programming provides the opportunity for high school students to explore and correctly determine their major prior to full-time college
“Students who take these advanced classes often feel more prepared for college than those who do not.” —J.R. Russell enrollment,” said Russell. “Students who take these advanced classes often feel more prepared for college than those who do not.” While the positives do
outweigh the negatives, there are downsides nonetheless. The costs, Preda mentions, are the most significant issue. The expense of taking these classes can often cause students to shy away from enrolling, especially when also considering the cost of books and other fees. Russell agrees that financial expenses can be challenging; however, he believes that “early enrollment through immersion in actual university classes provides a genuine university experience. This experience is a valuable investment that helps ensure academic success.”
So while the initial financial burden of taking early college credit courses may be costly, the expense is dispersed over a longer period of time, often making obtaining a college degree an easier reality. And since there are few things that can open and advance one’s career opportunities and raise one’s standard of living like obtaining a college degree, it is likely that AP and Dual Credit courses and other methods of obtaining college credit while still in high school will remain an excellent pathway toward college degree completion.
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Best Practices in College Prep BY HOPE MCGOWEN
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hen teaching, counseling, or advising college students, it is important to possess an awareness of the education process they are coming out of at the secondary level, to understand the standards of educational practice with which they are familiar. With this knowledge, it is much easier to both transition them into the college academic environment and to adjust one’s interactions with them in order to better engage them in the classroom and advising process. So then, how are IUPUI students being educated before they arrive on campus? AJ McAdams and John Rihm, high school teachers at Mooresville High
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School, Mooresville, IN and Greenfield-Central High School, Greenfield, IN, respectively, work to achieve a higher level of teaching and learning at the secondary level and offer some keen insight to this discussion. McAdams and Rihm work with Project Lead the Way (PLTW), a premiere Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education program designed to help students gain and build the skills and knowledge necessary to be successful in the global economy. Through this program, teachers also prepare students for the college experience. “The biggest thing we push [in PLTW] is what we call soft skills,” Rihm says. “We get students to work in collaborative groups, problem-solve, communicate,
and improve critical reading and writing skills.” McAdams adds, “[PLTW] forces kids to be very self-reliant. We give them a really strong base, and then we go from there.” PLTW is obviously on the right track as far as college preparation is concerned. However, students in standard high school courses are not getting this same experience. “The biggest things I’ve noticed that our [non-PLTW] kids struggle with are critical-thinking questions and making inferences,” he says. “And they need to be able to do that in college.” Like others, McAdams is concerned with how little students read these days. He feels that a major problem for educators in bridging the gap from high school to college
comes down to something very fundamental—the amount of reading that students do. “Most high school kids don’t do much reading. They just don’t want to.” Mooresville High School, where McAdams teaches, is proactive in combating this problem. Several teachers have attended Smekens literacy workshops, and Principal Brian Disney is heading an initiative to require critical reading and data interpretation questions in each class’s quarterly assessments. McAdams is excited that his school is creating best practices and pushing students to work on the skills they will need to be successful not only in college but also in life. McAdams wonders if the college dynamic might need to change as well. “As high school teachers, we’ve really had to evolve and change with these students. I don’t think you see as much of that at the college level.” He explains, “This new generation is used to differentiated instruction.
They’re used to teachers switching gears multiple times in a 50-minute period.” There is constant engagement in Rihm and McAdams’ classes. “Very rarely do we just sit and talk about something for 50 minutes,” McAdams continues. Students are no longer used to full hours of lecture at the high school level, and college professors must adjust their classes to cater more toward the way students are learning. Professors must meet students where they are before they push them forward. McAdams and Rihm would agree that an awareness of where students are coming from, what students want, and what students need enables educators, counselors, and advisors at every level to adjust their practices to be the best in order to help their students to succeed.
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Accessing High Equity in
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her Education Indiana BY JEREMY PRATHER
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magine growing up in a country where you and everyone around you lives far below the poverty level. Your neighborhood is filled with crime, and it is not safe to go outside at night. You go to school, but it is as dangerous as the streets, and although you have teachers that care, your main priority is survival. So you quit school to work and support your sick, single mother. Add on top of this, the fact that you can never attain decent paying employment because you were not able to finish your education, so when you grow up, your children have to leave school, too, and the vicious cycle continues from generation to generation. This country is the United States. And this is reality in many parts of the country. A report by The Equity and Excellence Commission to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education found that students attending schools in high poverty neighborhoods in the United States are receiving an education approximating the quality of that in developing nations. In fact, the Child Wellbeing in Rich Countries Report Card by UNICEF, places the United States twenty-sixth in
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overall child wellbeing and twentyseventh in education among developed countries. Considering that the United States has the world’s highest GDP at $17.4 billion, it is unconscionable that it should have such low attainment rates compared to its peers. Although these figures represent educational quality received by children, it infers a strong trend that extends to achievement in higher education. If a child cannot even make it to college, how can he or she achieve at that level? Most studies attribute these disparities, usually affecting minority and low socioeconomic
status populations, to a high income gap, but the associate vice president for academic affairs at Goshen College, Dr. Ross Peterson-Veatch, suggests it is the simple matter of paying attention. According to Peterson-Veatch, “The primary thing that students need in order to be successful is someone paying attention to them, but the price of paying attention to one another is pretty high.” In reference to the matter of education equity, he points to the comparative cost of fixing a problem rather than treating symptoms of it. Consider three children. Child A
“The primary thing that students need in order to be successful is someone paying attention to them, but the price of paying attention to one another is pretty high.” —Peterson-Veatch has two boxes, Child B has one box, and Child C has no boxes. Taking a box from Child A and giving it to Child C would eliminate the inequity, but would not seem fair to Child A. For PetersonVeatch, this is the same way it works with educational access and equity. Spending money to make education fairer will seem unfair to some, but it creates a system that supports and promotes equity. He addresses this process, stating, “To rearrange the resources in a way that doesn’t seem fair to one side is really painful. But, to be honest, one of the key things about policy is that it should be fair, but strategy does not seem very fair in the abstract. Often, in the end, you get a better result for everyone so you’ll solve a chronic pain. But, you go through an acute pain so that you can solve the chronic problem.”
costs society to not have high achievement, the cost is quite low. UNICEF’s report pointed to how much money is lost when children do not achieve and grow up to contribute to society. PetersonVeatch makes a similar point in regard to how money is spent in higher education. He alludes to the cost of a scholarship, for example, for a group of students who grew up in foster care. When those in foster care age out, 25 percent end up in jail, 25 percent become homeless, 7 percent go to college, and 4 percent graduate from college. The cost to society to keep even just the 25 percent who went to jail in prison
vastly outweighs the cost of the scholarships. He says, “We are much more willing to spend money to keep people away from us than we are to grab hold of them.” According to Peterson-Veatch, “The simple act of understanding this and paying attention to what students need in order to achieve is the most important first step in bringing educational equity to the United States. Doing this will create the necessary outlook needed by higher education faculty and administrators to scale up what works as we address the role of higher education in the issue of access.”
In financial terms it seems that one must pay out a large sum of money to achieve results, but in reference to how much it
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Cult Cr
tural Competency reates Success BY JEREMY PRATHER
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he educational environment is as diverse as ever. The world is not just black and white; it comes in many colors, creeds, lifestyles, religions, sexualities, ages, and diverse experiences. Our experiences are what define us and should be celebrated, but when all of these perspectives come into one room, it can be daunting to navigate the potentially complex interactions that arise. This is where cultural competency comes into play. Cultural competency can be defined as “the integration and transformation of knowledge
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about individuals and groups of people into specific standards, policies, practices, and attitudes used in appropriate cultural settings to increase the quality of services; thereby producing better outcomes.” In education especially, it is necessary to focus on cultural competency so that students are exposed to the best and most effective learning environment possible. McKenzie Scott Lewis, CEO and Chief Cultural Strategist of The MSL Group and adjunct professor for the School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA) at IUPUI, suggests that cultural competence is necessary for a successful classroom. He says, “Cultural competence plays
a critical role in education in building a foundation of trust. You have got to be able to trust the education system. You have got to be able to trust the cultural nuances that take place in the classroom.” Lewis believes that developing a culturally competent classroom whereby students and teachers can learn from one another will also require courage and love – the courage to embrace new critical thinking, and the love to see value in everyone. Lewis’ transformation and diversity consulting company, The MSL Group, bases its training on three principles: truth, trust, and transparency. He says, “I have to be truthful with myself and my biases and my stereotypes
when I look at a group of people or I hear something that is not in my value system. I admit the truth, and it allows me to have dialogue with someone so that they can be transparent with me. Be trustworthy to others and be transparent so people can see inside of you; that all wraps into a very strong sense of communication.” Everyone has their own prejudices and stereotypes regarding how they view others and the world, but by being honest with ourselves, we can move past them and look critically at the ways in which we interact. Educators especially need to understand this in order to create a welcome and fruitful learning experience for the diverse classroom environment. Cultural competency is also a process. Lewis says, “Cultural competency is a class that you enroll in, but you never graduate from. It’s life learning. You’re developing skills and assets that will help you not only in the classroom and in higher education, but also in business and life. I use it every day.”
“Cultural competency is a class that you enroll in, but you never graduate from. It’s life learning.” —Scott-Lewis
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Today’s Hig School Stude
BY
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gh ents
Y HOPE MCGOWEN
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very incoming group of freshmen at IUPUI brings with it new styles, trends, pop culture references, and views on life. But what about academic trends? To be sure, they are more subtle than a freshman’s visible fashion sense, yet students’ academic histories have a profound effect on their learning abilities, regardless of what brand of jeans they wear. At the beginning of every school year, questions about new students burn through every college professor’s mind. How are these students different from last year’s class? What makes them a unique generation? How should lessons be adjusted to best fit their learning styles? What is the best way to bridge the gap between the practices they are accustomed to in high school and the practices they will be confronted with throughout their college years? April Price, the assistant principal at Warren Central High School, has a lot to say about the young people she sees on a day-to-
day basis. When asked about a few of the most important things we need to know about today’s high school students, her first response was that high school students need to work on becoming more independent. “At the high school level, we do a great job of surrounding students with a very strong support team, including school counselors,
“Our high school teachers still baby us a little and give us extra days to turn stuff in. They need to take AP and honors classes to higher standards, so we can be ready for college. I think the teachers need to be stricter.” – José, Arsenal Technical High School
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mental health counselors, administrators, teachers, and coaches,” she said. “But when they graduate, sometimes they think they’re still entitled to all of that support. It doesn’t matter what sector they go into—whether it be the military, college, or work. They need to understand that in the real world, it definitely doesn’t work like that. They need to advocate for themselves.” High school students are also unsure of their direction in life. “Our students have so many options now,” Price said. “When they become seniors and are looking at graduation right around the corner, some still do not know what direction to go in.” She went on to explain that some students simply cannot deal with having too many options. “When they’re indecisive or looking for someone to make those choices for them, sometimes they don’t make any choice at all.” Lack of direction and independence can become a problem for them when they enter their college years.
On the flip side, today’s high school students bring some amazing strengths to the world of academia. Price was quick to point out how tech-savvy these young people are and how that can be a real asset to educators. Many schools have implemented Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies which allow students to bring and use smart phones, tablets, and laptops in class to supplement their learning. While this can occasionally be a distraction, many teachers and professors have begun to utilize applications specifically designed for the classroom. Price also touched on how much bullying, mental health issues, and social media affect students’ lives and learning experiences. Keeping all of these issues in mind when reaching out to both pre-college students and first-year college students, should allow educators and advisors to reach these young scholars on a more personal level and aid in helping them adjust more easily to college life.
“My biggest challenge in preparing for college was getting the grades I needed. The hardest thing about getting good grades was avoiding procrastination. It’s been really hard to get out of that habit. Some teachers let you turn in a lot of late work and give you a lot of extensions and leniencies. But I understand that’s not really how college is.” – Bella, North Central High School
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THE RIPPLING EFFECT OF MENTORING BY JEREMY PRATHER
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Almost 400 attendees from across the nation came together to explore personal and professional development at the 2014 Mentoring Symposium hosted by IUPUI in mid-October. The symposium sessions, which mirrored this year’s theme, “The Rippling Effect of Mentoring,” were focused on preparing college student peer mentors to be more effective mentors as well as successful life-long leaders. Sessions enhanced peer mentor skills and increased the understanding of the roles of peer mentors, program staff, and faculty regarding implementing strategic methods of mentoring students. It is evident that mentoring has become a best practice in helping students achieve success. To that end, mentor representatives from higher education institutions in the country came to find out what mentoring can do not only for their mentors and mentees, but also for their campus as a whole. With over 20 concurrent sessions to choose from, this year’s symposium offered a wide array of topics such as Social Media and the Mentoring Relationship; The Sophomore Slump; Connecting with International Students; Expectations, Boundaries, and the Comfort Zone; and The Zombie Apocalypse (collaborative learning techniques). We spoke to two leaders involved with student mentoring, and what follows is their perspective on mentoring and mentors.
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Com an
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mfort, Challenge, nd Confidence BY JEREMY PRATHER
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tudent mentors are unique partners in the campus culture that play a distinct role in retention and achievement. They are unique in that mentors themselves either have been or are being faced with the same challenges and issues as those they are mentoring, but this reality gives student mentors a certain credibility that others in higher education cannot replicate. Keynote speaker and higher education maven, Paul Wesselmann offered his insights about these unique participants in education. Foremost, Wesselmann says that mentors, and really all students, need to be able to achieve a balance between two factors: comfort and challenge. “Real learning,” he says, “can only take place if a student has the right balance between feeling comfortable and challenged. If they’re not comfortable, they can’t learn, and if they’re not challenged enough, they get bored. The problem is, we don’t naturally seek a balance.” Mentors can help other students to find this balance by helping build the comfort needed to have confidence which is so important to a first-year student. Wesselmann points out that often students are in limbo, either lacking the tools they need to be successful or being too afraid to ask questions of professors. Student mentors can bridge this gap and provide a comfortable place where students can get the assistance they need without intimidation or judgment.
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Many mentors naturally seem to have certain similar traits, one of which is the drive to help others. Normally, this is a positive characteristic, but when faced with the additional stress of school-life balance, helping others can take away from taking care of oneself. Wesselmann says, “Helpers are incredible at helping others. They tend to be awful at taking care of themselves.” But he points out that this trait also
gives them a certain determination in their mentoring interactions. They come face-to-face with remembering their own challenges and fears and how they felt as a college newcomer, and this drives them to help even more. “It’s hard to remember how frustrating all of this is. When you’re trying to help someone who doesn’t know all the shortcuts or who hasn’t had all the advantages
that you’ve had—maybe this is a person of color, maybe this is a female student, maybe it’s someone with a disability, maybe a LGBT student—it’s . . . hard to remember, ‘Oh, yeah, their experience is very different, and [these things] may not be obvious.’” He explains that the remembrance factor creates empathy which is helpful in the mentor-mentee relationship. Mentoring also gives leadership opportunities to those who may either lack confidence or may generally avoid leadership roles. Those who are internal processors have the qualities to make good leaders, and mentoring offers a low-risk opportunity to explore their leadership potential.
Wesselmann says, “So much of good leadership is one-to-one.
“Real learning can only take place if a student has the right balance between feeling comfortable and challenged.” —Wesselmann
on-one. This is a chance where so much leadership potential exists for introverted students.” The confidence developed as a mentor and offered to mentees is what makes mentoring such a unique and multidimensional experience. Providing mentors with the tools necessary to help others ripples out to affect their mentees and peers striving to build a strong foundation of comfort, challenge, and confidence which is necessary to achieve.
Very often leadership doesn’t look like it is for internal processors, but they are phenomenal leaders; especially in small groups and one-
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Mentorin Mathem
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ng: The Future of matics Education BY HOPE MCGOWEN
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ectures. Lectures. Lectures. That has been the main method of teaching in higher education for hundreds of years. As society progresses and teaching methods change, it has become increasingly obvious that lecturing is not the most effective approach. So, what is? Dr. Kevin Berkopes, Executive Director of the Mathematics Assistance Center (MAC) at IUPUI, thinks that mentoring is the future best practice of all postsecondary education. “Lecture is an old technology,” he says. “Now we can do something different. We can use virtual technology, we can use lecture, and we can . . . provide mentoring and tutoring through learning centers that helps students learn more, do more, and be more active learners within different content domains.”
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According to Berkopes, mentoring and tutoring are two different jobs with similar goals, both creating peer-topeer active learning environments. “That’s why I got involved with the MAC. I believe learning assistance like what we offer here is the future.” He explains, “If people don’t get on board with providing these sorts of mentoring and tutoring resources at universities, the [institutions] are going to fall behind.” He asserts that institutions of higher learning need to catch up and be leaders in the best education practices. While K-12 teachers are being asked to
change methods and approach teaching differently, many educators in universities have not yet adopted updated pedagogical practices themselves. “The fact is that we’re lagging behind at the postsecondary level, especially in the context of mathematical teaching and learning,” Berkopes says. “If we are the apex of
learning, then we should be doing it differently before [K-12 teachers] do. I think mentoring and tutoring and learning assistance centers are a way to do this.” Berkopes’ thoughts on mentoring do not stop there. He believes that both teachers and mentors must focus on the way in which they introduce content to students. “You need to understand that your perspective on what the content domain is fundamentally impacts how you present it to a student.” He explains how he teaches math based upon his own characterization of the subject: “I think math is part of
your genetics. It’s part of your body. It’s part of the world. So, I would teach it that way.” His courses are not designed to just lecture, or built around students working on procedural homework assignments isolated from their peers. Instead he asks students to interrogate the “whys” of mathematics and mathematical concepts. This way of educating is not limited to just mathematics, Berkopes asserts. “It’s the same thing with chemistry or any other postsecondary content domain,” Berkopes states. “If you define chemistry in a particular way, you are going to teach
it that way. Educators really need to think differently about their discipline, consider it as a teacher and not just a practitioner or user of the content.” Berkopes feels that all educators should be exposed to some of their own biases and ideas to learn how they are being applied when teaching their course content. This sort of introspection, he believes, creates a deeper learning and understanding of the subject, and can be done with every subject. In fact, Berkopes firmly believes it must be done with every subject. It is necessary. It is the future.
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UNIVERSITY COLLEGE NEW EMPLOYEES ASHLEY DUFFEY Student Success Advisor Health and Life Sciences Advising Center University College
ELIZABETH FREEDMAN Student Success Advisor Health and Life Sciences Advising Center University College
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SERVICE ANNIVERSARIES HELEN DAVIS Director Fiscal Affairs Office Division of Undergraduate Education 45 years
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Being heart healthy is more than physical. It is also Emotional. Psychological. Intentional.
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you have overcome).
be authorized by University College for the reasonable and customary requirements of authorized expenditures.
Please consider helping a University College student today! Giving is available through the University College donor website: http://uc.iupui.edu/Donors.aspx
Healthy Heart = Giving Heart = Happy Heart
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