Increasing Student Involvement on Campus
Increasing Student Involvement on Campus
Executive Summary
The ability of the students to get involved depends on the efforts in awareness of the program, the benefits of the program and the tendency to get the students involved. It means that there should be awareness of the program, the best practices that involve the existence of the program and even the ability of the teachers to handle the program in a more engaging way. This means that the way the program is carried out determines its success. Therefore there is need to draft ways and best practices that will guarantee active participation of the students in the program.
The proposal is bound to help an institution or an organization to integrate and enhance participation in their setting. It is important for the organization to make considerations made in the proposal to guide the process of participation and get the students fully involved in the program for the benefits indulged in it. Therefore this proposal is important in covering the methods of enhancing student participation in any particular program.
Ways of getting Students to be involved
Create awareness
The most important aspect to get people or students to participate in any program on campus is to ensure that they are familiar with the existence of the course. It means that students have to be made aware of the course and work identify themselves with it. This means that awareness of the existence of the course is the prime key to involvement. Awareness programs involves the ability to announce the existence of the program and encouraging active participation.
Advertisement – the students should be reached by the information of existence of the program. This can be through the usual advertisement strategies that involve notice board announcements, class information boards or even the active use of email newsletters and social media prompts. This way, information about the particular programs can get to the students.
Active Participation – Active participation is the tendency to get volunteers or other students to either do the program or participate in awareness creation or even both. It means that other students will see the progress and try to understand the main course of the ripples caused. This way, there are high chances that more students will be aware of the program and therefore there are high chances that involvement will be undertaken.
Get one involved
The ability to involve one or a group of the students is vital to ensuring that the program picks up and gets noticed. This is because there will be a student serving as an example.
The involvement theory includes five basic concepts. The concepts are mentioned below.
The meaning of involvement is incomplete if the inclusion of psychological and physical aspects of the student are not involved.
The involvement degree differs with the student in that each student has a certain degree of involvement.
Measuring the amount of involvement is possible through both qualitative and quantitative means.
Gaining of concepts from any program on campus depends on the quality and quantity of the involvement degree by the student.
The more an initiative pushes the student involvement, the more it is effective to the students gaining of concepts in the activity.
Understand the needs of the students
Understanding what the students require is one step to ensure that the students participate and get involved in the program this is a way to create programs that are best suited to the student needs or handled in an innovative way that encourages the students to participate. This means that the program should be customized in a way that is student centered where the attributes can be found by researching on the student behavior or taking from the common best practices that exist in the student study centers and programs.
The most essential way of customizing content and methods of program dissemination is to plan, listen and carry out the program in the student centered manner. It means that the program facilitator, planner and even participants have to be involved in the creation of the schedules and contents. If the goal is to ensure that the students participate in the program then the following recommendations have to be noted and acted on by the program planners: Create the necessary environment, plan, and listen and respond.
Create the environment
This involves making the necessary preparations that prepare the students for the program. It involves the early preparation of the site or premises that the program is handled. This is to prepare the students psychologically of the presence and seriousness of the particular program. It means that the students stay cognizant of the existence of the program. There is also need to prepare the program schedule which is important in ensuring that the students know the time and contents to be handled in a certain period of time. This way, participation will be enhanced. The environment should include making the students aware of their intended participation in the program.
Plan for the program
It is important to have a blue print for the program. The plan should involve the content, the intention for the program and the methods in which the program is handled. This means that the students and the program facilitators have to understand their various undertakings in the program. They have to therefore work towards making it a success and plan on the ways to undertake it. It means that discussions have to be encouraged in order to reach a consensus. The methods of handling the program have to be outlined in order to assure the participants of success.
Engage them
Once the students have been enrolled into the program, make it a priority to engage them. This way, it will be simple to keep them active and involved in the program until the objectives are achieved. It means that students have to understand that the program is aimed at improving certain important aspects in their life and therefore their participation guarantees their prowess in the certain program which means that strategies have to be laid in order to ensure that the program reaches the objectives of the group.
The task of involving the students is not only to get them to attend the program. Their involvement in the program is another key factor that is enhanced in order to reach the objectives of the program and give them the benefits. Maximum participation has to be encouraged and the following are the methods to ensure that the students give their all in participation on the program.
Rules for participation
Intentions of the instructor and program
Enhance reflection
Allow Small groups
Rules for participation – are important in ensuring that there is uniformity in participation and that the students follow a guideline in order to participate without making others uncomfortable.
Intentions of the Instructor and program – these are outlined before the beginning of the program in order to educate the students on the benefits and the outcome of the program and what the instructor expects from them.
Enhance reflection – this allows the student to go back to the contents and therefore creates a stream of knowledge in the program.
Allow small groups – this is giving the students to indulge themselves in the groups. Guidelines or goals have to be given to them. It gives the students a chance to educate each other and feel like the owners of the program which enhances participation and gain in the program.
References
Astin, W. A. (1999). Student Involvement: A Developmental Theory for Higher Education. Journal of College Student Development, 518-529.
Haque, A. (2016). Anyone? Anyone?: Five Strategies to Increase Student Pariticpation. Retrieved from Western Teaching Support Centre: https://www.uwo.ca/tsc/resources/publications/newsletter/selected_articles/five_strategies_to_increase_student_participation.html
Roberts, J., & McNeese, N. M. (n.d.). Student Involvement/ Engagement in Higher Education Based on Student Origin. Research in Higher Education Journal, 1-11.
TTC. (2009). Increasing Student Participation. Retrieved from The Teaching Center: https://teachingcenter.wustl.edu/resources/refining-teaching-methods/increasing-student-participation/
