Acknowledgement and Awareness Go a Long Way

Why?

Although this can be a challenge for all students, first-generation learners may be especially likely to experience social barriers to reaching out to instructors and other sources of academic support, despite being engaged and invested in their own success (Yee, 2016). Conducting surveys at the beginning of the course is an opportunity to break down these barriers, to provide a space for learners to unveil some of the challenges they face if they wish to do so, and to open lines of communication between instructors and learners. For example, members of the Being First Collaborative shared that they might explain in a survey that they are a commuter and have a part-time job that sometimes makes it difficult to arrive to class on time, or that having to go home on weekends to care for a sibling takes away weekend time that many students use to complete assignments. 

How?

• Invite learners to share whatever they are comfortable with sharing in a survey at the beginning of your course. Some instructors choose to make this survey non-anonymous so they can learn about specific students’ needs. Be sure to make this survey, and individual questions within it, optional.
• For larger classes, you can still conduct this kind of survey even if you don’t have time to thoroughly review all of the responses. In that situation, we recommend that you use the survey as a quick gauge of where your learners are and where they are coming from, and use the survey results as a reference for when students attend office hours or show signs of struggling.
• Visit these sites for sample survey questions and tips on designing and conducting a pre-course survey: Michele Pakensky Brock’s Getting to Know You survey (non-anonymous survey) or Lafayette College’s anonymous Who’s In Class Form ). You can access the Who’s In Class Form questions in the supplemental material doc, or read more about the design and implementation of the form in the book What Inclusive Instructors Do: Principles and Practices for Excellence in College Teaching (Addy et al., 2021, pg. 139)

References

Addy, T. M., Dube, D., Mitchell, K. A., SoRelle, M. E., Longmire-Avital, B., & Felten, P. (2021). What inclusive instructors do : Principles and practices for excellence in college teaching. Stylus Publishing, LLC.

Pacansky-Brock, M. (2020). How to humanize your online class, version 2.0 [Infographic].  https://brocansky.com/humanizing/infographic2

Yee, A. (2016). The unwritten rules of engagement: Social class differences in undergraduates’

academic strategies. The Journal of Higher Education (Columbus), 87(6), 831–858. 10.1353/jhe.2016.0031

Why?

Self- or values affirmations are reflection prompts that guide learners to explore and share aspects of themselves, such as what they value or feel valued for. Making room in your course for students to self-reflect on things such as previous successes and personal values enables learners to make better sense of themselves (their purpose, their potential contributions, their abilities, etc.) in your course, and in their undergraduate experience as a whole. Values affirmation exercises are motivating and when done well can enhance first-generation learners’ sense of belonging and have long-term gains for academic performance (Tibbetts et al., 2016; Wu, et al., 2021).

How?

Affirmations can be done early on to help learners get to know themselves in relation to the course. However, they can be done at any time that makes sense, such as starting a particularly hard unit, or ahead of a major assignment. There are multiple value affirmations, each with their own steps for implementation.

A simple values affirmations exercise that can be done as a warm-up or even during course introductions is to provide a list of values on an overhead projector and ask learners to select up to five that most resonate with them. You can extend this with a few guiding questions about why these values were selected and how these values might inform their approach to your course, or to their learning in general. This site provides more detail about how this simple affirmations exercise could be done (scroll down to Value Affirmation in Practice). 

One of the Being First Collaborative members was particularly interested in the Discovering Life Purpose and Passion values affirmation exercise, which is detailed by Lisa Nunn in her book 33 Simple Strategies for Faculty: A Week-by-Week Resource for Teaching First-Year and First-Generation Students (you can access the page with the exercise by signing into your Institution). The author suggests that this can be done in a first-year course, or in a general education course in which communicating significance or relevance of course content to learners can be challenging.

See more values affirmations & social belonging interventions from UC Berkeley’s Center for Teaching & Learning.

See more detail about one simple affirmation exercise from Stanislaus State University.

References

Nunn, L. M. (2018). 33 simple strategies for faculty : A week-by-week resource for teaching first-year and first-generation students. Rutgers University Press. 10.36019/9780813599519

Tibbetts, Y., Harackiewicz, J. M., Canning, E. A., Boston, J. S., Priniski, S. J., & Hyde, J. S. (2016). Affirming independence: Exploring mechanisms underlying a values affirmation intervention for first-generation students. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 110(5), 635–659. 10.1037/pspa0000049

Wu, Z., Spreckelsen, T. F., & Cohen, G. L. (2021). A meta‐analysis of the effect of values affirmation on academic achievement. Journal of Social Issues, 77(3), 702–750. 10.1111/josi.12415

Why?

We are experiencing a mental health crisis. Although many undergraduate students are struggling with mental health, the research literature suggests that first-generation learners may be at higher risk of mental health concerns (Lipson, et al., 2023; Stebleton et al., 2014). Some common emotional experiences among first-generation learners include belonging uncertainty (Totonchi, et al., 2023), stress, anxiety and depression (Smith & McLellan, 2023), and family achievement guilt, or “feelings of discomfort with one’s college success” (Covarrubias, et al., 2015, pg. 2031). Further, first-generation learners experience barriers to seeking mental health support (Smith & McLellan, 2023; Stebleton et al., 2014). As instructors, we can openly acknowledge that students are emotional beings, normalize attending to mental health, and increase awareness of mental health resources.

How?

We can demonstrate that we care about our learners’ mental well-being in sustainable ways:

• Normalize attending to mental health by asking students to respond to an anonymous survey that simply asks ‘How are you doing today?’ See this Faculty Focus article for an example of how an instructor did this in her class on a regular basis and used the results to discuss the class’s well-being over time.
• Add a statement in your syllabus that guides students to mental health resources on campus. Use a tone that encourages help-seeking behavior and acts to dismantle the stigma around mental health. For example, consider this phrase from this University of Michigan resource: “seeking help is a courageous thing to do for yourself and those who care about you.”
• Be aware of Rutgers mental health resources available to students (such as Uwill and CAPS Mental Health Services) and share these on your syllabus, in your Canvas course, and through announcements and individual meetings as necessary. Refer to the SAS Sample Syllabus Format for an up-to-date list of student resources.
• Not sure how to help? If you believe you should do something to help, refer to this Rutgers website for guidance on how to do so: Do Something To Help – Share A Concern!

References

Covarrubias, R., Romero, A., & Trivelli, M. (2015). Family achievement guilt and mental well-being of college students. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 24(7), 2031–2037. 10.1007/s10826-014-0003-8

Lipson, S. K., Diaz, Y., Davis, J., & Eisenberg, D. (2023). Mental health among first-generation college students: Findings from the national healthy minds study, 2018-2021. Cogent Mental Health, 2(1)10.1080/28324765.2023.2220358

Smith, D., & McLellan, R. (2023). Mental health problems in first‐generation university students: A scoping review. Review of Education, 11(3), n/a. 10.1002/rev3.3418

Stebleton, M. J., Soria, K. M., & Huesman Jr, R. L. (2014). First-generation students’ sense of belonging, mental health, and use of counseling services at public research universities. Journal of College Counseling, 17(1), 6–20. 10.1002/j.2161-1882.2014.00044.x

Totonchi, D. A., Tibbetts, Y., Williams, C. L., Francis, M. K., DeCoster, J., Lee, G. A., Hull, J. W., & Hulleman, C. S. (2023). The cost of being first: Belonging uncertainty predicts math motivation and achievement for first-generation, but not continuing-generation, students. Learning and Individual Differences, 107, 102365. 10.1016/j.lindif.2023.102365