James Cooper: Student Engagement is Key to Academic Success

James Cooper, professor of graduate education, has had an article published in Exchanges, the electronic journal of the California State University system. “A Baker's Dozen Strategies to Foster Student Engagement,” is based on a keynote speech that Cooper gave at the 9th Annual CSU Conference on Teaching and Learning in April 2006.

“Student engagement is a challenge for many reasons,” says Cooper. “On commuter campuses, students are often not engaged campus life as much as at residential campuses. Often students are only on campus during their classes, thus, what happens in class is essential. Alexander Astin (professor emeritus, Higher Education and Organizational Change, UCLA) reports that interaction with other students and with faculty are the best predictors of many outcomes, such as appreciation of diversity, critical thinking, and the likelihood of going to graduate school.”

Cooper leads a seminar for first-year faculty at CSUDH, applying the methods that he teaches K-12 teacher candidates to the classrooms of university professors. The seminar introduces participants to the teaching strategies that he describes in the article, such as group learning, cognitive scaffolding, and students’ assessments of lessons.

“The teaching styles described in the article are essential to fostering interaction,” says Cooper. “Simply lecturing will not do this, so I recommend pairs and team work. This is not just student discussion, or getting a team together outside of class and doing a presentation. Individual accountability must be enforced, such grading students separately in a group for their individual contributions to a collective product.”

According to Cooper, one way that teaching for student engagement has had an impact is through the UNV 101 course titled “Personal, Social, and Intellectual Development,” which employs many of the methods he describes in “A Baker’s Dozen.” The class prepares incoming freshmen for four years of success with
skills such as self-knowledge and assessment, critical thinking, learning and studying, how to use University resources, and career development.

“Students taking UNV 101 have a much higher retention rate into the second year of college than students who did not take the class,” Cooper notes. “The group and interactive teaching strategies used in UNV 101 promote a learning community among students, a community that encourages students’ caring for one another
and taking responsibility for their mutual success, both in the class and later in their academic careers. The friendships that begin in this class continue to develop after the first semester at CSUDH, moving our students closer to what Provost Allen Mori describes as his vision of a ‘learner-centered campus.’”

- Joanie Harmon-Whetmore