{"id":170,"date":"2017-10-23T14:08:40","date_gmt":"2017-10-23T18:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.virginiawestern.edu\/grants\/notes\/?p=170"},"modified":"2022-03-17T16:28:55","modified_gmt":"2022-03-17T20:28:55","slug":"lets-ask-students-how-might-virginia-western-boost-enrollment-and-retention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.virginiawestern.edu\/grants\/2017\/10\/lets-ask-students-how-might-virginia-western-boost-enrollment-and-retention\/","title":{"rendered":"Let&#8217;s ask students: How might Virginia Western boost enrollment and retention?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of my favorite genres of articles involve&nbsp;<strong>creativity in the schools<\/strong>, which are usually about K-12 initiatives that stretch way beyond our standardized-testing mania.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I can&#8217;t resist sharing some of my favorite ideas I&#8217;ve learned about in the last few months:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Grand Rapids Public Museum School<\/strong>, where a struggling school district opened a school *inside* a struggling museum. The museum&#8217;s collections are folded into the curriculum, and students learn through hands-on, community-based activities, including a local river-revitalization project. ( <a href=\"https:\/\/www.edutopia.org\/article\/when-your-school-is-a-museum-beth-hawkins\">More<\/a> )<\/span><\/li><li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An outdoors-oriented <strong>Forest Kindergarten<\/strong> program at a public elementary school in Georgia, which builds its curriculum around year-long research projects at each grade level. ( More )<\/span><\/li><li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Tiny Trees<\/strong>, an outdoor preschool program in Seattle, which partners with the city&#8217;s parks and recreation program to provide hands-on, nature-based experiences. ( <a href=\"http:\/\/parkways.seattle.gov\/2017\/04\/26\/connecting-kids-nature-outdoor-preschools-camps\/\">More<\/a> )<\/span><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Collecting these kind of innovative ideas is critical to my role in grants, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.virginiawestern.edu\/grants\/2017\/08\/lets-grow-ideas-and-grants-together-in-the-green-house\/\">as I&#8217;ve explained before<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Just last week, I stumbled upon this article: <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>How Schools Can Stop Killing Creativity <\/strong>(which is really just an excerpt from a new book called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Pushing-Limits-Children-Challenges-Tomorrow\/dp\/0385685386\">&#8220;Pushing the Limits.&#8221;<\/a>)<strong>&nbsp;<\/strong>I recommend reading <a href=\"https:\/\/thewalrus.ca\/how-schools-can-stop-killing-creativity\/#.WasZxxxL21d.twitter\">the entire story<\/a>, but there was one nugget, way down in the article, that relates directly to an issue we are struggling with at Virginia Western.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In an effort to boost creative problem-solving skills, a Toronto public high school introduced an <strong>&#8220;integrative thinking&#8221; methodology<\/strong> in a Creative Problem Solving business class. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In one class project, students were challenged to use this methodology <strong>to help boost their school&#8217;s enrollment<\/strong>. The details of the student solutions are not as important as the simple act of involving students with the problem.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And we have a problem. For the first time in more than 20 years, Virginia Western&#8217;s enrollment has dipped to under 11,000 students. We have a <strong>Retention Town Hall<\/strong> scheduled for Jan. 11, where faculty and staff have been encouraged to share ideas on reversing this trend. That&#8217;s more than enough time to ask our students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Asking students to help solve our biggest problems speaks to my beliefs about education <em>&#8212;<\/em> beliefs that were ignited during my undergraduate experience at <strong>George Mason University<\/strong>. In the mid-1990s, this giant commuter school in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., &nbsp;introduced a small, liberal-arts-infused program called <strong>New Century College&nbsp;<\/strong>(since renamed <a href=\"https:\/\/integrative.gmu.edu\/\">School of Integrative Studies<\/a>), which aimed to bridge the classroom with the real world. I was among the very first cohort who experienced an integrative approach that required regular group work from its students, professors from different disciplines team-teaching courses, experiential learning credits, and a senior-year portfolio centered on core competencies (communication, problem solving, critical thinking, etc.). I earned a Bachelor of Arts in Integrative Studies, which allowed me to build an English-leaning degree around my own curiosities. My experience was deeply transformative &#8230; it&#8217;s probably why I&#8217;m writing this now.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The principal <a href=\"https:\/\/thewalrus.ca\/how-schools-can-stop-killing-creativity\/#.WasZxxxL21d.twitter\">of that forward-thinking high school in Toronto<\/a> sums up my experience quite well:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;[W]hen students are given an opportunity to make a difference&#8211;when they have real problems to solve that are connected and related to community and organizations&#8211;it ignites a passion for them to engage in their learning.&#8221;<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perhaps some of us are willing to give it a try at Virginia Western?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of my favorite genres of articles involve&nbsp;creativity in the schools, which are usually about K-12 initiatives that stretch way beyond our standardized-testing mania. I can&#8217;t resist sharing some of my favorite ideas I&#8217;ve learned about in the last few months: Grand Rapids Public Museum School, where a struggling school district opened a school *inside*&hellip; <a class=\"continue\" href=\"https:\/\/www.virginiawestern.edu\/grants\/2017\/10\/lets-ask-students-how-might-virginia-western-boost-enrollment-and-retention\/\">Continue Reading<span> Let&#8217;s ask students: How might Virginia Western boost enrollment and retention?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"","author_link":"https:\/\/www.virginiawestern.edu\/grants\/author\/"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Let&#039;s ask students: How might Virginia Western boost enrollment and retention? 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