From Overwhelmed to Organized: Helping Students Develop Effective Assignment Management Strategies
Yvette Strong, Bronx Community College
Bio
Yvette Strong is from the Northeast Bronx. She has been involved in Education, Criminal Justice, and Campus Safety. Yvette earned her Bachelor of Arts Degree of Criminal Justice from John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Masters of Art in Political Science-Urban Planning and Administration, with a concentration in Urban Policy and Administration from Brooklyn College. Yvette is also a NYS Certified Mediator and Certified FINRA Arbitrator. She has worked in both the public and private industry for more than forty years. Yvette worked with law enforcement agencies. Yvette has worked at CUNY since 2019, as a College NOW Adjunct Professor. She was an LIBI Adjunct Professor instructing Homeland Security. Yvette is a Mother of two adult children.
Course Setting
I’ve been teaching off campus from BCC, at three Bronx High Schools. I teach the Freshman Year Seminar (FYS). I’m extremely passionate about teaching this course regarding the college experience, which include the college/scholarship application, FAFSA, essays, interviews, graduation regarding, handling stress, test taking, and so much more. The students are so receptive and ask many questions about college choices, campus life and impact of social media.
Problem of Practice
How can I support students who need to manage several assignments/tasks with matching deadlines? What tools and resources are useful? What examples can be shared with the students? The students were given different methods to handle their POP using the Classroom Assessment tools (CATS), often when students write down assignments, they are not kept in a central location. So students are encouraged to keep an assignment book, to ask questions, take quizzes, so they have measuring sticks as to how they are doing. This is done as they are creating and completing their assignments, and they are also asked to delete the assignment off their list once done.
These methods allow the students to see their progress immediately. The students also said it has reduced their stress levels, once assignments are completed.
Strategy
Students would be asked to create/chart calendar digitally or written planners, with notifications and make progress notations to follow all assignments as shared in our task chunking lesson. 2.This will allow the students to organize/prioritize assignments based on required work to facilitate completion. Using the Eisenhower tools to strategize on Brightspace to track progress.. 3. This allows the students to reflect on decision strategies. 4. Examples of how to select assignments which require the least research and completion time first, and follow that pattern.
Documentation
Essay Rubric
This rubric describes how to measure what you have done and what still needs to be completed. The purpose of creating the rubric was to have students visually reflect on how much they have in total, and the progress as they make it. The students comments made were they realized having options on which assignments to complete reduces stress and realized that all the work was accomplishable. This exercise helped build confidence that with additional structure obstacles are movable.
Figure #1: FYS Multi Assignments Rubric
Students from M/W Class at Work
This class photo shows the students actively engaging in work as teams to resolve the POP. This photo conveys students working on how to create a content calendar and determining the best calendar style for their assignments.
Figure #2: Students from M/W Class at Work
Measuring Impact
Assignments Grades
This is a snapshot of my students’ Brightspace final scores. It shows over the course of the semester the improvement most of the students showed using new strategies. Prior to implementing the strategies students reported concerns. Two weeks after learning that stated the assignments were being done quicker and with less errors.
Figure #3: Assignments Grades
Student Feedback: Survey Results
The survey question was about mindmapping which is a technique to help students create visual diagrams organizing their information and ideas about the concepts they are creating. This was introduced to the students and they loved knowing this was actually familiar to some of the students, without them knowing the formal name of the concept.
This survey result shows that students had knowledge and were able to brainstorm ideas in a manner that showed their progress in a positive format. They activated prior knowledge into assignments, had actionable targets and kept track of by asking themselves, what are my goals with this assignment.
Figure #4: Student Feedback: Survey Results
Analysis
This strategy chosen for POP was a successful tool for the students, they stated once they learned their new strategies and started using them they immediately saw the difference. Assignments were being completed, they said stress was reduced and they had more time with other things they enjoyed. Also I saw my assignments were turned in before the actual due dates.
In the classroom students were asking more questions for solutions to other concerns they had, like asking parents or teachers sensitive matters. The level of trust they had in me grew stronger. It was amazing the various conversations my students had with me, especially the four that sat in the front of the room at the table to my right.
The assessment used showed the increase of progress in the majority of the students' experiences and they shared how much they learned during the semester.
The one challenge that continued was that during the 14th week of class a student asked me if she still could not get into Brightspace and would I reopen the assignments she missed. Well, since I had technical support with the students several times, I had to say negative, it was very disappointing for this request.
However, this also reminds me to check in individually when a student has not done their assignments to make sure there are no issues.
Recommendation
To my fellow College Now colleagues: I would say embrace the new strategies this program offers such as metacognition, which allows students to use mental techniques using their learn how to plan, evaluate and monitor how they process their learning.. They became more active learners with these new strategies. It was a real lightbulb turner brighter. Learning improved the students retention of necessary material and developed and learned additional problem solving skills. If I can share the reactions students had, it was so exciting to watch, before class started asking me specific questions regarding the progress and how they were using these new techniques in their personal life as well as improving academic excellence. Colleagues when students start engaging with you about how they are building confidence and success and saying thank you for the class is huge. I’m grateful for every semester I get to teach and this semester for me to learn more to help my students become even more successful.
Resources
I would say embrace AI tools for student improvement such as: creating polls using Google or Slido, Classkick for engagement and Flip to allow students to respond via video. Edutopia can also be useful to activate prior subject knowledge.
