NASPA Western Regionals

Learning Domains: Education and Social Justice & Advocacy

Description: My research team and I presented a workshop about the experiences of 10 first generation-transfer students at Cal State Fullerton at the NASPA Western Regional Conference. This presentation included an overview of definitions, original research and key themes, a case study and discussion, and implications and recommendations. This research project was the result of a spring semester course in the MSHE program. Although I had presented at previous conferences, this was the first time I had shared original research on a student population for the length of a 50 minute concurrent session. From start to finish, developing the research and presenting spanned a period of 10 months.

Term: Fall 2018

Learning Outcomes:

1. SWiBAT demonstrate appropriate preparation and planning for the research project in collaboration with team members.

2. SWiBAT compare and contrast presentation style with other workshops.

Assessment Rubric:

Reflection:

For SLO #1 I would rate myself as Competent because I was able to demonstrate preparation and planning for the research project in collaboration with team members and rehearsed the presentation prior. For example, I discussed with our research team the possibility of submitting a conference proposal for our research back in January when we were first starting this project. Once the conference proposal site was available, I checked into see if my research team was still interested in submitting a proposal. After they were, I worked with them to draft an outline of the presentation and answer the supplemental questions and shared a draft with one of our professors to get feedback. Once our proposal was accepted in the summer, I organized a meeting for us to review whether we were still interested in the presentation direction submitted before and set working deadlines to prepare for the presentation.

Preparation for the presentation included designing a handout, an interactive activity, and PowerPoint presentation. We divided the work among ourselves and made moderate progress and regrouped after the Maywood Education Fair with follow up on specific tasks-designing and printing materials, finalizing the PowerPoint, and developing/finalizing the case study. After we had narrowed our focus for the presentation itself, I delved into the databases to find a few more articles that discussed transfer capital. Moser’s “Exploring the Impact of Transfer Capital on Community College Transfer Students” was a valuable article because it included an updated framework for transfer capital that had the additional constructs: a) staff validation, (b) faculty validation, (c) faculty mentoring, (d) formal collaboration with faculty, (e) financial knowledge, (f) coping style: active, (g) coping style: social, (h) motivation and self-efficacy, and (i) social support that was valuable in providing greater insight into the wealth these students have. I shared these resources with my research team and one of my team members highlighted other important sections for us to focus on. Once we were at the NASPA WRC, I scoped out the room and met with my group to review our presentation in person and give feedback. This was an excellent opportunity for us to practice the way in which we were going to present and receive feedback from our peers. This helped tremendously so that our presentation flowed the following day. We also practiced how we would handle potential questions from the audience. Although we wanted to review the entire presentation with a professional staff member, the timing did not end up aligning.

When comparing and contrasting our presentation style with those of other workshops, I would rate myself between Basic and Competent of SLO #2 because I was able to find similarities and differences and touched upon how it could be used from a social justice lens but did not fully expand upon it. For example, I attended a workshop about imposter syndrome and the experiences of various Asian American groups. The first workshop on imposter syndrome had some interaction with conference participants through discussion with an individual nearby us as well as a larger group discussion about ways to combat imposter syndrome while the second workshop discussed the experiences of Southeast Asian groups and engaged the audience through quick and fun polls with interactive questions. Our presentation was somewhere in the middle of interaction since we had a combination of individual reading and reflection, small group discussion, and large group discussion in addition to a question and answer period. It could have been helpful for our research team if we had tech engagement through a platform similar to PollEverywhere since this website has been inconsistent in the past but effective when it worked. Although we gave workshop participants with a list of our themes it could have been helpful to include a list of resources in addition to the references provided because it can be difficult for individuals to apply what they have learned from a workshop.

References

Moser, K. M. (n.d). Exploring the impact of transfer capital on community college transfer students. First-Year Experience & Students in Transition, 25(2), pp. 53-75

Evidence: Please view pictures above and PowerPoint slides.