Fostering Graduate Level Student Success: What Research Says and How to Apply it in the Classroom

Victoria Landu-Adams, Jeannette M. Dubyak

The best instructors know how to engage their students from the first day of class and help them reach high levels of accomplishment in grasping difficult content, even in graduate level coursework. To create a positive learning environment, instructors must be proactive and anticipate challenges students are likely to face during the class. Whether we like to admit it or not, there are difficult courses for students to grasp within every program of study. Students’ ability to learn and retain difficult information is based on physiological, emotional, sociological, and psychological factors. Therefore, instructors need to consider incorporating appropriate classroom practices for a diversity of learners. Are you searching for innovative, quick and easy ideas to “bait” your students on the first day and “hook” them to be comfortable with anxiety-laden courses for the remainder of the course instruction? This paper will present hands-on activities that can easily be utilized in even the most difficult graduate-level subjects. These activities build positive learning environments to help ease anxiety from the first day. It will also include interactive activities that can be adapted to any subject matter at any instructional level in the higher educational setting.

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