Whole Person Approach

Marty Martin:

So let me go back to the whole person approach, you could be a faculty member, could be an advisor, you could be a staff member, is really trying to remember is academic success is more than a GPA. Academic success is more than a score that you got and it cannot be fully captured by the rubric, in how well someone did with the rubric.

So what you really want to do is focus on is the process of learning and the process of growth, particularly for the undergraduates, because for the undergraduates, it’s more than just intellectual development, it’s holistic development. And even too, if you have adult students, we’re continually developing. So you really want to think about, I have this whole person in front of me and not just functioning on, I have to teach them calculus, period, that has nothing to do with anything else.

So some more concrete strategies is offer feedback. So the feedback is more than just marking the assignment. And then in general, our society’s moving towards individualized and personalized feedback. So really talk about the process by which they approach the assignment, did the assignment. And if indeed their grade is less than what they think it is, then in a lot of cases, what I will do is help them well, help me understand what would be the difference between a 97 and a 98 and explore those conversations.

So again, I think it’s very important is you have a whole person approach, because when you have that, what you will find is, is that many students may share more of themselves.