A faculty development lesson in helping college students succeed..

In a faculty development class I took a while back, we discussed the importance of ‘Six P’s’ in determining student success, and I thought it might be valuable to online instructors to see how these can help out in not just the face-to-face classroom, but also in the online classroom.

The Six P’s are:

• Place- do I belong here, physically, virtually
• Purpose- why am I here
• Pathway- path to a goal/curriculum
• Plan- make the pathway your own
• Preparation- do I have mastery over the knowledge I need to get to the next step
• Personal connection- a person who made a difference

I incorporate the Six Ps in my classroom by making sure the online environment (or face-to-face classroom, at other schools) is a safe, and supportive place for them. I encourage positive feedback from peers, and collaboration whenever possible. I have had countless students tell me their assigned “group” that semester, gave them encouragement to keep going when life and work got stressful.

Students are also able to answer the question, “Why am I here?” somewhat easily in a public speaking course. Their purpose for being in the course is to do well in their next interview, get a promotion at their current job, or learn a valuable skill that will help them as an employee or employer in a very hands-on way throughout the semester (by delivering and critiquing their own professionally delivered speeches).  We also establish the importance of communicating effectively in relationships, whether they be personal or work related, and students are able to quickly determine their own unique purpose from that.

The pathway in the course is straightforward, since the majority of the curriculum is about building and organizing an effective message with effective delivery. Students know that well executed speeches are the way to success in the course, and I’ve had students create some pretty great plans to make it their own. Since students can pick whatever topic they’d like (as long as it’s appropriate, professional, and follows the general rubric), I’ve had some students get creative: one chose to give a speech about “being financially smart” to high school students, another gave a speech to the employees at her bar about “when to cut people off,” and for my students in online classes that are YouTube personalities (yes, with subscribers and a fan base- times have changed!), they make goals to turn their classroom speeches into something they can use in their own online business.

In terms of preparation, my students know they must prepare in order to master the Introduction Speech before moving on to the Informative Speech, and the Informative Speech before moving on to the Persuasive Speech, since each of these assignments build on the other as the students read the text and progress. At the end of term, I believe they feel prepared to take on group project presentations in other classes, and/or presentations at work.

Lastly, I’ve also had students email to let me know that my encouragement and honest feedback of their work made them try harder, and also made them feel proud of what they were accomplishing. I’m not always the person that made a difference for them, but it feels great when I can make that kind of impact!

Consider how you can use the Six P’s to help students in your own classroom.

Happy teaching!