Introduction
Relationships matter.
Authentic, welcoming relationships between students and faculty are the heart beat of student success.
The primary determinant of a quality education is the teaching and learning relationship between faculty and students. Effective student/faculty interactions are correlated with increased retention and completion rates, better grades and standardized test scores, and higher career and graduate school aspirations.1
The 4 Connections help faculty build such relationships with students.
A Brief Overview of the 4 Connections
The 4 Connections are simple practices that many faculty members already apply to build relationships with their students. Perhaps their beauty is that they are the least revolutionary student success intervention you will ever hear about - and that is awesome! The power of The 4 Connections comes from your commitment to practice them intentionally and to continuously improve how you apply each of the practices to your interactions with students.
Interact with Students by Name
Learn your students' names and begin using them on the first day of class and throughout the quarter.
Check In Regularly
Pay attention to student behavior and track student progress. Empathize with students. When a student is struggling, intervene. Refer students to campus resources.
Schedule One-on-One Meetings
During the course of the quarter, schedule required one-on-one meetings with students.
Practice Paradox
Structure your course clearly. Communicate your expectations regularly. Then, be reasonably flexible when students come to you with concerns.
Background
The 4 Connections come from the Drop Rate Improvement Program at Odessa College in Texas. Their student outcome data revealed that a large percentage of students were withdrawing from courses. So with help from Achieving the Dream, they began looking at volumes of data and analytics, and found that differences in course drop rates differed significantly across instructors, and that the reason for those differences didn’t have anything to do with what we might expect: such as the subject, course, time of day, level of rigor, or students’ level of preparedness.
Long story short, they determined that drop rates were not a function of instructors’ teaching methods, but rather a common thread of connectivity to their students. From there, they identified four relational areas that were found to significantly increase their pass rates.
Lake Washington Institute of Technology has named these relational areas The 4 Connections. Their use appears to correlate with both increased pass rates and sharply narrowing (if not coming close to closing) equity gaps around pass rates.
Here at Highline, we have Faculty Inquiry Groups that meet regularly to work on practicing the 4 Connections intentionally.
You can read more about Odessa's development of the framework in a white paper published by Achieving the Dream. The Drop Rate Improvement Program at Odessa College
1 The future of undergraduate education, the future of America. American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2017.