Reflections to Boost Graduate Student Belonging

Basic Information

Time Required

Prep: 40 min
In-Class: 30 min
Out-of-class: 0 min

Context

Department/Area: Physics
Affiliation: UT Austin
Class size: 1-30 students

Author(s)

Anna Tenerani

Other Contributors

Eric N Smith (Editor)
Jonathan Perry (Reviewer)

Practice Overview

Students complete writing activities throughout the semester to help them connect their career goals and personal values to the course. These reflections can build comfort and connection with the instructor, fostering belonging.

Downloadable Resources

✍️ Graduate Writing Reflections (docx)

My Story

I like to connect with the students and have some knowledge of who they are as people. This allows me to be aware of possible hardships that can affect their academic outcomes and adapt my course as needed (for example, adding flexibility in homework deadlines). It also clues me into what their interests are so I can provide ad-hoc examples in class.

Although at a more advanced educational stage than undergraduates, graduate students can still face hardships in graduate school, particularly in time management and balancing between their professional and personal lives. In addition, advanced graduate courses are often interdisciplinary and students from physics to engineering and astronomy may be enrolled in my courses. This may lead to a lack of sense of belonging for students without a physics degree, who may worry that the course material will be too challenging for them and they are concerned that they will not be successful in the course.

I implemented a series of writing reflections that were designed to establish a frank dialogue between the instructor (myself) and the class to start identifying and addressing these issues.

What does this practice look like?

Three writing reflections guide students to reflect on their professional and personal goals, on potential obstacles, and on possible strategies to overcome those obstacles. These were inspired by this Learning Activities for Purpose website. You can find the full prompts I used in the “Downloadable Resources” section above.

1st week. The overarching aim of the first writing reflection is for students to identify career goals, how graduate school will contribute to their goals, what obstacles they think may impact their success in graduate school or this course. Students are guided through four questions,
Mid-semester. The second writing reflection aims to relate their career goals with personal purpose by identifying potential conflicts and consider says to resolve them. It starts by asking the to reflect on their responses to the first reflection and consider what they find beautiful/interesting about their work and whether it is fulfilling their own personal sense of purpose. They then select values that are important to them and identify any values that may conflict with their career goals, and one step they could take to resolve or minimize this conflict.
Last week of classes. The last writing activity aims to normalize the struggles students are having and get students’ perspectives on what might help future students. This takes the form of a letter on whatever they would like a future student to know about how not to give up when difficulties arise and continue moving forward towards their goals. They were asked specifically about their initial concerns, how the course contributed to their goals, and how they overcame obstacles.

How did it impact students?

Students were very open in sharing their aspirations in life and expectations from the course. Students shared some of their worries and struggles in graduate school, and this information allowed me to adapt some of the content and teaching approach to reach the whole class. This had a tremendous impact on my own motivation to give the best in the course and support my students. I also felt more connected to the students I was interacting with during the semester.

I also noticed that after the writing reflections, students were more comfortable asking for letters of recommendation because I knew much more about their professional and personal goals than other professors.

I had polled students using the PERTS Ascend survey at three time points throughout the term. The largest shift was in students' feelings of belonging from 50% reporting certainty about their belonging early in the term to 71% near the end of the term. I also saw positive changes in nearly every item on student experiences in the course, including institutional growth mindset (82% to 89%), trust and fairness (86% to 93%), and self-efficacy (64% to 71%).

Implementation Tips and Resources

I supplemented this activity with other types of practices aimed at promoting growth mindset and purpose in graduate school students, including (1) updating my syllabus and (2) updating my homework policy.

I updated my syllabus to address concerns about content level and that promotes a sense of group effort. For example, I started with this message:

“Welcome to Plasma II! […] we will cover some challenging topics that will require more or less effort on your part depending on your background preparation […]. However, nothing will be given for granted. We will build up our knowledge starting from…”

I also describe the new homework policy in my syllabus:

“No matter where you start, everyone can improve and grow with effort, using the right strategies. We believe that making mistakes is part of the learning process, and that learning from those mistakes provides an invaluable opportunity to grow and to gain a deeper understanding of the subject matter. If your homework contains errors, you are welcome to come to extra office hours and solve the homework problem(s) at the blackboard. 50% of the lost points per problem will be credited back if we talk through the problem together and you can identify any errors made."

This resource was produced as part of the MMI Physics Fellowship. You can find additional resources provided as part of these Fellowships at the MM4SS Canvas Site.