Heather Peng, an advisor with the College of Letters & Science Office of Undergraduate Advising, has developed a new approach to working with students in academic difficulty. The framework is based on 5 R’s : Reflect, Reach, Redirect, Review, and Repeat. The framework is set to fit into three appointments and progresses as follows:
Appointment 1
Reflect- Advisor helps student reflect on the factors that contributed to their current academic status. This helps to normalize failure and provides opportunity for student to learn and grow. Student can then create goals for the semester and prioritize needs.
Reach - Advisor recommends resources on campus that the student could benefit from provides encouragement to visit these resources and take advantage of the help that is out there.
Redirect - Advisor motivates student to redirect their time and energy to an action plan that is feasible and realistic: the Academic Study Plan. Advisor encourages students to make a change and try new approaches to their studies, building this into the academic study plan
***Make a follow-up appt.
Appointment 2
Review - After two weeks of testing their academic study plan, student meets with advisor to review their progress, assess what is working, and decide on what may need to be revised.
Appointment 3
Repeat (if needed) Advisor checks in with the student to assess current academic status and encourage repeating or re-evaluating the changes made.
The student outcomes of this approach are that it helps them understand their status and learn about campus resources, enables them to reflect on circumstances which impact their academics, and encourages them to set goals and create an academic study plan.