The Role of Noncognitive Skills in College Completion May 10, 2013

1. The Role of Noncognitive Skills in College CompletionMay 10, 2013 LINDA KNICELY DIRECTOR OF TRAINING & PARTNERSHIPS THE OHIO COLLEGE ACCESS NETWORK

2. Webinar Description When did you last read a 200 page book in under sixty minutes? Everyone’s buzzing about journalist Paul Tough’s bestselling book How Children Succeed, so join us for our May 10th webinar and check that off your bucket list as we “unpack” it in an interesting and engaging manner. More importantly, hear the most current thinking (and the research behind it) about soft skills-noncognitive skills-social capital-executive functioning (choose your own label) and how vital it is that we, as youth advocates, realize their integral role in successful college completion.

3. Introductions and Housekeeping Details • All webinar attendees are muted by default. • There are two ways to ask questions during the webinar – you may “raise your hand” and the organizer will unmute you to ask your question to the group OR you can chat your question – privately to the organizer who will relay it to the presenter(s) on your behalf. • Due to the amount of material we are covering in this webinar, we will hold questions to the end. • This webinar will be recorded. Instructions about how to access the recording will be provided at the end of the webinar.

7. CHAPTER 1 How To Fail (and How Not To)

8. neglect ABUSE TRAUMA FAMILY DISFUNCTION

9. PTQ (Paul Tough Quote) “The part of the brain most affected by early stress is the prefrontal cortex, which is critical in self-regulatory activities of all kinds, both emotional and cognitive. As a result, children who grow up in stressful environments generally find it harder to concentrate, harder to sit still, harder to rebound from disappointments, and harder to follow directions. And that has a direct effect on their performance in school.” PDQ (Pretty Darn Quick)

10. ACE score AND EVEN MORE HEALTH PROBLEMS ACE score HEART DISEASE DRUG AND ALCOHOL ADDICTION ACE score ACE score CHRONIC DISEASE ACE score

11. Stress… Responsibilities… Pressure…

12. Working memory: A particular executive-function skill that refers to the ability to keep a bunch of facts in your head at the same time.

16. PTQ “We now know that early stress and adversity can literally get under a child’s skin, where it can cause damage that lasts a lifetime. But there is also some positive news in this research. It turns out that there is a particularly effective antidote to the ill effects of early stress, and it comes not from pharmaceutical companies or early-childhood educators but from parents.” PDQ

17. CHAPTER 1 How To Fail (and How Not To) CHAPTER 2 How to Build Character

18. Metacognitive strategy: An educational process that incorporates knowledge about one's abilities, the demands of given tasks, and potentially effective learning strategies; it involves self-regulation via planning, predicting, monitoring, regulating, evaluating, and revising strategies. Thinking about the way one thinks

20. PTQ “The students who persisted in college were not necessarily the ones who had excelled academically . . . . Instead, they seemed to be the ones who possessed certain other gifts, skills like optimism and resilience and social agility. They were the students who were able to recover from bad grades and resolve to do better next time; who could bounce back from unhappy breakups or fights with their parents; who could persuade professors to give them extra help after class; who could resist the urge to go out to the movies and instead stay home and study.” PDQ

24. http://www.kipp.org/files/dmfile/KIPPCharacterGrowthCardandSupportingMaterials.pdfhttp://www.kipp.org/files/dmfile/KIPPCharacterGrowthCardandSupportingMaterials.pdf

25. Don’t Eat the Marshmallow!

26. The Grit Scale • The Harvard Education Report about “Grit”

28. If/then statement “If I get distracted by TV after school, then I will wait to watch TV until after I finish my homework.”

29. Growth mindset people Academic Progress Fixed mindset people

30. CHAPTER 2 How to Build Character CHAPTER 3 How to Think

31. Executive functions: include becoming more aware of one’s thought processes, understanding where mistakes were made, and thinking flexibly about how to overcome those mistakes.

32. Life Chess is

33. PTQ “Two of the most important executive functions are cognitive flexibility and cognitive self-control. Cognitive flexibility is the ability to see alternative solutions to problems, to think outside the box, to negotiate unfamiliar situations. Cognitive self-control is the ability to inhibit an instinctive or habitual response and substitute a more effective, less obvious one.” PDQ

35. CHAPTER 3 How to Think CHAPTER 4 How to Succeed

37. College Completion Agenda

38. PTQ “Standardized-test scores were predicted by scores on pure IQ tests and . . . GPA was predicted by scores on tests of self-control. Put [these] findings together with [additional research], and you reach a rather remarkable conclusion: whether or not a student is able to graduate from a decent American college doesn’t necessarily have all that much to do with how smart he or she is. It has to do, instead, with that same list of character strengths that produce high GPAs in middle school and high school.” PDQ

41. Resourcefulness Ambition Integrity Professionalism Resilience

43. 1961: 24 2003: 14 2012: <13

44. Frame Time Magical

45. CHAPTER 4 How to Succeed CHAPTER 5 A Better Path