In the Zone This Month: November 2008
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A Dozen Easy Ways to Build College Aspiration
by Kathy Cameron
Over the past academic year, The Ohio State University P-12 Project began receiving in increasingly heavier number of requests from K-8 school personnel who are increasing efforts to promote college aspiration in all students. Although there are formal programs with specific requirements for affiliation, all schools can increase their efforts to promote college aspiration among their students by doing small things that build awareness of and connections with universities.
Some practical and painless ways to build a college-connected culture at your school include the following:
- Hang up a pennant or banner from every school your teachers attended.
- Have fun competitions among classrooms, each bearing the name of a different university. This could be done in conjunction with school fundraising efforts, for example: Mrs. Smith’s Ohio State classroom has sold 1,000 more candy bars than Mr. Brown’s Michigan classroom…
- On a map of the United States (or a world map, if applicable), pinpoint the locations of the colleges your teachers attended. An alternative would be to pinpoint the locations where graduates of your school attended college, if that information is available.
- Encourage teachers to partner their classrooms with a university in an “adopt-a-classroom” relationship. The university might provide items such as brochures, pencils, posters, or banners, and the school might send notes back to the university about their dreams to attend college.
- Arrange to have a pen pal who is a college student correspond with the class through the teacher’s e-mail address. Students can ask questions of the college student, and the college student can share a little about what it is like to be in college.
- Have “college t-shirt day” and encourage students to wear a t-shirt from a college. Consider contacting colleges and requesting t-shirt donations to provide a selection of shirts for the students.
- Look for existing opportunities at a local university. The Ohio State University P-12 Project’s annual School Partnership Summary highlights many of the partnerships between Ohio State and P-12 schools.
- Be creative in lessons and look for ways to incorporate your local or “adopted” college into lessons. Vocabulary and spelling assignments can feature college words and names, essays about your local or adopted university can be incorporated into English or history lessons, and the school fight song and alma mater could be studied in music class, for example.
- If the school and university are geographically close, a visit to the university could be planned so the students could see campus or a university professor could come to your school to teach a special lesson.
- Have special dress-down days for staff where they can wear clothing from the college they attended.
- Have each classroom adopt a university and have spirit days where students dress in that college’s colors.
- Use a classroom computer to take a virtual tour of your local or adopted college campus. Take a virtual tour of Ohio State online. This is another way to link creatively to lessons. Use these virtual tours to help meet state standards such as map reading and information gathering.
The following are some of the websites available with more ideas, tips, and programs designed to promote college aspiration:
- Ohio College Access Network (www.ohiocan.org). OCAN is a unique college access system focused on the creation and sustainability of community-based college access organizations. They engage tens of thousands of high school students and adult learners, mostly first-generation college and economically disadvantaged individuals, to provide access to and success in higher education for all Ohioans.
- Know How 2 Go (www.knowhow2go.org). Know How 2 Go informs students of the steps they should be taking at various stages in their lives to prepare for college. Suggestions for middle school students, each specific year of high school, and mentors are the main focus of this college access site.
- Know How 2 Go Ohio (www.knowhow2goohio.org). A subset of the Know How 2 Go site, this site provides Ohio-specific information, such as listings of all the higher education institutions in each county.
- I KNOW I CAN (www.iknowican.org). I KNOW I CAN™ is a nonprofit organization that gives every qualified Columbus City Schools graduate the opportunity to go to college. They work to motivate students to stay in school and pursue college, advise students and parents about how to apply to college and access financial aid, help students find funding, and support students once in college to help ensure completion.
- No Excuses University (http://turnaroundschools.com/neu-network/). A network of K-8 schools that have completed a series of requirements to receive the distinction of being a No Excuses school. This program is designed to aggressively promote college readiness for every student.
