A Belonging Story is a short story about a challenge that a person encountered in their academic or professional career and that made them worry about the extent to which they belonged, or fit in, in a particular context, and how they resolved or lessened that concern over time by using agentic strategies, like connecting with resources, to improve their experience.

When matriculating students have the opportunity to read, and reflect on, belonging stories attributed to upper-year college students, randomized-controlled field trials show that this can change their interpretation of early challenges in the transition to college, reducing academic outcomes gaps between racially minoritized and white students (Walton & Cohen, 2007; 2011), women and men in male-dominated engineering programs (Walton et al., 2015) and first- and continuing-generation students (Murphy et al., 2020; Yeager et al., 2016).

But it could be particularly impactful if instructors share their own belonging stories, or the belonging stories of past students, in their classes. In doing so, they provide students with a powerful framework for making sense of the common challenges that they are likely to face in rigorous academic environments. When students understand that belonging concerns are normal and not a signal that they do not belong or that they lack academic potential, students are more likely to stay engaged, seek help when they need it, and persist through academic challenges (Murdock-Perriera et al., 2019; Murphy et al., 2020).

The term social connectedness refers to the creation of bonding relationships. Feelings of connectedness are a contributing factor to students' social belonging and are essential elements of student satisfaction, academic success, and retention. Students who feel a sense of social connectedness are more likely to have better social and academic experiences during college, including higher emotional wellbeing, and better health (Jose et al., 2012; Walton et al., 2012; Yoon et al., 2012). Positive relationships - both among students and between students and instructors - can boost self-efficacy and social belonging, and promote greater engagement, academic achievement, and persistence among students (Gurin et al., 2002; Mendoza-Denton et al., 2002; Daempfle, 2003; Chang et al., 2006; Locks et al., 2008; Vogt, 2008; Micari & Pazos, 2012; Christe, 2013).

Today’s episode features the story of how educators at Northern Arizona University redesigned a gateway course at Northern Arizona University called Bio 181, that’s required for 25 majors. In doing so, they reimagined what was previously known as a “weed out course” with about 30% of students dropping out into a course that built community and established critical student to student connections, incorporated active learning strategies, and help students improve their metacognition skills. The result has been increased exam scores and fewer DFWs. Today you’ll be hearing from Bio lecturers, Ana Araya-Anchetta, Mar-Elise Hill, and also, from a returning guest, Flower Darby, in her capacity as instructional designer who partnered with Ana and Mar-Elise on the redesign.