WWU Freshmen Student-Athlete Workshop Design

Project
Developed By: Sydney Donaldson
This workshop series was designed from the idea of creating a course series
that would aid freshmen student athletes transition into becoming a
successful student-athlete. The following will provide a deeper understanding
of the course design as well as keys to a successful implementation of the
WWU student-athlete workshop series.

Instructional Methods
This course is designed as a series of various workshops. Each workshop
focuses on a different subject and only that subject. Student-athletes who
participate in the course have a choice at the beginning of the quarter which
workshops they are interested in taking. Before selecting his or her
workshop(s), each student will take a Self-Confidence Course-Related survey.
This survey will help determine which areas have the potential for most
improvement as well as the areas of greatest interest for each individual.

Due to the hectic schedule of student-athletes the course was designed so

that each workshop is only meets two times. When designing the course it
was thought that students would take 2-3 various workshops throughout the
quarter, dependent on their schedule as well as their survey results. Each
workshop focuses on a different skill or method that will help address areas
of interest for the students. It is very important to keep in mind the main
goal for the course of aiding student athletes to become successful student
athletes. Success is defined individually and not every athlete will take away
as much as others. However the course was designed with the idea of
changing the experience for the athletes in a positive way, not matter how
small or large that change may be.

The workshops are designed to be taught in a fairly informal setting. As all

assessments and assignments are self-referenced, meaning they are simply
graded on the extent to which the individuals goals are met. As stated
earlier, not all results will be the same and that is ok, more importantly that
is the goal. The curriculum was designed to take pressure off of the students
to create a comfortable learning environment where students feel safe
admitting areas they lack confidence in and learning methods to improve
their self-confidence.

Workshops will be taught in a lecture, student-discussion methodology. The

first class of the workshop will be more lecture work by the instructor along
with class discussion and peer learning. The second meeting of each
workshop will be a lot of sharing and group reflection on the material taught.
Learning activities that help students practice the skills they are taught will
also be a main part of meeting #2. Because of the informal format of the
workshops, the instructional structure is very loose and can be transformed
depending on the number of students as well as the particular subject of the
workshop.

Sequence
Before students will select which workshops they are most interested in,
each athlete will take a Course-Related Self-Confidence survey which will
help athletes identify which areas could most use improvement as well as
which areas of the workshop series interests them the most. An adaption of
this survey is below in the Instructional Materials section. The survey is very
opened ended and can be altered by the instructor if need be. The goal of
the survey is to start the reflection process for the student-athletes as well as
aid them in identifying which courses they could really use. These questions
will help direct students toward the two themes of workshop courses as well
as specific workshops.

Throughout the quarter length workshop series, all students will also have
two assessments. A so called midterm report in which every student will
pick a topic within one of their workshops at the time, for example a student
athlete could be in the Healthy Sleep Cycle workshop course during that time
period, and could choose to do a report on the effects sleep patterns have on
student athletes. The goal of this mid-term report is for students to practice
research skills (including a small literature review) and presenting in front of
a group they are familiar with. Each student will present their report in front
of their team. The second assessment is a final summative paper due at the
end of the quarter. This paper will serve as a reflection piece for all students
enrolled in the workshop series, no matter how many, or which workshop
courses they partook in. Each athlete will answer prompts through the
quarter then use those to reflect back upon for their final reflective paper.
More information of both of these assessments can be found in Instructional
Materials.

There are two major themes of the workshop series, Time Management Skills
& Transition to College Athletics. Both of these themes were developed from
Needs Assessment surveys as well as interviews with coaches and athletic
department administration at WWU. There will be a total of three 2-meeting
workshops under each theme. By offering a few workshop courses under
each theme, students can decided if they would like to take multiple
workshops under one theme or one from both themes, that is the beauty of
the course design.
The Time Management Workshops feature these three courses:
1. Identifying & Prioritizing Goals
2. Creating and Maintaining a Healthy Sleep Cycle
3. Creating a Healthy Balance Between School, Sports & Social Life

Transitioning to College Academics Workshops feature these three courses:

1. Learning to Build Relationships with Professors
2. Creating Productive Study Habits
3. Self-Assessment of Learning Habits

In order for the athletes to have flexibility in there workshop choices, all six
courses would ideally be offered at different times throughout the quarter so
students have the option to attend more than one. The sequence of the
workshops are less structured compared to a more traditional curriculum
design. Because the students can pick which courses they are interested in,
it may make sense to have one course before a student enrolls in another.
The sequence of the courses is also dependent on the number of students
interested in a course, if it makes sense to have a particular course first in
the quarter due to high numbers of interest, it is under the instructors
discretion to do so. This was purposeful in the development of the course. To
aid both the instructor as well as the students, being able to morph the
workshop schedule to what best fits your students will ideally aid in interest
and development for the students.

Instructional Example
This instructional example is adapted from an activity that would be done in
the Learning to Build Relationships with Professors workshop. This specific
workshop was designed based off of my experience as well as results from
coaches and administration. When athletes are in season and traveling every
other week for competition, it can cause a serious strain on their academics.
As an athletic department, WWU has set standards in which their athletes
must follow, however these standards are not always followed. In this
workshop students will learn the importance of developing a relationship with
professors so they can openly communicate about missing class, create
opportunities to make up work for missing class and most importantly
showing their professors their investment in the courses. An activity that can
aid in students learning how to communicate with professors is Role-Playing.

For this particular workshop a role-play scenario would be set up where a

student is having a discussion with a professor about missing a presentation
and the professor begins to get angry. Most professors are often
understanding and accommodating if students are open and willing to work
with them, however sometimes situations can turn sour. By having student-
athletes partake in a scenario such as this, they gain practice in word
selection, how they choose to communicate with the professor, as well as
working on plans with their professor who is upset. This process may seem
silly, but it is very applicable for the athletes. Because this is a freshman
athlete designed course, the students most likely do not have a lot of
experience in speaking with professors professionally, especially not in tricky
situations. For this activity the instructor would work on a dialog with a
student, the instructor first being the student, while the student plays the
role of a professor. That way the student can see how the instructor (whos
playing the student) might handle the scenario. After a few minutes of
dialogue, the student and the instructor would switch roles. The goal of this
activity is to get students comfortable speaking with their professors as well
as practice of being in an uncomfortable conversation and speaking points
on how to handle it if it ever comes up.

Time Allocation
This workshop course was designed to take place during an 11-12 week
academic quarter. With each workshop course only meeting two times, the
sequencing of the courses is at the discretion of the instructor. When
designing the curriculum I used WWU 2016 Spring Quarter as an example
time frame. If a workshop course met for the first time on a Monday, the
second meeting would be exactly one week later. Because there is a total of
six workshops, if each workshop is spaced out amongst two weeks, that
results in one workshop per two weeks of a 12 week quarter. If an academic
quarter is shorter, for example Winter quarter is typically a week shorter,
then two workshops could take place during the same two week period.
Below is an example schedule of the six workshops during WWUs Spring
Quarter

Week/ Date Workshop

1- Tuesday March Identifying & Prioritizing Goals Workshop #1
29th
2- Tuesday April 5th Identifying & Prioritizing Goals Workshop #2
3- Monday April 11th Learning to Build Relationships with Professors
Workshop #1

4- Monday April 18th Learning to Build Relationships with Professors

Workshop #2
5- Wednesday April Creating and Maintaining a Healthy Sleep Cycle
20th Workshop #1
*Research Report
6- Wednesday April Creating and Maintaining a Healthy Sleep Cycle
27th Workshop #2

7- Monday May 2nd Creating Productive Study Habits Workshop #1

8- Monday May 9th Creating Productive Study Habits Workshop #2

9- Thursday May Creating a Healthy Balance Between School, Sports &
12th Social Life

10-Thursday May Creating a Healthy Balance Between School, Sports &

19th Social Life

11- Tuesday May Self-Assessment of Learning Habits

24th
12- Tuesday May Self-Assessment of Learning Habits
31st
Monday June 6th Final Summative Paper Due

This is an example schedule of how the various workshops could be

sequenced, however it also shows how the six workshops can easily be
spaced out across an academic quarter. Included in the schedule is the
midterm research report in week 5 as well as the summative final paper
due during finals week.

Instructional Materials

Materials needed for the course will depend on which workshop is being
conducted. A list of sample activities is provided in the workshop project
document, however in general the following materials are what should be
necessary:
Classroom with adequate room (estimated workshop sizes are 10-20
students)
Computer with projector
PowerPoint Accessibility
White board & Dry Erase Markers
Course layout including dates of workshop/schedule (see above for
example)
Access to online Web-Based for posting Self-Reflective Prompts,
because using WWU student-athletes, Canvas will be used for this
Course-Related Self- Confidence Surveys- See example in project
documents under Assessments
Directed Paraphrasing Worksheet- See example in project documents
under Assessments
Evaluation Criteria for Final Summative Paper- See example criteria in
project documents under Assessments
Time Priority Log Assignment instructions- See assignment criteria in
project document under Assignments
Research Report Assignment instructions- See assignment criteria in
project document under Assignments
All Learning Activities- See instructions and examples in project
document under Learning Activities