Thriving in College and Beyond: Research-Based Strategies for Academic Success and Personal Development

Thriving in College and Beyond: Research-Based Strategies for Academic Success and Personal Development delivers content through modalities that are both visual and emotional. Snapshot summary boxes, concept maps, humorous illustrations, authors’ experiences, content-relevant quotes from successful people in multiple fields, and first-hand perspectives of current college students appear throughout.

Distinctive Features Include:

• It’s comprehensive – it covers the full range of topics and issues that affect student success. Thriving in College and Beyond treats the student as a whole person, addressing academic and personal development and encompasses the whole college experience, including success strategies that can be used in the first year of college and beyond. It’s written by a diverse team of authors who work in both the 2-year and 4-year college sectors.
• It’s substantive – it contains content that the readers can “sink their teeth into.” It educates students not only about what they should do to be successful, but also why they should do it. This edition of Thriving in College and Beyond contains updated research and scholarly references supporting the concepts and strategies presented.
• It’s engaging - readers become actively involved in the reading process by responding to reflection questions at three key points in time: before reading – questions at the start of each chapter that activate the reader’s thinking and prior knowledge about the chapter topic; while reading – periodic questions that encourage the reader to pause and reflect on what was just read; and after reading – end-of-chapter exercises that promote consolidation and application of knowledge acquired from the chapter.

New to the 4^th edition of Thriving in College and Beyond:

• New electronic self-assessment instruments are integrated into the textbook that enable students to assess their personality traits, learning styles and career interests, and inform students how the results may be used to guide their educational and vocational decisions.
• New topics: Grit and growth mindset, Campus safety, and Identity theft.
• Updated end-of-chapter resources
• Additional end-of-chapter exercises

Adopting instructors are provided comprehensive professional development materials including research-based guidelines for course design, delivery, and assessment. The extensive Instructor’s Manual includes:

• Information on course planning, topic placement/sequencing, and syllabus design.
• Strategies for incentivizing and ensuring that students read the book.
• Specific learning objectives to guide student reading that align directly with test-bank questions.
• Step-by-step instructional directions for in-class exercises and out-of-class assignments that engage students in active, interactive, and collaborative learning.

Detailed strategies for course and program evaluation, including course-embedded strategies for assessing student learning outcomes, pre/post assessment instrument designed to measure positive changes in student knowledge, behaviors, and attitudes, plus student and instructor course-evaluation surveys.

A concise version of this textbook is also available for 1- or 2-credit courses. Thriving in College & Beyond: Concise Version