The Pole Climber Cohort

A cohort is a group of students who have something in common and work together toward a common purpose. Education research shows, not surprisingly, that students in a close-knit cohort do better than students who are segregated, fearful, and uncertain. As I said, when you are taking Educational Psychology, this is not a surprise.

Seeing it transform a classroom is something else.

One spring semester I had a last-minute assignment for a group of Electrical Power Technicians, the workers who dig the trenches, climb the electric poles, string the cables, and restore our power during winter storms. The students needed to complete a one-credit interpersonal communications course called "Communicating Effectively" to finish off their degree. 

The course is usually a fun one to teach: lots of out-of-your-seat exercises, group work, games and puzzles all around the notion that we communicate verbally only a small part of the time and non-verbally the rest of the time. Most of the class lessons demonstrate to the students the non-verbal side of communications. I had successfully taught the course with a mixed program of students in earlier semesters and thought the class was a hoot. These students, however, had not, for whatever reason, completed this course. It was important, my Associate Dean explained, that this group complete this course this time so that they would graduate with the rest of their class.

The students dragged themselves to the first class still wearing the outdoor gear and boots splashed tan with clay from a muddy digging project from the morning. January in Wisconsin is not a good time to dig trenches. The class members were male, 20s to late 30s, dirty, tired, hungry (my class was scheduled tight against the outdoor lab, so most missed their midday meal), and had very little interest in this course. As they slumped into their seats, feet sprawled out beneath the table, the semester looked as bleak and long as a cold February night. Hoot indeed.

But then something interesting happened. Every class has a hierarchy among the students: some of the students are leaders, some are followers. If an instructor can catch the interest of the leaders, the rest often come along. An introductory exercise, nothing special really, caught the attention of a couple of the students and first session ended well. So did the second, third, fourth sessions and so on as each of the students found an area of interpersonal communications that seemed particularly interesting to them.

Six weeks in I noticed that the group had almost perfect attendance -- unusual in non-program Gen Ed courses -- and those who missed were harassed by classmates. "Where's Randy?" I asked. "He had a hard night and missed class today, but we'll get him his homework." And they did and he did. An instructor can tell if a student will be successful by his or her attendance: most of the cohort, I called them my Pole-Climbers (they liked the name), never missed a class. 

They almost always came at the first last moment -- my classroom was four buildings away from the trades building. One moment my class was empty but then it quickly filled with their active energy. I looked forward to the class, and feeding off their enthusiasm, heavily used group work and projects in each course, saving lecture for the reading in between classes and explanation of class experience.

The final assignment of the class was their choice: either an eight to ten page paper or a short project demonstrating one of the interpersonal skills discussed during the class. All of the students picked the project option. I should have videoed the final classes as one student after the other tried outdo classmates in creativity, application and energy. On the final day, though I had written a final exam, I put it to one side, talked with them about their future work, and wished them well.

Each semester I try to achieve the same kind of success and I've taught many other excellent classes, but none achieved the magic of my Pole Climbers.

It remains the only class in which I dismissed the final exam and aced the entire class. How much of their success was their own work and how much was the unifying power of the cohort? A little of both, I suspect. I certainly don't think it was instructional brilliance. Some class members would have been successful even if mixed with students in other programs and with other instructors, but others were pulled up by their classmates to achieve a level of student success that probably surprised all of them. A strong, vibrant cohort raises the student success bar beyond anyone's expectations.