The Engaged Learning Project

(ELP)

Can innovative forms of instruction have an impact on student well-being and civic engagement?

Project Overview

"In 2005, St. Lawrence University and six other Bringing Theory to Practice (BTtoP) campuses accepted the challenge of the Association of American Colleges and Universities and the Charles Engelhard Foundation to introduce innovative programming designed to engage the whole student in his or her learning experience." (Peer Review,Summer 2007, Vol. 9, No. 3)

"The Engaged Learning Project seeks to understand the complex relationships between pedagogies of engagement, civic development, and student mental health and well-being. With a growing body of scholarship showing student disengagement from the college experience and persistently high levels of alcohol abuse, stress, and depression on college campuses (Harward 2007), the time for integrating programming and research dedicated to solving these problems was long overdue." (Peer Review,Summer 2007, Vol. 9, No. 3)

Continuing the Project

"In 2007, two demonstration sites (St. Lawrence University and Georgetown University) were chosen as “intensive sites", to continue their work in Engaged Learning. At St. Lawrence, 100 percent of first-year students are participanting in living-and-learning environments that emphasize engaged learning, while faculty members systematically gather data to track students’ learning outcomes, alcohol use, and well-being. The intensive sites project, which will conclude in 2010, aims to add to the empirical research base for understanding the relationship between engaged learning, mental well-being, and civic development." (Peer Review, January /February 2009)

How Big is the Problem?

• Over 40% of undergraduate college students self-report experiences of depression sufficient to interrupt their academic work.
• Over one-third of today’s undergraduate students binge drink not for social ease, but with the objective of disengagement.
• Today’s undergraduate students want to reach out to others, but appear not to aspire to public participation, nor see connections among their civic responsibilities and higher education.
• Today’s faculty are resourceful researchers and many are master teacher, but they rarely view their work as related to the well-being or civic development of their students.
                                     (Bringing Theory to Practice (AAC&U))

Why Engaged Learning?

• Astin (1993) reports that elements of engaged learning (e.g. involvement in group projects and interaction with faculty) are correlated with self-report items such as better emotional health and reduced drinking behaviors.
• Sax, Bryant, and Gilmartin (2002) conclude that students’ engagement in academic experiences is “not unrelated” to emotional well-being.
• Weschler et al (1995),  Jessor et al (1995), and Fenzel (2005) all describe a correlation between student participation in pro-social activities, such as community service, and lower rates of heavy drinking.