What can students with disabilities and student service/orientation coordinators do to better prepare students for success in starting college?

Increasing student persistence in completing course and degree requirements is a goal educational coordinators serving the disabled regularly strive to attain. With the wide diversity of student needs, organizing success-oriented orientations and transition programs often becomes a complex task. One solution is to involve students in their own self-directed orientation and adjustment by encouraging their reading and regular use of a self-help reference text that can serve as a navigational guide for independently solving problems when and where they occur. 100 Things Every College Student With a Disability Ought to Know is such a valuable guide. It will help students with disabilities focus on what is personally important to them across a range of categories. Reading it will help them complete their own adjustment and transition to the academic and social issues of college by providing them with “the right kind of information, in a way they can best understand, and at a time when their most important needs arise.”

HOW TO USE: 100 Things Every College Student With a Disability Ought to Know

Simply put this how-to guidebook into the hands of students with disabilities as soon as possible so they can begin to use it daily to better understand the WHAT, WHY, WHERE, WHEN, and WHO for solving issues they face. They will enjoy reading and using 100 Things regularly to gain crucial information they need about practices for accommodations, expectations of professors, and where and how to communicate their disability related college needs. A brief exposure to its consumer-friendly advice, tips and helpful web links will prove convincing evidence of its value as a key “must have” resource, one conveniently formatted as a pocket-sized reference.

It can be introduced in many ways from a required textbook for reading for orientation programs, freshman seminars, and transition courses to providing gift copies for high school graduation or as part of a funded program to aid the disabled. Regardless of how it is introduced, it will be used by students with disabilities for its how-to solutions, advice, and suggestions for overcoming many of the common frustrations associated with college attendance. Coordinators providing it will not only help each individual student during this “significant transition” to college but enable students to collaboratively help other students with disabilities whenever and where ever needs arise. This will prove a more in depth way for communicating differences from high school and the need for students to be responsible for both their own disabilities as well as their learning abilities in fulfilling the general requirements of all college students.

For those desiring feedback from students’ reading and use of 100 Things, several models are available. A College Portfolio Journal and/or a Problem Solving Situations Exercise are two approaches that work. Journals provide written feedback on students’ reactions to chapters. Problem Solving Exercises can be done by creating descriptions of typical problems facing students for which the index of 100 Things provides a reference in determining solutions. Written solutions can be submitted as a homework assignment or, for those with seminars and group discussions, the synergy created during group interaction and sharing of perspectives can prove a meaningful learning experience. Any similar activity proves helpful as students with disabilities learn how to take responsibility for their problem solving with the aid of a self-help tool that means so much to so many different people and the problems they face.

FUND RAISING

Fund raising groups can earn valuable returns by introducing the 100 Things guidebooks (including the editions for freshmen, adults, international, and online students) as a gift or self-help book for students both on campus and off. Discounts and consignment copies are provided to clubs and organizations interested in raising funds for trips, equipment, or other needs. Email Cambridge Stratford for more information.