1. Appreciative Advising
Presented by: Keri Lobdell
TRIO SSS Retention Specialist – WSU Tri-Cities
Hello!
Relationships! Support! Encouragement! 3 things that can help a person succeed. And I am always looking for opportunities to learn how to do those things better. So, in my quest I found Appreciative advising, bought the book and starting planning how best to implement the practice into my program. My name is Keri Lobdell and I am the retention specialist for the TRIO SSS program at WSU Tri-Cities.

2. Learning outcomes:
1.) Intro to Appreciative Advising – six stages it involves
2.) Take away ideas to implement Appreciative Advising in your practice
Today, my plan is to introduce you to appreciative advising and share with you the ways I’ve implemented this advising practice into my program. I plan to implement more of them this next year but at the very least I plan to go back and revisit some of the earlier work the students and I have done together to see where they are at, and make some new goals/plans.

3. What is appreciative advising?
Academic advising framework developed by Jennifer Bloom
The Appreciative Advising Revolution (Bloom, Hutson and He, 2008)
“Appreciative Advising is the intentional, collaborative practice of asking positive, open-ended questions that help students optimize their educational experiences and achieve their dreams, goals and potentials.”
Show the book –
So, when I was researching advising models and figuring out which ones I believed would fit our student population the best, I came across this advising theory and it really hit home with me. I felt like I was already intentional and positive with my open ended questions, but once I started putting this into practice I realized how much I didn’t actually do that.

4. Appreciative advising “High impact advisors realize that the positive outcomes of advising sessions are not just limited to students; in fact, the real joy of advising occurs when advisors understand how fulfilling it is to really impact other people’s lives and how much they learn from their advisees.”
The other part of this theory that really hit home for me was this shared belief that ….(read the slide). And I realized as much as I am advising the students, there is much I can learn and be inspired from, them. This has helped me look at my role as advisor differently and I it helps me point out their strengths and assets, which definitely elicits a different kind of reaction….which is pretty cool.
- Jennifer Bloom

5. Six stages of Appreciative Advising
Ok – so lets talk about this advising theory and break things down into specifics. I have given you a hand out like this – in case you want to take notes about each of the areas. So these are the 6 stages of AA. The Disarm, Discover, Dream, Design, Deliver, and then Don’t settle.

6. It’s all about first impressions!
Disarm: phase 1
It’s all about first impressions!
Create a safe and welcoming environment
Do you greet students? How do you do it?
Creating trust/build rapport
What does this look like?
Verbal and nonverbal behaviors
Setting the foundation for future connections
Whenever people meet for the first time, the interaction is never neutral: It will be perceived negatively or positively by all party’s (Rath & Clifton, 2004)
People only need 3 seconds to make judgements about others.
To garner trust, advisors must make a positive first impression.
-nonverbal cues are just as important and the verbal ones – arms uncrossed, leaning slightly forward in their chairs. This will lead to a quicker attainment of comfort leave that leads to advisee sharing or their stories, hopes and dreams in subsequent AA phases.
Think about your students and their first interactions with you – how does that interaction go? What does it look like?

7. Office Set-ups
How is your office set up? Is it conducive to this first impressions – intentional greetings?
If not – is there a way to work with your office set-up? What would that look like?
Some offices are set up in a way that this interaction is easy – others, not so much.
The way our office is set up they check in at the front desk and then there is a little waiting area. If I’m not with someone or on the phone, Maria will most likely let me know which is student is there and then it’s up to me to determine if “I’m ready for them or not”. For the first few meetings I now always get up and go out to smile at them, introduce myself and shake their hand and welcome them into my space. I didn’t always do this – it depended on the day and how busy I was….

8. Ask open ended questions
Discover: Phase 2
Ask open ended questions
Positive
Find: Strengths, skills, passions, and accomplishments
Active listening!
Advisees arrive on campus with at least 18 years of experiences, dramas, powerful lessons. They have earned awards, overcome hardships, some have saved lives and all have impacted their family and friends. The AA accesses these stories through questions.
The point of the questions and subsequent stories is to learn their strengths, passions, and skills. - the benefit to AA is the re-energizing and reinvigorating way this helps us want to learn more.
Story telling is a-cultural, it is not a solo performance and is a very subtle transformative event that always takes place in the moment.
(show/talk about the questions sheet after the phase 3 slide)

9. Condition that is longed for…..
Dream: phase 3
Condition that is longed for…..
Help formulate a vision
Assist in developing life and career goals
Encourage being open to the possibilities
This phase differs fundamentally from the previous phases. Here advisers strive to understand the images in the students’ minds; creating a positive vision of the future is the first step in accomplishing dreams. The set up to the dream phase questions is CRITICAL – “ I am going to ask you a question, but first I want to establish the ground rules. I want you to think big and not be restricted by the amount of education it takes, the probability of it happening, or other people in your life telling you it is impossible. Without building rapport in the Disarm/Discover phases and w/o encouraging students to dream big, advisors can expect an insincere answer, a response based on the student’s perceptins of the advisor’s expectations.
Have them look over the sheet you made – and talk about the Discover questions and then the Dream and guided imagery.
Part of the exercise is ignoring practical issues about achieveing dreams and the specific details of these dreams.
Advisors continue to listen intently and purposefully because they are trying to make connection between the student’s strengths and passions as determined through their answers to discover questions and their responses to theDream questions – are they congruent? We need to ask – what makes you feel strong?
Guided imagining: this facilitates student dreaming and imagination. Can be used to target the connectiosn between a students’ dream and current efforts tot attain the dream.

10. Design: phase 4 Create a plan of action
Help devise concrete, incremental, and achievable goals
Establish a realistic timeline
Who is responsible for what and when
Once the advisor understands the students’ vision for their future they can co-create a plan to make it come true. The student authors the plan and the advisor serves as an informed consultant in this self-authorship.
This is an area I need to work on developing better. Currently we do the goal setting based on semester goals – sometimes that includes information from previous sessions, and sometimes it doesn’t. I do try and encourage career development, or volunteer/internship strategies into this portion of the meeting.
teach students how to make decisions; 1.)brainstorm options 2.) look at pros and cons 3.) students thoroughly research options – which many of us do any way.
Discuss the importance of trusting oneself, the student needs to make the ultimate decision.
Provide positive feedback – be careful of the “curse of knowledge”.
Making effective referrals: during the design phase often involves referring student to external resources, such as other campus offices, alumni, community, online, courses, etc. To make these referrals effective, the AA not only points the student to the correct resource, but also clarifies the nature of the resource and the reason.
The book has some great activities and examples, I just haven’t implemented them yet as part of the “plan”.

11. Getting it done! (with help)
Deliver: phase 5
Getting it done! (with help)
Students follow through
Advisors help when they stumble, believe in every step, and help update and refine dreams
Energize to be their best
Review accomplishments; review the students’ responsibilities and your responsibilities and the deadlines you have co-established. Encourage the student to contact you with any problems or concerns. Reiterate your confidence that the student can indeed accomplish their goals. It is your job to energize others – positively.
4 agreements: Be impeccable with your word; Don’t take anything personally, Don’t make assumptions, Always do your best.
Remind students there really is “more than one right answer”
End the conversation well – the last impression that the student has of the session will remain with them.

12. Hi XYZ ,
I am sending you this based off of our conversation today during our meeting.  I hope that you found it to be helpful and that all of your questions were answered and concerns listened to.  My hope is that you get as much out of our meetings together as I do.  Below I have highlighted what we talked about and bullet points indicate action items for you, for me, or for both of us.  If you see anything that I’ve missed or have recorded incorrectly, please let me know and I will update the information. 
Today we spoke about 
 Action items:
This week – 
This month –
By our next visit -
Please let me know if you have any questions or need to meet further.
Warmest Regards -
Keri
Getting it done -
It is of course up to the student to “do the things” they need to do, but it helps me remember what I’m doing – and gives me a reference for the next time we meet or as a follow up contact.
This is what my follow up to the looks like. It is the I send out to every student after our first semester visit. My follow up is shorter in the introduction, but includes action items as well.

13. Don’t settle: Phase 6 Setting the bar
Challenge students to proactively raise their internal bar
The power of high expectations
Challenge and support
Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development theory –"the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers“
The most basic way to make people care is to form an association between something they don’t yet care about and something they do care about. The AA is always drawing connections between student expectations and their hopes and dreams. Ideally the student and advisor co-create the new standard for the student, but sometimes the AA sees the student’s unrealized potential and unilaterally challenges them to do better.

14. Let’s talk…… How do you see yourself, your program using this model?
What are you already doing? What could you add?