Supporting Students At-Risk for Academic Failure
Dr. Chris Stroble / Updated July 22, 2024
Thank you, North Greenville University (NGU), for having me to share with your pre-service teachers about supporting students at risk for academic failure. I loved sharing with the students and faculty!
My work focuses on helping pregnant and parenting students graduate, and I offer strategies in my award-winning book Helping Teen Moms Graduate, I offer Strategies for Families, Schools, and Community Organizations (Feb.15, 2023, Rowman & Littlefield).
Pregnant and parenting students and their children are considered a group of students who are at risk for academic failure. Currently, the CDC reports that only approximately 50% of pregnant and parenting students earn a high school diploma. My presentation at (NGU) focused on Supporting Students At-Risk Students For Academic Failure: What Every First-Year Teacher Should Know.
I started by sharing my Why? Why do I care about pregnant and parenting students? Why do I do the work that I do? Writing books and the organization I founded, Teen Moms Anonymous. My Why is it's personal. I am the daughter of a teen mom, and I know not only from research but from a lived experience the many Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and the tale of violence and abuse prevalent in the lives of teen moms and their children. Enduring multiple ACEs puts students at a greater risk for academic failure.
My success story after enduring multiple ACEs, I broke the cycle of teen pregnancy, and I've been on my journey of emotional health and wellness for over 15 years. I've coached others on their journey and now through Teen Moms Anonymous, we coach young mothers and women who have been young mothers to emotional health and wellness.
Based on student feedback, they found my presentation very informative. Below are some of the takeaways the students noted in their feedback.
What were your key takeaways from my presentation?
1. How to support at-risk students.
2. How repeated stress activation affects health and overall executive function.
3. The importance of being a safe person for at-risk students and empathizing with them in their struggles/experiences.
4. The medical effects of at-risk students and how to help these students as well.
5. That ACEs affect students in many ways.
6. Students with ACE’s are in need for empathy and patience to be effective teachers to them.
7. We need to be the teacher that we think of as our favorite teacher. Be supportive!
8. Learning the specific ACEs and their educational and physical ramifications.
9. Anger is a secondary emotion and love the kids no matter what.
10. That high-risk students are more prominent than I thought and that high-risk students can have real mental as well as physical wounds.
11. I loved learning about ACEs and how they affect children.
Overall Feedback:
1. I think it was great and very informative! Thank you!
2. I thought it was very helpful to hear tips for both elementary and high school, even though I am a high school teacher.
3. It was great and very informal! Thank you!
4. Very thoughtful and informative.
5. It was really good, thank you!
6. It appeared slightly repetitive.
7. I would love to attend future presentations!
Thank you again, North Greenville University, for having me. I loved sharing with the students and faculty! You can read more of how to support students at risk for academic failure in my award-winning book, Helping Teen Moms Graduate: Strategies for Families, Schools, and Community Organizations (Feb.15, 2023, Rowman & Littlefield).
I would love to share with faculty and students at your college or university as well, especially those in the Schools of Education, Sociology, Counseling, and Public Health.
Click HERE to request me as your next speaker at your college, university, conference, or community event.