Closing the Gap Between Us — Student Development and Flourishing in Practice

The Problem

"Student support is often split between offices that speak different languages: one talks about involvement, integration and retention, the other about wellbeing, strengths and flourishing. Students live one life. When the two fields understand each other, support can serve the whole student."

What you'll achieve

Outcomes you can expect

Explain the classic theories of student development and the science of flourishing in plain language
Translate between the two vocabularies, and see what each field sees and misses
Read the classics critically in South African higher education
Design and fairly check one small intervention in your own role

The science behind it

What you'll learn

Astin's involvement and Input-Environment-Outcome model, Kuh's engagement and high-impact practices
Tinto, his critics and his own reply; Schlossberg's transitions and mattering
Challenge and support, the seven vectors and self-authorship
Thriving, the dual continua, and which student resources can be grown

What's included

Everything you get

15 tools across 8 modules: 8 built for this course and 7 from the FlourishIQ library
A reader for every module, built from the tools and checked against them
An audio guide on every tool, a course audio guide and a talk video for every module, plus outside talks
Private fillable workbooks for every tool, kept on your own device

Who it's for

The right fit

Designed for For everyone who supports university students: student advisors and student affairs staff, residence heads and house committees (with a residence pathway through every module), mentors, lecturers and tutors, and first-year programme staff.

For fifty years, the people who study student development and the people who study flourishing have rarely talked to each other. This course brings them together for everyone who supports university students. It covers the classics (Astin, Pascarella and Terenzini, Kuh, Tinto and his critics, Schlossberg, Chickering and Reisser, Sanford, Baxter Magolda) and the science of flourishing (the dual continua, PERMA, wellness, noncognitive factors), meets them in Laurie Schreiner's work on thriving, reads them in South African higher education, and ends with one small intervention of your own, designed and checked fairly.

Ready to begin?

Two fields, one student

R795 /year · Annual subscription — 12 months’ full access

Buy Now →

Try it free for 24 hours

The whole course for a day, no card needed. Whatever you write is kept if you buy. Trial terms

Buy any 3 courses and save 20% — mix & match your own bundle.

Not sure this is the one? Find the right course for you →

Secure payment by PayFast.