RADAR - BU Resource Center

The R.A.D.A.R. Guide—Respect, Awareness, Development, Application, Reward—is a practical framework designed to support student success through compassionate, responsive, and intentional teaching. It encourages faculty to respect the complexity of students’ lives, awaken their potential through mindset and motivation, develop strong community connections, apply effective learning strategies, and reward effort and achievement. Use this guide as a quick reference to foster meaningful engagement and help every student feel seen, supported, and capable of success.

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Respect the Student’s Complex Life

Communicate the ability to change a due dates	Be flexible with students, while holding them accountable. Develop trust and respect by treating students as responsible adults. Be understanding of their life hurdles, work with them, as needed, to adjust due dates, and hold them accountable to any adjusted due dates.
Demonstrate an open mind about student life situations	Students have to juggle many things in their lives besides school–one or more jobs, a family, etc. Make an authentic connection with students during the first week of class so they will feel comfortable reaching out to you when obstacles in their lives arise.

Awaken Student Awareness

Promote Growth Mindset

(I Can Succeed, This Work Has Value, My Abilities and Competence Grow with Effort, I Belong in This Community)

Help students see that their ability to perform well can increase with their effort and your guidance.

Depending on how ingrained their fixed mindset is, this may take time. However, with consistent reminders and encouragement from you, students can change their fixed mindset into a growth mindset.

Promote Academic Perseverance

(Grit, Tenacity, Delayed Gratification, Self-Discipline, Self-Control)

Help students uncover their motivators and what has helped them overcome obstacles in the past. Talk to students about grit and tenacity.

In practice:

*Access BryanConnect Fidelis to learn about students.

Relate student struggles to yourself (e.g. have you recently experienced tech issues?).
Assume student’s truth and make helping the focus.

Develop and follow a weekly engagement schedule, including all mass and individualized outreach.
Accommodate students in creative ways.

Promote the application or exploration of learning strategies

(Self-Regulation, Study Skills, Goal Setting, Metacognitive Strategies)

Many students have never been taught how to study or examined whether or not their studying techniques were effective. Giving students tips on how to read articles or solve problems is helpful to all students, but especially first-year students. Spaced repetition is a strategy that is very helpful to discuss with students, so that they better remember information and don’t cram all of their studying and homework into the weekends.

Develop Community

Create Opportunities for Community Building	Let students see you as a “real” person and choose a strategy that best suits your personality. Students are more likely to persist in school when they have positive feelings about the course, their interactions with peers and interactions with you. In practice: *Sell value in why students should communicate with each other and ask students to exchange contact and communicate with at least 2 others. Participate in Yellowdig at least 3 days per week. Post Pins “Sparks” on Mondays. Promote Yellowdig participation in at least 2 different areas of the course. Post Pins that are brief, have an open-ended call to action, and include a visual element.
Facilitate a social and academic community	This can be done through discussion questions and Yellowdig. Get the students talking about the material together as a group and feeding off of each other’s ideas. In practice: *Make contact with ALL students through individual and personalized outreach efforts in week 0 or week 1. Be relatable. Present yourself as a “real” human.
Promote program- and university- Live Events within the course	This can be done through industry speakers and learning and networking opportunities. Use these events to connect students to their future profession and career.
Provide opportunities for live interaction	Research indicates that students want to work with faculty and peers in a live environment but this is only the case when VALUE is built into the live interaction. You can create value by scheduling these events at the beginning of the course, asking students what they would be most interested in meeting about, promote the event, and come prepared. Make sure to record the live event and post it with key points for students.
Encourage students to participate in study groups	Create a perpetual Zoom link for students to use and promote study groups throughout the course.

Apply Effective Learning Techniques

Develop personalized interventions	Determine who might need more assistance in class, what that looks like, and how to carry out the intervention. By creating solutions that are individual to the students’ needs and situation, it will be more effective in helping the student overcome obstacles and succeed. In practice: Any student whose grade is below a 70% or has other risk factors should receive meaningful outreach/support. 1:1 Coaching Sessions for students who need to catch up, who have been MIA for a week or two, those who received a low score on an assignment, or students you just want to check on.
Provide timely and specific feedback	Try to give feedback within 3 days of students’ submissions. It will be more fresh in their minds and will give them an opportunity to resubmit for mastery. Encourage conversation with the student, as feedback isn’t a one-way street, but a dialogue. Be supportive and consistent in your feedback and give the students meaningful, specific reflections about their work. In practice: Provide General and Substantive Feedback Most courses contain multiple student assignments each week. Provide general feedback on all assignments each week, and a substantive amount of feedback on one, which helps the student improve performance on the current assignment or prepare the student for an upcoming assignment.
Promote mastery by encouraging resubmission	Promoting mastery through “re-dos,” or resubmission, provides an opportunity for students to continually improve by examining their errors and incorporating your feedback.
Use personal experience to provide real-world context	Powerful learning occurs when students see the course as a way to learn something of value that they can use in work or another area of life.
Focus on graduating job-ready students	Engage with students as “employees” or “interns” in the field to help them learn to respond to situations that they would encounter on the job.

Reward Performance

Celebrate effort, performance, contribution, and achievement	When students do well, comment specifically on what they did well, how they improved, or how their contribution was valuable.
Encourage friendly and cooperative competition	The practice of friendly competition should tie back to creating a positive community experience.