How Pedagogy is Helping Students Feel Like They Belong

Nicholas Cochrane never thought he would be a teacher one day. He grew up in the projects, and most of his friends and peers ended up in jail or lost their lives. He assumed his path would be similar, and he dropped out of high school at 16. Eventually, he found his way back to education 13 years later.

Nicholas Cochrane, associate professor of business and economics at Mount Wachusett Community College.“To say I didn’t fit in was an understatement,” said Cochrane. “I took everything with skepticism, I wasn’t a great participant—I was fighting with, ‘why am I doing this?’ when my friends thought it was a waste of time.”

Now, Cochrane is an associate professor of business and economics at Mount Wachusett Community College (MWCC) in rural Gardner, Mass., and he has made it his mission to ensure his students fit in and find a sense of belonging in their school.

Cochrane is a member of the Faculty Academy, a statewide initiative that trains faculty in a pedagogy called “Real Talk,” created by Dr. Paul Hernandez, senior advisor to the president and CEO at Achieving the Dream (ATD), a partner network of over 300 community colleges working to equitize higher education. The methodology connects students’ real lives to the classroom, engaging them in personal conversation and critical thinking about hypothetical scenarios.

“Students feel as though a safe space is created in the classroom, and they hear these stories with other students as well that help them fit into the classroom environment,” said Cochrane. “It’s difficult to talk about these issues, especially for students of color—and to bring this up in the classroom setting is very helpful and relatable.”

Cochrane surveys his students after each class for anecdotal feedback, but the Faculty Academy also tracks data which reveals how much better students perform overall after taking courses that integrate Real Talk. Students who take Real Talk courses express greater enjoyment and fulfillment in class, dropping those courses at significantly lower rates than those in classes without Real Talk. Real Talk students are also more likely to persist.

Importantly, MWCC deconstructed these data and discovered that students of color responded well to Real Talk pedagogy. Between Fall 2020 and Fall 2021, 62.1% of Real Talk students of color persisted into their next year of study. Students who did not take Real Talk courses persisted at a rate of 36.7%, over 25 percentage points less.