How to Successfully Transition Students into College

Challenging traditional notions about why successful high school graduates struggle in college, this book sheds light on the obstacles that hinder a seamless transition and provides clear guidance on how to overcome them. Drawing from research and real-life stories of educators and students across a variety of institutions, Geddes illuminates a critical truth: it's the successes students had in high school that work against them in college, not their failures. This book explores the hidden structural, functional, and cognitive traps that undermine students' academic work, strain teacher-student relationships, and impose artificial limits on their potential. Armed with formulas for academic success, it provides tools for guiding students towards levels of high performance and supplies teaching methods for how to create an educational environment conducive to success. Packed with practical advice, actionable steps, and inspiring success stories, this landmark book serves as an invaluable roadmap for college educators seeking to empower their students and revolutionize their institutions.

Leonard Geddes is the founder of The LearnWell Projects, an academic success organization devoted to making learning more visible, manageable, and effective. A highly regarded higher education consultant and strategist with 20+ years' experience, he is also the former Associate Dean of Students and Director of the Learning Commons at Lenoir-Rhyne University, USA.

1. Introduction Section I: Structural Traps 2. Workspace Trap 3. Division of Labor Trap 4. Locus of Learning Trap Section II: Functional Traps 5. The 80/20 Paradigm Trap 6. Pedagogical Beliefs Trap 7. The Power of Academic Vision Section III: Cognitive Traps 8. The Academic Myopia Trap 9. Far Transfer Trap 10. Pseudowork Cognitive Trap Epilogue