Building and Sustaining Critical Connections National Center for Academic Transformation Redesign...

Building and Sustaining Critical Connections

National Center for Academic Transformation Redesign Alliance 4th Annual Conference

STAND UP…

• If you earned a degree while attending college as a part-time student

• If you earned a degree while working 20 or more hours per week

• If you ever, for any reason, stopped/dropped out of college

• If you were the first in your family to attend college

STAND UP…• If English is your second language

• If in the course of your daily college life, you found yourself in the minority (race/ethnicity/gender) in most situations

• If you can name an individual who made a significant difference in your development and success in college.

Center for Community College Student Engagement

IMAGINE SUCCESS!


Build Connections, Build Success

How can institutions foster

stronger and more diverse connections

with—and among—students?


MAKING CONNECTIONS: What Matters Most

for Student Success?


CCSSE:Community College Survey of Student Engagement

Cumulatively, CCSSE has surveyed almost a million students from 754 different community colleges in 49 states, British Columbia, Ontario, Nova Scotia, the Marianas, and the Marshall Islands.

SENSE: Survey of Entering Student Engagement

Cumulatively, SENSE has surveyed well over 100,000 students from 199 different community colleges in 35 states, the Northern Marianas, and the Marshall Islands.


Initiative on Student Success

Listening

systematically

to students


ACHIEVING THE DREAM Community Colleges Count

Evidence emerges from:

• Over 1100 coach visits to 102 colleges in 22 states

• Required student cohort tracking

• Required evaluation of student success strategies



WHAT MATTERS MOST

Engagement matters!


Engagement Matters – furthermore…

In many colleges, with many students, engagement is unlikely to happen by accident.

It has to happen by design.

Or, by redesign.


WHAT MATTERS MOSTIn focus groups with students, what do they typically report as the most important factor in keeping them in school, persisting toward their goals?

Relationships matter

“The compensatory effect”

i.e., where there are differences in engagement between “high-risk” groups and their comparison groups (academically under-prepared students, students of color, first generation students, nontraditional college age students) --- the high-risk students are more engaged.


PERSONAL CONNECTIONS

Student Focus Groups

If students ran the college….?


Personal Connections


Personal ConnectionsEntering Students’ First Impressions of Their Colleges

SENSE 2009 Data

The very first time I came to this college, I felt welcome.

17.2

42.7

34.6

2

0.9 Strongly Agree

Agree

No Opinion

Disagree

Strongly Disagree


Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind.

“Pooh!” He whispered.

“Yes, Piglet?”

“Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s paw. “I just wanted to be sure of you.”

– A.A. Milne (1882-1956)


CULTIVATING CONNECTIONS


Cultivating Connections

Connections with students’ futures

Connections in the classroom

Connections on campus / outside the classroom

Connections beyond the campus

Connections in virtual space


Cultivating Connections

The twofold challenge:

Use data to understand the status quo—which students need to be better engaged

Find ways to use each dimension, each venue for engagement to create meaningful, lasting connections


Least Engaged Students*

*This analysis does not include students who hold degrees. Source: 2009 CCSSE Cohort data.

Among the least engaged community college students:

Part-time students

Traditional-age students (those 24 and younger)

Students not seeking credentials

Students who have not completed 30 or more credits

Male students

Students who work more than 30 hours per week

Students who have not participated in orientation

Students who have not participated in learning communities


CONNECTING STUDENTSWITH THEIR FUTURES (AND WITH REALITY):

High Expectations and Aspirations


Percent of entering students who strongly or somewhat agree that they have the motivation to do what it takes to succeed in college:

90%

Percent of entering students who strongly or somewhat agree that they are prepared academically to succeed in college:

84%Center for Community College Student Engagement


28%

19%

41%

22%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

Skipped class

Came to class unprepared

Did not turn in one or moreassignments

Turned in an assignment late

Percentage of students who, at least once during their first three weeks of college:



CONNECTIONS IN THE CLASSROOM

What is a “good class?”


ENGAGED LEARNING



Active and Collaborative Learning

Worked with other students on projects during class:

National:

46% often or very often (13% never)


CONNECTIONS OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM /

ON CAMPUS


Connections on Campus: Orientation

Students who attended a

college orientation

Have you attended an orientation program or course?

Source: 2009 CCSSE Cohort data.


Connections on Campus

Students who say they never worked with other classmates outside of class to prepare class assignments

41%

Students who report that they never discussed ideas from their readings or classes with instructors outside of class

47%


An Integrated Support Network

Entering students who are unaware of support services during their first three weeks of college:

Source :SENSE data.

Students

don’t do

optional!!



Making the Most of Connectionson Campus

Make outside-the-classroom engagement inescapable.

Require students to participate in educational experiences that are important to their success.

Make student services mandatory and/or integrate them into coursework.


CONNECTIONS BEYOND THE CAMPUS


Connections Beyond the Campus

Will you have an internship, field experience, co-op experience, or clinical assignment while attending this college?

Source: 2009 CCSSE Cohort data.


Making the Most of Connections Beyond the Campus

Require experiential learning as part of the course.

Encourage “high-impact” experiences such as service learning, study abroad


CONNECTIONSIN VIRTUAL SPACE


Connections in Virtual Space

FACT: Students increasingly use social media and other virtual tools to interact.

FACT: Students value personal connections at their colleges.


“These are just technologies. Using them does not make you modern, smart, moral, wise, fair, or decent. It just makes you able to communicate, compete, and collaborate farther and faster.”

– Thomas L. Friedman Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist


Connections in Virtual Space

Use online and social networking tools to

cultivate relationships

that help students feel connected and

encourage them to persist in their studies.

Use of Social Networking ToolsFor any purpose

Traditional-Age Students

Nontraditional-Age Students

Source: 2009 CCSSE data.


Use of Social Networking ToolsTo communicate about coursework

Traditional-Age Students

Nontraditional-Age Students

Source: 2009 CCSSE data.



Use of Social Networking Tools

Some use of social networking tools is related to increased engagement

But there is a point of diminishing returns.


“With new technologies we’ve tended to do the same things more efficiently, when what we need is to do different things more effectively.”

– Christopher Dede, Professor

Harvard School of Education


DOING EDUCATION DIFFERENTLY,BASED ON EVIDENCE:

What’s Required?


WHAT MATTERS MOSTFocused, sustained efforts to purposefully redesign educational experiences and bring them to scale, can produce real improvements in student engagement, learning, persistence, and academic attainment.




WHAT MATTERS MOST

Student Engagement By Design



Encouraging Student Success StrategiesMandatory

Assessment and placement

Orientation

Success course for students in dev ed

Participation in learning lab, tutoring and/or supplemental instruction

Stop late registration/ create late-start classes

Early advising / development of academic plan

Early alert systems

“Students don’t do optional.”


Encouraging Student Success StrategiesSupplemental instruction

Case management / success coaches

Summer bridge or “boot camp” programs; short/ intensive skill refreshers

Contextualized dev ed

Cooperative/collaborative learning – at scale

Linked courses/ learning communities…

Learning communities required for FTIC

Learning communities linking student success course and dev ed

Counselors and advisors in learning communities



Fundamentals

1. The center of our work is student learning, persistence, and success.

2. We can’t get better at what we’re not willing to look at.

3. Every course, every program, every service, every academic policy, every college is perfectly designed to achieve the exact outcome it currently produces.


Fundamentals

4. If nothing changes, nothing changes.

5. Neither organizations nor individuals are good at accomplishing things they never actually decided to do.

“Better is possible.

It does not take genius.

It takes diligence.

It takes moral clarity.

It takes ingenuity.

And above all, it takes a willingness to try.”

— Atul Gawande


Kay McClenney Director Center for Community College Student Engagement (CCCSE)

[email protected]

Building and Sustaining Critical Connections National Center for Academic Transformation Redesign...

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