Post on 11-Jan-2016
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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!
Center for Community College Student Engagement
Build Connections, Build Success
How can institutions foster
stronger and more diverse connections
with—and among—students?
Center for Community College Student Engagement
MAKING CONNECTIONS: What Matters Most
for Student Success?
Center for Community College Student Engagement
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.
Center for Community College Student Engagement
Initiative on Student Success
Listening
systematically
to students
Center for Community College Student Engagement
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
Center for Community College Student Engagement
Center for Community College Student Engagement
WHAT MATTERS MOST
Engagement matters!
Center for Community College Student Engagement
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.
Center for Community College Student Engagement
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.
Center for Community College Student Engagement
PERSONAL CONNECTIONS
Student Focus Groups
If students ran the college….?
Center for Community College Student Engagement
Personal Connections
Center for Community College Student Engagement
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
Center for Community College Student Engagement
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)
Center for Community College Student Engagement
CULTIVATING CONNECTIONS
Center for Community College Student Engagement
Cultivating Connections
Connections with students’ futures
Connections in the classroom
Connections on campus / outside the classroom
Connections beyond the campus
Connections in virtual space
Center for Community College Student Engagement
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
Center for Community College Student Engagement
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
Center for Community College Student Engagement
CONNECTING STUDENTSWITH THEIR FUTURES (AND WITH REALITY):
High Expectations and Aspirations
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
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:
High Expectations and Aspirations
Center for Community College Student Engagement
CONNECTIONS IN THE CLASSROOM
What is a “good class?”
Center for Community College Student Engagement
ENGAGED LEARNING
Center for Community College Student Engagement
Center for Community College Student Engagement
Active and Collaborative Learning
Worked with other students on projects during class:
National:
46% often or very often (13% never)
Center for Community College Student Engagement
CONNECTIONS OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM /
ON CAMPUS
Center for Community College Student Engagement
Connections on Campus: Orientation
Students who attended a
college orientation
Have you attended an orientation program or course?
Source: 2009 CCSSE Cohort data.
Center for Community College Student Engagement
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%
Center for Community College Student Engagement
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!!
Center for Community College Student Engagement
Center for Community College Student Engagement
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.
Center for Community College Student Engagement
CONNECTIONS BEYOND THE CAMPUS
Center for Community College Student Engagement
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.
Center for Community College Student Engagement
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
Center for Community College Student Engagement
CONNECTIONSIN VIRTUAL SPACE
Center for Community College Student Engagement
Connections in Virtual Space
FACT: Students increasingly use social media and other virtual tools to interact.
FACT: Students value personal connections at their colleges.
Center for Community College Student Engagement
“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
Center for Community College Student Engagement
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.
Center for Community College Student Engagement
Use of Social Networking ToolsTo communicate about coursework
Traditional-Age Students
Nontraditional-Age Students
Source: 2009 CCSSE data.
Center for Community College Student Engagement
Center for Community College Student Engagement
Use of Social Networking Tools
Some use of social networking tools is related to increased engagement
But there is a point of diminishing returns.
Center for Community College Student Engagement
“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
Center for Community College Student Engagement
DOING EDUCATION DIFFERENTLY,BASED ON EVIDENCE:
What’s Required?
Center for Community College Student Engagement
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.
“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.
Center for Community College Student Engagement
WHAT MATTERS MOST
Student Engagement By Design
“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.
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.”
Center for Community College Student Engagement
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
Center for Community College Student Engagement
Center for Community College Student Engagement
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.
Center for Community College Student Engagement
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
Center for Community College Student Engagement
Center for Community College Student Engagement
Kay McClenney Director Center for Community College Student Engagement (CCCSE)
kmcclenney@ccsse.org