student success seminar central piedmont community college august 5, 2015
TRANSCRIPT
Student Success Seminar
Central Piedmont
Community College
August 5, 2015
Disruptive Innovations1.The Learning College
2.The Student/Success Completion Agenda
3.General Education for the 21st Century
4.Assessing and Accounting for Student Success
Barriers to Reform
The primary barrier to educational reform and
transformation is the historical architecture of
education.
1984—K. Patricia Cross
After some two decades of trying to find answers to the question of how to provide education for all
the people, I have concluded that our commitment to the lock-step,
time-defined structures of education stands in the way of
lasting progress.
1993—Wingspread Group
Putting learning at the heart of the academic enterprise will
mean overhauling the conceptual, procedural,
curricular, and other architecture of postsecondary education on most campuses.
1994—Roger Moe
Higher education is 1,000 years of tradition
wrapped in 100 years of bureaucracy.
2014—Terence Robinson
Our current educational system is similar to a wealthy patriarch who is brain dead and has had a complete systems failure but is kept on life
support. He is no longer functional or productive, but because so many depend on him and have a special
interest in his survival, no one is willing to pull the plug.
Time-BoundTime is learning’s warden.
•School year
•Semester course
•Class hours
•Three 55 minute classes a week for 30 students times 5 courses
Place-BoundWe go to school; we go off to college; we get kicked out of
school; school is out.
•Campus
•Classroom
•Library
•Distance learning
Efficiency-BoundMost of our rules and regulations are about what we can’t do than
what we can do.
•Linear/sequential
•ADA/FTE
•Three hours of credit for biology,
gym, algebra, history, and shop
Role-BoundIf you hold a Master’s Degree you have been taught for 17 years by
93 teachers since first grade.
•Knowledge expert
•Deliver knowledge thru lecture
•Sole judge
•Guardian
Forces Resisting Change
• Federal, state, & local policies
• Funding mechanisms
• Secondary, community college, & university separate systems
• Students
• Mid-level Managers
• Curmudgeons
What really works to help students
succeed?
“Best Practices”“While colleges will likely need to
adopt some new practices and adapt some older practices,
practice-based reforms cannot be the primary work undertaken by
colleges participating in Completion by Design.”
Venezia, Bracco, & Nodine 2011
“Best Practices”
Adopting discrete “best practices” and trying to
bring them to scale will not work to improve student
completion on a substantial scale.
Davis Jenkins
April 2011—CCRC
Guidelines for Student Success
1. Every student will make a significant connection with another person at the college as soon as possible.
Guidelines for Student Success
2. Key intake programs including orientation, assessment, advisement, and placement will be integrated and mandatory.
Guidelines for Student Success
3. In addition to assessing student skills and knowledge, affective dimensions will also be assessed.
Guidelines for Student Success
4. Every student will be placed in a “Program of Study” from day one; undecided students will be placed in a mandatory “Program of Study” designed to help them decide.
Guidelines for Student Success
5. Every student will be carefully monitored throughout the first term to ensure successful progress; the college will make interventions immediately to keep students on track.
Guidelines for Student Success
6. Every student who enrolls to pursue a certificate or degree will work with college personnel to create an individual Student Success Pathway—a Roadmap to Completion.
Connection
From interest to application
Entry
From enrollment to completion of
gatekeeper courses
Progress
From entry to course of study to
75% of requirements
completed
Completion
From complete course of study to
credential with labor market value
Student Success Pathway
Pathway Components
Preparing to begin classes
Connecting to high schools
Providing classroom instruction
Preparing for completion &
next steps
Monitoring first-term progress
Preparing for subsequent
terms
Providing remediation
Celebrating milestones & completion
Role of Leaders“There are many important
aspects of the Student Success Agenda---But significant change
will not occur—and stick—without visible, persistent
leadership from the college president or chancellor.”
Byron & Kay McClenney 2010
Role of TrusteesCommunity-college governing boards must take the lead in precisely defining student success and completion in the context of
their own institutions. Once defined, boards should place high priority on assessing and
highlighting student success and completion on the board meeting agenda.
Noah Brown, President & CEO
Association of Community College Trustees
Role of Faculty
Colleges need to find ways to make student success central
to the work of everyone on campus—particularly the
faculty—equipping all with the knowledge and skills required for their most
effective work.
The Completion Agenda
“It’s not that we are ignorant and don’t know what to do. The question is whether we want to do it badly enough.”
Deborah Meier
Author & MacArthur Fellow
What Do We Need?
In the words of poet
T. S. Eliot
we need leaders who are willing
“to disturb the universe.”
Terry O’Banion
Ancora Imparo“Still I Am Learning.”
Michelangelo