Implementation

(1) To help students get on a path, we really have to reorganize the intake process. It is very important that there’s clarity at the beginning of that process so that families and students understand exactly the kinds of academic programs that are available for them and the kinds of outcomes that they can expect, the transfer institutions that they may desire to go to, the kinds of work opportunities that will be available to them when they finish this particular course of study.

(2) One of the biggest changes in community college practice that we’re seeing is that all of these colleges in the AACC pathways are moving to a system where after the first term every student has a full program plan.

(3) One of the key components in trying to help students find that pathway is to try to get them to complete and complete sooner and on time. As you think about those data points, I think it’s so important for us to realize helping them complete faster and on time is so critical because they really are living so close to the edge financially.

(4) What we’ve seen then is an expansion into a variety of other measures that give us a better sense of whether or not students can be successful in college courses, looking at high school transcripts, looking at high school GPA. All of that gives us a much better sense on whether or not a student can be successful in an educational institution, a postsecondary institution because it gives us a bigger picture. It’s not just how they performed at one point in time on an exam. It gives us a fuller picture of what their academic career has been, and that projects very favorably in terms of what they’re going to be able to do when they reach a postsecondary institution.

The six core principles for transforming remediation are best understood when you look at the complete title of the document, which is Core Principles for Transforming Developmental Education within a Comprehensive Strategy for Student Success. And that is the key. The core principles, above all, are about connecting modernization of developmental and gateway courses with guided pathways to efficient completion.

What are the six principles? They’re grouped, naturally. Principles one, two, and five talk about starting strong, helping students get on a pathway, helping students choose the right courses aligned with their programs of study. And in this way, they parallel the first two guiding principles of the AACC pathways framework.

The third principle comes from a lesson that all of people who work for student success have learned, and that lesson is the closer the supports for success are to the actual classroom students are in, the more likely students will excel in their coursework. So principle three calls for ensuring that student supports are integrated and that students don’t need to wait until they’re in trouble, figure out where the tutoring center is, and then go off and find it. As we say in mathematics, if you’re three weeks behind in my math class, you don’t need to find the tutoring center. You need to go to Lourdes for faith healing. Now, principle six is about success. Once students are on a pathway, we have to make sure they stay on that pathway and have the supports, advising, counseling, academic supports they need to efficiently complete.

And that leaves one principle, which, for me, is the most important, and it’s the principle of humility, principle four. We have learned how to dramatically increase the success of students in mathematics, tripling success rates with a variety of different models and demonstrated by different independent researchers. But we have not yet figured out how to make models for all our students — two-thirds, perhaps. Principle four really calls for a national movement to strengthen structures and programs for those students who we do not yet know how to serve well. If students make a commitment to improve their lives through education — as faculty and administrators, we know how hard that decision must’ve been for many of our students. We owe them courses and course structure that will allow them to succeed.

These are principles that were designed with researchers and national leaders working together to identify what we believed are the essential practices for increasing student success for those students who are placed in developmental education. They are first, changing the way that we assess students when they walk in the door. Instead of doing an academic assessment of readiness for college, we should be shifting to an intake process, where we’re engaging the whole student in what their academic goals are, what their needs are academically, and really deciding very early on, making some initial decisions on a path that they can pursue.

The second is an understanding that we should put as many students, the vast majority of students, into college level and math and English courses right away. As we know, most students who enter community colleges are starting in remedial education. We need to change that so that the vast majority of students are starting in college-level courses.

Now indeed, the third principle is focused on how do we support students that start in those college-level courses? So the evidence is pretty clear that the best way to provide academic support for students who need it is by putting them in college-level courses and then providing them academic support as a co-requisite. The fourth principle is focused on what happens or what do we do for those students who are not successful in co-requisites? How can we provide additional supports to them? From our point of view, it’s really focused on looking at the whole student and what their overall needs are because sometimes it’s not simply a matter of academic readiness that impacts their ability to be successful, so looking more holistically at the students and providing support for them so that they can be successful.

The fifth principle is focused on the appropriate mathematics that students should be taking in their guided pathway or in a pathway. Many students are defaulted into mathematics courses that are not relevant to their program of study, so we need to design differentiated pathways for students in mathematics and gateway courses in mathematics that are aligned to their program of study. The then last really is that linchpin to larger strategies around student success that would include guided pathways. So, getting the students through their gateway courses and into programs of study in their first year then enables us to build a set of supports for students all the way through into their second year and all the way to graduation.

I’m assigned a specific advisor, an’ a lotta people in my program all have that same advisor, but I just wanna add on to what you’re calling the college success programs. So this school, at least in my program, there’s four of ’em that are required. We have the College 101, which is you learn about college study skills, all that fun stuff, and then there’s Career Planning, which is, is this really the career path you wanna go down? You take those aptitude tests in that class, kind of build offa that, start working on your resume a little bit, your LinkedIn profile. Career Preparation is when you really get down. You build your resume. You build your cover letter. You start learning how to interview for jobs, and then the fourth one is — there’s not a ton o’ class time for it. It’s Career Experience. So in my program, you’re required to have an internship in your job field before you can graduate. You can use prior employment as that, if it meets it, but a lotta people don’t. The college works really well. They have a ton of employers in the area that are — the college works with those employers, and they’re like, yeah, here. We have some openings for an internship for you at this location. Do you want it? That’s really nice that way.

In the freshman seminar class we had, a couple of times throughout the semester we had navigators and other staff come in and speak to the class about resources that are available on the college website and other things that can help you track and plan your future progress and stuff.

My instructors talk to me about career plans all the time. They talk about what to put on resumes. They talk to us about different employers. We actually go on field trips to different facilities, which is really helpful, but both of the teachers I’ve had in this program have stressed really heavily, because it is a tech trade that I’m in, knowing this stuff, and that it has a direct application. They have been very, very helpful for helping develop that professionalism because they keep us in line with what we’re doing, like, “Why are we really here?” They keep us focused on that, and they’re very helpful, and there’s also networking opportunities where we’ve had students that have graduated that have come back to hire us, as students, because they recognize that.