Review of National Best Practices: Redesigning Community Colleges For Completion

1. Review of National Best Practices: Redesigning Community Colleges For Completion Jim Jacobs Macomb Community College Colorado Community College Summit October 24, 2011

2. Part One Why Is This Important: The National Context

3. The Community College Paradox • Never before have community colleges enjoyed such an important role as major institutions in American post-secondary education • Never before have community colleges been called up to deal with major American problems of competitiveness and economic security • Never before have community colleges been held accountable to the success of students who are often the hardest to serve

4. White House SummitOctober 5, 2010 Specific recognition of community colleges as important national institutions Indicates the importance of community colleges in many parts of American society Reflects the increasing role of foundations and private support of community colleges in advocating change Reaffirms the mission of the community college as important to national economic future

5. Community Colleges Have New Supporters • Community colleges are viewed as fundamental to the solution of major problems of America • Increasing federal initiatives to promote the community college • Foundations are interested in supporting student success initiatives

6. Foundations Provide Leadership • Foundations are interested in supporting student success initiatives • Current Foundation initiatives to support community colleges student success: • Achieving the Dream • Breaking Through • Complete College America • Completion by Design • Getting Past Go • Shifting Gears

7. What is Achieving the Dream? • Multi-year national initiative • More than 100 institutions, in 22 states, serving 1 million students • Goal: Incremental improvement within, not compared to other institutions • Active involvement of faculty, staff and administrators as well as others within college community • Focus: Institution-wide commitment to student success • Special focus on students of color and low-income students • Success = 5 specific goals

8. Achieving the Dream Goals • Successful completion of remedial developmental instruction and advance to credit–bearing courses • Successful completion of initial college-level courses in subjects such as English and Math • Complete courses taken with a C or better • Term-to-term persistence • Completion of a certificate or associate’s degree

9. Breaking Through Initiative • Multi-year national initiative • 32 colleges in 18 states • Two State-level networks of colleges • Michigan - connects dislocated workers to postsecondary education • North Carolina - connects out-of-school youth to GED’s and college • Goal:Strengthen the efforts of Community Colleges in helping low-literacy adults prepare for and succeed in occupational and technical degree programs • Focus:Concentrate on strategies that create more effective pathways through pre-college and degree-level programs

10. The Breaking Through Model • Four main strategies: • Reorganize and Realign Colleges • Accelerate Learning • Assure an Economic Payoff • Provide Comprehensive Support

11. Part II Redesigning For Completion: What Have We Learned?

12. Various Student Success Strategies • Placement testing • Developmental acceleration • Contextualization & innovative math pedagogy • Non-academic support • Program and instructional structure • Online learning • Organizational improvement (establishment in programs of study)

13. An overarching theme When evaluated, these reforms generally have positive but modest effects: Difficult to bring to scale Not large enough to effect institutional performance To substantially improve: developmental education online & face-to-face pedagogy support provision . . . the whole institution needs to be engaged and focused on improving student outcomes

14. Completion By Design Areas of Opportunity #1: Complexity & Structure #2: Faculty Engagement #3: Academic Alignment & Assessment #4: Continuous Improvement

15. Complexity & Structure People make bad choices in unduly complex environments College can seem complex and confusing to students, due to: A bewildering array of options Unnecessary bureaucracy Many students fail to get established in a program and are confused about requirements and prerequisites

16. Complexity & Structure Recommendation: Simplify the structures and bureaucracies that students must navigate Align developmental material, placement tests, & college-level curriculum Streamline & contextualize developmental education with student’s program of choice (requires program-choice advisement) Allow fast-track options

17. Faculty Engagement Substantial organizational improvement requires strong employee involvement In community colleges, student success goals can be hampered by: lack of faculty/staff engagement large part-time workforce organizational silos

18. Faculty Engagement Organizations with strong employee involvement in reform: Ensure employees have deep understanding of goals and methods of reform Empower employees as part of reform Encourage staff to work in cross-functional teams Create challenging yet meaningful goals Present evidence of successes

19. Alignment and Assessment In K-12, schools effective with disadvantaged students have “instructional program coherence:” Well-coordinated, “rationalized” curriculum Common instructional framework Clearly defined learning outcomes Integrated assessments & academic supports Colleges do not put strong emphasis on these

20. Academic Alignment and Assessment Recommendation: Faculty work together to craft learning outcomes. Process would: Help faculty from different disciplines communicate and align expectations for reading, writing & math Help part-time instructors understand course goals Help students understand program goals & requirements Help clarify college readiness standards

21. Continuous Improvement Practices of high-performance organizations: Strong leadership Customer focus Functional alignment Process improvement Use of measurement for improvement Employee involvement Training and professional development External linkages

22. Continuous Improvement Recommendations: Involve faculty & mid-level administrators in measuring outcomes, setting goals, identifying gaps, and making changes To support process, re-think committee structures, professional development strategies, and incentives

23. Empower Faculty and Staff to Design/Implement Innovations at Scale

24. Continuous Improvement What is the capability of the college to answer these questions? To what extent do faculty and administrators use data and information to guide their activities? What is the strategy for professional development and what goals or principles guide that strategy? Can you tell if efforts or reforms have been successful?

25. Conclusion • A completion agenda is more than process—content and goals, such as obtaining careers, matter • It does take effort and organizational resources on an institutional scale • Leadership and vision must guide the efforts

26. Questions jacobsj@macomb.edu