Student Success Seminar Central Piedmont Community College August 5, 2015

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

obanion@league.org

Ancora Imparo“Still I Am Learning.”

Michelangelo