Increasing Completion and Transfers · Source: Lee Ann Sappington, Associate Dean, Institutional Effectiveness and Assessment ... and how we can move the needle on student success

1 SIGNATURE 2016

TO TEACH, TO LEARN, TO INSPIRE . . . AT AIMS COMMUNITY COLLEGE

ISSUE 3 | 2016

STUDENT SUCCESS:Increasing Completion and Transfers

SIGNATURE 2016 32 SIGNATURE 2016

EDITOR’S LETTER

Dear Colleagues,

This is our third annual issue of the Signature magazine. We are excited to continue the discussion around teaching and learning, emphasizing the impact each of you have on our students.

In this issue, you will find articles about student success, teaching and learning, completion, the Learning College, academic assessment, program improvements, updated rubrics, technology in the classroom, teaching strategies, student service and academic affairs collaborations, and continuous improvement. Important work in increasing student success is being done at Aims, but there is always room to do more and impact more students. This issue highlights some of the important work your colleagues are doing to make a difference for students.

Our challenge this year is for you to embrace why we work at a college and think about how we can put our signature on each student’s success in his or her educational journey and, ultimately, change his or her life.

Please send any comments or suggestions to me at (970) 339-6459 or [email protected]. I look forward to hearing from you!

S I G N AT U R E

E D I TO R Deborah Kish, JD, MBA

P R E S I D E N T Dr. Leah L. Bornstein

C H I E F O F C O L L E G E A N D C O M M U N I T Y R E L AT I O N S

Laura Coale

G R A P H I C D E S I G N Allyson Byerly

Bethany DuBois

P H OTO G R A P H Y Allyson Byerly

AIMS COMMUNITY COLLEGE 5401 W. 20th Street Greeley CO 80634

970.330.8008

www.aims.edu

With continued excitement and commitment,

Deb Kish, JD, MBA

“The role of the Learning College at Aims Community College is to contribute and shape scenarios that empower learning through discovery, shared learning environments, and construction of knowledge.”

LEARNING COLLEGE VISION STATEMENT

Aims Community College is committed to providing quality education for our students. Our institution continues to make substantial investments in teaching and learning. This magazine is one of those efforts. Our annual teaching and learning magazine, Signature, is aimed at providing information about teaching and learning strategies and highlights our important work in this area.

Aims Community College is an equal opportunity institution. The College prohibits discrimination in its practices, programs, and activities on the basis of age, race, color, religion, creed, gender, national origin, sexual orientation, or disability and is committed to maintaining an environment free from sexual or other harassment and retaliation.

For more information about our graduation rates, the median debt of students who completed the program and other important information, please visit our website at http://www.aims.edu/academics/ge-disclosures/

GREELEY | LOVELAND | FORT LUPTON | WINDSOR | ONLINE

CONTENTS 2016 ISSUE

An Open Letter to all Aims Faculty

Thoughts From the Provost

Getting to Graduation (Online)

iPad Initiative

Aims Aviation: Creating Order Out of Chaos

Faculty & Staff Awards

Aims College sets the “Standard for Success”at its New Public Safety Institute in WindsorStrategic Planning

Throwing A Rope Over The Wall: An Interview With Angel Flores

Understanding Assessment

gtPathways Competencies

Accreditation and Student Success

Tailoring Education To Student NeedsAnd Promoting Success

Utilizing Universal Design Concepts to Promote Great Master Courses and Student Success

Small Subjects, Big Changes

You Teach Reading?

Notable Collaborations: Academic Affairs and Student Services

I Don’t See Race: Leveraging Racial Diversity to Deepen Learning

Data Phobia: Causes, Coping Mechanisms and Counter Measures

Universal Design for Learning

Thank You to Our Contributors

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ReferencesCenter for Community College Student Engagement. (2014). A matter of degrees: Practice to pathways (High impact practices for community college students). Retrieved fromhttps://www.ccsse.org/docs/Matter_of_Degrees_3.pdf

Voorhees, R. (2014). Strategic planning for student success. Retrieved from https://www.dropbox.com/home?preview=Presentation-Strategic+Planning+for+Student+Success+October+2014.pdf Note: The comparison group is the National Community College participant national group. It includes 249 community colleges acrossthe nation.

What is your role in a student’s journey towards changing his or her life? This is one of the questions I posed to you last fall that we should all be asking ourselves regularly. As a learning-centered college, we pride ourselves on being able to engage in continuous improvement for the benefit of our students. Part of continuous improvement

entails understanding our current student success institutional performance. Student success is about helping students achieve their goals and dreams. Across the country, institutions are focusing on ways to track and increase student success. Typically there are five data points that focus on student success: completion rates of development coursework and subsequent advancement to college-level coursework, enrollment and completion rates for “gatekeeper” courses, course completion rates of students with a grade of C or higher, retention of freshman to the next semester and subsequent year, and completion rates for certificates and degrees along with transfer rates (Center for Community College Student Engagement, 2014; Voorhees, 2014).

As stated, one of the ways we can quantify student success is in terms of graduation and transfer-out rates. Students who complete a degree or certificate are included in our graduation rates and students who transfer to a four-year institution are included in our transfer-out rates. The combination of graduation rates and transfer–out rates is our completion rate.

In 2011, Aims had a completion rate of 37.33 percent for our full-time students. For this population, graduation rates (reflecting students graduating within 150 percent of the normal time to graduate) for 2011 were 28.57 percent and our transfer-out rates for 2011 were 8.76 percent.

We track this rate to our national benchmark group as, against which we outperformed the on graduation rates by 7.2 percent and underperformed on transfer-out rates by 7.02 percent for full-time students. For part-time students, we have outperformed the comparison group for 2008 and 2011 in graduation rates. However, we underperformed as compared to the comparison group on transfer-out rates. It is apparent that we should capitalize on our work in getting students to graduation and focus more energy on assisting students in transferring to four-year schools.

Transfer and Graduation Rates Full-time CohortAims Compared to the National Benchmark Group

60.00%

40.00%

20.00%

0.00%

Aims Completed

Within 2 years2012 Full Time

Cohort


Cohort


Cohort

Aims Transferred

Comparison Group Completed

ComparisonGroup Transferred

Source: Lee Ann Sappington, Associate Dean, Institutional Effectiveness and Assessment

Persistence Rates Aims Comparedto the National Group 75th & 90th Percentile Values

60.00%

40.00%

20.00%

0.00%

Aims Completed

Within 3 years2011 Part Time

Cohort

Within 6 years2008 Part Time

Cohort

Aims Transferred

Comparison Group Completed

ComparisonGroup Transferred


Another way we can quantify student success is through persistence rates. From 2010 to 2013, our Fall-to-Fall persistence rates have ranged from 43.20 percent to 49.11 percent. Our next-term persistence rates have ranged from 68.50 percent to 70.62 percent during the same period. Except for the Fall-to-Fall rates in 2011 and 2013, we have outperformed the 25th percentile of the benchmark group. However, we have underperformed as compared to the 75th percentile.

Persistence Rates Aims Comparedto the National Group 75th & 90th Percentile Values

80.00%

60.00%

40.00%

20.00%

0.00%

Aims Persistence Rate

Fall-to-FallFall 2010Cohort

Next TermFall 2010Cohort







75th PercentileComparison Group

90th PercentileComparison Group


By tracking institutional performance, we can identify and invest in areas that need focus. So I encourage you to use data as you think about how to help students achieve their goals and assist the College in this important work. Data helps us identify areas that need focus or are already impactful that we can capitalize on. It helps us to think about the right questions to be asking and how we can move the needle on student success. We will be providing more data to you, so please stay tuned.

We have the unique opportunity to make a difference in students’ lives and change our community in a positive way – as we focus on our work, let’s keep the students and their success at heart and identify as many ways as possible to move that needle!

Increasing Student Successin a Learning Organization

BY DR. LEAH L. BORNSTEIN, Pres identA IM I NG H I GH :

BY DONNA NORWOOD, JD, Provost

AGAIN THIS YEAR, WE WELCOME MANY STUDENTS TO AIMS COMMUNITY COLLEGE.

It is our hope and goal that we are the Destination Institution for our students. We have worked hard to become the institution that students select as their first college choice. Strangely enough, embedded in the connotation of Destination is the thought of “completion” of a journey. However, once a student reaches their Aims Destination, the journey toward college completion really begins. We then become the builders of new pathways for our students to complete.

As a community of people who are responsible for the path to completion for the students, we need to support and facilitate them to reach the next meaningful destination – completion of their goal, whether a degree or certificate. Like most of us, students need a solid pathway, much like a roadmap, to guide them to their final destination. What does this roadmap look like for students at Aims? Certainly it contains more than just mile markers for students to find and follow.

Research tells us that there are many activities, tools, and behaviors that we can engage in to help students find the correct path to completion. Part of the key is to understand and know what the research tells us about what helps students achieve their goals. I would like to share a few of those things here.

One really important thing for students in “way finding” is for us to define a clear, well-constructed, well-marked path. One-way to do this is to build pathways through collaborations with K-12 and four-year articulation agreements, as well as industry partnerships, to help students see the continuous path toward a degree or career. Another way is to develop clear, limited-choice degree and certificate pathways utilizing a core general education curriculum. The route is defined, focused, and meaningful. Our efforts to design these highways of travel with clear markers and support systems along the way are critical to increasing student completion.

In addition, we have many support mechanisms for students along the way as they travel through our programs toward completing a degree or certificate. Many students come to us with inadequate academic preparation for college level expectations. In addition, they come with poor metacognitive skills. We can help them build better metacognitive abilities by using learning facilitation models along the entire college pathway. It is not enough to just provide support at the beginning of the journey through student success courses and consider the work done. We must scaffold support throughout their journey. Instead of being simple mile markers, we need to provide more meaningful mechanisms for students in completing their journeys.

We take our work in making a difference in our students’ collegiate journey very seriously. Not only are you a meaningful facilitator of learning but you are also integral in creating and developing clear pathways for students in their journey to completion.

STUDENT SUCCESSPathways

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Graduation DayMy favorite day of the year at Aims is graduation day. It’s exciting to see past students on stage, getting their diplomas with family and friends cheering in the audience. I recognize these students easily by their smiles, gaits, and style. However, I notice some of my other students too—by name, but not by person. Despite the fact that I do not recognize their faces, I know we’ve shared some very real academic and personal moments together. You see, graduation day is often the first (and last) time I get to meet my online students in the flesh.

If you talk to most online teachers, they will tell you that although teaching online is very different than teaching a traditional class, it holds the same promise, excitement, and opportunity. However, because such classes mostly lack physical cues, online instructors must work harder to create human connections. This is especially important at community colleges, where adult learners require relevant, emotionally-engaged instruction (Dirkx, 2001).

Consequences of Impersonal Online ClassesResearch shows that there are consequences when online classes lack personal connections. Russo (2005) notes that such courses lead to superficial student engagement, dropout, and failure. Additionally, researchers found that online students were more likely to fail or withdraw, are less likely to return to school, earn fewer academic awards, and transfer less often to four-year schools (Jaggars & Xu, 2010; Xu & Jaggars, 2011). Worst yet, research suggests that students with the most academic risk tend to enroll in more online courses, and developmental students are especially less likely to advance online.

Despite these findings, online learning continues to rise. A majority of chief academic officers believe that “online learning […is] critical to their long-term organizational strategy” (Naidu, 2013, p. 1). Therefore, as online classes continue to grow, it is essential that instructors create the best possible environments for student learning.

While there are many factors in achieving ideal outcomes for online students, building relationships through positive atmosphere, committed presence, social learning, and customization is a good place to start. Here are a few tips for creating positive, connected, relationship-rich experiences online:

GETTING TO GRADUATION

(ONLINE)

BY REBECCA SAILOR, Engl i sh and Humanit ies Professor

Create a Positive AtmosphereClass atmosphere is the general emotional environment in which students learn online.

» Make a great impression. If instructors cannot offer in-seat orientation sessions, items such as a welcome video, personal photograph(s), and a greeting letter can set the stage.

» Use class objects (texts, images, videos, etc…) to address elements of positive learning environments: trust, encouragement, expertise, high expectations, openness, competency, enthusiasm, learner-centeredness, and even fun can be addressed.

» Make sure that course communication always promotes your intended emotional effect and atmosphere. “Proofread” your work to include adding good vibes.

Commit to PresencePresence is, in part, defined as teacher immediacy—the way that instructors “indicate affection, inclusion, and involvement” (Russo & Benson, 2005, p. 55). Presence means being visible and engaged.

» Post content-driven announcements every week on the same day.

» Participate as an active member in discussion boards several times per week.

» Give timely, individual feedback. If there’s a delay in grading, communicate. A good rule of thumb is to provide feedback within 24 hours.

» Additionally, presence includes an instructor’s deliberate use of emotion for effectively engaging and sustaining learners. In other words, instructors should attend to the “feelings” of the class.

» Use funny, thematic, or emotionally-evocative images to create interest, signify praise, or address problems.

» Use tools like Camtasia or Voicethread so that your students can really hear your feelings and passion for a subject.

» Add voice or video clips to demonstrate tone when grading. Cox, et al (2015) note that voice clips are ideal for expressing mild “scolding” in a way that protects positive relationships, since written criticism can be misinterpreted more easily (p. 381). Use your voice (phone, audio clips, or in-person) to defuse conflicts when print isn’t working.

Social Learning OpportunitiesSome believe that peer presence may be even more important than instructor presence in online classes (LaRose & Whitten, 2000). Because of this, instructors should consider ways that students can create positive atmospheres together.

» Use discussion board icebreakers early in the term, or create a discussion “hangout” or “café” just for students. Some might promote peer-to-peer engagement through an off-site tool like Facebook.

» Insist that students upload real profile pictures to maximize social response.

» Actively facilitate social connection by praising socially gifted students and encouraging those on the fringes, especially in the first few weeks of class.

CustomizationAlthough providing structure and organization is essential online, it can lead to depersonalization. Customization can help personalize a class and provide spontaneity within a pre-planned structure. Warning: Students will quickly identify “canned” responses.

» Address individual students by name or nickname, in every correspondence, with no exceptions.

» Use announcements or discussion boards to give a “shout out” to specific students who did something unique.

» Use surveys to vote on fun subjects related to class, and then share results to display the views and opinions of that specific, unique group. Note: Many of Cross and D’Angelo’s “50 CATS for Assessment” can be modified to get formative feedback and help personalize a class (Cunningham, Moore, & Cross, 1993).

Improving Relationships for Student SuccessA welcoming environment, engaged instructor, socially-connected peers, and attention to the unique qualities of specific human learners are essential parts of every classroom, whether online or in-seat. Students in online environments can have equally deep and lasting learning experiences compared to in-seat settings; and, believe it or not, there’s a lot of fun, emotional intensity, and personal connection available there. Although the strategies listed here are not exhaustive, they are a good start for forming the vital relationships needed in online classes. Even if you struggle to recognize online students by their faces at graduation (and they yours), these strategies will improve the likelihood that they’ll make it to graduation successfully.

ReferencesCox, S., Black, J., Heney, J., Keith, M. (2015). Promoting teacher presence: strategies for effective and efficient feedback to student writing online. Teaching English at the Two-Year College. Retrieved from: www.ncte.org

Dirkx, J. M. (2001). The power of feelings: emotion, imagination, and the construction of meaning in adult learning. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 89(1), 63-72. DOI: 10.1002/ace.9

Jaggars, S. S., Xu, D., & Columbia University, C. C. (2010). Online learning in the Virginia community college system. Community College Research Center.

LaRose, R., & Whitten, P. (2000). Re-thinking instructional immediacy for web courses: A social cognitive exploration. Communication Education, 49 (4), 320-338.

Naidu, S. (2013). Learning about learning and teaching online. Distance Education, 34(1), 1-3. doi:10.1080/01587919.2013.775715

Russo, T., & Benson, S. (2005). Learning with invisible others: perceptions of online presence and their relationship to cognitive and affective learning. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 8(1), 54-62.

Xu, D., Jaggars, S. S., & Columbia University, C. C. (2011). Online and hybrid course enrollment and performance in Washington state community and technical colleges. CCRC Working Paper No. 31. Community College Research Center.


iPad Initiative

BY LAURA WOLF, iPad Ini t ia t ive Profess ional

“When I came to the United States, I knew four words in English. After three months studying with the iPad, I was able to have conversations in English in my class and out in the community.”

Joseph Begue came to the United States from Cameroon, Africa and is now a student with the Intensive English Language Program (IELP) at Aims. Joseph, along with his classmates, were part of the Spring 2015 Pilot of the iPad Initiative. This class was assigned iPads in a 1:1 deployment giving students use of iPads for the duration of the semester. The results were extraordinary.

Joseph was able to present a speech in English to the entire Academic Pathways department at the conclusion of Spring 2015. He credits his use of the iPad for his ability to develop his vocabulary through mobile apps and to acquire the confidence he needed to make his presentation. Joseph believes that “iPads can change the world” by making learning fun, challenging, and adaptable. He points out that iPads are perfect for learning a language because they allow interactive speaking and give students mobile access to websites and apps that allow learners to progress more quickly and independently through lessons without relying on instructor guidance.

Joseph explained that iPads meet students at their level of learning. When he was a teacher in Africa, he would find out what was interesting to his students so he could relate his lessons to their experience. He described how iPads can be used following the same approach because mobile technology gives students relevant interaction with the content they are learning.

Joseph’s observations are exactly what current research shows about the use of iPads in classrooms, including:

+ improvements in academic performance,

+ increases in engagement and motivation,

+ added instructional flexibility and resource efficiency, and

+ integrated focus on content quality and design (Apple, 2014).

Incorporating iPads into the learning experience makes the content more relevant to other areas of students’ lives and meets student needs efficiently and effectively.

iPads allow IELP students, who are often also underserved students in our community, to use a platform that provides numerous ways to enhance their language acquisition while also creating a pathway to pursue a degree in higher education. Of the IELP students who participated in the iPad Pilot, nearly 20 percent matriculated into some form of higher education program, and that number is expected to increase as the iPad Initiative continues to expand.

Joseph’s IELP instructor, Christopher Butler, went from practically no experience using an iPad to establishing a fully integrated iPad classroom. Mr. Butler needed minimal training to use the iPad since it is intuitively simple to operate. Butler recalled, “As soon as they had their iPads, I went from instructor to facilitator.”

He added the transition was not only easy, but also increased student learning tremendously. Students used apps such as Google Translate and Mango Languages through a subscription provided to all Aims students through the Kiefer Library.

When the IELP students were surveyed at the end of the semester about their experience using iPads, all responded they enjoyed using the iPad, felt using the iPad improved their language skills, and wanted the opportunity to use iPads again in future classes. The IELP students were able to complete multimedia assignments at home, freeing time in class for reflection and substantially increasing student interaction, which are elements of a flipped classroom and a learning-centered classroom. Having the fully immersive technology of iPads helps IELP students to interact without language barriers and become more competitive in an advancing digital world.

In addition to IELP classes, iPads were also deployed to several concurrent high school classes during the Spring 2015 Pilot. Students were taking Aims classes through their local high school in math disciplines as well as English Composition and Criminal Justice. The instructors for these concurrent classes possessed abilities with technology ranging from basic, who had never used an iPad before, to advanced, who had already implemented elements of a flipped classroom.

Instructors were able to successfully incorporate iPads into their learning environment and use the technology to enhance student learning. According to Aims concurrent math instructor Leslie Baumgartner, iPads “allow us to progress through our learning cycle within our flipped [classroom] approach more fluidly and intuitively.” Students are just as enthusiastic as their instructors about participating in the iPad Initiative.

One of Ms. Baumgartner’s trigonometry students stated, “I think that having iPads in school will help America take a huge step forward in learning as a whole. Students need reasons to be

engaged, and in a world full of technology these devices are the way to do it.”

Students responded to surveys from the iPad Initiative with overwhelmingly positive support of using the iPads to assist their success in challenging concurrent classes. The 2015 Pearson Student Mobile Device Survey reveals that seven out of 10 surveyed students said they agree that tablets help learners study more efficiently, and that tablets will replace traditional textbooks within five years (Pearson, 2015). The vast majority (83 percent) of college students agree that tablets will transform the way college students learn in the future.

The iPad Initiative at Aims was created in response to the Board of Trustees insight recognizing the move toward mobile technology in the classroom. It was then developed through the Academic Pathways Department following a common 1:1 implementation model by using a loan agreement and optional insurance policy to establish student responsibility and liability. Aims iPads are supervised through a Mobile Device Management system that keeps the devices secure and functioning optimally.

Recognized by Apple as the most successful implementation in Colorado, Aims Community College enrolls its iPads using Apple’s Device Enrollment Program (DEP). This allows for better device management, app deployment, and theft prevention. Using DEP, Aims has been able to stay flexible with different usage scenarios and provide a quick, easy-to-use setup process for students with the iPad Initiative. Significant care has been taken at every stage of the program to maintain security of Aims-owned devices and personal student information while providing technical support and access to digital classroom tools.

Because of their adaptability and ease of use, iPads have proven to be the most intuitive and reliable device to enhance the learning environment. Many area K-12 schools are implementing similar

STUDENTS NEED REASONS TO BE ENGAGED, AND IN A WORLD FULL OF TECHNOLOGY THESE DEVICES ARE THE WAY TO DO IT.


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A I M S A V I A T I O N

initiatives which loan iPads to students. The school retains ownership of these devices, but in most cases students keep the iPads in their possession throughout the school year. Expanding iPad deployment while strengthening mobile device curriculum will allow Aims to keep pace with the expectations of students who have spent the majority of their formative educational years in iPad classrooms.

Students who participate in an iPad Initiative-

supported class gain access to an adaptive learning platform that enhances their education while increasing technological proficiency. The iPad is an incredibly versatile tool that encompasses the principles of the Universal Design for Learning (UDL). The iPad is equipped with standard features and apps that allow for multiple means of representation and expression. Visual, auditory, motor sensory skills and learning styles can all be individualized on the iPad, making it an assistive tool without students feeling they are receiving different accommodations from their classmates. The goal of UDL is the elimination of barriers from the learning environment, and iPads give students a fully accessible and interactive portal into a new dimension of learning. Incorporating iPads as a classroom tool makes the content engaging, increases relevance, allows for differentiated instruction, and facilitates collaboration.

Using technology also helps increase student retention. According to the 2015 Center for Digital Education report on improving graduation rates in higher education, “Today’s students have grown up with mobile devices, and they expect to be able to use them in every area of their lives.” By improving students’ access to technology through the iPad Initiative, “students can optimize their productivity; work at times and locations that are most convenient to them; and more successfully balance school, work and other aspects of their busy lives” (Center for Digital Education, 2015). As Aims works to continue increasing student access to technology, students will be more likely to succeed in their classes and continue work toward completing their programs.

The iPad Initiative has put considerable effort into creating and delivering professional development opportunities for instructors. These resources include workshops and an Aims Online (Desire2Learn) course shell specifically designed for instructor reference on topics relating to using iPads in the classroom.

Through collaboration with the Office of Online Learning and the Faculty Teaching and Learning Center, we are continuing to develop both online and in-person support for instructors that will give them the confidence and ability to deliver course content using integrative technology. We are working to create an environment on campus that welcomes mobile devices in the classroom, or “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD), and we want our instructors to feel prepared to incorporate technology in a manner beneficial to their students’ learning.

Supporting Aims instructors within the iPad Initiative is a top priority. We strive to provide comprehensive resources and training that will facilitate our instructors’ ability to use iPads in their classes in effective and meaningful ways, aligning with Aims’ long-term goal one – “Prepare Aims for the learning needs of current and future students” – and mid-term goal five – “Make emerging technologies training accessible to all college employees.”

The iPad Initiative also facilitates the achievement of Aims’ strategic goals by meeting learning needs and objectives while giving students applicable future skills with technology. Widespread use of technology enhances the reputation of Aims while also contributing to our

commitment to sustainability and creating a greener classroom by reducing the need for paper. The iPad Initiative embodies the Learning College objectives at Aims by using “technology to improve and expand student learning” while also making the learning environment accessible to all students, including diverse learners and underserved students.

The future of the iPad Initiative is bright with anticipation of continued innovation geared toward student achievement and program completion. Based on the successes we experienced during the pilot in Spring 2015 and the valuable feedback we have gathered from instructors and students, the iPad Initiative is eager to continue moving forward with positive momentum.

The iPad Initiative has returned to concurrent high school classes for Fall 2015 and has an expanded presence in concurrent classrooms. The iPad Initiative is also expanding into other areas in Academic Pathways, including GED and Centennial BOCES High School, as well as Disability Access Services and Catalyst students.

In addition, compelling ideas have developed surrounding the future of the program. As a graduation incentive, we would like the iPad Initiative to evolve to where students have the opportunity to earn ownership of their iPad by successfully graduating from Aims. Having the opportunity to use an iPad on a loan basis until they finish their program gives underserved students the technology they need to be successful in the digital classroom while also providing them with the incentive to stay on course and complete their degree program. Giving students the ability to earn their iPad through a closely monitored loan agreement will complement Aims’ goal of being a BYOD campus. We are honored to be a part of creating classrooms of the future at Aims Community College through the iPad Initaitive.

References

Apple, Inc. (2014, October). iPad in education results. Retrieved from https://www.apple.com/education/docs/iPad_in_Education_Results.pdf

Pearson. (2015, June). Pearson student mobile device survey 2015. Retrieved from http://www.pearsoned.com/wp-content/uploads/2015-Pearson-Student-Mobile-Device-Survey-College.pdf

Center for Digital Education. (2015, June). Retrieved from http://www.centerdigitaled.com/paper/Improving-Student-Retention-and-Graduation-Rates-in-Higher-Education-1422.html

AIMSAVIATIONC R E AT I N G O R D E R O U T O F C H A O S

BY DUSTY MOSNESS-BRAILSFORD, JD, Director of AviationALEX WERNSMAN, Interim Director of the Flight Training Center

The Aims Aviation Department has a rich 47-year history. Approved in 1968, the department’s fixed-wing flight program is one of the oldest programs at the College. Like all things in life, the fixed-wing flight program has had its ups and downs over the past five decades of

training students. Due to the ripple effect of the economic crisis in 2008, positions in the Aviation Department were consolidated, and the department underwent sudden structural changes. Left without a defined leader, the program continued to operate on “autopilot,” but student expectations were low, progress was slow, and completions were diminished. This is the “rising phoenix” story of how a department came together to bring order out of chaos and effectuate big results with strategic enrollment and planning changes, along with setting clearly defined expectations in our fixed-wing flight program.

“All great changes are preceded by chaos.” – Deepak Chopra

In Spring 2014, the Aims Flight Training Center was training 43 flight students. As a result of the economically driven departmental change, the model of training that had been in place for at least the prior five years meant students were enrolled in the fixed-wing program every term and without firm regard to:

1. available resources at the flight center (certified flight instructors and aircraft);

2. the student’s academic or financial preparedness; or

3. a firmly outlined course of study (i.e. a cohort).

The old model for enrollment strategy and planning created quite a few significant barriers to student progress and success. For example, the number of FAA certificates issued in the calendar year 2013 was 11, despite an enrollment of 59 fixed-wing flight students in the same calendar year. Clearly, a change was needed to support and promote successful academic progress and student completions.

THE CHALLENGES

Resources

Flight instruction is completed via a 1:1 student-instructor ratio. A student is trained in an aircraft (Cessna 172 for Aims’ primary students), with a certified flight instructor (CFI). Historically, the average Aims aviation student has taken approximately 65 flight hours to complete a standard flight course such as AVT 102 Private Pilot Flight (53 hours of which are 1:1 trainings with a CFI). Considering the required pre- and post-flight briefings, this means that every fixed-wing flight student needs to be provided with the resources of one instructor and one airplane for eight hours each week .

Resource limitation #1: Aircraft

In Spring 2014, the Aims Flight Training Center had the staffing to only operate Monday - Friday from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. We also had four Cessna 172 training aircraft. Each operating day had the ability to offer a total of 40 hours of flight training (assuming no aircraft were unavailable due to maintenance) . This equated to a total of 200 hours available during any given standard five-day work-week. If, to sustain

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2014 2015

Rate of Student Progress 0.91 1.93

Instructor Time Needed 1.53 1.43

2014 2015

Aircraft Ut i l izat ion 37.85 56.75

Instructor Uti l izat ion 72.43 101.66

Aircraft Ut i l izat ion Rate 18.92% 28.38%

AFTC Eff ic iency 37.84% 56.76%

SPG 2014 & 2015 SUMMARY

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Instructor Utilization

SPG 2014 & 2015 SUMMARY

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Aircraft Utilization Rate

AFTC Efficiency

SPG 2014 & 2015 AFTC Students

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ent 2.5

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SIGNATURE 2016 13

successful academic progress, each student requires eight hours per week, then the resource limitation due to aircraft was realistically at capacity with 25 students.

Resource limitation #2: CFIs

In addition to aircraft limitations, we are also limited by the number of CFIs we have on staff to train students. This human resource has continual turnover, as the traditional role of a CFI position is that of a stepping-stone for pilots to acquire needed flight hours to continue their careers in aviation. The increasing market demand for pilots makes finding qualified CFIs challenging for all flight-training programs. In Spring 2014, the program employed only four CFIs who, as part-time employees, were capped at 30 hours, or 15 flight cores, per week of availability. With this number of instructors, the program could only handle 15 flight students.

When dealing with resource limitations, if both are needed, the controlling limitation is the one with the lowest capacity. For Spring 2014, our capacity was 15 students. At 43 students enrolled, we were effectively at 287 percent capacity for the available resources.

Financial and academic preparedness of the students

Flight training is expensive. The costs (flight lab fees) include the rental of the aircraft including aircraft fuel, and in most cases, the cost of 1:1 instruction with a CFI. Flight training is also a perishable skill. If a pilot doesn’t consistently practice, she loses proficiency. This is why the Federal Aviation Administration requires recurrent training on a regular basis for a pilot to remain proficient and legal to fly. More importantly, loss of proficiency directly equates to increased costs to the student pilot. If a student stops flying, for even a week, his or her skill set diminishes and it becomes necessary to retrain skills to regain the proficiency lost. For example, if a student were to stop flying for two weeks after completing flight lesson 10, they would not begin again at flight lesson 11 when they returned. Instead, they would most likely need a review flight or two before being proficient to advance to lesson 11. This need to regain proficiency increases both the necessary time in aircraft and time with an instructor, all at an additional cost to the student, which can be exponential.

Therefore, it is in the best interest of the student to keep track and limit the number of absences. In addition, because flight is expensive, it is difficult for students to pay for flight lab fees out of pocket and all at once. Historically, students would pay as they go, but this created stalls in students’ progression when funds ran out (which they often did). The department is keenly aware of the financial challenges; therefore, it made key changes during Fall 2015. Students are given the average costs of the flight fees for each course prior to the start of the semester and expected to either pay the amount in full or sign a four-payment promissory note with the college. Likewise, the college now allows VA students to fly at the start of the semester once their benefits have been certified rather than waiting for funds to arrive, as was historically the practice. The bottom line is the prior “pay-as-you-go” model simply does not work in the collegiate aviation environment where students are expected to have successful academic progress.

Flight training is difficult. Necessary concepts such as airplane systems, aerodynamics, and navigation are complicated and intensive. Academic preparedness is essential to success. If students are not academically

prepared to take on such challenges, they struggle unnecessarily. Often, the discouragement that results from such struggle overcomes the desire to fly, and the student abandons his or her dream. It is our job to set students up for success.

A firm course of study.

The research behind the value of academic cohorts is lengthy. For aviation, it is known to be best practice in the flight training industry for students to study their ground and corresponding flight courses concurrently (i.e. to take AVT 101 Private Pilot Ground School concurrently with AVT 102 Private Pilot Flight). Historically, Aims students might either start with the ground course while they accumulated funding for the flight, or they started both concurrently but subsequently got behind in flight, and at the same time got ahead in the ground school course sequence. In this scenario, a student taking AVT 112 Instrument Pilot Flight might have taken its corresponding ground course, AVT 111 Instrument Pilot Ground as many as three semesters prior. This tends to make Instrument Flight more challenging as the student may struggle to remember and apply information learned months earlier.

The value of a cohort model was clear. However, it became apparent that this would only be possible if students were (1) provided the resources necessary to complete a flight course in one term, (2) required to pursue successful academic progress via flight core scheduling and required attendance, and (3) financially and academically prepared to enter the cohort.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” – Lao Tzu

So the journey began. Fall 2014, we took the first step by capping the enrollment of fixed-wing flight students (since we were already at 287 percent capacity) and feverishly worked to increase resources to accommodate student demand. With the help of the College, we were able to increase our staffing and add another day of scheduled flight on Saturdays from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.

We started Spring 2015 with 35 flight students, now 60 percent above capacity given the increased resources. In this term, we saw the implementation of the revised flight core scheduling processes, attendance, and completion expectations. All students were required to schedule a minimum of two standing flight cores per week and were highly encouraged to add additional flights to that core as much as possible on a weekly basis. Additionally, the program began taking attendance based on the scheduled flight cores and made these expectations clear to students, along with the expectation that the courses be complete in a reasonable timeframe given the limitations that still existed on resources. Metrics were tracked and the results were calculated.

In comparison to the same timeframe one year earlier (January 1 to May 20), the rate of student progress increased 171 percent! Student efficiency, defined as the amount of instructor time spent on a student relative to flight hours completed, increased by 7 percent. Likewise, a ripple effect occurred, increasing the utilization and efficiencies of the resources.

The increase in student progress resulted in increased student completion in the Spring 2015 semester.

IT IS OUR JOB TO SET STUDENTS UP

FOR SUCCESS.

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

We then entered Summer 2015 with 26 students, adhering to the same procedure changes as the prior Spring term. Given both the shortened length of Summer 2015 term and the fact that AVT 101 Private Pilot Ground is traditionally not offered over the summer, it was decided that new students would be brought in only in the Fall and Spring terms. The lower student numbers allowed us to match resources appropriately and increase the required flight cores to the optimal four flight cores per week.

Once again, the results showed a 237 percent increase in the rate of student progress compared to the prior year (Summer 2014). Student efficiency was also up 4 percent. Additionally, we saw a 34 percent overall increase in the rate of student progress from Spring 2015 to Summer 2015.

This progress is reflected in the FAA completion comparisons as well. In the 2014 calendar year, 19 FAA certificates were issued. This number was virtually doubled in the first nine months of 2015, as 36 certificates have been issued (tripling that of 2013). All this occurred with 50 percent fewer students, meaning a larger percentage of students accomplishing successful academic completion.

In Fall 2015, the implementation of requirements for students to be financially prepared and college-ready means they must be able to enter into MAT 121 College Algebra and ENG 121 English Composition I. A payment plan was developed with the help of the College’s cashier and legal departments. Flight students who were not paid-in-full by the College’s payment deadline were required to have a signed payment plan in place to avoid being dropped from all courses. A process was created mirroring that of the Radiologic Technology program to admit students off the growing (50+) waitlist for the fixed-wing flight programs. This allowed the first cohort to start as well. All new fixed-wing flight students were advised into the same sequence of courses in Fall 2015.

Although it is still too early for metrics on the Fall 2015 semester, anecdotal data from faculty who teach the primary students is positive regarding the academic and motivational qualities of our newest students.

And so our story is at an intermission, for as Winston Churchill said, “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” As the Aviation phoenix rises from chaos, we will continue to pursue changes and fine-tune processes that set students up for success, facilitate student completions, and promote successful academic progress.

The Aviation department would like to extend its sincerest thanks and gratitude to the many College personnel that helped to guide and support these necessary changes; without which none of this would have been possible.


FA C U LT Y & S TA F F R E CO G N I T I O NJ E N N I F E R B O L A N D2015 Faculty Selected Faculty of the Year

A N N A L I E S E B O N ACQ U I STAExemplary Online Course Award

R AY B R O W N2015 Dean-Selected Faculty of the Year

JA N E T C H A S ENational Association of Academic Advising (NACADA) Outstanding Advising Award Certificate of Merit (Primary Advising Role)

D R . CO R KY CO R K E R N2015 Student Selected Faculty of the Year

M E G A N F R I E S E N2015 Dean Selected Faculty of the Year

C L I N T H E I N E R2015 TRiO and Core Faculty Impact Award

D R . M A R S I L I D D E L LPTK Michael Bennett Lifetime Achievement Award

J O H N L E N Z2015 Faculty Teaching & Learning Center Innovation in Teaching Award

S H A N N O N M CCA S L A N D2015 National Resource Center for theFirst-Year Experience and Students in Transition Outstanding First-Year Student Advocate

S H A N N O N M CCA S L A N D2015 TRiO and Core Staff Impact Award

D R . A N N E M AC H I N2015 Faculty Selected Faculty of the Year

D E N I S E P E A R S O NFirst-Year Experience Student Advocate Award

B R I A N S M A L LW O O D2015 Student-selected Part-Time FacultyMember of the Year

CO L L E G E R E CO G N I T I O N Colorado Department of Higher Education Colorado Competes! Award

Ranked in Top Ten for Digital Technology Use by e.Republic’s Center for Digital Education

Ranked Best in Colorado by WalletHub

P R O G R A M R E CO G N I T I O N100% pass rate on Surgical Technical CST Certified Surgical Technologists Exam

Surgical Technician ProgramNational Association of Surgical Technicians Merit Certificate

Police AcademyColorado Rangers for Program Excellence

National Society of Leadership and Success (NSLS) ClubNational Photo Contest Winner

W hen you are driving on Highway 34 between Loveland and Greeley, look to the northwest as you approach the County Road

17 exit to Windsor. You will see the new Aims Community College “state of the art” Public Safety training campus complex just west of County Road 17 on Southgate Drive. The campus includes a 50-foot tall training tower at the south end of the site. With the Aims logo attached to the training tower’s upper floor, it is the most noticeable building on the campus and will surely be a landmark for the area. The new campus was opened for students in mid-January 2016, just in time for the Spring semester.

The new 10-acre complex is just south of the Aims Automotive & Technology Center which opened in January 2009. A new 53,000 square-foot, two-story combination of classrooms, offices, and a training building will anchor the site and will provide students with new opportunities at one central location. In addition to the Automotive programs, multiple degree and certificate programs in public safety are offered that include Criminal Justice, Emergency Medical Services, Fire Science, Phlebotomy, and Medical Assisting. The seven individual classrooms will utilize “smart technology” to enhance student learning, and include a science lab, phlebotomy lab and multiple computer rooms.

The building complex includes real-life simulation labs for Emergency Medical Services (EMS) training, workout rooms for physical fitness training, and a CPAT bay which is utilized as a physical fitness agility test center for firefighters throughout Colorado. The Fire Science program now has multiple inside truck bays to house their fire apparatus, training props and equipment for the multiple fire academies held each year. Criminal Justice students will have new classroom space and the ability to use the training facility for simulations.

In addition to taking the public safety degree program classes, students have the ability to take general education classes, meet with an advisor, access tutoring services, use the testing center, and register for classes, all at the Windsor Campus.

The classroom training building may be considered the anchor of the Campus, but the real excitement for the Aims fire science students and staff is the fifty-foot tall, four-story training tower located at the south end of the new site. Due to a lack of a training facility in the past, Aims has been required to rent training facilities in northern Colorado to facilitate the fire academy live training. The new training tower will provide multiple training evolutions for firefighters and first responders, including multiple live fire burn rooms that use propane fuel which burns very clean and allows for the use of artificial smoke which is safe for the environment but enhances firefighter

training for simulating real fire conditions. The tower will also be used for search and rescue, rappelling for high-angle rescue, ventilation scenarios, water supply evolutions, hazardous materials high-rise fires, and ladder training.

The large open area between the tower and classroom facility will have streets for emergency response training in apparatus and areas for training props. One of the training props will include a wildland area including a pond for drafting evolutions. The master plan of the campus site includes a future simulated city block that will include mock residential and commercial buildings used for Criminal Justice, EMS, and fire training.

Aims is looking forward to partnering with local emergency agencies including local fire districts, EMS agencies, police departments, and first responders in northern Colorado that can utilize this facility for their training exercises.

Aims is committed to providing students with a first class education that will produce professional emergency service personnel that are well-trained, meeting the standards expected by the communities they serve in northern Colorado and the surrounding areas. The new training campus will certainly enhance the students’ training experience and is focused on providing active, learning-centric educational opportunities.

BY BRIAN MARTENS, Fi re Sc ience Instructor

Aims College sets the “Standard for Success” at its New Public Safety Institute in Windsor


Angel Flores has the type of face that instantly puts people at ease. His entire being radiates a non-judgmental and authentic quality. He is nice to the bone. Angel tells me that he believes there are two types of educators, “those who make it over the wall and then throw over a rope to help the next person, and those who make it over the wall and then add a layer of bricks.” Angel is clearly a rope-thrower.

Angel grew up in the tiny town of Fort Lupton, the son of a migrant field worker. While his father only completed school up to the fifth grade, Angel describes him as having “a master’s degree in hard work and a Ph.D. in common sense.” Fort Lupton, located south of Greeley, sent just under 46 percent of their graduates to college in 2009 and 50 percent in 2013. Compare this to Fossil Ridge over in the other “Fort” (Fort Collins), where they sent 79 percent and 76 percent, respectively. You can almost imagine a wall around the town of Fort Lupton, making the prospect of higher education seem impossible without Aims.

While attending Fort Lupton High School, Angel met Ralph Barr, a social studies teacher. Angel vividly recalls the time when Mr. Barr

told the class, “The whole world is not like Fort Lupton. You ought to explore it and find out.” Later, while attending an assembly featuring a motivational speaker, Angel felt his calling, public speaking. These two incidents, woven together, created Angel’s rope. Angel used that rope to scale the wall around his town and then used it to help many others do the same.

Today, Angel is the pastor of the Mosaic Church in Greeley and also teaches for Aims part-time. His church just recently cut its twenty-third scholarship check to a needy college student. He has been to 48 states, speaking about his thoughts on higher education and the barriers that first-generation students face. He tells me that, in general, many community colleges consider first-generation students to be a bad investment because their completion rates are so low. However, that is only part of the story. Take Angel for example. He was a first-generation college student who failed out in his first semester at Aims, just like the statistics predicted. Seventeen years later he gave it another try, returning to Aims to complete general education courses, which led to a bachelor’s degree in 2009 and a master’s degree in 2012. Angel’s success led to many downstream effects. Among them, nine more

BY PATRICIA RAND, Director of the Facul ty Teaching and Learning Center and Paramedic Professor

THROWING a ROPE OVER the WALL AN INTERVIEW WITH ANGEL FLORES

members of his family have become college graduates. In addition, he has written a book designed to help other first-generation college students. I asked Angel how it feels to have impacted so many lives. To this, Angel simply states, “Someone had to go first.”

He got the idea for his book, 50 Things I Wish Someone Would Have Told Me About College, after a conversation with a young woman in his congregation. Also a first-generation student, she mentioned that she really was not prepared for the cost of her textbooks. When Angel asked her how much money she received when she sold them back, she looked at him dumbfounded; she had never heard of this practice before.

The book contains 50 practical tips for any college student, but it is particularly helpful for the student who “had to go first.” Admittedly, most of the tips would seem painfully obvious to a third-generation Ivy Leaguer, but they are downright genius to a college student who didn’t grow up hearing about dad’s crazy fraternity parties.

I asked Angel what he believes to be the top three barriers to college attendance for a first-generation student. First, he says, is the lack of a reference point. When no one from your family has attended college, the institution is seen as an ivory tower, complete with the secret handshake. The next barrier is cost. Well, actually, knowledge of cost. We at Aims know that not all college educations are expensive, but Angel has found that most first-generation students, even those who are currently enrolled, have no idea how much they will owe the college when they graduate. Finally, Angel explains that the “I’ll take a year off to figure out what I want” mentality is dangerous since one-year quickly turns into three or five or 17 with mounting personal responsibility along the way.

Angel’s advice; “Just figure out what you want to do first. Not for the rest of your life, just first.” When you think about it, this makes perfect sense. How many of us are doing the job today that we thought we wanted to do at age 18? Today, our society is made up of career nomads. No one stays in just one career. If you can just figure out your first career, the rest will fall into place.

Angel dedicated his book, 50 Things I Wish Someone Would Have Told Me About College, to his high school social studies teacher, Mr. Barr. Recently, Angel had the opportunity to publicly recognize Mr. Barr during an honors ceremony. I asked him to describe the look on Mr. Barr’s face when he learned about his profound impact, not only on Angel, but the nine family members who followed his footsteps. He said that Mr. Barr was “teary-eyed” and obviously moved by the recognition. Then, following the ceremony, Mr. Barr quietly confided in Angel, “I don’t remember you at all.” It takes a confident person to find the humor in this, but Angel does. He explains, “It just goes to show, you never know what kind of impact you have on your students. It could be something as simple as a kind gesture. It may mean nothing to you, but to them, it means the world.”

ANGEL’S ADVICE: NOT FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, JUST FIRST.

JUST FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU WANT TO DO FIRST.

ANGEL USED THAT ROPE TO SCALE THE WALL AROUND HIS

TOWN AND THEN USED IT TO HELP MANY

OTHERS DO THE SAME.


BY ROSS PERKINS, Chair of Academic Assessment and ALLI OSWANDAL, Assessment Coordinator

Aims Community College is a Learning College. This means we place learning first and provide high quality, educational experiences for all learners. As a Learning College, our overall objective is for all our students and employees to be actively engaged in learning collectively. Aims accomplishes this by addressing strategies to assess and improve learning outcomes, improving assessment processes that measure the attainment of the learning outcomes, and improving on means of documenting achievement of these outcomes. By measuring the amount and quality of student learning toward defined outcomes, it is possible to evaluate the quality of a curriculum, and in turn, improve.

As we move forward in our mission to use assessment to improve the quality of instruction offered at Aims Community College, we want to take a moment to address some of the common misconceptions surrounding assessment.

Assessment of student learning in higher education is a trend, a fad, or an endeavor primarily undertaken only for accreditation.

Academic assessment is here to stay and will provide a platform to grow and improve our offerings for students and our community. “Educational assessment seeks to determine how well students are learning and is an integral part of the quest for improved education. It provides feedback to students, educators, parents, policy makers, and the public about the effectiveness of educational services” (Pellegrino, 2001). Feedback is the best way to make informed decisions about how to best improve.

The results of assessment will be used to evaluate faculty performance and used to eliminate some of the department’s programs.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Faculty awareness, participation, and ownership are essential for successful program assessment, but assessment results will never be used to evaluate or judge individual faculty members’ performance. The results of program assessment are used to improve programs. In fact, faculty actively involved in assessment are often considered more effective because they are able to apply their results directly to their teaching and make immediate improvements to student learning.

Assessment is a waste of time and does not benefit the students.

On the contrary, the benefits of assessment extend to both the staff and students in many ways. In general, benefits include getting faculty members, within and across disciplines, talking about their goals for student learning; seeing how courses fit together; making expectations more clear to students; and sharing detailed feedback with students (Suskie, 2009). Assessment increases our confidence that we are putting our time and resources into activities that we value as an institution. It also helps us ensure that we are allocating resources to areas that are producing the outcomes we value. Assessment allows us to gather and use data that enables us

UNDERSTANDING

ASSESSMENT

OFFICE OF ACADEMIC ASSESSMENT MISSION STATEMENT

The Office of Academic Assessment fosters a culture of assessment at Aims Community College. The office facilitates use of assessment resources, assists programs/departments in achieving assessment and accreditation goals, and helps the campus community more effectively use assessment information for decision making to enhance student learning and strengthen programs.

THE OFFICE OF ACADEMIC ASSESSMENT GOALS

The Office of Academic Assessment will:

} collaborate with faculty, students, staff, and administrators to establish meaningful, manageable, and sustainable assessment;

} foster the use of program and institutional assessment to improve the quality of student learning;

} disseminate assessment-related information to the college community to help inform decision-making about student learning; and

} help facilitate discussions with program/department chairs and administrators to use student learning assessment results to guide planning.

to make decisions that lead to improved instruction and stronger curriculums. It strengthens our ability to say that our graduates are well prepared to succeed in their future endeavors. It increases the effectiveness of our communications about the value of a college education and allows us to have access to data that will satisfy the requirements of accrediting agencies.

We can just come up with an assessment plan for this year and use it every year thereafter.

For program assessment to be successful, it must be an ongoing and continuous process. Just as your program should be improving, so should your assessment plan and measurement methods. Each academic department must look at its programs and its learning outcomes on a continual basis and determine if there are better ways to measure student learning and other program outcomes. Your assessment plan should be continuously reviewed and improved.

We will assign a single faculty member to conduct the assessment. Too many opinions would only delay and hinder the process.

While it is a good idea to have one or two faculty members head the assessment process for the department, it is really important and beneficial to have all faculty members involved (full-time and part-time). Each person brings to the table different perspectives and ideas for improving the academic or CTE program. Also, it is important that all faculty members understand and agree to the mission (i.e. purpose), program goals, and student learning outcomes.

Program assessment sounds like a good idea, but it is time consuming and complex.

It is impossible to “get something for nothing.” Effective program assessment will take some time and effort, but there are steps that can help you develop an assessment plan that will lead to improving student learning.

Step 1: Refer to or create a mission statement for overarching guidance.

Step 2: Specify the purpose, goals, and outcomes.

Why is this assessment being conducted? What do we want to know about our students?

What are the higher-level desired outcomes contained within the mission statement?

What are the measurable action statements that demonstrate achievement of the stated goals?

Step 3: Plan for the delivery of outcomes.

How will each desired outcome be achieved? A good exercise for considering the various points at which achievement of an outcome will be facilitated is completion of an outcome curriculum map.

Step 4: Design or identify existing methods and measures.

How will each outcome be measured? What assignments are you already using in your courses?

Step 5: Plan for the implementation of the assessment process.

Who will be responsible for each step in the evaluation process? What will be the timeline for implementation? What other programs/offices will be assisting with the evaluation process?

Who will be participating in interpreting the data and making recommendations and decisions?

Step 6: Plan for the communication of results.

How will assessment findings be shared with relevant audiences?

The Office of Academic Assessment can help you walk through these steps, including choosing the appropriate assessment, designing rubrics, training in data collection, and evaluation and use of results.

References

Glaser, R., Chudowsky, N., & Pellegrino, J. W. (Eds.). (2001). Knowing What Students Know: The Science and Design of Educational Assessment. National Academies Press.

Suskie, L. (2010). Assessing student learning: A common sense guide. John Wiley & Sons.

THE OFFICE OF ACADEMIC ASSESSMENT

ROSS PERKINS

Ross is the Chair of Academic Assessment and started at Aims in February 2015. At his previous institution, Ross was the assessment coordinator for institutional and program level assessment. He brings a wealth of knowledge about assessment best practices and a passion for student learning. Ross enjoys spending time with his family camping, hiking, and fishing.

Ross on Assessment: “Assessment of student learning is a natural extension of the teaching and learning process. Learning Goals and Student Learning Outcomes [SLOs] form the foundation of student success by establishing clear, measurable, and manageable expectations. By establishing meaningful learning goals and SLOs, faculty, programs, and the College can use the information to understand and improve student learning.”CONTACT ROSS AT [email protected]

ALLI OSWANDEL

Alli is an Academic Assessment Coordinator at Aims who comes to us from the Greeley Evans School District. She has been a K-12 classroom teacher and administrator and received her M.A. in Educational Leadership from Regis University. In her free time, Alli enjoys hanging out with her four kids, who are busy with sports, theater, and dance.

Alli on Assessment: “I became interested in assessment in my own classroom as a tool to measure how my students were doing each day and as a decision-maker for instruction. Being able to accurately assess what my students knew prevented me from moving on before they were ready and ensured that they learned what I said they learned. I also love using assessment to gauge how I am doing as an instructor and to pinpoint areas of growth for myself.” CONTACT ALLI AT [email protected]

SIGNATURE 2016 21

The Colorado Department of Higher Education (CDHE) is convening faculty to revise the competencies for gtPathways. The current competencies – reading, critical thinking, written communication, mathematics, and technology – were approved in 2005, are somewhat outdated, and are not written in such a way as to enable their assessment.

The rationale for revising the gtPathways competencies is twofold. First, ensuring that competencies are standard across the gtPathways courses at every institution allows faculty to know exactly what competencies transfer students bring with them to the receiving institution. Second, the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), the regional accrediting body for Colorado colleges and universities, is asking institutions to document student learning in their General Education programs. Having more rigorous, up-to-date competencies that are aligned with the competencies already being used by other institutions across the nation and here in Colorado opens the door for faculty collaboration in assessing student learning, as well as demonstrating that student learning is being measured in valid and reliable ways for HLC accreditation.

The revised gtPathways competencies will be aligned with AAC&U’s LEAP VALUE rubrics. A first draft of the revised competencies were completed by faculty at the April 24, 2015 Faculty2Faculty (Fac2Fac) Conference.

REVISION OF

gtPathways CompetenciesBY THE OFFICE OF ACADEMIC ASSESSMENT

BY KAROLINE WOODRUFF, AQIP/HLC Compliance Off icer

D ealing with accreditation can feel like wrestling with Godzilla and the monster seems to be getting bigger all the time. What started as a voluntary membership process to ensure

institutional quality has taken on greater importance over the last few decades. As Aims Community College looks to the near future, it might be easy to complain about onerous accreditation requirements, in this case a portfolio focused on our processes and efforts to improve them, documentation of our compliance with federal regulation, and preparation for a three-day peer review visit all in the next two years. Looking more closely, though, perhaps there is another way to look at it.

As mentioned above, accreditation began more a century ago, when colleges and universities voluntarily joined their peers as members of an accrediting commission to demonstrate their dedication to excellence in education. Beginning with the 1952 G.I. Bill for Korean Veterans, and later the 1965 Higher Education Act (HEA), access to federal student financial aid became tied to the accreditation status of an institution. Subsequent reauthorization of the HEA has strengthened that tie and added significantly to requirements for both accrediting agencies and their member institutions.

Without a doubt, our students benefit from our accreditation status by being able to access Title IV financial aid. Sixty-one percent of our degree- or certificate-seeking students receive federal financial aid. That aid makes the privilege of a post-secondary degree or certificate a reality for many students who would otherwise not be able to pursue higher education.

Still, beyond the access to Title IV funding, what do students and our other stakeholders expect of our accreditation status? Well, they

want to know that: 1) the money and effort they put into Aims will be a good investment, 2) we will help them succeed and graduate, 3) all courses (in-seat, online, or dual enrollment) offer comparable quality, 4) our programs will prepare them for work in their chosen field or the academic challenges at a four-year school, 5) they will build the general competencies employers look for, and 6) they have a good chance of getting a job when they graduate. These are the same questions our accreditor asks, often in response to federal requirements for accrediting

commissions. When you think of it, they are also the same questions we should be asking ourselves. We need to ask whether students are flourishing at Aims and if they gain the skills they need to succeed. We also need to be able to show how we learn the answers to those questions by gathering data through surveys, studies, and assessments. Finally, if we find our students are falling short, we need to ask how we can improve. This is the very heart of continuous improvement and the Academic Quality Improvement process (AQIP) through which Aims pursues accreditation.

While we have been gathering data for years, we are now in the process of refining our answers and compiling the volume of evidence the Higher Learning Commission needs

to reaffirm our accreditation. It can sometimes feel like the requirements for accreditation and compliance are overly cumbersome, time consuming, and get in the way of our day-to-day work. However, we learn important lessons and gain valuable insights into our effectiveness as an institution by working through the requirements. What we learn about our strengths and challenges helps us to grow and makes our students better. Ultimately, we are all focused on student success and we are all asking the same fundamental question, “How do we best help students change their lives through higher education?”

A

CCRED I TAT IO

N

ST

U

D E N T S U C C E S S

AND

We need to ask whether students are flourishing at Aims and if they gain the

skills they need to succeed.


The Med Prep Program gives area junior and senior high school students endless opportunities to improve the lives of their families, their community and themselves

by entering and exploring health care careers. Students are identified through their high school counselor based on Individual Career and Academic Plans (ICAP). Med Prep classes are taught by registered nurses with varied backgrounds in Allied Health.

The Med Prep Program curriculum was restructured last year to ensure that every class within the program assists the student in becoming marketable and meeting requirements toward an introductory degree in the Allied Health field. In addition, the curriculum aligns with the Colorado Community College System (CCCNS) Career and Technical Education career clusters for Health Science including Nursing and EMS. We utilize a block schedule approach to allow the student to focus on one subject at a time and each class builds on previous courses to allow for scaffolding of learning.

The demand of the Med Prep Program is significant. Because many high school students struggle to acclimate to the expectations of a college level allied health curriculum, we start the year with a Success Seminar in order to increase student success rates. Students learn about personality styles and how to identify their own unique perspectives with “Myers Briggs” and “True Colors.” The concept of these personality tests is to aid students in honing in on health career choices based on their individual strengths. Students are guided through iFocus seminars to identify their learning style, improve the student’s

TAILORING EDUCATION TO STUDENT NEEDSAND PROMOTING SUCCESSBY HEATHER BROWN, Department Chair and Professor, Med Prep and Nurse Aide

test taking strategies, problem solving skills, and time management skills. A campus wide scavenger hunt identifies campus resources, allows for fun, while decreasing the student’s anxieties about finding his/her way around a college campus. At the end of this brief course, the student has created the beginnings of his or her professional portfolio.

In the next course, Medical Terminology, the student is immersed into the language of healthcare. Required in several Allied Health degree programs, this class benefits our students by priming them for future skills-based classes. This is a very difficult course that requires hours of homework and study. As such, our faculty are available for extra support and guidance throughout this course.

We wrap up our semester with an extensive look at First Aid and CPR for Health Care Providers in our Responding to Emergencies course. Students learn to respond to emergencies both as a citizen and as an entry-level health care employee. Students are given opportunities to think critically as they practice case scenarios presented in a safe collaborative classroom environment. This is more than a community CPR class, these students learn about diabetic, electrical, and pregnancy emergencies, in addition to splints, bites, stings and spinal injuries. Students advance to finals where they practice their skills in a mock scenario, staged with a volunteer victim and a proctor. Students use Aims issued iPads to document and critique these sessions. At the end of this class students add their American Heart Association Basic Life Support CPR and First Aid certifications to their professional portfolio.

In January, students immerse themselves into the Nurse Aide portion of the program and they are well prepared to speak the language of healthcare. Students continue to use their iPad’s to film and critique nurse aide skills as they prepare for their State Board of Nursing Skills Examination. Once the student has successfully completed the theory and lab component of the program, the student attends a 30-hour clinical rotation at a local long-term care facility. Upon completion of the course, the student is scheduled to take the Colorado State Board of Nursing Certified Nurse Aide Examination at Aims. At the end of this five-credit class, the students earn their Certified Nurse Aide certificate from the Colorado State Board of Nursing as well as their Certified Nurse Aide certificate from Aims Community College.

The final class of the program ties a metaphorical bow around the Med Prep package. Students write a professional resume, practice interviewing techniques, and research allied health careers and degree programs. We have guest speakers attend from various healthcare platforms such as Veterinary, Audiology, Orthodontia, and Ophthalmology. The idea is to expose students to a variety of potential health careers. At the end of the program the student has a polished professional portfolio that includes an additional Med Prep certificate from Aims, letters of recommendation, resume, certificates, and documented clinical experience.

We celebrate our graduates by attending the Aims Graduation Ceremony at the Budweiser Events Center. Students don cap and gown and walk with the other Aims graduates. Family and friends are invited to celebrate the student’s success.

The rigor of the curriculum dictates that we take the student carefully step-by-step to help ensure that we don’t lose our students. The finished product is a well-rounded student who is completely equipped to enter the workforce and continue their education in an Allied Health program should he or she elect to do so.

60.00%65.00%70.00%75.00%80.00%85.00%90.00%95.00%

100.00%

2005-06

2006-07

2007-08

2008-09

2009-10

2010-11

2011-12

2012-13

2013-14

2014-15

Nurse Aide and Health SciencesCourse Completion Rates

Health Sciences Nurse Aide

ENROLLMENT AND SUCCESS RATES


TO PROMOTE GREAT MASTERCOURSES AND STUDENT SUCCESS

IN MY FIRST YEAR managing the Online Campus at Aims Community College, I have had several people (faculty, deans, and staff alike) ask me, “How can we improve the quality in our courses using the online course management system?” My response has always been centered on reviewing best practices in teaching and employing proper training on the tools.

Great online-based courses start by implementing what we have termed the “Master Course” template in combination with sound Universal Design instructional practices. Using a master course template essentially provides a well-designed structure, or configuration of space, with usable navigation into an online-based course shell for all users.

The principles of Universal Design concept were coined in 1988 by Ronald Mace. Mace’s idea was originally presented to provide more accessible and usable spaces of all types (focused initially on physical space) for everyone (Burgstahler, 2005). Universal Design for Education (UDE) was introduced by Sheryl Burgstahler at Washington State University in 2005 through a DO-IT grant. Burgstahler’s central goal was to maximize the learning of all students, regardless of ability, in educational spaces.

“UDE goes beyond accessible design for people with disabilities to make all aspects of the educational experience more inclusive for students, parents, staff, instructors, administrators, and visitors with a great variety of characteristics. These characteristics include those related to gender, race and ethnicity, age, stature, disability, and learning style.” (Burgstahler, 2015).

BY CHERYL COMSTOCK, Director of Onl ine Learning

O N L I N EAims

Being mindful of how we as educators see the delivery, our content is a single point-of-view contrast in comparison to how our students receive the content as learners.

U T I L I Z I N G U N I V E RSA L D E S I G N C O N C E P TS Why UDE at Aims? Barriers look different to each individual learner depending on his/her learning style. Students need to be able to enter a course, find and access timely and relevant content, and be provided clear directions aligned with expectations and measurable outcomes. Creating “no barriers” purely means that the course is designed in an accessible format so students can open and work with the course content with little or no difficulty, allowing for convenient access and accommodating all learning styles and abilities. Content formatted with no barriers allows the faculty to then primarily focus their attention on facilitating the environment, presenting learning concepts in a way they are comfortable teaching, and spending much less time answering questions in the online environment about how to provide student access to materials they cannot open or utilize.

Clearly removing these “accessibility” and “usability” barriers removes confusion and frustration for the learner and the facilitator. While we can’t prevent all foreseeable barriers, we can provide formative steps of prevention to immediate barriers to the content in our courses. Creating an online course with “no barriers” doesn’t mean you have to give up your creativity and/or how you facilitate your expression in the creation of your assignments, it simply means that you are encouraging accessible and usable options for all students.

So what does all of this have to do with Student Success? As most of us may know, online-based courses are generally delivered through a learning management system (LMS). At Aims, the LMS is Desire2Learn (D2L), referred to as Aims Online. The course shells in Aims Online can be used for “On-ground” classes, sometimes called “Blended” or “Flipped” classrooms. They can also be used for “Hybrid” classes, which may have less face-to-face meetings but provide access to all the course materials online. Finally, our traditional “Online” courses provide all the course materials and access to faculty and students entirely online. Synchronous tools (e.g., Collaborate) can be integrated into Aims Online to liven the environment and emulate a face-to-face sessions for any of these course types. Good discussion topics, or non-synchronous tools focused on the content, can also emulate live experience when outside of a traditional classroom. All of these online-based class formats can use the LMS to provide students access to continuous delivery of quality content.

Similar to building great physical spaces, essential elements of a great Aims online-based course shell include:

» good structure,

» good navigation and course mapping,

» complete syllabus and schedule of dates,

» clear directions,

» precise naming of objects and assignments, and

» Universal Design for equal access.

Starting with the structure and framework of the shells allows us to maintain a quality-driven standard across all programs and disciplines within the college. Establishing this type of foundation for our courses can be referred to as a Master Course Template. Providing a clear syllabus and class schedule, combined with a clean navigation system using meaningful naming conventions, allows everyone to locate what they need while easily comprehending the layout of the course.

Good navigation also derives from an Instructional Design practice termed course mapping. Mapping the assessments and assignments to the outcomes of the course allows for clear expectations of what is required to complete the course successfully. Furthermore, since not all students learn and understand concepts in the same way, providing informative directions and alternative assignment formats helps meet a variety of learning styles, which allows for a successful outcome of the student’s ability to produce what is being asked of them.

Naming conventions do matter. When we create the artifacts for our courses, we sometimes abbreviate. For the student to easily locate and understand course content, documents must be renamed and referred to by the same words or terms that students will see in the schedule, syllabus, and directions. Establishing clear naming conventions for course content provides and embeds a deeper clarification all the way through the course and makes it easier for students.

Universal Design pulls all of these topics together for usability and access for everyone. If we look now at the life of our online courses through another lens, we can begin to view and refer back to our courses as living repositories of learning content. Reviewing and reflecting on the quality of the content inside the courses as a whole allows us to reexamine regularly the content we share from our personal knowledge within the subject matter that we teach. If we look at this from a more global approach, it allows the opportunity to examine the structure of the course while permitting us to reflect on the delivery and content within our courses. Being mindful of how we as educators see the delivery, our content is a single point-of-view contrast in comparison to how our students receive the content as learners. This symbolically then becomes a “one-to-many” concept. Reflecting from this point of view becomes an important exercise in how we ultimately decide to deliver and teach each course in the future.

All course development can include the use of the Instructional Design team, and planning now for next semester is the best way to get started. It’s always a best practice to contact your department chair or dean for development approval and to discuss your intentions. With a course development approval, you can request a development shell for your course by emailing the Instructional Design (ID) team at [email protected]. The ID team will request to set a meeting time with you to discuss important details about the project, establishing a course plan, and establishing a list of content and resources that you would like to present in the course. Any training on tools or instructional design help you may want will be provided during the course development process. Additionally, EDU 263 is offered each semester in an online and reduced time format; this course provides strong instructional practices with course (re)development and alignments. For more information on great Master Courses and Best Practices for online teaching environments, please contact the Office of Online Learning at [email protected].

References

Burgstahler, S. (2005). Universal Design in Education: Principles and Applications. Retrieved October 5, 2015 from http://www.washington.edu/doit/universal-design-education-principles-and-applications


Image of jumping spider taken through dissecting scope eyepiece at 4X magnification.

BY KIRSTEN DANIEL,Senior Lab Coordinator, Sc ience Depar tment

In the Aims’ Science Department, we are very lucky to have wonderful equipment. Still, we are always looking for ways to increase student engagement and active learning. We recently purchased a new set of high-quality compound light microscopes, and several sets of Moticam digital cameras. These cameras are specifically configured to work with many different styles of microscopes. An adapter allows you to connect the camera directly to various sized eyepieces. Each camera has a unique Wi-Fi signal, so that you can send the microscope image to a laptop or even to your smartphone. In the past, some students had success putting their smartphone cameras directly up to a microscope eyepiece and taking a picture. But our Moticam cameras allow you to do so much more. For example, you can view images on a 15-inch monitor as either still photos or live video feed, label structures, and discuss them with your lab partner or instructor.

During Summer 2015, Instructor Jennifer Cappa used our first set of microscope cameras in BIO 111 and BIO 105 courses. Her students first learned the basic operations and proper handling of a microscope. Then she introduced the cameras and the response was amazing. With the microscope image sent to a laptop, several students were able to look at the image at the same time, allowing them to discuss it as group. With the laptop connected to the instructor workstation, images can be projected onto a screen or Smartboard so the whole class can see at once. During one class, applause erupted as the live video feed showed a hunt, one protist eating another protist, some cheering on the aggressor while others rooted for the “underbug.”

Several weeks later, the students had an activity where they needed to look at plant cells under the microscope, and count the number of cells in each of the particular phases of cell division. If you have ever had to count a large number of objects while looking in a microscope, you know this can be a very tedious activity as well as a headache (literally). The students asked Instructor Cappa if they could use the microscope cameras for the activity. She was amazed at what happened next. Instead of one student looking in the scope and counting, this suddenly became a much more interactive group activity. Several students gathered around each laptop, discussing the cells and what they were seeing. They could do their counting much more easily from the laptop screen, and interacted with each other. In addition, this allowed for the instructor to address several students at the same time and created a more inclusive discussion in the classroom.

As stated earlier, our cameras have the capability to take still photos as well as record video. Photos can be altered via the Moticam software or through other programs like Powerpoint. Students can, for example, take a photo of a cell and then label the various parts of the cell using the software. The diameter of the cell or cellular components can be measured with just a few clicks and units can be expressed in microns and meters.

During Fall 2015, Professor Maxine Obleski used the cameras in her Anatomy and Physiology classes. Students were able to take pictures of tissues to create their own study aids. Professor Obleski also used the gooseneck adapter to dissect fresh bones for the class to see. Later the students used the gooseneck adapters to take macroscopic photos of brain dissections as part of their brain project. Students were able to label the regions of the brain and send photos to their smartphones or email it to themselves to study later.

Biologists and lab coordinators, Jennifer Cappa and Lorraine Maloof, have also been investigating the use of the cameras with our stereoscopes. Stereoscopes are used to magnify objects about one to four times, while our compound light microscopes magnify up to 1,000 times. Stereoscopes are often used for looking at insects, plant parts, and other objects that are small but not as small as a cell. Lorraine and Jennifer took some amazing photos of flowers, spider eyes, and spider fangs.

There is an amazing tiny world, just beyond the focus of the human eye, and Biology students at Aims are showing a renewed interest in discovering it. Aims Biology instructors are excited to see active learning taking place and, with this new set of tools, they hope to design exciting new experiments that apply this technology.

SMALL SUBJECTSBig Changes

How new technology is catalyzing

excitement and discussion among

students in Aims’ biology classrooms

BY JENNIFER RIDGEWAY, Developmenta l Engl i sh Instructor

You teach reading? But shouldn’t college students already know how to read?

I get this question a lot.

If reading is a skill of meaning making—of decoding symbols on a page—then, yes, my students know how to read. They learned their ABC’s in Kindergartens and elementary schools. But the kind of reading that students encounter in college goes beyond the ability to look at a text and understand the words on the page.

UNESCO’s 2006 Education for All Global Monitoring Report defines literacy as “the development of a complex set of critical skills that allow people to express, explore, question, communicate, and understand the flow of ideas among individuals and groups in quickly-changing technological environments” (p. 150). The goal of the developmental English classroom is to help students acquire the skills necessary to succeed in their transfer-level classes here at Aims. What that means, though, is that our task is closely linked to UNESCO’s definition of literacy.

In 2012, the Colorado State Legislature mandated the integration and acceleration of statewide developmental reading and writing curricula. Separate reading and writing classes—a pathway that could potentially require students to take four distinct three-credit classes before they ever encountered transfer-level coursework—would merge. College Composition and Reading CCR 092 is the result of that merger.

This single-semester, five-credit class accepts students with Accuplacer scores between 50 and 69. A student may enter Aims with test scores below college readiness for any number of reasons, but the premise of CCR 092 is that, through intensive and extensive exposure to college-level texts, and with enough in-seat classroom time to model and practice modes of academic reading and writing, students can develop sufficient academic literacy to engage in coursework at the transfer level.

You read that correctly. Students in CCR 092 have a single semester to grow from what may be only a sixth grade level of proficiency in reading and writing up to transfer-level academic literacy. How do they get there? By reading.

Our textbook defines reading as a process. Students learn to preview texts, setting up expectations for what they will learn and writing questions that they hope an essay or textbook chapter will answer. Students read actively by underlining key words, circling new vocabulary and writing notes in the margins of their books. After reading, students need to review their annotations and answer the questions they had asked. Finally, students learn to reflect and respond. This step may take the form of in-class discussions, journal entries, evaluative essays, or even further reading on the topic.

The greatest advantage of the developmental English redesign is, in my opinion, the integration of reading and writing. When I see a student who struggles with writing, I can often link their error patterns back to a failure in reading. Spelling errors, for example, can result from never having seen words written on a page. Dropped words and syntax errors occur when a student writes in the English they speak with friends or at home. It is important to note that the majority of Americans do not speak academic English in their daily lives. To acquire academic English, then, is a kind of foreign language study in which students must decode the vocabulary and structures of language that are expected of them in the college classroom (a foreign realm, indeed).

In order to write well, students must read; and as students read, they must write. As we read in CCR 092, students keep reading logs and write summaries and response paragraphs. They learn to incorporate quotes into their writing and how to use other authors’ ideas to support their own arguments. The semester concludes with an argumentative paper that requires outside research.

A student left my office this morning after seeking help with a summary paragraph. She said that The House on Mango Street, a novel we read and wrote about in CCR 092 this month, is the first book she’s ever read from start to finish. By the end of the semester, she will have read a second novel, seven academic essays, and most of our 600-page textbook as well. I don’t know how this student will do in ENG 121 or any other transfer-level classes at Aims; that’s up to her. I cannot trap my students in a room full of books and make them read intently, expansively, and academically. But I can walk them to the library door and show them how to begin.

Faculty who are interested in incorporating reading and writing instruction in their own, discipline-specific classes may want to check out the Writer’s Community workshops and activities on the Greeley campus (www.aims.edu/student/writers-community/).

You teach reading?

28 SIGNATURE 2016

N O TA B L E C O L L A B O R AT I O N SStudent Services and Academic Affairs

A Q I P

SIGNATURE 2016 29

BY DENISE PEARSON, Instructor and Chair of AAAPAULA YANISH, Director of the Student Success CenterDR. ALLAN OBERT, Professor of Psychology

How can we help students persist towards their educational and career goals at Aims Community College? This is a question that is often asked in academic and student affairs areas. Research suggests the answer might be enhancing a student’s commitment to their educational and career goals as it has been found to be a strong factor in retention (Wyckoff, 1999). Recognizing a need on campus to foster more intentional career awareness and planning for new students, Dr. Allan Obert, Psychology Professor, and Paula Yanish, Director of the Student Success Center decided to team up and pursue an action project together in June 2013.

Stemming from research conducted by Gillie & Gillie-Isenhour (2005), and Allen & Robbins (2010), the idea was to teach new students about how to change, confirm, or commit to a career that fits their interests, values, lifestyle, etcetera, while being guided through an intentional career awareness and planning process. They recognized this skill would not only help students in college but could become a life skill to be utilized during times of transition due to retirement, layoffs, injuries preventing the person from returning to his/her current position, physical moves, etc… The initial goal of the project, which was also an AQIP project, blossomed as multiple collaborative links unfolded across the academic and student affairs areas, including Advancing Academic Achievement (AAA), the Student Success Center, and the Kiefer Library.

With approximately 60 percent of incoming new degree/certificate-seeking students requiring remediation in one or more college-prep areas and the requirement for these students to enroll in Advancing Academic Achievement (AAA 090) their first term, this seemed to be an ideal collaboration to explore opportunities to weave career awareness activities into the AAA 090 curriculum. As a result,

conversations with the Chair and faculty of the AAA course began in Spring 2014.

Once approached with this project, the faculty of AAA 090 surveyed their students with the open-ended question, “After the amount of money that you will make, what is the burning question that you would want answered about a career

before pursuing it?” From the student responses, it was found that students equally wanted to know, “Is this career the best choice for me?” and “Will it make me happy?” in addition to specific questions regarding benefits, potential for promotion, and work schedule. These insights into what students desired to learn about their future careers, as well as knowledge of career development theories, led the AQIP implementation team to design embedded career exploration and research opportunities for students into the AAA 090 curriculum. The components that were developed included a Career Awareness Video, “True Colors” personality assessment workshop, and a culminating career research paper.

During Spring 2014, a 30-minute video was planned and produced specifically for AAA students to introduce them to the importance of intentional career planning through the career decision-making process of “Ready, Reflect, Research.” The video featured informational interviews with professionals local to Greeley and Aims Community College and attempted to demystify assumptions about the career decision-making process. In a survey about the video, students expressed a better understanding of the career decision-making process. This understanding was perhaps best reflected in this quote from a student survey respondent:

“I noticed that all of the people he interviewed had changed their minds about what they wanted to do multiple times. Overall, I

T E A M I N G U P for S T U D E N T S U C C E S S !An Academic Affairs and Student Services Collaboration

to Increase Intentional Career Planning

took away that I shouldn’t feel pressured to choose what I want to be for the rest of my life right away. It’s also very important to do the research about your job and learn about yourself before making a serious career decision. You can also gain many skills and experiences outside of the classroom that can better help you make a more informed decision.”

The second feature of the curriculum included “True Colors” personality type testing to allow students to understand personality-to-career connection. Although several personality assessments exist in the market, this tool was selected for use in the classroom due to the simplistic interpretation of the personality types and engaging activities that allow students to capture a basic understanding within a short period of time. A team of individuals from the project initially attended True Colors training in Denver to become True Colors facilitators. This team has conducted training for 13 participants (mixture of AAA instructors and advisors) to expand the number of trained facilitators of True Colors sessions starting in Summer 2015.

For this aspect of the curriculum, AAA students participate in a workshop led by a trained facilitator to take the “True Colors” assessment, as well as participate in a series of activities and content to understand their results. The team presented 29 sessions in Fall 2014, 17 sessions in Spring 2015, and seven sessions in Summer 2015.

After each workshop, an evaluation has been completed by students. Since Spring 2015, 138 students have responded, and the results revealed that students felt more prepared to complete their final project focused on their career choices. During a focus group discussion in Fall 2014, a student mentioned the value of this content to his experience in AAA. He stated, “One of the things [that was valuable] was when we had to do our True Color assignments. That was actually kind of fun, because that actually made me, in a way, change my mind but reassured that my career is the right one. I mean I first came in just being a graphics art design major – after the True Colors and going more in-depth, I actually

decided to double major. So I have decided to double major in business management along with video production.” Providing the opportunity for students to experience the value of career assessments in AAA makes it more likely that they will further their career exploration with a career advisor at the Student Success Center if undecided about their major or career choice. Starting in Summer 2015, career advisors have been visiting AAA 090 classes to promote services after this workshop and provide more encouragement for students to utilize them.

The final culminating component of the curriculum is for students to write a research paper including information on a career they are interested in pursuing, such as job tasks, education and training,

working conditions and salary, and their personal characteristics including personality and values. Students are asked to make connections between their self-awareness (personality and values) and their career research to explore the degree of fit between them. This inclusion offered an opportunity for collaboration with the Kiefer Library librarians to present in each AAA class, preparing students to use credible and reliable library and internet resources for their papers. Student feedback about their learning through the paper has been positive. Student Brittni Robson reflected, “I have learned so much during the process of writing this paper. I started this journey sure I knew what I wanted to do, but my dream has taken on a life of its own and I am overwhelmingly confident in my choice of career now.”

Aside from student comments, pre- and post-test data show promising results, including:

ê an 18 percent increase in students who are able to articulate career interests,

ê a 23 percent increase in students reporting they have researched their chosen career, and

ê a 24 percent increase in students who understand the qualifications and experience needed to be competitive in their intended career.

This project is being expanded by developing career activities for Emerging Scholars students in their second semester to build upon the AAA course momentum and connect the importance of next steps such as information interviews, resume development, and networking.

Miller & Prince (1976) once concluded, “an institution’s commitment to student development is directly proportional to the number of collaborative links between the student affairs staff and the faculty” (p. 155). The intentional collaborations within the AQIP project, “Creating a Seamless and Intentional Career Engagement Curriculum,” cross both the academic and student affairs areas. Bringing together the departments Advancing Academic Achievement (AAA) and the Student Success Center, as well as the Kiefer Library librarians, to work together to foster students career awareness and planning skills is a strong example of the commitment that Aims Community College has to helping students achieve their educational and career goals.

References

Allen, J., & Robbins, S. (2010). Effects of interest-major congruence, motivation, and academic performance on timely degree attainment. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 57(1), 23-35.

Gillie, S., & Gillie-Isenhour, M. (2005). The educational, social, and economic value of informed and considered career decisions. America’s Career Resource Network- U.S. Department of Education, 1-29.

Miller, T. K., & Prince, J. S. (1976). The future of student affairs. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Wyckoff, S. C. (1999). The academic advising process in higher education: History, research, and improvement. Recruitment & Retention in Higher Education, 13(1), pp.1-3.

Is this career the best choice

for me?


r. Smith is a seasoned biology professor at a community college in California serving numerous minoritized and disenfranchised populations.

In his lecture on Integumentary Systems,

more specifically the epidermis and structure of the skin, the professor begins to explain the skin cells that produce the protective skin-darkening pigment melanin. He provides terms, definitions, and vital information from the textbook that pertain to the stated learning objectives so that students can fully understand this concept.

When asked by a colleague, “Since your class has so many students of color in it, did you have any discussion about race and racism as it relates to skin color?” the professor responded, “Absolutely not! I’m not a racist; I don’t see color.”

Despite an attempt to provide an equal educational environment for all, the good intentions of the paradigm of colorblindness actually functions to have a negative impact on student learning (Bonilla-Silva, 2009; Harper, 2012). Equal is not always equitable. At Aims, the completion rate (in four years) for white students is 33 percent whereas it is only 15 percent for Hispanic students (CCCSE, 2015). Stated another way, white students are 46 percent more likely to secure a credential at Aims. Clearly, the status quo is inequitable and therefore unacceptable.

A notable gap also exists between our faculty, staff, and administrator demographics and our student population, further contextualizing the conversation about cultural competency and using inclusive pedagogical approaches to meet the needs of our diversifying student population. The chart below demonstrates that for the 2014-2015 academic year 61 percent of Aims students identified as white whereas 75 percent of

staff and 97 percent of full-time faculty identify as white (of the 23 Aims administrators, 91 percent identify as white). What are the implications of this representation gap? How does demographic homogeneity in terms of race impact pedagogy? How does it impact policy decisions? Might this representation gap be a factor in our inequitable completion rates between white and Latino students?

Acknowledging, embracing, and validating students’ knowledge about their own cultural identities and strengths are important factors in shaping academic success. Embracing the rich diversity in classrooms at Aims, including at times discussing race, racism, and white privilege, can validate minoritized students’ cultural identities and is a factor in addressing educational inequities (Rendón, 1994, 2002). Validation Theory (Rendón, 1994) holds that for all students, and particularly minoritized students, being validated by faculty and staff is strongly correlated with developing a college-student identity which predicts retention and completion.

Like Mr. Smith, instructors have an opportunity and responsibility to be intentional in their pedagogical approaches to engage all students, and in light of the data presented above, particularly minoritized students. Knowing that all students benefit from embracing conversations about social identity and difference across the curricula, this universal instructional design approach can help not only close the achievement gap but also raise the college completion rate — a rising tide indeed lifts all boats.

Being recognized, valued, and treated with respect are some of the most powerful elements that foster learning, growth, and development. Ways to show and foster respect include the following approaches.

Ask about and explore the aspirations each individual holds. Use these aspirations as a part of validation.

I Don’t See Race: LEVERAGING RACIAL DIVERSITY TO DEEPEN LEARNING

BY FRANCIE ROTTINI, AAA ProfessorDR. RICHARD HANKS, Academic Dean of Divi s ion III

DR. RYAN P. BARONE, Director of Student Leadership and Development

AIMS STUDENTS

AIMS STAFFAIMS ADMINISTRATORS

AIMS FULL-TIME FACULTY AIMS POPULATIONS IDENTIFYINGTHEMSELVES AS WHITE

2014-2015 ACADEMIC YEAR

61%

75%97%

91%

Take an open, growth-focused mindset and strengths-based perspective when listening to and working with others.

Live, learn, and teach with compassion.

A culturally responsive education is valuable for everyone. Taking active steps to reach across the achievement gap will impact the questions asked in classes, expectations for assignments, and the conversations you have with students in the hallway. Be willing to invest your energy and use your imagination and creativity to connect to others from their place in our world. Together we can create an educational environment that is based on racial justice.

There is an ethical mandate to take an active role in minimizing the race-based achievement gap. An individual and institutional obligation exits to elevate capacity to embrace and leverage differences in all classrooms to deepen learning. Useful questions for faculty to help take inventory of current practices include the following.

What does it mean to be white and teach in a racially diverse classroom?

How are course, department, and institutional learning objectives met through embracing and engaging difference?

How can faculty set up learning environments where knowledge is co-constructed?

How should faculty validate all students, and particularly minoritized students?

What training and professional development opportunities are needed for Aims faculty to meet the needs of our diverse learners?

Please send your thoughts and ideas to our faculty professional development center at [email protected].

ReferencesBonilla-Silva, E. (2009). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in America. (3rd Ed.). Oxford, U.K.: Rowman & Littlefield.

Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE). 2015 Cohort Key Findings. Retrieved from http://www.ccsse.org/survey/survey.cfm

Harper, S. R. (2012) Race without racism: How higher education researchers minimize racist institutional norms. The Review of Higher Education, 36(1), 9-29.

Rendón, L. I. (1994). Validating culturally diverse students: Toward a new model of learning and student development. Innovative Higher Education, 19(1), 33-51.

Rendón, L. I. (2002). Community college puente: A validating model of education. Educational Policy, 16(4), 642-667. doi: 10.1177/0895904802016004010

Minoritized is used rather than minority to signify the social construction of underrepresentation and subordination in U.S. social institutions, including colleges and universities. Persons are not born into a minority status nor are they minoritized in every social context (e.g., their families, racially homogeneous friendship groups, or places of worship). Instead, they are rendered minorities in particular situations and institutional environments that sustain an overrepresentation of Whiteness (Harper, 2012, p. 9).

Acknowledging, embracing, and validating students’ knowledge about their own cultural identities and strengths are important factors in shaping academic success.

32 SIGNATURE 2016

DATA PHOBIA:

BY PATRICIA RAND, Director of the Facul ty Teaching and Learning Center

Data phobia is a common affliction in our society but is particularly endemic in education. Current theories state that the phobia may be genetically transmitted and turned “on” during exposure to certain environmental conditions such as statistics classes. While there are three unique types of data phobia, the symptoms, coping mechanisms and treatment options are generally the same for each.

The first type of data phobia is related to traumatic experiences in middle school. The second type of data phobia is a subtype of social anxiety and is related to insecurity surrounding personal body measurements. Of course, the third, and most prevalent type of data phobia is related to a fear of exposure. This type of phobia is only exacerbated by conspiracy theorists that like to point out that soil sample data from the moon reveals that there is no water. Therefore, the first astronauts who walked there could not have left footprints. Boom! Moon landing conspiracy exposed.

A common coping mechanism for all types of data phobia is the avoidance of actual numbers and the substitution of fictional, less-intimidating, numbers in their place. This is supported by research, which has shown that most people do not experience signs of agitation when viewing comically distorted graphs containing misleading numbers in popular publications.

This year, as part of a whole-body cleanse and more holistic lifestyle, I decided to start a data desensitization process. This process involves gradually moving closer and closer to actual data sets until the numbers can be read without aid of bifocals. Treatment is considered successful when the numbers can be objectively viewed and discussed. I started by approaching data that the college collects from students regarding their satisfaction with the institution (the Noel Levitz Student Satisfaction Inventory from 2015, the Community College Survey of Student Engagement from 2013, and the ACT Student Opinion Survey from 2011). During the final phase of the desensitization process, I was able to see the actual numbers, not the fictional numbers that I had been using as a coping mechanism.

Boy was I in for a surprise! The actual numbers revealed some very surprising things, not at all what I had assumed. For example, I had always believed that our students are non-traditional with regard to age. You know, generally older. I was shocked to find that our students are generally aged 18-24, which does not meet my current definition of older! Other surprising findings regarding our student demographics included:

We have more full-time than part-time students.

The majority (75 percent) of our students intend to transfer to a four-year school.

A large majority of our students are employed and also care for dependents.

In 2013, our students really DO closely represent the racial make-up of Greeley with 34 percent Hispanic and 50 percent White students (In 2010, Greeley was 36 percent Hispanic and 59 percent White (United States Census Bureau, 2015).

After interpreting that portion of the data, I felt confident enough to look at the scary stuff. The things that maybe weren’t getting A+ scores but instead B’s and C’s. I coached myself through this by reminding myself what I tell my own students when they get less than a perfect score on an assignment. It is okay. This just shows you what you need to study for the test.

The areas of the college that we need to focus on so we can get that grade up from a B to an A are the areas of the college that students consistently reported as opportunities for improvement. Those areas were:

Online classes

Class schedule

Campus child care

Veterans services

Financial Aid services

Registration

Engaged learning techniques

Timely notification of underperformance in class

Conversely, areas of the college that students consistently reported as being strengths included:

Library services

Computer labs

AAA

iFocus

Disability services

Student orientation

Feeling welcome

Now that we know which areas of the college students consider strengths and weakness, we can move from treatment of data phobia to actual countermeasures. This step involves regular exposure to data, a willingness to avoid fictional data, and finally, the courage to change the data that induces feelings of anxiety.

Of course, this is not a fast process but quick fixes rarely work anyway. You will know that you have successfully overcome data phobia when you can not only look the data in the eye, but can show it who’s boss. I’m not afraid.

CAUSES, COPING MECHANISMS AND COUNTER MEASURES

References United States Census Bureau. (2015). State and county quick facts: Greeley (CO). Retrieved November 26, 2015, from http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/08/0832155.html

WWW.AIMS.EDU/ABOUT/DEPARTMENTS/IEA/DATADIRECTORY


Whether your classroom includes auditory or visual learners, students with disabilities or English language learners, a flexible curriculum with options builds support and reduces barriers, giving learners an equal opportunity to access knowledge. UDL challenges instructors to take into consideration the purpose of the lesson or the goals, the methods to be used, the materials needed, and assessment options that will work for a variety of individuals. Classrooms can be inaccessible when only one way to reach a goal or answer is accepted.

The reality is there are several ways to solve most problems. One size will never fit all. UDL provides flexibility in the way the information is taught, how

students can respond, as well as ways to engage students in the learning process. Barriers are reduced while accommodations are embedded into the learning

process from the start. The path taken is not always as important as the fact that the information was learned.

Three general principles were developed to help instructors design curriculum with the diverse classroom in mind (National Center on Universal Design for Learning, 2012). Principle I, Multiple Means of Representation, is the “what” of learning. This principle acknowledges that learners differ in the ways they perceive and comprehend information that is presented to them and focuses on how students gather facts and categorizes information they see, hear, and read. When multiple means of representation are provided, learners are presented with various ways of acquiring the information and knowledge. They are able to make connections regardless of the type of learner they are. Lecture, readings, videos, and student-led groups might all be ways to meet this principle.

Principle II, Multiple Means of Expression, represents the “how” of learning. Learners differ in the ways that they can navigate the learning environment and express what they know. This principal focuses on how learners plan and perform tasks by organizing and expressing ideas. Various ways of demonstrating what the student knows are provided by having a multitude of assignments in different formats. For example, learners might be asked to create a demonstration, complete a packet, give a speech, or take a test in order to demonstrate mastery of the concept taught. Offering review sessions, opportunity to turn papers in early to receive feedback before the due date, or providing more than one article on the same topic with a variance of reading levels are additional ways of meeting Principle II.

Principle III, Multiple Means of Engagement, focuses on the “why” of learning. This principle considers that learners differ markedly in the ways in which they can be engaged or motivated to learn. “Some students are highly engaged by spontaneity and novelty (e.g., students with ADD/ADHD), but others are disengaged, even frightened by those aspects in a learning environment (e.g., students with Asperger’s Syndrome or autism)” (National Center on Universal Design for Learning, 2012). Some individuals might learn better with another person while others learn best in a group environment. Providing multiple options for engagement is essential. Various options to meet this principle include offering choices of content and tools, breaking large assignments into components, or creating evaluations that are performance-based.

UDL classrooms make strides towards meeting the needs of all learners in the classroom as diversity on our campus is the norm, not the exception. UDL is designed to maximize access to learning for all ages, modalities, abilities, backgrounds and motivation. As with architecture, the concept of UDL is designed from the start to improve access for all learners. Implemented appropriately, student-learning outcomes should be attained at a higher success rate, fostering life-long learners. The more students learn, the more they want to learn and learning becomes natural. Whether designing online or face-to-face classes, UDL will promote a classroom environment meeting the needs of the diversity on our campus. Providing opportunities to “look at things differently” is what we are all about – We are ALL Aims.

References National Center on Universal Design for Learning (2012). What is UDL? Retrieved from http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl/whatisudl

for Learning

BY DANA JONES,Director of Disabi l i ty Access Serv ices

In the spirit of promoting diversity on the Aims campus, the Disability Access Service Office established a mini-campaign to raise awareness of the uniqueness we have among faculty, staff, students, programs, and overall campus environments. You may have seen one aspect of this awareness campaign with our t-shirts reading, “Look at things differently – We are all Aims,” around campus. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is another way of looking at things differently, particularly the classroom curriculum in a way that will meet the diverse needs of students on our campus.

Universal design was first established in architecture, designing products, buildings and environments to provide the widest range of usage possible for any user. According to the National Center on Universal Design for Learning (2012), UDL is “a set of principles for curriculum development that give all individuals equal opportunities to learn.” Breaking down the acronym further, we see that “Universal” refers to the wide variety of strengths, needs, and interests learners bring into the classroom, with the opportunity for the curriculum to expand on those unique, individual experiences. “Design” involves creating a curriculum that challenges and engages all users while minimizing barriers and maximizing learning for all students. “Learning” refers to cognition: the how, what, and why of learning.

The way people learn is as unique as each set of fingerprints or DNA. No two people are alike and therefore, no two people learn the exact same way.

UN

IVERSAL DESIGN

Look at things differently.

Dr. Ryan P. Barone Director of Student Leadership and Development

Dr. Leah L. Bornstein President

Heather BrownDepartment Chair and Professor, Med Prep and Nurse Aide

Cheryl Comstock Director of Online Learning

Kirsten DanielSenior Lab Coordinator, Science Department

Dr. Richard HanksAcademic Dean of Division II

Dana JonesDirector of Disability Access Services

Brian MartensFire Science Instructor

Dusty Mosness-Brailsford, JDDirector of Aviation

Donna Norwood, JD Provost

Dr. Allan Obert Professor of Psychology

Alli OswandalAssessment Coordinator

Denise PearsonInstructor and Chair of AAA

Ross PerkinsChair of Academic Assessment

Patricia Rand Director of the Faculty Teaching & Learning Center

Jennifer RidgewayDevelopmental English Instructor

Francie RottiniAAA Professor

Rebecca SailorEnglish and Humanities Professor

Alex WernsmanInterim Director of the Flight Training

Laura WolfiPad Initiative Professional

Karoline Woodruff AQIP/HLC Compliance Officer

Paula YanishDirector of the Student Success Center

T H A N K Y O U T O O U R

CONTR I BUTORS

Thank you to all of our Aims faculty, staff, and administrators for all you do!

GREELEY LOVELAND FORT LUPTON WINDSOR ONL INE

w w w . a i m s . e d u

A L L A N B L O O MAmerican Philosopher

Education in our times must try to findwhatever there is in students that might

YEARN FOR COMPLETION.

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