Overview

1. Ensuring Professional/Technical Students’ Success and Goal Attainment through Learning Communities and First Year ExperiencesAnne B. McGrail, Ph.D.Learning Communities CoordinatorLane Community College

2. Overview • Six Best Practices for Student Retention and Success • Learning Communities at Lane • Success and Goal Attainment Committee • Developing a Comprehensive First Year Experience • Infusing College Success Principles and Strategies into Learning Communities and Classes to Increase Student Engagement, Learning, Satisfaction and Success

3. Six Best Practices • Learning Communities • First Year Experiences • Academic Advising • Supplemental Instruction • Early Warning/Intervention Systems • Campus Climate/Supportive Learning Environment

4. Learning Communities (LCs) at Lane • Begun in 1994 with one class of 30 students • Currently serves 1,000 students per year • “Boutique Model” of theme-based classes encouraged early faculty adoption of the LC model

5. Disadvantages of “Boutique” Model • Faculty “ownership” of the LC • Dependent upon ongoing faculty engagement (burnout) • Enrollment challenges brought about by structure (classes offered targeted a smaller population of Lane’s students)

6. Development of Learning Communities • Some LCs have systematically addressed specific student needs: • Women in Transition • BioBonds: Biology and Chemistry for the Health Professions • $how Me the Money! Writing for Scholarships • Food for Thought: Culinary Arts and Writing and Math

7. Learning Community Arrangments • Best Practice: tightly aligned curriculum with pure cohorts and faculty at least some of the time present in each other’s classes or engaged in cross-disciplinary learning activities (e.g., Service Learning, Reading Together—more later on these)

8. Other Arrangements • One “common” class with three “feeder” classes with same material

9. Other Arrangements • Three separate classes with mixed cohorts taking two or more but some taking only one class.

10. Other Arrangements • Two “feeder” classes with a pure cohort and a third separate class. (This is the current plan for a Math addition to Fast Lane.) + e.g., Math 10 or + Math 65 or + Math 111

11. Success and Goal Attainment Committee (SAGA) • Chartered group of Student Services professionals at Lane whose goal was to increase student success and retention • Created the “SAGA Report” in 2002 which outlined Six Best Practices for Retention and Success.

12. The First Year Experience:Synergy of Learning Communities Development with SAGA Efforts: • Learning Communities developed beyond “boutique” model to a systematic effort to address students’ needs. • SAGA research showing LCs as a Best Practice has given momentum to tailoring different FYEs to different programs, including P/T. • Better integration of instruction with student services has been the result of the two programs coordinating their goals.

13. Development of First Year Learning Community • “Fast Lane to Success” addresses the academic and social learning needs of new Lane students • “On Course: College Success” • Effective Learning • Writing

14. Fast Lane to Success • Curricular coordination, ongoing faculty conversations about the LC, and regular communication with students develops a “community” of learners who help one another succeed.

15. Other Components of Fast Lane to Success • Paid peer mentor with successful experience in Fast Lane • In-class counseling and advising to ensure correct pathway to degree/certificate • Mid-term grade reports and “intrusive” advising • E-portfolios that will move through college with the student • Follow-up mentoring and study-groups throughout the first year.

16. Assessments of Students and the Fast Lane Program • Risk-assessment (Noel-Levitz College Student Inventory indicates risk areas) • Survey of Engagement with College-Wide CCSSE as control group (positive effects) • Pre-and-post tests • Tracking students on persistence and success across time • FYRED UP! Pilot Project Team yearly assessments

17. Fast Lane to Success Assessment • Inspired by the Community College Survey of Student Engagement, asked questions on a 4-point scale about student engagement with the LC. • Compared Fast Lane engagement returns to 800 “general population” answers from students • Fast Lane students fared significantly better on many measures of engagement (a key predictor of success) • Caveat: Small sample: 62 students

18. Assessments • Currently developing a qualitative and quantitative “economic impact” and “learning impact” assessment that will serve as a model for innovative learning projects across the college. • Noel Levitz has a formula for assessing the economic impact of retention efforts.

19. Scaffolding Beyond Fast Lane: Other LCs • Food for Thought: Designed for Culinary Arts students • Culinary Arts classes in two terms use math and writing skills • Math class engages the content of the culinary program in its case studies and examples. • Writing class uses food writing as the text and also the product of students’ essays.

20. Other Learning Communities • “BioBonds: Building Blocks of Your Body” provides Health Professions students with fundamental biology and chemistry courses that serve as the prerequisite to Anatomy and Physiology • Specifically addresses the failure rate of underprepared Anatomy and Physiology students.

21. Other Learning Communities • $how Me the Money! Writing for Scholarships • Guides students through a process of uncovering their skills and talents and develop their ideas in writing through the state-wide scholarship application. • Thousands of dollars of scholarship money, including a Ford Fellow have resulted.

22. Best Practice: Academic Advising • Students are more likely to be successful and to experience less frustration with the hurdles of college requirements if they have a plan in place and follow it • Encouraging and facilitating advising for every student is a goal of FYE at Lane • “Doing Advising Differently”: may be necessary to do group advising, etc.

23. Best Practice: Supplemental Instruction • For “gateway” classes • Similar to tutoring • Credit or non-credit options • Study groups/classes meet outside of anchor course • Facilitator/instructor works with difficult material from the anchor course • Additional time on task allows for enhanced learning

24. Best Practice: Early Warning/Intervention Systems • Goal is to communicate to student their risk of failing before it’s too late • Use of Banner to provide advisors data on at-risk students • Early intervention by advisors and/or faculty to allow students to catch up or make changes needed to succeed. • Back on Course Pilot Project to help students at risk of losing financial aid.

25. Best Practice:Campus Climate: Supportive Learner Environment • Orientations • Lane Preview Night • Students First centralized services • Using Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) to gauge to what extent students are using advising, tutoring and other support services.

26. New Best Practice: Placement and Preparedness • Developing new placement testing that more accurately places students in courses in which they are prepared enough to succeed • In “open access” environment, giving students the “right to succeed” rather than the “freedom to [choose the wrong courses and] fail.”

27. Infusion Model: Using College Success Principles in All Classes • Getting on Course • Accepting Personal Self-Responsibility • Discovering Self-Motivation • Mastering Self-Management • Tools include a Next Actions list; a 32 day commitment worksheet; a calendar and a financial plan; Learning tools for internal/external distractors; An interactive time chart • Employing Interdependence • Gaining Self-Awareness • Adopting Lifelong Learning • Developing Emotional Intelligence • Staying on Course

28. Career and Technical Students: Why Learning Communities and FYE? • Need to tailor services to specific needs of PT students • Currently a technical writing course infused with College Success principles has shown promise • Importance of guiding and supporting students whose schedules are tight with required skills and content classes.

29. “School Doesn’t Get Any Better than This!” –Lane Learning Community Student • Questions? • Anne McGrail • Coordinator, Learning Communities • Lane Community College • 541-463-3317 • mcgraila@lanecc.edu