How Do You Design a College Success Course that Engages Faculty and Promotes Full-Scale Implementation? D.R.E.A.M., February 29, 2012 Durham Technical Community College is a Round One Achieving the Dream institution and leadership college. In 2004, the college’s Core Team identified the implementation of a college -success class as one of the critical components of its plan to increase student persistence rates. In 2010, the college realized the goal of implementing a required, one-credit-hour college-success course as one of several new, front-door interventions designed to transition new students into the college. Durham Tech now has five years of cohort data to demonstrate gains in initial fall-to-spring term persistence rates that correlate with students who successfully complete this course. In this session, workshop participants will engage in critical conversations around two issues related to designing a college success course for new students: faculty engagement and full-scale implementation. Specifically, participants will evaluate strategies for faculty engagement and training; they will also examine their own colleges’ commitment to full-scale implementation and identify potential loopholes. Workshop Agenda 3:30 – 3:55 Presentation of our FYE model (25 minutes) 3:55 – 4:05 Initial Questions and Answers (10 minutes) 4:05 – 4:45 Individual and/or group process around two key questions (40 minutes) 4:45 – 5:00 Final Questions and Answers (15 minutes) How would you foster faculty engagement? Durham Tech’s Answer and Rationale: This course is a key intervention on our campus; it is an instrumental part of how we plan to increase student persistence through the first year of enrollment and beyond. Therefore, we must have highly skilled, highly engaged faculty teaching the course. Because the course is transferable to our university system, we must also have highly qualified faculty. We require that our ACA 122 instructors be full-time faculty or staff, recent retirees, or long-term adjunct faculty members who hold at least a master’s degree . They all must complete an intensive, 15-hour training workshop before they are approved to teach. Those who are chosen to teach become part of a highly-engaged community of instructors who participate in reflective practice and regular professional development. A) How will you ensure quality of instruction? B) How will you train instructors? C) How will you create and sustain a highly-engaged community of instructors? 1
How would you bring this course to full-scale implementation? Durham Tech’s Answer and Rationale : We moved from offering 3 sections of the course to 85 sections annually. The college leadership has made a commitment to this intervention by creating new positions; we have a Chair of the First-Year Experience and currently have two full-time faculty members who hold the title of Instructor, College Success. These faculty members teach 8 sections of the course each term, serve as student advisors, and conduct a number of the new-student orientations as part of their teaching load. Other faculty teach this course as part of their load (it counts as 2 contact hours, although the class is a 1- contact hour course) or on an overload contract (paid at $29.00/hour for 32 hours; the course meets for 16 contact hours). Our course is required for all curriculum associate degree and most diploma programs. Our target population is directly advised to take this course in the mandatory new student orientation. A) How will you demonstrate an institutional commitment to this intervention? B) How will you make this course inescapable? C) What significant barriers exist that keep full-scale implementation from happening on your campus? Other questions to consider . . . How did we require the course? We first build broad consensus on course design and content; then we added the course as a requirement on select programs to gradually introduce the requirement. The following year, we placed the course on all plans of study and developed a policy to reach the most at-risk students by requiring the course of new students who have fewer than 12 college-level credit hours earned. Then, to strengthen the requirement to take the course in the first semester of enrollment, students are now given specific instructions to sign up for this course during their new-student orientation session. How did we relate this course to other inventions? We have paired the learning outcomes found in the ACA 122 course with learning outcomes in our required new student orientation sessions. We have also implemented our early alert (at-risk counseling intervention) in all sections of our ACA 122 course. How many credits is our course? ACA 122 is a one-credit, one-contact hour course. 2
What did we cover in our course and what textbook do we use? The ACA 122 course outline is available at the following link: http://www.durhamtech.edu/html/prospective/coursedescriptions/courseoutlines/ACA122.pdf The custom textbook “Success By Design” was co -written by the chair and a college success course instructor. When and how do we offer the course? The Chair of our First-Year Experience conducted action research to determine the best format for our course. We offer 85 sections of ACA 122 per academic year. Most sections are 10-week sessions beginning the first week of the term. We also offer some mini-session (8-week sessions) in the first and second half of the semester. We also offer a limited number of classes in other formats, including weekend and online sessions. How do we assess the success of a college success course intervention? We track five data points. To assess persistence, we review the percentage of students who return the second semester of enrollment. To measure success, we review the overall grade point averages of students during their first and second semesters. To assess full-scale implementation, we compare the number of students targeted to receive the intervention against those who participate. To monitor qualitative student feedback, we review student evaluations of instructors and the course each semester. In addition, faculty members employ Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) throughout the term to assess their instructional activities and student learning. Contact Information Gabby McCutchen, Chair/Instructor, First-Year Experience 919-536-7200, ext. 8083, mccutcheng@durhamtech.edu Tom Jaynes, Executive Dean, Student Development and Support 919-536-7207, ext. 1406, jaynest@durhamtech.edu Christine Kelly-Kleese, Dean, Student Engagement and Transitions 919-536-7200, ext. 2402, kleesec@durhamtech.edu 3
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