Transforming Community Colleges to Accelerate Student Success

Thomas BaileyShanna JaggarsDavis Jenkins

Community College Research Center

June 2011

Project Description

In 2008, CCs were enthusiastic about several promising strategies that might improve student success:• Improving developmental education (assessment & placement,

acceleration programs, contextualization)

• Bolstering non-academic supports (e.g., student success courses, intensive advising)

• Streamlining program & institutional structures

• Expanding online learning

• Implementing organizational improvement processes Our project (2009 – 2012) is gathering evidence to

assess the evidence on the effectiveness and cost-efficiencies of these strategies, and provide guidance on how to best implement them

© 2011 Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation | 2April 19, 2023

How are we exploring this issue? Synthesizing Previous Evidence

• In spring 2011, released a series of 8 reports

• Each report synthesized the body of research on a specific strategy Providing New Evidence

• 8 mixed-methods studies (both quantitative & qualitative)

• Each study addresses one or more strategies

• Conducted in VA, WA, CO, CA, & NYC

• Timeline: early reports already released; remaining reports to be released in 2011 and 2012.

Making the Reports Useful• Ongoing partnerships with state systems, and discussions of

methods and initial findings with CC leaders, allow us to include concrete and useful implications and recommendations in every report

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What are we learning? Key recommendations thus far are:

• Colleges should work to simplify the programmatic structures and bureaucracies that students must navigate.

• Colleges should be encouraged to align course curricula and student supports, define common learning outcomes and assessments, and set high standards for those outcomes.

• To drive the processes above, colleges should broadly engage faculty and staff in re-thinking institutional, departmental, and classroom practices to forward the student success agenda at scale.

• Colleges should collect and use data to inform a continuous improvement process that operates at all levels of the organization.

See our “Assessment of the Evidence” series for specific suggestions on how to carry out these recommendations: http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Publication.asp?UID=845

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Questions to guide faculty/staff re-thinking of practices to accelerate student success at scale

CONNECTIONFrom interest to enrollment

ENTRYFrom enrollment to entry

into program of study

PROGRESSFrom program entry to completion of program

requirements

COMPLETIONCompletion of credential of

value for further education and (for CTE) labor market

advancement

• How can we increase the number of entering students who are motivated and prepared to choose a college-level program of study?

• How can we accelerate the rate at which new students choose and successfully enter a program?

• How can we accelerate rates at which program concentrators complete program requirements?

• How can we ensure that our programs prepare students for further education and (for CTE programs) for career advancement?

Source: CCRC Assessment of Evidence series.

Examples of strategies that reflect effective practice

CONNECTIONFrom interest to enrollment

ENTRYFrom enrollment to entry

into program of study

PROGRESSFrom program entry to

75% of program requirements completed

COMPLETIONFrom program completion to credential of value for further education and (for CTE) labor

market advancement

• College readiness prep for hs students

• Early testing

• Strategic dual enrollment

• “Bridges” from ABE to college

• Recruitment materials with program streams clearly mapped out

• Program offerings / requirements clearly mapped out

• Consistent messages to new students

• Prescribed course sequence with required 3-credit college success course

• Dev ed contextualized to program streams

• Course learning outcomes/assessments tied to program outcomes

• Students required to declare major

• Students required to keep up-to-date program completion plan

• Revamped program review process to ensure that programs prepare for further education and career advancement

• Transfer agreements with universities that ensure junior standing

• Regular review of program learning outcomes by employers

• Survey of recent grads for suggestion of way to improve programs

Source: CCRC Assessment of Evidence series.

How are we sharing our work? Products

• Over 45 individual reports, briefs, and journal articles on specific strategies, their outcomes, and resulting recommendations.

• Practitioner toolkits on effective implementation for the most promising strategies

• A book that will integrate findings into broader themes and key recommendations for practitioners and policymakers

Dissemination Plan• Publishing reports, toolkits, books; presenting at research,

practitioner, and policy-oriented conferences; presenting at CC district and state business meetings

• A newly-hired communications specialist is developing media strategies to further spread our work

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Who will use the information we generate and how will they use it? Practice & Policy Implications

• Concrete implications / recommendations have already generated much interest, positive feedback, and action from individual colleges and state systems

Examples• Texas CCs (working with ATD-DEI & JFF) presented evidence

from our Assessment of Evidence series to the state legislature, directly impacting four new bills on developmental education

• CUNY is using results of our work to re-think assessment policy, particularly replacing COMPASS developmental math exit exam with faculty-designed common exam

• Virginia used results of our work to help plan a statewide redesign of developmental education

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