Part 1: Achieving Student Success

Russell Frith

Part 1: Achieving Student Success

My experiences at helping the colleges I have worked for achieve greater levels of student success have involved working closely with department administrators and institutional research staff on defining and measuring student success. My contributions in this area have focused on modeling complex enrollment patterns, predicting students’ academic careers, and devising models which can be leveraged to achieve increased levels of student success. One of my general tasks has been working in a technical capacity with department administrators, educational specialists, student advisors, and institution research data to formulate database queries and to build reports that identify contributing factors to lapses in student success so that policies can be targeted to address student success issues. I maintain a facility for tracking generalized profiles of student characteristics that are vulnerable to academic challenges. My contributions entail working closely with department chairs to target instructional delivery to special needs students; e.g., implementing courses that emphasizes vocational mathematics or vocational statistics targeted for a skilled trade, rather than a broader-based class which only meets a GER for a comprehensive professional degree. The specialized data sets and models I have developed address issues affecting success such as

• Retention rates,
• Graduation rates,
• Time to completion, and
• Academic performance.

The data sets I have developed track student retention rate data and graduation rate data in order to ascertain why students leave or fail to graduate. I also leverage retention rate findings in order to maintain program relevancy, align academic studies with student interests, and to diversify program portfolios to meet varied demands. My tasks have included the following:

• Engage in department service calls to maintain course content and take the lead in managing course content,
• Work with community and government partners to analyze vocational trends and requirements needed to meet evolving work-force skill requirements, and
• Secure grants and third part resources that help support student retention rates.

In addition, my contributions to enhancing student success has involved working with institutional support staff and department leaders in setting proper policies and practices to help accelerate student success. My tasks include building consensus for the steps needed to accelerate student success. I measure the results of my efforts by tracking the successes and challenges of methods needed to increase student success. I stay current in the specialization of controlling student success by analyzing peer-reviewed journals that address this and other issues.

By tracking student success metrics over time, I have been able to identify patterns – both positive and negative – and have been able to relate success patterns to specific courses, programs, or instruction. My work has contributed significantly toward improving instructional quality and student experiences.

Part 2: Strengthening ‘ohana

I utilize four fundamental approaches which demonstrate my commitment to teaching and learning and which place student achievement first in my pedagogical contributions. These approached include the following:

• facilitating first-year seminars,
• establishing collaborative assignments and projects,
• having student build ePortfolios, and
• implementing service learning.

In my work with mathematical teaching, I have been responsible for building into the curriculum first-year seminars that bring small groups of students together with faculty or staff on a regular basis. In these seminars, I place a strong emphasis on critical inquiry, writing, math literacy, collaborative learning, and other skills needed to develop students’ intellectual and practical competencies. On some occasions I involve students with challenging problems in scholarship and with my own research.

One of the results of my work facilitating first-year seminars has been a more enhanced collaborative learning environment. In my collaborative learning pedagogy, I combine two key goals: learning to work and solve problems in the company of others, and sharpening one’s own understanding by listening seriously to the insights of others, especially those with different backgrounds and life experiences. My approaches have ranged from study groups within a course, to team-based assignments and writing, to cooperative projects and research.

In order to demonstrate my commitments to student success, I use ePortfolios to enable students to electronically collect their work over time, reflect upon their personal and academic growth, and then share selected items with others, such as professors, advisors, and potential employers. I employ ePortfolios in collaboration with my other practices in order to provide opportunities for students to make connections between various educational experiences.

Finally, I incorporate service learning in my pedagogy. As an engineer, I use field-based “experiential learning” with community partners as an instructional strategy. I have found that students thrive on the direct experience with issues they are studying in the curriculum and with ongoing efforts to analyze and solve problems in the community. I often have to turn away qualified students due to the demands of limited opportunities to apply learning in real-world.