Rio Grande Valley Collective Impact – Strategy Group 3 – Strategies and Best Practices

Rio Grande Valley Collective Impact

Research and Strategies to Support the Goal of Strategy Group 3:

All Students Attain a Postsecondary Degree, Credential, or Certificate with Labor Market Value

Briefing Booklet

November, 2012

About This Booklet

This booklet presents a compendium of research, national best practices, and case studies intended to complement and build upon currently identified strategies to support the goal of Strategy Group 3, that all students within the Rio Grande Valley are able to attain a postsecondary degree, credential, or certificate with labor market value. Some of these strategies are best implemented by individual institutions, while others are best implemented across institutions or at a regional level. Also, should Strategy Group 3 prioritize any of these strategies, the group should spend time discussing how those approaches would need to be adopted for the specific context of the RGV.

Table of Contents

Strategy Group 3 – Strategies for Impact...... 3

Strategies to Improve Credit Accumulation in the first Two Years……………………………………………………………5

Profile: El Paso Collaborative for Academic Excellence...... 7

Strategies to Build Clear, Rigorous Connections to Meaningful Careers...... 8

Profile: Valencia Community

Strategies to Provide Student Supports and Advising to Enusre Affordability, Persistence, and Success……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…..

Profile: Georgia State University and Georgia Perimeter College

List of Sources……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….16

Strategy Group 3–Strategies for Impact

Improved Credit Accumulation, Especially in the First Two Years
# / Strategy / Institutional / Partnership-Based
1 / Providetutoring support or mandatory supplemental instructionto help improve first-year course performance / X
2 / Establish an early warning system to guard against low credit load and/or performance during the first year, or incentivize students to complete 20-plus credits during year one / X
3 / Structure summer semester courses as a flexible credit recovery gateway for students lacking credits after year one / X
4 / Leverage technology to make credit recovery more streamlined and self-paced / X / X
5 / Accelerate and modularize developmental education, with a particular focus on math / X / X
6 / Create support programs to promote the integration of first-year students into the educational and social experience of college life / X
Clear, Rigorous Connections to Meaningful Careers
# / Strategy / Institutional / Partnership-Based
1 / Build up the staff capacity of college career centers and require students to participate in career center programming and/or a career workshop course / X
2 / Establish transfer policies, articulation agreements, and support programs between the community college and four-year college levels / X
3 / Support policies and/or practices which facilitate the use of data on the employment experiences of college graduates / X
4 / Promote policies and practices which support a system of stackable credentials with labor market value and which encourage students to build credentials through their educational lifecycle / X
5 / Partner with a local workforce nonprofit to build collaborative programming leading to industry-accepted credentials / X
6 / Increase on-campus employment and internships opportunities for students / X
7 / Provide programming and structural supports directly tied to industries where jobs are available and pay family-sustaining wages / X / X
8 / Collaborate with employers and other industry representatives to ensure that pathways, proper curricula, and/or other supports are in place to adequately prepare students for family-sustaining jobs / X
Student Supports and Advising to Ensure Affordability, Persistence, and Success
# / Strategy / Institutional / Partnership-Based
1 / Establish / Strengthenrenewable scholarship programs with on track for graduation requirements to catalyze improvements in time to degree and graduation rates / X
2 / Adjust grant aid policies to ensure that institutions and the state are offering the most effective mix of need- and merit-based aidfrom the point of view of degree completion, rather than student selectivity / X
3 / Create a discretionary fund under the control of the Dean of Students or a similar position, allowing for the disbursement of grant funds to students facing emergency situations / X
4 / Provide on-campus and integrated supports such as childcare and flexible scheduling / X
5 / Create a culture in which PSE completion is emphasized and celebrated / X
6 / Ensure that supports in place to promote first-year persistence are in place for later years as well / X
7 / Provide commuter students with on-campus resources specifically for them, to motivate prolonged exposure to the campus and increased feeling of connectedness / X

The following pages provide research-driven detail on the strategies above, including examples of the strategies in practice and case studies of institutions where these and other practices are helping to drive student success.

Strategies to Improve Credit Accumulation in the First Two Years

Underserved students face a number of challenges to successfully making the adjustment to the less-structured postsecondary environment and persisting through the first two years of postsecondary education. Research suggests that persistence can be increased through efforts to improve students’ academic readiness, to ensure that students have the necessary study and time-management skills, to provide opportunities to develop the necessary non-cognitive capacities, and to more deeply engage students in campus life. Specific strategies include:

  1. Provide tutoring support or mandatory supplemental instruction to help improve first-year course performance
  2. Example:Texas A&M International and Georgia Collegesupport the success of large and growing populations of Latino students through several initiatives, including one-on-one tutoring support provided by upperclassmen or graduate students who have already excelled in the relevant coursework[1]
  3. Despite research showing that supplemental instruction yields positive benefits to those who participate, a 2011 Community College Institutional Survey found that, while 87% of colleges report having supplemental instruction, only 1% of those who have it make it mandatory for first-year students; further, only 14% of developmental students at colleges with supplemental instruction were required to participate[2]
  4. Establish an early warning system to guard against low credit load and/or performance during the first year, or incentivize students to complete 20-plus credits during year one – a research-based number with critical significance in determining the likelihood of PSE completion[3]
  5. Set indicators to trigger when students fall off track and ensure that the information produced from the system is communicated to relevant faculty, staff, and students in time to take action and improve performance
  6. Actions triggered by such early warning systems could include performance contracts requiring students to receive counseling and tutoring services and/or to enroll in relevant study skills workshops[4]
  7. Structure summer semester courses between first and second year as a flexible gateway for students to make up credits they failed to earn during the traditional school year
  8. Provide developmental education coursework entirely through a digital learning platform to lower cost and increase flexibility and student participation
  9. Example: Tarrant County Community College (TX) uses the digital learning program ALEKS to assess incoming students’ math skills and leverages the modular nature of the program to ensure that students only enroll in the specific math modules in which they are not college ready[5]
  10. Accelerate and modularize developmental education, with a particular focus on math
  11. Example: The Community College of Denver has condensed into one semester remedial math and English courses which would normally take two semesters to complete[6]
  12. Example: UTEP redesigned its developmental education requirements by reducing the number of sections in math and Englishgatekeeper courses which remedial students need to pass [7]
  13. Example: The Community College of Baltimore County does not place students into standalone remedial courses, but into both the college-level courses for which prior remediation is necessary anda study skills course connected to the given content[8]
  14. The need to create innovative, effective, and more flexible developmental education options is most compelling in math. A 2009 study of more than 250,000 community college students reported that 59% of all students were referred to a developmental math sequence, with only a third of these students actually completing the sequence (i.e., one or more remedial courses). Making matters worse, only 20% of referred students went on to complete the “gatekeeper” math course for which the developmental sequence is designed to prepared them.[9]
  15. At issue is not that students are failing the developmental coursework nor that they are failing college-level work upon completing the required remedial steps. Rather it is that many of them are not even enrolling or are dropping out before completion: While 33% of referred students completed the necessary math sequence, another 38% either did not enroll in developmental education or exited the sequence without failing a course; only 29% did not complete because they failed a course. Similarly, among those who completed the sequence and enrolled in a gatekeeper course, 79% passed the gatekeeper course – but 37% of developmental sequence completers did not even enroll in the gatekeeper.[10]This suggests that developmental education should be made more accessible and flexible in order to foster enrollment and completion.
  16. Create support programs designed to promote the successful integration of first-year students into the educational and social experience of college life
  17. Example: Texas A&M International University has a comprehensive First Year Experience program for all freshmen, through which freshmen take part in a learning community and are enrolled in seminar courses titled University 1101 and University 1102, which guide them through the first year of college life[11]
  18. The fact that the 1101 and 1102 courses are mandatory is an important one: research shows that low-income students are not likely to take part in such support offerings if they are optional[12]
  19. TAMIU complements this program with Student Mentors (exceptional juniors, seniors, and graduate students who help freshmen adjust to college life) and Academic Advisors (staff members who largely fill the same role, in addition to helping students to develop decision-making and problem-solving skills)
  20. Many schools serving large or growing numbers of Latino students place their freshmen into learning communities, which often consist of classmates from similar backgrounds, upperclassmen, and staff; effective learning community practices include peer tutoring, career mentoring, and course selection assistance
  21. Research indicates that learning communities positively impact the degree attainment rates of their students[13]

Profile: El Paso Collaborative for Academic Excellence

Strategies to Build Clear, RigorousConnectionsto Meaningful Careers

Too many students graduate unprepared for the future workforce or lacking the connections to meaningful careers. Colleges often struggle to prepare students for future jobs, while too many students do not make the connection between the skills they are learning in their postsecondary education and the career opportunities that await them upon graduation. There are practices that can make this connection clearer and more explicit through informing students, redesigning institutional offerings, and building bridges with industry and other stakeholders outside the academy. Specific strategies include:

  1. Build up the staff capacity of college career centers and require students to participate in career center programming and/or a career workshop course
  2. A 2012 survey of career center directors and students suggests that the two most significant impediments to the success of career centers are limited staff capacity and a lack of student involvement; when asked what needs to happen to best support student interaction with career services, the most common response, by far, was to offer and require career classes as part of the curriculum[14]
  3. Support career center activities by recruiting faculty to act as advisors to students in specific fields / industries; mandate as part of the career workshop course mentioned above that students must have at least one career advisory session each year of enrollment to ensure that they are on track for pursuing a career in their chosen field
  4. Establish transfer policies, articulation agreements, and support programs between the community college and four-year college levels which make it easier for community college students to pursue bachelor’s degrees
  5. 14% of low-income, first-generation college-goerswho first attend public two-year or for-profit institutions transfer to four-year institutions (compared to 50% of their more advantaged peers)[15]
  6. 5% of low-income, first-generation college-goerswho first attend public two-year or for-profit institutions earn a bachelor’s degree within six years of first enrollment (compared to 25% of their more advantaged peers)[16]
  7. Example: UC Berkeley’s Transfer Alliance Project provides academic advisory and enrichment services to low-income community college students, to prepare them for the transfer process to Berkeley and other four-year colleges[17]
  8. Support policies and/or practices which will make it easier for colleges and students to obtain dataon the employment experiences of college graduates; use this information to promote smarter career decisions and to refine career pathways and college curricula in general[18]
  9. Incorporate employment and earnings datain counseling sessions to guidestudents toward course pathways which lead to jobs that arefavorable, available, and accessible
  10. Promote policies and practices which support a system of stackable credentials with labor market value and which encourage students to build credentials through their educational lifecycle
  11. Ensure that relevant credentials are industry-recognized, stackable, portable, accredited, and valuable – each certificate or credential should have specific labor market returns for the student[19]
  12. Example: In 2008, the Ohio State legislature directed the Ohio Board of Regents and the Ohio Department of Education to create a system of pre-college and college-level stackable certificates that would be uniformly implemented across the state and aligned with workforce and higher education expectations
  13. The result is a sequence of approved steps along a pre-college certificate pathway – Basic Skills Certificate, Advanced Skills Certificate, and College- and Work-Ready Skills Certificate – followed by college-level certificates in such fields as nursing, automotive, and information technology[20]
  14. Partner with a local workforce nonprofit and build collaborative programming leading to industry-accepted credentials
  15. Example: Austin Community College partners with Capital IDEA to support students interested in nursing and other healthcare fields;Capital IDEA provides students with intensive support services and case management; financial assistance with tuition, fees and books; help covering the costs of child care, transportation and emergency living expenses; admission into an alternative remedial program for those not ready for college-level instruction; and access to study groups and tutoring
  16. A recent Aspen Institute study found that these kinds of partnerships generate successful educational and employment outcomes;the majority of the students in the Austin partnership enrolled in college-level coursework necessary for admission into a healthcare education program, and the majority of these students graduated with degrees in nursing and other allied health professions[21]
  17. Increase on-campus employment and internships opportunities for students, through partnerships with local employers and an expanded work study program
  18. Research shows that the majority of low-income, first-generation college-goers need to work to finance their education, and employment/internships can provide a powerful connection to future careers. However, working off-campus – particularly when working more than 20 hours per week – lessens the chance of degree attainment[22]
  19. Partner with local employers and incite them to offer internship, job training, or full-time opportunities to students
  20. Example: Florida Power and Light signed a memorandum of understanding with Miami Dade College saying that it would hire at least 20 graduates each year for full-time positions and 30 students annually to summer intern positions[23]
  21. Provide programming and structural supports directly tied to industries, such as those in the STEM fields, where there is a labor shortage and where jobs pay family-sustaining wages
  22. Example: The Science Educational Enhancement Services program at California State Polytechnic University is a voluntary program for students who are underrepresented in science; students in the program are required to master demanding science curriculum but also receive academic support and career advising, and take part in networking activities and content-related workshops[24]
  23. Example: The Tools for Success program at Miami Dade College is geared toward boosting the retention, graduation, and transfer rates of underrepresented students in the STEM fields, engaging them in tutoring, on-the-ground work experiences, learning communities, faculty mentoring, financial aid, field trips, and internship opportunities[25]
  24. Collaborate with employers and other industry representatives to ensure that pathways, proper curricula, and/or other supports are in place to adequately prepare students for jobs in fields that can support family-sustaining wages
  25. Example: Eight community colleges recently formed a partnership with local workforce boards and economic development agencies as part of the Workforce Intelligence Network (WIN) of Southeast Michigan to gather real-time local workforce data and serve as a connection point between businesses and colleges[26]
  26. Example: San Jacinto College in Houston and Pasadena has forged partnerships with the Port of Houston authority, NASA’s Johnson Space Center, and many other employers across the manufacturing, healthcare, and petrochemical fields to build pathways and industry-approved certificate programs that lead to in-demand jobs for students [27]
  27. Example: Valencia College in Orlando not only staffs its technical education faculty with industry professionals but has also set up advisory boards for each of its industry sectors – these boards provide constructive counseling on the makeup of Valencia courses and indicate gaps in Valencia student skill sets that need to be addressed (see profile on following page)[28]