A Matter of Degrees Promising Practices and College

A Matter of Degrees: Promising Practices and College Completion 2012 Annual Workshop - NISOD Austin, TX May 29, 2012 Vincent Tinto Syracuse University (315) 443 -4763 vtinto@syr. edu

Promoting Student Success in College: Lessons Learned • Student success occurs one class at a time ➤ Classrooms as nexus of institutional action for student success

Promoting Student Success in College: Lessons Learned • Student success occurs one class at a time • Student momentum matters ➤ Completion requires timely completion of many classes over time.

Promoting Student Success in College: Lessons Learned • Student success occurs one class at a time • Student momentum matters • Student success requires going beyond vaccines ➤ One shot interventions are not enough

Promoting Student Success in College: Lessons Learned • Student success occurs one class at a time • Student momentum matters • Student success requires going beyond vaccines • It is one thing to start a program, another to sustain it and scale it up over time ➤ To many programs start and stop and even when effective rarely scale up across campus

Building Successful Classrooms • Expectations � � Clear, consistent, accurate information High expectations

Building Successful Classrooms • Expectations • Support ➤ ➤ Academic Support Social Support

Building Successful Classrooms • Expectations • Support • Assessment and Feedback ➤ � � Entry assessment and placement Institutional monitoring of progress Classroom assessment of performance

Building Successful Classrooms • Expectations • Support • Assessment and Feedback • Engagement � � � Contact with students, faculty, and staff Active engagement in learning with others Intensity / time-on-task

Establishing Clear Expectations • Mandatory first-year advising • On-line advising (e. g. Saddleback College) • Peer Mentoring

Providing Academic Support • Getting an Early Start ➤ Summer Bridge programs

Providing Academic Support • Getting an Early Start ➤ Summer Bridge programs • Contextualization of academic support ➤ Student success courses ➤ Supplemental instruction (e. g. El Camino College) ➤ Embedded academic support (e. g. I-Best) ➤ Basic skills learning communities (e. g. La. Guardia CC)

§ La. Guardia CC - ESL Linked Courses ESL Developmental English Accounting

“The relationship between accounting and ESL is helping a lot because the accounting professor is teaching us to answer questions in complete sentences, to write better. And we are motivated to learn vocabulary because it is accounting vocabulary, something we want to learn about anyway. I am learning accounting better by learning the accounting language better. ”

Providing Assessment and Feedback • Assessing student classroom performance for student success ➤ Early warning systems (e. g. Signals, EARS) ➤ Automated feedback systems (e. g. clickers) ➤ One-minute papers

Promoting Student Engagement • Pedagogies of Engagement � Cooperative learning � Problem-based / Project-based learning � Service learning

“You know, the more I talk to other people about our class stuff, the homework, the tests, the more I’m actually learning. . . and the more I learn not only about other people, but also about the subject because my brain is getting more, because I’m getting more involved with the other students in the class. I’m getting more involved with the class even after class. ”

Promoting Student Engagement • Pedagogies of Engagement • Learning Communities ➤ Living-Learning communities

Promoting Student Engagement • Pedagogies of Engagement • Learning Communities • Service Learning

Promoting Classroom Success • Faculty as key to student success ➤ Not leaving faculty development to chance (e. g. Richland College, Valencia College)

Student Momentum Matters • Identifying roadblocks ➤ Fixing courses with high failure rates

Student Momentum Matters • Identifying roadblocks • Identifying momentum points ➤ State of Washington momentum point analysis

Student Momentum Matters • Identifying roadblocks • Identifying momentum points • Building structured pathways to college completion ➤ Completion By Design (Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas)

Going Beyond Vaccines • Student success requires extended support ➤ ASAP (Borough of Manhattan, Kingsborough, La. Guardia)

Going Beyond Start-Ups • Sustaining institutional action ➤ Scaling up takes time ➤ Importance of assessment to prove and improve

Going Beyond Start-Ups • Sustaining institutional action • Scaling up institutional action ➤ Sharing ownership

Program Growth Curve

Promising Practices • Structured First-Year Programs ➤ http: //www. fyfoundations. org/ • Mathways Project ➤ www. utdanacenter. org/mathways. edu

Closing Thoughts • Student success does not arise by chance ➤ It requires intentional, structured, and proactive action that is systematic in nature and coordinated in application

Closing Thoughts • Student success does not arise by chance ➤ ➤ It requires intentional, structured, and proactive action that is systematic in nature and coordinated in application “Students should not do optional” - Mc. Clenney