2016-17 annual reflection el centro college · benchmarking purposes, ecc uses data from the...

2016-17 ANNUAL REFLECTION EL CENTRO COLLEGE

6/23/2017 Engagement | Pathways | Process Improvement

The 2016-17 Annual Reflection comes at the close of a

significant milestone for El Centro College as it celebrates its

50th Anniversary of serving the citizens of Dallas. The Annual

Reflection serves as an opportunity to reflect on this past year's

successes, challenges, and opportunities for improvement with

our 3-year ATD plan.

2016-17 Annual Reflection El Centro College

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2016-17 Annual Reflection El Centro College E N G A G E M E N T | P A T H W AY S | P R O C E S S I M P R O V E M E N T

CONTRIBUTORS The entire El Centro College community should be recognized for their ongoing devotion to the student success efforts that drive our institution. Special acknowledgements go to the following individuals who have provided endless amounts of support to our Achieving the Dream efforts and have been instrumental in moving forward our ATD Themes of Engagement, Pathways, and Process Improvements.

Dr. Jose Adames President

Karla Damron Dean, Instructional Innovation and Academic Support

Joselyn Gonzalez Associate Dean, Academic Transfer Division

Dr. Teresa Isbell Dean, Research & Institutional Effectiveness, Planning, Assessment & Research

Dr. Greg Morris Vice President of Academic Affairs

Karen Stills-Royster Dean, Student Support Services

Will Smith Associate Dean, Academic Transfer Division

Beth Stall Executive Dean, STEM Division

Monica Stansberry College Career & Continuing Education & Developmental Studies Coordinator


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Student Success Vision E N G A G E M E N T | P A T H W AY S | P R O C E S S I M P R O V E M E N T S

El Centro College’s (ECC) Achieving the Dream (ATD) Plan mirrors that of our College Strategic Plan which is keenly focused on a student success-driven agenda. Our ATD plan was crafted around three overarching themes of Student Engagement, Pathways, and Processes that fold seamlessly into the College’s Strategic Initiatives. These Initiatives, identified in Figure 1 and below, speak to ECC’s ongoing commitment to student success.

Strategic Initia tive 1. Be a leader in innovative and effective college readiness processes which provide students with a guided pathway.

Strategic Initia tive 2. Be a leader in personalized guided pathways that employ flexible delivery methods shortening the time to completion.

Strategic Initia tive 3. Establish a culture of excellence through personalized guided pathways for employee development.

Strategic Initia tive 4. Be a leader in community transformation through innovative partnerships with community, business, and industry.

Strategic Initia tive 5. Be an effective institution through continuous assessment of programs, processes, and practices.

Combined with ECC’s five Strategic Initiatives, our corresponding ATD Themes of Student Engagement, Pathways, and Process Improvements serve as the foundation for our 2015-18 key performance indicators listed below.

ECC Strategic Initiatives: S T R A T E G I C I N I T I A T I V E 1 Be a leader in innovative and effective college readiness processes which provide students with a guided pathway. S T R A T E G I C

I N I T I A T I V E 2 Be a leader in personalized guided pathways that employ flexible delivery methods shortening the time to completion. S T R A T E G I C

I N I T I A T I V E 3 Establish a culture of excellence through personalized guided pathways for employee development. S T R A T E G I C

I N I T I A T I V E 4 Be a leader in community transformation through innovative partnerships with community, business, and industry. S T R A T E G I C

I N I T I A T I V E 5 Be an effective institution through continuous assessment of programs, processes, and practices.

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ECC’s ATD Key Performance Indicators 10% Increase in credential attainment 05% Increase in overall success rates 07% Increase in overall gateway course success 10% increase in Hispanic & Afr. Amr. Male gateway success 4 gateway courses to adopt problem-based learning 6 new guided pathways developed for AA and AS degrees 10 % Increase in Fall to Spring Persistence

FIGURE 1. STRATEGIC INITIATIVES


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Systemic Change Priorities El Centro College’s Systemic Change Priorities are grounded in our overarching themes of Student Engagement, Pathways, and Process Improvement

Engagement ECC’s student engagement activities speak to the more than 76 percent of our student body who attend college part-time. Our significant pathway efforts focus on expanding course-taking options for students and our engagement activities focus on both in-class interventions and extra-curricular experiences that contribute to student success, retention, and completion.

Expansion of On Course©: On Course is a teaching philosophy that helps students improve decision-making through personal ownership of their success. It is a foundational curricular element in our first-year and human development experiences. ECC’s ATD plan calls for the training of 150 faculty in On Course principles, with the goal of have 30 unique courses sections with meaningful embedded On Course techniques. To date, more than 244 faculty have been trained, far exceeding our original goal of 150. Seventeen course sections now embed On Course principles and we are on-track to meet our goal of 30 sections by Fall 2018 (Figure 2).

Problem-Based Learning: Engaging students within the first semester is critical to improve their likelihood of persistence. In Fall 2015, several gateway Biology courses were redesigned with problem-based learning in mind. Following this redesign, success rates were 18% higher than those using traditional delivery. In 2016-17 all Biology 1406 (Majors Biology) courses utilized problem-based learning. In 2017-18, Anatomy and Physiology course sections, along with key college-level gateway math courses, will utilize problem-based learning tools. To date, overall success in gateway courses has increased from 53% to 58%, with significant improvements in both African American and Hispanic Males, from 36% to 41% and from 53% to 59% respectively (Figure 3).

Male Success Initiatives: Less than 10 percent of African American males and Latinos graduate community college within 3 years. El Centro College’s male success initiatives seek to improve male credential attainment by 25% to 580 male graduates in 2017-18. In 2016-17, our Men of Distinction Program increased from 18 males to over 43 males. MOD males have Fall to Spring persistence rates of 89 percent with Spring to Fall persistence rates of 72 percent.

FIGURE 2. ON COURSE PROGRESS

FIGURE 3. MALE SUCCESS IN GATEWAY COURSES


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Pathways ECC’s pathway efforts are a response to addressing ECC’s large part-time student population, as well as, the growing number of students who are not college-ready.

Self-directed Pathways: Fall to Spring persistence at ECC has traditionally been 20 percentage points lower than comparable ATD institutions. ECC’s ATD pathway efforts seek to improve student persistence by providing greater tools in course selection and degree mapping—allowing them to finish on-time. With a goal of six new guided pathways, this effort also supports ECC’s plan to improve credential attainment by 10 percent, and Fall to Spring persistence by 10 percent.

Streamline Developmental Education: With the approved 2015-18 ATD plan, a major overhaul of developmental education was launched. Traditionally, this area had experienced relatively low success rates and the course progression model produced many dead-end pathways for students who could never escape the developmental education cycle.

ECC’s ATD plan seeks to improve student success in developmental education through for 3 key primary policy and practice changes:

Integrate Reading and Writing Coursework—reducing the number of course requirements, Eliminate stand-alone & misaligned capstone assessment with developmental education curricula, Develop co-requisite and mainstream models.

Process Improvements In an effort to commit to continuous quality improvement, our ATD plan seeks to improve processes, practices, and procedures through comprehensive self-study, redesign, and implementation.

Student Services and Online Learning: Following a self-study of 15 student services areas utilizing the Council on the Advancement of Standards (CAS), the College has made noted retention gains among full-time (10%), first-time-in-college (FTIC) male (11.7%), and overall FTIC (2.5%) students. Additional process improvement accomplishments have included process maps for dual credit services and ECC’s participation in the Online Learning Course Quality Scorecard and the Online Course Design Checklist.

Strategic Schedule Building: In 2016-17, general education deans, faculty, and administrators committed to a move toward a more cohesive scheduling of all core curriculum courses. Class schedules are more closely aligned to student needs. Efforts are underway to seek additional efficiencies by maximizing class offerings in peak times.

Developmental Education: In 2016-17, the College implemented several key changes related to developmental education processes. These efforts have included transitioning to an integrated reading and writing developmental model, redesigning capstone college-readiness assessments, and moving to a co-requisite model that reduces time-to-degree.

https://onlinelearningconsortium.org/consult/quality-scorecard/


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KEY METRICS USED IN MEASURING PROGRESS

Data Sources National Student Clearinghouse

Predictive Analytics Reporting Framework

Student Achievement Measures

Voluntary Framework of Accountability

Data Sources Overview El Centro College uses several data sources to measure our progress toward reaching our ATD goals. For benchmarking purposes, ECC uses data from the National Student Clearinghouse and the Voluntary Framework of Accountability. Internally, the college utilizes cohort, FTIC, and overall student measures to track fall-to-fall, fall-to-spring, credential attainment, and overall course completion with a C or better. ECC uses the following demographic variables for data disaggregation: ethnicity/race, gender, full time/part-time, degree type, FTIC and all-student categories. Age, first generation, and Pell recipients are also available for disaggregation analyses. The course completion data is also disaggregated by developmental and gateway classes. The two-year cohort tracking for progress from developmental to college readiness is reported via the VFA. The VFA developmental report and the internal student achievement measures report are included as uploads.

Beginning in fall 2016, ECC gained access to the CIVITAS for predictive analytics reporting. The CIVITAS platform will provide indicators where interventions can be applied to improve student retention and completion.

Challenges

During the Spring 2016-17 academic year, the ATD Leadership team participated in the ICAT assessment tool. The college scored low in two areas, Equity and Data/Technology. Although data analysis improvements have been made through enhanced pivot and data tables access, many of our ATD efforts rely on frequent data updates at the end of each term which are difficult to generate in a timely manner. We have also been challenged to align internal data-tracking measures to benchmark national reporting submitted from our District Office.

Goals for 2017-18

The 2017-18 year must include greater use of data in making informed decisions about student success strategies and interventions. A calendar of key data download dates will be established that align with our academic calendar and registrar functions, but that will also ensure timely dissemination of results to stakeholders. Expanded dashboards will be developed and placed into the hands of division deans, department chairs, and faculty to inform decision-making about student success interventions.


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Progress Updates E N G A G E M E N T | P A T H W AY S | P R O C E S S I M P R O V E M E N T S

LEADERSHIP & VISION

Progress Having the right leaders in place who have a strong understanding of the College’s Vision is critical for our ATD success. In addition to the unwavering support of ECC’s president, the ATD leadership team represents a group of faculty, staff, and administrators who are key decision-makers in our ATD direction. The following provide several examples of leadership-in-action at ECC as it relates to specific ATD initiatives, but more importantly, the leadership vision that drives our College’s efforts.

Leadership in Process Improvement- Dual Credit: Over the past three years, ECC’s growth in dual credit has grown significantly and, in the 2016-17 academic year, dual credit represented more than 20 percent of the College’s overall enrollment. Unfortunately, the processes governing dual credit decision-making, both in student services and instructional areas, were severely misaligned and poorly documented. In Summer 2016, as part of ECC’s ATD Process Improvement effort, a diverse group of student service administrators, instructional deans, and faculty came together to standardize comprehensive processes for dual credit.

Through their efforts, this ongoing working team has been successful in:

documenting and vetting dual credit student onboarding procedures, outlining key instructional roles and responsibilities for dual credit course expansion, identifying critical resources and funding priorities for dual credit efforts, identifying key marketing and outreach strategies

In part due to their work, the 2016-17 has been defined by ECC’s largest growth in dual credit to date. This group continues to lead our efforts in defining our dual-credit mission, our processes, and our future goals with our high school partners. Figure 4 provides an example of dual credit process flows for instructional areas and further evidence of this working groups’ achievements.

Leadership in Organizational Alignment- Instructional Innovation & Academic Support Division: As part of ECC’s organizational restructuring two years ago, the Division of Instructional Innovation and Academic Support (IIAS) was birthed to give greater credence to the value of innovative instruction, faculty professional development, and guided pathways. Since its inception, the IIAS team has spearhead many of our ATD Pathways and Student Engagement efforts, including, but not limited to On Course Training, Sprint-to-Finish and

FIGURE 4. DUAL CREDIT PROCESS FLOW


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guided pathways. These efforts have helped move the student success needle, particularly in the area of student success and Fall to Spring persistence (Figure 5).

Challenges As with any significant organizational restructuring or new process development, gaining campus buy-in can be one of the organization’s biggest challenges. Having effective leaders who are also consensus builders is foundational to impactful change. ECC has seen significant changes over the past two years and the college culture is still somewhat sensitive to further changes. In spite of this, the College enjoys broad support for ATD and our far-reaching efforts to meet improve student success.

Goals for 2017-18 El Centro College leadership team will continue to work on gaining institutional buy-in, not only for ATD efforts, but also for ongoing organizational changes that will enhance student success. Organizationally, the College continues to improve developmental education delivery, which is a major ATD focus area. Leadership within our academic divisions will be paramount as we continue to expand large-scale curricular changes, teaching enhancement efforts, and pathway initiatives. Efforts for which we believe have the greatest impact on student success.

FIGURE 5. FA TO SP PERSISTENCE BY STUDENT TYPE


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DATA & TECHNOLOGY

Progress El Centro College continues to strive to make meaningful student success decisions that are supported through quantitative and qualitative data. As a first step, the ATD data team embarked on developing a disaggregated data set across the ATD key performance indicators. Previously, this data was viewed at the aggregate level only and provided little insight into various sub-groups and their requisite student success performance. As a result of this effort, ECC now uses the following disaggregated variables of ethnicity/race, full-time/part-time status, degree type, age, first-generation classification, Pell eligibility, and gender across all ATD performance indicators. Through these efforts, we are able to much more closely monitor success of various efforts as it relates to a diverse set of demographic variables.

In addition to ongoing data analysis, ECC also has made significant strides in implementing technology solutions that are grounded in student success promising practices. Currently, software tools such as Estudias, Starfish, Student Lingo, and Appointment Plus are helping faculty, advisors, and other support staff make more meaningful engagement connections with students. These efforts further drive our Engagement efforts.

Challenges During the Spring 2016-17 academic year, the ATD Leadership team participated in the ICAT assessment tool. In addition to the equity category, our ICAT score for Data and Technology was the area where perceived effectiveness was lowest. Although data analysis improvements have been made through enhanced pivot and data tables access, many of our ATD efforts rely on frequent data updates at the end of each term which are difficult to generate in a timely manner.

Goals for 2017-18

The 2017-18 year must be a period focused on greater analysis and use of data in making informed decisions about student success strategies and interventions. A calendar of key data download dates will be established that align with our academic calendar and registrar functions, but that will promote timely data dissemination. Expanded dashboards will be developed and placed into the hands of division deans, division chairs, and faculty to guide decision-making about student success interventions.


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EQUITY

Progress In the recent ICAT survey distributed to ECC’s ATD leadership team and the College’s senior leadership, Equity was an area of needed improvement. While this presents an ongoing challenge for ECC, the ATD team continues to move forward with the following key equity initiatives that are tied to our ATD plan.

Equity through Problem-Based Learning. A significant equity effort within our Student Engagement theme involves embedding problem-based learning and On Course principles into key first-year experience and gateway courses. Research has strongly supported the use of collaborative learning over passive lecture as a high-impact practice on improving student success, particularly among diverse student populations. (Tagg 2003). Furthermore, collaborative and problem-based learning has been effective in helping students prepare for the sometimes unscripted situations they may experience in the professional work environment (NSSE 2000). In 2015, the Biology department implemented a problem based learning (PBL) method for navigating the course material in Biology 1406 majors Biology. The observation of a decreased drop rate (from 33% to 28%) and an increased success rate (from 36% to 50%) in these classes inspired biology instructors to modify the PBL model to fit into additional courses. In BIOL 2401 (Anatomy and Physiology I), the courses are taught using a flipped mode, in which students initially engage the material through video lectures or assigned reading outside of class and then work through the material collaboratively in the classroom. Data for these courses will be collected and analyzed to determine the success of these methods. Initial qualitative observations reveal increased amounts of comradery and engagement of students in these classes. BIOL 2402 (Anatomy and Physiology II) has also implemented a more interactive instructional approach similar to the flipped style. While no significant differences are observed, drop rate has decreased (from 9.21% to 4.95%) and success rate has increased (from 92.77% to 95.65%).

Equity through On Course. On Course is a teaching philosophy that helps students improve decision-making through personal ownership of their success. It is a foundational curricular element in our first-year and human development experiences. This year’s On Course Strategies initiative identified a faculty champion who led two cohorts of instructors through On Course principles training. From there, instructors created lessons with embedded On Course strategies and made lesson plans to share with others through a repository. Ninety-seven faculty were trained and have 17 course sections have embedded On Course activities. Faculty feedback has been positive. One instructor commented that, “the course really pushed me to consider different student perspectives, and challenged me to try new things that have made the class even more interactive”. Students are engaged and showing progress.

Men of Distinction and CCEAL Membership. The Men of Distinction (MOD) Program continues to expand in both membership and reputation on campus. In 2016-17, our Men of Distinction Program increased from 18 males to over 43 males. MOD males have Fall to Spring persistence rates of 89 percent with Spring to Fall persistence rates of 72 percent. This year, our MOD males participated in a vast array of professional and personal development activities and visited university campuses where similar male success groups have flourished.

In April 2017, ECC became a member of the Community College Equity Assessment Lab (CCEAL) in an effort to build greater equity capacity for our ATD efforts, particularly as it relates to underserved students of color. In June 2017, ECC sent four members of the ATD leadership team to the CCEAL 3rd Annual Working Group


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Meeting National Consortium on College Men of Color in San Diego. Our leadership team consisted of a gateway Biology faculty who has led much of our problem-based integration, our Dean of STEM, our Dean of Student Support Services, and our Associate Dean and First-Year Experience Faculty Coordinator.

Challenges Although the ATD leadership team is confident that many of our existing initiatives specifically target equity-related issues, nonetheless, there is increased interest and value in framing our equity propositions both to our campus leadership, faculty, and most of all, students. Across both our Pathways and Student Engagement initiatives, efforts like On Course, Men of Distinction, problem-based Learning, and Pathway Design are speaking directly to equity in regards to (a) curricula that embraces broader learning styles, (b) pathways designed for part-time students, and (c) student engagement for underserved men-of color. It will be the goal of the ATD leadership team to further invest in these critical equity efforts.

Goals for 2017-18 With faculty who’ve implemented PBL techniques in their classroom, we will strive to improve teaching methods to better accommodate ECC’s diverse students with diverse learning styles. Continuing the progress to having happier, more successful students is priority number one. Improving the efficiency of quantitative data collection for these courses is also a necessity. Additionally, we are exploring methods for collecting and evaluating qualitative data to understand impacts the new teaching styles have on the students’ sense of belonging and success.

As we look at the three year goals for the On Course project we are well on our way to meeting our goals. To date we have trained 244 participants while our goal was 150. We have 17 course sections that have embedded on course strategies. We will continue to strive for our goal of 30 by end of next Spring. Lastly, we have had fewer student complaints: 35% less in Maxient and 41% less from the website form.


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TEACHING & LEARNING

Progress Effective teaching and learning can most clearly be demonstrated through ECC’s progress with student success in the classroom as demonstrated by the grades of C or better. As part of ECC’s ATD master plan, we set a goal of increasing student success by 5 percentage points over the 2015-2018 measurement period. In addition, we set subsequent overall student success goals in gateway courses, and specifically, for minority males in those courses.

We are on-track to accomplish our overall student success goal, particularly among part-time students (Figure 6). In addition, we have seen great improvement in gateway course success, as a result of On Course, and PBL efforts (Figure 7). African American and Hispanic male success rates in gateway courses have also shown promising improvements (Figure 3).

Student Engagement through a Problem-Based Learning (PBL): In the past year, ECC has been successful in integrating 100 percent of all Biology 1406 courses with problem-based learning concepts. General biology is a critical gateway course with very high enrollment and proves to be a significant challenge for students of all backgrounds (Moore 2006). Fewer than 30% of high school graduates are adequately prepared for college-level biology courses (Cavanagh 2004). In a typical semester, most students predict they will do well in college-level courses, but many fail to succeed (Pryor et al 2010; Moore 2006).

Students in PBL classes showed a higher overall success rate in the course. All students who enrolled in the course (including students who eventually dropped the course) were compared with those students who ultimately completed the course. In PBL courses, 54% of all students enrolled scored 70% or higher in the class, while 37% of all students enrolled in traditional courses scored 70% or higher. Of those students who completed the PBL-formatted course, 73% scored 70% or higher in the class, while 55% of students who completed the traditional course scored 70% or higher.

The PBL class also exhibited a lower drop rate as compared to the traditional lecture class. On average 26% of students enrolled in PBL courses dropped the course; in contrast, an average of 33% of students enrolled in traditional courses dropped the course. This may be, in some degree, due to the significant differences in scoring on the first three exams in the course. PBL students scored an average of 66% on Exam 1 while traditional students averaged 61%. PBL students averaged 65% on Exam 2 while traditional students averaged 60%. PBL students scored an average of 65% on Exam 3 while traditional students averaged 57%.

FIGURE 6. STUDENT SUCCESS RATES OVERALL

FIGURE 7. GATEWAY SUCCESS RATES


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These higher PBL test averages likely had an effect on overall student confidence and the resulting lower drop rate in the PBL courses.

ECC plans to expand the use of PBL into additional STEM courses beginning in fall 2017. STEM faculty will participate in a 3-day workshop to receive high quality training in PBL curriculum development and implementation. The workshop will be delivered by Dr. Thom Markham, CEO of PBL Global, and a founding father of PBL with extensive experience in incorporating PBL into STEM courses. At the end of the PBL workshop, participants will have created complete plans for a long-term project to implement into their course. To improve the success of PBL implementation, faculty will form subject area workgroups which will meet routinely throughout the semester to discuss tips and ideas, and to assist one another in overcoming barriers they’ve encountered. Additionally, Dr. Markham will be available through video conference to address our faculty’s specific questions following PBL implementation.

After this faculty development, ECC will implement PBL into STEM gateway courses, with a special focus on College Algebra. Through the use of PBL in math courses, we hope to encourage math appreciation among our students. In addition to improved math success rates, we hope to provide students with a sense of community through cooperative problem-solving in their STEM courses. Furthermore, PBL enables students to understand real-world application and improve retention of concepts, which ultimately provides better preparation for their future careers.

Embedded On Course Strategies across the Curriculum: In addition to problem-based learning, significant progress was made toward our ATD Student Engagement through our On Course initiative. This year’s On Course Strategies initiative identified a faculty champion who led two cohorts of instructors through the On Course principles. From there, instructors created lessons with embedded on course strategies and made lesson plans to share with others through a repository. We trained 97 faculty and have 17 course sections with embedded On Course activities. Faculty feedback has been positive. One instructor commented that, “the course really pushed me to consider different student perspectives, and challenged me to try new things that have made the class even more interactive”. Students are engaged and showing progress.

As we look at the three year goals for the On Course project we are well on our way to meeting our goals. To date we have trained 244 participants while our goal was 150. We have 17 course sections that have embedded on course strategies. We will continue to strive for our goal of 30 by end of next Spring. Lastly, we have had fewer student complaints: 35% less in Maxient and 41% less from the website form.

Sprint-to-Finish. In 2016-17, we launched two cohorts in the Sprint-to-Finish (S2F) Online 8-week pathway-leading to an Associate’s degree. These core classes have common online navigation and have completed a quality checklist review. The program had 103 enrollments in the Fall semester and 207 in the Spring semester. In the past Fall semester all of the S2F courses had success rates at or better than the online course average.

Challenges One of the challenges with the On Course initiative is getting faculty to redesign curriculum in their courses. It is easy to get someone to attend a professional development event, but taking that new knowledge and creating a new activity takes time and sometimes includes faculty stepping outside of their comfort zone. Another challenge is scaling of the project. While active learning strategies are prevalent in our student success courses, we want our students to continue to use these strategies throughout their journey at El Centro. We have made strides in many areas like ESOL and Biology this year.


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For pathway projects like Sprint-to-Finish and others, scheduling presents a significant challenge. Currently, all courses are scheduled through department areas by the program coordinator. It takes good communication and periodic checks to make sure all the courses needed in the pathway are correctly placed on the schedule.

Goals for 2017-18 On Course strategies will remain a primary focus for next year by offering individual appointments with the faculty champion as needed. There will also be professional development opportunities through the problem based learning efforts and also the Design for Online professional development series.

We plan to continue to scale up Sprint-to-Finish Online with three cohorts this Fall. We will also be starting our Sprint-to-Finish Hybrid model with one cohort. We are also working to lower the textbook costs in S2F courses by incorporating open educational resources where possible.


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ENGAGEMENT & COMMUNICATION

Progress Our ATD plan, and our core-focused, student-success initiatives, continue to be at the forefront of ECC’s strategic agenda. Although college-wide engagement is always a challenge, the ECC community is engaged in our ATD efforts in a wide-variety of ways that include quarterly newsletters, president-cabinet updates, return day activities, professional development vignettes, and the use of our Score Card updates which provide up-to-date reports on our success.

Because one of our ATD themes is Pathways, we’ve also been able to broaden the influence of our ATD efforts to external organizations like the Dallas Independent School District (DISD) and YearUp, who serve as pathway partners for several initiatives.

Score Cards: The College continues to utilize our ATD Score Cards (Figure 8) as a primary vehicle toward keeping our constituency informed about ATD efforts. These score cards are updated each semester and provide graphic snap-shots of how we are doing on each key initiative. ECC adopted the score card concept from Pierre Community College, an ATD Leader College.

Partnerships: Pathways that promote completion are a major emphasis for ECC’s ATD plan. Pathways are most successful when (a) they are grounded in meaningful partnerships with stakeholders and (b) when they lead to defined career or educational opportunities. In addition to the College’s ATD Sprint-to-Finish pathway, AA and AS guided pathways, and developmental education pathways, two unique pathways speak to our ability to

effecitve communicate to a braoder audience and expand ECC’s engagement to external constitutents.

YearUp©: In 2016-17 ECC continued its partnership with YearUp© to address closing the Opportunity Divide among Dallas’ most talented youth by providing educational and internship pathways to entry-level corporate positions. Currently, ECC offers two unique pathway options in IT and Business which are seamlessly aligned with the skills required for entry-level corporate jobs at Bank of America, Liberty Mutual, and AT&T, among others. YearUp’s© high expectation model focuses on a combination of college credits, marketable job training, and internship opportunities that lead to full-time employment. This fall, ECC and YearUp will enroll more than 140 students in this influential program. Fall to Spring persistence rates for YearUp students has been at 91 percent and success rates in Fall 2016 exceeded 86 percent.

DISD Early-College High Schools: In 2016-17, ECC was approved by the State of Texas to officially transition its five (5) Collegiate Academies into formalized early college high schools. Directly tied to ECC’s ATD Pathways Initiative, the DISD Collegiate Academies formalize high school and college

FIGURE 8. SCORE CARDS


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pathways through dual enrollment alignment. More than 300 students from Pinkston, Roosevelt, Madison, Lincoln and Adamson High Schools launched early college programs in 2016-17. Fall to Spring persistence was 92% with success rates (A, B, and C grades) at 94% in Fall 2016 and 89% Spring 2017. Figure 9 shows new early college high school students arriving for orientation.

Challenges Although the members of the ATD leadership team are deeply embedded with our key success efforts, maintaining high-levels of engagement across the College continues to be challenging. Messaging to our internal and external constituents about key initiatives and gaining greater participation from faculty, staff, and administration must be a key strategy in the 2017-18 academic year.

Goals for 2017-18 El Centro College’s ATD team is committed to keeping ATD initiatives at the forefront of the institution’s efforts. ATD will again be a primary focus of fall 2017 and Spring 2018 return weeks-- with opportunities for faculty, staff, and administrators to learn about participating in ongoing ATD efforts. This Fall, we will hold a three-day faculty training program in PBL techniques, will offer additional On Course training opportunities, and be expanding dual credit process discussions.

Related to our Pathways efforts and our engagement with external partners, we will launch a 3rd YearUp Cohort, expanding this program to more than 140 students. In this coming year, our five early college high schools will enroll more than 500 students in a variety of technical and transfer degree pathways.

FIGURE 9. EARLY COLLEGE HS STUDENTS


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STRATEGY & PLANNING

PROGRESS El Centro College redesigned its 2015-2018 Strategic Plan to focus on five strategic initiatives. Three of these initiatives are designed around guided pathways. The College focused on pathways based on data showing that students who have determined a program of study at the beginning of their career are more likely to be retained, successfully complete courses and obtain a credential. A fourth strategic initiative focuses on the effectiveness of the institution through continuous assessment of programs, processes, and practices that maximize resources for improving student and employee success. The Strategic Enrollment Management Plan, the Outreach & Recruitment Plan, and the Academic Master Plan contain objectives associated with the onboarding of students, orientation and advisement, and scheduling of classes focused on making the path from entry to graduation more easily navigable. The Achieving the Dream initiatives were redesigned focusing on Student Engagement, Institutional Process Improvement, and Pathways.

An outcomes based funding model was implemented by the State of Texas and adopted by the Dallas County Community College District. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) is providing funding to the institutions based on the following performance measures or momentum points:

• Math/ Reading/Writing Readiness • Completion of 15 & 30 Sem. Credit Hours • Transfer to a 4-year Institution • Passing 1st College-level Math/Reading/Writing Courses • Completion of a Credential

These momentum points are closely aligned with ATD’s key indicators, which will help in garnering support for continued ATD expansion.

CHALLENGES As ECC moves into the 3rd year of its 2015-18 ATD plan, our biggest challenge rests with unpacking those successes and failures of the existing plan as we look to redesign ATD’s plan moving forward. Strategy and planning efforts must rely on strong data analysis and there must be a high level of confidence in our reporting capabilities. Although data analysis improvements have been made through enhanced pivot and data tables access that can greatly assist our planning efforts, there is still a disconnect between National Student Clearinghouse data reports and our internal data reporting.

GOALS FOR 2017-18 ECC’s primary 2017-18 goal will be to align internal data analysis to National Student Clearinghouse data used by ATD to measure success. This must be a major effort in ECC’s ATD strategy and planning effort so that we can track our success as defined by these national benchmarks.

Our 2017-18 goals must also focus on embracing an honest and transparent evaluation of our ATD activities and their real and perceived impact on student success. This will be critical as we evaluate our 2015-18 plan and develop a new plan for 2018-2021.


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POLICIES & PRACTICES

Progress In an effort to commit to continuous quality improvement, El Centro College (ECC) has implemented several policy, practice, and process initiatives.

Policy and Practice in Student Services- Process Improvements: A self-study utilizing the Council on the Advancement of Standards (CAS) was completed for 15 student service areas in Spring 2016. The evaluation addressed institutional efficiencies within student service areas and helped department leaders to determine where time, energy and resources should be focused. All student services areas developed or updated operational manuals, as well as departmental improvement action plans. All student service leaders (100%) have participated in at least two trainings focused on process improvements during the academic year. The College has made noted retention gains among full-time (10%), first-time-in-college (FTIC) male (11.7%), and overall FTIC (2.5%) students.

In addition to the self-study, the College has been working on process maps for dual credit services, to include both instructional, services, and faculty onboarding components. The College is partnering with our seven sister colleges on a comprehensive evaluation of online learning experiences using the Online Learning Course Quality Scorecard and the Online Course Design Checklist. This approach to comprehensive review and evaluation of policies and practices within online programming, are helping the college to reflect on best-practices and develop mechanisms for improvement.

Policy and Practice in Instruction-Schedule Building: Improving policy and practice in instructional areas has been equally important. In 2016-17, general education deans, faculty, and administrators committed to move toward a more cohesive scheduling of all core curriculum courses. Standardized Monday/Wednesday and Tuesday/Thursday class blocks have helped better align student academic schedules, increase room utilization, and improve overall campus efficiencies. In Spring 2017, The College was successful in achieving 84 percent alignment of all general education courses.

Policy and Practice in Instruction-Developmental Education: Although many State-level changes continue to drive much of our developmental policies and practices, ECC continues to embrace new practices of its own that are improving developmental education at the College.

In 2016-17, the College implemented several key changes in policy and practices related to developmental education. First, we transitioned to an integrated reading and writing developmental model, thus eliminating the myriad and confusing array of developmental education course options that previously existed with reading and stand-alone writing courses. Second, we eliminated the rigid college-readiness capstone (ICE exam) exam that resided outside the classroom in favor of an integrated ICE exam

FIGURE 80. DIRW STUDENT SUCCESS IN ENGL 1301




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embedded within the highest level developmental reading and writing course (DIRW 0310). This change resolved issues of students passing the highest level of reading and/or writing, but not being able to pass the ICE exam—creating a sometimes never-ending cycle of developmental course repeats, in spite of a passing grade.

These efforts are showing great promise toward improving developmental education success and subsequent success in college-level courses.

Figure 10 shows the ongoing improvement of English 1301 success among those students who previously enrolled in an integrated reading and writing course (DIRW). Students who were previously enrolled in a DIRW class outperformed students with no prior developmental education by 13 percentage points (Spring 2016).

Figure 11 shows the significant improvements being made in developmental reading and writing course success by part-time/full-time status. Since Spring 2015, success rates overall have improved by 19 percentage points with significant improvements seen in both full-time and part-time students.

Challenges Changing policy and practice can be challenging, particularly when the change goes against an engrained historical culture at the institution. ECC has undergone a vast amount of change over the last three years, which have yielded multiple phases of institutional reorganization. Trying to successfully implement process changes in a fifty-year-old institution, where there are recent changes in leadership and subsequent perspective requires patience, open communication, and genuine messaging explaining how changes will ultimately benefit our students, employees and community.

Goals for 2017-18 In 2017-18, several key efforts will dominate our efforts to implement meaningful policies and practices. First, our student services and instructional areas will continue to work on expansion of dual-credit work through customized dual credit stakeholder manuals. These will include customized procedures for college administration, faculty, and staff, but also for high schools, parents, and counselors.

ECC will continue its work with the Online Learning Course Quality Scorecard (QSC) effort by focusing on key deficiency areas identified through a self-assessment completed in Spring 2017. The QSC project focuses on 75 key indicators across 9 assessment categories that gauge effectiveness in online programming. From this assessment, the College will focus on improving those deficiencies that will have the greatest potential impact on student success.

Integrated Developmental Reading & Writing Success (DIRW)

Term By PT/FT Students % of Success 2015SP Overall 31%

FULLTIME 26% PARTTIME 33%

2016SP Overall 31% FULLTIME 24% PARTTIME 33%

2017SP Overall 50% FULLTIME 44% PARTTIME 51%

FIGURE 11. DIRW STUDENT SUCCESS


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REFERENCES Cavanagh, S. (2004). Students Ill-prepared for College, ACT Warns. Education Week. 24(8). Retrieved October 17th, 2015 from http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2004/10/20/08act.h24.html?qs=ACT+warns

Goh, K. (2014). What Good Teachers Do to Promote Effective Student Learning in a Problem-Based Learning Environment. Australian Journal of Education & Developmental Psychology. 14.

Jensen, P.A. and Moore, R. (2008). Students’ Behaviors, Grades & Perceptions in an Introductory Biology Course. The American Biology Teacher. 70(8).

Moore, R. (2006). What Uncouples Students’ Goals from Students’ Outcomes in Introductory Biology Courses? The Science Education Review. 5(1).

National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). (2005). Student Engagement: Exploring Different Dimensions of Student Engagement. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research. Tagg, J. (2003). The Learning Paradigm College. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Company.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2004/10/20/08act.h24.html?qs=ACT+warns

2016-17 annual reflection el centro college · benchmarking purposes, ecc uses data from the...

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