Engagement By Design: Focus on Developmental Education

1
Engagement By Design Focus on
Developmental Education

• Community College Survey of Student Engagement
  2004 Findings

2
CCSSEs Growing Scope

• CCSSE 2004
• Over 92,000 community college students
• 152 colleges
• 37 states
• CCSSE 2005
• 257 colleges in 05
• Cumulative total approaching 400,000 students

3
Benchmarks for Effective Educational Practice

• CCSSE reports survey results in two ways
  national benchmarks areas that educational
  research has shown to be important in quality
  educational practice and students responses to
  individual survey items. The five benchmarks are
• Active and Collaborative Learning
• Student Effort
• Academic Challenge
• Student-Faculty Interaction
• Support for Learners

CCSSEville Community College 2004 Benchmark Scores
4
Reaching for Excellence

• CCSSE encourages colleges continually to ask
  whether current performance is good enough and to
  reach for excellence in student engagement.
  Colleges can
• 1. Compare themselves to the national average
  (the 50 mark).
• 2. Compare themselves to high-performing
  colleges.
• 3. Measure their overall performance against
  results for their least-engaged group, aspiring
  to make sure allsubgroups engage in their
  education at similarly high levels.
• 4. Gauge their work in areas their college
  strongly values.
• 5. Contrast where they are now with where they
  want to be.

CCSSEville Community College 2004 Benchmark Scores
50--
5
Developmental Education Students at CCSSE
Colleges

• More likely to be a first-generation student
• Less likely to have a high school diploma
• Significantly less likely to identify English
• as first language
• Slightly more likely to be single and to
• have children at home.

6
Active and Collaborative Learning

• Key Findings All CCSSE 2004 colleges

Students Who Collaborated on Classwork Outside
of Class
Students Who Collaborated on Projects During Class
7
Student Effort

• Key Findings All CCSSE 2004 colleges

Hours Full-Time Students Spend Studying
Students Who Come to Class Unprepared
8
Student Effort

• Students who often/very often prepared two or
  more drafts of an assignment
• Developmental 56
• Non-developmental 42
• Students who often/very often worked harder than
  they thought they could to meet expectations
• Developmental 52
• Non-developmental 43

9
Academic Challenge

• Key Findings All CCSSE 2004 colleges

Are Students Writing Enough?
Are Students Reading Enough?
10
Academic Challenge

• Developmental Education Students Report
  Significantly Higher Levels of College
  Contributions to Knowledge, Skills and Personal
  Development
• Not so surprising
• Writing clearly and effectively
• Speaking clearly and effectively
• Solving numerical problems

11
Academic Challenge

• Developmental Education Students Report
  Significantly Higher Levels of College
  Contributions to Knowledge, Skills and Personal
  Development
• Also
• Understanding yourself
• Understanding people of other racial and ethnic
  backgrounds
• Developing a personal code of ethics
• Gaining information about career opportunities

12
Student-Faculty Interaction

• Key Findings All CCSSE 2004 colleges

Students Who Discussed Ideas with Instructors
Outside of Class
Students Who Talked with Advisors or Instructors
about Career Plans
13
Support for Learners
Students Use of Academic Advising/Planning
Services
Students Use of Career Counseling Services
14
Support for Learners

• Developmental students report
• Significantly more frequent use of academic and
  student support services except transfer
  assistance
• Significantly greater importance placed on
  academic and support services except transfer
  assistance
• Greater satisfaction with academic and student
  support services across the board

15
Support for Learners

• Student Experiences Re College Emphasis on
• -Encouraging you to spend significant amounts of
  time studying
• Encouraging contact among diverse students
• Helping you cope with non-academic
  responsibilities
• Providing the support you need to thrive socially
• All responses significantly higher for
  developmental students than for non-developmental
  students.

16
Summary The Good News

• Developmental students
• have high aspirations for associate degree and
  certificate attainment
• appear to exert significant effort to succeed
• take advantage of services offered by their
  colleges and are satisfied with those services

17
Why Focus on Developmental Education and the
First Year?

• But
• Developmental students report lower grades
• And they are significantly more likely to
  indicate risk of dropping out of college due to
  academic under-preparation and lack of finances

18
Why Focus on Developmental Education and the
First Year?
CCSSE Respondents by Credit Hours Earned at the
College
19
Engagement in Action

• Strategy 1
• Engage early, engage often

20
Engagement in Action

• Strategy 1
• Engage early, engage often
• Strategy 2
• Stress academic advising

21
Engagement in Action

• Strategy 1
• Engage early, engage often
• Strategy 2
• Stress academic advising
• Strategy 3
• Purposeful re-design