Engaging Community Colleges A First Look

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Committing to Student Engagement
2008 Findings
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What is CCSSE?

• Community College Survey of
• Student Engagement
• Administered every 2 years
• Goal Use the data internally and externally to
  improve student learning and retention

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CCSSE A Tool for Improvement

• CCSSE helps us
• Assess quality in community college education
• Identify and learn from good educational practice
• Identify areas in which we can improve

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CCSSE A Tool for Community Colleges

• CCSSE data analyses include a three-year cohort
  of participating colleges.
• The 2008 CCSSE Cohort includes more than 343,378
  community college students from 525 institutions
  in 48 states, British Columbia, and the Marshall
  Islands.

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CCSSE A Tool for Accountability

• CCSSE
• Provides reliable data on issues that matter
• Reports data publicly
• Is committed to using data for improvement
• CCSSE opposes using its data to rank colleges.

ranking
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CommunityCollege Students
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Community College Students Contend with Competing
Priorities
Most Students Are Enrolled Part-Time
Most Students Work
Source IPEDS, fall 2005.
Source 2007 CCSSE Cohort data.
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Community College Students Plans

• When asked when they plan to take classes at this
  college again, 23 of students had no plan to
  return or were uncertain about their future plans.

Source 2007 CCSSE Cohort data.
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Building aCulture of Evidence
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Start with the Truth

• We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by
  each experience in which we really stop to look
  fear in the face. We must do that which we
  think we cannot.
• Eleanor Roosevelt

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Understand the Facts

• 19 of part-time students versus 30 of full-time
  students say they often or very often talk about
  career plans with an instructor or advisor.
• 37 of part-time students versus 24 of full-time
  students say they never have those conversations.

Source 2007 CCSSE Cohort data.
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Understand the Facts

• Part-time students are less likely to
• Work with other students on projects during class
• Make class presentations
• Participate in a community-based project as part
  of a course

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Share the Facts andAct on What Youve Learned

• Take nothing on its looks take everything on
  evidence. Theres no better rule.
• Charles Dickens (18121870) Great
  Expectations

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Honolulu Community College
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Above the Mean Compared with other Hawaii
colleges

• COLLEGE ACTIVITIES
• Talked about career plans with an instructor or
  advisor
• Worked with Instructors on activities other than
  coursework
• WEEKLY ACTIVITIES
• Commuting to and from class
• Relationships with instructors

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Above the Mean Compared with other Hawaii
colleges

• EDUCATIONAL AND PERSONAL GROWTH
• Acquiring job or work-related knowledge and
  skills
• Developing clearer career goals
• Gaining information about career opportunities
• STUDENT SERVICES
• Frequency Job placement assistance

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Below the Mean Compared with other Hawaii
colleges

• COLLEGE ACTIVITIES
• Made a class presentation
• Worked on a paper or project that required
  integrating ideas or information from various
  sources
• Used the Internet or instant messaging to work on
  an assignment

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Below the Mean Compared with other Hawaii
colleges

• COLLEGE ACTIVITIES
• Used email to communicate with an instructor
• Number of written papers or reports of any length
• Worked with classmates outside of class to
  prepare class assignments

19
Below the Mean Compared with other Hawaii
colleges

• COLLEGE EXPERIENCES
• Transfer to a 4-year college or university

20
Above the Mean Compared with the 2008 CCSSE
Cohort

• COLLEGE ACTIVITIES
• Encouraging contact among students from different
  economic, social, and racial or ethnic
  backgrounds
• Helping you cope with your non-academic
  responsibilities
• Providing the support you need to thrive socially

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Above the Mean Compared with the 2008 CCSSE
Cohort

• WEEKLY ACTIVITIES
• Relationships with instructors
• EDUCATIONAL AND PERSONAL GROWTH
• Acquiring job or work-related knowledge and
  skills
• Using computing and information technology
• Working effectively with others
• Understanding yourself

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Above the Mean Compared with the 2008 CCSSE
Cohort

• EDUCATIONAL AND PERSONAL GROWTH
• Understanding people of other racial and ethnic
  backgrounds
• Developing a personal code of values and ethics
• Contributing to the welfare of your community
• Developing clearer career goals
• Gaining information about career opportunities

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Above the Mean Compared with the 2008 CCSSE
Cohort

• STUDENT SERVICES
• Frequency, Satisfaction and Importance Career
  counseling
• Frequency Job placement assistance
• Frequency Financial aid advising
• Frequency Computer lab
• Satisfaction Career counseling

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Above the Mean Compared with the 2008 CCSSE
Cohort

• COLLEGE EXPERIENCES
• Working full-time
• Academically unprepared

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Reflections on CCSSEs First Five Years
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Five Lessons Learned

• Lesson 1 Be intentional
• Engagement doesnt happen by accident it happens
  by design.
• Just as colleges must be intentional about
  engagement, students must be intentional about
  their own success.

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Five Lessons Learned

• Lesson 2 Engagement matters for all students,
  but it matters more for some than for others
• There are consistent, unacceptable gaps between
  outcomes for high-risk students and outcomes for
  their peers.
• CCSSE data show that high-risk students typically
  are more engaged than their peers, but tend to
  have lower aspirations and less successful
  outcomes.

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Five Lessons Learned

• Lesson 3 Part-time students and faculty are the
  reality of community colleges and typically are
  not addressed in improvement efforts
• Colleges that are serious about improvement must
  better engage part-time students.
• Colleges are beginning to engage part-time
  faculty to better engage part-time students.

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Five Lessons Learned

• Lesson 4 Data are our friends
• Colleges operating within a culture of evidence
  embrace data, sharing them honestly and
  unflinchingly.
• Data often conflict with individuals
  observations because data show the typical
  student experience and that is what colleges
  must understand to improve.

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Five Lessons Learned

• Lesson 5 Look behind the numbers
• Colleges can go deeper with qualitative data,
  such as student focus groups.
• On the national level, CCSSE is exploring how
  relationships help students succeed, and is
  continuing its research program.

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Five Strategies That Work

• Strategy 1 Set high expectations and clear
  goals
• Set high expectations
• Set and communicate high expectations.
• Language matters.

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Five Strategies That Work

• Strategy 1 Set high expectations and clear
  goals
• Set clear goals
• Set goals and provide the support to meet them.

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CCSSE Benchmark
Key Findings for Academic Challenge

• During the current school year, how much has your
  coursework at this college emphasized the
  following mental activities?

Percentage of students responding quite a bit or
very much
This survey item is not part of the academic
challenge benchmark but is included here for
purposes of comparison. Source 2007 CCSSE
Cohort data.
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Five Strategies That Work

• Strategy 2 Focus on the front door
• Community colleges typically lose about half of
  their students prior to the second college year.
• Current research indicates that helping students
  succeed through the equivalent of the first
  semester can dramatically improve retention and
  improve students chances of attaining further
  milestones.

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CCSSE Benchmark
Key Findings for Support for Learners

• How important are the following services?

Source 2007 CCSSE Cohort data.
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CCSSE Benchmark
Key Findings for Support for Learners

• How often do you use the following services?

Source 2007 CCSSE Cohort data.
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CCFSSE Time Spent Advising Students

• About how many hours do you spend in a typical
  seven-day week advising students?

Responses ofFull-Time Faculty
Responses ofPart-Time Faculty
Note Percentages may not total 100 due to
rounding. Source 2007 CCFSSE Cohort data.
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Five Strategies That Work

• Strategy 3 Elevate developmental education
• Up to 61 of all first-time community college
  students are academically underprepared for
  college-level courses, and the numbers are far
  higher in some settings.
• Research shows that effective remediation pays
  high dividends, but success may depend on early
  intervention.

Source Adelman, C. Principal Indicators of
Student Academic Histories in Postsecondary
Education, 1972-2000 (Washington, DC U.S.
Department of Education, Institute of Education
Sciences), January 2004.
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CCSSE Benchmark
Student Effort Academically Underprepared
Students Use of Services

• Percentage of students responding sometimes or
  often

Students who have taken or plan to take
developmental reading, writing, and math Source
2007 CCSSE Cohort data.
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Five Strategies That Work

• Strategy 4 Use engaging instructional
  approaches
• Most community college students are on campus
  only when they attend classes.
• CCSSE data indicate that the most successful
  engagement strategies happen in classrooms.
• Colleges can play to the strength of in-class
  engagement by maximizing engaging instructional
  approaches.

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CCSSE Benchmark
Active and Collaborative Learning In and Out of
the Classroom

• In your experience at this college during the
  current school year, about how often have you
  done each of the following?

Percentage of students responding often or very
often
This survey item is not part of the active and
collaborative learning benchmark but is included
here to help illustrate the differences in
student experiences inside and outside the
classroom. Source 2007 CCSSE Cohort data.
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CCFSSE How Faculty Members Use Class Time

• In your selected course section, on average, what
  percentage of class time is spent on each of
  these activities?

Note Percentages may not total 100 due to
rounding. Source 2007
CCFSSE Cohort data.
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Five Strategies That Work

• Strategy 5 Make engagement inescapable
• Colleges are most likely to engage students when
  they make engagement inescapable.
• Colleges and their faculty members can set the
  tone for and set the terms of student
  engagement.

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CCSSE Benchmark
Student-Faculty Interaction Happens Primarily in
the Classroom

• In your experience at this college during the
  current school year, about how often have you
  done each of the following?

Discussed Ideas from Readings or Classes with
Instructors outside the Classroom
Discussed Grades or Assignments with an Instructor
Note Percentages may not total 100 due to
rounding. Source 2007 CCSSE Cohort data.
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• What do we do now?
• Next steps?