Happy Birthday, Accelerating Achievement!

This week, Accelerating Achievement turns one. According to What to Expect the First Year, we should have nail-trimming, sleep schedules, and solid foods all figured out. In addition to those milestones, we’ve had more than 100 posts ranging from explanations of how successful bridge programs work, to ways that data can be used to influence state policy, to an invitation for skeptics to change the way they think about developmental education. Forty-two of those were guest posts written by community college faculty, higher education researchers, workforce development experts, state policy leaders, and other friends from across the education sector. Over the next few days, we’re going to do some birthday reflecting, looking back at some of the year’s highlights and thinking about where the next year will take us.


Our Talking About Dev Ed section features posts that explore the varied definitions and passionate opinions that can make conversations about developmental education tricky. In What's in a Name?, we introduced some developmental education messaging tools and general advice for discussing developmental education with any audience. The tools include talking points tailored to key audiences, an economic appeal for supporting the success of underprepared students, and a way to talk about the essential coordination of institutional innovation and state policy. You can find all of these docs in the Resources section of our website under “Communications.” As we move into an election year, there will—we hope!—be more meaningful dialogue about the connections among educational success, employment security, and civil society. These resources could be useful as you participate in these conversations.


In Tales of Technical Assistance, we turned the spotlight on our DEI colleges that are making taking advantage of expert consultation to overcome barriers to expanding effective programs. One success story on the continuous improvement loop came from El Paso Community College (EPCC), as recorded in What Do Students Really Think? EPCC invited Arleen Arnsparger, consultant for the University of Texas at Austin’s Community College Leadership Program, to come to campus and lead a workshop about creating student focus groups. “We’re all getting better at making decisions by looking at institutional data and survey data, rather than just anecdotal information,” says Arleen. “Colleges have a lot of numbers to point them in the right direction, but student focus groups help them dig a little deeper into what they’re seeing in the data.” El Paso has continued to incorporate students into their decision-making process and as peer mentors. You can see a recap of their DEI progress here.

What Do Students Really Think?

The College: El Paso Community College in El Paso, Texas

The Difficulty: EPCC is implementing several institutional policy changes that will reshape the entering student experience:

• mandatory enrollment in developmental education and EPCC’s student success course for students who test into dev ed
• a new case-management advising system, which includes a mentoring component

While the college is confident these changes will improve student success, administrators want to fully understand how the changes will affect students, so they can minimize any negative impact and keep students from becoming discouraged.

The Expert: Arleen Arnsparger is a consultant for the University of Texas at Austin’s Community College Leadership Program. “We tend to make assumptions about why students behave in certain ways or what their experiences are with the college,” Arleen says. “We’re all getting better at making decisions by looking at institutional data and survey data, rather than just anecdotal information. Colleges have a lot of numbers to point them in the right direction, but student focus groups help them dig a little deeper into what they’re seeing in the data.”

The Accomplishment: Shirley Gilbert, EPCC’s program director for the Developmental Education Initiative, saw Arleen’s presentations at Achieving the Dream Strategy Institutes and was impressed by her ability to capture and convey the student voice. EPCC invited Arleen to come to campus and lead a workshop about creating student focus groups. Arleen helped participants identify what they needed to know about students’ experiences and then find the right questions to ask. The workshop also covered the logistics of creating a student focus group, including recruitment of focus group members, designing a discussion guide, and reporting findings to the college. She concluded with a model focus group session.

What Really Worked: The workshop participants left with a better understanding of how to involve students in decision-making; many faculty and staff have gone on to host their own student focus groups. “EPCC leaves no stone unturned in understanding the student experience,” Arleen says.

Lasting Effects: El Paso Community College is getting ready to roll out additional student focus groups, but is planning to bring Arleen back to give the college a boost as it moves forward, especially since the focus groups will involve a larger number of staff this time around. “We’ve scratched the surface, but now we need to get a deeper understanding,” Shirley Gilbert says. “We asked our students, ‘Tell me what you think,’ and now we need to ask, ‘Tell me what you really think.’”

Alyson Zandt is a Program Associate at MDC.

The More Learning Communities, the Merrier

Last week, Accelerating Achievement featured learning communities: we talked about engagement, expansion, and evidence. But one week is never enough, so today we’ve got a quick snapshot of some of the outstanding technical assistance DEI colleges are receiving that’s helping them make their learning communities more successful.

• At Zane State College in Zanesville, Ohio, DEI technical assistance provider Emily Lardner met with student services staff and faculty to discuss the advantages of learning communities. Emily started by connecting with student services at a breakfast session to help them understand the benefits of learning communities. “When you’re trying to have a learning community on campus, [student services] are the first line to get people in the door and enrolled, so it’s crucial they understand the importance,” says Becky Ament, Associate Dean of Developmental Education and the First-year Experience at Zane State. Meeting with faculty on campus, Emily guided small groups in thinking about integrated learning assignments as an alternative to a full- scale learning community; such assignments can help students engage across courses, but without some of the logistical challenges of learning communities. Since Emily's technical assistance, Zane State has developed two college-level learning communities and four learning communities pairing developmental courses with college-level general education courses, including:
• Introduction to Psychology with English Composition (college-level)
• First-Year Experience Course with Introduction to Computer Applications (college-level)
• Introduction to Sociology with Developmental English
• Principles of Biology with Study Skills
• Consumer Economics with Pre-business Math
• Microeconomics with Beginning Algebra

• We talked to Ruth Silon, DEI Project Director at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, Ohio, about changes that the college made in their learning communities after bringing in technical assistance provider Julie Phelps. On Julie’s visit, she led a focus group with learning community faculty from various departments. From these conversations, the college learned there was a disconnect between what the faculty needed to form learning communities versus what was being offered. As a result, the Western campus took the lead and organized a Learning Community Summit; faculty from Valencia Community College provided learning community training. Since then, Julie has returned and met with this group of faculty and administrators to discuss progress. 

Jump Into the Pool

Overcoming barriers to expanding effective programs is no easy task. To provide additional support to the 15 DEI colleges, a pool of technical assistants was created. In addition, colleges were encouraged to identify others who might be helpful to their efforts. Byron McClenney of UT-Austin’s Community College Leadership Program leads the training and deployment of DEI technical assistants; he notes that these “critical friends can raise difficult questions, challenge assumptions, and suggest pathways to scaling-up the important interventions.” DEI colleges can call in skilled DEI Technical Assistance Providers to aid them in developing and improving their programs, addressing issues of engaging full-time and adjunct faculty, contextualizing teaching and learning, and integrating technology, not to mention identifying the appropriate professional development to undergird these efforts. In Tales of Technical Assistance we will periodically spotlight a DEI college that has engaged technical assistance to take the institution’s DEI work to the next level. We begin in sunny Florida!

The College: Valencia Community College in Orlando, Florida

The Difficulty: VCC is aiming for improved course completion rates in targeted mathematics courses, such as algebra. One approach that interested the college was identifying ways that math faculty could collaborate with faculty in other disciplines.

The Expert: DEI Technical Assistance Provider Susan Forman, Professor of Mathematics, Bronx Community College, CUNY

The Accomplishment: Forman facilitated a shift in the college’s thinking about how other disciplines, such as reading and English, can help students learn math. “We had always put the burden on the math teachers,” says Dr. Nicholas Bekas, Valencia’s DEI Project Director. Through a series of engaging sessions, with a variety of faculty, Susan encouraged discussion about how various disciplines can help students learn math. For example, Susan emphasized the importance of integrating reading skills into mathematics classes. “If a student doesn’t understand the first sentence, they won’t understand the second. Math is a building discipline rather than an explanatory one,” Forman explains. 

Forman also challenged the Valencia administration to become more involved in the college’s developmental education work. “She really talked openly and honestly to the administration about understanding their role in this and how they can help us move forward,” Bekas says.

What Really Worked: Forman helped connect faculty involved with the DEI project with faculty from the college’s general education courses, and was practical and open to questions. Bekas reflects, “She read everything, and because she knew what we were trying to do when she came to us, she was ready.  She knew about us.  That’s what made it more engaging and I think helped us more.”

Lasting Effects: Since Forman’s visit, Valencia is working to integrate reading, writing, and math, focusing particularly on incorporating math content into reading and writing classes.

Breanna Detwiler is MDC's Autry Fellow.