Link Link Link

• Just in case you missed The New York Times piece on CUNY’s New Community College, you can read about efforts to build a community college from scratch here. Dean Dad provided some commentary this week on his Inside Higher Ed blog.

• MDRC released two studies about learning communities this week: The Effects of Learning Communities for Students in Developmental Education: A Synthesis of Findings from Six Community Colleges and Commencement Day: Six-Year Effects of a Freshman Learning Community Program at Kingsborough Community College. You can read a summary of both reports here, along with MDRC’s take on what this research suggests about implementing and scaling up this approach at community colleges. 

• More webinar fun next week, this time from the Tennessee College Access and Success Network. They’ve got two offerings focused on adult learners coming up. On July 30 at 10am CDT, you can dial in for a presentation about Roane State’s H20 Program, which connects adult learners with opportunities in both higher education and the workforce. The presenters will also lead a discussion about the importance of connecting workforce needs with learning among adult learners.Sign up here. On July 31 at 9am CDT, Dr. Doyle Brinson of East Tennessee State University weighs in on integrating instructional resources and student services for adult learners. Sign up here.

For the Reading List

It’s a newsy week on Accelerating Achievement. Today, we’re highlighting recent releases from the Community College Research Center. And while we’ve not figured out how to provide a link that downloads directly to your brain, we hope that you’ll be able to find time to read the pieces that are relevant to your work.

• Predicting Success in College: The Importance of Placement Tests and High School Transcripts examines placement test and transcript validity in predicting course grades and college performance. Findings: while the placement tests aren’t very predictive, high school GPA is strongly associated with college GPA. You can read some additional commentary on this work on the JFF blog, in the New York Times, and in the Hartford Courant.  

• Student Success Courses and Educational Outcomes at Virginia Community Colleges looks at the relationship between student success course enrollment and short-term student outcomes. Findings: students enrolled in a success course in the first semester were more likely to earn college-level credit in the first year and more likely to persist to the second year. You might also like to check out these D.R.E.A.M. 2012 presentations on student success courses in Maryland, North Carolina and Texas.

• A National Center for Postsecondary Research paper, Learning Communities for Students in Developmental English: Impact Studies at Merced College and the Community College of Baltimore County, looks at the impact of semester-long learning communities linking developmental English with a variety of other courses. Findings at the two colleges were mixed.

Guest Post: Modeling Accountability

When you’re expanding a new initiative, it can be difficult to build new responsibilities into the already complicated and busy lives of faculty. Below, Lisa Dresdner, director of the Center for Teaching & Learning at Norwalk Community College, shares her advice on how to encourage accountability.

Rarely does the dog eat homework anymore; instead, the printer is out of ink or the computer crashes. Sometimes it’s a court date or a car accident that prevents a student from handing in her homework, or a student has to take his little brother or mother to [fill in the blank] and missed class. We’ve all heard the excuses, and we all have sympathy for our students’ complex and challenging lives. However, we also insist on holding our students accountable: We have carefully laid out our expectations for assignments, participation, and attendance in our syllabi; we have offered extra help to accommodate their various needs; and we have continually emphasized the requirements for successful completion of our courses.

Interestingly, this same need for accountability occurs in adult behavior:  “I’m exhausted/overworked/overwhelmed with [fill in the project] and haven’t been able to get to [fill in your requirements].” Sound familiar? The truth is, everyone’s lives are complicated; as faculty, shouldn’t we model what we want our students to do? How then do we encourage accountability among faculty? Over the last two years of scaling up our learning communities with our DEI grant, we’ve found that three basic steps need to be taken.

Establish expectations early: Just as a syllabus establishes a contract at the beginning of a semester between the instructor and the students, a written outline of responsibilities and due dates at the beginning of a project or initiative serves as an agreement among faculty. The fulfillment of these requirements is often tied to an incentive of some type. Two elements of this agreement are key: First, the requirements should be presented both orally and in written form, allowing for discussions and questions about why the various tasks are necessary; and second, the participants should sign the sheet confirming their agreement to be responsible.

At Norwalk Community College, we have a Learning Community (LC) leadership team consisting of the dean of academic affairs, the DEI project director, and the chairs/directors of the departments pairing classes in the LCs. This team outlines the kinds of tasks we want LC faculty to complete:

• create three integrative learning assignments
• meet regularly to discuss the students and the course
• write two narratives reflecting on specific questions—an individual report mid-semester and a group report at the end of the semester.

In different semesters, we have asked faculty to attend professional development activities that connect to the type of work we are emphasizing in our LCs.

Because faculty know these tasks are requested by a team, rather than by “administration,” they are often more receptive to them. Additionally, we use the grant requirements to encourage individual responsibility; that is, we explain how grant funding requires accountability in both gathering and reporting data and other information. In a sense, the grant helps to create an accountability pathway that we are institutionalizing. We let potential instructors know their responsibilities prior to their agreeing to participate in an LC, and then we go over the “contract” again during an interactive workshop where they begin creating their assignments together. They all know that receiving their stipend is contingent on fulfilling their obligations.

Follow up and feedback: Since each responsibility comes with a due date, the project leader may need to prompt the faculty throughout the semester. A quick e-mail reminder to the whole group works well, and this can be followed – if necessary – by more personalized e-mails or phone calls to individuals who are excessively late. As requirements are met, feedback is crucial! Not only must we acknowledge fulfillment of a responsibility, but we should also comment to emphasize that the participants and their work are valued. Additionally, as the point person, you are in a position to respond to questions or challenges to help faculty navigate their role in the project and to highlight shared struggles and triumphs.

One of the advantages we’ve found is that by requiring faculty to submit their integrative learning assignments, we’ve built a bank of resources faculty can use in subsequent semesters. This shared resource generates further collaboration as instructors find ways to tweak and revise an assignment.

Celebrate: Faculty almost always like to celebrate with food and talk. The food and drink may cost a little money, but the opportunity to gather over refreshments and share their experiences is priceless. Reflecting as a group on the semester, especially with some focused questions, also provides feedback to you on the whole project. If this celebration occurs after the final reports or responsibilities are completed, you might share your analysis of the commonalities and differences you discovered. In past semesters, we have written a summary of what faculty have expressed and circulated it as a draft, asking for issues we may have missed. What faculty gain from this experience, besides camaraderie and an increased understanding of the project’s purpose and its value, is the knowledge that their voices are heard. Really, in the end, being heard and valued strengthens the accountability pathway for all of us.

Lisa Dresdner is director of the Center for Teaching & Learning at Norwalk Community College.

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. 

Show Me the Evidence!

This week we’ve been blogging about the learning communities as a way to engage students so that they’ll be more likely to succeed. But what evidence do we have that learning communities are an effective way to improve student outcomes?

MDRC, a social policy research firm, has recently released a number of studies on learning communities at community colleges. The evaluations show some positive short-term outcomes:

• developmental math students in learning communities at Queensborough and Houston passed their classes at higher rates than those not in a learning community
• Learning community students at Kingsborough Community College (KCC) felt more engaged than students not in a learning community, and they passed their assessment exams at higher rates

…but less certain long-term effects:

• At Queensborough and Houston, students in the learning communities did not persist at a higher rate or earn more credits than their non-learning community peers, and
• At KCC, there was only a slight increase in long-term persistence for learning community students

An earlier report evaluated Hillsborough Community College’s learning community program for developmental reading students. At Hillsborough, there was a positive impact for learning community students only when there was effective faculty collaboration and curricular integration.

We can discern a few important lessons for colleges that are working to establish a learning community program from this research:

• Colleges should consider options for providing more continuous support for students beyond their time in a learning community
• Effective collaboration and communication between faculty teaching linked courses is vital to successful delivery and positive outcomes for students
• Waning impacts suggests that colleges should look at ways to strengthen peer bonds for a more lasting effect

Have you seen these benefits and challenges in learning communities on your campus? What do you do to encourage faculty collaboration? How do you sustain student connections beyond the end of the semester?



Alyson Zandt is a Program Associate at MDC.

Guest Post: Slow and Steady Scales the Learning Community

Today’s post comes from Rachel Singer, Director of Academic Affairs at Kingsborough Community College in New York.

Learning Communities at Kingsborough Community College have evolved dramatically over the past 15 years. We have gone from serving approximately 120 students each semester to approximately 1,000. The majority of students served in our learning communities are first-time, fulltime freshman who are underprepared for college-level courses, 75% of who test into developmental English. We know the underprepared, late-tested student is most likely to drop out of college, so our incoming freshmen learning communities are a critical element in helping students achieve success. 

Learning communities began at Kingsborough with the institution of the Intensive ESL Program, which, each semester, serves incoming freshman who are not native speakers of English. The Opening Doors Learning Communities began in the fall of 2003 as part of a study conducted by MDRC, a social policy research group. Students in both of these learning community programs have consistently attained higher GPAs than those who do not participate in learning communities, have higher retention rates, and generally pass out of the developmental sequence at a higher rate. Such results prompted the 1998 decision to make the Intensive ESL Program a requirement for incoming, full-time day ESL students. We have expanded our Opening Doors Learning Communities offerings to 32 groups each semester. These results also were the driving force for the requirement that all first-time, incoming freshmen take English in their first semester.  The positive data that we see coming from our learning community cohorts has prompted us to build Advanced Learning Communities for students who are beyond their first-time freshmen status. 

Each learning community program assembles a rich constellation of team members, all of whom work together to provide students with a coherent interdisciplinary experience. Faculty teaching the linked courses collaborate to identify shared student learning outcomes as well as to choose course texts, themes, activities, and assignments. We strongly encourage faculty to work with other members of the learning community team in order to provide students with an integrated learning experience.

Student Development Case Managers serve as advisors, counselors, instructors, and student advocates. They do this by teaching skills for attaining academic success, providing academic support and advisement throughout the semester, and introducing students to college resources. They promote connections among the courses by integrating the theme of the linked courses into their college orientation course.

Our ability to scale up our learning communities at Kingsborough speaks to the dedication and support of these programs by faculty and administration from all areas of the college. The scale-up has evolved over 15 years with a slow and steady vision that brings student needs into consideration at every step.

You Are a Community

Last week, we blogged about interesting ways that technology can help colleges match instruction to the needs of individual students. But we also acknowledged that tech-time needs to be balanced with face-time. Lauren Stowe Jones from Zane State College wrote, “For our students, that personal connection and the face-to-face time is vital. I do believe that technological literacy is an essential skill, but our students tend to learn it best when in a supportive face-to-face environment.”

This week, we’d like to focus on the personal connection that is critical to student persistence and motivation. We’ll be blogging all week about learning communities. For a little art-imitates-life moment, check out this clip from the pilot episode of Community, an NBC sitcom in which seven students (both traditional and non-traditional) form a study group at the fictional Greendale Community College:




Since the pilot aired in 2009, the students in the study group have grown together as a true community. On their own, each member of the group struggles to overcome difficult pasts and build self-worth, but together they form a surprisingly stable group. They have supported each other through the academic and personal challenges of exams, bullying, divorce, racism, financial woes, pregnancy, and zombies. It may be a comedy, but Community deftly tackles some pretty serious topics. By the end of every episode, the group demonstrates the principle that we’re going to focus on this week: students have a better chance at success when they are supported and engaged in a community of their peers.

Alyson Zandt is a Program Associate at MDC and a loyal follower of Community.

Artsy H-town

Which course would students rather take: one that takes field trips to art galleries around Houston in a course called "Artsy H-town" or remedial English? A remedial reading course or "Critical Thinking About Social Atrocities"? 


At Houston Community Colleges, those interesting classes are developmental courses. It's a way the college combines learning communities and contextual teaching to make developmental courses more effective, helping boost student completion and retention. Taking innovations like learning communities to scale and making them successful was a session Tuesday morning at the Developmental Education Initiative Conference at the Achieving the Dream Strategy Institute in Indianapolis with Maria Straus of Houston Community College and Lisa Dresdner of Norwalk Community College. The keys: getting buy-in across the institution, making technology work for you, making the courses attractive with interesting themes and perks for students like preferred registration, addressing the needs of adjunct faculty, compensating faculty for the extra work with money and/or smaller classes, making key courses mandatory, and continuously beating the drum on campus for making innovative changes.


Richard Hart is MDC's Communications Director.

Update: The panel on effective implementation and scaling up led to some interesting conclusions by groups that discussed them afterward. They included points such as: knowing what’s feasible, but also knowing you can always afford to do what’s important to get done; knowing what kind of evidence is needed to decide whether to go to scale; having interventions that reflect a college’s core values and are covered by its mission, strategic plan and accreditation priorities; aligning with high school and adult basic education partners; removing loopholes that keep mandatory programs from really being mandatory; and capturing the return on investment of retaining students.

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.