Author: Kenneth Soldink

How One Institution is Using Competency Based Examination to Accelerate Degree Completion

by Lisa Cook

Seeking to provide students with multiple paths to earn credit toward a college degree, Colorado State University-Global Campus already offers a wide range of alternative credit options, including Prior Learning Assessments (PLAs) and credit for CLEP and DSST exams. But recently — in June 2014 — CSU-Global added a new option, allowing students to take Competency Based Exams (CBEs) in a wide variety of undergraduate courses. We recently talked with Dr. Jon Bellum, provost and senior vice president at CSU-Global, to learn more about how his institution is using this credit alternative. How Competency Based Exams Work CSU-Global began working to offer CBEs for the majority of their undergraduate courses about a year ago, after a series of small-scale pilots to determine whether CBE was a good fit for their programs. They discovered that it was a good fit for all but a few courses and subsequently rolled out the program more widely. The CBEs were developed in-house, with faculty and instructional designers working together. The tests are designed to measure the outcomes of the class that students would otherwise take, just as projects measure outcomes in traditional online courses. CSU-Global faculty write each exam, which consists primarily of multiple-choice […]

Spotlight on Innovation: Purdue To Study Why Active Learning Works

by Lisa Cook, Daniel Fusch

Active learning models are becoming more common – but do we know why they’re effective? Researchers at Purdue are investigating. SPOTLIGHT ON INNOVATION SERIES The US Department of Education has awarded multi-million dollar “First in the World” grants to 24 colleges and universities that are innovating to solve critical challenges with access, recruitment, retention, and student success. At AI, we have interviewed each of the recipients to learn more about the projects these institutions are pursuing, how their approaches are unique, and what other colleges and universities can learn from these new efforts. Active learning models are becoming more common as professors seek to engage a wider array of students. Project-based learning, clickers, flipped classrooms and other strategies have transformed classrooms — but little scientific research has been done to determine why active learning models are successful. Knowing that could guide more targeted pedagogical strategies. Researchers at Purdue University plan to address this gap through a $2.3 million First in the World grant that will allow them to conduct a large-scale controlled study about why active-learning strategies improve student retention and completion rates. Four years ago, Purdue began transforming large-enrollment courses from lecture-based courses to ones with active, student-centered learning as […]

Spotlight on Innovation: Game-Based Strategies for Improving Access for First-Generation Students at USC

by Lisa Cook, Daniel Fusch

SPOTLIGHT ON INNOVATION SERIES The US Department of Education has awarded multi-million dollar “First in the World” grants to 24 colleges and universities that are innovating to solve critical challenges with access, recruitment, retention, and student success. At AI, we have interviewed each of the recipients to learn more about the projects these institutions are pursuing, how their approaches are unique, and what other colleges and universities can learn from these new efforts. For low-income and first-generation students, navigating the college and financial aid application process can be challenging. Without a mentor or experienced family member to guide students through the process, steps like requesting letters of recommendation and applying for scholarships can seem overwhelming. To exacerbate this problem, many first-generation students attend high schools without counselors or with overburdened college counselors. Researchers at the University of Southern California set out to ease the process through online games that students can play to simulate the experience of applying to college. USC’s first such prototype, Mission: Admission, was launched in 2011 through a partnership between the Pullias Center for Higher Education and the USC Game Innovation Lab. Their work has been recognized by the U.S. Department of Education, which recently awarded […]

5 Ways to Tell if a Mixed Use Facility Will Work on Your Campus

by Neil Calfee

Mixed Use Facilities are gaining in popularity on campuses across the country, representing a blurring of the line between the edge of campus and the surrounding community.  “Mixed Use” has a broad meaning, encompassing projects that include multiple campus and commercial uses such as office space, incubators, retail, restaurants and hotels.  The projects are only limited by your creativity and, of course, the viability of the local market. Based on experience in procuring and developing successful Mixed Use Facilities, I recommend the following five steps to determine campus readiness for a given project: So, you will know that a Mixed Use Project will work on your campus if… 1. If You’ve Done Your Homework (A Local Market Analysis) Thinking that a mixed use project would be successful on your campus is much different than studying the market to understand if there is enough interest, density and money to make such a project feasible.  Conducting an independent market analysis to understand the appetite for a given development type and what unmet demand might exist will give you a solid understanding as to whether your proposed project might be viable. The same holds true if you are presented with an unsolicited offer […]

Small but Mighty: 4 Small Colleges Thriving in a Disruptive Environment

by Amit Mrig

Bucking the National Trend In this new paper from Academic Impressions, learn how four small colleges have bucked the national trend of enrollment decline, by: Profiled in this paper: _____________________________________________________________________________ Read the paper. ______________________________________________________________________________ Continue this Conversation If you: Contact amit@academicimpressions.com. We would love to continue this conversation with you. See Other Topics in Leadership

Improving Student Success by Providing Adjuncts a One-Stop Shop for Professional Development

by Lisa Cook

Adjunct faculty are teaching ever-increasing numbers of first-year and community college classes, yet receive little faculty development. Studies have shown that rising reliance on adjuncts is having a negative effect on student success, particularly for first-generation and at-risk students. With increased demands to improve graduation rates and other student success metrics, professional development to teach faculty about high-impact practices and other engaging teaching strategies is essential — especially for adjunct faculty who teach the majority of lower division classes. However, time is a major issue, especially for part-time faculty. The solution? Online professional development that is available 24/7. In this article we discuss how several institutions have used a one-stop approach to engage faculty members and keep critical resources at their fingertips. Step 1: Develop a “One-Stop Shop” Centralized Approach Using a one-stop approach is crucial to the success of offering professional development because busy adjuncts do not have time to search for modules in multiple locations. Compiling all of your professional development resources together makes it easy for adjuncts to see what resources are available and bookmark the page for easy online access to future training. At the County College of Morris in Randolph, NJ, the online New Adjunct Faculty […]

Spotlight on Innovation: How Southern New Hampshire is Replacing Remedial Education with Just-in-Time Academic Assistance

by Lisa Cook, Daniel Fusch

SPOTLIGHT ON INNOVATION SERIES The US Department of Education has awarded multi-million dollar “First in the World” grants to 24 colleges and universities that are innovating to solve critical challenges with access, recruitment, retention, and student success. At AI, we have interviewed each of the recipients to learn more about the projects these institutions are pursuing, how their approaches are unique, and what other colleges and universities can learn from these new efforts. It is well known that traditional “remedial courses” are not working for the majority of students assigned to them; College for America at Southern New Hampshire University (CfA) is helping underprepared students with a new approach that circumvents remedial education altogether. This concurrent model enables students to pursue college-level work while receiving targeted academic support. CfA’s work is supported by a $3.93 million First in the World grant, and we reached out to Cathrael Kazin, Chief Academic Officer of College for America, to learn more about their work. The Challenge Anywhere between 25 to 40 percent of undergraduates take at least one remedial course, but studies have shown that students who enroll in remedial courses are less likely to complete the course or a college degree. Some […]

How One Institution’s “Breakthrough Strategies” Videos are Helping First-Gen Students

by Lisa Cook

The success of first-generation and at-risk students is the responsibility of an institution’s entire community, but faculty members are especially on the “front lines” when it comes to making a real impact. And Heritage University in Toppenish, WA has identified a low-cost, time-efficient way to deliver faculty development focused on how instructors can have a greater impact on student success. Heritage University has produced a series of short videos in which faculty hear from their peers examples of pedagogical strategies that work for their first-generation and at-risk students. We reached out to Kathleen Ross, founding president emeritus and current director of the Heritage Institute for Student Identity and Success at Heritage University, to learn more about how they approached this project, the challenges they’ve faced in producing the videos, and the results they’ve received so far. Heritage University’s “Breakthrough Strategies” Video Series Heritage’s Breakthrough Strategies videos each highlight a single pedagogical strategy designed to address the needs of first-generation and at-risk students in an interview format. The videos are short: typically just three minutes long. The length makes them more attractive to faculty members who are looking for solutions to pedagogical challenges while contending with a busy schedule. In each video, a faculty member briefly identifies […]

Partnering with Faculty in Early Alert: A Faculty Perspective

PARTNERING WITH FACULTY – FROM A FACULTY PERSPECTIVE Bernadette Jungblut of West Virginia University recently spoke to this issue — from a faculty perspective — at an April 2015 Academic Impressions webcast. Now, In this article, Jungblut offers further strategies for partnering with faculty effectively. What follows includes both an institutional case study and Bernadette’s own individual responses to questions raised by participants at the webcast. by Bernadette Jungblut, Associate Provost for Accreditation, Academic Planning, and Assessment, Central Washington University,West Virginia University To explore the issue of faculty engagement in early alert in very practical terms, let’s review the key challenges (both that I’ve noted and that participants at the webcast raised), strategies that work, and a case study from West Virginia University. Engaging Faculty in Early Alert: The Challenge Challenges noted by webcast participants: Challenges I’ve experienced: Engaging Faculty in Early Alert: Strategies Here are strategies that we have employed at West Virginia University that make a difference in faculty engagement: Face-to-face meetings: We conducted face-to-face meetings with faculty members – one-on-one, in small groups, and at department faculty meetings.  We specifically described our undergraduate student profile – about which some faculty members knew relatively little.  When faculty began to […]

How Early Alert and Student Success Initiatives Fail

by Loralyn Taylor, Ph.D.

Spoiler alert: The biggest killer of early alert programs is information flow problems. Here’s a model for approaching that flow differently. When Early Alert Programs Lack a Strong Underlying Framework of Data We look to these research-based best practices and bring program after program to our campuses to address the needs of specific high risk populations, falling prey to the so-called “program of the month syndrome.” We analyze our retention data at the end of the year, identify a group that needs help, and we add a new program or service to address the issues of that student demographic. And so we try new program and services but can’t seem to really change retention and graduation rates of the student body. Why? Without a strong underlying framework of data and information flow, programs can easily become information silos—places where good data go to die. While our successful programs prefer to see themselves as cylinders of excellence, the lack of information flow and real-time communications between our programs and services reduces both effectiveness and efficiency. A lack of data makes it difficult to identify the right student for outreach at the right time and get them to the right service to […]