Final Thoughts

I very much enjoyed reading this book as much of the aligns with a lot of the research that I have been exposed to on reforms that lead to student success. My experience in an urban community college bears out much of what the authors present as the reality for all too many community college students. So many students arrive ill equipped for the rigors of college life (both academically and personally). Providing students with clear links between academics, career aspirations and personal goals / relevance can only serve to help better engage (and retain) students in the community college environment.

One criticism that I have heard is moving students quickly into structure program pathways gives them little opportunity to explore both academically and personally. As someone who started their community college exploring a variety of different subject areas that were not necessarily tied to my major, I can sympathize with this perspective. However, as a white middle class male who attended a good high school, I had both the social, economic and cultural capital to explore while still being able to "find my way" (which ultimately took me an extra year and half to do). It is not so for students who do not have the privileges I did. All to often, I see community college students adrift, academically dis-engaged and looking for direction.

Perhaps the most important aspect of this book was the chapter on the necessity to reform instructional delivery. Tinto (a well known research on student persistence) calls this "pedagogies of engagement" This section of the book regarding the importance of instructional reform really epitomizes our work in the AET program - how to develop and deliver curriculum that engages, motivates and produces rigorous learning outcomes for the students in the classroom. Persistence and engagement happens primarily (if not exclusively) in the classroom for most community college students. Instructional delivery that engages and motivates is essential for students who are on the academic and social margins. Wrapping student services around the classroom experience that reinforce the students interests, goals and motivations while providing clear pathways for success and accomplishment will give students every opportunity possible to succeed in higher education.

Conclusion

The authors do a nice job concluding the book by dividing the community college student progression into four phases: connection, entry, progress, completion. Each phase is contrasted to the cafeteria model and to the pathways model. The connection phase is mostly about the relationships that community colleges need to build with high schools so that potential students from the high school pipeline have already done exploration of and engagement with future pathways and academic programs that they may like to pursue.

The connection phase, labeled from interest to enrollment,  discusses how the pathways model engages students from the very onset regarding what their future career and academic plans. Advisors and assessments are offered to help undecided students choose or placing them in a default pathway as they explore a particular meta-major(s). Progress is monitored in the pathways program through tight faculty and advisor in the students elected pathways program. At completion, students are equipped for the workforce or to matriculate to a university to purse a bachelor degree. Ideally, the community college with have strong relationship with feeder universities and the community colleges' respective program areas would have particularly close equivalent university program and academic areas.

The end of the book revolves around a charge to community colleges to be bold and innovative and to consider many of the strategies in the book as start points for initiating reform.

Chapter 6

Chapter 6 is a little revolves around potential cost saving that community colleges can realize by switching to a pathways model. The authors concede that upfront costs will be more expensive but that by retaining more students (due to the structured pathways model) the overall costs will actually decrease. The authors point to state and federal policy changes that have induced performance funding models that are beginning to take hold nationwide. These funding models incentivize colleges that increase their completion rates.  

This chapter also explores evolving educational models beginning to take hold (such as competency based models, "unbundled classes" and accelerated programs) and compares them to the pathways models. Additionally, they discuss technological innovations that are also beginning to compete more and more with the traditional educational model. The authors suggest that these models may enhance and add-value to the pathways model and that as more time progresses their utility in the educational delivery mix will be better ascertained than at the current time.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5 of the book takes a look at how community colleges can make structural changes to implement some of the changes (particularly an integrated pathways model) that the authors present in the previous chapters. The first line item discussed is the relationship between administration and faculty, which the authors content tends to be reactive (if not too often adversarial). Much of the section on governance revolves around ways to improve trust and collaboration between all silos in the community college system, namely, faculty, staff and administration. Much of this discussion centers around a leadership culture which promotes trust, respect and freedom to explore and take chances on new / innovative practices.

 Perhaps the most interesting part of this chapter, for AET readers, would be section on professional development for faculty. Similar to what was mentioned in chapter 3, the authors suggest that faculty engaged in a "collaborative inquiry" process where they analyze both data and classroom practice that generate a culture of continuous improvement. The goal of course would be to improve faculty teaching and to employ methods of instruction that are more generative (student oriented). The authors also suggest that the teaching and learning centers (if they exist at all) can be excellent catalysts for these collaborative engagement to occur. One area that they authors do not address in detail is adjunct faculty. They do suggest that adjunct faculty should also be given the resources to engage in professional develop and they acknowledge that this is a hard sell in an resource scare environment.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 revolves around helping under-prepared student succeed in the community college environment. A large part of this chapter outlines the problems with developmental education and the generally poor track record of student outcomes when placed into these programs. This chapter tends to stand out a little because the authors do not spend much time engaging in the pathways theme that is pervasive throughout much of the other chapters. However, they recognize that remedial education has not served many (most?) students well and they advocate for an overhaul of this model. Three key elements that they argue in their redesign advocacy is assessment, curriculum and instructional reform. Curriculum reform, they argue, should take place within the context of a pathways model - thereby enraging the student and connecting content to their larger career and academic goals. Instructional reform is generally along the same lines as was presented in chapter 3. Generally, students need instruction that is engaging and curriculum that is integrated to their larger goals - as opposed to curriculum that is isolated and disconnected from their college level academic goals.

Chapter 3

Of all the chapters, this is definitely the most applicable for teaching and instruction. Chapter 3 is all about reforming / enhancing instruction in the community college classroom.  The chapter begins with an in-depth look at what the authors call procedural vs conceptual learning. Procedural learning focuses on rote learning while conceptual learning focuses on enhancing critical thinking (patterns, relationships, evaluating data, etc.).  The authors contest that the majority of instruction in the community college cafeteria style college is based on the "knowledge transmission" model that focuses more on procedural learning vs the "learning facilitation model" which is student focused and organically enhances motivation.

A part of this chapter, as with every chapter actually, revolves around suggestions for community colleges to make the changes that authors suggest (and that they state are researched based). They advocate for having strong instructor to instructor relationships where there is an open culture of observing other instructors and reflecting on ways to develop a more "learning facilitation" model that they suggest. The book makes a brief mention of "lesson study" a practice that was developed in the US but is primarily utilized in the Japanese education study. Basically, the practice revolves around intensive mentoring and work with fellow teachers to develop facilitation skills.

The rest of the chapter revolves returns to the main premise of the book in that a guided pathways model provides a better framework with which to create an environment of conceptual learning. The authors suggest that by better aligning curriculum into pathway programs, instructional design can better enhance skills, concepts and habits of mind that students will need to be successful in future classes (which is consistent with learning facilitation). They argue that an instructors main job is help develop student mental models (scaffolding of learning) and not ply them with facts and rote learning. The author refer to this concept as inductive learning (aka inquiry-based learning problem based learning, etc.) which they claim tend to improve student learning and motivation.

Chapter Two

In chapter 2, the authors discuss two main ideas that impact newly matriculating students at many community colleges. One, community colleges do not have good relationships with local high schools and two, the student orientation and advising process is generally very brief and surface level. The advising perspectives that the authors mention is what I will discuss in this post. This chapter delves into the importance of advising - especially what the authors define as "developmental advising". This theory of advising, according to the authors, encompasses helping students build self-awareness regarding their academic and personal strengths and skills and helps them draw connections to various careers and occupations. This process however, is more intensive and long term.

The authors also discuss how students success courses can do a lot to improve academic (cognitive) and non-cognitive skills such as perseverance.  Additionally, the authors suggest that e-advising tools and early alert systems (used in conjunction with effective advising staff) can be useful student supports in the helping students succeed.

Although long-term developmental advising and student support courses tend to be correlated with positive student outcomes, the majority of community colleges do not have these resources available to incoming students. One strategy, suggests the authors, is to employ e-tools that can free advisors up from more mundane activities (like course selection assistance) so they can free more time up for doing more intensive developmental advising with students.

To contextualize these ideas, the community college I work for has just implemented a pathways advising model that pairs one advisor to one student and moves away from programmatic advisors which change as the students' degree pathways changes (evolves). I feel that this one-on-one longer term student relationship has the potential for better and more consistent advising - which will hopefully lead to improve student engagement and persistence.

Chapter ONe

Chapter one introduces some of the more disheartening statistics regarding the completion rates of community college students. While many community college students plan on obtaining a bachelor degree in the future, only a small percentage of them wind up even transferring - much less completing a 4 year degree within six years.   The authors point to a variety of causes - poor transfer agreements, , limited advising, and what they term as "curricular incoherence".

It is this idea that frames this chapter. The cafeteria style college, as opposed to a guided pathways model, does not structure the curriculum in a way that builds off other curriculum in previous classes. For example, many electives have no relevance or applicability to the students ultimate degree aspirations (if known). Exploring unique and different areas of study is not harmful in and of itself, however, it does not contribute to helping students scaffold knowledge in a systematic way. The authors suggest that aligning program outcomes with students goals is the most appropriate way to not only maintain student motivation but to effectively build student skills and achieve desired learning outcomes (both for students and the college) .

Introduction

The introduction of the book lays out the main premise The authors suggest that the "cafeteria" style model of most community colleges is not serving the population of community college students well. Rather, they suggest that a "guided path model" would more effectively serve community college students.  The concept of the guided pathways, suggest the authors, is that the model is more effective in aligning employment, career and academic goals. This is especially true for the majority of community college students who may lack intrinsic motivation and career clarity. In the introduction, the authors allude to studies which show that guided pathways programs that have been researched and have been shown to improve student success and student outcomes,

In upcoming posts, I will outline the ideas and concepts laid out in future chapters regarding challenges to reform in the community college system as well as a more detailed look at how deficiencies within the current cafeteria model.

Redesigning America’s Community College is an in-depth look at the current state of America’s community colleges and how various political forces have converged to catalyze fundamental changes within the community college system. One of the major political forces sweeping higher education has been the relatively recent movement to inject and infuse accountability and outcome measures into the higher education apparatus - particularly affecting community colleges. The open access mission hardwired into community colleges’ DNA has not always served those who came to higher education woefully under prepared. Too many students drop out before achieving any degree or credentialing, often times with student loans.

The future forthcoming blog posts will outline some of the suggestions and best practices for redesigning community college administration, curriculum and student learning models in current era of funding streams that increasingly require accountability measures such as completion and persistence as proxies for student success and positive learning outcomes.

Join me in this discussion throughout the upcoming months and add your thoughts, criticisms and experience along the way!!!

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