Tutor Training and Professional Development. Wichita State University (KS) (approved Promising Practice 9/25/13) Taken from the abstract: "Peer tutoring has become a familiar tool that many schools utilize to reinforce classroom teaching and increase student success. For this reason, the Student Support Services (SSS) Project at Wichita State University (WSU) has implemented a Tutor Training and professional development program to assist new and returning tutors to develop strategies to support learning and enhance academic performance and improve the tutoring process to establish, implement, and maintain a comprehensive and quality tutor-training program." [Click on this web link to download the education practice.]
Tactics That Engage Community-College Students Get Few Takers, Study Finds
"Most community colleges have begun using a suite of expert-approved strategies to get more students to graduation. But those programs are often just window dressing, as relatively few students participate in them. Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/10/17/community-college-completion-strategies-lack-scale-report-finds#ixzz2hzE3Mnqe at Inside Higher Ed
That’s the central finding of a new report from the Center for Community College Student Engagement. And Kay McClenney, the center’s director, places blame for the shallow adoption of “high impact” completion practices squarely on colleges and their leaders, rather than on students. “Requiring students to take part in activities likely to enhance their success is a step community colleges can readily take,” McClenney said in a written statement. “They just need to decide to do it.” The study draws from three national surveys that seek to measure student engagement at community colleges that collectively account for 80 percent of the sector’s enrollment. One is the center’s flagship survey -- the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE)....The 13 strategies include the use of academic goal-setting, student orientation, tutoring, accelerated remedial education tracks and student success courses (see box for full list). While experts and faculty members might not agree on whether all of the practices work well, there is an emerging body of evidence that they help boost completion rates.
For example, 84 percent of two-year colleges offer student success courses, which are designed to help new students navigate college and get off to a good start. The courses are particularly helpful to large numbers of lower-income, first-generation college students who attend community college, and who rarely get the support of family members who know the skinny on how college works. Yet only 20 percent of surveyed students took a success courses during their first term, according to the report. The other 12 practices showed similar gaps between being offered and being used. Take tutoring, which has obvious benefits to struggling students. Fully 99 percent of the surveyed colleges offer some form of tutoring, but the report found that only 27 percent of students had taken advantage of it during the current academic year."
Asking students to volunteer for service will not work. They don[t want to face stigma for doing so, they don[t have time for activities that conflict with their two or three part time jobs they have to pay for tuition, and for all the others commitments in their life. The solution is Universal Design for Learning where essential services and support are built directly into classes and required for all students.
Best Education Practice: Podcasting Academic and Career Counseling for Post 9/11 Veterans
Podcasting Academic and Career Counseling for Post 9/11 Veterans. Wichita State Unviersity (KS) (approved Promising Practice 10/15/13) Adding audio podcasting to the Upward Bound Veterans program allows our students to listen to important information when and where they want. Podcasting is a simple way to provide information through the human voice some students prefer rather than reading a handout. Listening to audio and video podcasts has rapidly grown recently due to widespread ownership of iPods, smartphones, and desk/laptop computers. Podcasting can be as simple or complex as you want. The most important element is the quality of information and its direct relevancy to the listeners. [Click on this web link to download the education practice.]
Collaborating TRIO Student Support Services and Other College Support Programs
Hanover Research (2013) provides an overview of campus organizational models that are conducive to a holistic approach to success for all students. Then they present in depth profiles of five institutional approaches to collaboration between and/or integration of federally-funded TRIO Student Support Services with institutionally-funded tutoring, academic advising, and First Year Experience programming.[Click this link to download a copy of the report].
Saving Developmental Education - Huffington Post Online
"....The national dialogue exclaiming that developmental education programs do not work is not only a false declaration but a futile approach to improving student persistence and ultimately degree completion. A number of states have withdrawn support for developmental education courses based on the notion that they are expensive, ineffective, and do not belong in four-year colleges and universities. In a few instances, state scholarship programs no longer allow funds to be used to take developmental education courses. Improving degree completion, however, will require institutions to serve students more effectively and a policy environment that does not marginalize developmental education or attempt to relegate it to community colleges...." [Click on this link for the entire article from the Huffington Post.]
Resource for First-Generation College Students
I'm First is an online community for first-generation college students—and their supporters. Hear inspiring stories and share your own, discover colleges that care about first-gen students, find answers to your questions about college, and receive guidance on the road to and through college. I'm First is a winner of the College Knowledge Challenge, a competitive grant initiative sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Facebook, College Summit, and King Center Charter School. [Click on this link for theI'm First web site].
MAEOPP Best Education Practices Center Posts Promising Practices
As I have shared previously through this blog, I lead a team of volunteers working to identify best education practices for TRiO and GEAR UP federal grant programs. These programs focus on assisting first-generation college, poor, and historically-underrepresented students complete high school and college. It is called the MAEOPP Best Education Practices Center. It is cosponsored by the Department of Postsecondary Teaching and Learning at the University of Minnesota and the Mid-American Association of Education Opportunity Program Personnel. To help highlight the MAEOPP Center through this web page I have added a new tab to the top menu bar, "Best Practices." The web page displays my thoughts about best education practices and then provides web links to the MAEOPP Center web site.
We are beginning to post best education practices to the MAEOPP Center web site that have been approved through an external expert panel. The practices range in age from middle school through college. As new ones are approved, they will be posted to the web site. Each submission will be complete enough to provide basic information about it and how to implement. Contact information is provided so you can follow up with the developers to talk more.