Carteret Community College Title III Grant

CLICK HERE to download ppt

“Strengthening Our Institution The Power of Title III in Impacting Assessment, Distance Learning, & Advising at a Small, Rural Community College”

A presentation made at the 2009 Noel-Levitz National Conference on Student Recruitment, Marketing, and Retention

Abstract

Carteret Community College is a small, rural college in North Carolina. In 2006, the college was awarded a Title III grant from the US DOE Title III program, which has allowed us to completely alter our approaches to assessment, distance learning, and advising – all in an effort to improve abysmal retention rates.  The College has developed and implemented, from scratch, a comprehensive outcomes assessment initiative for all instructional programs and administrative services. Distance Learning, once the playground of the eccentric, has thrust the College into a statewide leadership role for online student services and instruction. A virtually non-existent advising program now has organization, purpose, and results.  Participants will hear the story, see the outcomes, and discuss organizational culture change.

Below are some of the key handouts from today’s presentation.  Much more can be learned about our efforts through this CCC Title III blog, as well as through the CCC DL blog.   We greatly appreciate your comments and questions.

The Presentation

Carteret Community College has been working diligently for the last 2+ years on the development and implementation of an Outcomes Assessment program. This is partly because of an impending accreditation reaffirmation report and a subsequent visit. But, mostly because it’s the right thing to do: We (like many other community colleges) struggle with retention issues, and improved instruction and services may lead to lower attrition rates. However, the only way to improve instruction and services is to know where you’re starting from and what needs to be improved, along with a continuous cycle of assessment, analysis, and use of results to ensure that you’re moving forward. Thus, the outcomes assessment program.

There is no doubt that a critical piece of this initiative has been funding through Title III. This has allowed our cash-strapped school to bring in experts to provide professional development specifically for outcomes assessment, to release full-time faculty in order to attend professional development, to provide stipends to part-time faculty to ensure that they too are receiving professional development, and to send faculty and staff to relevant, off-campus professional development opportunities.

This is where we have come in the last two years:

• Institutional Level Learning Outcomes (ILLOs…aka, Gen Ed outcomes) identified and assessed at the college;

Click here to download this file: illo-matrix-07-08 If you would like to learn a little about the process of actually selecting our 7 ILLOs, CLICK HERE.

• All 34 instructional programs have identified program level learning outcomes (PLLOs) and are assessing them, analyzing the results, and making use of the results to improve instruction;

Click here to download this sample PLLO from 2007-2008: aqu-07-08

• All 34 instructional programs are on a 4-phase program review cycle; i.e. each program undergoes an intensive program review process every four years (in Fall ’09, we will begin Phase III);

Click here to download a copy of the Instructional Program Review Manual: ipr-manual You can also take a look at sample completed (Phase I & Phase II) program reviews by CLICKING HERE.

• As the instructional programs undergo the review process, they also identify and assess Program and Administrative outcomes, analyze the results, and make use of the results;
• All administrative units at the college have identified administrative outcomes and are assessing them, analyzing the results, and making use of the results to improve the services being provided;

Click here to download this sample Administrative Outcome: academic-support-07-08

• All administrative units are on a 3-phase administrative unit review cycle.

Click here to download a copy of the Administrative Unit Review Manual: admin-unit-review-manual

Click here to view powerpoint.

Today I was asked* to make a presentation to the Carteret Rotary (Lookout Chapter) on CCC’s DL efforts…particularly in light of the support gained through Title III.  Here is my presentation on the the broad overview of DL, along with some interesting, relevant data on the topic.

*Patrick was originally asked to make the presentation, but seeing as how he is vacationing in Ireland, he asked me stand in for him.

NC3ADL presentation ppt

Click HERE to download the power point.

Carteret Community College offered its first online course in the spring of 1998.  In Fall 2008, the college offered 61 sections of full internet courses and 15 hybrid courses. [By Fall 2009, all courses at the college will have a web presence].

CCC is not different from most colleges with burgeoning distance learning programs. For most of the last decade, with corresponding increases in the number of distance learning courses and students, attention has been trained on providing faculty with the skills necessary to deliver effective online instruction [via Blackboard]. In particular, in 2006, the college was fortunate to have been awarded a 5-year Title III grant from the US Department of Education.  Of the three primary objectives for the grant, distance learning is one of them.

This grant has given the college the resources to train all full and part-time faculty to effectively teach online.  Faculty are certified to teach online through a three-module Blackboard Bootcamp, developed in-house.  This professional development provides instructors with the tools to design and develop online courses, including the utilization of rich-media content (e.g. podcasts, enhanced podcasts, teachertube videos, etc…).

The missing link thus has far has been an eye toward assessment of online delivery. While assessment has taken place by the instructors in the courses, we have not really systematically examined online delivery as an effective means for providing instruction (i.e. are students learning). [I’ll digress for a moment here to say that we are only looking at Full Internet and Hybrid courses…i.e. not the so-called Web-Based courses – primarily because there is such variation on what a WB course entails in terms of online instruction/learning]

This presentation is a description of our attempt to do just that.   I begin with some background regarding DL, particularly the quantitative information (enrollments, success rates, etc…).  I then talk about the four primary ways that we are looking at DL courses:
1) The Quality Assessment Plan: a peer-evaluation process of online courses before they are even allowed to “go live.”  (download the QAP by clicking here:  http://web.carteret.edu/keoughp/TitleIII/FinalQAP.xls)
2)  Grade Distributions: This is a broad-brush approach to see how students fared in any one semester (by way of final grades…i.e. “success”  and D, F, W rates).
3) ILLOs & PLLOs: How did students do on specific assignments that were related to either Institutional Level Learning Outcomes or Program Level Learning Outcomes.  For instance, how did students in both online and seated sections of CIS 110 (the course in which we assess our ILLO for Computer Literacy) score on their final class project?
4) Same instructor. Same course.  Teaching both seated and online sections of that course. We looked at common assignments for both sections and examined how students performed.

The Bottom Line
While there were some spots where there was a significant difference between how students performed in an online setting vs. a traditional/seated setting, these were probably more one-offs than evidence of a trend. To me, the most intriguing pieces to look at will be  A) Hybrid courses – Full internet courses for the last three fall semesters have seen an almost consistent 64% success rate.  Hybrid courses, on the other hand, have seen 80% success rates.  Should we be doing more Hybrids (instead of full onlines) is the obvious question.   And B) We need to drill deeper.  What student characteristics can we use as predictors of success when it comes to online instruction.  Should every student be allowed to take DL courses?  Yes.  But, should we look at which ones students should be advised to Not take, or should there be policies around the number of DL courses a student can take at a time…or the number they can take the semester after dropping a DL course(s).  These are issues that we need to explore further.

(click HERE to download ppt)

In 2006, the Title III – Distance Learning team began making plans for offering student services online.  There were a number of key factors driving this decision.  First, there is the issue of accreditation.  As distance learning becomes a more integral aspect of education, it is garnering greater attention from accrediting bodies (in our case, SACS – the Southern Association of Schools & Colleges).  SACS  mandates that, “students have adequate access to the range of services appropriate to support the programs.”  For this reason (and the fact that we are up for reaffirmation in 2009-2010) inspired us to look closely at developing online services, accessible to all of our students (and not just online students).

But, we believe that the more compelling reason to begin exploration of online services is because it’s the right thing to do.  First, the number of DL students is increasing all the time.  So, yes, we need to give them access to the same services that all students who come to campus can access. True, a great many of our DL students come to campus anyway, which leads us to the second reason for developing online services.  Our students are changing.  This may be a rural community, but a great many of our students are exhibiting many of the characteristics that define the so-called millennial generation.  One of these traits is a blurring of time and space.  Students (of all ages, really) are not space bound (i.e. learning takes place as much off campus as on), nor are they time bound (i.e. just because the class or day is over does not mean that they don’t want access to the college at any time they have a free moment, no matter what time it is).

Finally, we are driven by cold, hard facts.  Through grades and attrition, the numbers tells us that our students need a broad support net to ensure their success in class, and throughout the whole college experience.  Therefore, we are working hard to develop and put online services for tutoring, counseling, career coaching, and financial aid assistance.