Carteret Community College Title III Grant

online-tutoring-4_2_08.ppt

We’re blazing into a new realm of student support here at CCC. The power of distance learning at our College is dramatic, and undeniable. As our DL program turns 10 this semester, we have reached some dramatic milestones:
* 169 online (web-based, hybrid, and full) courses are being taught this semester;
* 72% of students enrolled this semester are taking at least one online course;
* 47% of courses offered are being taught online

With this backdrop, it is critical to understand that we MUST provide all of our support services online. We currently have advising online and we have recently implemented an online tutoring service. After reviewing the field of proprietary online tutoring services, we determined that, at this time, it may be more cost-effective (and more effective overall) to develop our own in-house tutoring service.

The service is in its infancy as we continue to learn what does and does not work, but in the meantime, we continue to move forward with this exciting initiative. By the way, we could not be offering this service without the leadership of Patrick Keough, our DL Director, and the technical expertise of Pre-Ah Hill and Lisa Taylor.

In an effort to take a barometer reading of how we’re doing, we’re not only looking in-house for results, but we’re taking our story on the road and asking other community colleges around North Carolina if/how they are approaching online tutoring. Today (April 3, 2008) we are at the NC Tutoring & Learning Association’s annual meeting, presenting our description of our program, AND, more importantly, taking the pulse of other online programs, and swapping ideas. Our powerpoint can be viewed by clicking on the image at the top of this post.

Mary Walton, Business Technologies Division Director here at Carteret, has written the following piece about the Citrix server, technology we would not have otherwise been able to afford without the support of Title III. The Citrix server is another critical piece in our infrastructure that allows us to provide a higher level of support services to our students.

Mary writes:

We have a new service that we are providing our students who take computer applications courses. Students are now able to access software that they need for courses from anywhere by remotely logging on to a new server that we have. If you hear students referring to the Citrix server, this is what they are raving about.

This service has long been a vision of our wonderful IT Director, Ken Martin. Thanks to funds from the Title III grant, we are finally able to carry out his vision.

We have been providing the same service via Terminal Services on an OLD server that, quite frankly, I’m quite impressed that Ken could even keep alive. Because of that server’s limitations, we had to be extremely selective in the software we chose to offer students. It was also not as stable and we had to limit which classes we gave access to. This new Citrix server is so much more stable and user friendly. Students are potentially saving $200+ per software application class by having this service. Before, they either came on campus to use the software or purchased the software they needed. This also means that the software can run on older machines… so if students computers aren’t capable of running the software… no big deal…they’re running through a browser to our server and it works great!

This semester, this server is serving students in 6 sections of CIS 110, 3 sections of WEB 140, CIS 165, WEB 111, CTS 130, OST 136, and OST 134. That’s a total of 193 students so far just this semester. (We still have students to register for 2nd 8 week courses and courses taught at Cape Lookout to be added to that final number).

I must say that Ken, Debbie and John go way above and beyond what other schools’ IT folks do in accommodating our students by providing tech support to go along with the service.

Sharon Mills, Fran Emory, and myself (Don Staub) are en route from Austin to New Bern (via Atlanta) as I write this. I’m taking this opportunity to recount my experiences at my first NISOD.

Overall, it was a great trip, and I’m thankful that Louise wrote this conference into the budget. There was a fantastic array of presentations on teaching, leadership, technology, use of data, etc… My goal was to try and attend as many sessions as possible on topics that related to Title III. Many of the sessions I participated in were related to the fostering of campus cultures in which collaborative conversations, with the effective use of data, become commonplace.

Fran and I participated in an interesting 3-hour workshop on Sunday that discussed assessment and the two primary ways to carry this out: Multiple Choice and Constructed Response. The presenter was from ETS, and there were useful conversations around both of these approaches. There was also a discussion of developing rubrics for constructed response assessments.

And, one of the best presentations I attended was given by Guilford Tech (had to come all the way to Austin to talk with people from up the road…isn’t that how it usually works). The presentation was entitled, “A Culture of Evidence” to Start Conversations about Student Engagement and Learning. They talked about data collection/analysis, and what it has done for student “success” at their school. We’ve already begun a dialogue about follow-up so that they can give us some more in-depth ideas on how they are implementing their process.

Fran and I also attended a luncheon hosted by SAS on their predictive analytics software. It all sounds very interesting, but again the issue of sustainability (i.e. long-term resources) weighs heavily on my mind.

I attended a few other sessions that related to the use of data for student success, strategic planning, accreditation, etc… These were all quite useful; particularly a session entitled “Strategic Metamorphosis: Transforming Community Colleges.” This session looked at aligning a number of IE initiatives and strategic planning.

One other session worth noting was an overview of the latest technology being utilized in online instruction. I learned about new stuff such as Yack Pack and Google Docs. You can check out the whole presentation by clicking here.

And, of course, Austin is a cool town. Lots of great music and cool architecture. There is also a fantastic, 10-mile greenway that follows the river that flows through town. Great for running, walking, bird watching, etc…

I am hoping that we can push for more of a Title III component next year. There were no specific T3 sessions (although plenty of Achieving the Dream sessions). I hope to present next year, or at least make sure that there are relevant sessions.

Next up, the Noel-Levitz Retention Conference in Orlando in July.

You can download Terri Manning’s Powerpoint Presentation by clicking HERE.Many of you may want refer to this as you move forward developing curriculum and course outcomes.

Patrick Keough