Practically Speaking: Community College Practices That Help (Re)define Student Success. A Practitioner Primer. Spring 2014
Author: Cooper, Darla
Date: 2014-00-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Community Colleges,Two Year College Students,Success,Telephone Surveys,Focus Groups,Interviews,Student Motivation,Disproportionate Representation,College Faculty,Teacher Role,Case Studies,Academic Support Services,Student Personnel Services,African American Students,Hispanic American Students,Pacific Islanders,Asian American Students,American Indian Students,Disabilities,STEM Education,First Generation College Students,Goal Orientation

This primer introduces 23 practices designed to support students inside and outside of the classroom and increase their community college success. These case studies illustrate the five themes for effective student support that emerged from Student Support (Re)defined--a multi-year study performed by the Research and Planning Group for California Community Colleges (RP Group). Through Student Support (Re)defined, the RP Group conducted phone surveys and focus groups to ask almost 900 students from 13 California community colleges what supports their educational success. Findings from this research indicate that: (1) colleges need to foster students' motivation; (2) colleges must teach students how to succeed in the postsecondary environment; (3) colleges need to structure support to ensure all six success factors are addressed; (4) colleges need to provide comprehensive support to historically underserved students to prevent the equity gap from growing; and (5) everyone has a role to play in supporting student achievement, but faculty must take the lead. This primer is not a research report. Rather, it offers a range of practical examples and aims to inspire concrete dialog about what community college practitioners can do to strengthen student support at the individual, program and institutional levels. Some practices offer simple ideas that can be readily pursued. Others are more complex, call for careful coordination and planning, and require a significant investment of time and resources. All practices are student-centered and either show potential for scaling and/or replication or are already successfully reaching significant numbers of learners. The RP Group selected these practices based on over 20 years of experience conducting research in the California community college system and drew on the research team and project advisory committee's engagement with national initiatives such as the Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence, Completion by Design, the Hewlett Leaders in Student Success Award and Excelencia in Education. Each case study includes a brief description of the practice's purpose and design, a discussion of the participant experience, implementation support and challenges, and a consideration of scalability and sustainability. The primer includes a bookmarked table of contents and a series of quick guides at the beginning of the document to help readers connect with the practices that are of greatest interest and relevance to their work. It incorporates discussion questions throughout the document designed to help practitioners reflect on their own college's practices, consider ways to strengthen existing supports and/or begin planning for the adoption of new approaches that promote the success of all learners on campus. The primer additionally offers an introduction to the Student Support (Re)defined study and the student voices that the RP Group has presented to thousands of practitioners, leaders and other stakeholders around California. (Contains 23 references and two sets of discussion questions designed for practitioner and college leadership engagement in the study's findings.)