Implementing Guided Pathways: Early Insights from the AACC Pathways Colleges
Author: Jenkins, Davis
Date: 2017-04-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Community Colleges,Change Strategies,Design,Planning,Goal Orientation,Two Year College Students,Progress Monitoring,Educational Environment,Holistic Approach,Sustainability,Success,Career Development,Career Exploration,Majors (Students),Teacher Role,College Faculty,College Role,Observation,Focus Groups,Interviews

Across the United States, a growing number of colleges are redesigning their programs and student support services according to the &quot;guided pathways&quot; model. Central to this approach are efforts to clarify pathways to program completion, career advancement, and further education. Equally essential are efforts to help students explore college and career options and choose a program of study early on, help them make steady progress on their program plans, and ensure that they are building essential skills across their programs. This report provides insight into how colleges are planning and implementing guided pathways reforms. It is based on the early work of 30 colleges that are participating in the American Association of Community Colleges' (AACC) Pathways Project and have committed to redesigning their programs and support services at scale. Community College Research Center (CCRC) researchers conducted telephone interviews with project leaders from all 30 colleges to discuss their self-assessments of the extent to which they were implementing elements of the guided pathways model. Researchers also conducted in-depth interviews and focus groups with faculty, advisors, and students during site visits at six of the colleges. In this report the authors describe the variety of ways in which the AACC Pathways colleges are approaching guided pathways reforms in each of the model's four main practice areas: (1) Mapping pathways to student end goals; (2) Helping students choose and enter a program pathway; (3) Keeping students on path; and (4) Ensuring that students are learning. The report also describes the strategies that the AACC Pathways colleges are using to manage the change process involved in implementing guided pathways. All of the colleges selected by AACC to participate in the Pathways Project had previously demonstrated a commitment and readiness to make major changes. The authors discuss these colleges' efforts to create a climate for change, engage and enable the whole organization, and implement and sustain change. Finally, they consider a key next frontier for pathways colleges: connecting their developmental education reforms to their pathways efforts to better enable students to pass critical program gateway courses and get on a program path. If colleges are to enable the majority of their students to enter a college-level program of study as quickly as possible--ideally in the first year--the conventional approaches to placement and remediation will not suffice. Virtually all of the AACC Pathways colleges are experimenting with new approaches to developmental education, but most have not implemented these reforms at scale. The authors outline ways in which, by thinking differently, colleges could sort out many fewer students and enable many more to get on the college-level program paths that the colleges are working to strengthen through guided pathways reforms. This report is organized into three main sections focused on: (1) How the AACC Pathways colleges are designing and implementing key features of the guided pathways model; (2) How colleges are managing the substantial changes involved in implementing guided pathways; and (3) A key next frontier for implementing guided pathways reforms--further rethinking how to help more students succeed in gateway courses for college-level programs. [For the executive summary, &quot;Implementing Guided Pathways: Early Insights from the AACC Pathways Colleges. Executive Summary,&quot; see ED574055.]