Faculty as Drivers of College Reform Efforts

This presentation is licensed CC BY 4.0.

Presenters

Jonathan Iuzzini, Associate Director of Teaching & Learning, Achieving the Dream

Richard Sebastian, Director, OER Degree Initiative, Achieving the Dream

Cheryl Huff, Associate Professor of English and Humanities, Germanna Community College and Chair of Virginia Consortium OER Degree Initiative Committee

David Schönstein, Director of Network Development, Inspark

INTRODUCTIONS ACTIVITY

• Pull one quote off the wall that resonates with you.

• (3 minutes) Take some time to think individually about the quote you chose; jot some notes down. Why did you choose this one in particular? What about it grabs you? What does this quote mean for your values, your work at your institution?

• Pair up with another participant (someone from another college); introduce yourselves and discuss why you chose your quotes.

Institutional Change Assessment Tool

WHAT TEACHING AND LEARNING MEANS TO US

• The commitment to engaging full-time and adjunct faculty in examinations of pedagogy, meaningful professional development, and a central role for them as change agents within the institution.

WHAT TEACHING AND LEARNING MEANS TO US

• The commitment to engaging full-time and adjunct faculty in examinations of pedagogy, meaningful professional development, and a central role for them as change agents within the institution.

• Also, the college’s commitment to advising, tutoring, and out-of-classroom supports as well as restructuring developmental education to facilitate student learning and success.

Instructional Practices & Support Services

• Are faculty engaged as change agents in improving student success?

• Do faculty apply research-based instructional practices?• Does the college provide the resources to maximize the

use of technology in educational practice?• Does the college offer a comprehensive array of learning

supports for students?

Developmental Education

• Does the college provide alternative options to traditional placement and developmental education? (i.e. Co-requisite, accelerated, H.S. transcript, etc.)

Structured Program Maps• Are program-level learning outcomes

designed to prepare students to transition to the workplace and/or transfer to a four-year institution?

• Does the college regularly monitor student progress and provide focused support?

Professional Development• Does the college have an effective professional

development program for instruction?• Do professional development activities support

adjunct faculty participation?• Do faculty update their instructional practice

based on acquired professional development?

Culture of Evidence

• Are data regularly used to improve educational practice in the classroom?

• Are learning outcomes used to improve curriculum and instruction?

Engaging Adjunct Faculty in the Student Success Movement

Achieving the Dream’s

ENGAGING ADJUNCT FACULTY IN THE STUDENT SUCCESS MOVEMENT

• 2-year planning and implementation grant, funded by• The Helmsley Trust• Great Lakes Higher Education Guaranty Corporation

• Goal is to develop practices and policies to support adjunct faculty to improve instruction and become engaged in student success initiatives

ENGAGING ADJUNCT FACULTY IN THE STUDENT SUCCESS MOVEMENT

• Achieving the Dream (ATD) provides technical assistance, oversight, and management of all aspects of the project

• Community College Research Center (CCRC) serves as a partner and third-party evaluator, documenting strategies employed, stakeholder experiences with implementation, and project outcomes

DESIGN PRINCIPLES

DESIGN PRINCIPLES

1. Engage adjunct faculty in sustainable and scalable improvement activities that directly tie to classroom responsibilities and leverage their existing expertise.

DESIGN PRINCIPLES

2. Ground professional learning opportunities for adjunct faculty in pressing problems of classroom practice that can be examined collaboratively within the context of specific improvement activities.

DESIGN PRINCIPLES

3. Align adjunct faculty hiring, review, promotion, and incentives policies and practices to support stronger connections to the institution and to encourage deep, sustained engagement in improvement activities.

DESIGN PRINCIPLES

4. Collect, analyze, and use quantitative and qualitative data to track progress and refine the focus and implementation of improvement activities and achieve desired outcomes.

REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

• How many of you have deliberate conversations on your campus about adjunct faculty?

• How many of you have an initiative or program on your campus designed to engage adjunct faculty?

6 PARTICIPATING LEADER COLLEGES

• Community College of Baltimore County (MD)• Community College of Philadelphia (PA)• Delta College (MI)• Harper College (IL)• Patrick Henry Community College (VA)• Renton Technical College (WA)

PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS

Faculty development activities• Trainings to promote use of High Impact Practices

by adjunct faculty• Online seminars on guided pathways

PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS

Faculty development activities• Adjunct Faculty Institute• Community of Practice required for all new faculty• Faculty Learning Communities, Teaching Circles

• Team Teaching partnerships• New website featuring video modules on effective teaching

practices• New online resources in Canvas to orient new adjunct faculty

PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS

Recognition and representation of adjunct faculty in shared governance• Adjunct Faculty Engagement Work Group• Standardized tools for evaluation of adjunct faculty• New roles for adjunct faculty in governance

structures• Centers for Adjunct Excellence

Open Educational ResourcesA primer

Open educational resources (OER) are freely available materials that can be downloaded, edited and shared to better serve all students.

Open licenses

A “textbook” case of price gouging

Textbook Pricing in Context

Handwriting Printing Press

Internet

Copying a book

$1000s per copy

$1s per copy $0.0001s per copy

Distributing

a book

$1000s per copy

$1s per copy $0.0001s per copy

Textbook Pricing in Context

One Month Access to… Costs…Netflix: 20k Titles $7.99 / monthSpotify: 15M Tracks $9.99 / monthCourseSmart: 1 Biology Textbook $19.67 / month

Fit more tennis balls

per container by cutting

them in half.

LIFEHACK

OER adoption

• Improves affordability, • Improves student success, • Invigorates pedagogy, and• Does this at scale with OER Degrees

There is a direct relationship between textbook costs and student success

60%+ do not purchase textbooks at some point due to cost

35% take fewer courses due to textbook cost

31% choose not to register for a course due

to textbook cost23% regularly go without textbooks due to cost14% have dropped a

course due to textbook cost

--2012 Florida Virtual Campus student survey

Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function

• Participants– Shoppers in a New Jersey mall– Sugarcane farmers in India

• Test cognitive capacity during financial stress– Thinking through car repairs ($150 / $1500)– Before and after harvest

--Mani, Mullainathan, Shafir, and ZhaoScience (2013

Improving Course Throughput Rates and Open Educational Resources

-- Hilton, Fischer, Wiley, and Williams, Accepted, International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning (IRRODL)

Drop Deadline

Withdraw Deadline

Final Grade

Students

US undergraduates spend approximately 40 million hours doing homework every year.

DISPOSABLE ASSIGNMENTS• Students see value in doing them• Faculty see value in grading them• The work is valuable

OER-based degrees

Zx23 ProjectVirginia Community College System’s

Stipends + Pathways + Webinars$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Statewide Zx23 = 16 teams of 12+ faculty

Statewide Peer Groups + Regional Centers for Teaching Excellence

Access: Catalogs + Blackboard OER Tab

Spreading, sharing, recruiting, building Z-degrees

VCCS Achieving the Dream Consortium

CVCCMECC TCC

LFCCNVCC

GCC

Linked to VCCS Statewide Initiative Complete 2021

Administrative champion

Institutional Strategy

Faculty Ownership

OER Degree InitiativeAchieving the Dream’s

Offer at least one OER degree with at least one (1) section of every required course and at least one (1) section of a sufficient number of general education and other elective courses

Collect and share student data to support the initiative’s research and evaluation program

Grantee Goals

Share all educational materials developed through this project with the public

Ensure access by and support for low income students and students of color in their OER degree programs

Grantee Goals

Research & evaluationEducational outcomes of OER Degrees

Economic outcomes of OER Degrees

Implementation of OER Degrees

Funders Partners

Community Colleges

All required courses

Select elective courses

BREAK

InSpark NetworkATD & Smart Sparrow

Self-assessment & Developing an action plan

Faculty as Drivers of College Reform Efforts

8 STEPS TO ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

1. Establish a sense of urgency2. Form a powerful guiding coalition3. Create a vision4. Communicate the vision

Kotter, Leading Change

8 STEPS TO ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

5. Empower others to act on the vision6. Plan for & create short-term wins7. Reinvigorate the process8. Institutionalize new approaches

Kotter, Leading Change

SELF-ASSESSMENT

• Let’s assess your college’s current policies and practices for engaging faculty in institution-wide reform work.

ACTION PLAN

ACTION PLAN

Begin by brainstorming goals

ACTION PLAN

Identify the first couple of concrete steps toward your most important goals.

Questions to consider:• What do you need to learn?• What do you need to create/write/build?• Who do you need to connect with?

ACTION PLAN

What might your challenges be?

ACTION PLAN

What are Action Learning Sets?• In small groups, share one or two goals:

– Where are you now and where do you want to be?– What is the first step you need to take?– What’s getting in the way?

• Or … what’s been challenging for you?• End with:

– “By the next time we meet, I will ...”

ACTION PLAN

What are Action Learning Sets?• Guidelines for working effectively:

– Distribute time equally (about 9 minutes each)– Keep the focus on the individual– Other group members: listen, support, challenge– Maintain a positive, cooperative atmosphere– Ensure clear action planning

• i.e., “by March 20th, I will …”

ACTION PLAN

What are Action Learning Sets?• Your roles

– Time-keeper: Gives a 1-minute warning for each person.

– Monitor: helps the group to stick to the guidelines. Speaks up if the group is off-track!

Thank you!