Understanding the Needs of Part-Time Faculty at Six Community Colleges

While community colleges in many states have embarked on whole-institution reform to impact multiple dimensions of the student experience, relatively little attention has focused on the working conditions of adjunct faculty, who account for about two thirds of all instructional faculty at public two-year colleges. Engaging Adjunct Faculty in the Student Success Movement, a project launched in 2016 by Achieving the Dream (ATD), acknowledges the critical role that part-time faculty play not only in supporting student learning but also in shaping students’ perceptions and experiences at college. Six ATD leader colleges were selected through a competitive process to receive funds and technical assistance to develop and pilot scalable strategies to engage and support some of their part-time faculty. Using interview, focus group, and survey data, this brief explores the experiences of part-time faculty at these colleges. It also describes several categories of supports offered to adjuncts through this pilot project and draws connections between these supports and part-time faculty needs as identified in the analysis

Teaching Matters and So Does Curriculum: How CUNY Start Reshaped Instruction for Students Referred to Developmental Mathematics

Adult proficiency in numeracy in the United States lags behind that of other developed nations, and the nonselective institutions that dominate the higher education sector struggle to address the learning needs of the sizeable proportion of students who enroll in their institutions and are deemed academically underprepared in mathematics. Research on curriculum and pedagogy in developmental (or remedial) mathematics indicates that typical teaching approaches emphasize memorization, often at the expense of the kinds of conceptual understanding that prepare students for college-level mathematics and the numeracy demands of the workforce. This paper examines CUNY Start, an innovative pre-matriculation developmental education program developed by The City University of New York (CUNY) that reimagines the design and implementation of remedial instruction to better serve students with weak academic preparation. Using data from interviews, classroom observations, an instructor survey, and curricular materials, this paper describes four key features of the CUNY Start mathematics instructional approach, paying particular attention to how these features differ from traditional developmental education. These features are: (1) the use of a highly detailed curricular document as a primary resource for instructors; (2) an emphasis on real-world contexts and number relationships, which serve as the instructional starting point (rather than rules and procedures); (3) a pedagogical approach that elicits student talk and discussion through questioning; and (4) explicit attention to students’ organizational and study skills. This paper also elaborates on the processes, structures, and resources built into CUNY Start that support its implementation. This paper is part of an ongoing random assignment evaluation of CUNY Start undertaken with MDRC that so far finds that the program has significant positive effects on students achieving college readiness in mathematics (longer-term effects will also be estimated). This evidence strongly suggests that CUNY Start’s structures, processes, and resources enable instructors to teach mathematics in a different way that may boost student achievement

Decarbonisation at home: The contingent politics of experimental domestic energy technologies

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from SAGE Publications via the DOI in this recordPolicy efforts to reduce the carbon intensity of domestic energy consumption have, over the last three decades, been dominated by an almost dichotomous reading of the relationship between technology and social change. On the one hand, there is a conception of personal responsibility that constructs domestic energy users as key actors in the adoption and (appropriate) use of low carbon energy technologies; from this perspective, environmental change becomes a matter of mobilising personal capacities such that individuals make better choices. On the other hand, decarbonising homes is conceived to be an outcome of top-down infrastructural interventions, with householders (or end users) positioned as relatively passive agents who will respond to engineered efficiency in linear and predictable ways. In practice, both positions have been found wanting in terms of accounting for how (and why) change happens and in turn delivering on ambitious policy goals. The argument we develop in this article goes beyond critiquing these problematic framings of technology and the locus of agency. Drawing on three contrasting low carbon energy technology projects in the UK, we present an alternative perspective which foregrounds a more experimental, ad hoc and ultimately provisional mode of governing with domestic energy technologies. We reflect on the meaning and political implications of this experimental turn in transforming (and decarbonising) domestic energy practices.The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The research on which this paper is based was funded by a grant from EON/EPSRC (EP/G000395/1)

Mathematics Pathways to Completion: Setting the Conditions for Statewide Reform in Higher Education

The Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin, the developer of the Dana Center Mathematics Pathways (DCMP) model, initiated the Mathematics Pathways to Completion (MPC) project to support each of six states in developing a broad statewide vision for mathematics pathways and a plan for institutional implementation of the DCMP model over three years. At institutions offering mathematics pathways, students take an introductory college-level mathematics course that is well matched with their major or program of study. The goal is to align students’ mathematics coursework with their academic and career needs, redirecting non-STEM students from lengthy algebraic-intensive course sequences. Importantly, students referred to developmental mathematics take preparatory coursework that is aligned to their particular introductory college-level mathematics course, often using an accelerated approach such as a corequisite model. Mathematics pathways are a promising approach for improving student outcomes, but if implementation happens one college at a time and without statewide policy support, the potential for scaling is diminished. This report describes the structure of the MPC project and the supports that the Dana Center is offering to participating states. In addition, drawing on 33 semi-structured interviews with mathematics faculty, state-level leaders, and technical assistance providers across the six states, this report explores the question: What state-level structures, conditions, and processes facilitate statewide implementation of mathematics pathways

"I Came in Unsure of Everything": Community College Students' Shifts in Confidence

To improve low rates of credential attainment in community colleges, individual schools as well as a number of national organizations have developed a range of initiatives focused on increasing rates of college completion and student success. Although the importance of non-academic factors in college completion and student success has been well established, questions remain about the best ways to structure the community college environment to foster students' sense of belonging and promote behaviors that are associated with success. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by focusing on the academic confidence of students at the outset of their community college careers, the ways in which their confidence may impact student behaviors and persistence, and how student confidence is affected by students' experiences in college. Using data from nearly 100 community college student interviews, this paper examines students' descriptions of their confidence upon entering college and of the shifts in confidence they experienced early in their college careers. Our findings suggest that student confidence is shaped in part by past academic experiences and expectations of college upon entry. Using student descriptions of their perceptions of college and of themselves, we describe the characteristics of students who describe themselves as self-assured and those who identify as apprehensive. The interview data reveal that student confidence is continually shifting as a result of interactions with peers, faculty, and others. Our analysis also indicates that academic confidence can impact student motivation and academic behaviors that are associated with success. Importantly, this paper identifies the nature of those experiences that positively reinforce student confidence, events that we term experiences of earned success. Finally, we describe ways to structure classroom and other on-campus environments to create opportunities for students to experience earned success and ultimately enhance their commitment to academic pursuits

Adoption and Adaptation: A Framework for Instructional Reform

This edition of Inside Out, a publication of CCRC's Scaling Innovation project, outlines a three-part framework for colleges looking to adopt a developmental education reform and adapt it to their individual needs. The authors illustrate this framework by highlighting the work of the developmental mathematics program at Pellissippi State Community College

A Top-Down/Bottom-Up Approach to Statewide Change: Mathematics Pathways to Completion

This report examines the efforts of six state higher education systems to improve student outcomes and close opportunity gaps in mathematics as part of the Mathematics Pathways to Completion (MPC) project led by the Charles A. Dana Center at The University of Texas at Austin. Each participating state—Arkansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Washington—engaged in cross-sector and cross-institutional collaboration to support the adoption of the Dana Center Mathematics Pathways (DCMP) model for undergraduate mathematics instruction at scale. The Dana Center’s theory of scale combines top-down policy changes that enable reform implementation with bottom-up flexibility that allows individual institutions to adapt and develop approaches to fit their context. Drawing on institutional surveys, self-assessments by state leaders, stakeholder interviews, and project documents, this final report of the MPC project describes how states engaged diverse stakeholders across higher education sectors in the reform, along with challenges and successes resulting from the work. The report’s findings are organized across three phases of state-level work: 1. building urgency and motivation for change, 2. setting the conditions for statewide scaling, and 3. building capacity to implement mathematics pathways at institutions. While states were just beginning their mathematics pathways implementation at the project’s conclusion, the MPC project provides an example of how higher education systems can work across governance structures and higher education sectors to take on large-scale reform

How Did Six Community Colleges Design Supports for Part-Time Faculty? A Report on Achieving the Dream's Engaging Adjuncts Project

This report describes findings from a study of the Engaging Adjunct Faculty in the Student Success Movement project, a two-year initiative led by Achieving the Dream to develop and implement strategies to support adjunct faculty in improving student outcomes. Work in the project—guided by design principles related to classroom activities, professional development, employment policies, and the use of data—was led by teams of full- and part-time faculty and administrators at six participating community colleges. A key objective of the project was to generate information about promising, scalable, and sustainable engagement strategies that could be shared across the national network of Achieving the Dream colleges. Using survey, interview, and student transcript data, CCRC documented a range of strategies that colleges designed to support and engage their adjunct faculty, examined how the strategies were implemented, and measured the effects of a set of selected activities on faculty and students. Drawing on implementation findings presented in this report, the authors offer four recommendations for colleges seeking to provide supports for part-time faculty: Ground decisions on adjunct faculty supports in local data on adjunct faculty needs. Embed adjunct faculty supports into existing institutional infrastructure and initiatives. Examine college policies and practices that impact the working lives of adjunct faculty. Consider intended outcomes for faculty engagement strategies and create a plan for measurement

From “Additive” to “Integrative”: Experiences of Faculty Teaching Developmental Integrated Reading and Writing Courses

This paper documents the perceptions and experiences of faculty members in the midst of statewide reform efforts in Virginia and North Carolina to integrate developmental reading and writing courses. Using interview and focus group data from 161 faculty and administrators in both states (combined) as well as three detailed case studies of faculty teaching newly integrated courses, the authors describe how departments and faculty approached the task of course integration. While instructors had a generally positive impression of integrating the two disciplines, implementing these new courses was not without challenges. A common approach to course design, which the authors term “additive,” involved combining assignments and activities from the old standalone courses. They identify a range of factors associated with using the additive approach, including conceptions of literacy learning focused on the mastery of discrete skills, professional development aimed at exchanging activities and materials between reading and writing instructors, and lack of a clear framework for an integrated course design. Instructors using the additive approach reported that they could not cover all of the content/activities from the previous courses under the accelerated course structure, and worried they that they were not able to provide students the literacy skills they needed to be successful in college. Yet some faculty used or began to adopt an “integrative” approach to course design, in which few standalone components of the previously offered courses remained. Integrative course design tended to emphasize metacognition, extensive text-based writing, and embedded skills and strategy instruction, often offered in a “just-in-time” fashion. Faculty perceived that these more integrative course elements were associated with improved literacy learning. The findings presented have implications for creating support resources and professional development for departments and faculty who are new to teaching integrated reading and writing courses. The paper includes several curricular examples that can be adapted and used by faculty teaching integrated developmental courses

Implementing Caring Campus With Nonacademic Staff: Lessons From Participating Colleges

Although there is ample research on the role of faculty in creating a welcoming and inclusive campus environment, little attention has been paid to the contributions nonacademic staff can make to this effort. Personnel in student service divisions like financial aid, enrollment management, advising, counseling, and the registrar are instrumental in helping students navigate college. In particular, students from historically underrepresented groups in higher education—including Black, Latinx, Native American, and first-generation students—benefit from positive interactions with college personnel that affirm their connectedness, importance, and belonging. Based on fieldwork at six colleges and other data, this short report discusses the implementation and impact of Caring Campus/Staff, a program designed and administered by the Institute for Evidence-Based Change (IEBC) to engage nonacademic staff in improving interactions with students and fostering a culture of caring at community colleges. Caring Campus is grounded in a theory of change that envisions two forms of positive impact: First, because students feel welcomed by college staff and because they have their college-related needs met quickly, they are more likely to stay enrolled in college; and second, because staff work collaboratively as leaders of the initiative and because they have positive interactions with one another and with students, they contribute to a more engaged and student-centered college culture. During sessions with IEBC coaches, staff from participating colleges identified behavioral commitments, the actions they could take to achieve these goals, for both face-to-face and virtual environments. For example, staff could develop cross-departmental awareness to better serve students, approach students whenever they are within 10 feet and seem to need assistance, and meaningfully connect with students by addressing their concerns with a positive attitude. Though the effects on student outcomes require further study, interviews with a range of stakeholders indicate that Caring Campus helped staff at the colleges enhance their institutional knowledge and leadership skills, sustain positive interactions with students, and bolster staff camaraderie. The report includes lessons to facilitate future implementation at other colleges