Regional Coalitions for Healthcare Improvement: Definition, Lessons, and Prospects

Outlines how regional quality coalitions can collaborate to help deliver evidence-based healthcare; improve care processes; and measure, report, and reward results. Includes guidelines for starting and running a coalition and summaries of NRHI coalitions

Student Attitudes Toward Technology-Mediated Advising Systems

The literature on broad-access colleges suggests that low persistence and completion rates may be improved through better advising that employs a teaching-as-advising approach. While resource constraints have traditionally limited the ability of colleges to reform advising practices, technological advances have made it possible to implement technology-based advising tools, some of which can replace face-to-face services. Using focus group interview data from 69 students at six colleges, this study investigates students’ attitudes toward technology-mediated advising. More specifically, the authors seek to understand how students’ perceptions and experiences vary across different advising functions. They find that students are open to using technology for more formulaic tasks, such as course registration, but prefer in-person support for more complex tasks, such as planning courses for multiple semesters and refining their academic and career goals

Leadership for Transformative Change: Lessons From Technology-Mediated Reform in Broad-Access Colleges

Community colleges and broad-access four-year institutions have a crucial role to play in increasing educational equity in the United States. In order to fulfill this role, however, institutions must engage in organizational change to address their low completion rates. Drawing on qualitative case studies of six colleges, this study explores the influence of different types of leadership approaches on the implementation of a technology-mediated advising reform, and assesses which types of leadership are associated with transformative organizational change. Expanding on s theory of adaptive change and Karp and Fletcher’s Readiness for Technology Adoption framework, the authors find that transformative change requires multitiered leadership with a unified commitment to a shared vision for the reform and its goals

Collective Impact: Theory Versus Reality

Collective impact is an increasingly popular approach to addressing persistent social problems, but such strategic, cross-sector collaboration is challenging. This brief draws on the experiences of five committed collective impact communities participating in the Ford Foundation’s Corridors to College Success initiative to expose some of the practical obstacles to translating the theory of collective impact into action. The authors highlight three major challenges faced by Corridors stakeholders: developing a shared understanding of collective impact work, maintaining organizational competencies in a coordinated system, and using data to support collective impact work. They also consider whether the incentives for collective impact are sufficient to drive the work despite the funding and capacity constraints faced by participating organizations. Thus, the brief provides a lens for understanding why well-intentioned collective impact efforts may not take root

Lessons from the Corridors of College Success Initiative: An Introduction

Collective impact is a new place-based model of educational and social intervention that aims to shift responsibility for improvement in outcomes from individual organizations to entire systems that affect the lives of people in a particular location. CCRC’s Corridors of College Success Series provides insights into collective impact efforts in the postsecondary sector, drawing on qualitative research in five communities participating in the Ford Foundation’s Corridors of College Success initiative. The Ford Foundation supported these communities as they planned, organized, and applied a collective impact or place-based approach in order to improve pathways into and through college and into family-sustaining careers for low-income and first-generation students and other vulnerable populations. This brief provides an introduction to the collective impact model and the Corridors of College Success initiative. Subsequent briefs in the series will focus on key areas of concern for practitioners, policymakers, funders, and researchers engaging in place-based collective work—including implementation issues, “backbone” organizations, postsecondary engagement in collective impact, funders and funding, and community voice

Supporting Military Veteran Students: Early Lessons From Kohlberg Prize Recipients

The Post-9/11 GI Bill of 2008 has increased postsecondary education participation rates of military service members and veterans. Such participation is critical for military-connected individuals as they transition to civilian life. Postsecondary education enables military-connected individuals to upgrade their existing skills, gain new skills, or earn a credential that helps translate their skills into nonmilitary occupations. However, federal statistics indicate that while the Post-9/11 GI Bill has increased higher education participation rates overall, a higher percentage of veterans have entered for-profit colleges than have entered public institutions. In 2007–2008, 14 percent of veterans enrolled in college were at for-profit institutions, and 42 percent were at community colleges; by 2011–2012, these proportions had shifted to 24 percent and 37 percent, respectively

Improving Developmental Education Assessment and Placement: Lessons From Community Colleges Across the Country

At open-access two-year public colleges, the goal of the traditional assessment and placement process is to match incoming students to the developmental or college-level courses for which they have adequate preparation; the process presumably increases underprepared students’ chances of short- and long-term success in college while maintaining the academic quality and rigor of college-level courses. However, the traditional process may be limited in its ability to achieve these aims due to poor course placement accuracy and inconsistent standards of college readiness. To understand current approaches that seek to improve the process, we conducted a scan of assessment and placement policies and practices at open-access two-year colleges in Georgia, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. We describe the variety of approaches that systems and colleges employed to ameliorate poor course placement accuracy and inconsistent standards associated with the traditional process. Taking a broad view of the extent of these approaches, we find that most colleges we studied adopted a measured approach that addressed a single limitation without attending to other limitations that contribute to the same overall problem of poor course placement accuracy or inconsistent standards. Much less common were comprehensive approaches that attended to multiple limitations of the process; these approaches were likely to result from changes to developmental education as a whole. Drawing from the study’s findings, we also discuss how colleges can overcome barriers to reform in order to implement approaches that hold promise for improved course placement accuracy, more consistent standards of college readiness, and, potentially, greater long-term academic success of community college students

Improving Developmental Education Assessment and Placement: Lessons From Community Colleges Across the Country

At open-access two-year public colleges, the goal of the traditional assessment and placement process is to match incoming students to the developmental or college-level courses for which they have adequate preparation; the process presumably increases underprepared students’ chances of short- and long-term success in college while maintaining the academic quality and rigor of college-level courses. However, the traditional process may be limited in its ability to achieve these aims due to poor course placement accuracy and inconsistent standards of college readiness. To understand current approaches that seek to improve the process, we conducted a scan of assessment and placement policies and practices at open-access two-year colleges in Georgia, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. We describe the variety of approaches that systems and colleges employed to ameliorate poor course placement accuracy and inconsistent standards associated with the traditional process. Taking a broad view of the extent of these approaches, we find that most colleges we studied adopted a measured approach that addressed a single limitation without attending to other limitations that contribute to the same overall problem of poor course placement accuracy or inconsistent standards. Much less common were comprehensive approaches that attended to multiple limitations of the process; these approaches were likely to result from changes to developmental education as a whole. Drawing from the study’s findings, we also discuss how colleges can overcome barriers to reform in order to implement approaches that hold promise for improved course placement accuracy, more consistent standards of college readiness, and, potentially, greater long-term academic success of community college students

"They Never Told Me What to Expect, So I Didn't Know What to Do": Defining and Clarifying the Role of a Community College Student

Increasing the number of young people who attain postsecondary credentials has become one of the primary educational objectives of the 2010s. While low college success rates are typically linked to students' lack of academic preparation for college and their subsequent need for developmental or remedial instruction, research suggests that even many students who are deemed "college-ready" by virtue of their placement test scores or completion of developmental coursework still do not earn a credential. This paper builds on previous work arguing that community college success is dependent not only upon academic preparation but also upon a host of important skills, attitudes, and behaviors that are often left unspoken. Drawing on role theory and on a qualitative study conducted at three community colleges, this paper aims to clarify the role of community college student and the components of that role that must be enacted for students to be successful. Using data from interviews at the study sites, we provide a concrete, actionable description of the community college student role. We also present a framework that practitioners can use to help students learn how to be successful community college students

Entering a Program: Helping Students Make Academic and Career Decisions

In this literature review, the author examines the evidence on student decision making in the community college, focusing on the activities most relevant to students’ entry into programs of study—academic and career planning. Although there is a large body of theoretical discussion and empirical evidence on potentially effective approaches to guidance and counseling, a review of current advising and counseling practices reveals barriers to effective implementation of these approaches on community college campuses. As currently structured, community college advising is limited in its ability to assist students in identifying career goals and academic pathways that will help them achieve those goals. The literature reviewed in this paper points to four broad principles to guide restructuring efforts: (1) that program pathways should balance structure with exploration; (2) that career counseling should drive an integrated approach to advising; (3) that colleges should provide services to students based on their level of need; and (4) that colleges should strategically deploy resources to allow for developmental advising