The Criteria for Hewlett Leaders in Student Success
Hewlett Leaders in Student Success recognizes colleges that demonstrate promising and innovative approaches to student success in basic skills. Their purposeful efforts yield coherent, structured, systematic activities with investment in assessment and actual improvement in basic skills.
The Critical Indicators are:
A. Curriculum: aligned and organized for effectiveness
B. "Learner centered" classroom practices, e.g. pedagogy, assessment
C. Integration of academic support and student services
D. Equity: attention to monitoring success and progress rates by cohort
E. Institutional leadership & support as reflected in mission, planning and evaluation, and budget
Critical Indicators with examples of evidence:
A. Curriculum: aligned and organized for effectiveness
1. Articulated Student Learning Outcomes (Big Ideas highlighted in the curriculum) and assessment criteria for a program or sequence of basic skills classes and evidence of their use
Examples of evidence:
Are there agreed upon student learning outcomes for the sequence? When are they discussed? Do faculty/the department regularly monitor student success and progress through the skills sequence?
How are they used to make improvements?
Documents: course objective documents or guidelines that specify student learning outcomes that are necessary to succeed in the next level
2. Outcomes of prior courses are predictors of success in following courses as should be the case for basic skill courses
Examples of evidence:
In what ways does your course prepare students for the next course in the basic skills sequence?
Documents: Inter-curricular consistency (across different sections of a course and across the course sequence) in requirements and assessment in course syllabus in basic skills classrooms.
Data analysis: Course pass rates (A,B,C), withdrawal rates, and course repeat rates in particular for key gateway courses; measures of success in sequenced courses; numbers of student completing the basic skills sequence and average time through the sequence.
3. Structure and time for professional development where faculty work collaboratively on curriculum and assessment
Examples of evidence:
What are the paths that students take through and beyond basic skills classes? In what ways does your course prepare students for the next course in the basic skills sequence?
Documents: Agendas of department meetings that indicate curriculum alignment, teaching, and assessment as topics for discussion; agendas and records from faculty retreats that address curricular issues
B. Classroom practices that are effective for accelerating success
What percentage of participating classrooms (in basic skills or total) are actively involved in approaches below?
Examples of evidence:
Is adjunct faculty included?
Documents: syllabus states (and explains) expectations of active student participation in class; professional development/flex days are organized for change and followed up
Data: course assessments
1. Use of pedagogies of engagement-active learning, collaborative learning, project-based learning, peer assessment, learning communities-with evidence that faculty know when, why and how to use them effectively.
2. Use of a syllabus that states expectations including success indicators, i.e., academic expectations and criteria used for grading (and mechanisms for students to track progress).
3. Use of frequent and varied classroom assessment techniques (diagnostic methods) that provide feedback to both students and faculty about student needs and student progress in instruction planned accordingly
4. An active faculty development program that results in learner centered pedagogies with use of varied classroom assessment techniques that provide feedback to both students and faculty.
C. Integration of academic support and student services
1. A variety of student support services exist and show evidence of integration resulting in widespread awareness and use.
Examples of evidence:
Instructors knowledgeable about services; information about academic support & students services in syllabi and on course website; counselors, ed plans, overview of resources available to students reinforced in classes
Data: student use of academic support and counseling services
Documents: orientation guidelines, tutor training materials and tutor-generated materials
Examples of student ed plans, used as a prompt for interview with students
Various methods of dissemination-e.g. web, orientation, etc, but USE is the ultimate criterion.
2. Effective use of early warning systems that are EARLY and trigger intervention-vehicles for communication among faculty, tutors, and counseling and direct communication with students
3. Use of supplemental instruction and academic support for key gateway courses or those with high failure and/or repeat rates - ex. Tutors and instructional aides in classes, as a way of extending class time and contact
4. Orientation to college includes academics and student services and gives the students opportunities to create connections to college and other students/ activities to acquaint students with the services
D. Concern for Equity in results: attention to monitoring success and progress rates by cohort group
1. A wide range of programs actively involved in addressing the Performance Gap of Basic Skills programs and lack of success in meeting the needs of low-income, racial minorities, or non-native English speakers equitably. (examples- Puente, Umoja, Campus change Network, Equity Scorecard, etc)
2. Evidence of administrative leadership in promoting equity in outcomes for minority students as a legitimate and worthy goal, an integral, not marginal, part of administrative function
3. Availability and use of data about gaps in student performance by race and ethnicity and trends of decreasing gaps
Examples of evidence:
Documents: Reports that reflect attention to basic skills students achieving transfer readiness status by race and ethnicity; research noting Increasing enrollment and persistence by students of diverse demographic backgrounds
Data practices: Does the college report and monitor enrollment and success rates throughout the basic skills pipeline by race and ethnicity; has it established numerical goals to improve success rates by course by race and ethnicity; does it monitor for successful transition from basic skills to transfer level courses by race and ethnicity
E. Institutional leadership & support as reflected in mission, planning, and budget
1. A campus teaching and learning center connects faculty development directly to the educational work of the institution and directly to student programs
2. Basic skills is reflected in the mission statement, in current and future plan documents, in past, present and future budgets, in frequent briefings, workshops, reports to Board of Trustees, in workshops for institutional management and executive officers, in records of academic senate activities
3. Budget is transparent and evidence of allocation for basic skills, student support, faculty development, etc. as guided by planning for improvement (3 above)
4. Investment of resources and provision of incentives to faculty and staff that is not solely the result of soft monies.
Examples of evidence:
Examples of strategies for sustainability and especially intentional "scaling up"
Interviews: How are adjuncts incorporated? How are decisions made about who teaches most basic skills classes and how they are selected?
5. New faculty orientation; effective offices of faculty development; faculty mentoring; teaching evaluation
