Project Status for Year 3
July 07-October 08
Visits to Academic Success Center
06-07 school year: 2,646 total visits to the Centers
07-08 school year: 10,588 total visits to the Centers
Jennifer Briney attended Kellogg Institute – a four week intensive seminar – held at the National Center for Developmental Education at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. To become a Developmental Education Specialist she completed a year-long practicum. Her practicum project which was submitted in July. She received 9 credit hours towards a Doctorate in Developmental Education. Jenny officially received certification as a Developmental Education Specialist from the National Center for Developmental Education in August. For her practicum, Briney developed a concentrated and comprehensive Department of Adult and Developmental Education for Institutionalization at SRC by creating an Advisory Board. Members met every two months, instituting and evaluating programs offered in the Academic Success Center, and overseeing new curriculum design for the development courses offered at the college. In a letter to Spoon River College President Robert Ritschel, the Director of the Kellogg Institute Denise de Ribert gave special commendation to Briney’s efforts. “Ms. Briney’s report was cited by her advisor as being an outstanding effort. It has been placed in the NADE resource library at Appalachian State University to be utilized by future Kelloggers in the designing of their own practica. “She is among one of the fewer than one thousand professionals in the field to have attained certification.”
Rebecca Werland and Sarah Billeter completed an online workshop entitled “Communication, Ethics, and Tutor Roles and Responsibilities” presented by Delta College. The workshop focused on best practices, accommodating students with disabilities, assisting transitional students, and communication techniques. Rebecca and Sarah will receive certificates for this tutor training.
The Professional Development Day on Thursday, August 16, 2007 was quite the success. The presentation was Brain Based Learning. The evaluations of the Janet Zadina program were all very positive. Everyone who filled out an evaluation felt that it was an informative, applicable program. A follow-up e-mail was done at the end of the first semester and 20 faculty responded of how brain based learning techniques were infused into their classrooms after the presentation.
Extreme Makeover: Student Edition was held for the students in the Fall semester 2007 to introduce them to the services of the ASC. In Spring of 2008 we held a Mardi Gras theme to welcome back the students to the ASC.
Jennifer Briney started the DEST (Developmental Education Strategy Team) – ination to Success team this past year. This consultative team has been working to strengthen the services of the Academic Success Center and developmental education as well as integrate these into the college once Title III is over. They have worked on the Mission Statement for the Developmental Education program; re-designing the Developmental Math, Reading, and English curriculum; designing a Student Success Course using On Course; and overall liaison for the developmental education program.
Susan Barnhart and Jenny Briney presented at the Midwest Regional Association for Developmental Education in St. Joseph, Missouri on the pilot program of using COMPASS testing for sophomores in the high schools. This hour long session was entitled “Using COMPASS: Trailblazing a Pathway to Success”.
Tim Culver, an External Evaluator, from Noel Levitz was here on October 2, 2007, to evaluate the Year 2 Title III program. He applauded the Title III team for an exemplary program and complete federal compliance. This is a quote from his letter: “I remain highly impressed by SRC’s dedication to improving the student experience via Title III funding. As I suggested last year SRC should continue to celebrate publicly the many successes that you enjoy. I was most impressed with how student traffic in the ASC has increased during the last year and the level of faculty involvement which makes the project a success. Please extend my congratulations to all faculty and staff who are assigned to make student success a priority.”
Susan Barnhart and Jenny Briney were presenters for the Noel-Levitz Title III Compliance Conference in Denver in November 2007. They presented a 90 minute session which included organization of the grant; choosing the team wisely; marketing the grant to the internal and external communities; involving all departments of the college; getting the faculty on board; and innovative ideas and programming strategies.
Jennifer Briney and Rebecca Werland attended the College Reading and Learning Association Conference.
Lisa Dennis started an Innovative Teaching and Learning Center Advisory committee this past year. The purpose of this committee is to provide feedback and insight regarding: training opportunities, equipment, software, resources course management system, and other classroom technology issues. Additionally, the committee will serve as a liaison between faculty and IT.
The Academic Success Center started In a Pinch Workshops for faculty on a variety of topics for the students this past year. These were very successful and will continue to be a service to faculty in the future.
TutorTrac was purchased this year for the Academic Success Center. This is software that will track data on visits and tutoring in the ASC. This will give us an ability to retrieve data on visits to the ASC; the time of day and length of visits; the demographics of students visiting the ASC; tutoring times; and subjects tutored. The analysis of this data will aid us in plans for times, tutor needs, and marketing initiatives for next year as we strive to improve to meet the needs of all students. It also has a SAGE system with the program that will be an effective and efficient way to work with faculty on referrals for at-risk students.
Jennifer Briney and Angie Conklin completed COMPASS testing and workshops for high school sophomores at Canton High School, Lewistown High School, Astoria High School, Macomb High School, Cuba High School, Rushville High School, Farmington High School, and Havana High School.
An Open Learning Center was piloted in Spoon River College – Rushville site – in Fall of 2007. This was a program that combined developmental and college English courses with one instructor. The program was designed by Douglas Okey and Donna Smith and was taught by Barb Rowland.
An Advisor’s Breakfast was held in the Innovative Teaching and Learning Center on the Canton campus in January 2008. This breakfast training, planned by Lisa Dennis, was an appreciation for all of the cooperative efforts of Student Services with Title III. The training topic was “Coaching Skills that Promote First-year Success”. A lively discussion followed the video presentation. 14 persons were in attendance.
Stepping’ UP in Math - is a pilot course being offered as a 1 hour VSK course this summer for students who take the COMPASS and are borderline on cut-off scores in Math. The students signed up for the course and then worked on the Hawkes Learning System (HLS) in the areas that they needed skill improvement according to a diagnostic screening. After completing at least 16 hours of review and practice on the HLS, the student is allowed to re-test on the COMPASS to see if they could move up to the next developmental course level or on to college Algebra. This is a pilot for the Macomb campus for the summer. Congratulations to Sarah Billeter, Student Success Coach in Macomb, who is the brain behind this idea and Jim Sheff who worked so diligently with the students.
Jim Sheff, Developmental Math Instructor, attended the National Association for Developmental Education conference in Boston in February. He is very excited about some of the teaching modalities that he learned at the conference as well as the updates on what is new in the field of developmental education. This conference served as a precursor for his developmental certification that he will receive at Kellogg Institute during his 4 week stay in July 2008.
In March 2008 Jennifer Briney assumed her new duties as Director of Adult and Developmental Education. We are very excited about what the combination of these two departments will mean to our students and the college as a whole. This should help the transition of Adult Education students into the college.
Six persons attended an ON COURSE Workshop Summer 2008 for four days in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Douglas Okey, Krista Cebuhar, Stacy Swanson, Angie Conklin, Terri Shafer, and Sarah Billeter represented SRC at this exciting conference. They returned with many ideas and a sense of refreshment for their teaching duties.
Lisa Dennis, Susan Barnhart and James Genandt attended the Higher Learning Commission 113th Annual Meeting in Chicago April 13th to April 15th. Susan is serving as the co-chair for the Self Study and Accreditation process. The three conference participants attended many sessions and reviewed several self-study documents in the review room to acquire a foundation to continue the meetings with the Steering Committee and start on the road to accreditation for SRC in Fall of 2011. Susan and Lisa also reviewed many request for change documents to the HLC that would allow online degrees.
The ASC team served with other faculty as screening committee members for the newly hired Developmental Education Instructors. Angie Conklin is the newly appointed Developmental Reading Instructor and Rebecca Werland is the newly appointed Developmental English Instructor.
Susan Barnhart is a speaker at the National Noel Levitz conference on Marketing, Recruiting and Retention. She will be presenting two sessions on Building an Academic Success Center from the Ground Up.
Jennifer Briney and Natalie Orwig are attending Learning Center Institute in Ohio for 4 days in July. They will become certified at the Institute.
Robin Oz, an English faculty member at Phoenix College, Faculty Developer, and Interim Director of Developmental Education came to SRC on June 18 and 19 to see an effective Developmental Education program in action in hopes that she can use or adapt some of the strategies for Phoenix College. Jenny Briney met Robin at Kellogg Institute last summer.
Jim Sheff has done a great job of compiling the final report on the re-design of the Developmental Math pilot using Hawkes Learning System. Some of the exciting data is that out of 65 students who completed all the required certifications, 59 received a C or better in the course, a 90.8% success rate. In the results of the student surveys, 85.5% of the students using Hawkes this semester self-reported that it was the same, better, or awesome compared to a traditional style math course and 75% of them answered that they would like to see Hawkes used again. (See complete written report)
Brian and Sarah Dalpiaz are currently redesigning the College Algebra and Statistics curriculum in order to begin using the Hawkes Learning System for those courses.
Jim Sheff will be presenting on the Hawkes at next year’s annual NADE Conference.
Hawkes has asked Brian Dalpiaz, Sarah Dalpiaz and Jim Sheff to present at their 2010 conference in Orlando, Florida.
Deb Poese visited and presented at SRC on Professional Development Day August 21, 2008 - Stay ON COURSE at SRC! Deb is one of the Ambassadors for the Skip Downing's On Course program which we will be using in our Student Success course in Spring of 2009. From the evaluations it appeared that the faculty enjoyed her presentation and found many of her practical ideas useful for infusion into the classroom. The day was highlighted with an opening song by Julie Seeley and Dr. Ritschel and the crew of SRC ISLE! Those persons who attended ON COURSE 4 day workshop this summer - Krista Cebuhar, Sarah Billeter, Terri Shafer, Angie Conklin, Doug Okey, and Stacy Swanson - will serve as resource persons and mentors for the program.
In early August the Academic Success Center in Macomb moved from the basement one room area to a large area in the upper level of the college that is much larger and more visible. This was the area that was formerly the library of the college. There are 25 computers and a large study area.
A new Athlete Academic Enrichment Program was started for all SRC athletes. The athletes received a letter about the program, received a policy statement and signed a contract. They will spend 2-4 hours a week in the ASC for study time and tutoring on a sliding scale based on their GPA.
In August the Academic Success Center team participated in the Part-Time Faculty orientation, Nursing orientation and New Student orientation. This was a great way to get the word out on the services that the ASC provide. The new location of the Macomb ASC has been a huge success. The faculty as well as the students have been very positive about the visibility and are much more aware of what services are provided.
The Academic Success Center team is proud to announce the new Student Success Coach for Canton – Dan Callihan. This is a new position for Dan even though he is already a familiar face around SRC as he has been an adjunct faculty for 9 years and an amazing tutor in the ASC for 2 years.
The Title III grant funded 2 computer classrooms for the re-design of the math and reading/writing curriculum.
The online orientation for students who want to supplement the face-to-face orientation or for students who are currently taking all courses online is available at http://www.src.edu/orientation
Lisa Dennis held a Technology Boot Camp in June of 2008 for 16 participants. This professional development opportunity for faculty was a 2 day workshop which introduced new technologies that could be used in the classroom or online. The faculty will then do a practicum and implement the technology of their choice into their curriculum.
