Using Data to Scale and Refine Your First Year Experience Bill Ingram, President, Durham Technical Community College Tom Jaynes, Senior Vice President, Durham Technical Community College

USING DATA TO SCALE DISCUSSION QUESTION What are the challenges associated with bringing promising interventions to full scale?

USING DATA TO SCALE DURHAM TECH’S FIRST YEAR EXPERIENCE We require the course for new college students. Listed on Plans of Study for all degrees (AAS, AA, AS, AFA, AE and AGE), most diplomas, and some certificates. Waived for students with 12 or more college-level transfer credits. We offer sections per semester in four instructional delivery formats. These formats include 16-week seated; 16-week online; 8-week seated; and 8-week hybrid courses.

USING DATA TO SCALE DURHAM TECH’S FIRST YEAR EXPERIENCE Only full-time, trained employees teach the course. To provide a consistent, quality learning experience, only full-time employees (both faculty and staff) who have completed a 16-hour training course are invited to teach the course. We provide support and professional development to our ACA instructors. We maintain a Sakai (LMS) site with sample syllabi, signature assignments, and weekly lesson plans. We provide a 3-hour refresher training, and host regular meetings of instructors.

USING DATA TO SCALE DURHAM TECH’S FIRST YEAR EXPERIENCE We customized our textbook. Required textbook: Success by Design, 3rd edition, by Gabby McCutchen and Erin Riney, published by Hayden-McNeil We made a financial commitment to expand seat and personnel capacity. The college moved from offering around 300 seats in an elective course to 1,200 seats for a required course in a span of four years. We leveraged grant funds to create new faculty positions and blend advising positions to support instruction.

USING DATA TO SCALE DURHAM TECH’S FIRST YEAR EXPERIENCE ATD … We have a problem. By 2010, despite years of developing this course, only 39% of the target population (first time in college students) were taking the course in the first semester of enrollment.

USING DATA TO SCALE DISCUSSION QUESTION With these significant resources and requirements in place, why were only “some” students in the target population enrolled?

USING DATA TO SCALE DURHAM TECH AND CATALYST Enter Catalyst. The Catalyst Fund’s core hypothesis was that colleges with demonstrated progress to expand and institutionalize an innovative practice to serve many students could be “catalyzed” to achieve depth of scale and serve more or most students within their institution. With the help of our Catalyst grant, we set a goal to move our intervention from serving “some” to “most” students.

USING DATA TO SCALE DURHAM TECH’S FIRST YEAR EXPERIENCE ATD … We have a new goal. Expand the reach of the First-Year Experience course, so that 98% of credential-seeking students (with the course on their Plan of Study) who enter the college with fewer than 12 college credits earned enroll in ACA 122 by 2016.

USING DATA TO SCALE DURHAM TECH’S FIRST YEAR EXPERIENCE What changed? We reviewed and analyzed the right data. We mobilized a team to review and analyze the interaction between target population and student success data semester-by-semester to find the escape hatches and lost points. We focused on “inescapable” not “required.” We placed rules on registration with co-requisites for key entry courses (e.g. developmental education and gateway courses).

USING DATA TO SCALE EFFICACY WITH GROWTH TermTarget Population HeadcountACA Enrollment% Enrolled in ACA 2014FA1, % 2013FA1, % 2012FA1, % 2011FA1, % 2010FA1, % 2009FA1, % 2008FA1, %

USING DATA TO SCALE EFFICACY WITH GROWTH TermTarget Population HeadcountACA Enrollment% Enrolled in ACA 2014FA1, % 2013FA1, % 2012FA1, % 2011FA1, % 2010FA1, % 2009FA1, % 2008FA1, %

USING DATA TO SCALE EFFICACY WITH GROWTH

USING DATA TO SCALE EFFICACY WITH GROWTH N = 343 N = 1,074

USING DATA TO SCALE EFFICACY WITH GROWTH N = 343 N = 879 N = 265 N = 1,074

USING DATA TO SCALE DISCUSSION QUESTION What are some key principles colleges might consider when scaling interventions?

USING DATA TO SCALE KEY PRINCIPLES AT DURHAM TECH Create strong teams with complementary skills. Strong teams include a big picture/ideas person (how); the people person, a communicator (who); a structure/data person (why); and the “closer” (what).

USING DATA TO SCALE KEY PRINCIPLES AT DURHAM TECH Articulate a clear vision and a clear goal. Leadership can support best by establishing and communicating clear goals and objectives.

USING DATA TO SCALE KEY PRINCIPLES AT DURHAM TECH Engage faculty and staff across divisions. Blur the lines to bring instructional and student services together in concrete, structural ways. Remember, notification does not equal involvement.

USING DATA TO SCALE KEY PRINCIPLES AT DURHAM TECH Effect change in policies and procedures. Bringing interventions to scale means changing campus cultures, policies, and procedures.

USING DATA TO SCALE KEY PRINCIPLES AT DURHAM TECH Foster strong connections with external networks. External partners provide advice, support, collaboration, accountability, innovations, and more.

USING DATA TO SCALE DISCUSSION QUESTION What data should we analyze when moving a promising intervention to scale?

USING DATA TO SCALE KEY PRINCIPLES AT DURHAM TECH Use data to show efficacy and growth over time. Collect and analyze data that evidence increased success rates, not just increased participation.

USING DATA TO SCALE RESOURCES Completion by Design (May 2013). Understanding the student experience: Loss and momentum framework. Achieving the Dream. Retrieved from Framework_May_2013.pdf Framework_May_2013.pdf Parcell, A. (2012). More to most: Scaling up effective community college practices. MDC. Retrieved from Price, D., McMaken, J., and Kioukus, G (June 2015). Case-Informed Lessons for Scaling Innovation at Community and Technical Colleges. Catalyst Evaluation Report. DVP-Praxis.

Thank You!