Strategic Planning Forum - Academic Focus
Group 1 - Red
1. How do we set the bar higher to increase student expectations? How do we help our
students meet those increased expectations?
- The students don’t know what our expectations are. It’s hard to succeed if you
don’t know what’s expected of you
- computer usage
- hw time
- email
- We need to give them an “expectation rubric”
- Are we following through with our expectations?
- What were the expectations of our students in HS?
- What about non-traditional students?
- Use successful (baccalaureate?) students to mingle and set an example for our
students
- Our students can get a clear picture of what they need to succeed
- Show them an example of success
- Modeling
- They don’t seem to understand that if they don’t come to class and don’t do
their work, they aren’t going to be able to succeed
- We need to share our resources
- Plagiarism powerpoint
- We need to try to understand what our students expect
- simplicity
- direct path
- Maybe making a C as the passing grade, instead of a D
- We need to get to know our students - Who are they, and what are their real
world issues?
- Needs assessment at NSO
- Custom Care
- Wrap-around services
- provide basic skills in the classroom
- Don’t let anybody off the hook
- Our expectation needs to be that students CAN succeed, and we need to
stick to it!
- Nobody gets left out
2. What are the opportunities and threats to current and potential distance learning
courses and programs?
- MOOC’s?
- How prepared are our instructors to teach online courses?
- Is there a training?
- A challenge is to maintain the standards/expectations in the distance class that
we keep in the f2f course
- We need to be able to assess their computers usage problems early, and we
need to have a way to address them
Strategic Planning Forum - Academic Focus
- PROCTORING!!!
- How do we engage students?
- There is potential for more engagement, but we don’t know how to do
that
- Student readiness
- Faculty aren’t prepared to work with students with disabilities in an online forum
- What are our completion rates for distance vs. f2f classes?
- Jeannie thinks that the A/B proportion are the same, but there is a
dropoff at the next level
- Students aren’t utilizing Marty-Jean’s workshops
- Students don’t do optional
- Maybe teachers can assign students to go to a workshop if they see that
they are struggling in a specific areas
- How do we get more than the “star students” to show up to the discussion
forums?
- Could we create a “Distance 101” class? We can require students to take this if
they enroll in a distance course
- Pre-test to test computer skills?
- Students can get a certification that they can put on a resume
- These certifications transfer to the real world
- Intro course for Gen Ed
3. Please share your ideas about how we can streamline/accelerate our degree
programs
- Non-inflated summer rates!!!
- Course availability
- Degree in 3
- Many programs are out of alignment with their Fall-Spring paths
- How can we develop a pathway for earning a Liberal Arts Degree?
- MW school?
- TR school?
- Morning college?
- Have a gen ed 1st semester
- Math/English pre-req for EVERY class to get students to TAKE
THEM IN THE FIRST SEMESTER
- Collaborate with the programs to gear something like a research writing course
with a content area
- Students need to learn how to balance school, work, family
- They shouldn’t sign up for 5 classes if they can’t manage 5 classes
- It takes longer to repeat classes over and over than to take fewer at a
time and pass them all
- Mandatory counseling
- Help students make a plan for their whole degree so that they see where
they’re going
- Students who are on the “non-college-prep track” are coming to us with no
preparation
Strategic Planning Forum - Academic Focus
4. How can we improve alignment with our K-12 and University partners?
- Put together online sources that HS’s can use to help prepare students
- HS Advisory Board
- There was a lot of participation at first, but as time has gone on, only the
UH Maui representatives have been showing up
- This needs to be an administrative directive to get people to the table
- Go to their PD Days to put on a joint PD
- Again needs to come from their administration
- What about the early admit hospitality students who take 3 credits then transfer
elsewhere?
- Can HS help students with time management?
- Stop distinguishing between college-prep students and non-college-prep
students
5. How do we continue to engage communities of interest to help us to evolve and stay
relevant?
- Use our recent grads to come back and be our community members
- They went through what our students are going through, and they can
share with our students how their experience has helped
- Our community doesn’t know what we are - Do we even know who we are?
- Vocational?
- 4-year?
- 2-year?
- Internships for Liberal Arts students
- “Get to know UHMC” public forums at Community Centers
- Bring brochures, FAQ’s
- We ask the community what they need, but we need to be strong about telling
them what we have that they might want
- We need to modify our intake - it’s so complicated
- Required Time Management Calendar --> work, study time, sleep, etc.
Strategic Planning Forum - Academic Focus
Group 2 - Blue
1. How do we set the bar higher to increase student expectations? How do we help our
students meet those increased expectations?
- Higher level thinking skills
- How do students know what the expectations are?
- What kind of expectations can we set? We have an open door policy
- It’s impossible for all of our students to do the same thing at the same time
- The DOE has already tried to do this, and we know that it doesn’t work!
- We need a range of increased expectations, not just one thing
- Are our expectations realistic?
- We can take everyone from where they are to something better
- Can we expect 100% of students to get to the top?
- Where is the bar now?
- What are the factors other than capability affecting students’ ability to succeed
academically?
- Are our only expectations academic?
- personal development
- self-confidence
- Do we really need to/can we really set a bar?
- A feel good bar
- College is a place for student to discover what they want, and what they
don’t want to do
- We need to have standards, but is the only measure of success completing
college?
- Many of our students are not ready for college math/English, and therefore they
are unable to take any of the courses that they want to take
- They are forced to only take math and English
- How can we integrate those reading/writing/comprehension skills into the
courses they love
- Do we need those pre-requisites?
- Can we develop new courses that students who place into the lowest
English courses can take?****
- Rather than asking faculty to eliminate their pre-reqs
- Are any faculty willing to do a pilot where they accept students who don’t
meet a pre-req?
- They can do RAD training
- Teach and see what happens
- We need to focus more on Reading, rather than writing
- RAD and the English department are focusing on that
- Maybe all faculty should go through reading skills training to help
students in all classes
- Reading list that the whole faculty contributes to
- Completion by Design (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation)
- Connection
- Entry
Strategic Planning Forum - Academic Focus
- Progress
- Completion
2. What are the opportunities and threats to current and potential distance learning
courses and programs?
- The cycle of classes
- Why do we have all of those pre-requisites?
- Rolling schedule - if you know what you want, you know when it’ll be offered
- Students have more opportunities to take classes from other places, so if we
aren’t offering what they need when they want it, we will lose them
- Let’s use the resources that are out there
- Faculty needs to be able to distinguish the difference between good online
resources and bad ones
- Opportunity for our non-trad students to take classes when they can
- Threat would be though that many of these non-trad students are older
and perhaps unprepared to take distance courses
- Satellite station where students can help each other with the distance courses
- Students need to know how to advocate for themselves
- How do we get more participation?
- Human support for students and faculty
- Faculty need training to teach distance/online courses
- We need to ensure quality and rigor
- We need to pay attention to how our students use the online classes
- Pay attention to our successful online students
- Can we use our students to train their peers?
- Orientation for online classes
- Peer mentoring
- Student Support
- Faculty survey indicates that faculty thinks students need basic computer
training
- Distance Learning committee is planning to do a student survey to find out what
students say they need
- Disability training
3. Please share your ideas about how we can streamline/accelerate our degree
programs
- Too many pre-reqs
- Cohort approach to scheduling
- So that students can plan their work, their life, etc.
- The first instinct to unprepared students is raise the pre-req or create a new
policy
- Maybe we should try to affect the learning in a different way
- What’s going on in the classroom?
- We need to be flexible
- Appeal to students through different learning styles
- Concentrate on what we can do in our classrooms
Strategic Planning Forum - Academic Focus
- With the people we have, the support we have, the resources we have
- If all faculty participate in RAD or something like that, then students can find
commonalities in all classes
- What’s the purpose of streamlining/accelerating a degree?
- We have many lifelong learners who will never graduate and don’t want
to
- But this needs to be available for students who need/want it
- Non-increased summer tuition!
- Why do we have to stick to the semester model?
- Online courses do 5 week classes
- Can courses start monthly?
- How would a non-semester model affect Financial Aid or VA benefits?
4. How can we improve alignment with our K-12 and University partners?
- Tell Manoa to stop changing their crap every few years
- We need K-12 support programs
- ie; Celebrate Reading, Writing Across the Curriculum
- FUNDING??!?!!??
- Leverage for keeping our infrastructure up to date
- They can’t be coming from HS having used better technology
- They’ll be discouraged to work here
- Partnerships are about people and relationships
- It’s everybody’s responsibility to get out there and do it
- There are many programs/initiatives out there --> We need to utilize them
- Time
- Budget
- Commitment from administration to establish/re-establish pipeline
5. How do we continue to engage communities of interest to help us to evolve and stay
relevant?
- It would be nice for people in the community to give and not just want the
college to things for their events for free
Strategic Planning Forum - Academic Focus
Group 3 - Gold
1. How do we set the bar higher to increase student expectations? How do we help our
students meet those increased expectations?
- CASLO meetings
- Imagine what we want our graduates to be/look like
- Let’s design an educational experience that produces skills so that when our
students leave, they can be productive in whatever it is that they do
- Students are prepared with the fundamentals for success
- If cohorts of instructors hold office hours together
- If a student needs help with the content, but the issue turns out to be
math or reading or..., the content instructor can direct them to the
available specialist “just in time”
- Use program expectations to guide what you teach in your gen ed classes
- Work with other instructors and other campuses to decide what is important for
our students to know at given levels in given courses
- Integrate fundamental skills like writing throughout their college career
- For example, writing helps students learn, so why shouldn’t it be
integrated in almost all classes?
- RAD and WAC
- Our students are coming in without college level basic skills
- How can we make minor shifts in our instruction that are positive for all,
but really address the common weaknesses?
- How to balance the disparate levels of our students?
- Without lowering expectations
- Without setting expectations so high that they are out of reach for most
- Entrance exams/surveys
2. What are the opportunities and threats to current and potential distance learning
courses and programs?
- Students are taking them because the f2f class time didn’t fit into their
schedules
- They discount how conditioned they are to perform in the classroom
- Screening or Filtering process
- Online is not ideal for all students
- They are not good at self-screening - They delude themselves into
thinking that they can do all of the things they need to to be successful
- How do we get rid of the misconception that online is easier?
- How do we make students feel connected during a HITS class?
- Training - Professional Development for HITS classes
- Every teacher should ask for a photograph to be emailed
- Have the students introduce themselves to the camera on the first day
- How do we get them to ask questions??
- Ask them to write down a question; once they’ve done that they may be
more willing to ask it
Strategic Planning Forum - Academic Focus
- Faculty should more easily be able to go to the outreach sites at least once
during the semester and teach from there
- 1 credit Distance 101 class to be MANDATORY in order to take an online
course
- Faculty need to be trained
- Distance learning mentorship program
- We need a policy for online courses to verify authenticity
- Proctoring support
- We need a streamlined process
- Cohorts!!!
- f2f meeting at the start of the semester, so you know your classmates
- Keep each other going
- Manoa College of Education may have a good model
- Some of these great ideas are in direct conflict with the idea of distance
learning and its flexibility
- When you don’t know your classmates, the criticism might completely break
them
- You can’t see it on their faces
- You don’t know what their life experiences are
- Online classes might not be the best idea for first year students
- Assigned time or stipend for teacher training to ensure it happens
- hybrid
3. Please share your ideas about how we can streamline/accelerate our degree
programs
- Summer tuition needs to be the same as regular
- Trimesters
- Support ALP
- Cohorts
- Students need to follow program maps
- Upper level courses are not offered online
- This might help students at that level who are almost finished, working
full time, etc.
- These students are further along in their degree, so may be more
prepared for the online environment
- Increase $$ to TLC to help with everything
- Recruitment
- International exchange programs
- Student exit program
4. How can we improve alignment with our K-12 and University partners?
- Matriculation meetings
- Our faculty should work directly with the HS teachers
- Offer them PD opportunities
- Excellence in Education
Strategic Planning Forum - Academic Focus
- We need to specify WHY we want the money so that we get the time to
do what WE need
- What does P-20 expect from us?
- Show HS students what we expect
- Show them college ready work
- Give them examples of what we expect
- When we have these meetings, we need time to actually talk with our
colleagues --> Not just be talked at for a day
- Some sort of opportunity for faculty from the same discipline across the
campuses to meet
- Yearly? Bi-yearly?
- After that f2f meeting, teachers will be more likely to continue the interaction via
email
5. How do we continue to engage communities of interest to help us to evolve and stay
relevant?
- CASLO meeting, for example the Dental Assisting meeting, dentists were there
- Programs make adjustments based on these meetings
- Service Learning
- Advisory Boards shouldn’t be held separate from faculty and students
- SSM does a mixer with students and board
- Put the interaction in the syllabus so that students are required to do it and
know so from the start
6. Other Comments/Suggestions
- Define preparedness expectations
- Defined “while enrolled” expectations
- Define assessment expectations
- Can have professional mixer even for Lib Arts
- Bring professionals from Ed, Arts, Soc. Sci., etc. to round table or meet
and greet activity
- ABIT has done this in the past
Strategic Planning Forum - Academic Focus
Group 4 - Green
1. How do we set the bar higher to increase student expectations? How do we help our
students meet those increased expectations?
- How do we know what our students’ abilities are?
- Reorient students expectations
- From I’m here to get a degree
- To I’m here to learn
- How is this going to help me when I get out of here?
- Help students think about themselves as lifelong learners rather than trying to
get a grade
- Rather than just teaching our subjects, we need to teach students how to think!
- Critical Thinking
- Problem Solving
- Not memorization
- Are student expectations realistic?
- Financial Aid only pays for 6 years
- What is realistic for a student to complete?
- We don’t want to set them up for failure
- Give students the perspective that they will need this or they will understand
this 20 years from now
- Support to get students back on track when they need to take a leave of
absence during the semester
- Individualize expectations within the course as you get to know your students
- Take the time to push the students who are already at the top without
losing the lower ones
- Set your expectations clearly in your syllabus
- Take the time to talk about these expectations
- Criteria based grading
- Rubrics
2. What are the opportunities and threats to current and potential distance learning
courses and programs?
- Competition
- Copywright issues
- Teachers need to make the adjustment
- You can’t teach the same way you teach f2f
- We need the support from TLC and the library
- Their capabilities to be up to our needs
- TLC needs support to be able to support us
- How do we ensure that our student is the one doing the work??
- Our students need to be prepared to take distance learning classes
- The course could be prepared beautifully, but if the student doesn’t know
how to log in, it doesn’t matter
- Instructors need to be open to the idea
Strategic Planning Forum - Academic Focus
3. Please share your ideas about how we can streamline/accelerate our degree
programs
- Use the entire summer to teach a course at STANDARD SEMESTER RATES
- Rather than 5 week sessions
- What about Financial Aid for summer sessions?
- Is 15 to graduate really in the best interest of our students?
- 2 year plan
- So that counselors can help students map backwards from a course the
student needs
- Credits for Prior Learning - PLA
- More weekend college classes
4. How can we improve alignment with our K-12 and University partners?
- Stop blaming each other
- We have a tendency to focus on where we want students to go, and we never
look back!
- HS students have changed, and we haven’t changed with them
- How can we change their educational system to help them learn?
- Our research should be focused on how 6-12 learn
- We need to look at alternative schools where kids are learning differently
- USC is doing something to this effect
- We need to connect teacher to teacher
- There doesn’t seem to be much support otherwise
- HI-PASS
- Had administrative support
- Had funding
- Had stipends
- HS students can enroll in college and get back credits for DOE
- Jump Start
5. How do we continue to engage communities of interest to help us to evolve and stay
relevant?
- Get some applied research on the transition from K-6 to 7-12.
- This will open the avenue for change
- If this research already exists, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel
- We can use the research to drive our change
- Advisory Boards can help keep up the engagement
- Have current and former students on the Advisory Board
- Follow-up surveys with graduates
- 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years
- Did you get employment? Was it in the area you were trained in?
- What did you get in college that is helping/has helped you? What didn’t
help?
Strategic Planning Forum - Academic Focus
Summary/Recurring Themes:
1. How do we set the bar higher to increase student expectations? How do we help our
students meet those increased expectations?
- Clearly communicate your expectations to your students
- Challenge students to excel
- Learning skills
- Interdisciplinary work and integration / collaboration - RAD/WAC
- Student preparation - life skills
2. What are the opportunities and threats to current and potential distance learning
courses and programs?
- Faculty mentoring program / professional development
- Student preparation prior to enrollment - mandatory course?
- Increased resources for TLC to help with proctoring to maintain integrity
3. Please share your ideas about how we can streamline/accelerate our degree
programs
- Regular summer tuition
- Rolling schedule - publicized in advance
- cohorts
4. How can we improve alignment with our K-12 and University partners?
- Work individually with teachers in DOE
- More time for collaboration with colleagues from all campuses
- We need administrative support and funding
- Jump Start
5. How do we continue to engage communities of interest to help us to evolve and stay
relevant?
- Mixers and advisory boards and students
- Internships and Service Learning
- For liberal arts students we also need to broaden community outreach