Learning Abstract
(Continued)
Using materials from the conference and additional items later provided
by Richland Community College staff, members of a Student Support
Design Team, representing MCC faculty and administrative staff from
educational services and student services, further refined and
developed the basic skills-levels concept into usable information
readily available to students and all who advise students.
The Design Team chose five basic skill areas (mathematics, writing,
reading, science, and computers) determined to be crucial to success in
college-level courses. For each of the five areas, faculty in those
disciplines developed a continuum of skill proficiencies from
elementary to complex, ultimately grouping the skills into three or
four skill levels. This skill-level information in mathematics,
writing, reading, science, and computers was then used by faculty
across the college to assign entry-level skill levels to all MCC
classes.
DEVELOPING MCC'S BASIC SKILL LEVELS
In reviewing student retention issues, the MCC Design Team members had
determined that nearly 42 percent of the college’s students are selfadvising, and that even professional advisors found it difficult to
remain adequately informed to successfully match individual student
skills with the hundreds of classes offered each quarter. It seemed
that additional information was needed to support students’ efforts to
self-advise and that additional input and support from faculty was
needed to enable counselors and advisors to appropriately place
students. Shortly after examining the original basic-skills grid system
developed by Richland Community College, the Design Team members
proposed to develop a similar grid for MCC’s courses and to develop a
method by which the grid could be incorporated into the college catalog
and class schedules for easy reference.
The first goal was to develop a skills grid based on MCC’s faculty
input and that reflected the college’s course structure (See Figure 1).
http://www.league.org/publication/abstracts/learning/lelabs0311_fig1.htm
Design Team members individually contacted faculty representatives in
each of the targeted disciplines of mathematics, writing, reading,
science, and computers. The faculty representatives meeting with their
area’s faculty then took on the task of developing a continuum of
skills for their subject, identifying the courses in which each skill
could be learned. In the meantime, software was obtained and the
reading levels for all of the college’s textbooks were calculated.
Educational Services secretaries from across the college were enlisted
to help with this huge task, allowing for a comprehensive and uniform
approach to determine the readability of every textbook used at MCC.
The secretaries typed sample paragraphs from texts in Word, then used
the readability feature under Spelling and Grammar. In order to
institutionalize the process, this step was added to the textbook
adoption process.
Next, all program faculty were needed to identify the skills on the
grid that would make a student successful in their courses, with each
course being separately reviewed by the faculty members. In this
manner, the faculty would determine the level (rank ordered from 1 to
4) of English, math, reading, science, and computer skills that they
recommended students should possess in order to maximize the
probability of success in a particular course. To facilitate this
collective review of the curriculum, Educational Services sponsored a
collegewide instructional activity that included a review of all course
prerequisites in addition to a determination of the faculty’s
recommendations of student basic skills.
The half-day Educational Services instructional activity included all
full-time faculty and representatives from among the college’s
counselors and advisors who served as resources to the faculty teams.
As part of the decision-making process, faculty were encouraged to
discuss prerequisites and skills recommendations across disciplines.
The design of the activity assured that faculty members received two
important items: (1) easy access to support from peers in other
disciplines, and (2) input from student advising as curriculum
revisions were undertaken. An added benefit of the process was the
development of cross-curriculum communication and the identification
and removal of several bottlenecks that had existed in the college’s
curriculum, such as science courses with inconsistent prerequisites or
existing prerequisites that were long overdue for review. All revisions
completed were given draft status and posted on a college website for
further consideration and commentary. After the one-month posting, the
academic deans reviewed and endorsed the proposed prerequisite
revisions and the recommendations of skill levels.
Thereafter, the skills grid was reworded to employ student-friendly
language. This process was again undertaken by faculty teams with the
eventual wording submitted to groups of students for feedback. The
course- specific skills recommendations and skills grids have been
integrated into the college’s electronic schedule for fall 2003.
Through the use of hot buttons, the student or advisor can easily
access faculty recommendations of skills that contribute to an enhanced
probability of student success in the course.
MEETING STUDENT NEED
In this instance, the college’s faculty, advisors, counselors, and
administrators have used a cross-functional collaboration model to
effectively deal with an existing student need. In the past, though all
areas experienced similar concerns, their efforts would have been
individually undertaken with little or no collaboration, may have
involved accusations between areas, and probably would not have
capitalized on the initiatives of another college some 500 miles away.
The success of this activity has encouraged cooperative efforts and
interdisciplinary communications.
In the meantime, the use of the basic skills is enthusiastically
supported by faculty and advisors. It is anticipated that with
increased awareness of the availability of the basic-skills
recommendations, students, advisors, and even faculty will use them to
make more informed choices and decisions.
To experience this framework, visit the Metropolitan Community College
site, http://www.mccneb.edu/ click on a Quick Link to class schedule,
select any discipline, choose a course, and click on Skill Level next
to the course title. Basic skill levels are available directly from the
schedule of classes.
Daryl Hansen mailto:dhansen@mccneb.edu is Assistant Dean of Business
and Social Sciences, Larry Lindberg mailto:llindberg@mccneb.edu is
Director of Campus and Student Services-Elkhorn Valley, and Teri Quick
mailto:tquick@mccneb.edu is Reading Faculty and Department
Representative for Academic Foundations at Metropolitan Community
College (NE).