Ensuring Professional/Technical
Students’ Success and Goal
Attainment through
Learning Communities and
First Year Experiences
Anne B. McGrail, Ph.D.
Learning Communities Coordinator
Lane Community College
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Overview
 Six Best Practices for Student Retention and
Success
 Learning Communities at Lane
 Success and Goal Attainment Committee
 Developing a Comprehensive First Year
Experience
 Infusing College Success Principles and
Strategies into Learning Communities and Classes
to Increase Student Engagement, Learning,
Satisfaction and Success
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Six Best Practices
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Learning Communities
First Year Experiences
Academic Advising
Supplemental Instruction
Early Warning/Intervention Systems
Campus Climate/Supportive Learning
Environment
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Learning Communities (LCs) at Lane
 Begun in 1994 with one class of 30 students
 Currently serves 1,000 students per year
 “Boutique Model” of theme-based classes
encouraged early faculty adoption of the LC
model
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Disadvantages of
“Boutique” Model
 Faculty “ownership” of the LC
 Dependent upon ongoing faculty
engagement (burnout)
 Enrollment challenges brought about by
structure (classes offered targeted a smaller
population of Lane’s students)
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Development of Learning
Communities
 Some LCs have systematically addressed
specific student needs:
– Women in Transition
– BioBonds: Biology and Chemistry for the Health
Professions
– $how Me the Money! Writing for Scholarships
– Food for Thought: Culinary Arts and Writing and
Math
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Learning Community
Arrangments
 Best Practice: tightly aligned curriculum with
pure cohorts and faculty at least some of the
time present in each other’s classes or
engaged in cross-disciplinary learning
activities (e.g., Service Learning, Reading
Together—more later on these)
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Other Arrangements
 One “common” class with three “feeder”
classes with same material
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Other Arrangements
 Three separate classes with mixed cohorts
taking two or more but some taking only one
class.
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Other Arrangements
 Two “feeder” classes with a pure
cohort and a third separate class.
(This is the current plan for a Math
addition to Fast Lane.)
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e.g., Math 10
or +
Math 65 or +
Math 111
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Success and Goal Attainment
Committee (SAGA)
 Chartered group of Student Services
professionals at Lane whose goal was to
increase student success and retention
 Created the “SAGA Report” in 2002 which
outlined Six Best Practices for Retention
and Success.
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The First Year Experience:
Synergy of Learning Communities
Development with SAGA Efforts:
 Learning Communities developed beyond
“boutique” model to a systematic effort to address
students’ needs.
 SAGA research showing LCs as a Best Practice
has given momentum to tailoring different FYEs to
different programs, including P/T.
 Better integration of instruction with student
services has been the result of the two programs
coordinating their goals.
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Development of First Year Learning
Community
 “Fast Lane to Success” addresses the
academic and social learning needs of new
Lane students
– “On Course: College Success”
– Effective Learning
– Writing
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Fast Lane to Success
 Curricular coordination, ongoing faculty
conversations about the LC, and regular
communication with students develops a
“community” of learners who help one
another succeed.
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Other Components of
Fast Lane to Success
 Paid peer mentor with successful experience in
Fast Lane
 In-class counseling and advising to ensure correct
pathway to degree/certificate
 Mid-term grade reports and “intrusive” advising
 E-portfolios that will move through college with the
student
 Follow-up mentoring and study-groups throughout
the first year.
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Assessments of Students and the
Fast Lane Program
 Risk-assessment (Noel-Levitz College Student
Inventory indicates risk areas)
 Survey of Engagement with College-Wide CCSSE as
control group (positive effects)
 Pre-and-post tests
 Tracking students on persistence and success
across time
 FYRED UP! Pilot Project Team yearly assessments
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Fast Lane to Success
Assessment
 Inspired by the Community College Survey of
Student Engagement, asked questions on a 4point scale about student engagement with the
LC.
 Compared Fast Lane engagement returns to 800
“general population” answers from students
 Fast Lane students fared significantly better on
many measures of engagement (a key predictor of
success)
 Caveat: Small sample: 62 students
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Assessments
 Currently developing a qualitative and
quantitative “economic impact” and “learning
impact” assessment that will serve as a
model for innovative learning projects
across the college.
 Noel Levitz has a formula for assessing the
economic impact of retention efforts.
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Scaffolding Beyond Fast Lane: Other
LCs
 Food for Thought: Designed for Culinary Arts
students
– Culinary Arts classes in two terms use math and writing
skills
– Math class engages the content of the culinary program
in its case studies and examples.
– Writing class uses food writing as the text and also the
product of students’ essays.
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Other Learning Communities
 “BioBonds: Building Blocks of Your Body”
provides Health Professions students with
fundamental biology and chemistry courses
that serve as the prerequisite to Anatomy
and Physiology
 Specifically addresses the failure rate of
underprepared Anatomy and Physiology
students.
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Other Learning Communities
 $how Me the Money! Writing for
Scholarships
 Guides students through a process of
uncovering their skills and talents and
develop their ideas in writing through the
state-wide scholarship application.
 Thousands of dollars of scholarship money,
including a Ford Fellow have resulted.
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Best Practice: Academic Advising
 Students are more likely to be successful
and to experience less frustration with the
hurdles of college requirements if they have
a plan in place and follow it
 Encouraging and facilitating advising for
every student is a goal of FYE at Lane
 “Doing Advising Differently”: may be
necessary to do group advising, etc.
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Best Practice:
Supplemental Instruction
For “gateway” classes
Similar to tutoring
Credit or non-credit options
Study groups/classes meet outside of anchor
course
 Facilitator/instructor works with difficult material
from the anchor course
 Additional time on task allows for enhanced
learning
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Best Practice: Early
Warning/Intervention Systems
 Goal is to communicate to student their risk
of failing before it’s too late
 Use of Banner to provide advisors data on
at-risk students
 Early intervention by advisors and/or faculty
to allow students to catch up or make
changes needed to succeed.
 Back on Course Pilot Project to help
students at risk of losing financial aid.
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Best Practice:
Campus Climate: Supportive Learner
Environment
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Orientations
Lane Preview Night
Students First centralized services
Using Community College Survey of
Student Engagement (CCSSE) to gauge to
what extent students are using advising,
tutoring and other support services.
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New Best Practice: Placement and
Preparedness
 Developing new placement testing that more
accurately places students in courses in
which they are prepared enough to succeed
 In “open access” environment, giving
students the “right to succeed” rather than
the “freedom to [choose the wrong courses
and] fail.”
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Infusion Model: Using College
Success Principles in All Classes
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Getting on Course
Accepting Personal Self-Responsibility
Discovering Self-Motivation
Mastering Self-Management
– Tools include a Next Actions list; a 32 day commitment worksheet;
a calendar and a financial plan; Learning tools for internal/external
distractors; An interactive time chart
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Employing Interdependence
Gaining Self-Awareness
Adopting Lifelong Learning
Developing Emotional Intelligence
Staying on Course
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Career and Technical Students: Why
Learning Communities and FYE?
 Need to tailor services to specific needs of
PT students
 Currently a technical writing course infused
with College Success principles has shown
promise
 Importance of guiding and supporting
students whose schedules are tight with
required skills and content classes.
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“School Doesn’t Get Any
Better than This!”
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–Lane Learning Community Student
Questions?
Anne McGrail
Coordinator, Learning Communities
Lane Community College
541-463-3317
mcgraila@lanecc.edu
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