Pathway to Completion
Start Strong – Finish Faster
Best Practices Exchange – October 2014
Funded by
Pathway to Completion Team
Presenters:
Carin Weiss, Vice Chancellor, Seattle Colleges
Alice Melling, Associate Dean, North Seattle
Paul Verschueren, Faculty Mathematics, Seattle Central
Judy Reed, Associate Director, Pathway to Completion, Seattle Colleges
Kim Manderbach, Dean for Student Achievement, South Seattle
Jane Muhich, Lead, Math Initiatives & Productive Persistence, Seattle Central
Samantha White, Data & Research Coordinator, Seattle Colleges
Overview of Session
 Pathway to Completion Presentation
 Small Group Discussions
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Student Services
Math Initiatives/Productive Persistence
School Partnerships
Leadership/Data
 Large Group Sharing
About The Seattle Colleges
 Educate nearly 50,000 students annually
 Offer 135 professional-technical programs and 7 applied
baccalaureate degrees
 Are highly diverse with 51% students of color
 Median student age of 29 years
Challenge: Underprepared students
 Two-thirds referred to pre-college math
― 32% complete pre-college math in one year
― 13% in pre-college math earn credential in three
years
Pathway to Completion Strategy
First-Year Experience Redesign
Start to Finish
Launched in Fall 2012
Institutional Challenges
 Three separately accredited colleges
 Variations in policy and practice
 Culture change needed for common and mandatory
practice
Start to Finish
Model For Completion
Strong Start
Assessment Prep
Multiple Placement Options
Mandatory Orientation
Proactive Advising
Pre-College Math
Acceleration
Accelerated Models:
Statway, Algebra
Express, Self-paced
modular
Tracking And Student
Support
Advisor Dashboard
Productive Persistence
Educational Plan
Performance Targets
Pre-College Math Students
Increase by 25% students who:




Complete their pre-college math sequence within one
year
Complete their first 15 credits within one year
Complete their first 30 credits within two years
Complete their first required college level math course
within two years
Start to Finish
Intentional Process
for First Time Students
SEATTLE COMMUNITY
Start to Finish
Expanded Assessment Options
 Online Math Refresher for Placement Test
 Multiple Placement Measures
— Transcripts
— SAT/ ACT
— COMPASS
Start to Finish
Mandatory START Orientation for New Students
 Common orientation across district, offered in-person and
online
 In-person orientation infused with advising session
Target: 100% of new students
First-year results: Increased participation in orientation
from 18% to 97%
Start to Finish
Proactive Advising for Pre-College Math Students
 Classroom Advising – Develop educational plan; monitor
student progress
 Educational Plan – Courses to complete program & degree
Increased math sections with advisors from 3 to 34 within
first year
Start to Finish
Advisor Dashboard – Monitoring Student Progress
 Tool developed in-house to create educational plans
and monitor student progress
 Available to faculty counselors, academic advisors and
students
Accelerated Pre-College Math
SEATTLE COMMUNITY
Accelerated Pre-College Math
Three models across the district
 Statway (Dev Algebra + Statistics)
(4 quarters into 3, college level statistics)
 Algebra Express
(3 quarters into 2)
 Self-paced Modular Math
(1-4 quarters into 1)
Accelerated Pre-College Math
Scaling What Works – New Updates
 Statway: 59% completed pre-college and college level
math in one year compared to 32% in traditional
sequence
 Algebra Express: 53% completed pre-college math in one
year compared to 32% in traditional sequence
 Self-Paced Modular Math: 35% of students complete two
or more classes in one quarter; 14% complete sequence
in one quarter
Accelerated Pre-College Math
Student Enrollment
Total Student Enrollment
800
700
700
600
728
532
500
392
400
336
300
200
196
100
0
Fall 2012
Winter 2013 Spring 2013
Fall 2013
Winter 2014 Spring 2014
Productive Persistence
A Student Success Initiative
Productive Persistence
 The productive mindsets and effective learning strategies
students need in order to be successful
 Tested classroom activities and interventions
 Practitioner and researcher partnerships
 Continuous learning to improve using data
Productive Persistence
Growth Mindsets
 Growth mindset: “I can learn using effort and good strategies.”
 Fixed mindset: “I’m not a math person.”
 Students with growth mindsets show increased academic
performance.
Social Ties
 Students who have doubts about their belonging withdraw at
higher rates.
Productive Persistence
Current Projects
 Creating social-ties through collaborative learning
 Helping students set and reach reasonable goals
 Promoting a growth mindset in classrooms
 Giving students a social purpose for learning
 Increasing self-paced math acceleration
Seattle Public
Schools Partnership
SEATTLE COMMUNITY COLLEGES
Improving College Readiness
Collaborative Work Groups resulting in:
 Multiple placement measures – Transcripts, SAT/ACT
 Transition math course for high school seniors
 Curriculum alignment – Intermediate algebra learning
community
Results and Lessons Learned
SEATTLE COMMUNITY COLLEGES
Start To Finish
First-year Quantitative Results
Performance Target: Increase by 25% students who complete their precollege math sequence within one year
First Year Results:
Pre-College Math Completions
50%
40%
44%
39%
32%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Baseline
2007-10
Year 1 of Grant
2012-13
Accelerated Math
(to date)
Start To Finish
First-year Quantitative Results
Performance Target: Increase by 25% students who complete their
first 15 credits within one year
First Year Results:
 13% increase in completion of first 15 credits within one year
Second Year Results:
 19% increase in completion of first 15 credits within one year
Students starting in summer or fall 2013
Number of Students Impacted to date
 In total, 13,855 students impacted by completion initiative
Lessons Learned for Success and Scaling
Leadership and Engagement-- Top leadership commitment,
college leads, faculty and staff teams
Assessing What Works-- Data are complex and require
advanced research methods
District Coordination-- Align processes, ongoing sharing and
scaling of internal best practices, external and internal
standardized communication materials