Campus Spotlights: Equity

• Monroe Community College: Equity-Minded and Student-Informed Approaches to Curriculum, Assessment, and Pedagogy

  Driven by the necessity for an equity-minded approach to curriculum, assessment, and pedagogy, the Monroe Community College (MCC) team focused on exploring and understanding the student experience, and how it contributes to persisting equity gaps on campus. The pilot project team intentionally strengthened its efforts in understanding how non-cognitive challenges such as work, familial, and personal responsibilities, play a role in creating barriers to students’ achievement; for example, these external challenges may prevent certain students from enrolling in HIP-designated courses, simply due to time constraints and conflicting priorities.

  In response to these challenges and with the individual student experience in mind, the project team worked collaboratively across departments to center equity-mindedness and race-conscious practices at every institutional level. MCC’s Teaching and Creativity Center also engaged faculty in a series of professional development and workshop opportunities surrounding equity-focused pedagogy, assessment, and curriculum development. In examining the responsibility that educators have in practicing and role modeling race-consciousness, MCC and the Teaching and Creativity Center produced a video that features several students sharing their stories about experiencing microaggressions in the classroom from other students, faculty, and administrators. The video allowed students to share their lived experiences related to microaggressions and discrimination based on race, gender, ability, mental health, age, etc. The lived experiences of students like the ones shared in the video have helped inform MCC’s approach to supporting, building capacity, and creating accountability for equity-minded, race-conscious practitioners. The student video, that debuted at an “essential discussion” event hosted by MCC in 2019 with regional educators, can be viewed here.

  The project team also focused its efforts around utilizing the VALUE Scoring Collaborative and rubrics, enhancing, and expanding high-impact practices (HIPs), ensuring faculty are employing equity-minded practices at every level through sustained DEI professional development opportunities, strategic changes to programming, and implementing a more equity-aligned approach to curricular/pedagogical assessment.

  Read more about Monroe Community College’s work here.
  

• Kapi’olani Community College: Disaggregated Data & Equity

  Data analysis is an essential component of the TLA process. It helps campuses understand patterns and trends in student learning and success. However, disaggregating the institutional data gets at the core of racial inequity issues present on campuses. The VALUE Scoring Collaborative provides campuses with disaggregated data reports to highlight existing equity gaps in student learning outcomes and achievements. Many of the twenty pilot institutions have embraced disaggregated data analysis as a method of tackling institutional equity concerns. At Kapi’olani Community College, collecting student data has become a primary focus in addressing equity. Below is Kapi’olani Community College’s approach to using data to understand existing inequities and bridge gaps:

  Concentration/Pathway Areas: Psychology, Education, Economics, Engineering, Information & Communication Sciences

  Concern: Little to no evidence exists to indicate that data have been disaggregated to examine inequities in student engagement, learning, and achievement within these concentrations.

  Project Goals:

  • Utilize the VALUE Critical Thinking Rubric to examine whether and where inequities exist in student engagement, learning, and achievement.
  • Examine the inequities of student engagement, learning, and achievement within the concentrations.
  • Use assessment data to inform teaching and learning practices through an equity lens.

  
  Methods of Implementation:
  

  • Created and disseminated an equity-minded participant survey about the following:
    • Definition of equity/equity-minded practices
    • Syllabus & assignments
    • Classroom practices
    • Teaching practices
    • Assessment
  • Collaborated with the Office of Institutional Effectiveness to gain insights on analyzing data from the rubric and survey and interpreting the disaggregated data to determine the inequities in student engagement, learning, and achievement.
  • Collected over 100 student artifacts for VALUE Scoring Collaborative assessment data, scoring, disaggregated data report.
  • Organized student data into categories.
  • Collaborated with faculty and college’s institutional research office to ensure accurate student data is being collected.
  • Developed clearer criteria for random selection of student artifacts and sampling to ensure equitable assessment.

• Crafton Hills College: Sharing the Responsibility for Equitable Student Outcomes

  Crafton Hills College focused on the importance of examining data when attempting to close equity gaps in student learning and success. When defining its goals, the project team looked at disaggregated student retention and success data to see where inequities existed and among which groups of students.

  The Crafton Hills project team also identified how data analysis and data literacy are shared responsibilities, and the factors needed to understand and interpret data in an effective, intentional way. The project team was intentional about presenting data trends that highlight concerns, and how data can be used to address them through certain high-impact practices. They found that data can be used to transform the student experience and improve success in several areas:

  • Collaborative learning
  • Supplemental instruction
  • Tutoring centers
  • Embedded tutoring
  • Counseling services
  • Transfer resources

  
  

Campus Spotlight: Identifying a Pathway

• Chattanooga State Community College: Identifying a Pathway with an Equity-Focused Rationale

  The Chattanooga State Community College team identified a high-enrollment project pathway based on a disaggregated data analysis that highlighted significant gaps between student outcomes and success rates. Below is the team's rationale and evidence for identifying a pathway:
  
  The academic program of study selected as a focus of this work is an Associate of Science in Health Profession. This Health Science meta-major is the pathway followed by students who wish to matriculate to any Chattanooga State Associate of Science or Associate of Applied Science within the Allied Health Division or bachelor’s degree transfer program. This Health Sciences pathway is the most declared major at Chattanooga State. On average, approximately 42 percent of each freshman class selects this pathway while completing general education requirements that prepare them for highly specialized programs of study at Chattanooga State and/or transfer to a four-year university or college.
  
  Students who entered this pathway in the fall of 2018 represented approximately one-third of the first-time freshman class (588 students). Seventy-five percent of this cohort were White students, while sixty-two percent were academically underprepared, sixty-five percent were low-income students, and 39 percent were first-generation students. By the end of the 2018 academic year, 21 percent (123 students) had changed their academic program/major.
  
  The college adopted a college success course in 2015. Each academic division offers a division-specific college success course for students seeking a degree in the academic area. The College Success Course for Health Sciences (CSHS1000) routinely offers twenty-two sections each fall term. The success rate of 67 percent represents students who completed the course with a grade of “C” or better. Success rates for Black and Hispanic students were 51 percent and 60 percent respectively, while White students’ success rate was 68 percent, significantly higher than underrepresented minority students. In addition, 61 percent of the students were academically underprepared upon entering the course, and 61 percent were low-income students.

  Read more about Chattanooga State Community College’s work here.
  

Campus Spotlight: Defining Project Goals

• Miami Dade College: Defining Project Goals in Alignment with the 4th Pillar

  During the Conceptualize phase, Miami Dade College defined its project goals based on an intended student learning outcome; assessment of workforce readiness; high-impact, applied learning experiences; and leveraging of institutional resources and stakeholders. The project team considered the core elements of the Ensure Students Are Learning pillar, and set intentional project goals to prompt positive student outcomes within the chosen pathway. See defined project goals below:

  Identified Pathway: School of Justice – Criminal Justice Associate in Science Degree

  Student Learning Outcome: Written Communication

  Defined Project Goals:

  • Coordinate teaching practices & learning supports to increase student mastery of learning outcome.
  • Embed common written assignments and rubrics in 6 pathway courses.
  • Infuse writing-to-learn strategies:
    • Compose academic, discipline, and career-specific writing
    • Explore and demonstrate student career knowledge through written responses to applied learning experiences
    • Assess and evaluate workforce readiness based on student performance in selected learning outcome
    • Low-stakes reflective writing on cocurricular activities
  • Put data at the center and seek equity through disaggregated student data analysis.
  • Leverage resources within current infrastructures (academic writing coaches, writing tutors, communities of interest), and institutional commitment to project goals (executive leadership, academic affairs, student affairs, institutional research, and the Center for Institutional and Organizational Learning).
    

Key Takeaways

• Assessing Campus Team Readiness

  • Complete CCRC’s Scale of Adoption Self-Assessment tool to help your team determine readiness based on existing levels of engagement with the pillars of the Guided Pathways model.
  • Complete a campus baseline inventory to take stock of existing practices, implementation of the five components of the Ensure Students Are Learning pillar, and equity and assessment gaps at your institution.

• Identifying a Pathway(s)

  • When choosing a pathway(s), consider disaggregated data analysis and what previous assessment results have highlighted.
  • Chosen pathways should have both an academic and equity rationale behind them.
  • Look for a pathway(s) that reveals gaps in equity and assessment.

• Defining Project Goals

  • Consider how defined outcome goals integrate all five components of the Ensure Students Are Learning pillar.
  • Revisit these defined outcome goals throughout the process to ensure forward progress.

• Forming a Project Team

  • Choose team members who reflect the diversity of your institution; choose influential members and change agents on campus.
  • Try to include a pathway faculty member, an academic dean, an IR or assessment staff member, a campus administrator, and a community employer.

• Considering Equity and Equity-Mindedness

  • At the forefront of your efforts should be consideration of equity and practicing equity-mindedness.
  • Ensure that your team has a clear understanding of what it means to practice equity-mindedness at an institutional level.
  • Utilize the provided resources to understand equity-minded practices and how to create equity-driven change at every level.