There are two approaches; (1) GE 101/100, or (2) a network of connections and directions to career and educational planning. Jefferson –DT uses the GE 101 approach, but the connection to career pathway planning outside is not structured. Valencia, however, uses both academic success classes and LifeMap. Without the equivalent of LifeMap resources a structured outside of an academic success course approach is hard to imagine. When you look at the learning outcomes (below) for career and educational planning, it is not hard to see the difficulty of providing the desired results. Keep in mind that what we are talking about is a “developmental advising system designed to increase students' social and academic integration, education and career plans, and study and life skills.”

 

The two most significant and well-replicated effects of the first-year seminar have been on two important student outcomes: (a) retention (persistence) and (b) academic performance (achievement). (Cuseo)

 

A career pathway should be developmental at every entry point, as well as at every stage along the series of steps to a student’s career pathway goal(s). Developmental in the following definition does not refer only to underprepared students under placement policy. “DEVELOPMENTAL: The program is delivered in a timely, longitudinal sequence that meets student needs and educational challenges which emerge at different stages of the college experience.” – Joe Cuseo.  

 

Reading Academic Success Division / GE 101

Jefferson Community and Technical College recognizes that faculty advisors do not have the time to meet all the learner needs for life/career/educational planning. Under the NEXUS Career and Educational Planning Pathway, referral to life/career/educational providers and services by faculty, staff, and advisors becomes as important as the advising knowledge and skills they possess.

Students who choose to take an academic success course (ex. GE 101) or are required to take an academic success course will receive life, career, and educational planning guidance, counseling, and instruction through the partnership between the academic success course and the CREW Center working collaboratively with other students.

http://www.oocities.org/jccadjunct/nexuswebchart.htm

Why can’t faculty alone to meet all the learner needs for life/career/educational planning? Look at what is entailed for decent planning:

GE 101 learning outcomes (it’s not as easy as asking, what are your interests.

·        The learner will be able to identify characteristics of their personalities .

    • Performance will be satisfactory if:
    • The learner can explain their temperaments.

·        The learner will be able to explain the relationship between their personality and their career choices .

    • Performance will be satisfactory if:
    • The learner can explain the relationship between their personality and their career choice.

·        The learner will be able to identify their perferredlearning styles

 .

·        The learner will be able to explain the relationship between their posible learning styles and career .

Then you have your Educational Planning

 

Valencia Community College’s Developmental Advising Model - STAGE 2:  INTRODUCTION TO COLLEGE – gives us a good look at the necessary steps of a education and career plan in a career pathway that should interface with developmental advising and education in a career pathway. Valencia’s Stage 2 should be in effect be a model at all stages in a career pathway.

This stage covers the period from when the student makes application to Valencia as a degree-seeking student to their completion of 15 credit hours.

Outcome:

Students make academic and social connections and successfully complete their first year course work at Valencia Community College.

Performance Indicator:

1.      Students research and select a career path.

2.      Students demonstrate persistence in enrollment and at least 75% successful completion of course work.

3.      Students establish and update an educational plan.

4.      Students who begin college preparatory course work make significant progress towards completing the college prep sequence.

5.      Students are prepared to enter/continue college level course work.

6.      Students participate in campus and collegewide event and activities.

Guiding Principles:

1.      “Front-loading” programs for new students will increase their success in college.

2.      New students who enroll in Student Success (SLS1122) (GE 101) have better success in college as demonstrated by research that shows higher semester completion rates, higher enrollment for the next session, and higher number of credits completed.

3.      Students who have career and educational plans early in their college experience will have more success in college.

4.      Students who make social connections with faculty and peers early in their college experience will have more success in college.

5.      The more that Valencia can “de-mystify” the college experience so that it is explicit to new students “what they should do when”, the more new students will be successful in college.

6.      Technology systems that allow students to get information on career and educational programs, and to conduct business with Valencia easily (registration, address changes, fee payment, etc.) will result in increased student success in college.

7.      Financial aid programs that assist students with college expenses will increase the number of students who can attend college and complete their educational goals

The LifeMap Connection at Valencia:

LifeMap is Valencia 's name for our developmental advising system designed to increase students' social and academic integration, education and career plans, and study and life skills.

LifeMap is a student's guide to figuring out "what to do when" in order to complete their career and education goals. LifeMap links all of the components of Valencia (faculty, staff, courses, technology, programs, services) into a personal itinerary to help students succeed in their college experience.

The LifeMap program at Valencia Community College (FL) provides developmental advising that supports student planning (for education, career, and life) and aims to strengthen students’ self-confidence and decision-making skills. Developmental advising refers to the process of making students self-sufficient. Faculty and staff are students’ advising partners, providing significant information and support initially. The expectation, however, is that as students gain experience they will increasingly take the lead in defining and implementing their educational and career goals until, ultimately, they are completely directing their own learning process.

 

Relating to Career Exploration

“Because of dramatically increased student interest in career outcomes of higher education and uncertainty about academic advising and career planning services available to them, it becomes increasingly important for advisors maintain current knowledge of career‑related issues. The choice of a major, career exploration, and placement activities are not discrete functions. They are parts of a continuous process. Traditional advising for course selection and sequencing is based on the erroneous assumption that a student has made a reasoned decision and is committed to the specific major. Rather, many students suffer from indecision when it comes to choosing a major. In other words, it is impossible to separate advising from exploring life goals, career goals, and educational goals. The selection of a major/minor, the selections of appropriate classes, and designing an effective semester schedule are a part of realizing life goals, academic advising becomes increasingly crucial for student success and retention.”

“Advisors who first encourage students to consider larger questions about educational and career goals and then help students plan their courses of study share responsibility for advising with students. As students frame questions about the future and seek the information they need to formulate answers, they practice behavior useful in future personal and professional situations.” http://salc.wsu.edu/Advising/AdvisingManual/Intro/AcademicAdvisingForStudent.htm

 

“Advisors who first encourage students to consider larger questions about educational and career goals and then help students plan their courses of study share responsibility for advising with students. As students frame questions about the future and seek the information they need to formulate answers, they practice behavior useful in future personal and professional situations.” http://salc.wsu.edu/Advising/AdvisingManual/Intro/AcademicAdvisingForStudent.htm

 

“Tinto (1993) noted that indecision with regard to career goals, an output variable, is one of the factors that may influence student retention, an outcome variable.  Tinto suggested that prolonged career uncertainty by students leads them to call into question the reasons for their continued presence on campus (Tinto, 1993).  Sounding a similar theme, Noel, Levitz, and Saluri (1984, p. 12) summarized the matter this way:  “My experience indicates that the second major theme of attrition, uncertainty about what to study, is the most frequent reason talented students give for dropping out of college.”

 

“Advisors who facilitate assimilation to college understand factors affecting freshmen's fit and persistence. They share responsibility for advising with students and begin educational and career planning. Perceptive advisors encourage all students in transition to focus first on exploring life, career, and educational goals. Then students in transition seem better equipped to select educational programs, choose courses, and schedule classes (Tinto 1987).”

What does research tell us?
Vincent Tinto in his famous “Taking Student Retention Seriously: Rethinking the First Year of College” made two points that serve as the basis of Jefferson Community and Technical college’s NEXUS Career and Educational Pathway.

First,
“Retention research tells us that students are more likely to persist and graduate in settings that take advising seriously; that provide clear, consistent, and easily accessible information about institutional requirements, that help students understand the roadmap to completion, and help them understand how they use that roadmap to decide upon and achieve personal goals.”

Second,
“Frequency and quality of contact with faculty, staff, and students has repeatedly been shown to be an independent predictor of student persistence. Simply put, involvement matters and at no point does it matter more than during the first year when student attachments are so tenuous and the pull of the institution so weak.”

Further research supports the need for a strong program of career and educational planning in the college.

-Astin states that
Research indicates that prolonged indecision about an academic major and career goals is correlated with student attrition.

Levitz and Noel found lack of certainty about a major and/or career to be the number-one reason cited by high-ability students for their decision to drop out of college.

Joe Cuseo’s review of the literature shows that “Effective advising can exert appreciable impact on student retention through its salutary influence on students educational and career planning and decision-making.”

Tinto again,
Advisors who facilitate assimilation to college understand factors affecting freshmen's fit and persistence. They share responsibility for advising with students and begin educational and career planning. Perceptive advisors encourage all students in transition to focus first on exploring life, career, and educational goals. Then students in transition seem better equipped to select educational programs, choose courses, and schedule classes

Astin, Terenzini, Pascarella and Lorang and Tinto’s research indicates that frequent and meaningful contact with faculty members, especially contact focusing on intellectual or career-related issues, seems to increase students' involvement and motivation.

Developmental academic advising is a systemic process based on a close student-advisor relationship intended to aid students in achieving educational, career and personal goals through the utilization of institutional and community resources.

Wyckoff’s findings are significant -
“Retention research suggests that student commitment to educational and career goals is perhaps the strongest factor associated with student persistence to degree completion.”

Joe Cuseo has found that It is reasonably safe to say that there has been more well-conducted research on, and more compelling empirical gathered in support of the first-year seminar than any other course offered in the history of higher education. The two most significant and well-replicated effects of the first-year seminar have been on two important student outcomes: (a) retention (persistence) and (b) academic performance (achievement).

Joe Cuseo further found that a strong case can be made that academic advising exerts a significant impact on student retention through its positive association with, and mediation of, variables that are strongly correlated with student persistence, namely: effective educational and career planning and decision making.

 

What are the learning outcomes of academic success courses?

(1) promoting curriculum development,

(2) stimulating instructional development of the faculty,

(3) building campus community and promoting professional partnerships across different divisions or units of the college,

(4) promoting positive perceptions of students among faculty and staff,

(5) enhancing institutional awareness and knowledge among faculty, staff, and students,

(6) sparking new students’ enthusiasm for and commitment to their institution,

(7) increasing student utilization of campus support services and participation in campus life,

(8) increasing student satisfaction with the institution,

(9) facilitating students’ selection of a college major and rate of progress toward degree completion,

(10) enhancing college marketing and student recruitment,

(11) enhancing enrollment management and institutional revenue,

(12) early identification of first-term students who may be academically “at risk,”

(13) serving a vehicle for gathering assessment data on students at college entry,

(14) promoting greater gains in student development from college entry to college completion.

 

 

JCC DATA:

FYE  (GE 101) data (fall 2000 – spring 2001):
Of the fall 2000 GE 101 students (includes all campuses) who succeeded (letter grade A-C), 92% returned the following semester.
Of the fall 2000 GE 101 students (this includes students who passed, failed, withdrew, or received a making progress grade, 77% returned the following semester.

 

DEVELOPMENTAL READING (RDG 020) (fall 2000 – spring 2001):
Of the fall 2000 RDG 020 students (includes all campuses) who succeeded (letter grade A-C), 94% returned the following semester.
Of the fall 2000 GE 101 students (this includes students who passed, failed, withdrew, or received a making progress grade, 74% returned the following semester.

 

LaGuardia Community College:

 1) The college has a 92% within-semester retention rate and 80% semester-to-semester rate for 2002-2003.

2) For 2001-2002, the fall-to-fall semester retention rate was 65 percent.

First year programs thus concentrate on two major goals: 

a) fostering academic success among developmental and ESL students, and

b) creating a sense of community and connectedness to the College among a highly diverse group of commuting students

New Student Seminar.  The College requires new students to take a freshman orientation course, the New Student Seminar, designed to provide students with the knowledge and skills they need to be successful in college. New Student Seminar is also incorporated in to freshman learning communities, including New Student House.

 

Valencia Community College:

Student Success Course. Valencia’s three-credit Student Success course helps more than 4,200 students annually develop career goals and educational plans, identify learning styles, build academic skills, and connect with college resources. The course is designed and delivered by faculty and student services teams. It has resulted in significant improvement in retention. The percentage of Valencia first time in college students who return for the next major session has increased from 58% in 1988 to 79% in 2004.

 

”Muskingum Area Technical College: For 2002-2003, the college reports a 98% within-quarter retention rate, a 95% quarter-to-quarter retention rate, and a 56% fall-quarter to- fall-quarter retention rate.”
”Muskingum Area Technical College (MATC) in Zanesville, Ohio serves 1,900-2,000 learners annually in rural Appalachian Ohio. In the mid-to late 1990s, MATC's persistence rates were lower than national averages, and only one-fourth of its students were graduating within five years of their first enrollment. In fall 2000, the college began offering a required orientation course as part of its increased focus on the first year student experience. The course content grew out of students' comments regarding challenges and barriers they face; non-returning students' statements concerning factors that led to their withdrawal from college; and national models.”

 

"A fiscal advantage of the first-year seminar is that it is a cost-effective program to run. For instance, cost/benefit analysis conducted by the Office of Finance at the University of South Carolina has revealed that for every $1.00 used to support the first-year seminar program, $5.36 was generated in return (Gardner, 1981). Similarly, at Bible Baptist College (Missouri), it has been reported that $5.10 is directly returned to the college in tuition dollars for every dollar invested in their college success course (cited in Barefoot et al., 1998).

 

“One promising curricular vehicle through which advisors may be given the opportunity to engage their advisees in meaningful long-range educational planning is the first-year seminar. Presently, 20% of institutions offering first-year seminars have arranged for students to be placed into sections of the course that are taught by their academic advisors (National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience, 2003), thus ensuring regular advisor-advisee contact during the critical first term of college. Other institutions have built assignments into the first-year seminar that require students to meet with their academic advisors to engage in long-term educational planning and decision-making.” (Cuseo, in press).

 

Summary of Results from the 2003 National Survey on First-Year Seminars:

771 colleges completed surveys

 

Of those 522 schools whose seminars count for academic credit:
49.5% offer seminars carrying 1 semester/quarter hour of credit
13.2% offer seminars carrying 2 semester/quarter hours of credit
31.2% offer seminars carrying 3 semester/quarter hours of credit

*The Trend is toward 3 hour credit

 

57.3% of schools allow seminar to apply towards general education requirements

 

46.8% of institutions require their first-year seminars for ALL first-year students

33.3% of institutions indicate that the seminar is required for some, but not all, students

*The trend is toward required for LL first-year students

 

18.3% indicate that approximate class size for their seminar sections is 15 or fewer students
36.1% indicate that approximate class size for their seminar sections is 16-20 students

33.7% indicate that approximate class size for their seminar sections is 21-25 students

 

46.2% of institutions administer their seminars directly through the office of academic affairs

20.8% of institutions administer their seminars directly through the office of student affairs
15.9% of institutions administer their seminars directly through academic departments

 

24.8% of institutions report linking first-year seminars to one or more other courses

 

89.9% indicate that faculty members teach their first-year seminars
45.2% indicate that student affairs professionals teach their first-year seminars

*Note. Percentages add up to more that 100% because several schools use teachers from multiple categories.

 

30.4% indicate that they offer sections in which the instructor is also the students' academic advisor.

 

39.3% of institutions report using teams to teach their seminars

 

Respondents who had performed a formal program evaluation since Fall 2000 were asked to select all applicable results that could be attributed to the first-year seminar.
58.9% report increased persistence to sophomore year

58.4% report improved student connections with peers

51.2% report increased use of campus services
50.6% report increased student satisfaction with the institution
45.0% report increased out-of-class faculty/student interaction
41.6% report increased level of student participation in student activities
36.0% report increased academic abilities
31.1% report increased student satisfaction with faculty
26.7% report improved grade-point-averages

18.3% report increased persistence to graduation

 

“Recent, large-scale support for first-year seminars is provided by the National Survey of Student Engagement (2005), which included responses from more than 80,000 first-year students. Results of this Web-based survey revealed that, relative to students who did not participate in a first-year seminar, course participants reported that they: (a) were more challenged academically, (b) were more likely to engage in active and collaborative learning activities, (c) interacted more frequently with faculty, (d) perceived the campus environment as being more supportive, (e) gained more from their first year of college, and (f) were more satisfied with the college experience. It was also found that, relative to students who only participated in orientation but not a first-year seminar, course participants reported greater engagement, satisfaction and developmental gains in the following areas: (a) academic advising or planning, (b) career advising or planning, (c) financial aid advising, (d) academic assistance, (e) academic challenge, (f), active and collaborative learning, and (g) student-faculty interaction (National Survey of Student Engagement, 2005).”

 

A national survey of more than 1,000 institutions was conducted under the auspices of ACT, in which chief academic officers were asked to identify three campus retention practices that had the greatest impact on student retention. The reported practice that ranked first in terms of having greatest impact on student retention was a “freshman seminar/university 101 course for credit” (Habley & McClanahan, 2004).

 

In a more recent synthesis, which reviews research published after their original volume in 1991, Pascarella and Terenzini (2005) reach a similar conclusion:

 

     With rare exceptions they {first-year seminars} produce uniformly consistent evidence of positive and statistically significant advantages to students who take the courses. Some of this evidence comes from studies in which participant and nonparticipant groups are “matched” on various combinations of precollege characteristics. These studies consistently find that FYS

[first-year seminar] participation promotes persistence into the second year and over longer periods of time. More recent studies employ various multivariate statistical procedures to control for academic ability and achievement and other precollege characteristics. Whatever the procedure, the research points to the same conclusion, indicating positive and statistically

significant net effect of FYS participation versus nonparticipation on persistence into the second year or attainment of a bachelor’s degree. In short, the weight of evidence indicates that FYS participation has statistically significant and substantial, positive effects on a student’s successful transition to college and the likelihood of persistence into the second year as well is on academic performance while in college and on a considerable array of other college experiences known to be related directly and indirectly to bachelor’s degree completion (pp.400-401 & 402-403) .

 

Consistent with Pascarella and Terenzini’s critical reviews of the literature is the conclusion drawn by Hunter and Linder (2005)—based on their review of research on first-year seminars published in the Journal The First-year Experience and Students in Transition and in three volumes of studies published as monographs by the National Resource Center at the University of South Carolina (Barefoot, 1993; Barefoot et al., 1998; Tobolowski, 2005):

 

     The overwhelming majority of first-year seminar research has shown that these courses positively affect retention, grade point average, number of credit hours attempted and completed, graduation rates, student involvement in campus activities, and student attitudes and perceptions of higher education, as well as faculty development and methods of instruction (p. 288).