Monday, March 18, 2024
The RP Group

Student Support (Re)defined

Student Support (Re)defined

Student Support (Re)defined (2011-2014) aimed to understand — from the student perspective — how community colleges can feasibly deliver support both inside and outside the classroom to improve success for all students.

The project sparked a movement across our California Community College system, with institutions using the findings to facilitate dialog about student success; engage in strategic and equity planning, and pursue actions designed to meaningfully strengthen student attainment.

Is your college interested in learning more about the work of Student Support (Re)defined and/or using the study’s findings to support student success initiatives on your campus?

All options are listed with a time range and can be customized to meet the needs of the college and audience. In addition, the RP Group is open to exploring new ideas for how to present the information in ways that help ensure it is applicable and useful.

For questions or more information, please download this flier or contact research@rpgroup.org.

  • Objective/Benefit: Attendees will gain general understanding of the "Six Success Factors" and what students say helps them succeed

  • Activity: Lecture

  • Intended Audience Type and Size: All college employees and students, best suited for keynote address/large audiences

  • Length: 30 to 45 minutes

  • Overview/Purpose: An overview of Student Support (Re)defined research findings with a focus on the “Six Success Factors” framework established through this study. If equity is the desired focus, we can present the unique findings for African-American and Latino students on what helps them be successful.

    The purpose of this lecture is to help all groups on campus understand the fundamentals of the “Six Success Factors” and key findings based on student voices.

  • Objective/Benefit: Attendees will gain deeper understanding of what students from their own college say helps them experience the "Six Success Factors"

  • Activity: Facilitated student panel

  • Intended Audience Type and Size: All college employees, best suited for large audiences, can be combined with lecture described above

  • Length: 45 to 60 minutes

  • Overview/Purpose: A facilitated conversation with a diverse group of student panelists on what has and will help them be successful, focusing specifically on how they have experienced the “Six Success Factors” at the college. After the panel, there will be time for questions from the audience.

    The purpose of this facilitated panel is to foster a deeper understanding among college faculty, staff, and administration based on the students’ collective and individual input, directly.

  • Objective/Benefit: Attendees will share with and learn from each other actual and potential practices faculty can enlist to help students experience the "Six Success Factors" in and out of class

  • Activity: Facilitated discussion

  • Intended Audience Type and Size: All faculty (full-time and part-time), best suited for single small group or large group that can break into smaller discussion groups

  • Length: 45 to 90 minutes

  • Overview/Purpose: A facilitated discussion of a key resource for faculty developed from the study that outlines students’ suggestions on how faculty can support their achievement 10 Ways Faculty Can Support Student Success. Attendees will be invited to share what they already do to support student success and explore new ways they can affect students.

    The purpose of this facilitated discussion is to allow attendees to gain new ideas and inspiration on how they can regularly help students achieve the "Six Success Factors" in their own work.

  • Objective/Benefit: Attendees will share with and learn from each other actual and potential practices anyone at the college regardless of position can enlist to help students experience the "Six Success Factors" outside of class

  • Activity: Facilitated discussion

  • Intended Audience Type and Size: Staff, managers, and/or administrators, best suited for single small group or large group that can break into smaller discussion groups

  • Length: 45 to 90 minutes

  • Overview/Purpose: A facilitated conversation with non-teaching personnel (e.g., classified staff, managers, administrators) about 10 Ways Everyone Can Support Student Success, a resource developed from the study that outlines students’ suggestions on how individuals no matter their role at the college can support their achievement. Attendees will be invited to share what they already do to support student success and explore new ways they can affect students.

    The purpose of this facilitated discussion is to allow attendees to gain new ideas and inspiration on how they can regularly help students achieve the "Six Success Factors" in their own work.

    These sessions can be held with mixed or separate groups depending on the college’s needs.

  • Objective/Benefit: Attendees will identify what helps them experience the "Six Success Factors" in their work at the college and what may be missing that could help improve their experience with the success factors

  • Activity: Facilitated discussion

  • Intended Audience Type and Size: All college employees, best suited for large groups that can break into smaller discussion groups

  • Length: 45 to 90 minutes

  • Overview/Purpose: A facilitated discussion with faculty, staff, and administrators on what they need in order to be successful in their work and improve their relationships with their colleagues and the institution and how the "Six Success Factors" apply to meeting these needs. In our work with several colleges related to Student Support (Re)defined, we have come to realize that the study’s "Six Success Factors" apply not only to the students’ own success, but the success of the practitioners serving students. These success factors have the potential to assist in practitioners’ personal and professional growth, empowering them to support student success and improving their relationships with their colleagues as well as the institution as a whole.

    The purpose of this workshop is to explore with the college’s faculty, staff, and administrators how the "Six Success Factors" from Student Support (Re)defined can be applied to them and their work with students.

    This exploration occurs through interactive activities designed to make the factors personal and help the attendees see how these factors can impact their students’ progress and success as well as their own, thereby impacting the culture of the institution as a whole.

    To conclude, we will discuss the institution’s role in helping all of its employees experience these success factors and identify next steps at the individual, program/department, division, and institutional levels.

  • Objective/Benefit: Attendees will learn about the connections between Student Support (Re)defined and Completion by Design, and how to apply these findings in their work

  • Activity: Combined lecture and facilitated discussion

  • Intended Audience Type and Size: All college employees, best suited for large groups that can break into smaller discussion groups

  • Length: 90 to 120 minutes

  • Overview/Purpose: An overview of Student Support (Re)defined’s "Six Success Factors" and Completion by Design’s pathway principles and what they mean for students’ success followed by a facilitated discussion on the common messages and implications from the two projects.

    The purpose of this presentation is to share the key findings from two projects with a focus on results that have implications for the college’s pathways efforts. This presentation is interactive in nature, with the intent of engaging participants in a conversation about how to apply the findings in their work to implement their pathways plan.

    This session can also be augmented with:

    • A student panel where students are asked questions related to the Completion by Design’s Loss/Momentum Framework and Student Support (Re)defined’s Six Success Factors.

    • A discussion on the implications the success factors and pathway principles have for the three primary components of the intake process: assessment/placement, orientation, and education planning/counseling.1

 


1 Student Support Services and Programs (SSSP) in California
  • Objective/Benefit: Attendees will gain insights into the characteristics and practices of colleges that have a culture of student success

  • Activity: Brief lecture combined with facilitated discussion

  • Intended Audience Type and Size: All college employees and board of trustees, best suited for large groups that can break into smaller discussion groups

  • Length: 60 to 120 minutes

  • Overview/Purpose: Discussion of a key theme from Student Support (Re)defined: everyone at the college has a role to play in student success. Focusing specifically on how this theme relates directly to building a student-centered institutional culture, this discussion explores examples from colleges across the country that have established a culture of student success. Attendees will then engage in a conversation of what they believe constitutes a culture of student success, what the college is currently doing to support faculty and staff in the creation and/or maintenance of this culture, and how these efforts could be strengthened.

    The purpose of this lecture is to help attendees gain insights into the characteristics and practices of colleges that have a culture of student success.

  • Objective/Benefit: Through an extended and intensive engagement, attendees will develop insights about how faculty, staff, and administrators can help students and each other experience the “Six Success Factors,” and what the institution needs to do to facilitate that experience for all stakeholders at the college

  • Activity: Four to five day-long interactive workshops delivered over the course of a semester where on each day one workshop is offered multiple times to 3-4 different groups

  • Intended Audience Type and Size: All college employees, best suited for large groups that can break into smaller discussion groups

  • Length: Each workshop session is 2 hours in length

  • Overview/Purpose: A combination of two to four workshops listed above combined with a culminating workshop presented through a semester-long series. The advantage of presenting these workshops over time is that attendees have time in between each workshop to process what they have learned and then apply it in their work.

    The purpose of these interactive workshops is to allow attendees to gain hands-on, in-depth insights and understanding about the role each one can play in facilitating student success through students and the “Six Success Factors.”

    At each workshop, the experiences and ideas of attendees are collected and then presented to college leadership in the form of reports summarizing the overarching themes and key findings. The culminating workshop is then designed in partnership with college leadership based on the findings from the previous workshops and the college’s needs.