Key Benefits and Expectations

Participation

Participating colleges will create teams to participate in two off-site training events and several webinars. Colleges should seek out full-time personnel interested in being part of a national collaborative of educators pursuing new approaches to teaching and supporting DE students. An initial start-up team of six will include a college leader in academics, a college leader in student support, and a combination of DE and student success course instructors. The scaled-up team will include the initial six participants, plus 4-6 additional faculty members willing to begin their own learning communities.

Implementation

Colleges will be expected to integrate the curriculum for at least four pairs of courses that will be offered as a learning community. Two learning community designs will pair a student success course with a DE course. Other course pairings will be at the discretion of the college, but should focus on DE courses or college-level courses which DE students most often matriculate into. Initial faculty will be expected to serve in a mentoring role to the new faculty from their institution joining the initiative during the scaling phase.

Coaching

GtCNN will provide a coach who will make two visits to each college to assist faculty in making their designs a reality. Colleges will be expected to provide participating faculty with any release time needed to participate in these visits and to budget for collaborative planning time as needed.

Program Evaluation and Reporting

GtCNN will evaluate the effectiveness of the initiative. Participating colleges are required to take part in aspects of the evaluation, and to submit a brief final report that documents the use of grant funds, summarizes implementation successes and challenges, and outlines the feasibility of expanding the initiative on their campus.