Program empowers students at Chaffey College
RANCHO CUCAMONGA - Chaffey College has started training its staff for a campuswide effort to change the way students approach education.
Chaffey's Learning to Learn effort - funded by a $3.2million Title V Hispanic-serving Institutions federal grant - will make it the first college in the nation to implement the learning and retention system designed to reach an entire population of a community college through a three-part initiative, according to Chaffey officials. The program was designed by educational consultant Marcia Heiman.
"One of the things we've seen over time is the level of preparedness of college students has decreased, and students don't know how to study or connect with their native learning abilities and employ those as part of a learning strategy," said Laura Hope, Chaffey's dean of instructional support.
Chaffey's Learning to Learn effort - funded by a $3.2million Title V Hispanic-serving Institutions federal grant - will make it the first college in the nation to implement the learning and retention system designed to reach an entire population of a community college through a three-part initiative, according to Chaffey officials. The program was designed by educational consultant Marcia Heiman.
"One of the things we've seen over time is the level of preparedness of college students has decreased, and students don't know how to study or connect with their native learning abilities and employ those as part of a learning strategy," said Laura Hope, Chaffey's dean of instructional support.
"And so Learning to Learn attempts to connect those innate tendencies that we have toward learning and apply them to a formal academic setting."
The goal is to have every faculty member of Chaffey College - which has campuses in Chino, Fontana and Rancho Cucamonga - trained within five years, which is how long the grant will last.
In return, every student on campus, not just Latino students or first-generation college attendees, will benefit from the program.
The results of Chaffey's effort will respond to President Barack Obama's call for effective innovation in community colleges, Hope said.
In his State of the Union message, Obama said community colleges can be the engine for ensuring a strong economy - but that the low graduation rates endanger the nation's economic future.
The president then called for a doubling of students' graduation rates by 2020, which is well within Chaffey's reach, Hope said.
The first part of Learning to Learn teaches students to tap into their natural strengths and thinking skills and apply them in their studies by asking questions.
"This program is less intimidating for students because it's something that they're natural at," said Cindy Walker, Chaffey's faculty instructional specialist.
"It's like, you already do this, let's show you how you can adapt your natural strategies to your classes."
Walker said she anticipates more students will feel empowered when it comes to their educations because they won't be dependent on a particular instructor or resources, but rather they'll have the thinking skills and strategies internally to help them with their future endeavors.
The second initiative will require Chaffey to expand its supplemental instruction program, in which a student who has been successful in a course helps other students succeed.
Chaffey's supplemental instruction has been focused on just math and science, but now it will expand to accounting, history, computer information systems, English and other subjects.
"So by targeting a cross of disciplines in those areas ... instead of having a 60 percent success rate, we would have a 75 percent success rate, and that would help out our completion agenda for graduation," Hope said.
The third component of Chaffey's effort will be achieved with the help of its Success Centers, which are academic support centers on every campus.
Hope said counselors in the community colleges are strapped at a ratio of 1,200 students to one counselor. To help combat the problem, the college has developed a program for people who are working on a degree in counseling to help support students in their progress toward the identification of their educational goals, Hope said.
This will entail the apprentices assisting students on having an educational plan, learning how to take advantage of the technology used for transfers, and ultimately transferring to four-year colleges and universities, Hope said.
"Those hired apprentices will be housed in our Success Centers and will be supporting that completion effort goal and then run supplemental instruction sessions to help promote study strategies," she said.
Because staff members are teaching each other how to implement Learning to Learn, Hope said, even after the grant funds are gone, Chaffey will still be able to sustain the program.
In addition, she said, with the supplemental instruction "when students participate in the class, the law allows Chaffey to collect apportionment for those activities, so in essence that generates revenue."
And the same is true for the counseling apprentices.
Chaffey built a system that is not just about cost, but about the development of revenue and generating resources, Hope said.
The goal is to have every faculty member of Chaffey College - which has campuses in Chino, Fontana and Rancho Cucamonga - trained within five years, which is how long the grant will last.
In return, every student on campus, not just Latino students or first-generation college attendees, will benefit from the program.
The results of Chaffey's effort will respond to President Barack Obama's call for effective innovation in community colleges, Hope said.
In his State of the Union message, Obama said community colleges can be the engine for ensuring a strong economy - but that the low graduation rates endanger the nation's economic future.
The president then called for a doubling of students' graduation rates by 2020, which is well within Chaffey's reach, Hope said.
The first part of Learning to Learn teaches students to tap into their natural strengths and thinking skills and apply them in their studies by asking questions.
"This program is less intimidating for students because it's something that they're natural at," said Cindy Walker, Chaffey's faculty instructional specialist.
"It's like, you already do this, let's show you how you can adapt your natural strategies to your classes."
Walker said she anticipates more students will feel empowered when it comes to their educations because they won't be dependent on a particular instructor or resources, but rather they'll have the thinking skills and strategies internally to help them with their future endeavors.
The second initiative will require Chaffey to expand its supplemental instruction program, in which a student who has been successful in a course helps other students succeed.
Chaffey's supplemental instruction has been focused on just math and science, but now it will expand to accounting, history, computer information systems, English and other subjects.
"So by targeting a cross of disciplines in those areas ... instead of having a 60 percent success rate, we would have a 75 percent success rate, and that would help out our completion agenda for graduation," Hope said.
The third component of Chaffey's effort will be achieved with the help of its Success Centers, which are academic support centers on every campus.
Hope said counselors in the community colleges are strapped at a ratio of 1,200 students to one counselor. To help combat the problem, the college has developed a program for people who are working on a degree in counseling to help support students in their progress toward the identification of their educational goals, Hope said.
This will entail the apprentices assisting students on having an educational plan, learning how to take advantage of the technology used for transfers, and ultimately transferring to four-year colleges and universities, Hope said.
"Those hired apprentices will be housed in our Success Centers and will be supporting that completion effort goal and then run supplemental instruction sessions to help promote study strategies," she said.
Because staff members are teaching each other how to implement Learning to Learn, Hope said, even after the grant funds are gone, Chaffey will still be able to sustain the program.
In addition, she said, with the supplemental instruction "when students participate in the class, the law allows Chaffey to collect apportionment for those activities, so in essence that generates revenue."
And the same is true for the counseling apprentices.
Chaffey built a system that is not just about cost, but about the development of revenue and generating resources, Hope said.
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