2. AgileGrad: The Advising & Alerts
Lone Star for a Two-Year College
Dave Knapp, Associate Director of Advising & Career Services
Christina Choi, Student Completion Coach
Whatcom Community College
July 28, 2015
3. OPENING
• Introduction
• Whatcom, Bellingham and higher ed in
the Pacific Northwest
• About WCC – Founded in 1967
• 11,000 annual headcount
• 6,500 quarterly headcount, 4,100 FTE
• 900+ Running Start (high school)
• 250+ Int’l Students from ~30 countries
• 250+ Veterans
• 81% transfer & 19% professional technical
4. OPENING
• Learning Objectives
• How AgileGrad works for students
• How to create degree templates and
monitor course demand forecast
• How to track and manage Early Alert
interventions in Retain
7. AAS - DTA IN WASHINGTON
• 31 community colleges, 6 public
baccalaureates, 1 “Direct Transfer
Agreement” to rule them all
• DTA requirements:
» ENGL& 101
» 2nd composition
» Communications class
» Quantitative/Symbolic reasoning class after Int. Algebra
» 2 disciplines in each distribution; Hum, Social Sci, Math/Sci
» Writing intensive, Global Studies, Diversity Studies, (Environmental) Sustainability
» 15 credits for ‘residency’
» Performance – No more than 5 in distribution, the rest in Electives
» Activity – No more than 3 PE ‘activity’ courses.
» 90 college-level credits
9. AGILEGRAD – PREPARE FOR A MAJOR
• Example – studio art transfer to WWU
with recommendations
• Art Appreciation
• Drawing I
• 2D & 3D Design
• Western Art: Ancient – 20th Century
• Far Eastern Art History
10. AGILEGRAD – “REQUIRES”
• How we did it – taking options away
• Why we did it – help students understand
what they need
• Improve time to graduation, engagement,
and picking the best classes
14. COURSE DEMAND FORECAST
• As more students build plans, the
college knows which students are
looking for which classes and when
they plan on taking them.
• Gives faculty and departments &
divisions information to plan class
offerings, with more certainty.
18. AGILEGRAD - BUILDING A PLAN
1. Pick a degree
2. Pick a term to start
3. Enter day and time preferences
4. Enter preferences for a specific term.
A.K.A. “the snow schedule”
5. Build a plan and change the plan!
21. EARLY ALERT OVERVIEW
• Web-based survey tool for faculty to identify and
communicate concern about students
experiencing academic and/or attendance
difficulties during the first few weeks of the
quarter.
• Timeline:
• 12th day of the quarter: Survey launch
• Weeks 2-4: Survey is live – students receive
automated support e-mails
• Weeks 3-6: Phone Outreach Team + individual
student appts w/ Student Completion Coach
• Weeks 7-9: Follow-up phone calls/student appts
22. RESULTS
Quantitative Results:
Qualitative Results:
• Main themes: Learning Center, Instructor Connection,
Time Management, Advisor Referrals
• Learning Center Data: Student Successes
Early Alerts:
Fall 2014 Winter 2015 Spring 2015
Attendance: 241 Attendance: 245 Attendance: 263
Academic: 395 Academic: 355 Academic: 373
Total: 636 for 429 students Total: 600 for 400 students Total: 636 for 436 students
Faculty Participation:
Fall 2014 Winter 2015 Spring 2015
Participated: 38% Participation: 43% Participation: 45%
Did Not Respond: 62% Did Not Respond: 57% Did Not Respond: 55%
24. SUMMARY & TAKE-AWAY
• AgileGrad for Advisors
• Quality over quantity & accuracy
• AgileGrad for students
• Increased certainty & manageable
decision making
• AgileGrad for the institution
• Anticipating & meeting needs
• Early Alert and 1st Year Campus
Connect (FYE)
• Starting strong & continued support
25. CLOSING
• Dave Knapp, Associate Director of
Advising & Career Services
• dknapp@whatcom.ctc.edu
• @WhatcomDaveK
• Christina Choi, Student Completion
Coach
• cchoi@whatcom.ctc.edu
Editor's Notes
Will include ‘fun facts’ about WCC and Bellingham/Whatcom County
Explain how meeting the transfer degree requirements can take students from WCC (the star) to any of public baccalaureate schools
Poll: Yes or No – For those who earned an Associates degree to transfer, did you meet all of the college-specific graduation requirements, AND take all of the classes you needed to prepare for your Bachelor’s degree major AND do it all in no more than two years?
Poll: Yes or No – For those who earned a Bachelor’s degree, did you chose your major, take all of the major-prep classes, declare your major and stick to it, while satisfying all general requirements and get it done in no more than four years?
[font gets progressively smaller, by design, to illustrate the point of overwhelming minutia of requirements]
[font gets progressively smaller, by design, to illustrate the point of overwhelming minutia of requirements]
Poll: Yes or No – For those who earned an Associates degree to transfer, did you meet all of the college-specific graduation requirements, AND take all of the classes you needed to prepare for your Bachelor’s degree major AND do it all in no more than two years?
Poll: Yes or No – For those who earned a Bachelor’s degree, did you chose your major, take all of the major-prep classes, declare your major and stick to it, while satisfying all general requirements and get it done in no more than four years?
This is supposed to be ugly and impossible to read, from a distance. It conveys how students react to this document; overwhelmed and ‘paralyzed’ by choices, kind of like eating at Buffalo Wild Wings.
Explain how, in addition to meeting the transfer requirements, most BA/BS majors have preparation classes students should take as part of the transfer degree. This, and the three previous slides, illustrate the confusion and difficulty of students figuring all of this out. It then leads to AgileGrad as a tool to help students and advisors manage and navigate.
Here we explain why, although specific classes are not transfer graduation requirements, WCC chose to make it seem like they are. This helps ensure transfer grads are more likely to be major-ready and more likely to be accepted by the unveristy.
Some AgileGrad plans ‘force’ students to make course choices even before the plan is built. This can prompt an advising conversation.
AgileGrad helps with course, demand forecasting. This example shows how there are more students planning on taking ENGL 100 this summer, than we have space for.
AgileGrad offers a visual, for a given class, to get an idea as to other times students may be available.
Image is hyperlinked to AgileGrad for live demonstration
Will bring backup slides/images of demonstration in case of IT catastrophe.
Potentially include screenshots of Retain/AgileGrad Early Alert functions?
Within the timeline, I will elaborate on the specific individual functions of the quarterly Early Alert timeline.
