AAC Online Resources Presentation

Hi,

so I am going to talk to you today about whether or not we are meeting the needs

of our students in the academic achievement center especially

as those have changed in the pandemic world.

Um So the first thing we need to do is talk about the program. So

um a brief description of the context.

So before covid um the academic achievement center was completely

in person resource but during the shutdowns um that obviously had

to change and we became almost entirely online presence with a

skeleton crew um that manned the physical in person campus um

uh Academic achievement center and that was frequented mostly by students

that had to be on campus such as student athletes.

And now in the fall of 2021 we have shifted that um

we're still offering online access but it is not dedicated support.

So before when you logged in you had a person who was only on

zoom uh to work with you and now Um for the most part,

if you log in it will be someone that

is also in the physical academic achievement center.

The exception to this is between the hours of 10 and two Monday through Friday.

Um So they there have been a lot of changes

in um the offerings of the academic achievement center,

the people that are typically served in the academic achievement center

are typically students that are academically um disadvantage not necessarily,

but there does tend to be a group

that needs a little bit more support.

This tends to be our students that are adult students um or continuing

education um are students who are speak english as a second language.

Um students who are also athletes and students with special education diagnoses

and this has to do with a lot of factors,

but one of which is that we house some of

our developmental education courses in the academic achievement center.

Um The supports that we offer,

we offer learning specialists which kind of do anything

that students come in um to the achievement center for

we also

of our reading specialists um these are people that also teach

the developmental reading courses um but help with textbook comprehension.

Um then we have an education specialist and

we have tutors for individual um support.

Um We offer drop in services for all

of those categories um individual tutoring um in for

just the tutors and for the deaf education

specialists offer one on one appointments for that.

Um There are smart starts which kind of helps students get um

a acclimated to campus and that's run by our learning specialists

and then um like areas that are reading specialists

in deaf education specialists offer services as well.

So

um

in addition to that the stage of development that we would be in right now,

I'm going to talk about it kind of into two areas are Logic model is for if we

need to implement um new services but before we do any of that we would need to submit,

we need to have a survey to see if the services that we are currently utilizing um

are offering are being utilized and are being are

effective before we recommend any sort of interventions.

Um but then we would need to have a follow up survey to see if we

have any increase in um the way that

students are responding to and viewing our services.

So this is the logic model here. Um what

we're looking at is this is as if we got the

first survey results back but they were not necessarily positive.

Um and so that would mean what what interventions

we think we could potentially have to be um

uh utilizing here.

So that would be more uh dedicated

online support um which would and potentially adding

individual one on one appointments um for students

for with the learning specialist as well.

Um and this would require a technology support in addition,

um we would need to be tracking some of their participation,

whether students are actually using these services

and what services they are using.

Um and we can track a lot of that through a.

Q campus Loggins,

um both in our online and our physical

academic achievement center through there are scanned IEDs.

So the short term goals obviously would be to make

sure that students who need um support are getting it

and that they have a positive experience with

uh that support so that the services are actually meeting their needs um and that the

students that are in remote settings are getting the support that they need as well.

Um The idea is that the support will increase students

grades um which will also increase students um feelings of empowerment

and long term what we hope will happen is that these

increases will lead to increased persistence

and then therefore graduation rates.

Um and that students graduating from the college will have a positive um

uh experience with the college that they will uh filter into the community

as well as into any sort of exit surveys that we have.

So um the next thing that we need to talk about is the evaluation design.

So um the first thing we need to talk about is the purpose,

so the mission of the college is one of them is to

respond to the needs of our students and community through relevant offerings.

And so the way to do that um is also through through the tutoring center here.

Um and so it's a it's important that we're meeting not just most students needs,

but every students need.

And so in that particularly is important for some

of our disadvantaged populations that the academic achievement center

tends to serve and those populations tend to be

more at risk also when they are online,

only

the type of um evaluation that we would do would be a

formative evaluation because the academic achievement

center is an ongoing um process,

right?

It's it's been in progress.

So this would be formative um more than

they and monitoring because things have been changing.

So we need to see if those um if those changes are positive um

find the strengths and weaknesses of those

of those changes and make adjustments accordingly.

Um And I would say that our approach would be a developmental

evaluation approach um in that we are looking for um empowering learning

for us and for um the staff members um for making continuous

improvement and refinement to the services that are offered as well.

So the stakeholders um there's three main groups here.

We've got administration staff and students.

The administration is important um in that they're making the decisions.

This would be the board.

Um This would be our Dean of Academic Support and

our director um would be the main main players there.

The staff would be all the groups that I mentioned before.

Learning specialist reading specialist,

deaf education specialist sent tutors and then the students would

be in the um the general group of students,

but particularly in those subgroups,

we want to make sure that they are being served as well.

So in order to get their feedback, um get their buy in.

We would need to have a representative board um

that would have students um students on it,

hopefully students from at least one um

of those demographics.

So adult students ap students, special education students and student athletes.

Um Student would be nice to have have a representative of

each one or people that that identifies more than one?

Um staff a learning specialist,

reading specialist tutor and the deaf education specialist.

And then our director should serve on this board as well. The

it would be nice to have more administrative support but it would be a problem

as far as um getting getting honest feedback because if we bring in the Dean,

if we bring in someone from the board that might

be something that would hinder um some transparency there.

So the board's role would be um in

the planning process in evaluating the logic model,

evaluating what outcomes um what activities and inputs we're gonna put in um

in order and that would obviously be done after doing that pre survey.

Um And then making sure we have evaluated the survey

to make sure

that it is asking what we're what we want

to ask um and that there's nothing overlooked.

And then of course reflecting afterwards on the data um and making sure that

that data um is reported out and that something is done with that data.

Um So then the evaluation questions I have three um obviously the board would weigh

in on these but um one would be when getting help in the A.

C. Do students feel comfortable asking for help?

Feel confident in the help that they have received and feel that

the help is making impact on their grades on their overall outcomes.

Um Is it meeting the needs of the river of diverse learners? And is the A.

C adequately accessible? Is the the times that students need the A. C. Is it open?

Um And I think it's important to look at these both in person and online so that

there is a contrasting variable here so we can

see not only what what we're doing but if

if we're meeting it on both ends

um there.

Um So that's the evaluation design

the data collection. So

we would need to look at this as far as methods.

The method that I would choose would be an online survey.

This would be something that could be sent to

students after they have logged in um to the

academic achievement center so that we're getting students that

actually have experience with the academic achievement center.

It could also be something that are staff is um encouraging students to do.

I would recommend that once students take the survey they get um some sort of um

rewards such as like a free drink at the cafeteria or something something small.

Um But also something that could just be auto generated to

their email so that we can continue to have anonymity.

Um And that way we also wouldn't need an I. R. B.

The um

online is also important to know that we are getting the online

only students as well as not just the physical and persons students.

I would recommend doing a stratified sample so that we are not only getting

um a randomized selection but we are also making sure that that selection is

equally representative of the students that we serve.

So for serving um you know 25% student athletes

that we need to make sure that there's a 25%

representation of student athletes there.

Of course the limitation of this is also that students

who have never used the services services of the A.

C. Are not represented and obviously those are students that we

I also want to represent but I think for

the purposes of this evaluation we have to just narrow

it in on students who are actually using the services

and that could be a question for another day.

Um So as far as the relationship to the evaluation questions,

the survey itself that I designed

is

Um one that does have does ask

questions specifically about those metrics,

whether students are feeling heard whether

students are feeling successful and whether

students are feeling like they have adequate access among other things.

So as far as analysis

Um there most of the questions are um using a liquid scale.

Um so scores of 1-2 which are strongly

agree and agree would indicate success threes would indicate

an area for improvement in a four or

five would indicate indicate an area of weakness.

Um

All of the data would be sorted into um whether there is a

representative degree of access all those categories that we talked about before,

as far as the evaluation questions and it would need

to be sorted by the population of the respondent.

Do each of these um populations feel similarly or is there a difference?

Um If the students use the services a lot um do they

feel you know strong more strongly or more negatively about certain things?

Um And then what services they are using?

Um And then what instructors they're using as well because

that can also tell us a little bit about um

the strengths and weaknesses of our staffing and then whether there's

a difference between our online and our our in person students.

Um So the primary evaluators role would be to conduct board meetings,

distribute surveys and collect data basically do the evaluation

um where the board of stakeholders is going to help

um dr the focus of the evaluation look at um

review the surveys and the data and make sure that

there's not any holes and then it's saying what

we want to determine what to report out.

And then of course our administration gets to make decisions

about um whether or not they're going to take our recommendations

and then finally communication reporting.

So the report then of course has to go to administration.

The board needs to report,

create a presentation in a report with recommendations based on the

findings which may include increasing hours or um individual appointments,

whatever the survey finds.

And then the staff needs a report as well.

Um That that is going to be a smaller report that just has the pertinent findings.

Um The things that are important to the staff and this could be in the

form of like an infographic that it could be distributed at their biannual meeting.

Um That way that um they're getting the data that

they need but they're not being overwhelmed with the overall

deal.

Okay so I feel like that was a lot of information in a very short amount of time.

Um But those are the highlights of those um those areas. Um

And I hope that you have found it eliminated. Thanks.

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