Celebrate Learning
Page 5
Fifth Year for Achieving the Dream
by Dr. Margaret Lee
In TCC’s fifth year with Achieving the Dream, intervention efforts continue to pay off for student persistence and
learning. This year, TCC students benefitted from six interventions designed to enhance their chances for success. During the Summer and Fall 2011semesters, 2,173 students experienced at least one Achieving the Dream
intervention, or 38.2% of the Fall 2011 Achieving the Dream cohort of 3,622 students. In Summer and Fall
2011, The Academic Strategies intervention accounted for 1,489 of these students. The African American Male
Student Success intervention and four new pilot projects added 684 additional students to the total number experiencing an intervention this year. Some students benefitted from more than one intervention. The April 11,
2012 Institutional Overview Report from the Office of Planning and Institutional Research (P&IR) noted that “The
participant numbers … highlight the large number of students impacted by AtD at Tulsa Community College.
Although the majority of students affected by these interventions
are first-time students, a sizeable minority are not first-time students, reflecting broad institutional commitment to promoting student success among both new and existing students at TCC” (p.
4).
These numbers are significant because they suggest that TCC is
developing effective strategies to enhance student success. The
student success course, ENGL 1003 Academic Strategies, is a
mature intervention with three consecutive years of documented
African American Male Mentor Kevin Clayton
gains in student persistence. According to recent data analysis
discusses college plans with student James Jones.
reports from P&IR, students who took Academic Strategies this
year also increased their ability to select main ideas, test themselves about what they have learned, process information, use study aids, and concentrate on their work. Data
from the African American Male Student Success intervention suggest a positive impact on persistence among the
students who participated in this mentoring program. More than one-half of the students who participated last
summer in MathPath, a short refresher course for TCC’s course placement test, increased their placement test
scores enough to skip an entire semester of developmental mathematics. The 149 students who participated in
a redesigned version of MATH 0013 Beginning Algebra “demonstrated significantly stronger algebra skills at
the end of the semester than did those in the control group” (P&IR, Math Course Redesign Intervention Analysis,
March 27, 2012, p. 4). TCC’s Achieving the Dream new student orientation “contributed to students’ understanding of TCC services and processes as well as their perceptions about college and what it takes to be successful as a college student” (P&IR, New Student Orientation Intervention Summer 2011 Analysis, November 16,
2011, p. 4). Partnering with the new student orientation, the Academic Advising intervention enabled 263 students to complete an educational planning worksheet before the start of the Fall 2011 semester.
Recent increases in student persistence and documented gains in student learning have come about through committed leadership and intensive teamwork across campuses, disciplines, and organizational units. These efforts
received rich support from a hard-working team in P&IR who helped intervention teams to clarify their goals,
define their data needs, and analyze their results. We can celebrate these achievements and especially our
students’ successes as they reach higher to achieve their dreams at TCC and beyond.