Accreditation Process

Choosing the QEP Topic: The Lee College Process

Lee College began exploring an area for our QEP in June 2003 at our administrative retreat.  Every other year, administrators, department chairs, faculty representatives, staff representatives and student representatives come together for a day to discuss leadership and college issues.  In June of 2003, a presentation was made by our SACS liaison, Roberta Wright and Dean Johnette Hodgin on the new reaffirmation process.  Immediately following this presentation, the group had a brainstorming session on ways to improve student learning at Lee College.  A list of possible QEP topics was generated with no analysis at this point.

In August 2003, President Martha Ellis presented a brief overview of the new reaffirmation process to the college community at the professional development day meeting.  During the fall semester, the Institutional Report Card, providing data for how well the College is meeting its goals, was reviewed by the Institutional Effectiveness Committee and President’s Council.  Areas that fall below a stated level were deemed in need of improvement.  This information, along with the information from the administrative retreat, was used to generate possible topics for the QEP.

The next step was to present the information to the College Community.  That was accomplished at the Professional Development Day activities for the spring semester.  After an overview of the reaffirmation process and an in-depth description of the QEP, the college was divided into small groups of no more than 20 people.  Each group had a facilitator that had gone through a training session on the QEP and choosing a topic. The goal for each group was to come back and report the top two or three topics they thought would most improve student learning at Lee College.  After discussion, the two top topics were services to support student learning (including such things as tutoring, advising, early warning systems, online services, developmental programs, and student involvement) and new program development (including such things as delivery modalities, global perspectives, service learning).  This process was also repeated at our Huntsville location later in the month of January and the faculty and staff concurred with the services to support student learning with an emphasis on developmental education.

General topic

Based on the collective wisdom of the College Community as described above, the need to focus on improving student learning through support services was selected for the College’s QEP topic.  The QEP supports our mission and vision statements. The QEP builds on areas of strength in which the college has documented success, and also pursues opportunities for improvement that the college community has identified in the above process and through our institutional report card.

Subtopics considered by the college community that fall under the general category of services to support student learning include:

• Creating environments for student success
• Tutoring labs and library
• Motivation and commitment to the learning environment
• Orientation
• Integrate resources to use technology to improve learning
• Course effectiveness:  measurements, evaluation and assessment in the classroom
• Developmental education

Potential Impact of the Topic

The entire district, students, faculty, staff, and administrators will be impacted by this QEP.  Everyone plays a critical role in student learning. Student learning is multifaceted and must be assessed using multiple measures. Studies have shown that what goes on outside the classroom as well as inside the classroom has a tremendous impact on the success of student learning (Pascarella and Terenzini, 1991). A vast array of formal and informal networks, learning venues, and activities connects students with faculty, administrators, the public, and with other students from diverse backgrounds who are pursuing a variety of academic interests (Holbrook, 2004). Such experience creates more engaged students (Light, 2001). Specifically, advising, counseling, financial aid, tutoring, on campus activities, computer labs, on-line services, math lab, writing lab, technical labs and other services will have to partner with faculty and staff to promote student learning.

Questions to be Addressed:

Do we have clearly-defined outcomes for student learning? 

The college clearly defines student learning outcomes for single courses, for programs, core curriculum, for majors and for degrees

• College-wide—core curriculum
• Department—by major
• Faculty—each course

Do we assess and document student learning?

Faculty members have designed, identified, and implemented an array of appropriate assessments of student learning in courses, programs, core curriculum and majors.        

Faculty members have developed common criteria or rubrics that are used in identifying and documenting each student’s level of attainment of required learning outcomes.        

Third-party judgment or validation is routinely incorporated in assessment (licensure exam rates, certifications by outside groups, employer satisfaction, junior ready, transfer university acceptance).

Do we have the appropriate data to analyze student learning?

Institutional research and information systems provide systematic, timely, useful, and user-friendly information about student learning and student progress.

The results of student and institutional assessments are used routinely to inform improvements in programs and services for learners

What barriers to student learning confront our students and how can these barriers be eliminated or reduced?

We must remember that failure to learn is usually the fault of the instructional system or some roadblock to learning, not the student.  If a student resists learning experiences or does not respond to them, the problem is usually that the learning situation does not work for the student for some reason.  We need to figure out what that reason is and do what we can to adjust.  If we want to increase learning, we must first try to apply an instructional adjustment before blaming the student for not learning   (Masterteacher, 2003)

The concepts of learning (cognitive) and personal development (affective) are inextricably intertwined. Where are the barriers, cognitive or affective or both?

Lee College has a high percentage of adult students (over age 24).  The National Center for Education Statistics (2003) has fund that 57% of low income adult students work full time compared with 33% of traditional college age students work full time.  Is this a barrier?  What can be done?

Other potential barriers:

• Financial
• Family
• College processes
• Missing services
• Unrealistic expectations
• Access to and availability of tutoring, learning labs, library service

Value and college environment questions

Do we as a college sincerely believe that all students can learn?  How do we exhibit and document this belief?

How do we as a college react to a student’s failure to learn?  How does each faculty member, administrator, and staff member individually react to a student’s failure to learn?

Learning issues

Research shows that to learn a subject well, students must master the thinking that defines that subject (Paul and Elder, 2003).  Are faculty and support services to students including activities and assignments that require students to think actively within the concepts and principles of the subject?  What support do faculty need (e.g. instructional technology assistance) to provide and/or develop such assignments for student support?

How can the college effectively and efficiently prepare students for college level work (e.g. development education)?

What is the impact on student learning of our many student programs and internal processes and practices?

In high risk courses, high attrition/failure rates, is the root cause poor assessment tools, poor preparation on the part of students, poor advising, poor equipment/ facilities and/or poor learning support services to assist students?  Once the cause is identified how do we adjust to promote learning?

Cognitive science research is showing that traditional-age students now entering college have different brain development than previous generations due to fast paced images and the information age.  Are our classrooms and teaching methods considering these cognitive differences in curriculum and presentation?  What support do faculty need to address these changes?