How to Ensure Success for Underprepared Learners in College: Critical Findings of the Accelerating Opportunity Initiative
Accelerating Opportunity (AO), a Jobs for the Future (JFF) initiative was launched over four years ago, with the goal of helping the nation’s large numbers of adults with low basic skills earn higher-wage jobs faster by combining the Adult Basic Education and career and technical training they need into one integrated program.
The numbers speak for themselves. In the first three years of the initiative:
· 8,287 students enrolled in AO pathways across 54 colleges in four of the participating states: Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, and Louisiana.
· These colleges implemented and sustained 154 integrated career pathways, with students earning 56,757 college credits and 11,283 credentials.
· 35 percent of AO students engaged in work-based learning, and 30 percent found a job related to the occupational area of their career pathway.
The Urban Institute, with its partner the Aspen Institute, recently completed and disseminated the AO final implementation report, the first in a series of final reports on the initiative. The report documents how four of the participating states, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, and Louisiana successfully implemented the AO initiative in its first three years. Each state had its own unique successes, trials and challenges during the review period, but their experiences illustrate three critical components of the AO model that have helped colleges get adults with low basic skills into the classroom, credentialed, and employed in high-demand occupations within their regional labor market.
1. Underprepared leaners need personalized support to thrive in the college environment: AO students receive additional support from dedicated staff members, often referred to as navigators or success coaches, who connect them to needed services inside or outside the college, including healthcare, daycare services, tutoring opportunities and individualized case management. Navigators are readily available to address a range of academic, employment, financial, and personal issues. Among AO students surveyed, 68 percent reported that a college staff member provided them with this range of support and advice while they were in the AO pathway.
2. Team teaching is integral to classroom success for both faculty and students: The team teaching approach pairs a career and technical education (CTE) instructor with an adult education instructor in a technical content course; the two work together to plan and co-deliver instruction. Although CTE faculty at the AO colleges initially expressed concerns about the specific role of an adult education instructor in the CTE classroom, those who engaged in team teaching became more positive about the approach over time. By the end of the grant period, there was even increased interest from faculty and administrators to incorporate an adult education instructor in non-AO classes. College survey results over three years indicated a wide variation in team-teaching methods used, even within the same college, as faculty geared their methods to suit course content and student needs. Students were enthusiastic and receptive about the model, and indicated a desire for more exposure to team-taught classes.
3. Changing college cultures and attitudes toward adult education students helps foster student engagement: Through the development of internal partnerships between the colleges’ ABE and CTE departments, new champions for adult education and low-skilled students emerged. Those relationships motivated change in internal college policies to help students, such as waiving course prerequisites for AO students. Students enrolled in AO were also able to access an array of academic support services at the college such as tutoring, advising, and help with financial aid forms. AO students surveyed reported positive changes in their attitudes and expectations for themselves because of the program. Many students, including Erin Chavez, a single mom who is pursuing a Registered Nurse (RN) degree at Ashland Community & Technical College in Ashland, KY, noted that had it not been for the AO program, college courses and credentials might have not been a viable option for them.
Erin Chavez, a student at Ashland Community and Technical College, shares:
“Chrisha Spears, my Accelerating Opportunity coordinator, has become a friend and personal cheerleader. Without her and the chance to be a part of this initiative, I don’t know where I would be. The hands-on experience that I received in the Healthcare Foundations course is what led me to make my career choice. Every piece of paper I received in that class, I have saved and reviewed over and over again. The course was invaluable and got me on my career path!”
Additional Accelerating Opportunity implementation reports will be issued in fall 2016. For more information on Accelerating Opportunity, please visit: http://www.jff.org/initiatives/accelerating-opportunity
Jobs for the Future is a national nonprofit that builds educational and economic opportunity for underserved populations in the United States. Read more about our work on www.jff.org.
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