Each fall, NWCCU presents the Beacon Award to three institutions for their institutional or programmatic accomplishments in student achievement and success. Award winners must demonstrate distinctive, measurable, and replicable innovations that have resulted in student achievement and success at the institutional or programmatic level, including innovations in advising and mentoring, alternative credentialing, experiential learning, learning communities, or other such efforts. Other winning examples may include new curricula, courses, or educational delivery models. The Beacon Award recognizes innovative approaches that have significantly contributed to measurable improvements in completion and/or graduation rates at the institution.

Below is an update from last year’s winners. Linfield University, Clover Park Technical College, and the College of Southern Nevada share their experiences and provide updates on their award-winning achievements.

Linfield University

Thanks to the funding associated with the award, Linfield was able to use the funds in support of programming for the Linfield First Scholars Program. One of the priority areas for our program is to strengthen relationship-building between students, something the pandemic has greatly impacted. As such, throughout the spring semester we hosted monthly meetings and student meetups, including an end of the year BBQ for first generation students and an induction ceremony for the 2022 class of Alpha Alpha Alpha, Oregon’s only first-generation honor society.

Clover Park Technical College

Clover Park Technical College (CPTC) received the prestigious Beacon Award in 2021 for its comprehensive math instruction reform effort. Since then, the college continues to develop and expand its co-requisite math course offerings. We now regularly offer six different co-requisite math classes and are ready to eliminate two remedial math courses. Over the past year, we have also reduced the overall credit hours of the co-requisite math classes, so that they are more affordable for our students. Partnering with the Learning Resource Center, the math department has piloted embedded tutoring in its co-requisite Introduction to Statistics class, and received positive feedback from both faculty and students. We are in the process of formalizing and expanding this approach in other math classes. It is encouraging to see that our one-year college-level math completion rate continues to increase as a result. Additionally, since receiving the award, math faculty and the instructional dean have been invited to discuss CPTC’s math redesign project with several other technical colleges in the state of Washington. We are honored and excited to share our learning with the other colleges, and we hope that our insights can assist them in their pursuit of a more equitable and successful approach in math education.

The College of Southern Nevada

The College of Southern Nevada has continued our proven student support efforts in our Centers for Academic Success.

Supplemental Instruction and Embedded Tutoring

To begin, we expanded student and faculty access to our supplemental instruction (SI) model in biology and chemistry. Additionally, we are discussing the development of a required SI program for first-semester math courses. Another best practice for which CSN was recognized by NWCCU’s Beacon Award involved our embedded tutoring program. CSN expanded our embedded tutoring initiative into Computer Information Technology courses, an academic program that is completely online.

Tutoring Symposium

Additionally, CSN created a Centers for Academic Success (CAS) Symposium last spring. The CAS team invited learning support staff from CSN, the University of Nevada Las Vegas, and Nevada State College to submit proposals for the CAS Symposium, which was titled Getting Back to Tutoring after COVID-19: A Collaborative Process. The conference was a two-day event that included two keynotes, a variety of breakout sessions, and a poster session.

TutorChat

Finally, using the Beacon Award funding, the CAS team implemented a new initiative called TutorChat. CSN purchased Springshare, the live chat used by the CSN Libraries, to offer online tutoring services. TutorChat is to be launched Fall 2022 and will be accessible in in the First Year Experience online environment and all course shells in Canvas. CAS and the libraries can transfer students to each other for more comprehensive support, and with Zoom and Teams integration, live sessions may occur.

CSN is proud to have been recognized by NWCCU for its work to ensure that CSN’s students and communities are empowered to achieve, succeed, and prosper!

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We had outstanding and insightful plenary presentations, topical discussions, and critical looks at the changes within higher education. Over the two and a half days of workshops, trainings, and presentations, we had over 600 attendees representing over 150 institutions. For those that missed the event, the schedule of presentations and guest speaker details can still be found listed online here.

Our presenters provided valuable resources to aid with our shared focus on higher education accreditation, closing equity gaps, and promoting economic and social mobility. Following the event, a survey was sent to conference registrants to hear reflections and solicit feedback on the session offerings.

There were 65 responses from those that joined for the Pre-Conference Workshops, and 85 submissions from Annual Conference attendees.

A selection of replies received:

“I was impressed with the conference especially in light of the situation of being online. It was great to be able to keep up on things and hear what is happening in our arena.“

“I greatly appreciate the caliber of presenters and the data that support their topics. Gets better each year. Thank you!”

“The topics were timely, and the range of cultural representation was broad. I am very much looking forward to viewing session recordings for those I missed, as well as repeating some I attended. I think the switch to the virtual format worked well overall and thank you for making this additional effort.”

“The conference was very well coordinated and flowed smoothly; presentations were about the right length and the topics were great! I especially liked Matt Sigelman’s and Sandy Baum’s insights.“

“Patricia McGuire was amazing and inspirational. I want everyone in my institution to hear her.“

“I appreciated Ms. Crazy Bull’s talk because it helped counter the narrative that social and economic mobility means moving away from communities of origin.“

“The practitioner-led sessions on equity topics (Crazy Bull, Fries-Britt, McGuire) were especially useful and refreshing – even inspiring. As we continue to seek to close equity gaps, we will continually need guidance from people who have first-hand, authentic experience with what works.“

“Cheryl Crazy Bull’s ideas were actually innovative, and I learned many things I would like to bring to my institution.”

In reflecting on the 2020 Annual Conference, several entries provided ideas for additional engagement. Many of the suggestions are being discussed and incorporated into ongoing NWCCU Educational Programming, Webinar topics, interactive trainings, as well as format and subjects of focus for the 2021 Annual Conference. Thank you to all that were able to join us and those that took the time to fill out the feedback survey.

Thank you again to the 2020 NWCCU Annual Conference sponsors: Vanguard, The Registry, and Civitas Learning.

We look forward to seeing you next year!

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Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the sudden shift from traditional, in-person teaching to remote online-only instruction in the Spring of 2020 was jarring to say the least. I was extremely thankful for my previous experience teaching online-only mathematics courses as it helped ease the transition. Fortunately, I have led instruction for both types of math courses over the years and while fundamentally different, I’ve incorporated aspects of each type into the other to evolve both to fit the needs of today’s tech-savvy students. I had already incorporated many online best practices into my in-person courses, including maintaining consistent due dates each week of the term, and having well organized weekly modules in our Learning Management System. While working to better align our online and in-person courses, however, one problem really became apparent: how to grade handwritten work from our distance students. This problem was solved with the online grading tool, Gradescope.

For several years, instructors in the Math Department at Oregon State University have been using Gradescope to grade the common, paper-based exams that we give to our large enrollment, multi-section courses. We scan and upload our students’ exams to Gradescope, which uses image capture and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to group similar looking answers to each problem, such that the grader can quickly mark groups of answers as 100% correct, give partial credit, or provide written feedback on errors made.

The platform has enabled us to switch from using mostly multiple-choice exams to exams with questions that require fill in the blank, short answer, or long answer with work shown. We also no longer need to pass around piles of paper exams to be graded by hand.

This AI-assisted grading platform streamlines the overall grading process and as a result, we are able to grade more questions (where students are able to show their work) in about the same amount of time as grading previous exams that were mostly multiple choice.

Once the benefits of grading exams with Gradescope became clear, we began to look for ways to grade more handwritten work using the tool. Instructors and graduate teaching assistants began using Gradescope to grade in-class worksheets, quizzes, and written homework assignments. This allows our student to get feedback from clear rubrics on assignments very quickly, and our instructors benefit by having statistics on every type of question, not just multiple choice.

Students in a variety of our courses, from Intermediate Algebra to Vector Calculus and beyond, complete weekly written homework assignments that are generally graded for completion with the possibility of one or more questions being graded for correctness. The students then reflect on their assignment in a discussion board after viewing the answer key. These written homework assignments allow students to practice writing mathematic solutions in a very low stakes environment. The students can complete this reflection without looking at their corrected work, but it has become even more meaningful when they can use their graded work to add to their reflection.

Having this infrastructure with Gradescope, in place with our face-to-face and online courses, has helped ease the sudden transition to remote teaching. My remote students are still able to submit their written homework assignments wherever they are in the world, and we have also been able to have our students complete take-home style exams and submit their handwritten solutions electronically.

I have taken some time to look into some of the newer features of Gradescope, particularly the “online assignment” option. Using this, I can create paperless, timed exams that my students complete in Gradescope. Similar to my paper-based exams, I can ask multiple choice and short answer questions as described above, but the real game changer is the file upload capability. Students can snap a photo of their work on a question and then upload their handwritten answers. I often have my students draw graphs in Intermediate Algebra, and now students can photograph and upload pictures of their hand drawn graphs for grading. I also can include a question at the end of the exam that asks students to upload their scratch paper to show their work for possible partial credit to short answer questions.

There are always hurdles to overcome when adding a new technology to a course, and Gradescope is no exception. There was a learning curve to figure out the most efficient way to scan our students’ exams. We also had to slightly change the way we wrote our exams to help with the AI-assisted grading, but this mostly consisted of needing to add an answer box to most questions. We were, however, able to rethink our approach to writing questions and move away from multiple choice to the variety of other options. We were no longer limited to just 5 choices for multiple choice questions, like we were with pre-printed bubble sheets. All the benefits have far outweighed any hurdles.

Next, our online and remote students needed to learn how to scan their work, which was a much simpler task when all of our on-campus resources were available. Once again though, the best practices learned from the online courses helped with this obstacle. We discovered several apps that will combine multiple photos from a smartphone and convert them into a single PDF. Some of our scans still come in sideways or out of order, but these are exceptions and are easily fixed while grading.

All things considered, I can’t imagine running any of my courses without using Gradescope. The statistics collected for every exam question has given me true insight into my students’ performance and I no longer have to rely on instincts about how I thought they might have performed. With this grading tool, I am now able to give more targeted reviews to my students and adjust my teaching to the needs of a particular class.

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Recently, the CEO of a large corporation said her company has made more innovative improvements in six months than in the past 15 years as a result of figuring out how to conduct business during the pandemic. I was struck by the truth of that for higher education as well. Colleges and universities of all types have had to make innovative, creative changes to deliver educational content in the COVID landscape, and it has not been easy.

Unpacking the challenges would take volumes, but in brief, steady and reliable funding has been at risk. State allocations have been stagnant or diminishing for years now in many states in the NWCCU’s footprint. Add to this the impact COVID has had on enrollment revenue. Many families question sending their child to a residential campus because of the strong possibility of a resurgence of COVID-19 infection and campus closures. Consequently, many students are taking some time off by delaying going to school or by choosing a local option. Nationally, undergraduate enrollment has dropped by 2.5% (June). Moreover, on-campus life changes as schools adopt new rules for distancing and quarantine affecting class delivery modalities, dorms, Greek life, and competitive athletics. There has been uncertainty from the national collegiate athletic bodies postponing or even cancelling sports for the year. For schools where revenue from athletic events like football are a significant part of the annual budget, these actions carry serious financial consequences.

The pandemic has taken a heavy toll on faculty and staff, and many schools face reductions and lay offs of employees who were essential for a campus-based face-to-face enterprise but whose presence may not be so vital in online and hybrid environments. Additionally, stress and angst have led to an uptick in mental health issues for employees and students alike. For many schools the buildings once filled with the business of education are now underutilized or even empty. Indeed, in a “build it as we fly” scenario, institutions are redesigning systems of recruitment and registration, instructional delivery and assessment, and staffing.

Yet, colleges and universities are open. Institutions pivoted quickly when the pandemic hit in early spring, many shifting in-person classes to hybrid and online options. According to an October report in the Chronicle of Higher Education*, colleges and universities are offering a combination of hybrid (21%), primarily online (34%) or fully online (10%), a 65% total (June). Though some institutions saw a decline in fall enrollment, there are still near normal numbers in many schools. In addition to reacting quickly to develop online modalities for instruction, institutions restructured campus life, housing, and competitive events. Aside from increasing online instruction models, institutions modified offerings that are offered in person. Skills and lab classes meet in instructional environments designed for safety in the pandemic landscape. Similarly, sports, though limited, are still being played. In many ways, these responses are similar to the CEO’s comments. In a remarkably short time, higher education adapted and made creative and innovative changes driven by the pandemic-driven necessity to provide quality education in new ways.

One of the benefits of being accredited lies in using the requirements of Eligibility Requirements and Standards as tools to demonstrate mission fulfillment. “All roads lead to Rome” is an apt concept here. There are many ways to effectively teach and to demonstrate the attainment of educational outcomes. The goals and outcomes are clear, but the pathways, or roads, are manifold.

As higher education reforms itself out of necessity, and in spite of the challenges created by the pandemic, colleges and universities should consider this an opportunity for innovative development and delivery of educational content. I’d offer Wayne Gretsky’s apt advice: “Skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been.” I suspect excellent best practices will emerge from this crisis. Schools will develop new ways of connecting the unassailable benefits of face-to-face education with the demonstrated practicality of hybrid and online instruction. Many institutions have committed to enhanced training for faculty, staff, and students to address the pandemic impacts, and faculty will lead innovation in teaching and evaluation. Institutions across the board and particularly residential campuses have transformed campus life. All of these actions suggest the future shape of higher education, and in this future, institutions will be able to use the lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion in establishing the worth and value of higher education as our work moves into tomorrow.

Like responsive innovation from the business and corporate sectors, higher education institutions have a chance to make positive change. I suspect most changes will become a sort of normal in the future, and ultimately, we will be better institutions for the experience. As we entertain how to successfully deliver exceptional education in a myriad of new and evolved ways, we move into tomorrow.

*June, A. W. (2020, September 24). A First Look at Fall Enrollment Shows a 2.5% Dip Among Undergraduates. Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com

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