Benchmarking Student Success:
Using Data and Inquiry to Drive Innovation and Change for Basic Skills Student Success
Friday May 14, 2010 FLYER
Miramar College S5-108
What is “Equity”?
In higher education, “equity” refers to creating opportunities for equal access and success among historically underrepresented student populations, such as racial and ethnic minority and low-income students, in three main areas:
- Representational equity, the proportional participation at all levels of an institution;
- Resource equity, the distribution of educational resources in order to close equity gaps; and
- Equity-mindedness, the demonstration of an awareness of and willingness to address equity issues among institutional leaders and staff.
The instructional tools for this workshop include CUE’s Benchmarking Equity and Student Success Tool (BESST) and the Downtown Community College Case Study. The BESST uses an Excel spreadsheet and a graphical interface in PowerPoint to make it easy for working groups, to simulate how much more effective their college’s instructional practices must become to achieve equity and performance benchmark goals in basic skills education. The Downtown Community College Case Study provides a “worked example” of how to use the tool and illustrates its purpose within a larger strategic planning, inquiry, and evaluation process.
After laying the foundation for change through benchmarking, CUE researchers will facilitate an inquiry activity using classroom syllabi. As a blueprint for classroom activities and an artifact of classroom culture, the syllabus gets to the heart of instructional practices.
Collaboratively we will explore how to transform your classroom syllabus into a robust learning tool for student-centered teaching and learning. This particularly effective, accessible and practical inquiry activity demonstrates how inquiry can be used to drive innovation and enhanced results for instructors and students alike. We will explore the myriad purposes and the potential of the syllabus to not only communicate course expectations, but also to reflect a commitment to student-centered learning and equitable student outcomes.
Participants will leave the workshop with a toolkit to bring these benchmarking and inquiry activities back to your campus!
For more information about CUE, as well as resources and tools, please visit us online at http://cue.usc.edu/ or contact us directly at 213-740-5202.
