Student Progress Reporting Procedure

The 2018-19 Academic Year marks the initial year of the Student Progress Reporting system, implemented as a result of the Board of Trustees revisions to Policy EGA (LOCAL), which among other things establishes that the District "shall provide periodic course reporting" on student performance and that such progress reporting "shall be conducted in accordance with administrative regulations promulgated by the Chancellor." Over the Summer, the SPR Implementation Team – which was chaired by El Centro VPI Greg Morris, and included Faculty Council members Shaun Gilligan, Brett Dyer, Carlos Martinez, and Ryan Pettengill – worked to design the SPR system and a progress reporting schedule that would be most effective from a pedagogical perspective to enhance students’ chances for success. The District administration has adopted the recommendations of the Implementation Team for this prototype year.

As per those recommendations, the reporting schedule will vary depending on the length of the class:

●        Courses 15 weeks or longer will have TWO student progress reports. The first report will be between weeks 5 and 6 and the second will be between weeks 9 and 10.

●        Courses 5 weeks to 14 weeks long (including 8-week courses) will have ONE student progress report near the midpoint of the course.

●        Courses 4 weeks long or less will have NO student progress reporting requirements.

Faculty will be notified two business days before your class’s progress report period(s) begin by e-mail to notify you about the upcoming reporting period(s). You will then have two weeks to submit your progress report for each student. More information on the specifics of the SPR system, and instructions for use can be found in the below attached files.

-One-pager instructions for SPR
-Student Progress Reporting Slideshow

If you have questions, please contact the student progress contact at your college (listed below) or the faculty helpdesk at helpdesk@dcccd.edu or by phone at 972-669-6460.

College	Contact(s)	Email	Phone
Brookhaven College (BHC)	Bob Smith Scott Sires	BSmith1@dcccd.edu ssires@dcccd.edu	972-860-4169 972-860-4362
Cedar Valley College (CVC)	Tim Xeriland	txeriland@dcccd.edu	972-860-8239
Eastfield College (EFC)	AZ Bashet Jason Busbin	AZBashet@dcccd.edu JasonBusbin@dcccd.edu	972-860-7158 972-860-8362
El Centro College	Marco Martinez	MAMartinez@dcccd.edu 5ftlc@dcccd.edu	214-860-2287 214-860-2157
Mountain View College	Steve Sosa	SteveSosa@dcccd.edu	214-860-3600
Northlake College	Kristopher Copeland Matthew Dempsey David Evans Tim Samuels	kristophercopeland@dcccd.edu mdempsey@dcccd.edu devans@dcccd.edu Samuels@dcccd.edu	972-273-3482 972-273-3500 972-273-3561 972-273-3364
Richland College	Andy Tubbs Susan Long	ATubbs@dcccd.edu slong@dcccd.edu	972-238-6141 972-238-6981

Student Progress Reporting Update

On May 1, the DCCCD Board of Trustees passed revisions to Policy EGA (LOCAL), which among other things establishes that the District "shall provide periodic course reporting" on student performance and that such progress reporting "shall be conducted in accordance with administrative regulations promulgated by the Chancellor."

The Faculty Council believes that the general policy language adopted by the Board is not overly problematic or prescriptive, and it has been working with district administration this semester to determine the specifics of the regulations for Student Progress Reporting (SPR).

Earlier this semester, informed by the information gathered from the faculty survey on SPR, the Faculty Council recommended that there be just one reporting interval and that the reporting be done between 25% and 50% of the term for all college courses (excluding Winter and May terms). The Vice Presidents Council separately recommended two reporting intervals, with reporting to be done at the 33% and 66% marks.

In recent negotiations with Executive Vice Chancellor Justin Lonon, the Faculty Council pointed out that reporting at 66% would not be helpful to students, given that the drop deadline is set at the 75% mark. We therefore reiterated the belief that our initial recommendation for SPR is best. However, in an effort to achieve compromise, but still with a focus on doing what we believe is pedagogically sound and will be most beneficial to our students, we offered the following alternative recommendations:

• For 13-16 week courses: 2 reports. First report at 30-35%; Second report at 55-60%
• For 6-12 week courses: 1 report at 35-50%
• For 1-5 week courses: No reports

The Council also continued to insist that 2018-2019 be a prototype year, in which students and faculty will be surveyed on their use of the progress reporting system, and that results be shared monthly with stakeholders to inform subsequent systemic improvements. The Council believes strongly that progress reporting is of limited value if it is not directly tied into an intrusive, proactive early alert and intervention system that can help students get the help they need, regardless of whether it is purely academic or is tied to economic and social issues like food, transportation, or housing insecurity.

Faculty should know that Chancellor May, and/or Executive Vice Chancellor Justin Lonon, will make the final determination about SPR, and that they may well decide that two progress reports must be issued each term. The Faculty Council is continuing to work diligently with them, and with other stakeholders, to ensure that progress reporting is helpful to students and promotes their academic success. To that end, the Faculty Council has recommended names of faculty to serve on the “Student Progress Reporting Implementation Team,” to be led by El Centro College VP of Instruction Greg Morris. The Implementation Team will work this summer to build the SPR system. Shaun Gilligan, CVCFA president, will be the Council liaison to the Implementation Team.

As soon as anything more specific about the plans for SPR is known, we will provide an update.

Faculty Council discusses Student Progress Reporting Survey Results with Academic VPs and District Leaders

The Faculty Council received 526 responses on the Student Progress Reporting Survey conducted Feb. 1-15, of which 338 were from full-time faculty, representing over one-third of the DCCCD full-time faculty. An executive summary of the survey results is linked here. (Previous Advance Blog posts on this evolving discussion can be found at this link.) In addition to the quantitative results, many respondents provided comments, which broadly can be summarized as follows:

1. Many respondents noted that progress reporting is an activity they are already engaged in by keeping the grade center up-to-date; they are, therefore, resistant to further reporting in eConnect.

2. Many comments also indicated that faculty widely assumed that the grade center in eCampus was used by all faculty in the same fashion regardless of course and subject area, i.e., frequently updated, kept current and available to students.

3. A number of faculty viewed progress reporting as means of removing more responsibility on the part of students. Some comments indicated that many faculty believe students are responsible for the monitoring of their own progress.

4. Some faculty expressed concern that progress reporting would result in an increased workload for both faculty and student services staff.

5. There is a clear split in preference, among those who want the ability to project an estimated letter grade (ABCDF), and those who prefer to record that the student is making Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory progress.

6. There is a strong preference for the ability to provide comments, including the ability to write custom comments in addition to having preset comments available to select.

In addition, the following observations were noted by those who analyzed the survey data and have been involved on the Student Progress Reporting task force:

1. The problem that Student Progress Reporting is designed to solve is that not all DCCCD students are consistently and equitably receiving information about their progress in the course.

2. Assumptions about the use of eCampus grade center do not reflect the diverse practices of all full-time, adjunct, and dual credit faculty, across a diverse array of learning environments, and the assessment practices they opt to incorporate in their courses. More specifically, even faculty who use eCampus grade center use it in a variety of ways. Many faculty provide their students with assignment and assessment grades in publisher-provided or industry-specific learning environments. A discussion about the consistent use of eCampus generally and eCampus grade center specifically is outside the scope of the Student Progress Reporting project.

3. Addressing the faculty role in Student Progress Reporting is only one step in what is envisioned as a multi-stage, multi-faceted, and complex activity designed that among other things will include intrusive interventions designed to address student challenges that go beyond the scope of what is happening in the classroom (and therefore is outside of the ability of faculty to address). This therefore requires input and participation by a broad array of stakeholders (including student services, business services, and information technology support services, and even outside social service partners), which in turn requires prototyping and collection of data from faculty and students to ensure long-term success.

WHERE ARE WE NOW:

Consequently, the Faculty Council has achieved consensus regarding the following recommendations:

1. Student Progress Reporting will be implemented in the DCCCD beginning in the 2018-2019 academic year.

2. Fall 2018 and Spring 2019 will serve as testing periods for the Student Progress Reporting prototype. The review of data and outcomes will begin as soon as possible, starting in late fall and continuing throughout the spring.

3. The approval of a general LOCAL Board policy on Student Progress Reporting is supported, but REGULATION language (that requires Chancellors Staff approval, but not Board approval) that specifies in detail a Student Progress Reporting approach, should be paused until the end of the prototyping activity (with a view to such policy being developed in early 2019 for the 2019-2020 academic year).

4. Student Progress Reporting is but one step - but the crucial first step - in an intrusive intervention strategy that will involve student services reaching out to students to help them with challenges that faculty are not equipped to address, even as faculty do work with students who are struggling academically with the specific course material.

5. A senior level administrator should be assigned to serve as the accountability lead for the prototype period and implementation of Student Progress Reporting.

6. There will be a single Student Progress Reporting interval for each section - the survey findings indicate that this should occur at between the 25% and 50% point of a section.

7. Student Progress Reporting will be allow faculty to report a letter grade (ABCDF) or Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory (S/U) progress. Should faculty choose to report progress using the Unsatisfactory label or a D or F letter grate, they will also need to supply at least one comment, either selected from a pull-down menu of pre-written comments, or writing their own comment in a text-entry box.


The Council shared these recommendations with The Instructional Leadership Team (TILT), and the Student Progress Reporting Task Force, on Monday, Feb. 19.

NEXT STEPS:

The Council is still gathering stakeholder input on the preferred system(s) for generating Student Progress Reports. There are advantages and disadvantages to both eCampus/Blackboard and eConnect/Colleague. Among the considerations are the extent to which each system is used by faculty, the extent to which each system is user-friendly, the extent to which training would be required on each system, the extent to which each system can be configured to do what Student Progress Reporting is designed to do, and the extent to which each of these issues can be resolved in time for the beginning of the prototype cycle that will commence with the Fall 2018 semester.

As further information is gathered, conversations will continue with the Student Progress Reporting committee, academic vice presidents, and District officials.

DCCFA Offers Two Upcoming Opportunities for Faculty to Provide Input

The Faculty Council plans two initiatives specifically designed to gather input from faculty. 

Student Progress Reporting Survey

From Feb. 1 through Feb. 15, a survey will be made available for faculty to provide both structured and open-ended input on the issue of student progress reporting. Details about that evolving conversation can be found in this post from Jan. 18. All faculty are invited and encouraged to provide input. Messages will be sent by each college’s faculty association president, and academic vice president, when this survey is live. Results gathered from this survey – which will be completely anonymous – will be analyzed in detail by the Faculty Council in order to craft the best possible student progress reporting system to serve our diverse student population while not imposing excessive and unproductive labor burdens on the faculty. These findings will then be shared with The Instructional Leadership Team, which includes the district and college instructional leaders, for implementation.

Part 2, Biennial Faculty Climate Survey

From Feb. 19 through March 2, Part 2 of the biennial Faculty Climate Survey will be administered. Part 1 was administered in Fall 2017, and a selection of results are available at this post on the Advance Blog, in which are links to raw data from each of the seven colleges. Whereas Part 1 of the Faculty Climate Survey gathered faculty input on issues of compensation and shared governance, Part 2 includes questions that are designed to gauge faculty attitudes on the overall climate within the various college chapters of DCCFA, the colleges, and the District. Results gathered from this survey also will be completely individually anonymous, and only aggregated results by college will be reported and shared with the college presidents.

The Faculty Council encourages all members to participate in both the Student Progress Reporting survey, and the DCCFA Biennial Faculty Climate Survey.