A first-year experience course, using high impact practices.
First-time Full-time Freshman Retention Rates will be compared for students participating in DECK 1000, non-DECK students, and the retention from prior years.
KPIs:
- Development Stage: Revision of the development of course and faculty training program.
- After Implementation: First-time Full-time Freshman Retention Rates for DECK students compared to non-DECK students.
- Fall-to-Spring
- Fall-to-Fall
Baseline measure (for each KPI):
- Development Stage: The steering group is determining revisions to the course and creating a faculty training program after running a pilot in.
- After Implementation:
For Fall 2022 cohort of First-time Full-time Freshman:
- Fall-to-Spring retention rate: 79.0%.
- Fall-to-Fall retention rate: 52.6%.
Current/most recent data (for each KPI):
- Development stage: The pilot version of the course ran in Fall 2023, including faculty training. We revised the curriculum to make it standard across all classes and re-launched the pilot in Fall 2024. The new version of the course has all faculty members teaching the same lesson plans and assignments on the same schedule. Faculty training has continued with experienced DECK instructors mentoring new DECK instructors. We also expanded the pilot from 5 courses to 14 courses with faculty and staff instructors.
- After Implementation:
Fall 2023 cohort of First-time Full-time Freshmen
- Fall-to-Spring retention rate: 74.3% (DECK), 79.6% (non-DECK)
- Fall-to-Fall retention rate: 50.0% (DECK), 57.6% (non-DECK)
Fall 2024 cohort of First-time Full-time Freshmen
- Fall-to-Spring retention rate: 76.7% (DECK), 67.6% (non-DECK) to date (20 days post-registration opening)
Goal or targets (for each KPI):
- Development stage: Completing the pilot and construction of the course, as well as the faculty training program.
- After Implementation: First-time Full-time Freshman students enrolled in DECK 1000 will have at least a 2% higher retention rate than students who were not enrolled in DECK 1000.
Time period/duration: Completion of development of the course occurred in Summer 2024. The College re-piloted the course in Fall 2024, and the evaluation of retention rates will be conducted in Spring 2025 and Fall 2025, respectively.
While preliminary data from the Fall 2023 pilot indicate a lower Fall-to-Spring retention, it is important to note that the students participating in this pilot were starting their college experience with academic achievement metrics that were below those of non-DECK students, and these confounding variables led to a more complex treatment analysis. Using propensity score matching to control by additional academic achievement metrics and to control by some demographic characteristics, it was shown that there is not sufficient evidence to claim an impact of DECK as a treatment. The Fall 2024 pilot was not populated solely by late enrolling students to gather participants with achievement metrics similar to the rest of the First-time Full-time freshman at the college. We hope this will give us less skewed data about the success of the DECK course. Based on preliminary Fall 2024 to Spring 2025 retention data, we are seeing promising improvements.
With the Fall 2023 pilot not as successful as initially hoped, the College has identified the need for additional training for instructors and additional structure in the course syllabus and assignments. We implemented a structure to the course to ensure that all students engaged in community-building exercises early in the course and are experiencing the same lesson plans and assignments from their instructors. Most instructors are meeting as a group on a once every-three-weeks schedule for reflection and training to make the course a success. Daily lesson plans were drafted to help guide the course and to ensure that students enrolled in the course have a consistent experience.
The College intends to continue the pilot group meetings throughout 2024-2025, and in those meetings, will continue evaluating the course, planning changes and revising the lesson plans and assignments to improve the course.
Challenges: Student engagement and attendance have been an issue. This has hurt the sense of community in the class, so students do not make attendance a priority. Those who have been attending seem to be succeeding.
Support Needed: A stronger partnership with Student Life is being developed to ensure that their programming is leveraged to assist the students in creating a community, and continued efforts to build community and connection in the course earlier to promote attendance.
