February 27, 2015 Meeting

Agenda

Taft College Governance Council Retreat

February 27, 2015

Stockdale Country Club, 7001 Stockdale Hwy, Bakersfield, CA 93309

Tel:  (661) 832-0310

 

 

8:30 – 9:00 a.m.           Refreshments

9:00 – 9:30 a.m.           Welcome, introductions and a review of the day

9:30 – noon                 Data Use 101

Noon – 12:30 p.m.       Lunch

12:30 – 1:30 p.m.         Aligning interventions with the problem you are trying to solve

1:30 – 2:30 p.m.           Practice focusing on an issue

2:30 – 2:45 p.m.            Break

2:45 – 3:45 p.m.           Moving forward with this work

3:45 – 4:00 p.m.           Closing remarks

Minutes

FEBRUARY 27, 2015

GOVERNANCE COUNCIL RETREAT NOTES:  

 

Guest Speaker:  Dr. Brad Phillips, President/CEO of the Institute of Evidence-Based Change

 

Dena Maloney, Superintendent/President, welcomed and thanked everyone for attending the Governance Retreat.  Last year, the GC focused on “Student Success” and what we are currently doing and what we could do to assist with student success.   This year, the District would like to focus on tools and how to use data to evaluate if strategies are working.

 

Tony Thompson expressed his gratitude for Dr. Phillips being able to speak at the GC conference and share his knowledge with Taft College and the GC members.

 

Dr. Phillips stated he had 25 years of experience with community colleges

Dr. Brad C. Phillips, president/chief executive officer of the Institute for Evidence-Based Change (IEBC) and has 25 years of experience with community colleges.  He leads the organization’s focus on improving educational practice and outcomes in schools, colleges and universities, including its facilitation of Tuning USA. Dr. Phillips has pioneered the collaborative collection and sharing of data across educational segments; the effective use of meaningful data; and its connection to faculty use and institutional change.  Dr. Phillips is also the founder of both the California Partnership for Achieving Student Success (Cal-PASS) and IEBC.

 

Today’s topic is “Data Use”. Improving student success begins with using data to understand which teaching, learning and support strategies work well and which do not, and identifying changes that will lead to better results.

 

Dr. Phillips began his discussion with the “Rules of the Road”:

  1. Have Fun!
  2. Vegas Rule- be honest/open
  3. Everyone needs to participate and ask questions

The group was then asked to turn to their neighbor and ask them what brought them to the education field.  Volunteers were asked to share the information with the group.  This activity allowed individuals to feel connected, also known as effective priming.  The use of data allows you to engage in a conversation and helps get you thinking.

Today’s Learning Objectives:

  1. Understand good data use principles
  2. Determine what data is useful
  3. Work as a team to identify the information required for effective decision-making
  4. Learn to develop a plan to get data

Dr. Phillips stated great organizations are built around great data.  Data allows organizations understand their needs.  Data is used to address needs, allocate resources, and tweak areas to get a great impact.

Increasing Data Use:

  1. Psychology
  2. Neuroscience
  3. Behavioral Economic

 

It takes a combination of each of these tools to increasing data use among individuals and a group.  It may even require you to change organizational habits in how you present and use data.  Presentation of data is important to capture your audience attention and make them feel connected to the data being presented.  If the data being presented is negative or bad, then your audience may feel like they are being attacked, they may feel you are indicating they are not doing their job, and make them feel the data is incorrect or wrong.  This is also known as the “fight or flight” response.  The date can put your audience in shock or denial.

Cautionary Tale of Data Use:  The reception and acceptance of data can be similar to the “stages of grieving”.  The presentation of data can lead to shock/denial → anger → depression → dialogue/bargaining → acceptance.  Keeping this in mind, it is important to present the positive data first.

Traditional Assumptions:

  • people are eager to discuss student performance (the reality is they are not eager to discuss)
  • There will usually be disagreement about the extent of a problem
  • We know how to fix the problem
  • Organizations can change practices and policies (it’s not as simple)
  • Staff are willing and eager to make improvements or changes (It’s human nature to keep things the same)
  • We have control over our students (you really do not have control of your students)
  • You can control your data (data can be manipulated)

Model of Data:

  • Data needs to be useful, clear, and on-time
  • You must first determine what you are going to do with the data before asking for the data
  • The best comparison group is what has happened “historically”
  • Presentation of data makes a difference such as using a theme, picture, or being entertaining (i.e. Hans Rosling, a presenter, uses cool data tools and graphics to present data)
  • Progression is key. You need to start and carry through; make a decision.
  • How we title the data or charts is important; titles can be negative or misleading.
  • Make a connection with the data (i.e. Center for Student Engagement (CSE) presents impactful data with pictures, using face of people and blocking them out as the numbers decrease.
  • Make data available and display for everyone to view; the data needs to be talked about not hidden

How to Review Data:

  1. Is this information accurate? First, data has to be bullet-proof.
  2. What jumps at you and why? What are the themes?
  3. Is there comparison data or historical data?
  4. Does this information challenge current assumptions at this population?
  5. What might be contributing or detracting from success? And think of the “whys”.
  6. Is it the right data to make a decision? Is this the data we need?
    1. What is the most important information?
    2. What is missing?

 

 

Road Blocks:

  • Asking for more data is a way of not making a decision; a way of avoiding
  • Not having a clear line of authority of how decisions are made can prevent making a decision

Analytics of Data:

  • Data is sacred
  • Data should be managed as a strategic asset
  • Data quality matters (70% or more time is devoted to cleaning and formatting data)
  • How it data is counted matters
  • Focus is important
  • Simplicity is best

Leading & Lagging Indicators:

  1. Leading Indicators – are things you are in control of and lead to your hope-for success (graduation rates/retention rates- these are things we have no control over; you cannot control your students behavior)
  2. Lagging Indicators – are things affected by what you do to influence your leading indicators

Exercise:  The group was asked “How do you know you are successful in your department?  What are the key indicators?

i.e.  You cannot control the usage of a service, but you can control/determine the hours of operation for your department to increase usage for students.

Key Elements: 

  • There is a strategy of creating a connection between leading and lagging indicators. You need to look at things you can control and collect data on that subject, not on what you cannot control such as graduation rates, success rates, wins/losses (athletics), or retention.
  • Perspective of data is important.  Data needs to matter, and clarity and simplicity matters.
  • Share data widely with everyone.
  • Presentation of data is also important. Do not complicate the data; narrow the data to one piece/one data point.
  • Data is merely a tool to lead into a conversation and make decisions.
  • People must have a connection to the data to make a decision or change
  • Do not assume people know how to read the data or what it means.
  • Make the data easy to understand and explicit.
  • The way you title charts makes a difference; use an explicit message of what the data is showing as a title; create a theme with your titles to lead the conversation
  • Create data standards before conversation
  • Start with positive data/information
  • Tell a story with your data; build a context; define a problem; resolve; and present outcomes (i.e. Disney Way)
  • Emotions matters
  • Laziness is built in our nature; law of least effort
  • Effects of priming

 

Practical Issues:

  • Safety & familiarity!
  • Feed the group!
  • Make a connection with them!
  • Humans are hardwired to learn from stories
  • Break up the presentation with activities
  • Collect reflections from everyone (i.e. Have everyone write down an idea or suggestion resulting from a discussion on a piece of paper and others read them out loud

Power of Habit:

  • A habit is something you do without thinking
  • Chains of habit are too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken
  • 40% actions are habits and not actual decisions
  • We accept convenience or good practices

Break Habits:

  • Change your routine to break current habits
  • When analyzing data make a decision before moving on
  • Engage other to change and break habits

Success Story of Odessa College:  Odessa College (OC) was on the list of four colleges for Texas to be closed.  They decided to look at their retention rates and have become known for the Drop Rate Improvement Program (DRIP) that Odessa College created to increase student and faculty success. The Drop Rate Improvement Program, known by OC faculty and staff as the “DRIP”, is a process that provides faculty with data-driven recommendations for improving the instructor-student relationship. OC faculty implemented this program in order to increase retention by decreasing the number of students dropping out of a class within the semester. This effort, in turn, improves students’ future success of completing their higher education aspirations. They began by observing the classes and teaching methods of faculty with high retention rates and learned the following:

  • Faculty took the time to learn the names of the students in the first week
  • They assessed early and often
  • They met with students privately
  • They had strict class requirements and syllabi

The college began to use data, data, and data.  With the Drop Rate Improvement Program, they set targets.  They began to use “peer training peer” to help other faculty members increase retention in their classes.  They had mentoring and success coaches.  They created events to celebrate the students and their success.  They created 8-week mini sessions for courses.  They increased their retention rates to over 80% and more for the last five years. After studying faculty retention rates, their interactions with students and their teaching methods, it was determined that drop rates had little to do with the actual teaching methods, but rather with the relationships the teachers have with their students.

 

 

 

Avoid “BOUTIQUE” practices!  Merely ornaments on a Christmas tree!  This is when you simply come up with temporary solutions and fixes that look good but do not last.  “If you wanna cover material, then get a tarp!”  Think BIG!! 

Dr. Phillip’s Advice to Increase Data Use:

  1. Focus on data that matters
  2. Peer to Peer
  3. Implementation and decision-making must occur for success
  4. Incentive to drive change
  5. Feed the group
  6. Share at the start; effective priming
  7. Use clear data
  8. Make a connection

Exercise: IEBC list of the typical problems that community colleges identified as well as the impact research-based practices were distributed to group.  Each group was asked to select for typical problems and select the best impact research-based practices to help resolve the problems.

Dr. Phillips did not recommend sending surveys to students via email.  Utilize technology and use texting to their cell phones and provide incentives.

Do not make assumptions about the data.  What is in the cohort being measured?  Who are these students?  Who does this represents?

INTERVENTIONS:

  • Do not use “boutique” solutions
  • Think big
  • It is not about restoring what was lost in cuts; those may no longer be needs
  • Must be able to go to scale
  • Must be researched-based
  • No pilots
  • Must be able to implement properly
  • Must be adequately resourced
  • Think systematically; how does it affect others
  • Modest gains can be made by one department, but with all of them working together large gains can be achieved

Dr. Phillips closed his presentation with asking the group to share what was the most valuable tool or information they received today from his presentation.

Dena and Tony closed and thanked Dr. Phillips for his time and presentation and thanked the group for attending the retreat.

Supporting Docs

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