Overview
The Distance Education in Focus: Improving Course Design and Strengthening Student Support (InFocus) grant is a $2.68 million grant to support work to increase student persistence, retention, and success for Hispanic and low-income students. InFocus has three overarching goals:
- Improve academic support in high-risk online courses
- Enrich learning in high-risk online courses
- Provide targeted, intensive advising support to online students who are struggling
Accomplishments
The Distance Education Department, in partnership with the Online Learning Labs and Student Advising, has completed its second year of the InFocus Title V grant with significant success and progress toward attaining the goals and objectives of the proposed project.
- The embedded tutoring program, the largest initiative of the InFocus grant in FY2022, has successfully brought embedded services to students in asynchronous online courses.
- From fall 2021 to fall 2022, the number of online high-risk course sections with an embedded tutor rose approximately 20%. The four most requested courses are English Composition I, English Composition II, Elementary Statistics, and Mathematics for Business and Economics.
Impact
The impact on student success resulting from the embedded tutors in course sections is significant, as demonstrated by the following:
- In fall 2022, 2,373 students were enrolled in course sections with an embedded tutor. This indicates a strong student interest in accessing additional support and resources to enhance their learning experience.
- During that semester, 20,644 hours of tutoring were provided to students in course sections with embedded tutors. This demonstrates the commitment of the tutoring program to supporting students and helping them succeed in their academic endeavors.
- Data analysis has revealed a notable impact on student persistence. Students enrolled in course sections with embedded tutors exhibited a higher persistence rate of 4 percentage points than those without. This indicates that students who received support from embedded tutors were more likely to persist and continue their studies, leading to improved student success and retention rates.
Next Steps
Based on the achievements and progress of the Distance Education InFocus Title V grant, the following next steps are identified to continue advancing the goals and objectives of the project:
- Build upon the embedded tutoring program‘s success by expanding the availability of embedded services in high-risk online courses, identifying courses where students may benefit from embedded tutors, and working collaboratively with faculty to implement this support.
- Recruit more faculty into the program by highlighting the success of the program.
- Continue to provide targeted and intensive advising support to online students facing course challenges.
- Regularly assess the effectiveness of the InFocus grant initiatives and their impact on student outcomes. Collect and analyze data related to student success rates, retention, and satisfaction to identify areas of improvement and make data-informed decisions.