2016-2021 AMP Implementation Updates (January 2019)
- Overview
- Prior Learning Assessment Update
- Alternative Placement Program Update
- Noncredit Credit Pathways
- Noncredit to Credit Articulated Pathways
- Micro-credentials
- Guided Pathways and Meta Majors Updates
- Changes in the Developmental Education Curriculum
- English Language for Academic Purposes (ELAP)
- Extended Winter Session Update
Overview
The Montgomery College (MC) Academic Master Plan includes two areas that focus on integrating alternative pathways into academic pathways. Alternative pathways are defined as an alternative means of obtaining educational qualifications, other than the traditional means of gaining access to or completing the required study to obtain the educational qualifications. The two areas that are the focus of alternative credentialing in the Academic Master Plan (AMP) are:
- Implement Alternative and Customized Assessment and Placement: Assessment of Prior Learning, multiple measures for developmental placement, expanded credit by exam and,
- Design Alternative and Customized Credentialing and Pathways: Competency Based Education, stackable credentials, badges, Technical Professional Skills (TPS) degrees, and multiple exit points from developmental studies.
The AMP includes these goals because alternative pathways have a positive impact on student retention, transfer, time-to-degree, cost-to-degree, and graduation. Further, these options address the changing educational and business landscape where industry-recognized credentials are considered legitimate alternatives to a degree and lead to successful career paths that may or may not include either a two- or four-year degree. In addition, offering students alternative pathways provides evidence of career readiness and helps to prepare students for the workforce by including coursework achievements and demonstrable competencies, which will help differentiate them in a competitive job marketplace.
The pursuit of a consistent, systematic, and readily understandable approach to awarding credit for prior learning is another goal of the Plan. The College has always had prior learning; however, the complex process is not well understood by or publicized to students, faculty or staff. Montgomery College has plans to develop clear access to information on prior learning, and expanding the options to obtain prior learning credit such as awarding credit for military experience, and credentials as industry certifications.
Guided Pathways, originally explained in Redesigning America’s Community Colleges, are another success initiative being implemented at the College. The pathways formulate a college-wide approach to helping students enter, understand, and complete degree pathways that help them maximize their time and cost. MC is exploring current and future college programs that, when reformulated, will demonstrate that the college is already well on its way to implementing Guided Pathways. A significant part of Guided Pathways is the use of metamajors, a social construct that links similar academic programs together for purposes of onboarding, advising, career planning, and social interactions.
Prior Learning Assessment Update:
The team leading the achievement of the goal to increase access to prior learning and proficiency credit established the joint credit/ non-credit workgroup for the College. This workshop recommends steps to expand student access to assessment for prior learning and proficiency credit. During AY18, the group assisted the early childhood education (ECE) faculty and Workforce Development and Continuing Education (WDCE) staff in launching the childcare certification pathway and developing the recognition of the industry credential for incumbent workers. Further, WDCE and the ECE faculty submitted a joint EARN-Maryland grant to add MI-BEST classes that will allow adult education students in WDCE to access this new pathway more easily. We now have an Englishfor Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) for Childcare Professionals class that will segue into the jobs skills training and basic education program, MI-BEST, with a version of the Child Development Associate (noncredit). In this educational pathway, students can earn six credits once they complete the class and obtain their national credential. The Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing, and Regulation (DLLR) is giving Montgomery College $50,000 for the coursework and for a person in the for-credit ECE program to help build the employer advisory group.
One key element of expanding credit for prior learning (CPL) is to develop marketing
materials that explain what CPL is and help prospective and current students to take
advantage of these Duplicated, Student Usage of CPL, 2012-2017 (PDF, 
) credits to accelerate their degree completion. Work is currently underway to develop
a brochure and it is scheduled to be launched in spring semester 2019, which will
be helpful for recruitment and registration for fall 2019. In addition, the College
will host a College - wide CPL conference to teach faculty how to evaluate coursework,
how to use CPL for recruitment purposes, and how to advise students to take advantage
of the CPL options available at the College.
Another significant area of focus is credit by exam (CBE), which offers prospective and current students a mechanism to demonstrate their knowledge and receive credit toward their degree. The review of the various CBE options, including Advanced Placement (AP), International Bacca - laureate (IB), DSST (formerly Dantes Subject Standardized tests) and the College Level Examination Program (CLEP) exams began in fall 2018. The review is about one-third completed. The goal for this upcoming academic year is to complete the faculty review of all AP, IB, DSST and CLEP exams to make these options available to prospective and current students across the College. MC moved into the top 100 CLEP provider tier this month! New outreach initiatives to promote CLEP, the College Level Equivalency Program exams, as a way to demonstrate knowledge and acquire academic credit, has resulted in a 25 percent increase in testing at Montgomery College, providing another way to expeditiously, and at a lower costs, move students towards goal and degree/certificate completion. (250 students tested in FY 17 and 314 tested in FY 18 at MC.) Further, the faculty are examining the top-level military credits to begin evaluation of these credits for the fall 2019 semester. The table to the left provides the current number of students who have received an alternate credit to accelerate their achievement of an associate’s degree at Montgomery College. The goal for the Academic Master Plan is to increase the usage of CPL by 50% within five years.
ALTERNATIVE PLACEMENT PROGRAM UPDATE:
Alternative placement continues to expand at the College. These alternative placement mech - anisms provide additional entry pathways to a degree. Prospective and current students who participate in alternative placement are able to immediately begin college-level coursework, which reduces both time and cost to achieving a degree.
Since fall 2017, Alternative Placement Program (APP) in English (E) and Math (M) were launched with full-scale implementation. With the APPE and APPM programs, recent Montgomery County Public High School graduates who earn the grade of “B” or higher in requisite courses are given a college-level placement at Montgomery College. These students are not required to take any of the standard placement tests; their high school grades qualify them for college-level placement. Since the launch of APP, a significant number of students who would have enrolled in developmental courses have been able to enroll in college-level courses, without having to take a developmental course. This year alone 2,094 students have enrolled in college level courses with APP codes. Of the 2,094 students, 64 percent (1,332 students) have enrolled in college-level courses using the APP code as their primary placement measure. The remaining 36 percent (762 students) enrolled in college-level courses using another placement measure.
In addition to the successes achieved with APP initiatives at the College, the AMP implementation team is preparing for the newest alternative placement program: A grade point average (GPA) of 3.0 or higher for high school students in Maryland, which will be used as an alternative to taking a placement test to enter college-level math and English. Over the upcoming academic year, College Assessment Placement and Developmental Issues (CAPDI), will lead the process to implement procedures to place incoming students in college-level courses based on their GPA.
During the upcoming academic year, the team leading the implementation of Initiatives 3 and 4 for the AMP are expanding prior learning opportunities for prospective and current students. For the fall and spring semesters, the team will lead the process of amending the current prior learningrelated academic regulations with the College’s Academic Regulations Committee. Once these changes are approved by the Committee, they will expand prior learning options at the College.
NONCREDIT CREDIT PATHWAYS
Stackable Credentials
Funded by a grant from Capital One, the stackable credentials workgroup continued its work throughout the year. A stackable credential is “part of a sequence of credentials that can be accumulated over time to build up an individual’s qualifications and help them move along a career pathway or up a career ladder to different and potentially higher-paying jobs.” (TEGL 15-19, USDOL). A goal of the project is to define and clarify processes for designing and implementing a stackable credential. One way that a stackable credential can be developed is through the use of the Corporation for a Skilled Workforce (CSW) Connecting Credentials Framework. At the recommendation of a CSW technical assistance provider, MC faculty and administrators visited Columbus State College (CSC) to learn about their use of the Connecting Credentials Framework, meeting with CSC faculty from early childhood education and healthcare. These discussions helped to underpin the work of ECE faculty and WDCE staff as they developed their pipeline from noncredit to credit and the EARN grant from DLLR. Workgroup members, seeking ways to expand the use of stackable credentials, worked with institutional assessment staff to modify the College Area Review questions. The questions now ask programs to formally reflect on their use of stackable credentials, their links to WDCE programs, and their relationship with employer advisory groups. Beginning in fall 2018, programs participating in the CAR are addressing these questions, with the workgroup members ready to provide technical support as needed. Plans for the coming year include marketing the concept of stackable credentials to a wider College audience, providing additional technical support to areas seeking to include stackable credentials, and documenting processes for implementing a stackable system.
NONCREDIT TO CREDIT ARTICULATED PATHWAYS
Many students in Montgomery College’s Early Childhood AAS program earn the Child Develop - ment Associate (CDA) Certificate as part their preparatory work. Working with the Council for Professional Recognition, MC’s WDCE and credit program faculty developed a crosswalk of com - petencies and class objectives that were reviewed to match competencies to the College’s credit objectives. The goal was to create a clear pathway from noncredit to credit, thereby reducing the number of years it takes a Child Care Provider to complete the CDA, the Early Childhood Certifi - cate, and the AAS degree. Due to this work, students who complete the CDA will receive 3 credits for EDUC119, Intro to Early Childhood Education, and 3 credits for EDUC115, Health, Safety, and Nutrition for Young Children.
Since being approved in February of 2018, 27 students have received credit for this certificate. One such student is Tigit M., a single mother and childcare provider, who is saving both time and money towards her AAS degree because of the CDA certificate. Tigist was awarded a Child Care Career and Professional Development Fund scholarship this fall, a second cost savings because of the CDA credential. She will receive the Early Childhood one-year Certificate this December and continue into the AAS degree.
Along with Tigit, 16 other students have received full tuition funding from the Child Care Career and Professional Development Fund.
Faculty and Staff Involved:
- Nelida Andres, WDCE Interim Program Director
- Sonia Pruneda-Hernandez, Early Childhood Program Coordinator
- Dr. Jeannie Ho, MC Professor
- Dr. Marsha McLean, MC Professor
- Barbara Marshall, MC Professor and Department Chair
- Dr. Eric Benjamin, Interim Dean
- Dr. Kim Kelley, Vice President and Provost, Rockville Campus
- Phuoc Dang, Transcript Evaluator Manager
Micro-credentials
In 2017, the College established a work group to develop the framework to launch micro-credentials at the College (also known as “badges”). Micro-credentials are awarded for job-related skills that students acquire during classroom instruction or as part of their life experience. These can be valuable supplements to labor-market recognized credentials and degrees as a means to document student achievements. During AY18, the group worked on developing a framework, policies, and procedures for developing badges at the College. As part of developing the framework, the group, leveraging funding from the Capital One grant, issued a bid for a micro-credential virtual platform where the College’s badges could be awarded and managed. This led to the purchase of the Credly credentialing system. Further, the group designed the micro-credential for the College.
The work group determined that it would be beneficial to pilot one or two micro-credentials to develop expertise in the management of these credentials at the College. In fall 2018, the first two micro-credentials were launched, one in leadership and a second in communication. The faculty leading the Macklin Business Institute (MBI) developed the rubric to measure student attainment of the competencies necessary to achieve these two micro-credentials. Additional micro-credentials are under development, including micro-credentials for professional development workshops at the College and in noncredit pathways through WDCE. Future efforts will include identifying pathways from a badge to a noncredit or credit certificate or degree at the College.
GUIDED PATHWAYS AND META MAJORS UPDATES
The College agreed on a Meta Major model in spring 2018. Meta Majors are academic groups of majors based on career or area of interest; at MC, we will be using Meta Majors as a recruitment and marketing, onboarding, advising, retention, and academic planning tool. All majors, certificates, and WDCE programs were assigned to ten different Meta Majors. The model was developed by a group of faculty and staff, and shared with the College community for feedback. An implementation team will work during AY19 to launch the program.
The College is working with other community colleges in the state to develop a Guided Pathways implementation white paper, which will help identify next steps in establishing a Guided Pathways model at the college. In the interim, a small working group is participating in American Association of Community College workshops on Guided Pathways.
The College participated in the Adult Learner 360 survey, administered by the Council on Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL). The survey assesses student perceptions on how well the College meets the needs of adult students, and measures those against similar perceptions of faculty and staff at the College. There is moderate agreement on MC’s strengths and weaknesses for serving adults between surveyed students and staff. Both groups agree that transitions, and the teaching-learning process, are strengths at MC and both groups agree that adaptivity, and life and career planning are areas for improvement. The greatest areas of disagreement between students and staff surveyed included assessment of learning outcomes, strategic partnerships, and financing.
A work group will make suggestions on improving these standards during the upcoming academic year.
CHANGES IN THE DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION CURRICULUM
Since the implementation of the revised developmental English and Reading curriculum into integrated English and reading courses, students in the integrated courses have seen increased levels of success. Figure 1 shows the decline in the DFW rate after one year of implementation. The discipline will continue to review the success rates and the curriculum, making adjustments as needed for student success. A complete assessment of the redesigned program is underway this year. Starting fall 2018, the math discipline faculty members are implementing a new math curriculum with “just in time” support for students who would have enrolled in developmental math courses. In the math redesign, students are placed into an introductory, college-level math course that is needed for their program of study with the appropriate supports for the course. The math discipline faculty members have redesigned their curriculum to offer a one semester or two semester option to students, whether they need a general education math foundation course and require developmental coursework or whether the student plans to enter STEM or education and requires developmental coursework.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES (ELAP):
International credit evaluations at MC will be sourced not only in World Education Services (WES), but also in Educational Credential Evaluators (ECE) and Josef Sliny & Associates. Because ECE and Sliny are the only evaluators from which the University of Maryland is accepting international credit evaluations, MC students who rely on one of them will not have to pay for a second evaluation if they transfer to Maryland. If students have to go through this more than once, it becomes both expensive and traumatic.
Following the complete redesign of the English Language for Academic purposes program, non-native speakers of English placed in ELAP capstone course have increased opportunities to co-enroll in credit courses and have demonstrated significant success in the credit courses. ELAP students outperformed the general student cohort in ABC rates as well as in average GPA. Other student success assessments are ongoing.
EXTENDED WINTER SESSION UPDATE:
The College continues to offer students opportunities to decrease the time to degree completion by offering a five-week online extended winter session. This session begins immediately following the end of the fall semester and runs through the holiday season, concluding the week before the spring semester begins.
The 2017-2018 extended winter session consisted of 42 sections of courses being offered; enrollments were just under 630. This increased from the first year of extended winter when there were 267 enrollments in 18 sections. The upcoming extended winter session will offer about 60 sections of courses and enrollments exceed 1,000!