Santiago Canyon College’s accelerated learning program eases student load
Santiago Canyon College is launching a new Hawks Flight Path program next month — a sequence of three General Education courses that will help students more easily focus on their majors.
“We acknowledge that our students have a lot of demands on them,” said Jason Parks, vice president of academic affairs. “They’re working and they have familial responsibilities. When you think about a full load of 30 units a year, that’s four to five classes a semester—a big challenge for students who have a family, plus a job.”
The Hawks Flight Path was created to ease the burden.
Parks conceived of the program, but he is quick to credit a team of colleagues, including faculty and deans, who put it together. “The team got together and really thought it through about how we would work to benefit the students the most. I think it’s really well-designed. The spring is the soft launch for it,” he said. “Next fall we will target incoming freshmen who need all of their prerequisites.”
The first class is in public speaking (Feb. 12–March 24) followed by a class in nutrition (March 25–April 28), and, finally, an introduction to cultural anthropology (April 29–June 9).
“We have knowledge of what classes go well in those shorter times and where students thrive, so we’ll choose those classes (accordingly),” Parks said.
Since the Hawks Flight Path classes will fulfill General Ed requirements, students will be able to put more hours and effort into the classes that are part of their major. This is particularly helpful for students whose majors require a lot of time, for instance, if they must work in a lab.
“They can take those three classes and then take an overlying major’s course, something that they maybe need to spend quite a bit more time on, such as a calculus, chemistry or physics course,” Parks explained.
“The initial thought was let’s target our students who may be pre-nursing or health sciences,” he said. “For those students, the hope is that they would take those three classes and then maybe an anatomy and physiology class that would last the entire term. The amount of time you have to spend in the laboratory is a lot, so we would want to give them that opportunity to spend that laboratory time doing the work that is going to be most pertinent to their career as they move along.”
The plan is also designed to relieve exam stress. Rather than having five final exams at once, exams will be spread out over the semester.
And because the three GE classes are sequential, faculty members will be able to share with each other information about students who may be struggling or those who need more challenge.
“The idea is to create an ecosystem where those faculty members communicate with one another about the students who are incoming, Parks said. “This will be an advantage because most faculty members get students cold. You just walk into your classroom and you need to learn about your students starting on day one. But if one of your colleagues has said, ‘Hey, this group kind of needs help there, and this group is accelerating over here,’ then you’re not walking in cold.”
The ultimate intention of the Hawks Flight Plan is to make it easier for students to stay in college, Parks said. “We know that our most vulnerable students, we don’t lose them at the very end of completing their degree, we lose them at the beginning,” he said. “And so, we want to help them to persist.”
The number of students enrolling for credit programs at Santiago Canyon College recently jumped more than 12%.
“(They are) our target audience, absolutely,” Parks said. “This particular program is going to target more of the traditional college age, which is in the 18 to 24 range, because we are trying to get them in, get their associate degrees and out into a career. Or if they’re looking to transfer, we want to help them to transfer to a university to earn a bachelor’s degree.”
Santiago Canyon College also has a tutoring center that encourages students to support each other in their studies. “I’m just the old guy telling them college is good,” Parks said. “But if their colleagues are telling them that you can do this, and they encourage one another, that’s worth more than I could ever tell a student.”
Other forms of student support at SCC include a basic needs center, a food pantry, and financial aid. “We’re trying to hit them from all angles to make sure that they feel supported and they have everything they need to get through college,” Parks said.
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