Calbright doesn’t just provide career-focused online education to adults, we’re constantly researching new ways to make online education more effective and equitable for adults.
New evidence shows that the College’s continued research is having a significant effect. Calbright’s proving that it’s possible to make online education both more accessible and more effective for everyone.
Taking What’s Good And Making It Better
Since it opened to students in 2019, Calbright has been flexibly paced, meaning that students can take their classes when they want to, on their own schedules, whether that’s first thing in the morning,for an hour on their lunch break, or in 15 minute increments throughout their day. They can also complete the programs at their own pace: Some students go fast, some students take extra time, some go at a steady pace, some study a lot when they can and a little when they can – and that’s never a problem. It’s all up to the student.
Students tell us that’s one of the reasons they enroll at Calbright – even more than the fact that we’re free. For many people, being able to take classes on their own schedule is the difference between going to college or not.
In 2023, Calbright began testing a new approach to flexibly paced education, an initiative called “Pace and Progress Timelines.” The idea was simple: As each student enrolls, they work with a success counselor to establish their knowledge and experience of the subject, their availability to study, and how much time they can devote in an average week. Based on that information, a timeline is established for their studies. It’s still flexibly paced (students can change their timelines in response to life events and also do their coursework around their daily schedule), but the timeline creates a measurement of when they need to complete each course unit in order to stay on track to complete their respective program.
Our Student Success team follows along with each student’s progress, offering check-ins when needed to ensure strong program progress. If there are any challenges, the student’s timeline is adjusted to make sure to reflect that. There are no penalties – the idea isn’t to tell the students when they have to study or how fast they have to go, it’s to help students stay motivated and on the track with their own self-established timeline. And then to adjust as needed.
Early results for Pace and Progress Timelines were very promising – student feedback was overwhelmingly positive, and the students who used them were completing their coursework more quickly.
Now, after one year, Calbright has comprehensive results.
Students who used the timelines completed their programs twice as often as students who didn’t.
That applies across programs. Using timelines as part of a flexibly paced college program makes it significantly more likely that students will meet their goals. Pace and Progress Timelines have been an overwhelming success and are a new best practice for flexible, online learning.
Helping Students Achieve Their Goals
That’s just a start. Even as timelines have been expanded throughout Calbright’s programs, Calbright continues to test new ways to make the timelines even more impactful. Can the check-ins with students about their progress be enhanced? Are there other ways of following student progress that could detect barriers to program completion sooner? We believe there are, and once again, we are conducting research to see what works.
Meanwhile, Calbright is in the early testing process for additional forms of student support that have promising initial results. Creating learning communities of mutual support has so far demonstrated a robust positive impact on student persistence rates. Determining which assignments students are most likely to struggle with in every program, and offering peer tutoring and support for students when they reach those assignments, likely significantly enhances completion rates per initial testing.
If these results sustain over time, the way Pace and Progress Timelines have, Calbright will not only be better at supporting its students, it will be reinventing best practices for online adult education.
