New podcast series features the voices of educators, staff, administrators, and students and their stories of transformation through TAACCCT.
Motivated by the desire to provide a high-quality equitable education, educators across the United States are utilizing the resources awarded to them through the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grant to transform their practices. Through our work with the Transformative Change Initiative we regularly have the privilege of interacting with these educators. These interactions afford us the opportunity to learn about these important initiatives, from the observations, reflections, and insights of the educators. By capturing and sharing some of these insights in a podcast series, we hope to afford colleges and policy makers the opportunity to learn more about the important work being undertaken through TAACCCT. In these first two podcasts in the series, we feature two consortia that are working to improve student success through intrusive student supports and redesigned developmental education.
The first podcast in the series features Matt Stilwell, a College Composition and Reading faculty at Front Range Community College (Larimer Campus) with the Colorado Online Education Training Consortium (COETC). This 15-member statewide community college consortium is working to redesign development education to accelerate students’ passage of gatekeeper courses. Stilwell discusses how his work with the redesign of developmental education has transformed how he sees his students and how this has impacted his pedagogical practice.
The second podcast in the series features Beverly Hickam, Grant Project Manager at Mineral Area College with the MoHealthWINs Consortium. This 13-member statewide community college consortium is working to improve completion for their student through a combination of accelerated developmental education and intrusive students supports. Hickam talks about early intervention and intrusive support services have contributed to student retention in their TAACCCT-impacted programs.
Are you interested in sharing your experiences with TAACCCT? Or do you know someone who we should feature in this podcast series? Please let us know by emailing occrl@ilinois.edu. We want this series to feature a wide variety of educators, staff, administrators, and students about how TAACCCT has transformed their practice and their lives. Don’t be shy, we are looking forward to hearing your story.
Heather L. Fox is a project coordinator for Pathways Resource Center and OCCRL. She is passionate about supporting P-14 districts efforts to provide students with equitable and high quality career pathways, and their efforts to help students of all ages and backgrounds to identify and pursue their career aspirations.