Essential Question
How can schools best support concurrent enrollment students?
Learning Goal
Identify and analyze concurrent enrollment principles and strategies to increase student participation and success in concurrent enrollment.
Materials List
Session Slides (attached)
Dual Enrollment Playbook Summaries (attached; one for each participant)
Sticky notes in two colors (two for each participant)
Engage
10 Minute(s)
Use the attached Session Slides to guide the session. Display the session title on slide 2 as participants enter. Pass out two sticky notes in different colors to each participant as they enter. Once everyone is seated, move to slide 3 and introduce the Essential Question for the session, How can schools best support concurrent enrollment students? Tell participants to keep this question in mind as they move through the session.
Move to slide 4 and introduce the Commit and Toss strategy. Tell participants to list one benefit of concurrent enrollment on a sticky note and one barrier that they believe limits concurrent enrollment participation on a different color sticky note. Have participants toss their sticky notes into a container. Pull out several sticky notes that correspond to benefits of concurrent enrollment and read them aloud. Have a brief discussion about how concurrent courses are valuable to students. Next pull out several sticky notes that correspond to the barriers that prevent students from attending concurrent courses. Read several aloud. Discuss the barriers that participants currently see in their schools.
Transition to slide 5 and review the Session Objective with participants.
Explore
10 Minute(s)
Pass out the attached Dual Enrollment Playbook Summaries to each participant. Display slide 6 and tell participants to choose one of the five principles from the summaries that relates to a current issue they have with concurrent enrollment in their school. Provide time for participants to read their chosen principle, then post their key takeaways either on poster paper or Padlet.
Explain
10 Minute(s)
Move to slide 7 and have participants group up by the principle they chose to read. Have participants read through the key takeaways from a principle that is different from the one they initially read. Have participants use the I Notice, I Wonder strategy to add comments and questions to the key takeaways after they have read through them.
Facilitate a group discussion by having participants share their new knowledge about how to best support concurrent enrollment students going forward.
Extend
30 Minute(s)
Transition to slide 8 and introduce the panel to participants. Provide time for each panel member to share their experiences with concurrent enrollment and then encourage participants to ask questions of the panel.
Evaluate
5 Minute(s)
Display slide 9 and ask participants to think about one tangible strategy they plan to take back to their school. Provide some thinking time and then have participants share their thoughts. Encourage participants to take the Dual Enrollment Playbook Summaries back to their schools and share with their concurrent enrollment team.
If participants are from different sites, provide some time for them to collaborate and share best practices they already use at their school.
Move to slide 10 and share the Concurrent Enrollment Tool Kit educator resource that K20 has developed to provide support to schools. These weekly discussion guides have a weekly focus and provide conversation starters for anyone that works to support concurrent enrollment students.
Follow-Up Activities
Share the Concurrent Enrollment Tool Kit with teachers associated with concurrent enrollment.
Research Rationale
Research shows a clear and strong link between concurrent enrollment and increased student academic performance (Jones, 2014; Dingess, 2018). Several studies have also found that students who participate in concurrent enrollment have time to acclimate to the college environment and thus earn higher grades in their postsecondary careers (Allen & Dadgar, 2012; Dingess, 2018). This opportunity to build momentum also provides an avenue for those students who may carry complex social and educational challenges from high school as they transition into the university setting (Wang et al., 2015). A consistent concern with students as they transition from high school to PSE is that many of them may have difficulty in fully acclimating to the rigor and expectations of university-level coursework (Taylor, 2015; Vargas et al., 2017). This is especially apparent when looking at students who identify as first-generation college students, as they may feel overwhelmed by everything from student support to the specifics of financial aid (Lee et al., 2022). Concurrent enrollment offers a bridge between the familiarity of high school and the frontier of higher learning, building upon the initial benefits of concurrent enrollment in high school to build toward greater academic momentum fueled by a smooth transition from high school to university (Wang et al., 2015).
Resources
Allen, D., & Dadgar, M. (2012). Does dual enrollment increase students’ success in college? Evidence from a quasi-experimental analysis of dual enrollment in New York City. New Directions for Higher Education, 11-19.
Dingess, E. (2018). The impact of the number of dual enrollment credits on racial minority students' completion time at five Virginia community colleges. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/efl_etds/68
Jones, S. (2014). Student participation in dual enrollment and college success. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 38(1), 24-37.
K20 Center. (n.d.). Concurrent enrollment tool kit. Educator Resource. https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/collection/2752
K20 Center. (n.d.). Commit and toss. Strategies. https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/strategy/119
K20 Center (n.d.). I notice, I wonder. Strategies. https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/strategy/180
K20 Center. (n.d.). Padlet. Tech tools. https://learn.k20center.ou.edu/tech-tool/1077
Lee, J., Fernandez, F., Ro, H. K., & Suh, H. (2022, January 4). Does dual enrollment influence high school graduation, college enrollment, choice, and persistence? Research in Higher Education. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11162-021-09667-3.pdf
Vargas, J., Hooker, S., & Gerwin, C. (2017, November 1). Blending high school and college can sharpen the focus of each. Phi Delta Kappan, 99(3), 13-18.
Wang, X., Chan, H., Phelps, L. A., & Washbon, J. I. (2015). Fuel for success: Academic momentum as a mediator between dual enrollment and educational outcomes of two-year technical college students. Community College Review 2015, Vol. 43(2) 165–190. https://doi.org/10.1177/0091552115569846