LibGuides: Guided Pathways: A Resource Guide: About Guided Pathways

Guided Pathways represents the new normal for transforming the student experience and improving student success rates in higher education. Pathways is a comprehensive approach to reform that is a system redesign of the student experience from an initial connection to the college all the way to completion. STLCC, after years of declining retention rates, has the opportunity to expand its focus beyond determining if students are college-ready; but determining if we are student-ready. Reframing our focus on Pathways will move STLCC to the next level of organizational and student excellence.

Navigating Academic and Student Affairs for Pathways Success
by Feleccia Moore-Davis and Sheri Rowland. Inside Higher Ed, June 19, 2019.

Guided Pathways

Building Momentum: Using Guided Pathways to Redesign the Student Experience
2020 National Report from CCCSE presents the first national baseline data on student and faculty perceptions of guided pathways practices.

AACC Pathways Project
Guided Pathways Resource Center: Tools and Resources for College
Bringing guided pathways to scale involves substantial redesign of students’ educational experience and touches every aspect of college operations. The guided pathways model (updated 2019) introduced below describes the critical steps colleges take as they do this challenging, complex work. (The Ensure Students Are Learning section was updated in 2019.)
Presentations, League for Innovation in the Community College Annual Conference

Related Guides

Affordable & Open Educational Resources (A&OER)
by Sharon Fox Last Updated Oct 24, 2020 506 views this year

Create a Roadmap for Student Success

Visual representation of elements in a guided pathway

Elements of Guided Pathways

Structured onboarding processes
Academic maps
Proactive academic and career counseling
Early alert systems
Instructional support and co-curricular activities

Implementing Guided Pathways

Community colleges embracing 'guided pathways' see payoff
Education Dive, April 15, 2019
Completion by Design (CDB)
CBD launched in 2011 and completed in 2018, focused on efforts by nine community colleges in three states – Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio – to significantly boost student progression and success by reimagining key aspects of their academic programming and student services. The result? Participating colleges met their near-term targets on five key indicators (passage of introductory math, passage of introductory English, first term credit completion, first year credit completion, first year completion of classes in major) three years ahead of schedule.
CBD Institution Presidents Hear participating community college presidents reflect on their insititution's journey with CBD.
The Effects of Structured Transfer Pathways in Community Colleges
Baker, R. (2016). The Effects of Structured Transfer Pathways in Community Colleges. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 38, 626 - 646.
Governance in the Implementation of Guided Pathways at Scale at California Community Colleges, Dissertation
Ashby, Hayley, "A Case Study of Strategic Governance in the Implementation of Guided Pathways at Scale at California Community Colleges" (2018). Dissertations. 214.
https://digitalcommons.brandman.edu/edd_dissertations/214. (Brandman University Digital Repository)
Guided Pathways to Success in STEM, Massachusetts Community Colleges
[Sinclair Community College} Suggested Term-by-Term Pathways
These suggested program completion pathways for different term-by-term course loads outline the courses Sinclair Academic Advisors recommend taking each semester to stay on track and graduate on time for your chosen pathway type of part-time or full-time.

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"Few colleges have signed onto the national college completion agenda with as much vigor as Sinclair Community College. And while national graduation rates have seen only a slow inching up, Sinclair has managed a big jump. Sinclair Community College boosted student completion rates by 75 percent, but to sharpen its focus, the college began cutting some of its more than 100 completion-related projects."
Phase Two of Completion, Inside Higher Ed (June 2, 2015) https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/06/02/sinclair-community-colleges-15-years-completion-projects-pay
What We Know About Guided Pathways, CCRC
Community College Resource Center

Reports from Brookings Institutution, CCRC and EAB

Guided Pathways, EAB
Search results for "guided pathways" on EAB's website. To access this content, please log in or register for a free guest account.
Improving community college completion rates by addressing structural and motivational barriers, Brookings report, October 8, 2018
"For students to stay motivated to persist on their academic trajectory," she wrote, "they need to both see the destination (the careers and earnings an education will provide) and the pathway to get there (the connections between what they are doing in school and what they would like to achieve)." -- Elizabeth Mann Levesque
5 ways to boost community college completion rates: Policy Recommendations from Brookings report above.
Elizabeth Mann Levesque, October 8, 2018
Knowledge Development for the AACC Pathways Initiative, CCRC
The goal of this three-year project is to inform the development and adoption by community colleges of the guided pathways model for improving student outcomes and to develop guidance materials and tools that can be used by others in helping colleges plan and implement guided pathways. The American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) and other national partner organizations are designing and conducting a series of six two-and-a-half-day Pathways Institutes for teams from 30 community colleges that are committed to making the systemic changes in practice necessary to implement guided pathways at scale.