Research college transition programs

Conley’s (2005, 2007, 2008) initial research on the keys to college readiness called key transition knowledge and skills “college knowledge.” His first book was titled College Knowledge: What It Really Takes for Students to Succeed and What We Can Do to Get Them Ready. Part Two of the book focuses on a student’s first-year experience in college.

Your assignment is to research college transition programs (sometimes called bridge programs) to develop an outline for a new transition program at Concordia University. Design and describe your College Transition Program and its components including the audience, the length of the program, and sample activities for the program, as well as how the program addresses the five aspects of Key Transition Skills as described by Conley (2013).

Submit your 2-page assignment in narrative form or in a different, creative format. Cite and reference your sources in APA style.

Click here for information on course rubrics.

References

Conley, D. T. (2005). College knowledge: What it really takes for students to succeed and what we can do to get them ready. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.<

Conley, D. T. (2007). Redefining college readiness, Volume 4. Eugene, OR: Educational Policy Improvement Center.

Conley, D. T. (2008). What makes a student college ready? Educational Leadership, 66(2). Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leade…

Conley, D. T. (2013). Getting ready for college, careers, and the Common Core: What every educator needs to know. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

FOUR KEYS TO COLLEGE AND CAREER-READINESS

“They can’t put anything on the Internet that isn’t true.” This is a woman’s claim in a commercial called “State of Disbelief” (State Farm, 2012). Her blanket statement might indicate that she lacks a valuable college-readiness skill—evaluating the validity of sources. This skill is included in one of David Conley’s (2010) Four Keys to College and Career Readiness. Examining two of these four keys is the focus for this week.

While high school GPA, college-entrance examination scores, high school coursework, and other assessment scores are indicators of a college-ready student, Conley (2010) focused on qualitative aspects rather than specific quantitative measures. Other definitions studied in Week 1, such as those from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) and the Manhattan Institute, concentrated on whether students can meet application requirements. Conley (2010) addressed multiple dimensions of college readiness. His four keys (key cognitive strategies, key content knowledge, key learning skills and techniques, key transition knowledge and techniques) include academic as well as social aspects needed for college success. Students in this model should be able to understand course expectations, cope with content knowledge, take away essential understandings of the course, and understand the culture of college. Conley (2010) has summarized the keys into four simple words that characterize the theme of each key: think, know, act, go. Conley (2010) indicated that the four keys “encompass all of the areas for which high schools can reasonably be expected to take primary responsibility to provide all students the necessary learning experiences and programs of preparation” (p. 31).

The four keys are parts to a whole, so an ideal college-ready student would be proficient in each of these areas. An advantage of approaching college readiness in this more qualitative manner is that students who make the benchmark test score, qualification index, or coursework criteria, could still be unprepared for college if they lack self-management skills or college knowledge.

Figure 1. Adapted from Conley’s Components of the Four Keys Model (Conley, 2013, p. 55)

This week’s focus is the two keys related to academic behaviors and contextual skills. Academic behaviors, or key learning skills and techniques, comprise self-management skills such as time management, study habits, and self-awareness. Other important learning skills in this key are metacognition, persistence, application, evaluating sources, and cooperative learning.

Contextual skills are an understanding of the college-going culture—or “college knowledge”—such as the application process, admissions requirements, types of colleges, and how college differs from high school (Conley, 2010). College readiness requires that students and their families develop college knowledge that includes an understanding of college culture and the way in which a college operates as an institution. College decision-making also requires an understanding of the various degree and training programs offered at different postsecondary institutions, an understanding of the admission process from selecting a college through acceptance and orientation, and an understanding of the financial options available to students and their families.

Key learning skills and techniques and key transition knowledge and skills are the least attended to within the four keys. Most high schools do not address these keys in a systemic manner. Conley (2010) contended that the reason for this inattention is that these keys are not considered or measured in the college admissions process. These keys are not measured in high school, and they are not incorporated into the Common Core State Standards. To ensure that more students are college- and career-ready, one must determine how to extend good teaching and purposely address these areas.

References

Conley, D. T. (2010). College and career ready: Helping all students succeed beyond high school. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Conley, D. T. (2013). Getting ready for college, careers, and the Common Core: What every educator needs to know [Image]. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
ISBN: 978-1-118-55114-1

State Farm [FunniestAds]. (2012, December 27). State Farm® state of disbelief French model[Video file]. Retrieved from

https://youtu.be/3DZbSlkFoSU

WEEKLY OBJECTIVES

Through participation in the following activities, the candidate will:

Evaluate and analyze college readiness within selected schools.

College Transition Program

Profile of a College-Ready School

Identify the key dimensions of college readiness and their connection to Common Core State Standards.

Key Learning Skills and Techniques

Profile of a College-Ready School

College Transition Programs

REQUIRED STUDIES

The following materials are required studies for this week. Complete these studies at the beginning of the week and save these weekly materials for future use.

College and Career-Ready (Conley, 2010)

Chapter 3: Ways to Develop Self-Management Skills and “College Knowledge”

Getting Ready (Conley, 2013)

Chapter 4: The Four Keys Continued: Learning Skills and Transition Skills

Read

Profile of the Graduate at Graduation (Jesuit Schools Network, 2015) [Web page]

Reality Check: The U.S. Job Market and Students’ Academic and Career Paths Necessitate Enhanced Vocational Education in High School (NEA Research, 2012) [Web page]