How to Quiet the Continuous Cycle of Complaints to Amplify a Continuous Cycle of Improvement

In summer and fall 2024, Golden West College (GWC) math faculty and staff from the Office of Research, Planning, and Institutional Effectiveness (ORPIE) participated in an AB 1705 Community of Practice (CoP) with EdTrust-West. The team focused on strengthening shared accountability and collaboration between the math and counseling departments, with the goal of increasing transfer-level math enrollment, persistence, and success among Hispanic/Latine, Black/African American, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander students.

In spring 2025, the team initiated a high-functioning, expanded CoP to address policy and practice challenges affecting math enrollment and success. The group engaged instructors, counselors, researchers, and administrators to collaboratively examine counseling practices, course policies, and instructional strategies through a set of guiding research questions. ORPIE supported the work through data dashboards, reports, and presentations, while the Center for Innovation and Learning Coordinator, who is also a math faculty member, conducted qualitative research, including counselor interviews, syllabi reviews, and math classroom observations.

The research resulted in several compelling findings, including opportunities to implement equitable grading practices, such as minimizing the number of high-stakes assessments and adopting revisions. The team identified gaps in the enrollment process, including GPA-band funneling, ineffective nudging systems, and outdated course recommendation practices. These findings pointed to the need for broader systems reform ahead of fall 2025.

The changes GWC implemented positively impacted academic success and a sense of belonging for the college’s students, including underserved and disproportionately impacted groups. The quantitative and qualitative outcomes from the inaugural year of the CoP are notable: the overall departmental math course success rate was the highest in the last five academic years. Enrollment in transfer-level math within students’ first year increased, as did first-year math throughput. Notably, Black/African American, Hispanic/Latine, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander students were no longer disproportionately impacted in enrollment or throughput, reversing trends from prior years.

Most importantly, the college’s inquiry is now focused on understanding students’ experiences enrolling and succeeding in transfer-level math within the first year. By making decisions and implementing changes based on students’ feedback, the college is centering their input, demonstrating care for and value in their lived experiences, and making meaningful improvements that staff can track on an ongoing basis. This shift from acting based on hunches to making data-driven decisions has markedly enhanced the student experience and diminished previously shared feelings of burnout or hopelessness among faculty. Now, the college is focused on a continuous cycle of improvement, constantly evaluating the impacts of its efforts to facilitate ongoing progress.