College of Lake County

What college doesn’t want student success? Old definitions are realigning to re-defined college guiding principles and looking deeper at the student experience from the moment they engage with the institution. The College of Lake County (CLC) in Illinois set out to develop an introductory course equipping students for success in the classroom, college, and career. The college had recently adjusted its Strategic Plan, gathering data from national and community trends, local stakeholders, students, faculty, and staff.

WIDS’ role in education as leaders in performance-based learning and assessment design prompted CLC’s request for WIDS’ services. The new college president had a positive, long-term working relationship with WIDS at a previous institution and was very familiar with the WIDS curriculum development model, process, and software.

In Fall 2020, a WIDS learning design consultant, the CLC Assistant Director of Student Success Strategy, and 14 members of the CLC Student Success Team collaborated on creating the best experience for online and face-to-face students.

WIDS consultants are comfortable and successful in facilitating collaboration on projects of multiple scope and time-sensitive deliverables. The College of Lake County wanted the course to align as appropriate to their CLC Guiding Principles. As with any course, whether revised or brand new, a set of observable and measurable outcomes, supporting objectives, and performance standards are developed first.  None of this development happens without college subject matter expertise. WIDS brings the team and expertise together to build the framework for learning and assessment.

Using a virtual meeting platform, assigned work session objectives, and the WIDS software, this client’s project moved through course development quickly. Clients are often WIDS software licensed, but if not, WIDS consultants can use the software to develop curriculum components. Software reports will generate outcome summaries, plans for learning, assessment tasks, and rubric as deliverables to the client.

WIDS and CLC met virtually to brainstorm learning and assessment strategies for face-to-face, online, and hybrid delivery. The team took a hard look at existing learning materials and decided what additional learner-centered activities were necessary to support the learning cycle. Equally as critical to learner success were performance assessments with measurable criteria. This project’s deliverables resulted in a WIDS Course Outcomes Summary, six Learning Plans with Teaching Notes, new and revised learning materials, and Performance Assessment Tasks with Scoring Guides. 

In January 2021, students at all three CLC campuses began their learning journey with a new 2-credit College Success Seminar course.