Infusing Corequisite Supports with Motivationally-Supportive Practices

with California Community Colleges

 

PROJECT BACKGROUND

Motivate Lab is proud to be collaborating with the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office in their initiative dedicated to achieving equitable placement for enhanced student success under the AB 705 legislation, AB 1705, and ESS 23-08 implementation requirements. These statutes are aimed at implementing a corequisite model for math and English courses to help students remain engaged and motivated during their college transition.

Motivate Lab invites California Community Colleges to partake in our shared mission to elevate the success of corequisite courses in the state. Our team is dedicated to supporting faculty through professional development opportunities, aiming to uplift pedagogical practices that support students’ learning mindsets. This collaboration contributes to broader efforts aimed at enhancing student outcomes and closing equity gaps while driving impact in the classroom.

If you are interested in learning more, please submit a brief interest form. Completing the form does not obligate you or your institution to participate in the project but initiates an opportunity to discuss how we might work together.

Motivating learners course registration

Welcome to the registration form for the Motivating Learners Course! This course is designed to support co-requisite Math and English faculty through professional development opportunities, aiming to uplift pedagogical practices that support students’ learning mindsets. Please complete the information below to secure your spot in the course if you are a current partner!

Course Registration

Motivating Learners Course Registration

 

OUR SERVICES

Our strategy for this project is hands-on and collaborative as we work together to incorporate learning mindsets organically with faculty at your institution, including the following activities:

Motivating Learners Course

Acquire knowledge on learning mindset terminology (e.g., Mindset GPS), practice identifying and creating mindset-supportive messages, and apply your learning by submitting projects you can leverage in the classroom

Surveys

Contribute and reflect on valuable insights specific to your institution and students. Empower yourself to make informed choices in your teaching approach based on comprehensive survey findings.

Focus Groups

Engage in discussions focused on math and English corequisite education at your campus. Provide feedback on our services, and witness how your insights guide the customization of our courses to meet your needs.

 

Mindset Convenings

Deepen your understanding of motivational strategies and learning mindset-supportive messaging in a collaborative environment alongside your peers and colleagues.

Community Building Support

Receive personalized support from faculty colleagues, helping you build and sustain instructional improvement efforts within their campus community.

 
 

OUR PROCESS 

Over a three-year period, Motivate Lab will utilize our research process to drive towards our project goals, specifically integrating learning mindsets into corequisite curriculum. This approach reflects our belief in leveraging evidence-based research, fostering collaborative relationships with our partners, and producing high-quality solutions that can drive systems change. For each institution in a cohort, Motivate Lab will:

Step 1: Empathize & Learn

Survey students and faculty to understand their current learning mindsets, and conduct focus groups to understand the problem comprehensively. We use a cadence of professional development activities—Learning Mindset Convening and the Motivating Learners Course—each fall and spring term. These activities in combination with focus groups ensure that we understand faculty’s teaching practices to better customize our course, services, and support.


Step 2: Synthesize & Plan

Consolidate insights from the previous phase and survey data to better adapt our course to the needs of faculty. We will focus on analyzing data, highlighting effective practices in your institution, and creating plans to update the Motivating Learners course for the California Community College context.


Step 3: Prototype & Test

Customize interventions scaling beyond the initial 5 institutions (Cohort 1), and extending to 10 new California Community Colleges (Cohort 2), followed by 20 more institutions (Cohort 3), with a specific focus on math and English corequisite faculty. We will work with the Chancellor's Office and our partner institutions to obtain student data. This will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of our course, so we can systematically iterate and improve the course in the future.


Step 4: Adopt & Infuse

Initiate the final rollout across ~35 California Community Colleges. Knowledge is responsibly scaled to math and English corequisite faculty, ensuring success in student and instructor learning mindsets. Each new cohort participates in a Learning Mindset Convening and takes the Motivating Learners Course.

 

FACULTY TESTIMONIALS

Here are some faculty observations about similar versions of the course and how it impacted their teaching.

 

OUR CURRENT CALIFORNIA PARTNERS

 
 

FAQ 

  • Learning Mindsets are our beliefs and perceptions about learning. They shape how we interpret difficulty, and research shows they are critical predictors of academic performance, persistence, and motivation. We are primarily interested in three main learning mindsets, which we identify as Mindset GPS:

    Growth Mindset (G) - The belief that intelligence can be developed through hard work, the use of effective strategies, and help from others when needed.

    Purpose & Relevance (P) - The belief that one’s schoolwork is valuable because it is connected to a larger purpose and/or relevant to one’s life.

    Sense of Belonging (S) - The belief that one is academically and socially connected, supported, and respected.

  • Our research shows the impact of faculty perspectives on student outcomes. Students who perceive their instructors to have a growth mindset tend to achieve higher GPAs and passing rates in their math and English courses compared to those who perceive their faculty as embracing a more fixed mindset. This highlights the significance of fostering learning mindset-supportive practices and its effects on student success and academic achievement.

  • There are four main corequisite support models as defined by the California Community College Chancellor’s Office. Please visit this website to identify which best serves your students.

  • At this time, Motivate Lab is engaging with institutions to execute this work. Faculty are engaged through their chairs and deans, as the institution must agree to join a cohort. However, if you are an interested individual, please allow the Lab to assist you in engaging your institution by completing an interest form or reaching out to Marcus at marcus@motivatelab.org

  • Right now, California Community Colleges can participate in this work for free thanks to support from the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s office.

  • The course is a mixture of asynchronous learning and projects designed for use in the learning environment. As a result, the time required to maximize the value of the course varies from instructor to instructor. If a faculty member opts to engage all of the course content and complete all of the projects, they may expect a commitment of approximately 12 hours. Many faculty will experience valuable learning and develop a few tools in less than half that time.

 

ARE YOU INTERESTED?

If you are interested in hearing more or joining the next cohort of community colleges, please contact Marcus Kolb at marcus@motivatelab.org or complete an interest form below.