By Monique Adorno-Jiménez, The College Place, Jalen Moore, NCAN Communications Intern, and Jenn Satalino, The College Place
Reading time: 5 min.
College students face many decision points after they enroll, including choices about selecting an academic major, navigating course options to fulfill requirements, choosing a career path, and developing the skills and experience necessary to prepare
for the workforce. Guided pathways have increasingly been presented as a method for helping students navigate these decisions from the beginning of their postsecondary journey and supporting them throughout their education.
Although the guided pathways strategy is primarily used by postsecondary institutions, community-based organizations are adopting the strategy as part of their advising process too.
What Are Guided Pathways?
Inside Higher Ed defines guided pathways as a “reform movement that aims to improve college completion and student success by redesigning
students' journeys through college” and emphasizes students’ needs for institutionalized support.
The four pillars of guided pathways, summarized by the Community College Research Center at Columbia University and the Association of American Colleges & Universities, are described below. Although they are written from the perspective of how a postsecondary
institution can design and implement guided pathways, there are certainly implications for how NCAN member programs can provide aligned services.
Mapping pathways to student end goals. Develop clear maps for all a postsecondary institution’s program offerings that outline required courses and their sequencing, program milestones, other courses critical for success in the field,
and co-curricular requirements.
Choosing and entering a program pathway. Redesign student experiences to facilitate and support exploration of college and career options. This can include organizing programs into “meta-majors” (clusters of related majors), so students
can more easily choose a program of study and develop a plan for completion early on in their academic careers. It also includes providing specialized support for completing required classes and core introductory course requirements in their first
year.
Staying on their path. Monitor progress toward completing the selected plan and pathway and notify both students and advisers if a student gets off track or is experiencing difficulty; then advisers can provide the help a student
get back on track and access additional resources and academic support as necessary/appropriate.
Ensuring students are learning. Design programs around a coherent set of learning outcomes aligned with requirements for experiencing success in post-baccalaureate education and employment in a related field. Assess student achievement
of these learning outcomes and provide results to faculty for use in improving the effectiveness of instruction.
Guided Pathways in Action
A principle focus in the guided pathways model is offering opportunities for collaborative, active learning that are relevant to a student’s field of interest. This includes learning that takes place outside the classroom, such as through internships
or service learning, in addition to in-classroom instruction.
A Columbia University Community College Research Center report highlights how the Alamo Colleges, an NCAN member, is forming comprehensive relationships
with employers and economic development organizations in the San Antonio metropolitan area to establish their “institutes” of clustered, related majors as well as structured degree pathways to four-year institutions.
The institutes enabled the Alamo Colleges to significantly improve student advising, expand experiential learning to more students, and develop advisory committees to engage local employers. Students are paired with an adviser in their institute, provided
access to plentiful transfer guides, receive more personalized support, and are integrated into a career community that provides a network of peers, faculty, and mentors within their desired field.
Role of Community-Based Organizations in Guided Pathways
Although there’s considerable work left to do to employ the guided pathways model across institutions nationally, community-based organizations are incorporating some elements of this framework into their advising practices. Below is a description of
how ECMC The College Place is doing just that:
"ECMC has college access centers in seven locations across six states. At ECMC The College Place, we approach career coaching the same way we approach everything—to help students
realize they have options. When working with a student who is unsure about their career path, we start with assessments. Although we have access to fantastic assessment products, we welcome anything that helps a student organize their interests and
understand who they are. We don’t underestimate the value of using pop culture options. The information is often more relatable than formal assessments and easier for students to understand. (Even the Harry Potter Sorting Hat quiz that points a student
to Hufflepuff could be telling you something.) Engaging the student is a critical step toward helping them identify which future career options would be a good fit.
"When students come to us with a career focus in mind, we help them discover many ways to achieve their goal. An aspiring physician, for example, does not need to major in biology to be admitted to medical school, and a future manager does not have to
major in business. In order to build students’ confidence in their career choices, we encourage them to look for real-world opportunities and hands-on experiences. In high school, students can volunteer or take college-level classes. College students
can make use of work-study, internships, and capstone or project-based courses to “try out” their desired profession. The combination of college academics and hands-on experience can lead students to new areas of interest. They see options in a broad
career field they may never have considered or were even aware of. Guided pathways to careers for students are not straight and narrow—they are flexible and filled with opportunities to course-correct along the way."
This blog post is part of NCAN’s “College Students and Career Success” series funded by the Scheidel Foundation. In this series of blog posts and webinars, NCAN is sharing tried-and-true strategies, program activities, tools, and more focused on career support for postsecondary students.
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