Wor-Wic Community College received a nearly $2 million Title III grant focusing on the implementation of a new advising model, increased online offerings and enhanced technological support for faculty. Funding will help purchase software to enhance advising practices and expand staffing to support successful student outcomes. The grant will be implemented over a five-year period.
Another grant of $187,000, to be implemented over four years, will support the academic success, retention, graduation and transfer of 16 low-income students per year who have children enrolled at Wor-Wic’s child development center. It includes a sliding fee scale for child care services based on the level of financial need and the college course load of participants.
A $28,000 Workforce and Employability Skills grant will serve Wicomico County students in the 11th grade. This program will expose students to career pathways, introduce them to the college campus and credit programs and non-credit courses available to them, help them with postsecondary admission and financial aid processes, provide them with soft and employability skills, and offer a summer employment experience for those who demonstrate an interest and ability to benefit from work experience.
The college also received three additional grants for the use of technology to boost student success in math and science. Participants in an Adaptive Learning in Statistics grant will use an adaptive learning platform in their entry-level statistics courses. The platform unifies content, improves learning outcomes without increasing cost (it takes the place of the textbook) and facilitates the transfer of credit between institutions. A second grant will replace the current math placement exam with a process that will empower students to assess and remediate their mathematics knowledge using adaptive learning tools. The tools will provide remediation, save time and money for students taking developmental coursework and provide more reliable measures of student knowledge for better placement into math courses. Lastly, half of all of the “Fundamentals of Biology” courses this fall are using an Open Education Resource instead of a textbook, saving $165 for students taking that course. All three of the math and science grants come to Wor-Wic through the University System of Maryland’s William E. Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation.