Cerro Coso has been striving towards improving student outcomes since well before the Guided Pathways model was adopted by colleges statewide. We have been pioneers in online education, early adopters of teaching and learning strategies to increase connection and engagement with our students, and innovators of student supports and these have all positioned us to apply the Guided Pathways framework to our benefit.

2013: Achieving the Dream. Cerro Coso focuses on data literacy and begins to look at student success and retention data disaggregated by race, class, gender, and other important metrics to identify scalable interventions based on our student needs.

2015-2017: Student Success Factors (Re)defined. Two phases of cross-functional inquiry group projects are implemented to research ways for helping students feel directed, focused, nurtured, engaged, connected, and valued. These factors emerged as key contributors for student success by a large-scale research project conducted by the RP Group (Research, Planning, and Professional Development for CA Community Colleges).

2016: Open Educational Resources (OER) adoption. Grant awarded for college wide adoption of OERs to reduce textbook costs to students. Since 2016, 4,281 students impacted with savings of $603,004.

2016: CVC-OEI: Cerro Coso joins the California Virtual Campus-Online Education Initiative to develop and offer online courses that meet the lofty online teaching and learning criteria.

2017: Adoption of the Educational Advisory Board (EAB) Navigate Platform as an integrated technology infrastructure that: provides students with opportunities to explore careers and take an interest inventory, improves communication to students using improved technologies, and allows for more just-in-time supports to students such as Early Alert.

2017: Hunger Free Campus: Received Chancellors Office funding to start a program to address student food insecurity.

2017: Guided Pathways is introduced by the California Community College Chancellor’s Office.

Just-in-Time Interventions:

• 2012: Embedded Librarian Program. Librarians integrate directly into the online classroom to offer supports in research, citation, and information competency for improved success in research and writing.
• 2015: Class to Career. Counselors develop a series of videos and activities for career exploration to embed into the classroom.
• 2015: Math and Writing Labs. Learning Assistance Center expands to include drop-in assistance with math and writing in “labs” staffed by area experts to improve success in Basic Skills courses and beyond.
• 2018: Navigate Early Alert. The EAB Navigate platform is optimized to increase the functionality and scope of the Early Alert system.
• 2019: Embedded Tutoring. A new tutoring model is devised that embeds tutors into courses in which they have been successful to offer more intentional tutoring support.

See Resources and Data for the tools and reports generated by these projects.