Blinn offers other community college leaders tips to promote online student success

Blinn recently was invited to speak at the Association of Community College Trustees Leadership Congress in New York City

November 1, 2022

Blinn College District officials recently traveled to New York City to share tips for community college leaders across the nation regarding an orientation course that teaches Blinn students to navigate their online courses.

Chair of the Board of Trustees Jim Kolkhorst, Chancellor Dr. Mary Hensley, Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Dr. Marcelo Bussiki, Executive Director for Academic Success Dr. Joyce Langenegger, and English Professor Becky Almany gave the presentation at the Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT) Leadership Congress in New York City. They shared information regarding an online orientation course Blinn developed in 2018 to provide students taking online classes with the technical skills they needed to succeed in an online course environment.

“It was an honor to share our strategies for providing online students with a comprehensive, easy-to-understand framework for success in online courses,” Hensley said.

The Bellwether College Consortium recently named Blinn’s online orientation course a finalist for a national 2022 Bellwether Award. Through the orientation, students are familiarized with Blinn’s online learning management system, Ecampus, and gain the technological skills necessary to succeed in the online classroom. Since 2019, more than 37,000 students have completed the course and a recent faculty survey found that 70% of instructors observed improvements in the performance of students who completed the orientation course.

ACCT is a non-profit educational organization of governing boards, representing more than 6,500 elected and appointed trustees who govern over 1,200 community, technical, and junior colleges in the United States and beyond. With the theme “Improving the Lives of Entire Families,” this year’s Congress brought more than 1,800 community college leaders to New York City for more than 100 sessions and workshops.