Santa Fe College (SF) has implemented a five-year initiative aimed at enhancing student success and retention through evidence-based practices that share one important common denominator: They help to foster classroom belonging. While these practices improve outcomes for all students, they hold particular promise for supporting populations facing challenges to success in higher education (Gillen-O’Neel, 2021; Johnson et al., 2007; Winkelmes, 2022).  

Supporting Faculty in Transforming Teaching Practices

This initiative, part of the college’s 2023-2028 quality enhancement plan (QEP), is spearheaded by SF’s Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence (CTLE). Established in 2022, the CTLE designs and facilitates professional learning opportunities to equip faculty with tools, strategies, and practices that enhance teaching and learning. Workshops, professional learning communities, and communities of practice form the backbone of this work. These sessions provide faculty with resources and collaborative spaces to develop strategies, analyze outcomes, and adapt pedagogical strategies to meet the diverse needs of their students.

In fall 2023, under the QEP’s auspices, the CTLE provided faculty with training in transparent assignment design, mindset practices and other strategies that cultivate belonging, and effective teaching strategies from the Association of College and University Educators. Training sessions occurring over the semester emphasized practical applications, offering faculty hands-on experience with tools like transparent assignment templates and student feedback instruments (Winkelmes et al., 2019). Faculty also had access to a curated collection of resources and literature to aid in effective implementation. After the sessions to encourage collaboration within and across disciplines, the CTLE provided faculty groups structured support to experiment with new strategies in their classrooms.  

Projects Driving Classroom Innovation

Departmental Action Research Plans (DARPs) constitute a key component of the initiative. DARPs encourage faculty to collaborate within their academic departments to design, implement, and track the impact of projects that address common barriers to student classroom engagement, learning, and success. Following the initiative’s timeline, each fall semester faculty involved in DARPs implement their research projects. In addition to integrating new strategies into their courses, faculty collect data, including, but not limited to, assignment grades, progress and at-risk reports, survey responses, and student feedback. Throughout the spring, they analyze quantitative data, reflect on qualitative survey and student responses, and refine their approaches to reimplement the next fall.

The initial round of DARPs has led to innovative classroom practices, including transparent assignment design, peer and campus connection activities, and personalized interactions and feedback mechanisms. Projects explored the impact of using the Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TiLT) framework with two assignments in their class or focused on sense of belonging (Angel & Merken, 2021; Winkelmes, 2022). The sense of belonging activities included strategies such as creating a classroom community, sending personalized emails, helping students learn about campus resources, building community and belonging through social events, and engendering moments that matter with individual students (Gillen-O’Neel, 2021; Maghsoodi et al., 2023).

Preliminary feedback indicates increased student success and engagement, stronger faculty-student connections, and perceptions of a greater sense of faculty community. For example, 17 faculty members in business programs implemented TiLTed assignments, leading to an overall success rate of 84.5 percent—a 2.6 percent increase from fall 2023 and nearly 5 percent higher than the college’s benchmark of the previous three years (Santa Fe College, 2025). Similarly, the nursing department applied TiLT to historically low-scoring content areas in Associate in Science in Nursing program courses. Results showed improved exam score averages in three out of four targeted areas, reinforcing the potential of transparency-focused strategies to enhance student performance and retention (Santa Fe College, 2025).

In the departments that chose sense of belonging, surveys were administered early and toward the end of the semester to measure the impact of the projects. Students responded to questions correlated to belonging on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 indicating strong agreement. Sample questions included: “I feel like I belong in this class,” “My instructor values my contributions,” and “I feel comfortable asking for help when I need it.” When grouped conceptually, questions that addressed sense of belonging, community, and value; comfort and confidence in interaction and collaboration; and self-perception and identity showed the greatest increase in student agreement and the largest effect sizes. These survey results provide valuable insights into the impact of the belonging strategies on student engagement and perceived inclusion.

Survey results from students who participated in the Cardiovascular Technology Program DARP are particularly noteworthy. Student pairs in the invasive and the noninvasive cardiac catheterization labs practiced skills together, unsupervised by faculty, with the goal of gaining confidence and comfort in (1) performing the required procedural steps, and (2) providing and receiving constructive peer criticism. Students reported practically significant gains in:

• Confidence performing skills in front of their peers, applying learned skills to new patient scenarios, and executing the skills necessary to be a healthcare provider;
• Comfort performing skills independently in the lab setting without instructor input; and
• Feeling less anxious performing skills independently in the lab setting.

Challenges and Opportunities

Faculty interest in the first year of the initiative has proven strong. In spring 2024, 14 of 15 academic departments and the library collaborated to produce 20 DARPs. Collegewide, 30 percent of full-time faculty participated in departmental planning for their DARP and nearly 40 percent implemented the plans in their fall 2024 classrooms (Santa Fe College, 2025). Faculty have commented anecdotally that they have had more conversations with their colleagues concerning classroom pedagogy and are more intentional in how they interact with their students. Junior faculty (i.e., faculty who have fewer than five years of service), who comprise 40 percent of the college’s full-time instructors, feel energized and senior faculty who have worked at the college a decade or longer reported being reinvigorated by the initiative.

The initiative has faced challenges. Centralizing data collection and tracking faculty participation has proven difficult. While Canvas shells were created for faculty to log progress, inconsistent usage revealed the need for clearer and more user-friendly processes, alternative tracking methods, and overall better communication.   

Another challenge is increasing involvement, especially among part-time faculty who comprise about 2/3 of the college’s instructional personnel. In fall 2024, 23 part-time faculty out of 463 collegewide participated in their department’s plan. Thirteen of 23 part-time participants were from a department that mandates all faculty, regardless of category, adopt standardized content and assessments for the large-enrollment foundational course for which the DARP was designed (Santa Fe College, 2025). Other departments have adopted a more decentralized approach to their curriculum, allowing faculty freedom to select their own course materials and develop their own assessment practices. 

Indeed, SF’s institutional culture values faculty autonomy. A concern expressed during the initiative’s design was that a top-down approach requiring faculty teaching specific courses to implement specific course redesigns would discourage faculty not teaching those courses from participating. An additional concern was that faculty required to implement course redesigns would become alienated and disenchanted with the project.

Lessons for Institutional Change

SF’s experience underscores the importance of starting gradually, clearly defining goals, and balancing collective action and faculty autonomy to encourage innovation. Recognizing and showcasing faculty achievements has also proven vital for sustaining engagement and building momentum. Monthly communities of practice, for example, allowed faculty to showcase their implementation and successes, but also to seek advice from their colleagues about challenges. Professional Development Day, an annual event to allow faculty and staff to engage with and learn from each other, will feature a poster session during which departments can report the results of their projects in a casual and collegial manner.

Looking Ahead

The initiative's future involves annual cycles of implementation, analysis, and revision. As we move forward, the focus will be on sustaining momentum, refining strategies, and expanding faculty participation to ensure long-term impact. Given the increasing number of students taking online courses—nearly one-third enrolled in at least one online course in fall 2024—the initiative must adopt strategies for encouraging engagement and fostering belonging in virtual learning environments. Future efforts will explore structured peer interactions, personalized video messages from instructors, and real-time virtual office hours designed to build strong faculty-student connections (Gillen-O’Neel, 2021). Another priority, as mentioned previously, is expanding part-time faculty involvement. While full-time faculty participation has been strong, part-time instructors remain underrepresented in the initiative. Moving forward, the CTLE will develop targeted outreach efforts with department chairs. By working collaboratively with departments to create accessible, low-barrier entry points, the college aims to better integrate this essential group into the project. Finally, data collection and assessment methods will be strengthened. In response to challenges in tracking participation and survey responses, SF will leverage centralized data collection instruments. The objective is to embed successful practices into department-level teaching expectations, faculty onboarding, and ongoing professional development initiatives by 2028, thus institutionalizing the strategies of highest impact to student engagement and success.

References

Angel, R., & Merken, S. (2021). Assessing TILT in a college classroom. The National Teaching & Learning Forum, 30(4), 1-3. https://doi.org/10.1002/ntlf.30283

Gillen-O’Neel, C. (2021). Sense of belonging and student engagement: A daily study of first- and continuing-generation college students. Research in Higher Education, 62(1), 45-71.

Johnson, D. R; Soldner, M., Brown Leonard, J., Alvarez, P., Kurotsuchi Inkelas, K., Rowan-Kenyon, H., & Longerbeam, S. (2007). Examining sense of belonging among first-year undergraduates from different racial/ethnic groups. Journal of College Student Development, 48(5), 525-542.

Maghsoodi, A. H., Ruedas-Gracia, N., & Jiang, G. (2023). Measuring college belongingness: Structure and measurement of the sense of social fit scale. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 70(4), 424-35.

Santa Fe College. (2025). QEP year 2 (AY 2024-2025) impact report [Unpublished internal report].

Winkelmes, M., Boye, A., & Tapp, S. (Eds.). (2019). Transparent design in higher education teaching and leadership: A guide to implementing the transparency framework institution-wide to improve learning and retention. Taylor & Francis Group.

Winkelmes, Mary. (2022). Introduction to transparency in learning and teaching. Perspectives in Learning, 20(1), 4-12, https://csuepress.columbusstate.edu/pil/vol20/iss1/2

Leslie Rios is Director, Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence, and Bobby Hom is Professor and Director, Quality Enhancement Plan, at Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Florida.

Opinions expressed in Learning Abstracts are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the League for Innovation in the Community College.