Virtual Conference: Boot Camps at the Learning Commons

The Learning Commons at Tallahassee Community College (TCC) strives to provide intentional and targeted academic support for students.  The Boot Camps at TCC were created to intentionally connect with students before the semester begins, provide specific tips for success in select courses, and finally, take the students on a tour of the Learning Commons building to acclimate them to the academic support environment. These sessions were provided for high enrollment gateway courses including College Composition, Argument and Persuasion, College Algebra, Intermediate Algebra, and General Psychology.  Students who attended these sessions were able to ask individualized questions and discover specific information related to expectations and challenges of these courses.  The sessions are essentially designed to provide “chapter 1” or introductory material from the course to ensure students are confident and prepared before walking into the first class. 

Hosting workshops throughout the year is usually a challenge for most learning centers in terms of overall student participation.  The Boot Camps at TCC proved quite successful with large numbers of students attending in both the fall and spring semesters of the previous academic year when the sessions were hosted in person.  In Fall 2019, 99 students attended for a total of 114 sessions.  In Spring 2020, 88 students attended for a total of 101 sessions.  However, in Fall 2020, we switched the Boot Camps to being hosted over Zoom and had a total of 685 students attend.  In order to promote the Boot Camps to students before the semester begins, a flyer (attached in the supplemental materials) is created and distributed, information is posted on social media, emails are sent to course sections, and text messages are sent to students enrolled in the courses. 

The primary purpose of the Boot Camp is to connect students to the Learning Commons and to aid these students in being successful in the course.  A large portion of students who attended a Boot Camp in the fall also visited the Learning Commons during the semester.  Of the Fall 2020 participants, 86% were successful in ENC1101, 87% in ENC1102, 81% in MAT1033, 74% in MAC1105, and 82% in PSY2012.  The Boot Camps support the mission of the Florida College System and AFC by promoting these types of success rates, being inclusive, and providing an opportunity to close the equity gap.

The Boot Camps are an innovative and welcome addition to academic support at TCC.  This idea is easily adaptable to any college interested in providing a similar type of experience for students.  The key for this program to be a success is to incorporate a multidimensional marketing strategy and provide quality instructional sessions for students.  The TCC students found the Boot Camps to be helpful as indicated by the survey results (attached in the supplemental materials).  We will continue to provide Boot Camps in future semesters and are currently exploring ways to expand this concept to include more classes and partnerships with our faculty.