Shortened academic terms—such as eight-week semesters or quarters—have emerged as a promising strategy for decreasing time to credential. Redesigning courses so they can be completed in a shorter time period offers more flexible and continuous enrollment options, essential for supporting students who balance work, family commitments, and other responsibilities. But the evidence supporting the efficacy of these models is limited, and the practice has yet to be scaled sufficiently to provide a comprehensive understanding of what drives success and for whom.
Achieving the Dream (ATD) is leading a four-year initiative to scale shortened academic terms at 16 colleges across four states or systems. Participating colleges are receiving hands-on support through webinars, workshops, coaching, and peer engagement activities that will equip colleges with the tools and strategies needed to successfully implement and scale shortened academic terms.
CCRC is conducting a mixed methods evaluation of the initiative to explore the conditions that support or hinder implementation and to describe changes in academic performance of students post implementation of shortened terms. The evaluation is designed to provide formative feedback on the implementation and scaling of shortened academic terms and to measure their outcomes. In addition, CCRC is working with a subset of colleges to codesign an approach to measure student learning in shortened academic terms. The research will inform the efforts of ATD, participating states and colleges, and the broader field.
This project is supported by a grant from Ascendium Education Group.