Indian River State College (IRSC), located in Fort Pierce, FL, is a 2015 top-ten finalist for the prestigious Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence, America’s most respected and selective recognition of sustained high achievement and performance in state and community colleges. Among the factors in their selection was their consistently outstanding results in helping students succeed.

At IRSC, there is a continuous focus on quality of instruction, academic support, and the use of innovative technologies to ensure students complete a degree or certificate. One of those technologies is the Echo360 active learning platform, which IRSC deployed to help increase in-class student engagement and participation and to record classroom lectures.

In a webinar sponsored by Achieving the Dream, IRSC shared initial findings of a pilot project with Echo360 conducted earlier this year. IRSC combined data from their Blackboard LMS, which provides course-level information, with Echo360 learner analytics on classroom and study behavior at the individual student level. As a result, instructors and administrators at IRSC gained insights into student performance that they had never before been able to observe. Instructors were able to:

  • Pinpoint the specific areas within a course lecture where students were confused or struggling.
  • Adjust their teaching methods, based on that information, to remediate and clarify difficult concepts.
  • Identify students who needed extra help and assigned additional tutors to their Academic Support Center.

Students also reported improved outcomes as a result of using the Echo360 solution in an IRSC student survey.

  • First, 20 percent of the students using Echo360 reported that it helped them achieve at least one grade higher than they would otherwise have received.
  • Second, two-thirds of IRSC students have jobs outside of school. Those students indicated that using Echo360 allowed them to stay enrolled and keep up with the course while they juggled the demands of work and school.

Students at IRSC are driving adoption of Echo360 on campus. They inform each other about the use of Echo360 through social media and now are asking faculty to use the technology. One campus provost reported that students are requesting to switch to classes where instructors use the system.

Here are a few more of the responses from a student survey on the use of Echo360:

  • “Honestly, the lecture captures are the best thing that has ever happened to teaching.”
  • “I’m much more comfortable studying when I know I can go back and listen to the professor directly.”
  • “Really helpful when studying or confused on homework.”

The Echo360 platform is built on native AWS cloud services to achieve a true multi-tenant solution that scales seamlessly and automatically and we’ve just covered the highlights here. Click on the icon below to hear more about how IRSC uses Echo360 to create a deeper learning experience for students.


View the webinar

Learn more about Echo360.

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