Guided Pathways:

Guided Pathways Vision Statement from President Ryan McCall

At Marion Tech, Guided Pathways provide a clear, structured route for students to achieve academic and career success, ensuring they make informed decisions and stay on track to complete their goals.  The Guided Pathways Steering Council is pivotal in bringing this vision to life.  By implementing nationally recognized best practices, the Council leads the implementation of best practices to enhance equity, retention, and student outcomes.  Through this work, we are transforming the student experience and fostering meaningful success for our students and community.

Why Guided Pathways:

MTC is committed to the implementation of the guided pathways framework supported by our involvement with Ohio’s Student Success & Leadership Institute (SSLI) and our selection as one of 16 colleges to take part in the Rural Guided Pathways project through the National Center for Inquiry & Improvement (NCII). The guided pathways model is an integrated, institution-wide approach to improve student success and program completion. 

There are four major dimensions or pillars of the guided pathways model.

• Clarify paths to student end goals

a) Simplify students’ choices with default program maps developed by faculty and advisors that show students a clear pathway to completion, further education and employment in fields of importance to the region.

b) Establish transfer pathways through alignment of pathway courses and expected learning outcomes with transfer institutions, to optimize applicability of community college credits to university majors.

• Help students choose and enter a pathway

a) Redesign traditional remediation as an “on-ramp” to a program of study, which helps students explore academic and career options from the beginning of their college experience, aligns math and other foundation skills coursework with a student’s program of study, and integrates and contextualizes instruction to build academic and nonacademic foundation skills throughout the college-level curriculum, particularly in program “gateway” courses.

b) Provide accelerated remediation to help very poorly prepared students succeed in college-level courses as soon as possible.

• Help students stay on path

a) Support students through a strong advising process, embedded and ongoing in the pathway experience and supported by appropriate technology, to help students make informed choices, strengthen clarity about transfer and career opportunities at the end of their chosen college path, ensure they develop an academic plan with predictable schedules, monitor their progress, and intervene when they go off track.

b) Embed academic and non-academic supports throughout students’ programs to promote student learning and persistence.

• Ensure that students are learning

a) Establish program-level learning outcomes aligned with the requirements for success in employment and further education in a given field and apply the results of learning outcomes assessment to improve the effectiveness of instruction across programs.

b) Integrate group projects, internships, and other applied learning experiences to enhance instruction and student success in courses across programs of study.

c) Ensure incorporation of effective teaching practice throughout the pathways.

What is the difference between Guided Pathways and the Ohio Guaranteed Transfer Pathway?

Guided Pathways is a movement that seeks to streamline a student's journey through college by providing structured choice, revamped support, and clear learning outcomes—ultimately helping more students achieve their college completion goals. The Ohio Guaranteed Transfer Pathways (OGTPs) are designed to provide a clearer path to degree completion for students pursuing associate degrees who plan to transfer to an Ohio public university to complete their bachelor’s degree. The OGTPs also constitute an agreement between public community colleges and universities confirming that community college courses meet major preparation requirements and will be counted and applied toward the bachelor’s degree.