A Top Community College Network Improved Assessment Scores With Articulate 360

The Challenge

The network needed a way to boost comprehension and engage students in content-heavy subjects

Recently, instructors at the community college network noticed that K-12 students entering the system in the post-COVID era had a markedly different educational experience and level of preparation than previous generations. 

“Reading and summarizing text seemed to be more challenging for these students,” explains Alana Kubeczka, an instructional designer and professor at the network. The underlying issue? Many students weren’t completing their assigned reading, particularly for content-heavy subjects, leading to lower comprehension and assessment scores. This was even more challenging for asynchronous courses, where students didn’t have a live instructor keeping them on track.

To solve this, instructors needed a way to make textbook material more engaging and adopt teaching approaches that worked with students’ unique educational backgrounds—not against them. 

“Articulate is the industry standard,” says Kubeczka. Having used it in previous roles, she thought the platform would be well-matched to solve the network’s challenges with learner engagement.

The Answer

With Rise, Kubeczka created interactive, self-grading activities to increase engagement and minimize instructor workload

To test the shift to Articulate, Kubeczka partnered with an accounting professor to revamp an asynchronous online course. Students were struggling to read the textbook, and as a result, weren’t prepared for quizzes and tests. 

“Even when I looked at the text myself, with my educational background with multiple degrees, it was heavy, dry, and difficult to get through,” says Kubeczka. “We knew we needed to think outside the box to make lessons engaging.” 

Together, Kubeczka and the accounting professor created two types of e-learning content in Rise. Warmups at the beginning of each course helped activate prior knowledge, while reviews finished each unit and recapped lesson material. 

“We chose Rise because it’s so quick and easy to use,” says Kubeczka. “With multiple campuses at our college, and hundreds of professors asking for help, using Rise made things so much easier.”

To capture students’ attention and provide practice opportunities, they created branching scenarios and other interactive activities. Each content type was integrated into an existing LMS as a SCORM package, making the courses self-grading to minimize instructor workload. 

Using Articulate helped students slow down and avoid skipping lesson content. “With Articulate, we could put stops in so students couldn’t move forward until they completed a knowledge check or watched a video,” says Kubeczka. “Having to click through things and participate allowed students to absorb more information without needing to sit through a 40-minute lecture.”

Kubeczka has also found Articulate to be a helpful tool for another asynchronous online course: her adult ESOL (English speakers of other languages) class. 

“The Articulate lessons have been able to reinforce what we do in class so well,” she says. “Learners can listen to me pronounce things as many times as they need, repeat lessons as they like, and access links to key information. They can even complete interactive matching activities for syntax exercises.”

Unlocking Human Potential

Performance gaps decreased, proving the value of the network’s Rise courses

After incorporating Rise lessons into the accounting course—the only change made—assessment scores improved significantly. Minimum test scores on midterm exams rose by over 10 points year-over-year. Students praised the quality of the warm-up and review activities on their end-of-semester feedback forms. 

Following that semester, more non-accounting students began enrolling in a second accounting course, even though it wasn’t required for them. “We went back to those students and asked them why they signed up for another accounting class, even though it wasn’t required for their degree,” says Kubeczka. “Again and again, we heard that it was because they found the first accounting course interesting and relevant to their futures.” 

None of the information taught in the accounting course was new, notes Kubeczka. The only difference was the addition of Rise lessons, which helped students engage with the content in new and exciting ways. 

“Rise is so much more interactive than a textbook,” says Kubeczka. “It also saves instructors a ton of time, especially if they need to make updates after a course is completed.” 

Because of Kubeczka’s success with Rise, the college network’s Director of Faculty Development asked her to apply similar changes to the network’s adjunct certification program. The program involved a mixture of in-person and online coursework. It also required a significant time commitment for adjuncts, who needed to commute to monthly in-person meetings on top of weekly virtual meetings and their other work. 

Kubeczka shifted key lesson materials to Rise courses, and was able to preserve the interactive nature of the learning while significantly decreasing the number of meetups. “Now, adjuncts don’t have to meet in person at all,” she says. Completion rates increased by 27%, and continuation to the next level jumped 55%. The cost to produce the program decreased significantly, while application enrollment tripled thanks to overwhelmingly positive feedback.

“Using Rise made our program so much more appealing for adjuncts—and so much easier for them to complete,” says Kubeczka.

With Rise, a top community college network in the U.S. created engaging, scalable learning experiences that streamlined grading, reduced costs, and boosted student success.