Motlow State & T-Mobile for Education Are Powering Student Success

MOTLOW STATE COMMUNITY COLLEGE & T-MOBILE FOR EDUCATION

ARE POWERING STUDENT SUCCESS: A RESPONSE TO THE SHIFTING NEEDS LATTICE OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND WORKFORCE

MOTLOW STATE

T-Mobile

During the Fall of 2021, after developing a relationship with T-Mobile for over a year, Motlow State Community College and T-Mobile for Education partnered on a groundbreaking effort to “Power Student Success” using 5G.

Over the course of the spring and summer of 2021, executives, staff, faculty, and others worked furiously on the content, context, and communication tools needed for success with T-Mobile. We didn’t just want to launch another 1 to 1 program, we wanted to impact student success in measurable ways. Samsung donated 2,100 (equal to 30% of the 2019 Fall population) A32 phones that were AR enabled and T-Mobile provided the 5G network access for a truly unique unlimited and free text, talk, 5G hotspot, and WIFI package for Motlow students. Ours was not a gimmick to attract students to Motlow because we were offering these tools for student success, but for those who had made the commitment to attend. Literally, students thought the initial messaging was a “hoax”, “too good to be true”, and a “scam” and it was not.

Motlow State Community College and T-Mobile for Education Are Powering Student Success: A Response to the Shifting Needs Lattice of Higher Education and Workforce

Motlow State’s libraries, hallways, and throughways provided a space for the “Week of Welcome” where students were introduced to the opportunity to begin the semester with a tool/device crafted and customized for their wholistic success. Apps were thoughtfully considered, and we placed mental health and wellness, academic, food insecurity, student support, and the learning management system within a click away on the front face of all phones. The week would not have been as outstanding without our T-Mobile colleagues flying in from all over the country to welcome our students and to assist in handing out phones, tees, and bags full of useful resources. This was not only unique, but a first of its kind initiative to support returning “back to campus” students as well as mailing items to students who were 100% online and unable to return to campus for various reasons. Please see the important results and narrative of Powering Student Success.

The impact of information communication technology (ICT) on the scalability of teaching, innovation, learning, and training (TILT) seems obvious. Where can we go without our tools? Where do we go without our devices? Motlow State joined with T-Mobile to support its TILT phenomena. TILT, on TMobiles 5G network indeed represents and meets the broad immediate needs of learners and trainees when paralleled with/via emerging and current technological platforms like ENGAGE, VR and its evolutionary XR metascapes. The constraints of a pandemic and social ideological interests decouple our sense of togetherness. Indeed, the primal use of engagement has contextually been face to face and eye to eye, but that too had evolved to online and blended modalities. In the interest of health, safety, and wellness, we have societally accelerated our need for tools and platforms that encourage belongingness.

Motlow State Community College does not seek to devolve backwards from the importance of human connection, but to be consciously considerate of a more connected, social, and technological continuum.

Immersive platforms are and have been a normative phenomenon for many globally; this is irrespective of how we transition back to brickand-mortar locations to satiate our desire for socio-physical contact. The global pandemic activated Alternative Work Schedules (AWS). However, as we return, active work is no longer simply creeping into organizational mission statements, organizations are remeasuring the direct value of optimally serviceable and functional workplaces. Our futures are parallel as we will function face to face and virtually forever. This is not new, but we are in need of broadening true understanding of the ROI for employee and student development. Motlow State Community College and T-Mobile agreed on this vision and shared in seeding through fruition.

Teaching

The commercial introduction, roughly a decade ago, of the DK headset from a then little start up called Occulus initiated my interests as a learner and a professor. Those of us, all of us, who teach must continue to learn, no? The early devices provided a glimpse into being “in world” and characteristic human movements. As we have advanced, content continues to exist as a place for investment which utilizes Career and Technical Education (CTE) and what we have tagged STEA MB(e) - as a developing marketplace for learners or those who seek to be trained that are interested in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Aviation, & Agriculture, Mathematics, and lastly Business as entrepreneurship. TMobile for Education shares in our narrative and is motivated to impact lives through education and connectivity. We believe this provides us a guidebook or literal beacons for intentional stackable credential development towards skills that lead to career employment. Our developing enterprise approach is currently co-opting and filling partnerships with industries across Robotics, Mechatronics, Healthcare, OEM, Tier One Manufacturing, Educators, Government Agencies, and within our communities. The Pell Eligible fall-tospring (fall to spring ) retention rate is % for T-Mobile phone users and % for the overall college wide Pelleligible population. This marked % difference also holds true for Non-Pell eligible students, where % of T-Mobile G platform device users were retained fall-to-spring versus % for the overall Non-Pell eligible population. We have learned that the best prepared are prepared on day one.

Moreover, in another focus population, Black male students who were T-Mobile G device users also retained from fall-to-spring % higher than the overall student population, at % for phone users versus % overall. As an organization, we are still learning, but we are also more broadly mindful today. We cannot provide the students support needed now if we don’t till the landscape or sow what needs to rise to create awareness. More bluntly, G and beyond infrastructure is no longer a discussion point, it is a must for success. We can posit or debate the platitudes of roughing out the existential use of the realities in the Metaverse or tools, but shall we await broader onboarding? No, we cannot, we should not, we ought not. Let’s further push and promote for the vertical integration of emerging technologies for the purposes of improving the human condition. Teachers are our innovators, let us support their exploration. Students are our opportunity, and we depict here what must be in the palms of their hands; devices on a network that come readily equipped to meet the demands of the TILT environment. This partnership has displayed what works. However, we know that we have other questions that we can still ask and answer which will redress findings and certainly create additional topics for discussion and action.

Innovation

Motlow State robotics, cyber mechatronics

Robotronics. The blockchain paradigms

From the existing sovereignty, digital the th Industrial artificial intelligence sustainability; tools that promote combined across T-Mobile willingly uttering a commitment community of about, “Remembering tethered joy sticks learning simulations crisp now, the presence in virtual spaces can be with and as degrees of freedom axis.

T-Mobile’s network success pathways skillsets to which students do not engage. Our data academically the % difference with % of academically Mobile phone % for the overall population. The devices on T-Mobile the innovative Community College

Learning & Training

Traditionally, have we not aligned goals, objectives, assessment, and outcomes to standards? We positioned these pillars as the quality and rigor measures that amplify what it is to be a “learned” individual. The G network enables blended learning and supports morphing our inputs, throughputs, and outputs. Moreover, the use of TMobiles G platform leverages open skills networks, OER, and Zdegrees permanently while positioning learners to earn. This quite literally provides “skills to pay the bills.” For MBs used, think of cost per minute bills for college students and families, Pell eligible students, on average, made up . % of the total number of MBs used between September and January, although the only made up % of all T-Mobile phone users. Likewise, students of color made up % of phone users, yet between September and January, on average students of color made up % of total MBs used.

What our students are

Emerging markets urbanization • Trade finance, and data: Greater connections • Accelerating technological Responding to the an aging world quadruple threat graduates leave their respective and Motlow after completed dual courses, an apprenticeship term capstone project of an industry-recognized credential along with and do this in half usually takes.

We don’t have to have an either or approach to creating a sustainable workforce of skilled Tennesseans and credentialing via certificate or degreed graduates. Mike Sievert, TMobile CEO, states “Higher education environments foster bold ideas and cutting edge technologies … as a corporate partner innovation, T-Mobile for Education provides infrastructure to ensure academic research and development communities can thrive” (T-Mobile for Education Guide, p. ). I believe we must be compelled to enlist what works, where it works, when it works, for whom it works!

PLEASE SEE THE ADDITIONAL DATA POINTS BELOW.

As an indication that T-Mobile phone users accurately represent the overall student body, the demographics of these T-Mobile phone users parallel the overall fall 2021 student body in several ways:

The make-up of T-Mobile phone users requiring Learning Support (45%) compared to the overall student body (44%).

The age classifications of T-Mobile phone users in the Traditional <21 (73%), Traditional 2124 (7%), and Non-Traditional 25> (20%) groups compared to the overall student body in the same groups (69%, 9%, and 22%).

The campus location of T-Mobile phone users for Online (40%), Smyrna (30%), Moore County (11%), and Fayetteville (3%) compared to the overall student body’s breakdown by campus for Online (45%), Smyrna (29%), Moore County (13%), and Fayetteville (4%).

However, T-Mobile phone users’ demographics do differ from the overall fall 2021 student in body in the following notable ways:

Students from the McMinnville Campus are more represented in T-Mobile phone users (16%) than in the overall student body’s campus breakdown (10%).

More T-Mobile phone users are Pell eligible (50%) vs. the overall student body (43%). Male students make up a higher percentage of T-Mobile phone users (44%) vs. the overall student body (37%).

More full-time students are T-Mobile phone users (66%) vs. the overall student body (49%). White students make up a smaller percentage of T-Mobile phone users (62%) vs. the overall student body (72%), meaning that students of color are more represented in T-Mobile phone users (14% Hispanic / 13% Black / 4% Asian) vs. the overall student body (10% Hispanic / 10% Black / 2% Asian).

First-Time-Freshmen make up a higher percentage of T-Mobile phone users (39%) vs. the overall student body (27%).

Motlow State Community College travels toward its future with this in mind, Powering Student Success 2040. As an institution, we believe in the following strategic initiatives, 1) Open Access, 2) Completion, 3) Community & Workforce. In alignment with our sister institutions across the state of Tennessee, these efforts will lean heavily upon our ability to forge strong collaborative partnerships, enhance our institutional and operational capacity, harness innovation, and fulfill the equity necessary for both urban and smalltown rural Tennessee. This is an exercise in being focused and steadfast with a mindset cemented on continuous improvement. T-Mobile for Education believes in their brand of “unconventional thinking and partnerships with higher education institutions are helping us build an infrastructure for the future of learning” (T-Mobile for Education Guide, n.p.).

The T-Mobile for Business creative matter of fact approach aligns with Motlow State Community College and we are pleased to have engaged in a partnership that is impactful

A FEW STUDENT RESPONSES

Motlow State Community College & T-Mobile for Education

1. The phones allow me the ability to do my homework, study, and complete assignments in D2L when I am on the way to or coming back from matches on the bus.

2. I didn’t think that this phone would do everything, but it does. I am connected almost everywhere I go using 5G.

3. My friends at other schools can’t believe that we have this happening here at Motlow.

4. Thank you T-Mobile for helping me get through this year!

5. I am saving thousands of dollars because of this and I really appreciate it!

6. Are we going to be able to do this or have this every year? It’s been super helpful to not worry about data usage and study with friends over zoom and stuff.

7. This is the best!

NOTA BENE:

A special acknowledgment goes to Ms. Erica Newman for her support, design, and review of the data points. A huge thank you to Matt Beagle for sharing in this idea to implementation and friendship. Thank you to Ms. Carrie McIlvern, Ms. Ann Clancy, and Mr. Tim Stoer for joining us and believing this was possible. Dr. Meagan McManus and Ms. Tiffany Phillips, your insights are always appreciated and support our mission and vision for student success. Dr. Sid Hill, Ms. Alissa Roebuck, and Ms. Brenda Cannon, thank you all for your support of this project and its outcomes. Ms. Hilda Tunstill and Ms. Charle Coffee, thank you for your support in making this happen for our students. Thank you to the entire Motlow Family. Thank you to Dr. Kiesha King for the constant encouragement and vision sessions. Ms. Sharon Edwards, Ms. Debra Smith, Mr. Carlos Padilla, Mark Hutchins, Dr. Sidney McPhee, Dr. Joy Rich, Dr. Pam Harris, Mr. Gary Winton, Ms. Barbara Scales, Mr. Rob Keel, Dr. Terri Bryson, Mr. Brian Robinson, Ms. Marie Mosley, and Dr. Tony Millican, thank you for sharing in this success as members of a good team. Thank you to the Motlow College Foundation and Trustees. Thank you to Mr. Eugene London for his leadership, brainstorming, and support. Thank you to the Chancellor Flora Tydings and Dr. Kim McCormick for always providing room to innovate, grow, and test. To all of the Motlow Family who participated and support student success and workforce development, we thank and appreciate you.

ONE MOTLOW.

BY MICHAEL TORRENCE, PH.D. ON MAY 10, 2022 @4:41 A.M.