Administrators, faculty and a student from Austin Community College discuss higher education as part of a SXSWedu panel entitled Accelerating Change by Personalizing Learning at the Hilton Austin hotel on March 9.[/caption]

During a SXSWedu panel March 9, representatives from Austin Community College discussed the Highland Campus' launch of a new program during fall semester 2014 that changes the pace of a traditional classroom setting.

The panel consisted of Mike Midgley, vice president of instruction; Gillian Waterston, mathematics program specialist; and student Ramiro Robles. The math department is the first department at ACC Highland to be launched for the ACCelerator program. ACCelerator's home is in the former location of JCPenney at the Highland Mall. The 35,000-square-foot space is now where students can work at Dell desktops to complete various math courses. While students work in the center, the time they spend on each concept activity is monitored by teachers and tutors in the center to help indicate that he or she may need help. Students can also request assistance at any time. Robles signed up for the program as a 31-year-old student with a child and full-time career in the National Guard. He completed three semesters worth of math in seven weeks. While the program can allow students like Robles to complete course work at a faster pace, it also allows students who need more than a traditional semester to understand the math concepts in a course to complete the class, Waterston said. Instead of failing a semester and having to start the class all over again, a student can carry over where he or she left off into the next semester to spend more time learning the material. The program has been successful so far with 95 percent of students who performed well returning and 89 percent of students who faced struggles returning, Waterston said. The overall withdrawal rate was 10 percent instead of 23 to 24 percent that is seen in traditional classes, Waterston said. The program is an example of integrating technology into the classroom and providing a more personalized learning experience even though the appearance may seem as if it has removed personal interaction between students and the instructor, Stacey Guney, executive director of the Highland Learning Center, said.