Possibilities and Parriers: Developmental Education

RESOURCES: COMPREHENSIVE ACCELERATED TRANSFORMATION

Possibilities and Barriers to Completion: Developmental Education

DAN KESTERSON: PREPARED FOR TIM SHAUGHNESSY

C HAPTER 1

The Challenge At present developmental students face three levels of completion challenges. First, most developmental students have to complete a sequence of developmental courses, then they have to complete the entry-level courses, and lastly, they have to complete with a certificate(s) or degree.

The research findings are clear. Of these three completion levels, completing sequences of developmental courses create the greatest barrier to completion.

Efforts intended to catch students up are most often leaving them behind. The research is also clear; there are alternatives to the major barrier (time) for completing sequences of developmental courses.

Among the most successful instructional models for removing this barrier (time) are contextualized and corequisite instruction.

C ONTENT

Content Chapter 1 - The Challenge 1

Section 3 - What About Part-Timers? 42 Section 4 - Recapturing Non-Completers 45

Section 2 - The Challenge - Mindshifts 3

Section 5- Advising: Placing Students into Gateway Courses 47

Section 3 - Success is Amongst Us 8

Section 6 - Co-Requisite Courses 53

Chapter 2 - Time 10 Section 1 - Their Lives are Complex 11 Chapter 3 - The Big Picture 12

Section 7 - Repeating Our History 58 Section 8 - Accelerating and Mainstreaming 59 Section 9 - ACRLM: Co-Requisite Reading Model 66

Section 1 - Core Principles 13

Section 10 - The Dark Ages 70

Section 2 - The Suppose Model 15

Section 11 - Rigor in Learning 72

Section 3 - Promising Models and Reading 17 Chapter 4 - Programs of Study 22 Section 1 - Placement in Gateway Courses of Study 23 Section 2 - Committing to Programs of Study 25 Section 3 - A Plan and the Milestones 27 Section 4 - Critical Supports 28 Chapter 5 - Math 30 Section 1 - Math: What Makes Sense 31 Chapter 6 - Placement: Barrier! 37 Section 1 - Assessment and Placement 38

Chapter 7 - Skills Students Actually Need 80 Section 1 - Skills Students Actually need 81 Section 2 - Competence and Conceptual Understanding: Not Isolated Skills 83 Section 3 - Teaching and Learning 84 Section 4 - Support Cannot Stop 86 Chapter 8 - Intervention Models 87 Section 1 - Intervention Models 88 Section 2 - Professional Development 90 Resources 92

Section 2 - Assessment Instruments 29

2

models that focus on completion over learning. The model may succeed on the former and fail on the latter. This is so obvious that sometimes it is easy to over look as if that is a given, but it is in no way a given in practice.

S ECTION 2

The Challenge - Mindshifts

We will be looking at the completion agenda for developmental education. A paper on a session at the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development (NISOD) makes a couple of points that we should keep in mind and help our colleagues understand as both points in our own discussions have been misunderstood. http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/05/29/taking-stock-com pletion-agendas-benefits-and-limits

First we are talking about higher education, not just college and degrees.

“A notable example of that backlash was the assertion, made by Rick Santorum during his surge as a candidate in the Republican presidential primary, that Obama was a “snob” for pushing more people toward college degrees.

To be clear about the completion agenda's goals, David Milliron said it’s important to stress that completion is about a “family of credentials," including “apprenticeships, certificates and degrees.” (Facing Facts, May 29, 2012 - 3:00am, Paul Fain)

Second, learning should always be out front. It goes without saying that any completion agenda that does not stress and emphasize learning first is in danger of missing the boat. It can result in instructional

“Everybody is in favor of completion. It’s a good thing,” said Sandy Shugart, president of Valencia College. He also said the completion agenda can be taken too far.

The large community college in central Florida has gotten plenty of plaudits lately, thanks to winning the first Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence. “Putting learning before completion has been good for us,” said Shugart.

“A fixation on issuing more degrees and certificates runs the risk of inverting this philosophy, according to Shugart, and could encourage colleges to focus on completion before learning. He said a better approach is to stick to an ethos of “if students learn well, deeply and intentionally, more will complete.” (Facing Facts, May 29, 2012 - 3:00am, Paul Fain) Almost all effort has been expended toward getting students through sequences of developmental courses without fully understanding that the sequencing of developmental courses introduced itself to the greatest barrier as it introduced the factor of “time.” Then stacked on top of time was the exploration of courses of study. There is still the conception (misconception) that students come college to find themselves.

They still often do, but that is not their main goal. Many do, but community college students are seeking social economic stability and floundering around finding themselves just doesn’t work (time gets in the way), especially when semesters of remediation stand in the way of completion. Naturally this raises the hackles of of the old guard status quo.

3

Stacked on top of sequences of developmental courses (time) and the failure to understand the shifting goals of community college students is any comprehensive, structured support for providing intrusive and proactive advising and counseling “along the milestones from where they are to where they want to go” (McClenney).

Then we add intensive college algebra and calculus math pathways that no longer makes sense in the world we live in today for non-STEM students. Policies that no longer serve student completion are in need of reworking. The math many of the students are trying to learn have little relevance to their lives and goals.

If community colleges expect to significantly increase completion rates, they must think and act comprehensively (big picture) and holistically (reducing the interacting exit points and strengthening all the interrelated student and academic support from application to completion).

Many colleges have made strong initial movement toward “front door” efforts, but have failed even in those efforts to address assessment, meaningful early student commitment to programs of study, even if they are “default” programs of study. They often have failed to provide meaningful placement in gateway programs of study with support.

While front door efforts in orientation and advising are often noteworthy by often offering faster and easier advising and registration, they often maintain mere prescriptive advising with little to no developmental (teaching and learning) advising.

While these efforts should be applauded, what these redesigners often find is that they have only pricked the tip of the iceberg to redesigning for student completion.

Senate Bill 1 Unified Strategy 2 Provide targeted interventions for all students who are not college and career ready.

Unified Strategy 4 Increase the college completion rates of students entering with one or more developmental or supplemental course needs.

Goal 1 Increase the fall-to-fall retention rates of students entering with readiness needs by 8% from 2009-2014 by providing bridge programs and support services Goal 2 All public postsecondary institutions will provide accelerated, online, and/or alternative learning formats to improve success in and completion of developmental and supplemental coursework that is recognized by all public postsecondary institutions by 2014.

Goal 3 Increase degree completion rates for students entering postsecondary institutions with readiness needs by 3% annually from 2009-2014.

Expanding Our Mindset about Developmental Education As developmental educators, we have an obligation to our students, who we have watched make tremendous personal sacrifices to even step up to the doors of our institutions, to try and ensure that the support they need is available all the way to completion This is the rub within this thread on completion. If our developmental students do not complete at higher rates, our colleges are going to be impacted financially through performance funding and the finger will be pointed directly at us as developmental educators if completion rates do not increase every year, yet we are often just a cog on the wheel toward completion – it does not have to be so.

4

We have to become more visible within our institutions beyond our courses or other forms of delivery. We have to be champions of not only our own programs, but for those academic and student support services that our students will need once they exit our courses (Mindset: those academic and student support services are developmental education in the broadest sense). That is a bridge that often is overlooked as we create plans for increasing completion rates. Once again, developmental education is not just about college readiness, “Developmental Education is a field of practice and research within higher education with a theoretical foundation in developmental psychology and learning theory. It promotes the cognitive and affective growth of all post secondary learners, AT ALL LEVELS OF THE LEARNING CONTINIUM.” If the message is not clear yet - students taking sequences of developmental courses will not complete (1 in 10). The mantra is “Co-requisite, not prerequisite.” Co-requisite not only has promising models for increased completion, but it takes a giant step toward our becoming part of promoting the cognitive and affective growth of all post secondary learners, at all levels of the learning continuum. We become more than a cog in the wheel, we become the wheel of support. Developmental education becomes relevant to the student and their programs of study; we would be in a much better position for having a voice for the kind of support these students need to reach completion beyond our often isolated domains.

Completion Agendas Will Require Mind Shifts 1. From developmental education is working - to developmental education is not working in the context of completion.

2. From developmental students should not take content or gateway course – to a major key to successful completion is getting into a content courses or gateway courses early.

3. From it is alright for students to be considered “unclassified” – to establishing “default” programs for students not ready to commit.

4. From all students should be on an algebra pathway – to students should be on a math pathway that aligns with their curricular pathway.

5. From the time it takes to complete a sequence of developmental courses is not a barrier to completion – to the time it takes to enter content course and gateway courses is a barrier.

6. From sequences of courses taken by students with significant academic needs – to providing alternate pathways to high quality career certificate by embedding remediation and adult basic skills into their instruction.

7. From teaching skills isolated from content is suitable enough – to teaching skills need to be integrated and relevant to content and gateway courses.

8. From a single standard placement test is a good predictor of placement – to a single placement test is not predictive and high school GPS’s by themselves or along with standard placement tests are more predictive.

9. From developmental students cannot succeed in content of gateway courses – to developmental students do as well as nondevelopmental students in content courses when given support and actually often do better.

10. From there are students, who shouldn’t enter developmental programs or even college – to there are models for almost all students who want to enter postsecondary.

11. From these students cannot learn – to given the right learning conditions, they can and do learn.

5

12. From postsecondary developmental students should learn all the core standard competencies before entering content or gateway courses – to postsecondary developmental students should learn the skills they need as they need them as co-requisites of content and gateway courses.

13. From developmental students should take their time in accepting a curricular pathway - to it is essential that developmental students choose a curricular pathway early, which they can change later.

14. From choosing a curricular pathway should be the result of a liberal arts education – to this is too late for most students and if they have AA or AS paths, they are more likely to succeed; they can change.

15. From learning merely the foundation skills for comprehension or communication – to skills for learning competence in an area of inquiry.

16. From developmental education should be isolated for students who are underprepared. – to developmental education is for all students aligned with their courses, who need learning help along the continuum to completion.

17. From foundation skills is all that is necessary – to skills plus being able to negotiate college, develop habits of mind, and understanding education and career planning are essential to success.

18. From completion agendas for developmental students is for developmental programs alone – to completion must be built upon a comprehensive plan in which everyone who is involved in any part of a curricular pathway or student services involving a given student is responsible for helping the learner to completion.

19. From professional development is for developmental educators alone – to all content instructors should understand the role of read-

ing to learn, writing to learn, and using computation in their courses. (Kesterson) Quote of the Day "I thought that developmental education was just about teaching my developmental class and following the lessons in a publisher's skills textbook or computer program." -Anonymous What is Accelerated Learning?

Does accelerated learning models that imply that accelerated learning is literally about learning faster? This seems reasonable on the surface, but learning takes time and deep learning takes even more time. Accelerated learning is not about learning faster, it is about taking advantage of learning that factors out wasted time and factors in moving on to new related learning when the foundations for new learning are maximal. This could take more or less time. Acceleration is also about moving into gateway courses in programs of study with substantial support to overcome the barrier of time, which is the key barrier to successful completion.

Given the right conditions, students can learn more over a given time frame. Given the right conditions students will learn. There are so many factors that impact the speed of learning, such as prior knowledge, rigor of learning, interest, freedom to move on when foundation information or procedures are in place, etc. Accelerated learning is about “getting on with programs of study.” It is not about learning faster as much as it is about successfully moving through programs of study to completion. “ W i t h i n “ A S o c i e t a l I m p e r a t i v e : Changing the way we think about community colleges”, is a s e c t i o n o n S a n d y S h u g a r t t h a t i s w o r t h o u t t i m e . http://www.highereducation.org/crosstalk/ct1209/voices1209-burdm a n . s h t m l 6

Areas Needing Major Repair or Changes in Our Colleges

Sanford “Sandy” Shugart, president of Valencia Community College in Florida, also exemplifies the new generation of student-successminded leaders. His college began the hard work of improving completion rates long before that came into vogue, and even before joining the Achieving the Dream initiative. At a community college conference last year, after about a decade of such work, Shugart revealed data showing that his institution had simultaneously improved student success rates while narrowing gaps. As of last year, Valencia eliminated achievement gaps in five of the six courses the college had targeted. Fall to spring retention hit 86 percent, and was even higher for African American stud e n t s .

• Assessment and Placement Instruments • Sequences of Developmental Courses • Programs of Study: Meeting Students at their Skill Needs Level • Differentiated Math Requirements • Rigor in Developmental Courses • Supplemental Instruction (co-requisite) • Early Education and Career Planning

Shugart confessed that even he was surprised. “I have been a secret skeptic,” Shugart told the audience at the conference. “Deep down inside, I had doubts that we could move the needle. Now I’ve got hope like I’ve never had before that the vision of equity can be achieved in t h e A m e r i c a n c o m m u n i t y c o l l e g e m o v e m e n t . ” What was refreshing and insightful about Shugart’s approach is that he did not just run through a litany of “best practices”—though Valencia has adopted many practices with evidence of effectiveness. The real key to Valencia’s success? “We changed the way we think,” Shugart said.

“Everything else is details after that. Our job now isn’t to find out who’s college material and who’s not. (Everyone can learn given the right conditions). Now everything raises a question: I wonder what the right conditions are for this person’s learning. The college is what the students experience. Nothing more and nothing less. It’s not the catalog, it’s not the buildings, it’s not the curriculum, it’s not the budget, it’s not even us, as important as we all are.”

• Advising & Coaching (contact and direction to completion) • Proactive and Intrusive Student Services (advising and counseling) • Student Support Outside the Classroom • Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training • Special Needs (ADHD) Minor, but Essential Changes • Orientation (social interaction, not just disseminating information) • Ongoing Early Alert: AdvisorTrac, TutorTrac, Snapfisb • Ongoing Contact and Support: AdvisorTrac, TutorTrac, Snapfisb

7

S ECTION 3

Success is Amongst Us Success is Amongst Us A success strategy we are exploring is providing integrated support within “targeted subpopulations.” This is not about putting a targeted subpopulation in classes together, but rather it is about providing a program within which a targeted subpopulation can identify within a college that is a home-base for the subpopulation, which provides academic, student service support, and other support.

DIVERSIFIED PROGRAMS: The program is tailored or customized to meet the distinctive needs of different student subpopulations. (one of the Principles of a Retention Program, Joe Cuseo) The Trio program is a given - great track record; there are also other initiatives and programs that target subpopulations that are worth our exploration, such as the Ready-to-Work program.

READY-TO-WORK http://www.clasp.org/admin/site/publications/files/RTW.pdf Ready-to-Work has always been a favorite as their “coordinators serve as case managers, recruit students into the program (thus ensuring that a large number of students know about Ready-to-Work), assess student performance in the program, target students who might be at risk of dropping out, and provide all students job placement assistance.

Additionally, Ready-to-Work coordinators work closely with the local TANF agencies to ensure that Ready-to-Work students receive necessary support services. Ready-to-Work and Work and Learn coordina-

tors work together to create bridges between remedial education and credit-bearing post-secondary education, FACTS: The percentage of the KTAP/TANF population attending college in Kentucky is 8.7%. This is a greater percentage than the percentage of the general population attending college.

From the spring of 1999 to the fall of 2006 there was a 645% increase in the number of Ready-to-Work participants who participated in RTW work-study, from 97 to 723.

From the beginning of the spring 2006 semester to the end of the spring 2006 semester, the RTW retention rate was 95%. The retention rate from fall 2004 to fall 2005 was 63% in Ready-to-Work.

The overall GPA for RTW for the spring 2006 term was 2.70. The average GPA for the KCTCS colleges overall was 2.69. (This was the last reporting period.)

The RTW initiative began tracking the number of KTAP/RTW students graduating from KCTCS colleges in the spring of 2001. Since that time, 1098 Ready-to-Work participants and 329 former Ready-to-Work participants have graduated from KCTCS colleges. Seven hundred participants continued their post-secondary education after graduating.

“It provides students with services that include work-study opportunities, support services, and academic and employment counseling.

Work-study participants often start off with jobs at their colleges or at local non-profit organizations. Once they have adjusted to the work environment and learned basic work skills such as punctuality and reliability, they typically begin an assignment in the field they want to enter, an opportunity that provides them with invaluable experience and exposure. Throughout their work-study participation, they earn an hourly wage that ranges from the minimum wage, $7.25 per hour, to around $8.25 per hour. While Ready-to-Work does not pay tuition costs directly, students who do not receive enough financial aid to pay 8

the full cost of college attendance can use work-study income to pay tuition, decreasing reliance on loans. Work-study income does not affect TANF eligibility or reduce benefits.”

Also see Ready-to-Work homepage: http://legacy.kctcs.edu/readytowork/ Or contact Shauna King-Simms Director of Transitional Programs Kentucky Community and Technical College System shauna.king-simms@kctcs.edu 859-256-3301

9

C HAPTER 2

Time The single greatest barrier to developmental student completion is time. If the time problem is not solved the dominos of completion cascade one after the other.

The concept that time is the single greatest barrier to developmental student success is not obvious nor is it easily incorporated into our thinking. Time permits too many exit points from which we lose capable students.

The logic is that we cannot put developmental students in gateway courses for which they come unprepared.

However, the logic is being defied by a number of contextualized and co-requisite models.

S ECTION 1

Their Lives are Complex

Who are Our Students?

“More students are working, and they are working more hours than ever before. Many can afford to attend only part-time, extending the years until they graduate. (Part-time students graduate at the rate of 2.2 percent in 2-year degrees in three years.) More come to our campuses underprepared for college — and then get trapped in broken remedial approaches that don’t help, as time keeps slipping away. More are overwhelmed by too many choices and too little structure, causing aimless wandering and wasted semesters and years.

With today’s student population, more time and more choices often add up to less success. Being able to engage in an extended period of self-discovery or sample multiple courses out of catalogues the size of phone books might work for students who have the luxury of unlimited time and money. But this approach doesn’t work for the nearly 50 percent of students who work more than 20 hours a week or for the 25 percent of community college students who work more than 35 hours a week.” (Time is the Enemy) Our Assumptions We Flawed We assumed that students could not succeed in entry-level courses. We knew that the students were underprepared, yet we did not consider in our planning that students could succeed in gateway courses in programs of study if they were given support and placed programs of study reflecting their level of deficiency. Our new placement policy provides for letting students who are underprepared take gateway courses in programs of study if they get support.

A l l o f t h i s a d d s u p t o m o r e a n d m o r e t i m e .

As the clock runs and the calendar turns, we all know what happens: Students’ lives fill up with jobs, relationships, marriages, children, and mortgages; the list goes on and on. Not surprisingly, college often gets left behind: a few years of courses, no degree, and a lot of debt.

The result is a yawning skills gap caused by too few trained workers for more high-skill jobs than ever. Incomes shrink. And America falls further behind.” (Time is the Enemy) We Failed to Factor in “Time” in Our Developmental Programs “Colleges need to recognize that time is the enemy.

11

C HAPTER 3

The Big Picture We Don’t The big picture is that we now know the basic core principles for increasing completion.

Have Time!

S ECTION 1

Core Principles Core Principles for Transforming Remedial Education: A Joint Statement - Charles A. Dana Center, Complete College America, Education Commission of the States, Jobs for the Future Principle 1. Completion of a set of gateway courses for a program of study is a critical measure of success toward college completion.

Remedial education as a stand-alone sequence does not generate momentum toward the ultimate goal of completion. Institutions need to chart a trajectory for students that is focused on them completing gateway courses that lead into a program of study and ultimately to a credential.

Principle 2. The content in required gateway courses should align with a student’s academic program of study ⎯⎯ particularly in math.

The curricular pathways often include content that is not essential for students to be successful in their chosen program of study. Consequently, many students are tripped up in their pursuit of a credential while studying content that they do not need. Move reading from isolated skills to deeper transfer learning skills. (Move away from isolated skills instruction. “Developmental curricula are sometimes poorly aligned with college-level assignments and expectations.” - Thomas Bailey, CCRC); Math - differentiated math pathways, ex. Statway or Mathways.

Principle 3. Enrollment in a gateway college-level course should be the default placement for many more students.

Recent research has concluded that there are many more students who could be successful in college-level gateway courses than are currently placed into them. (Overall, we should reject the notion that we can neatly divide students into two distinct groups. This perspective has not been helpful either for those we have labeled “developmental” nor for those we have labeled “college ready.” - Thomas Bailey, CCRC) Principle 4. Additional academic support should be integrated with gateway college-level course content ⎯⎯ as a corequisite, not a pre-requisite.

(RDG 185 & Upper-Level RDG 30, APL) Single Semester Co-Requisite Course: In this approach, students receive remedial instruction while enrolled in a traditional single-semester gateway course.

(RDG 30, Lower Level & Upper Level RDG 20)) One-Year Course Pathway.

Students with more significant remedial needs would benefit from more robust instruction and enhanced learning supports in the form of a one-year, two-semester course sequence in which students pass the gateway course in one year.

Principle 5. Students who are significantly underprepared for college-level academic work need accelerated routes into programs of study.

ESS contextualize embedded, I-Best, AOK: Focus on more contextualized learning; making remediation contemporaneous with placement in shorter, but economically valuable technical certificate or appropriate degree programs. 90%+ are in developmental or other Jefferson courses. Does Jefferson have these programs with gateway or entrylevel courses these students can take with support?

The delivery of remedial content as a single semester co-requisite alongside college-level content, a one-year course pathway, or embedded re13

mediation can take many forms. In all cases, the remedial instruction must be aligned and coordinated with the college-level course. Research at some institutions that have adopted this approach has found students succeeding in gateway courses at almost three times the rate of those who began in traditional remediation sequences.

Principle 6. Multiple measures should be used to provide guidance in the placement of students in gateway courses and programs of study.

Principle 7. Students should enter a meta-major when they enroll in college and start a program of study in their first year, in order to maximize their prospects of earning a college degree. (Meta-majors: A set of broad content areas that students choose upon enrollment at a postsecondary institution. A meta-major includes a set of courses that meet academic requirements that are common across several disciplines and specific programs of study. Enrollment and completion of meta-major courses guide students through initial academic requirements and into programs of study.

14

S ECTION 2

SUPPOSE MODEL THE SUPPOSE MODEL (Support to Completion) Suppose Completion Model The Suppose Completion Model was created to stimulate thinking about how to provide students support on their road to completion.

Co-requisite courses alone will not result in significant increases in completion. The Suppose Completion Model offers recommendations for significantly increasing completion (certificates or credentials).

1. Placement assessments based on multiple measures of student preparedness for student’s program of study; current standard placement tests are not predictive 2. Assigned developmental advisor and/or education coach to advise, track, and support to completion 3. Encourage students to commit to programs of study as soon as possible; however, establish “default” programs for students not ready to commit In addition, track the certificate and degrees that at least pay off student loans.

4. Eliminate sequences of developmental courses Either:

• mainstream developmental students into college-level courses with additional supports or, • provide modularized or developmental education to include academic support that is co-requisite, not prerequisite to college-level courses or • compress courses to allow remedial students to more quickly complete their developmental work, or • offer contextualized remedial education within occupational and vocational programs 5. Create statistics, quantitative, and algebra pathways; then place students in pathways most appropriate to prepare them for their chosen programs of study or careers 6. Expand co-requisite supports for additional college-level courses, not just English and math Consider three levels of co-requisite models (extra academic help should become co-requisite, not prerequisite) • For students with few academic deficiencies, place them into redesigned first year, full- credit courses with co-requisite built-in support, just-in-time tutoring, self-paced computer labs with required attendance, and the like. The length of these courses should mirror the ordinary gateway courses so students stay on track for on-time graduation.

• For students needing more help, lengthen redesigned full-credit courses and consider providing built-in, co-requisite support for two semesters instead of one.

Students get the same content but more time on task.

15

• For students with the most significant academic needs, provide alternate pathways to high-quality career certificates by embedding remediation and adult basic skills development into their instruction.

7. Redesign curriculum that reconsiders the key skills that academically underprepared students will need in their careers (focus on competency learning skills); common core standards should align with career pathways 8. Expand the functional definition of developmental education to - promotes the cognitive and affective growth of all postsecondary learners, at all levels of the learning continuum 9. Improve faculty support for developmental and contextualized or co-requisite courses faculty for the transitions above.

16

S ECTION 3

Promising Models and Reading

Models for Accelerating Students’ Progress Through Developmental Education 26 -Fast-Track Courses 26 -Modularized Courses 29

Unlocking the Gate http://www.mdrc.org/sites/default/files/full_595.pdf Looking at the research in the paper above, the following is possible forward movement for DT developmental reading or programs closely related to reading in bold and italic (page numbers refer to Unlocking the Gate document):

-Mainstreaming into College-Level Courses 30 (CoRequisite Reading & Redesign curriculum that reconsiders the key skills that academically underprepared students will need in their careers (focus on competency learning skills, enhanced co-requisite professional development) Summary of Acceleration Models 33

PANEL 1 AVOIDANCE STRATEGIES

PANEL 3 CONTEXTUALIZATION STRATEGIES

2.Interventions for Avoiding Developmental Education 15

4 Contextualized Instruction 35

Models for Avoiding Developmental Education 16

Models for Contextualized Learning with Developmental Education Students 36

-Dual Enrollment Programs 16 -Early Assessment Programs 20 -Summer Bridge Programs 22 (Summer Reading Bridge Program) Summary of Avoidance Models 24 PANEL 2 ACCELERATION STRATEGIES 3 Accelerating Students’ Progress Through Developmental Education 25

-Contextualized Learning in Vocational Programs 36 (Accelerated --Opportunity KY) -Learning Communities 39 Summary of Contextualized Learning Models 41 PANEL 4 SUPPLEMENTAL STRATEGIES 5 Supplemental Supports to Advance Students’ Achievement 43 Models for Supplemental Supports with Developmental Education Students 43

17

-Tutoring and Supplemental Instruction 44 (Reading Learning Center /w tutoring auxiliary) -Advising 48 (Orientation, Developmental Advising, Early Program Placement, & Assigned developmental advisor and/or education coach to advise, track, and support to completion) -Student Success Courses 50 (FYE 105 & Early Alert) -EES Summary of Student Support Models

The Challenge: Bringing an accelerated instruction model such as the Co-Requisite Model for Reading to Learn to scale in community colleges.

Successful isolated co-requisite courses have dotted the community college landscape over time, but comprehensive initiatives to bring corequisite courses to scale have not stepped foot on the landscape.

There are a number of reasons for this inertia.

The Challenges Contributing to the Inertia: • The evidence has to support co-requisite models. Now promising models are beginning to show up in the literature.The ALP at Baltimore and I-Best program in Washington have successfully instituted c0-requisite models. See chapter 11.

• It takes strong leadership support. Scheduling, advising, registration, content course instructors, skills instructors, a mind shift about what constitutes deep learning (rigor) all have to be coordinated under leadership which has to signal that it will support such a shift.

• Entry-level course instructors can be entrenched and feel threatened.

• Skills instructors have to begin teaching directly to the immediate, relevant skill needs of students in their content courses. There is no time for isolated unit instruction that is not immediately relevant to the student’s reading needs. This can be threatening to skill instructors who have become used to sequences of developmental courses and non-contextual learning, which in itself can become isolated from relevancy.

• Some leadership and instructors have not gotten the word yet that students do not make it to completion if they take sequences of developmental courses and therefore resist change. Complete College America makes this point, “Traditional developmental education suffers from two fatal flaws. First, it is disconnected from the credits students need to obtain credentials and degrees — even though data indicate that underprepared students have the best shot at success when they can move into college-level courses as soon as possible.

Second, it is rarely tailored to individual student needs.”

• Others snap up shortcut trends that are successful in themselves, but come up short when “time” becomes the barrier.

• Administrators become fearful that it will cost more, yet in the Community College of Baltimore Summary we find these results Based on four semesters of data and 227 students, compared to traditional developmental writing: - ALP doubles the success rate.

- cuts the attrition in half - does it in half the ALP time - at slightly less cost per successful student 18

The Co-Requisite Course Model “Co-requisite developmental education enrolls students in remedial and college-level courses in the same subject at the same time. Students receive targeted support to help boost their understanding and learning of the college-level course material. This strategy can work at both two- and four-year institutions, the latter of which are often prohibited from providing remedial education. The concurrent course design allows four-year colleges and universities to offer the co-requisite developmental instruction as a non-credit, fee-based offering connected to a credit-bearing college course.

Early results are showing that these initiatives are yielding better outcomes for students in less time and with significant savings for students and institutions. What they all have in common is a focus not just on the goal of improving remedial course completion but also, and more significantly, on completion of the entry-level, credit- bearing college courses that put students on a steadier path to completion” (Complete College America).

“For many students who are either just below or just above the stated cut score in a given subject area, it may make sense to enroll students into college-level courses and the relevant remedial education course concurrently. Effective implementation requires coordination between the remedial course and college-level course.” http://www.completecollege.org/docs/CCA%20Co-Req%20Model%20 -%20Transform%20Remediation%20for%20Chicago%20final(1).pdf Model Benefits • Eliminates the frequent problem of students not enrolling in college level courses in math or English after completing their remedial education sequence.

• Saves students time and money be enabling them to complete remediation and their college-level course in one semester rather than two.

• Can be utilized at four-year colleges that do not offer remedial eduction courses by implementing the remedial instruction in a non-credit, fee-based offering connected to the college course” (Getting Past Go) http://gettingpastgo.org/blog/2011/03/21/co-requisite-model/

Colorado Moves Ahead in Reforming Remediation to Increase Completion Rates http://www.boostingcollegecompletion.org/2012/05/colorado-movesahead-in-reforming-remediaton-to-increase-completion-rates/ May 16, 2012 by Mary Fulton Colorado thrust itself into the forefront of developmental education reform with the passage of new legislation that embraces current research and practice on how to increase the college attainment rate of students who have traditionally been placed into remediation.

House Bill 1155, sponsored by Rep. Tom Massey, the chair of the House Education Committee, includes the following provisions related to remedial education: •

Multiple measures for remedial placement

•

Differentiated math requirements

•

Supplemental academic instruction.

19

The individual components of the bill are finding support from emerging research and, collectively, they could go a long way to improve the success of remedial students.

Multiple Measures for Remedial Placement According to recent research, the common approach of placing students into courses based on a single exam and a single cut score is proving to be inadequate, and it often relegates students to one or more semesters of developmental education that they do not need. In response, there is a growing recognition that multiple and more precise measures should be used to determine students’ readiness for collegelevel work and the most appropriate interventions to address their skill deficits. A recent GPG policy brief on assessment and placement, however, found that only a handful of states even attempt to incorporate multiple measures into course-placement decisions.

One goal of H.B. 1155 is to align the state’s policies for admissions at four-year institutions and remedial education. The legislation revises current statute and directs institutions to consider multiple measures for admission that may include high school grade-point average, class rank, and the rigor and content of academic courses, as well as national assessment scores. Insofar as the policy alignment occurs, the door is opened for campuses to take into account these measures – along with the approved placement assessment results – when determining whether students need remediation or some form of additional support to succeed in college-level courses.

Differentiated Math Requirement The differentiated math approach recognizes that the traditional sequence of math courses designed around algebra and calculus proficiency may not be necessary for all students and may set up hurdles in their progression toward a degree. For students in non-STEM fields, developing other math skills, such as statistics, might be sufficient and more appropriate. These students could avoid remediation all together

or spend less time in such courses if they have to demonstrate the math skills that are more aligned with their chosen program of study.

The most prominent example of the differentiated math approach is the New Mathways Project, directed by the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Earlier this month, officials from Texas’ community colleges endorsed the Mathways system as part of an effort to redesign remedial math. In a similar vein, Tennessee institutions have created remedial course exit points for STEM and nonSTEM students based on a common set of competencies.

Supplemental Academic Instruction Supplemental instruction, which also is known as the co-requisite model, allows students who fall just below the cut score on placement exams to enroll immediately in credit-bearing courses while receiving support, whether through additional class work, tutoring, or other services. The approach saves students time and money by enabling them to complete remediation and their college-level courses in the same semester. Further, four-year colleges that do not offer remediation can provide underprepared students with the extra support they need to be successful in college-level classes.

Early results from a couple co-requisite initiatives have shown that students are passing their college-level courses at significantly higher rates than their peers who were placed in remedial classes. Students participating in the Accelerated Learning Project at the Community College of Baltimore County enroll concurrently in remedial English and college-level English composition. In Tennessee, Austin Peay State University’s Structured Assistance Program eliminated the two remedial math courses and moved students directly into one of two creditbearing math courses. In addition, Complete College America is urging its 30 member states to adopt co-requisite models to help remedy some of problems with the current system of providing remediation.

20

Research and practical experience are highlighting many of the reasons why the standard approaches for remedial placement and instruction are not benefiting students. Fortunately, states like Colorado are paying attention. If implemented broadly and successfully, H.B. 1155 offers Colorado’s postsecondary institutions the opportunity to get ahead of the curve in pursuing innovative policies and practices that help underprepared students move toward degree completion.

21

C HAPTER 4

Programs of Study Just Do It!

Guidelines for Completion, Terry O’Banion “Establish successful student pathways as the overarching transformational goal of the entire college; and align every policy, program, practice, and the way personnel are used to address this goal.”

“Reformers must thoughtfully design models that not only shorten developmental sequences and use co-requisites when appropriate, but also strengthen curricular alignment, leverage non-cognitive measures as part of the placement system, integrate strong academic and non-academic supports, and tie developmental education more closely to college-level programs.” Thomas Bailey

S ECTION 1

Placement in Gateway Courses of Study

If we increase the pass rate of the first developmental course, we still will not reach our goals: (0.66)(0.93)(0.75)(0.91)(0.78)= 33% (0.75)(0.93)(0.75)(0.91)(0.78)= 37%

Why Prerequisite Remediation Will Not Work (0.80)(0.93)(0.75)(0.91)(0.78)= 40% Example: For many developmental programs, students are succeeding, but “time” is

(0.90)(0.93)(0.75)(0.91)(0.78)= 45%

the barrier in their complex lives to completion. Example:

Exit Ramps: Vertical and Horizontal

Chabot College pipeline data for students beginning two levels down from college

Within the completion agenda one of the major actions is eliminating points of exit (exit ramps) that occur on the student's path to certificates or degrees.

composition and tracked for three years: For students placing two levels below a college course in English/ Reading/ Math, there are 5 “exit points” where they fall away: (Katie Hern) -Do they pass the first developmental course? 66% -If they pass, do they enroll in the next course? 93% -If they enroll, do they pass the second course? 75% -If they pass, do they enroll in the college-level course? 91% -If they enroll, do they pass the college-level course? 78% Total Completing Entry-Level Course:

The goal is to close every possible exit ramp (where and when do we lose students). By doing so, we will eliminate all opportunities to lose students along the way, saving precious time and money, both of which have resulted in very low completion rates.

For developmental students there are two major ways of reducing exit points or exit ramps – horizontally or vertically.

Horizontal: An example of a horizon exit ramp is having to take two developmental courses that have overlapping or mutually reinforcing content. A horizontal solution is combining developmental courses that have overlapping or mutually reinforcing content such as a combined reading and writing course. This eliminates having to take two course in one semester, thus reducing the number of possible exit ramps and saving time and money. Because they are not co-requisite, they do not eliminate the”time Barrier.

(0.66)(0.93)(0.75)(0.91)(0.78) = 33% 23

Vertical: An example of a vertical exit ramp is taking a developmental course(s) before taking an entry-level course, which has been found to be a major stumbling block to completion (certificates and degrees). A vertical solution is to contextualize an entry-level course or have corequisite courses (an entry-level course and a skills course). This greatly reduces money spent by students, as well as the major roadblock of time for students with very complex lives.

Figure out how to deliver the foundation skills in co-requisite instruction by combining the accelerated instruction with an entry-level course.

Naturally we always take into consideration the students' skill level needs in placement. For example, one consideration might be:

• For students with few academic deficiencies, place them into redesigned first-year, full- credit courses with co-requisite builtin support, just-in-time tutoring, self-paced computer labs with required attendance, and the like. The length of these courses should mirror the ordinary gateway courses so students stay on track for on-time graduation. • For students needing more help, lengthen redesigned full-credit courses and consider providing built-in, co-requisite support for two semesters instead of one. Students get the same content but more time on task. • For students with the most significant academic needs, provide alternate pathways to high-quality career certificates by embedding remediation and adult basic skills development into their instruction

24

S ECTION 2

Committing to a Program of Study The Dominos of Completion It is the failure to commit to a program of study early that ranks right up there with “time”.

Completion does not stand in a vacuum. Completion is about completing programs of study. One of the dominos of completion that is woefully underdeveloped in Kentucky’s community and technical colleges are institutional structures for helping students commit early to a program of study. Too many students wonder aimless in our halls and classes. They come to us to get an education and for them that education is about getting a job. We continue to believe or at least act like that they will find themselves in our institutions through exploration.

That today is a recipe for early exiting early.

“There is a new American majority on campus. Seventy-five percent of today’s students are juggling some combination of families, jobs, and school while commuting to class; according to the U.S. Department of Education. Colleges need to recognize that time is the enemy. With today’s student population, more time and more choices often add up to less success. Being able to engage in an extended period of selfdiscovery or sample multiple courses out of catalogues the size of phone books might work for students who have the luxury of unlimited time and money. But this approach doesn’t work for the nearly 50 percent of students who work more than 20 hours a week or for the 25 percent of community college students who work more than 35 hours a week.” (Time is the Enemy, 2011) In Remediation: The Bridge to Nowhere, is the message for the need for committing to programs of study as a motivator for moving toward

completion are clearly stated. “Most students come to our college campuses to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to ensure a good job and a better life. A logical first step is to commit to a program of study.

Remarkably, many students never do — and broken remediation programs are often to blame.

Committing to a program of study is much more than simply declaring a major. Anybody can declare a major, but completing the initial courses necessary to legitimately be on track in a program of study is a completely different matter. And it’s in these fragile, early stages of college when remediation programs do the most damage.”

Researchers at the Community College Research Center at Columbia University have found that students who complete at least three required “gateway” courses in a program of study within a year of enrollment are twice as likely to earn certificates or degrees.

Remediation programs, designed as prerequisite hurdles that must be jumped before getting to college-level classes, slow students’ progress into programs of study. Studies prove that being trapped in endless remediation sequences or being unable to pass associated gateway courses in math and English are the primary reasons students do not enter programs of study during their first year. And the longer it takes for students to commit to programs of study, the less likely they ever will.

Worse, traditional remediation often seems irrelevant and disconnected from future ambitions, robbing students of precious time, money, and motivation. What’s the result? Many students veer off course onto another dropout exit ramp.

Get students to commit to programs of study ASAP. Using placement scores, high school transcripts, and predictive tools to determine student aptitude, guide all students to choose among a limited number of first-year pathways — for example, health, business, liberal arts, or STEM — as soon as possible. Students should make the big choices of 25

programs of study informed with an understanding of program requirements and available supports to achieve their career goals. Once they do, place them into structured program pathways constructed of relevant, sequenced courses chosen for them. establish “default” programs for students not ready to commit. No longer allow students to be considered “unclassified.” Upon enrollment, nudge them into first-year pathways — for example, health, business, liberal arts, or STEM. This ensures a coherent pathway from the beginning, with core college-level credits that will count toward certificates and degrees. By doing so, students avoid excessive course-taking while wandering the curriculum, shortening the time it takes to graduate.” (Remediation, the Bridge to Nowhere, 2011) The evidence continues to grow that committing to a program of study directly impacts completion rates. “Entering an academic or vocational program is strongly correlated with degree completion” (Community College Research Center). “Having clear goals, and being in programs with well-defined pathways, increased persistence, completion and transfer.

We must provide institutional structures with more timely and deeply developed support for helping developmental students commit to programs of study. Programs of study are what make an education relevant and relevancy is the key motivator.

Logical First Steps Complete College America recommends these first logical steps: • A logical first step is to commit to a program of study.

• No longer allow students to be considered “unclassified.”

To Improve Completion Rates, Community Colleges Need to Help Students "Get with the Program" http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Publication.asp?uid=967 Community colleges should focus more attention on helping students choose and enter college-level programs of study, suggests new research from the Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Two studies from CCRC have found that entering an academic or vocational program is strongly correlated with degree completion, regardless of background or academic preparation—yet too many entering community college students do not get far enough to enter a program.

A study analyzing community college data found that the sooner students entered a concentration, the more likely they were to succeed.

More than half of students who entered a program of study in their first year earned a community college credential or transferred to a four-year college within five years. Only about a third of students who entered a program of study in their second year completed a credential or transferred. For students who did not enter a program until their third year, the success rate was only around 20%.

To earn a credential, students must first enter a coherent college-level program of study, but many community college students enroll without clear goals for college and careers. Community colleges typically offer a wide range of programs, but most provide little guidance to help students choose and enter a program. Colleges carefully track course enrollments but often do not know which students are in which programs. CCRC’s research suggests that by helping students enter programs early on, community colleges can improve completion rates.

• Nudge them into first-year pathways — for example, health, business, liberal arts, or STEM.

26

S ECTION 3

Recommendation

A Plan and Milestone Contacts

Advising, Education and Career Planning Has to Become Deeper and More Intrusive

Students say it clearly. They want clear plans and they want solid connections with reliable contacts that help guide them as they move through the milestones on the pathways of those plans that too often become exit points on the road to completion.

“Colleges need to initiate supportive action by reaching out to students and bring or deliver the “advising and coaching” programs to students (rather than passively waiting and hoping that students will take advantage of it), thus increasing the likelihood that the program of support reaches all (or the vast majority of) students who would profit from it.”

(Joe Cuseo) That means that there is a plan for ensuring that every developmental student has a program of study plan (even if it is a “default” plan). It also means that they have an assigned advisor or academic coaches that meet with and are responsible for ensuring that at every milestone defining the pathway to completion is available intrusively.

Students Want Connection and Direction What have we learned through the Community College Survey of Student Engagement?

“It comes as a surprise to a lot of community college people that students consistently report that the service of most importance to them is academic planning and advising. When we have followed up, conducting focus groups with students, we have asked them to talk about why they place this level of importance on advising and academic planning.

Typically, the first thing they say is that it’s not about someone just helping them to fill out their class schedule. Rather, it’s about creating a plan - defining a pathway, with milestones along the way, that shows them the route from where they are to a different place they want to be.

Students have further explained that that plan and those milestones essentially then compete with all of the other issues and obligations in their often-complicated lives, giving them reasons to return to class the next week and the next semester.” - Pathways to Student Success Keynote Address CCTI Summit, Kay McClenney, March 2006

Recommendation • Developmental students need a higher ratio of assigned professional advisors and/or academic coaches from assessment to graduation.

“Effective retention programs have to come to understand that academic advising is the very core of successful institutional efforts to educate and retain students.” (Nutt

27

S ECTION 4

Critical Supports

1. What Advising Should Be About 2. Programs of Study – Here Is Where We Are Completely Missing the Boat 3. Contact and Direction – Assigned, Intrusive Advising 4. Ongoing Early Alert 5. Immediate Academic Support

1. What Advising Should Be About Let’s start of with these CCSSE findings and hear from the students: “ “the first thing they say is that advising is not about someone just helping them to fill out their class schedule. Rather, it’s about creating a plan - defining a pathway, with milestones along the way, that shows them the route from where they are to a different place they want to be. Students have further explained that that plan and those milestones essentially then compete with all of the other issues and obligations in their often-complicated lives, giving them reasons to return to class the next week and the next semester.” (McClenney, 2006) Listening carefully, they are saying that that plan and those milestones essentially then compete with all of the other issues and obligations in their often-complicated lives, giving them reasons to return to class the next week and the next semester.” This is not true of just advising, but co-requisite instruction aligned with programs of study. They are saying that they want a program of study and with a definite plan with

milestones along the way. They need a goal and a program of study as that goal that will motivate them along the way. Remember, they are presently not completing in huge numbers, in fact, they are not even getting to the gateway courses in any program of study.

2. Programs of Study – Here is Where We are Completely Missing the Boat Now, we know that students in the community college (as compared to the technical college) often do not come with a specific program of study in mind. For those who do, they should be placed in their program gateway courses with support (everyone skips or ignores this most important idea. .http://corequisite.pbworks.com/w/page/53897544/Three%20Levels %20of%20Co-Requisite%20Models ) Those students who have not chosen a program of study, should be placed in established “default” programs for students not ready to commit; no longer allow students to be considered “unclassified.” Require that these students take an academic success course for education and career planning. Read the following about the negative effect of not entering a co-requisite program of study.

3. Contact and Direction – Assigned, Intrusive Advising “An ongoing assigned advisor who meets regularly with students appears to be a key component in increasing persistence and graduation rates.” Intrusive advising is another key component - a direct response to identified academic crisis with a specific program of action.

In the typical advising program, the advisor may possibly only see students at registration. If we want students to persist to certificates or degrees, we are going to have to invest in the resources that make a difference – assigned and intrusive advising. I believe the goal of the sixty percent graduation rate agenda will come and go until we get serious

28

about advising. Presently colleges are taking the most meager of steps to address advising – mistake – a fatal flaw.

1.Attendance, Participation, and Homework (taking selfresponsibility for learning)

Kingsborough Community College

2.Academic Problems (learning problems, underprepardness)

At Kingsborough Community College, students are required to consult with an adviser at least twice a month.

3.NonAcademic Problems (daycare, transportation, financial aid, personal problems, etc.)

“It seemed like I (Nicolina Dapilma) was in her office on a daily basis,” she says of adviser Martha Greasley. “Whenever I had some kind of problem or something of interest to share, I’d go see her.” Greasley didn’t mind. In fact, she welcomes and encourages frequent visits. “It’s a different kind of academic advising,” Greasley insists, “much more in-depth. The students aren’t just seeing a counselor once a semester to see what classes they need to take the next semester. It’s invasive — not in a bad way, but in a good way.”

4.Disruptive Behavior (is student behavior in a classroom or other learning environment which disrupts the educational process.)

A recent study showed that, from 2007-2009, the ratio of advisers to non-ASAP students on the system’s community college campuses was 300:1. For ASAP students, the ratio was 62:1. And according to study author Anthony L. Rini, CUNY’s executive director of academic financial affairs and planning, that difference is telling.

5.Mental Stress (depression, alcohol and drug, suicide, etc.)

5. Immediate Academic Support Students should get feedback when they are off track – faculty contact, assigned advisor, program should be helping with the academic problem. Enough of this, the student is an adult and should not need help.

They need help and we as instructors do also. This can be the corequisite support (course, lab, advising, etc., but and immediate response is essential.

“An ongoing assigned advisor appears to be a key component in increasing persistence and graduation rates,” 4. Ongoing Early Alert Reading and Academic Success Division at Jefferson Community and Technical College Intervention – Early At-Risk Referral System (EARS) Expand the Early alert Referral System to math, writing and content courses within the learning communities:

29

C HAPTER 5

Math From A Conversation With Bill Gates About the Future of Higher Education Jeffrey R. Young 6/25/2012 The Chronicle of Higher Education

A Response by Gates: “Take remedial math, which is an absolute disaster. What destroys more selfconfidence than any other educational thing in America is being assigned to some remedial math when you get into some college, and then it's not taught very well and you end up with this sense of, Hey, I can't really figure those things out.” (Bill Gates Interview, 2012)

http://legacy.kctcs.edu/todaysnews/index.cfm?tn_dat e=2012-06-26#35840

S ECTION 1

What is Mathways?

Math: What Makes Sense

Community colleges in Texas will adopt a radical redesign of developmental math, reports Inside Higher Ed. The Carnegie Foundation and the Dana Center at the University of Texas have developed Mathways, a new approach to helping community college students get up to speed in the math skills they’ll need to complete a credential.

Early college mathematics should: • focus on preparing students for their programs of study, Not Reteaching a Full High School Curriculum.

-(Clarifying the Co-Requisite Math Model, Dana Center) Traditional algebra-intensive, pre-calculus-focused developmental sequence has the wrong goals for students

• . . . remedial students who intend on majoring in a science- or mathbased field will still take a traditional, algebra-based developmental course. But other students might take classes in statistics or quantitative reasoning, subsets of math that could prove more relevant to their careers and present less of a barrier to emerging from remedial education. Students who are undecided on a major are likely to be steered toward statistics, with “bridge courses” available later on if they select a science or math major.

NOTE: If a given college and its System is not going to discuss differentiated math pathways, don’t expect either to reach the college orSystem’s potential for graduation rates.

• “Not having algebra doesn’t mean you haven’t had rigorous preparation,” said Rey Garcia, president and CEO of the Texas Association of Community Colleges. “What’s the point of taking a course that isn’t going to be useful to you in your work life? As long as we maintain high standards for rigor, that pathway is as meaningful as an algebra-based pathway.”

The Math Pathways Conversation

Statway is intended for

not bound for STEM majors.

The conversation seems to be bouncing between: • No way should students get a degree that does not have an intensive algebra curriculum and, • Math pathways, especially a statistics pathways, make the most sense.

What are the Alternatives?

• Mathways, Statway, and Quantway

• occupational programs: allied health sciences and public safety or • academic programs: liberal arts, business, and social sciences.

The questions have been “Can differentiated math pathways really make a difference for our developmental students?” and “Is it time for Kentucky to take dramatic steps to ensure increased completion rates by eliminating the math barriers that no longer make sense?” The evidence has come in and the answers are unequivocally “Yes!” Develop31

mental math is the most serious challenge to meeting Senate Bill 1 completion rates.

Evidence: Fifty-one percent of students who finished the Statway program went on to earn college math credit with a C or better. By comparison, only 5.9 percent of the developmental-math students at the pilot colleges who weren't involved in the study earned college math credit after one year, 15.1 percent did so after two years, and 23.5 percent after four years.

The statistics program was tested during the 2011-12 academic year at 19 community colleges and two state universities across five states. The sections were taught by 50 faculty members to a total of 1,133 students.

Program Offers a Quicker Path to College Credit for Students Mired in Remedial Courses http://chronicle.com/article/A-Quicker-Path-to-College/137899/?cid =at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

By Katherine Mangan A developmental mathematics program unveiled on Wednesday by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching shows promise in helping students avoid the remedial quicksand that prevents many from graduating.

The "Statway" program, tested last year at 21 colleges, more than tripled the rates at which remedial students earned college math credit, Carnegie officials said. The students got there twice as fast, too.

The program, which focuses on statistics and data analysis, replaces remedial math sequences that can take more than two years with an intensive yearlong program. During that year, students complete remedial requirements and earn credit for college-level statistics.

Nearly two-thirds of new community-college students require developmental math before they can enroll in college-credit courses, Carnegie officials noted. Up to 80 percent of those students never get out of the remedial sequence, they said.

"The community college offers access to a better job and a better life," the foundation's president, Anthony S. Bryk, said in a Web conference with reporters on Wednesday. "It is essential that developmental math be a gateway to opportunity rather than a gatekeeper."

High failure rates for remedial courses have prompted national groups to call for sweeping changes in how they're taught.

Fifty-one percent of students who finished the Statway program went on to earn college math credit with a C or better. By comparison, only 5.9 percent of the developmental-math students at the pilot colleges who weren't involved in the study earned college math credit after one year, 15.1 percent did so after two years, and 23.5 percent after four years.

The statistics program was tested during the 2011-12 academic year at 19 community colleges and two state universities across five states. The sections were taught by 50 faculty members to a total of 1,133 students.

"These are the students that community colleges especially need to serve well," Mr. Bryk said. A disproportionate number are members of minority groups, are from families whose primary language is not English, or have parents who did not attend college.

One key to the program's success is making math relevant and interesting.

By applying math concepts to determine the braking distance of their cars, for instance, rather than simply plugging numbers into an equation and hoping for the right answer, students see the connection with their lives, Carnegie officials said.

32

"Students tell us they're learning mathematics that matters to them instead of a series of disconnected math concepts," said Karon Klipple, who directs the Statway program for Carnegie.

The program also works on student motivation, tenacity, and success skills.

Mr. Bryk said he expected similar results from a second effort, called "Quantway," that teaches quantitative reasoning, which applies math concepts to real-life problems. That program began in the spring for 418 students at eight community colleges in three states.

The Texas Example: Remediation for Remedial Math By Mitch Smith (2012) “Too many students are failing their remedial math classes, and those who succeed often have little use for the advanced algebra on which those classes focus.

Acknowledging that, and hoping to replicate local successes, officials from all 50 Texas community colleges have endorsed a multiyear project designed to fundamentally change remedial math.

In Texas, students referred to developmental classes are 50 percent less likely than their peers to earn a credential or transfer to a four-year college. Math is often their biggest hurdle, and students are steered into algebra-based remediation regardless of their majors.

Despite wide acknowledgment of problems nationally, systemic changes to remedial education have been slow to materialize. On the micro level, projects from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and others have shepherded more students through remedial classes and into college-level courses. But many of these projects reach relatively small numbers of students, and there have been few efforts to "scale up" these ideas. Texas appears to be the first state

to adopt such a drastic rethinking of remedial math in all its community colleges.

When the new system, dubbed Mathways, is fully in place, remedial students who intend on majoring in a science- or math-based field will still take a traditional, algebra-based developmental course. But other students might take classes in statistics or quantitative reasoning, subsets of math that could prove more relevant to their careers and present less of a barrier to emerging from remedial education. Students who are undecided on a major are likely to be steered toward statistics, with “bridge courses” available later on if they select a science or math major.

“Not having algebra doesn’t mean you haven’t had rigorous preparation,” said Rey Garcia, president and CEO of the Texas Association of Community Colleges. “What’s the point of taking a course that isn’t going to be useful to you in your work life? As long as we maintain high standards for rigor, that pathway is as meaningful as an algebra-based pathway.”

Starting this fall, six or seven Texas community colleges will start offering the statistics program. The state community college association will provide professional development for instructors and help develop course materials with the goal of spreading that program to all 50 colleges by fall 2013. (El Paso and Houston Community Colleges started offering a similar statistics remediation last fall as part as of a Carnegie pilot project.)

The quantitative reasoning program and a reimagined algebra-based remediation will be rolled out in subsequent years, first in small batches and then statewide.

Garcia said the first-year cost of the project will be around $2 million, a figure that doesn't include instructor salaries. The Texas Community College Association will contribute $300,000, with donors and individual colleges making up the balance.

33

Glenda Barron, president of Temple Community College, is optimistic that the program will be successful. About 60 percent of Temple students require remediation, with the bulk of those needing help in math. Too often, she said, students are discouraged from pursuing higher education because they are slow to master math skills that might not be very relevant to their career. “We all struggle with how to help those students best,” Barron said. “Mathways, with the three versions to be created, really gives us some hope because it gets students in line to get what they need” and moves them through remediation quickly. Students now often require two or three to students to emerge from remediation, if they’re ever able to at all. Mathways aims to advance many students after a year or less.

The Texas project is inspired by the Carnegie Foundation’s work, developed with the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin, in which students needing math remediation weren’t all put on a path toward calculus. But while that work was exciting on its relatively limited basis, Garcia said there was a sense Texas needed to offer a similar program statewide.

“We need to do something at scale,” he said. “We can’t just keep nibbling along the edges.”

Working with the Dana Center, the community college association was able to get all 50 two-year college presidents to sign on.

Kay McClenney is a University of Texas at Austin project director who helped develop a recent report showing the scope of the remediation problem at the state’s community colleges. She wasn’t directly involved in developing Mathways, but believes the project could mark a dramatic shift in a remediation program that was consistently failing students.

By having every Texas community college on board – hard to achieve in a large state in which each two-year institution is governed separately – she said there could be other benefits.

“If you redesign developmental mathematics statewide,” McClenney said, “you have as a sector a greater possibility of leveraging some state policy goals that will support rather than thwart this at scale.”

The idea seems to be catching on nationally. Bernadine Fong, who heads the Carnegie Foundation’s work with community colleges, said “several” states are considering working with her organization, and Garcia said Texas’ effort could one day be a national model.

But first, he said, Texas is focused on moving more of its own students out of remedial education and onto a path toward a credential and a career.

“It’s ambitious, but our presidents and chancellors felt very strongly that it’s a problem that required an ambitious plan,” Garcia said. “I think everyone’s patience with this issue is running thin and they’re ready to proceed on something at a large scale.” http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/05/09/texas-community -colleges-reinvent-developmental-math#ixzz26ZV34hSC Dan Myer: Math Class Needs a Makeover (ppt) http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_meyer_math_curriculum_makeover. html “Today's math curriculum is teaching students to expect -- and excel at -- paint-by-numbers classwork, robbing kids of a skill more important than solving problems: formulating them.” (Dan Myer) Clarifying the Co-Requisite Math Model (The Dana Center) http://www.utdanacenter.org/mathways/downloads/higher-ed-issuebrief-1-june2012.pdf KEY!!! “At the Core of the Conversation: We strongly believe that early college mathematics, whether it is developmental or college-level, 34

should focus on preparing students for their programs of study, not on reteaching a full high school curriculum.

In terms of curriculum design, such a focus means that students should engage immediately with applications and contexts that historically have been delayed until a college-level course. In our new model, these applications and contexts are supported with instruction on developmental skills aligned to students’ majors and careers.” (Clarifying the Co-Requisite Math Model) When we can determine (differentiate) the math pathway that is necessary for a student’s program of study, we don’t have hundreds of students on a taking math courses that are not relevant. They can, for example, stake a statistics pathway that focuses on the math applications that are relevant to their program of study. This loosens up time for including conceptual understanding in instruction (becoming relevant).

A MUST SEE: Dan Meyer: Math class needs a makeover http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_meyer_math_curriculum_makeover. html

or see http://www.utdanacenter.org/mathways/index.php

Concern about remediation or developmental courses has Oklahoma City Community College officials rethinking the way they handle these courses.

BY SILAS ALLEN | Published: June 25, 2012

0

Groups of students hover around desks in an Oklahoma City Community College classroom, conferring with each other about the math problems on the worksheets in front of them.

Today, the lesson is on factoring equations. Instructors walk from one group to another, talking to each about multiples, products and greatest common factors.

Strictly speaking, this isn’t a college-level math class. Credit won’t count toward students’ degrees, and their GPAs won’t reflect how they did.

http://www.utdanacenter.org/mathways/webinar/index.php

But experts say courses like this one — and how they’re conducted — are a critical factor in whether a student graduates with a degree or leaves college empty-handed.

Here’s a Dana Center Webinar on Mathways:

RETHINKING COURSES

http://communitycollegespotlight.org/tags/statways/

“It was a huge transition,” she said.

Here is the New Mathways Project: Implementation Guide:

The college’s old developmental math program closely resembled the traditional college model, Carter said — students mainly listened to lectures and took tests.

Also see: Webinar: Introduction of the New Mathways Project

http://www.utdanacenter.org/mathways/downloads/new-mathwaysimplementation-2012april16.pdf For more information about the New Mathways Project, contact mathways@austin.utexas.edu

Under the new model, courses are more varied, she said. Students spend a certain amount of time in lectures, and then move to another room where they work through math problems in small groups. Then, 35

they move to a third room, where they work through more problems on computers, with instructors on hand to answer questions.

The new model also includes an array of other pieces, including a new course designed to teach students skills like study habits and time management. Those skills are particularly important for older students who may be several years removed from high school, Carter said.

PAYING DIVIDENDS Although the new model is only two years old, it already appears to be paying dividends. One semester after the program was implemented, the department saw a sharp increase in the student success rate, climbing from 42 percent in the spring 2010 semester to 55 percent the following fall. That figure has continued to climb, reaching 62 percent in fall 2011.

Read more: http://newsok.com/oklahoma-colleges-universities-addresseffectiveness-of-remediation-courses/article/3687467#ixzz1 ypDHhXrd

36

C HAPTER 6

Placement: BARRIER! The Criminal Enterprise Overhaul the current placement system. Current placement tests are not predictive. http://www.completecollege.org/docs/Time_Is_the_Enemy. pdf

There are high “severe� error rates using the placement test cutoffs. The severe error rate for English is 27 to 33 percent; i.e., three out of every ten students is severely misassigned. For math, the severe error rates are lower but still nontrivial. Using (additional tests) instead of placement tests or for example, using high school GPAs reduces the severe error rates by half across both English and math. http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Publication.asp?UID=1030

S ECTION 1

Assessment and Placement Do We Know What We Are Doing?

“Since developmental education in community colleges has high costs and low success rates, it is worth asking whether academically underprepared students who place into and take developmental courses would have had better outcomes had they started directly in collegelevel courses. The answer varies considerably depending on the subject (mathematics, reading, or writing), how researchers control for prior academic preparation and other factors potentially correlated with both placement into developmental education and subsequent academic success, and how far below college level the developmental students place. Among Achieving the Dream students referred to developmental education, 72 percent of students who disregarded the referral to developmental education and went straight into a college-level course passed that course, while only 27 percent of those starting in a developmental course eventually passed the college-level course (Bailey et al., 2010, p. 261). This considerably higher success rate for students who skip developmental courses may reflect shortcomings in the developmental education placement process, or it may simply mean that these students believe they are more academically prepared than college advisors and academic policymakers recognize.” (The Completion Arch: Measuring Community College Student Success: What the Research Tells Us: Developmental Education Placement)

Recommendation Research Suggestions • Efforts such as Koyote in math • Diagnostic Tests • In-house tests • High School GPA The Future Diagnostic Tests: Assessments should be diagnostic, and should connect to colleges’ resources and programs. – Robert McCabe

Placement in the future will most likely be diagnostic - identifying the cognitive skill deficits of the developmental student, but more important, those cognitive skill limitations will inform instruction and be in alignment with the skills support needed in programs of instruction.

Note: This will require that the cognitive skills needed in gateway courses in programs of study be identified to allow for more depth of instruction. Presently there is a shallow shotgun approach to remediation- too much needless breath and too little depth of learning.

http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/advocacy/arch/Th e-Completion-Arch-Development-Education-Placement-What-Researc h-Tells-Us.pdf

38

S ECTION 2

Placement Instruments Predicting Success in College: The Importance of Placement Tests and High School Transcripts (CCRC Working Paper No. 42) By: Clive Belfield & Peter M. Crosta — February 2012. New York: Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University This paper uses student-level data from a statewide community college system to examine the validity of placement tests and high school information in predicting course grades and college performance. It considers the ACCUPLACER and COMPASS placement tests, using two quantitative and two literacy tests from each battery.

The authors find that placement tests do not yield strong predictions of how students will perform in college. Placement test scores are positively—but weakly—associated with college grade point average (GPA). The correlation disappears when high school GPA is controlled for. Placement test scores are positively associated with college credit accumulation even after controlling for high school GPA. After three to five semesters, a student with a placement test score in the highest quartile has on average nine credits more than a student with a placement test score in the lowest quartile.

In contrast, high school GPAs are useful for predicting many aspects of students’ college performance. High school GPA has a strong association with college GPA; students’ college GPAs are approximately 0.6 units below their high school GPAs. High school GPA also has a strong association with college credit accumulation. A student whose high school GPA is one grade higher will have accumulate approximately

four extra credits per semester. Other information from high school transcripts is modestly useful; this includes number of math and English courses taken in high school, honors courses, number of F grades, and number of credits. This high school information is not independently useful beyond high school GPA, and collectively it explains less variation in college performance.

The authors also calculate accuracy rates and four validity metrics for placement tests. They find high “severe” error rates using the placement test cutoffs. The severe error rate for English is 27 to 33 percent; i.e., three out of every ten students is severely misassigned. For math, the severe error rates are lower but still nontrivial. Using high school GPA instead of placement tests reduces the severe error rates by half across both English and math. http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Publication.asp?UID=1030 Overhaul the current placement system. Current placement tests are not predictive. If placement tests are given, provide students with pretest guidance, practice tests, and time to brush up. http://www.completecollege.org/docs/Time_Is_the_Enemy.pdf The Completion Arch: Measuring Community College Student Success: What the Research Tells Us: Developmental Education Placement http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/advocacy/arch/Th e-Completion-Arch-Development-Education-Placement-What-Researc h-Tells-Us.pdf Since developmental education in community colleges has high costs and low success rates, it is worth asking whether academically underprepared students who place into and take developmental courses would have had better outcomes had they started directly in collegelevel courses. The answer varies considerably depending on the subject 39

(mathematics, reading, or writing), how researchers control for prior academic preparation and other factors potentially correlated with both placement into developmental education and subsequent academic success, and how far below college level the developmental students place. Among Achieving the Dream students referred to developmental education, 72 percent of students who disregarded the referral to developmental education and went straight into a college-level course passed that course, while only 27 percent of those starting in a developmental course eventually passed the college-level course (Bailey et al., 2010, p. 261). This considerably higher success rate for students who skip developmental courses may reflect shortcomings in the developmental education placement process, or it may simply mean that these students believe they are more academically prepared than college advisors and academic policymakers recognize.

40

S ECTION 3

What About Part-Time Students

• For associate degrees that should take 2 years, full-time students take 3.8 years, and part-time students take 5 years. http://www.completecollege.org/post/rethinking_remediation_compl etion_and_the_co-requisite_model/

What about part-timers?

What Happens When Given Twice as Much Time

What about part-timers? (Recommendations at the end for you skimmers)

• 1-year certificate with in 2 years: full-time 27.8%; part-time 12.2%

When we look at risk factors, part-time enrollments is always included among them. “The risk index consists of seven factors: delayed postsecondary enrollment; high school dropout or GED recipient; part-time enrollment; financial independence; having dependents other than a spouse; single-parent status; and working full time while enrolled.”

• 2-year associate within 4 years; full-time 12.2 %; part-time 7.8%

http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2003/2003164.pdf

Kentucky

Let’s talk about part-timers grees.

• For earning a 1-year certificate within 1.5 years: Full-time 42 %; Part-time 51.5%.

certificate and associate de-

American Association of Community Colleges

• The average age of a community college student is 29 years old, and two thirds of community college students attend part-time.

• 41% are full-time and 59% are part-time

(Time is the Enemy, College complete America) http://www.completecollege.org/docs/Time_Is_the_Enemy.pdf

• For earning a 2-year associate degree within 3 years: Full-time 8.5%; Part-time 2.2%. http://www.completecollege.org/state_data/ Community College Employment status (2007–2008) (National Data)

http://www.aacc.nche.edu/AboutCC/Trends/Pages/studentsatcommu nitycolleges.aspx

• Full-time students employed full time—21%

CollegeCompleteAmerica

• Full-time students employed part time—59%

• For certificates that should take 1 year, full-time students take 3.3 years, and part-time students take 4.4 years.

• Part-time students employed full time—40% • Part-time students employed part time—47% 41

http://www.aacc.nche.edu/AboutCC/Pages/fastfacts.aspx

Kentucky is Guilty of this Oversight From Time is the Enemy: “We’ve only been tracking students who are on campus for the first-time, going full-time. That’s all the federal government requires of colleges and universities, and until now few exceeded this minimal standard.

But 4 of every 10 public college students are able to attend only parttime. Which means leaders have been making policy decisions about higher education absent critical information about 40 percent of the students, as if their success or failure was less important than that of “traditional” full-time students. How can this be?

Complete College America fundamentally believes that for the United States to have any hope of leading the world again in the proportion of our citizens with a college education, we must first see every student.

This includes the part-timers and older studentswho are struggling to balance jobs and school, the millions who are trapped in the Bermuda Triangle of remediation, and the many first- generation freshmen who too often are left to fend for themselves when they arrive on campus.”

(Time is the Enemy, College complete America) http://www.completecollege.org/docs/Time_Is_the_Enemy.pdf Kentucky’s Progress Measurement Metrics Progress Measurement Metrics (metrics do not include parttimers) Cohort: (1) recent graduates of Kentucky’s public high schools who entered Kentucky’s public postsecondary institutions as (2) first-time, (3) full-time, (4) degree-seeking students in the summer/fall semester and

(5) who did not meet the fall 2010 Kentucky systemwide standards for college readiness.

Completion Time Table: the proportion who complete a degree from their starting institution or Kentucky systemwide within 150 percent of the minimum time to degree (three years for an associate degree, including applied associates, and six years for a bachelor’s degree).

Part-time students rarely graduate. Even when given twice as long to complete certificates and degrees, no more than a quarter ever make it to graduation day. (Time is the Enemy, College complete America) http://www.completecollege.org/docs/Time_Is_the_Enemy.pdf What Should We DO About the Part-Time Problem?

The study “Time is the Enemy” makes the following suggestions: • Today’s full-time and part-time students need new, shorter, and faster pathways to degrees and certificates of value. Colleges should: • Use block schedules, with fixed and predictable classroom meeting times, so that part-time students who are juggling jobs, families, and school can know with certainty when they can go to work each day.

• Allow students to proceed toward degrees or certificates at a faster pace, with shorter academic terms, less time off between terms, and year-round scheduling.

• Simplify the registration process by enrolling students once in a single, coherent program rather than making them sign up every term for individual, unconnected courses.

42

• Reduce the amount of time students must be in class by using online technology and allowing students to move on once they’ve demonstrated competency.

• Form peer support and learning networks among students in the same program.

• Embed remediation into the regular college curriculum so students don’t waste time before they start earning credits.

• Provide better information on every program’s tuition, graduation rates, and job placement outcomes so that students can make more informed decisions at the front end.

(Time is the Enemy, College complete America) http://www.completecollege.org/docs/Time_Is_the_Enemy.pdf

43

Project<http://www.adultcollegecompletion.org/sites/files/document s / n t n m S t a t e C a s e S t u d i e s . p d f > ( L u m i n a S u p p o r t e d ) http://www.adultcollegecompletion.org/sites/files/documents/ntnmS t a t e C a s e S t u d i e s . p d f

S ECTION 4

Recapturing NonCompleters

This represents a huge population “Nearly 4 in 10 remedial students in community colleges never complete their remedial courses. Graduation rates for students who started in remediation are deplorable: Fewer than 1 in 10 graduate from community colleges within three years and little more than a third complete bachelor’s degrees in six years” (Remed i a t i o n : B r i d g e t o N o w h e r e ) http://www.completecollege.org/docs/CCA-Remediation-summary.pd f

Being underprepared is not just a Placement Policy problem; underprepardness is a college application to completion problem. Completion agendas should not just be about learning all the Common Core Competencies missed in high school. Completion agendas should be about providing the support that students need in their programs of study all the way to completion (certificates or degrees).

We are not redefining developmental education, but reacquainting ourselves with the role of developmental education beyond Placement Policy. We are woefully underprepared and educated about that role.

E X C E R P T S As we hope will be reflected in this profile of participating states, the Non-traditional No More project was just plain fun, and it isn’t that often that you can say that about state policy work. So, what made this so much fun? Well, it was that the project turned out to foster philosophically sound, pragmatically responsive, knowledge-building, and costeffective policy and practice within the six states and many institutions involved.

“Developmental education is a field of practice and research within higher education with a theoretical foundation in developmental psychology and learning theory. It promotes the cognitive and affective growth of all postsecondary learners, at all levels of the learning continu u m . ( N A D E )

We have explored the phenomena “life just gets in the way” the more time it takes to begin entry-level courses of study. Life gets in the way e v e n w h e n s t u d e n t s a r e o n s c h e d u l e f o r c o m p l e t i o n .

By focusing on students who were already well on their way to a college degree before dropping out, albeit often many years in the past, the project fit philosophically with the mission of American higher education: to provide educational opportunity to all who are able to benefit from it. After all, here we had students who had demonstrated by their previous performance that they were “college ready.” All we had to do to serve them well was break down the barriers that had impeded their previous efforts.

A new publication from the Adult College Completion Network<http://www.adultcollegecompletion.org/> details promising practices at the state and institutional level aimed at bringing adults with some college but no degree back to complete their degrees.

Publication: Going the Distance in Adult College Completion: Lessons from the Non-traditional No More

This population of students also provided a pragmatic way to address 44

national calls for increasing the numbers of college graduates. Without them, we simply cannot meet the educational attainment goals set by Lumina Foundation, the president, and others. Furthermore, we all learned a great deal about how better to serve this group of students.

Keep in mind: these states were already a group of the willing. Only states that were committed to serving this population pursued the opportunity to participate in this Lumina Foundation-funded program.

Indeed, almost all of the states and institutions thought participating and succeeding in this project would be a piece of cake because they knew they were already â&#x20AC;&#x153;adult friendly.â&#x20AC;? What we all learned, however, is that even the most adult-friendlystate policy environments and institutional efforts left a lot to be desired. Virtually every state and institution involved learned how better to serve these adult students. And we at WICHE also learned a great deal, not only about how to serve these students but also about how we could improve the ways in which we facilitated the efforts of multiple states and institutions.

45

Examples:

S ECTION 5

Advising: Placing Students into Gateway Courses Placing Students in Gateway Courses: A More formed Approach

In-

http://www.academicimpressions.com/news/placing-studen ts-gateway-courses-more-informed-approach Date Published: March 4, 2013 One of the most insidious, documented effects of the traditional pipeline of developmental courses on an incoming student is the fatigue of taking multiple non-credit courses (or, in some cases, being required to retake a non-credit course repeatedly). Tristan Denley, provost at Austin Peay State University, calls this course sequence the "slow death."

Your goal should be to move developmental students as quickly as possible into credit-bearing courses that count toward their academic degree or certificate. This shortens the time to graduation; it also builds a student's confidence and their sense of momentum toward their academic goals, increasing the likelihood that they will persist and succeed.

As you reconsider the sequence and design of your developmental education programming, also reconsider your approach to placement.

Does the standard policy of placing students, on the basis of their high school transcripts, in specific levels of developmental coursework serve the student and your institution well—or are there more nuanced, effective approaches to placement?

Austin Peay State University implemented the Linked Workshop model, also called the SLA model. This model provides remedial/ developmental instruction by linking workshops that offer students just-in-time academic support to core college-level courses.

The model also integrates tutoring, learning communities, and accelerated learning—all considered best practices in developmental coursework—into core college-level courses.

Valencia College has revisited their placement criteria as a key part of their strategy to accelerate the progress of academically underprepared students. Reviewing standardized test scores for incoming students, Valencia identifies the top 25% of those students who would place in developmental education -- and moves those students instead into credit-bearing, first-year courses. VC identifies the top 25% of those students who would place in developmental education—and moves moves those students instead into credit-bearing, first-year courses. VC then provides supplemental workshops and peer mentors to assist these students in bridging the gap, and coaches faculty to teach study skills as part of the curriculum.

Sinclair Community College: Move from prescriptive advising to developmental and intrusive advising using advising tools like the Sinclair MAP for Student Success, which focuses on students’ goals. This is the most underdeveloped area to war completion. (Sinclair Community College’s My Academic Plan (MAP) is a student advising process that combines the characteristics of prescriptive academic advising with the strengths of technologysupported record keeping to present students with accessible, specific, long-range, and accurate plans for the completion of their academic goals. Each student’s MAP guides them in course selection term-by-term and assures that their selections are continuously evaluated against the student's stated goals. MAP software 46

is linked to Sinclair’s Curriculum Management Tool (CMT) to ensure that academic advice is consistent across all advisors and is congruent with current academic requirements.

KEY: Hire and train professional developmental advisors who can advise, track, and provide continuous contact and support to completion. (Does it cost, yes it does, but so does not providing the support needed to help ensure completion.)

Why Rethinking Developmental Education is a Priority http://www.academicimpressions.com/news/why-rethinking-develop mental-education-priority?qq=17326v328674tA99 A Letter From Amit Mrig, President, Academic Impressions.

Most institutions take an additive approach to serving academically underprepared students, investing in additional academic support services and staff. Without challenging the traditional model for placing students and providing developmental courses, this approach proves unsustainable.

We interviewed academic leaders at two-year and four-year institutions that offer effective alternative approaches to traditional developmental education. These institutions have:

• Accelerated the integration of academically underprepared students into the regular curriculum The Picture Doesn't Have to Be This Grim http://www.academicimpressions.com/news/reassessing-co sts-and-benefits-developmental-education?qq=17326v32867 4tA101 When we surveyed academic leaders on the issue, respondents expressed some degree of resignation over the inefficacy yet apparent necessity of remedial courses. Two-thirds of respondents felt that it was a priority to address the issue, but nearly all of the academic leaders who did were looking to address the problem through additive support services, such as peer mentoring and student tutoring, or advocating for more resources to be allocated to the writing center or the math lab.

Hardly any of those responding to our survey indicated that revisiting either placement of academically underprepared students or revamping the model for the developmental education curriculum were on the table.

Yet there is overwhelming data to suggest that the traditional model for delivering a developmental education sequence is both broken and costly. Why continue to pour dollars—and students—into a model that doesn't work? There are proven and attested alternatives.

• Replaced non-credit "remedial education" with credit-bearing courses

Chaffey College's attrition numbers used to look like the national average—until they overhauled their developmental education program, beginning in 1999. Since then, their success rate has grown about 36%, with 69% of their students enrolled in developmental courses earning a C or better, and with 68% of their students following up on success in one course with success in the course following it.

• Replaced prerequisite courses with co-requisite workshops or other academic support

Tristan Denley, provost at Austin Peay State University, cites similar gains. Prior to his redesign of Austin Peay's developmental curriculum,

• Adopted more informed approaches to placement of students in gateway courses

47

only 30% of entering students were able to complete their core math requirement within 2 years; after the redesign, that number increased to 67%. For the core English requirement, that pre-redesign completion rate was 54%; after the redesign, 76%.

Now, a student who is academically underprepared at the time of enrollment isn't told to take multiple semesters of non-credit developmental coursework. Instead, that student is directed to take one semester of for-credit, intensive coursework.

Martin Golson, Austin Peay’s director of academic support, notes that moving students more quickly into credit-bearing classes increases the percentage of students who persist and ensures that students are spending their tuition dollars on courses that will count towards their graduation requirements.

"What we have seen," Hope explains, "is exponential success in students who are in that compressed curriculum, especially in males."

There are proven models for restructuring developmental education, with documented impact on tuition dollars, attrition rates, and student success rates.

The Fast Track Approach http://www.academicimpressions.com/news/fresh-look-dev elopmental-ed-curriculum Chaffey College took a different path. Rather than replace prerequisite developmental courses with corequisite workshops, Chaffey College transitioned their developmental courses from non-credit to credit and looked aggressively for responsible, rigorous, and effective ways to accelerate the developmental curriculum.

In the nineties, Chaffey College had a developmental track of five reading courses and three pre-collegiate English courses. In revising this slow developmental sequence, here's what Laura Hope, Chaffey's dean of instructional support, and her colleagues did: • Condensed that developmental curriculum into 2 developmental English courses, and made them credit-bearing (2 credits each) • Split the semester term into two sections of eight weeks each, offering "Fast Track" or accelerated sections of those developmental courses

In fact, focus groups with students revealed that the accelerated pace kept them engaged in their studies; they felt compelled to work more closely with their classmates and to interact regularly with their instructors. Feedback from the faculty indicated that the instructors also benefited from the compressed pace, in that the Fast Track forced them to think through their pedagogy very intentionally.

Chaffey College has made this program particularly effective by also: • Offering some sections of the regular first-year courses in Fast Track mode. A student who places in the second course of a two-course developmental sequence can feasibly complete that dev-ed course in the first eight weeks of the term and then go on to complete the first course toward their degree in the second half of the same term, losing no time in their progress toward the degree.

• Revisiting add/drop dates. Chaffey College realized that students who added a course at the end of the third week in the term (the historical last day to add) were the least likely to succeed in the course.

So Chaffey truncated the amount of time a student has to add a course to the first six days of the term, and then used Fast Track to offer a second registration point, allowing students to register for a course for the second eight weeks of the term.

• Integrating Fast Track with true developmental advising. It's not just about moving students through courses faster; it's about helping students move smarter, by holding in-depth conversations with students 48

about their goals, and coaching advisors to engage in collaborative problem-solving to help students chart their course toward those goals.

This approach takes the stigma out of developmental education. Students see that they have momentum toward reaching their goals. They believe they are on the fast track to success.

THE SUMMER BRIDGE APPROACH http://www.academicimpressions.com/news/fresh-look-dev elopmental-ed-curriculum A growing number of institutions have invested in summer bridge programs to help high school seniors or transfer students enter their first term more academically prepared. Yet recent studies of developmental summer bridge programs -- such as this one in Texas -- have found that most such programs achieve only minimal boosts in student retention.

Yet a handful of highly effective summer bridge programs have shown increases of 10% or more. Truly "leveling the playing field" for academically under-prepared students requires more than just getting them up to speed in academic knowledge or even awareness of academic support services. The key: • A focus on building a peer community/cohort •Programming that is designed to build academic confidence and "grit"Align Application and Contexts with College Level Courses In terms of curriculum design, such a focus means that students should engage immediately with applications and contexts that historically have been delayed until a college-level course. In the new model, these applications and contexts are supported with instruction on developmental skills aligned to students’ majors and careers.” (Clarifying the Co-Requisite Math Model, Dana Center)

Align Developmental Skills with Major and Careers In Order to accomplish a program of instruction of developmental skills aligned to the students’ majors and careers, a major shift in student education and career planning must be initiated (this is where the best minds must enter the picture, we will have to think comprehensively as a system and institutions): 1. Get students to commit to programs of study ASAP. Using placement scores, high school transcripts, and predictive tools to determine student aptitude, guide all students to choose among a limited number of first-year pathways — for example, health, business, liberal arts, or STEM — as soon as possible. Students should make the big choices of programs of study informed with an understanding of program requirements and available supports to achieve their career goals. Once they do, place them into structured program pathways constructed of relevant, sequenced courses chosen for them.

2. Establish “default” programs for students not ready to commit. no longer allow students to be considered “unclassified.” Upon enrollment, nudge them into first-year pathways — for example, health, business, liberal arts, or STEM. This ensures a coherent pathway from the beginning, with core college-level credits that will count toward certificates and degrees. By doing so, students avoid excessive course-taking while wandering the curriculum, shortening the time it takes to graduate.

3. Place students in the right math. Most students are placed in algebra pathways when statistics or quantitative math would be most appropriate to prepare them for their chosen programs of study and careers.

49

4. Expand co-requisite supports for additional college-level math, reading and writing courses. Additional introductory courses serve as gateway classes for programs of study, not just English and math. Given high failure rates, they have become gatekeeper courses instead, too often blocking studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; entry into their chosen fields. To help unprepared students get a strong, early start, build extra supports around introductory courses necessary for success like entry-level anatomy, biology, physiology, physics, accounting, and drafting. (Remediation: The Bridge to Nowhere)

51

S ECTION 6

Specific Placement Recommendations

Co-Requisite Courses

“End traditional remediation; use co-requisite models instead.

Co-requisite Courses is Conclusion of Two Reports The conclusion in two reports by Complete College America is “Mainstream as many students as possible into college-level courses.”

Recommendation “The current remediation system is broken; too many students start in remedial courses and never earn a credential of any kind. Colleges need to: Mainstream as many students as possible into college-level courses. Provide co-requisite and embedded support for those needing extra help.” (Time is the Enemy, 2011, Complete College America) The Research “Nearly 4 in 10 remedial students in community colleges never complete their remedial courses.

Research shows that students who skip their remedial assignments do just as well in gateway courses as those who took remediation first.”

Extra academic help becomes a co-requisite, not a prerequisite.

“Institutions that have used this approach have seen their unprepared students succeed at the same rates as their college-ready peers. And best practices have demonstrated that as many as half of all current remedial students can succeed this way. With results like these, it’s long past time to take this reform to scale.”

• For students with few academic deficiencies, place them into redesigned first-year, full- credit courses with co-requisite built-in support, justin-time tutoring, self-paced computer labs with required attendance, and the like. The length of these courses should mirror the ordinary gateway courses so students stay on track for on-time graduation.

• For students needing more help, lengthen redesigned fullcredit courses and consider providing built-in, co-requisite support for two semesters instead of one.

Students get the same content but more time on task.

For Students with the most significant academic needs, provide alternate pathways to high-quality career certificates by embedding remediation and adult basic skills development into their instruction.

Expand co-requisite supports for additional college-level courses. Additional introductory courses serve as gateway classes for programs of study, not just English and math. Given high failure rates, they have become gatekeeper courses instead, too often blocking students’ entry into their chosen fields. To help unprepared students get a strong, early start, build extra supports around introductory courses necessary for success like entry-level anatomy, biology, physiology, physics, accounting, and drafting.

Start students in college-level courses with built-in, co-requisite support. Immediately place freshmen with basic needs into entry-level, credit-bearing college courses with co-requisite support. That is, make this co-requisite model the default. For students needing more support, offer two-semester courses of the same content with built-in tutor52

ing. Meanwhile, offer students with significant academic challenges skill certificate programs with embedded remediation.

Embed needed academic help in multiple gateway courses.

To help unprepared students get a strong, early start, build extra supports around all of the early gateway courses that are necessary for success in students’ fields of study. For students to succeed in these course, they should have built-in tutoring and/or additional instruction time.

Encourage students to enter programs of study when they first enroll.”

Provide Co-Requisite Courses Aligned with Programs of Study “Researchers at the Community College Research Center at Columbia University have found that students who complete at least three required “gateway” courses in a program of study within a year of enrollment are twice as likely to earn certificates or degrees.”

Conclusion of Complete College America Report “Remediation programs, designed as prerequisite hurdles that must be jumped before getting to college-level classes, slow students’ progress into programs of study. Studies prove that being trapped in endless remediation sequences or being unable to pass associated gateway courses in math and English are the primary reasons students do not enter programs of study during their first year. And the longer it takes for students to commit to programs of study, the less likely they ever will.

Worse, traditional remediation often seems irrelevant and disconnected from future ambitions, robbing students of precious time, money, and motivation. What’s the result? Many students veer off

course onto another dropout exit ramp.”(Remediation: the Bridge to Nowhere, 2012, Complete College America) An Accelerated Developmental Reading Plan One accelerated developmental reading plan might be modeled after the Accelerated Learning Project at the Community College of Baltimore in which developmental reading students with few reading skill deficiencies are enrolled in regular content courses. The regular content courses would reserve eight seats for the developmental reading students and an hour developmental reading course would be scheduled immediately after the content course for the eight students. A summary of the model for writing is below. Substitute reading for writing and incorporate the reading content and skills suggested in this work.

A Promising Model: ALP Community College of Baltimore Summary Based on four semesters of data and 227 students, compared to traditional developmental writing: • ALP doubles the success rate.cuts the attrition in half • does it in half the ALP time • at slightly less cost per successful student Resources Community Colleges Struggling with Spreading the Knowledge http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education/jan-june12/ colleges_06-21.html Adopting and Adapting Reforms: Replicating the Accelerated Learning Program: Click on PDF icon http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Presentation.asp?uid=398 53

Preliminary Analysis of Effectiveness of the Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) at the Community College of Baltimore County: Click PDF Icon http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Presentation.asp?uid=351 A M o d e l f o r A c c e l e r a t i n g A c a d e m i c S u c c e s s of Community College Remedial English Students: Is the Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) Effective and Affordable? http://www.aypf.org/forumbriefs/2010/documents/CCRC %20Evaluation%20of%20ALP%20Baltimore.pdf Students with More Severe Skill Needs -I-Best , AOK Models, Co-Requisite EES The I-Best program combines basic skills and professional technical instruction so that basic skills students can enter directly into collegelevel coursework. So does Accelerated Opportunity Kentucky (AOK).

The Enriched Enrichment Services (EES) could deliver build corequisite reading instruction in their reading programs for courses requiring lower level reading.

I-BEST Program Characteristics.

“I-BEST was developed in response to the recognition that although adults with a high school education or less could benefit from postsecondary occupational education and a credential, too few such individuals enter and succeed in college level training. This includes students in adult basic skills programs, which in Washington State are offered by the two-year colleges. Few such students make the transition to college-level programs. I-BEST seeks to address this problem by combining basic skills and professional technical instruction so that basic skills students can enter directly into college-level coursework. In the IBEST model, basic skills instructors and professional- technical faculty

jointly design and teach college-level occupational classes that admit basic skills-level students. I-BEST courses must be part of a coherent program of study leading to college credentials and jobs in demand, thus providing a structured pathway to completion and career-path employment so students do not have to “find their way on their own.”

(How I-Best Works, CCRC) Some quick overview notes on acceleration/ contextualization/co-requisite.

Contextualization and Co-Requisite Instruction One of the first activities in redesigning a developmental program is to spell out just what is trying to be accomplished.

Goal: Increase the number of developmental students who complete (certificate or degree).

Among the first activities is to look at is what the research says about how to accomplish that.

Research • Research tells us that to accomplish the goal of increased completion that more students need to get into gateway courses in programs of study (even initially “default” programs of study with significant support when they veer from those programs) as soon s possible with skills support.

• Students who complete three gateway courses in programs of study double theie chances of completing those programs.

• Students who take developmental courses that are prerequisite to taking gateway courses in programs of study suffer high attrition rates that are unnecessary.

Promising Models: Contextualization and Co-Requisite 54

Neither contextualization or Co-requisite instruction is about teaching skills in isolation from the specific skills for learning the given content of the gateway course the student is taking. The skills taught directly support the learning of the content of the gateway course, which contextualization or co-requisite is supporting. While the skills being taught will be found in the Common Core State Standards, the goal of contextualization or c0-requisite is not to teach all the skills students did not learn in high school, but to focus on those skills needed to learn in a given gateway course in order to succeed in that gateway course. (Note: since acceleration has the goal of getting students into and succeeding in gateway courses in programs of study (with support) to overcome the greatest barrier (time) to student completion in an effort to eliminate exit points, it is essential that skills taught focus on the immediate skills needed by the student for learning, remembering, a being able to retrieve the content of that course (developing competence with the given course’s content)). This is a dramatic shift from traditional developmental skills instruction. The most difficult misconception to overcome and let go of is that developmental education is about teaching all the skills the underprepared student lacks - acceleration is about going for depth in learning those skills that a student needs to succeed in a given gateway course in a program of study rather than breath of isolated skills.

Defining Contextualization • Designed to more seamlessly link the learning of foundational skills and academic or occupational content by focusing teaching and learning squarely on concrete applications in a specific context that is of interest to the student. (Mazzeo et al., 2003, pp. 3–4 Defining students’ interests ◦ Focus on educational and career goals ◦ Recommendation: relate basic skills directly to content areas (Simpson, Hynd, Nist, & Burrell, 1997)

◦ Context changes – highly focused, useful & relevant text, rather than random assortment of generic material ◦ Importance of interdisciplinary collaboration among instructors Defining Co-Requisite Resetting Assumptions About Remediation (Dana Center, 2012) “If the goal of college readiness is for students to succeed in collegelevel courses, students need access to— and experience in—collegelevel courses.

We strongly believe that early college mathematics, whether it is developmental or college-level, should focus on preparing students for their programs of study, not on reteaching a full high school curriculum.

In terms of curriculum design, such a focus means that students should engage immediately with applications and contexts that historically have been delayed until a college-level course. In our new model, these applications and contexts are supported with instruction on developmental skills aligned to students’ majors and careers.

When it comes to preparing students for success in college, stakeholders broadly agree that faster is better and, as an extension, that students should be referred to the highest level course that can be responsibly defended (Bailey, Hughes, & Jaggars, 2012; Complete College America, 2011).

Most experts broadly agree that faster is better and, as an extension, that students should be referred to the highest level course that can be responsibly defended (Bailey, Hughes, & Jaggars, 2012; Complete College America, 2011).

For many students, the emphasis on acceleration means they go directly into college-level courses that are bolstered with mandatory supports. An increasingly popular approach to achieving the goals of accel55

erating student progress and moving students to and through collegelevel courses as soon as possible is the co-requisite model of developmental education (Commander, Stratton, Callahan, & Smith, 1996; Boylan, 1999; Edgecombe, 2011; Complete College America, 2011).

Â

Evaluations of such models indicate that co-requisite approaches are associated with higher grades and higher completion rates in introductory college-level courses, increased fall-to-fall persistenc in enrollment and higher total credit accumulation (Wilcox, et al., 1997; Jenkins et al., 2010; Tennessee Board of Regents, 2009).

Some versions redesign both classes so the content of the developmental class directly supports the content of the college course (Commander et al., 1996; Visher, Schneider, Wathington, & Collado, 2010).

Ideally co-requisite courses foster a single, coherent educational experience that promotes deeper, contextualized learning (Tinto, 1998).

In other versions, students take the college-level and developmental courses simultaneously, and the instructor of each course does not make significant changes to integrate the curriculum or instruction between courses. This lack of coordination can lead to a mismatch between the courses (Visher et al., 2010).

A second generation of the co- requisite model has emerged that experiments with using sone instructor or peer tutors, pairing courses differently, and mixing developmental and college-ready students in classes.

Instead of pairing a college-level course with the highest level of developmental course, second------- generation co-requisite models may pair a college-level course with a student success course, a specialized lab, or other support options such as mandatory tutoring or supplemental instruction. The defining features of these second- generation models are that they target students referred to the highest level developmental course, students begin earning college credit right away, and transition points between courses are eliminated.â&#x20AC;? (Dana Center, 2012) Â 56

S ECTION 7

Repeating Our History Repeating Our History In many instances, we are preparing to repeat the conditional flaw (time) we failed to consider when we first put in place sequences of developmental courses.

The commonly used expression, "Those who ignore history are bound (or doomed) to repeat it" is actually a misquotation of the original text written by George Santayana, who, in his Reason in Common Sense, The Life of Reason, Vol.1, wrote "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Another proposition comes to mind in this discussion, “Those who do not understand the conditions of the past are bound to repeat it.”

“Now the power of science in this: having seized upon the relations that are uniform amid the relations that are various, and having formulated the conditions under which phenomena occur, it is enabled to generalize these, and say “whenever such conditions are present such phenomena must be present, “ no matter how various may be the accompaniments.” (George Lewes, 1872) In putting in place sequences of developmental courses, we seized upon the relation that students need to prepare students for entry-level courses to succeed and we chose sequences of developmental courses to reach that goal. We did not anticipate the compounding effect of “time” (the conditions under which instructional delivery occurred). In this prerequisite approach to entry-level enrollment, we found out that we were not taking into account the conditions – “time” students com-

plex lives, which we have now discovered and either do not understand or are ignoring.

Lewes again, “A particular relation is absolutely certain under the particular conditions; if we generalize it, we must at the same time generalize the conditions, or else we are substituting a new proposition in place of the old one.” This is exactly what we do when we do not also generalize the conditions of “time” (students complex lives) in selecting new forms of developmental instruction delivery.

Lewes provides us with an example to help our thinking. “That I feel warm at this moment,” is an irresistible truth, though not one valuable to science. “That I shall always feel warm,” is equally certain, if I generalize the present conditions; but if I simply assert that I shall always feel warm irrespective of any change whatever in the conditions, it is” clear that I violate the first principle of rational judgment, unless I have previously established the fact that warmth is wholly independent of conditions.”

This is where we made out first mistake in placement policy; we did not factor in “time” and the cumulative effects of the complexity of our students complex lives when we established sequences of developmental courses. We lose a new set of students at every exit point and it accumulates to the point of often having only a third of the students complete just the entry-level courses alone, even when most were successful at each exit point, but not cumulative.

Now that we know the condition that are barriers to completion, we still are preparing to violate the first principle of rational thought – namely, not taking into account again the condition “time” that we failed to factor in the first time around. We are destined to repeat ourselves by substituting a new proposition in place of an old one- continuing to deliver developmental instruction as prerequisites to entry-level courses in other forms. (Kesterson)

57

S ECTION 8

Acceleration and Mainstreaming Accelerating the Academic Achievement of Students Referred to Developmental Education, Nikki Edgecombe, February 2011 http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Publication.asp?UID=867 Abstract Acceleration, which involves the reorganization of instruction and curricula in ways that facilitate the completion of academic requirements in an expedited manner, is an increasingly popular strategy at community colleges for improving the outcomes of developmental education students. This paper reviews the literature on acceleration and considers the quality of evidence available on the effects of acceleration on student outcomes. After examining various definitions of acceleration to better understand what it is and how it works, the paper describes and categorizes the different acceleration models in use. Then, the recent empirical literature on acceleration is reviewed to assess the effectiveness of these approaches. The paper closes with a discussion of the challenges involved in implementing acceleration strategies and recommendations for policy, practice, and research.

Selected Excerpts: Within this paper, acceleration is defined as the reorganization of instruction and curricula in ways that facilitate the completion of educational requirements in an expedited manner. Importantly, this definition does not necessarily imply that students spend less total time in class. Many accelerated course formats require the same number of instructional contact hours as traditional classes. The difference is that those hours occur within a truncated timeframe, which can result in the quicker completion of coursework or credentials. Wlodkowski (2003) asserts that “accelerated learning programs are structured for

students to take less time than conventional (often referred to as traditional) programs to attain university credits, certificates, or degrees” (p. 6). The intentionality of this structure is arguably its strength in that it explicitly frames an expedited academic pathway as means to credit accumulation and credential completion.

There is mounting evidence that following the traditional sequence of developmental education courses is hindering community college students from progressing to college-level coursework and ultimately earning a credential. The Community College Research Center conducted an analysis of Achieving the Dream data and found that only 31% of students referred to developmental math and 44% of students referred to developmental reading completed the recommended sequence of courses within three years (Bailey, Jeong, & Cho, 2008). Students referred to the lowest levels of the developmental sequence fared significantly worse—only 16% of math students and 22% of reading students completed remediation when they began by enrolling in courses that were three or more levels below the college level.

Advocates of acceleration believe that the rate at which academically underprepared students complete remedial instruction and succeed in college-level courses can be increased by helping students proceed through requirements more quickly or by encouraging them to enroll in higher-level courses while providing effective academic support. Implicit in this belief is the notion that something is broken within the traditional developmental education sequence—that students would benefit from alternatives that minimize the number of exit points and allow them to complete requirements more quickly or skip the sequence altogether.

Recent research suggests that the faster students progress toward a credential, the more likely they are to complete college (Bowen, Chingos, & McPherson, 2009). The same dynamic applies to discrete portions of the college experience, such as the developmental education sequence or program degree requirements (Bailey et al., 2008; Hern, 2010). Poli58

cymakers and the philanthropic community have seized upon this time- to-degree evidence and established ambitious credential completion goals in an effort to encourage postsecondary institutions, particularly community colleges, to focus on interim and final academic outcomes. A separate but related issue is the economic rationale for acceleration (i.e., reducing the cost of college, limiting lost wages), which is frequently discussed in the trade press (see, e.g., Moltz, 2010).

Acceleration and Developmental Education For students referred to developmental education, reorganizing instruction and curricula to facilitate the rapid completion of educational requirements involves a departure from the multi-course sequence in favor of a streamlined structure that will ultimately better support students’ college-level degree program learning objectives. This approach to developmental education takes care not to simply repeat a primary or secondary school version of math, reading, or English. It is grounded in the view that developmental education should prepare students for success in subsequent coursework through exposure to rigorous performance standards and practice in skills and habits associated with consistently high academic achievement. The accelerated structure complements this reframing of developmental education teaching and content and acknowledges the complicated lives of many students by purposefully reducing the time required to complete these academic requirements.

Curricular redesign. While curricular redesign can take many forms, its acceleration mechanism is fairly consistent—the time to complete developmental education requirements is reduced by decreasing the number of courses students have to take. These course reductions are not done indiscriminately; redundant content is eliminated and the remaining curriculum is generally modified to meet the learning objectives of a particular intervention or academic pathway. For example, the curricula of multiple developmental education courses can be consolidated into a single-semester course. New courses typically cover more con-

tent (even with curriculum rationalization) and require more instructional contact hours, and they therefore are offered for more credit than their legacy components. A more radical but increasingly popular curricular redesign strategy discards the multi-course sequence altogether and creates a single developmental bridge course closely aligned to the college curriculum or a specific program of study.

Mainstreaming – see other redesigns in the original paper: http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Publication.asp?UID=867 3.2 Mainstreaming with Supplemental Support or Through Contextualization Mainstreaming strategies accelerate students’ progress by placing developmental students directly into college-level courses, thus bypassing the traditional remedial course sequence. Colleges may chose to recruit students with higher developmental placement scores for mainstreaming programs, since they are similar to if not academically indistinguishable from many of their college-ready peers (Calcagno & Long, 2008). The stigma associated with developmental placement has the potential to dampen community college students’ enthusiasm and motivation and negatively affect their academic performance (Bailey, 2008). Mainstreaming may reduce the negative implications surrounding the distinction between developmental and college-ready students and increase the academic achievement of all students (Levin & Hopfenberg, 1991). It is important not to underestimate the potential boost to motivation and purpose that students, particularly those placed into remediation, experience when given the opportunity to earn college credit.

Mainstreaming with supplemental support. Mainstreaming with supplemental support involves placing students with developmental education referrals directly into introductory college-level courses and providing additional instruction through mandatory companion classes, lab sessions, or other learning supports. Depending on the structure of the intervention, student progress can be accelerated through the si59

multaneous completion or elimination of developmental requirements.

Moreover, with college-ready and developmental students enrolled in the same college-level course, there are more opportunities for underprepared students to be exposed to the classroom practices and work habits of higher-achieving students and to engage with a more challenging and potentially enriching curriculum. The supplemental support experiences are explicitly designed to increase the likelihood of success in the college course. During these sessions, students may review concepts presented in the college class in greater depth, address particular skills necessary to complete an assignment, preview upcoming lessons or assignments, or participate in a variety of other tailored activities.

To maximize the potential of the model, it is important to have instructional continuity across the college course and supplemental sessions.

The Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) at the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC), for example, uses the same instructor for the introductory college composition and supplemental companion courses.

A community college’s ability to mainstream students may be limited by its placement policy. Mandatory developmental education placement policies may require colleges to incorporate into the mainstreaming model a component that allows students to fulfill their developmental requirements. CCBC addressed this limitation by creating a customized version of upper-level developmental English to serve as the companion course. With ALP, students receive grades for both the college and companion (i.e., developmental) courses and must pass both to move on to subsequent college English classes.

4.3 Mainstreaming Outcomes Mainstreaming with supplemental support. Growing evidence suggests that instructional approaches that mainstream underprepared students may be effective in improving their short- and long-term academic outcomes. Adams, Gerhart, Miller and Roberts (2009) report results from the Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) at the Community

College of Baltimore County. The program was designed to address “leakage” in the developmental English sequence that is thought to be a consequence of the multi-course structure and the stigma associated with being labeled a weak writer. ALP places eight students who tested into the highest level of developmental English into a 20-person introductory college composition course with students who qualified for the class through placement testing or the completion of prerequisite coursework. The eight ALP students also attend a companion course, which meets immediately after the college class and is taught by the same instructor. The content, instructional activities, and performance standards of the college composition course are identical to other nonALP sections of the class. In contrast, the content and instruction of the companion course are explicitly tailored to help ALP students to meet the performance requirements of the college English course. Preliminary evaluations indicate 63% of ALP students passed the introductory college-level composition course within two academic years, compared to 39% of non-ALP developmental English students. A follow-up analysis using rigorous statistical controls affirms Adams et al.’s findings of superior outcomes for ALP students. Jenkins, Speroni, Belfield, Jaggars, and Edgecombe (2010) found that compared to non- ALP students, ALP students complete the introductory college-level course at a higher rate, enroll and complete the subsequent college English requirement at a higher rate, and attempt more college courses.

Concerns about the effect of mainstreaming on at-level or highperforming students persist and have affected how mainstream-based acceleration strategies have been developed and implemented. For example, the Community College of Baltimore County purposefully limits the number of developmental students in the ALP sections of the college English course to discourage faculty from altering the content or pace of instruction. Burris, Heubert, and Levin (2006) examine this issue in their longitudinal study of universal acceleration at the middle and high school levels in a New York school district. The introduction of universal acceleration reflected a district policy to eliminate instruction by ability grouping in favor of an accelerated mathematics curricu60

lum for all. This reform was considered acceleration because it taught the typical middle school math curricula in two instead of three years and relocated the algebra course usually taught in ninth grade to eighth grade. By institutionalizing acceleration, policymakers and practitioners hoped to address the low participation rates of historically lowerachieving students of color in the accelerated track. The new accelerated math curriculum was implemented at the middle school level and included an alternate-day supplemental math workshop for students seeking additional instructional time. Burris et al. compared three cohorts of students from before the reform to three cohorts after the reform was implemented and found that enrollment and performance in higher-level math courses had significantly increased. Importantly, they concluded that heterogeneous groupings of students under universal acceleration had no adverse effect on high achievers. It is worth noting that there has been an increased use of the Supplemental Instruction model, or adaptations thereof, to improve academic achievement among underprepared students. Originally developed to enhance students’ success in high- enrollment, high-risk gatekeeper courses, Supplemental Instruction (or SI) provides voluntary, small-group study sessions facilitated by an experienced student (the SI leader) who has previously demonstrated mastery of the concepts of the course. Several studies discuss the use of Supplemental Instruction within the developmental sequence to provide students with additional time to learn and practice concepts (Martin, Arendale & Blanc, 1997; Phelps & Evans, 2006; Wright, Wright, & Lamb, 2002). This research, however, does not utilize Supplemental Instruction to explicitly accelerate student progression through developmental education.

Developmental Education Structures Designed for the Readin e s s C o n t i n u u m : Clarifying the Co-Requisite Model (The Charles A. Dana Center) For many students, the emphasis on acceleration means they go directly into college-level courses that are bolstered with mandatory sup-

ports. An increasingly popular approach to achieving the goals of accelerating student progress and moving students to and through collegelevel courses as soon as possible is the co-requisite model of developmental education (Commander, Stratton, Callahan, & Smith, 1996; Boylan, 1999; Edgecombe, 2011; Complete College America, 2011).

Evaluations of such models indicate that co-requisite approaches are associated with higher grades and higher completion rates in introductory college-level courses, increased fall-to-fall persistence in enrollment and higher total credit accumulation (Wilcox, et al., 1997; Jenkins et al., 2010; Tennessee Board of Regents, 2009). http://www.utdanacenter.org/mathways/downloads/higher-ed-issuebrief-1-june2012.pdf Start college now. provide help as a co-requisite, not a prerequisite.

Start college students in college courses, not more high school. Get them on track for graduation from the moment they step on campus by using only co-requisite approaches to deliver tutoring and support.

Modify the length and method of built-in, just-in-time academic help to match students’ needs.

End traditional remediation; use co-requisite models instead.

• For students with few academic deficiencies, place them into redesigned first-year, full- credit courses with co-requisite built-in support, just-in-time tutoring, self-paced computer labs with required attendance, and the like. The length of these courses should mirror the ordinary gateway courses so students stay on track for on-time graduation.

• For students needing more help, lengthen redesigned full-credit courses and consider providing built-in, co-requisite support for 61

two semesters instead of one. Students get the same content but more time on task.

• For students with the most significant academic needs, provide alternate pathways to high-quality career certificates by embedding remediation and adult basic skills development into their instruction.

Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training I-Best, Bridge Programs, and Contextualized Curricula http://www.ncwe.org/resource/resmgr/workforce_dev_reports/how_ ibest_works.pdf Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-BEST) i s a n i n n o v a t i v e p r o g r a m a n d s t r a t e g y d e v e l o p e d b y the Washington (WA) State Board for Communityand Technical Colleges (SBCTC) in conjunction with the state’s 29 community colleges and five technical colleges. Its goal is to increase the rate at which adult basic education and English-as-a-second-language students advance to college-level occupational programs and complete postsecondary credentials in fields offering good wages and career advancement.

Accelerating Opportunity Kentucky http://kctcs.edu/News%20and%20Events/newsItem?id=%7B0CD6BA 71-E967-47A4-A73A-CB8764D8EE87%7D Eight KCTCS colleges will participate in the implementation design phase of the initiative. They include: Bluegrass Community and Technical College, Gateway Community and Technical College, Jefferson Community and Technical College, Madisonville Community College, Maysville Community and Technical College, Owensboro Community and Technical College, Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College and West Kentucky Community and Technical College. These colleges were selected because of leadership commitment, the strength of

their local adult education program, their partnership with the local Workforce Investment Board and college history with innovative programing. The plan includes expanding the program to the remaining eight KCTCS colleges in 2014.

EXAMPLES: Maryland: Community College of Baltimore County’s Accelerated learning Project (AlP) enrolls remedial English students in a regular, credit-bearing English 101 course and a companion course that meets immediately afterward. The companion course provides in a small group targeted reinforcement of topics from the mainstream course that enables intensive faculty and peer support. Early results show that AlP students pass English 101 with a grade of C or better at more than twice the rate of the control group — and do so in just one semester, as opposed to the two semesters required to complete a remedial course before moving on to the credit-bearing course.

The University of Maryland at College Park identifies about 20 percent of incoming students as unprepared for college-level math and enrolls the top 60 percent of them, based on placement test scores, in a corequisite math course. Scheduled five days a week, students receive accelerated remedial instruction for the first five weeks. After being retested with the same placement exam, passing students complete the remaining college-level class by attending five days a week for the remaining 10 weeks of the semester. More than 80 percent pass the retest and continue with the college-level course, ultimately matching the overall success rate for the course as nonremedial students.

Tennessee: Austin Peay State University in Tennessee eliminated remedial math courses and places students in redesigned credit-bearing courses that include extra workshops and specialized help. Initial assessments are given to determine specific knowledge gaps, then the workshops are used to provide additional instruction on key math concepts with special emphasis on indi62

vidual areas of weakness. As a result, twice as many remedial students are passing their initial college-level math courses.

T e x a s : T e x a s S t a t e U n i v e r s i t y - San Marcos enrolls students who need extra math help in concurrent remedial and college-level algebra and statistics courses, and it requires additional weekly tutoring, for which students earn credit.

Seventy-four percent of participants in the program earn a grade of C or better in algebra during their first semester. This is more than twice the percentage rate of all remedial students at Texas State-San Marcos who earn similar grades in their first two years. http://www.completecollege.org/docs/CCA-Remediation-summary.pd f CONTEXTUALIZATION and Co-Requisite Courses Breaking Through: Contextualization Toolkit

http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Publication.asp?uid=583 Facilitating Student Learning Through Contextualization: A Review of Evidence - Journal Article by: Dolores Perin - 07/ 2011. http://crw.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/07/22/009155211141622 7.full.pdf+html A Contextualized Intervention for Community College Developmental Reading and Writing Students (CCRC Working Paper No. 38) Paper by: Dolores Perin, Rachel Hare Bork, Stephen T. Peverly, Linda H. Mason & Megan Vaselewski - 01/2012. http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Publication.asp?uid=1007

Breaking Through Practice Guide

Contextualized Teaching & Learning: A Faculty Primer - A Review of Literature and Faculty Practices with Implications for California Community College Practitioners - Spring 2009

http://www.jff.org/sites/default/files/BT_Documentation_June7.pdf

http://www.careerladdersproject.org/docs/CTL.pdf

The Breaking Through Practice Guide - JFF, Spring 2010

Contextual Learning in Adult Education, - Imel - 2000

http://www.jff.org/publications/education/breaking-through-practice -guide/1059

http://www.calpro-online.org/eric/docs/pab00021.pdf

http://www.jff.org/sites/default/files/BT_toolkit_June7.pdf

I-Best, Bridge Programs, and Contextualized Curricula http://www.ncwe.org/?page=ibest

Teaching Math Contextually http://www.cord.org/uploadedfiles/Teaching_Math_Contextually.pdf

All Learning is Learning: Contextual Approaches to Developmental Education – Speech by Dolores Perin, James Jacobs & Elaine DeLott Baker - 03/2008.

63

http://occrl.illinois.edu/files/Projects/shifting_gears/Presentation/Pe rin-CCRC.pdf CO-REQUISITE COURSES Transform Remediation: The Co-Requisite Course Model http://www.completecollege.org/docs/CCA%20Co-Req%20Model%20 -%20Transform%20Remediation%20for%20Chicago%20final(1).pdf Co-requisite Model http://gettingpastgo.org/blog/2011/03/21/co-requisite-model/ Co-requisite Remediation http://www.completecollege.org/docs/CCA%20Policy%20Deck%20Re mediation%20Final%209-21-11.pdf Enhanced Mathematicsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;A Co-requisite Approach to Developmental Mathematics http://www.aascu.org/programs/ie/SubmissionDetails.aspx?id=4195 Remediation: the Bridge to Nowhere http://www.edpath.com/remedialeducation.html

Transform Remediation http://www.completecollege.org/docs/CCA%20Essential%20Steps%2 0Remediation%20Sept%202011.pdf

64

S ECTION 9

ACRLM: Co-Requisite Reading Model A Hypothetical Accelerated Co-Requisite Reading to Learn Model (ACRLM) The following information represents students who tested into CMS 185 (COMPASS 80-84) and RDG 30 (COMPASS 70-79) on the largest campus in a large community college in the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS).

(Those students testing below 70 on the COMPASS are referred to the Adult Education Program (EES) on campus, which has a seamless program for students who applied for admission to the college and were assessed, as well as an Accelerated Opportunity Program modeled on the I-Best Program.)

Scheduled Co-Requisite Courses COMPASS Reading Scores 75-84

COMPASS Reading Scores 70-74 • Refer to ABE (EES or Accelerated Opportunity Kentucky).

Proposed Accelerated Reading To Learn Co-Requisite Courses Goal: to match the success rates for reading that was achieved writing at the Community College of Baltimore using the co-requisite acceleration approach for developmental writing. Specifically: double the success rate; cut attrition in half; reduce the time to completion at lower costs.

The Co-Requisite Structure In the ACRL model each co-requisite instructor integrates their instruction with that of the other instructor. The content of the developmental class directly supports the content of the college course.

Ten seats are reserved in the co-requisite content class for developmental students referred to the highest level developmental course (COMPASS 80-84), students begin earning college credit right away, and transition points between courses are eliminated.

• Create Co-requisite courses with sociology, psychology, history, and/or biology, and etc.

For students needing more help, lengthen redesigned full-credit courses and consider providing built-in, co-requisite support for two semesters instead of one. Students get the same content but more time on task. (COMPASS reading score (75-79)

COMPASS Reading Scores 70-74

Create a 2 Hour for Credit Co-Requisite Reading Course.

• Create two semester co-requisite courses with sociology, psychology, history, and/or biology or

Why Create a Co-Requisite Course? Instructors teach eight 2 hours courses (1 hour courses twice a week with 10 students each)

• Create one semester co-requisite courses with addition required support – tutoring or supplemental instruction.

65

Co-Requisite Courses In co-requisite courses students are placed in both a content course and a skills course. There are many versions of co-requisite courses. In ALCRM, courses would be designed so the content of the developmental class directly supports the content of the college course.

conceptual framework, and (3) organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application.

Assessment of Cognitive Strategies Skill: Does the learner recognize chapter text clues?

IMPORTANT: Getting Past Go offers the following consideration:

-Learning Outcome: given a textbook chapter, can the learner identify the chapter’s text clues.

Redesign the entire course structure of both the developmental and college-level course, don’t just add a co-requisite to your existing course. Make sure content and instruction are aligned between the two courses” (Getting Past G, 2011)

Skill: Does the learner recognize the organization of the chapter using the chapter’s text clues?

http://gettingpastgo.org/blog/2011/03/21/co-requisite-model/ Learning Outcomes for Developing Rigor in Reading to Learn To read about the cognitive strategies and habits of mind in a corequisite reading course and a geology course, see http://issuu.com/tdkest1/docs/dinosaurscopy • Make contextualized and c0-requisite reading course learning outcomes reflective of developing developing cognitive strategies and habits of mind that are in line with research on developing competence in area of inquiry (discipline or program of study) and transfer learning.

The goal of reading to learn is to help learners develop the cognitive strategies and habits of mind that enable them to be able to read to learn in ways that facilitate transfer. The primary conceptual framework for transfer learning involves learning cognitive strategies and habits of mind that enable the learner to (1) develop a deep foundation of factual knowledge, (2) understand facts and ideas in the context of a

-Learning Outcome: given a textbook chapter, can the learner recognize the chapter’s organization.

Skill: Does the reader stops and steps back mentally to reflect on what they have read?

-Learning Outcome: Given a reading selection, the reader stops to reflect on what they have read.

Skill: Does reader during reflection re-exposure strategies for moving the information from working memory to long-term memory.

-Learning Outcome: Given a reading selection, the reader while reflecting uses re-exposure strategies for moving the information from working memory to long-term memory.

Skill: Does reader during reflection elaboration strategies for moving the information from working memory to long-term memory.

Learning Outcome: Given a reading selection, the reader while reflecting uses elaboration strategies for moving the information from working memory to long-term memory.

66

Skill: Does the learner ask the following type questions when they come to text clues (title, headings, pictures): 1. What do I already know?

2. Are there examples in the book and do I know any examples of the concept being considered?

3. Can I predict where this is going?

-Learning Outcome: Given a reading selection with text clues, the reader ask questions about what they read.

Skill: Does the learner have strategies for organizing the concepts in a content reading selection?

-Learning Outcome: Given a content reading selection, the reader can organize the concepts around relationships.

-Learning Outcome: Given a textbook chapter, can the learner strategies for developing deep understanding of new concepts (terminology) or The learner will be able to • Identify the concepts making up the larger conceptual framework (the big picture, or mental scaffold) of the discipline content course textbook readings) • Systematically organize the concepts in discipline content reading into a mental scaffold or conceptual framework.

• Understand the facts and ideas in the discipline reading in the context of the conceptual framework.

Skill: Does the learner have strategies for creating a conceptual framework for helping understand facts and ideas?

• Structure the details of the discipline content reading within the larger conceptual framework to build a mental scaffold for thinking like a scientist in the discipline.

-Learning Outcome: Give an organized introduction to the textbook or a chapter, the reader can create a conceptual framework (organized overview of the textbook or chapter content).

• Apply re-exposure techniques for moving new information from working memory to long-term-memory.

Skill: Does the learner visualize or create mental images of concepts being learned?

-Learning Outcome: Given a reading passage in which the concepts are descriptive or has accompanying illustrations or pictures, the reader can create mental images of the concepts.

Skill: Does the learner have strategies for developing deep understanding of new concepts (terminology)?

• Apply elaboration techniques for moving new information from working memory to long-term-memory.

• Apply organizing techniques for moving new information from working memory to long-term-memory.

• Re-expose memory strategies in time intervals that facilitate moving new information from working memory to long-term-memory.

• Use writing to learn activities to clarify information in the learning process.

67

• Use writing to learn activities to organize information being learned in ways that facilitate retrieval.

nary gateway courses so students stay on track for on-time graduation.

(COMPASS reading score 80-84)

Learning Outcomes

For students needing more help, lengthen redesigned full-credit courses and consider providing built-in, co-requisite support for two semesters instead of one. Students get the same content but more time on task. (COMPASS reading score (70-79)

Co-Requisite Courses Aligned with Programs of Study “Get students to commit to programs of study ASAP. Using placement scores, high school transcripts, and predictive tools (preferably a test aligned the aforementioned learning outcomes) to determine student aptitude, guide all students to choose among a limited number of firstyear pathways — for example, health, business, liberal arts, or STEM — as soon as possible. Students should make the big choices of programs of study informed with an understanding of program requirements and available supports to achieve their career goals. Once they do, place them into structured program pathways constructed of relevant, sequenced courses chosen for them.

Establish “default” programs for students not ready to commit. no longer allow students to be considered “unclassified.” Upon enrollment, nudge them into first-year pathways — for example, health, business, liberal arts, or STEM. This ensures a coherent pathway from the beginning, with core college-level credits that will count toward certificates and degrees. By doing so, students avoid excessive course taking while wandering the curriculum, shortening the time it takes to graduate.” (recommendations of Complete College America) http://www.completecollege.org/docs/CCA-Remediation-summary.pd f Placement by Reading Level (some options) For students with few academic deficiencies, place them into redesigned first-year, full- credit courses with co-requisite built-in support, just-in-time tutoring, self-paced computer labs with required attendance, and the like. The length of these courses should mirror the ordi-

For students with the most significant academic needs, provide alternate pathways to high-quality career certificates by embedding remediation and adult basic skills development into their instruction. (COMPASS reading score below 70) Class Size Based on the rationale for the pilot now in place at the Community College of Baltimore to ascertain whether their successful Accelerated Project works with 10 students in developmental classes, the class size for the hypothetical Accelerated Co-Requisite Reading to Learn Model (ACRLM) would be 10 students in the reading to learn class. See Baltimore rationale at: http://alp-deved.org/2012/07/the-community-college-of-baltimore-co unty/ Professional Development One of the most important considerations for implementing the Accelerated Co-Requisite Reading to Learn Model (ACRLM) is professional development for the co-requisite instructors, advisors. This book was written as written with professional development in mind and therefore can be used in professional development.

Beyond professional development for the co-requisite instructors, professional development should be required of advisors and academic and student support.

68

S ECTION 10

The Dark Ages

We are in the dark ages when it comes to being informed about helping students in developmental classes who are on the Attention Deficit Continuum.

Want Learning? Train Working Memory.

How does working memory capacity underlie cognitive learning and skill development? Well, first consider the definition of working memory. Working memory is defined as being able to simultaneously hold information and process it in your mind. Another simple way to think about it is putting your memory to ‘work’, not just remembering something but being able to manipulate the information in some way, hence the name ‘working memory’. Then consider the fact that if you cannot even hold simple 3 or 4 step directions in mind then developing skills related to those 3 or 4 steps is likely out of reach. Skill development at the minimum requires holding ‘procedural steps’ in mind along with the information to which they will be applied. There are skills that do not tax working memory like simple counting or word recall, but complex academic skills do tax working memory. Below I will consider one critical study that explicates this point.

Working Memory and Skill Acquisition: Huang-Pollock & Karalunas (2010) conducted a study entitled: “Working Memory Demands Impair Skill Acquisition in Learners with ADHD”. First these investigators found that students with ADHD had

weaker working memory than the non-ADHD control group (a common finding). Then they gave both groups two skill acquisition tasks.

One of the tasks loaded highly or was a challenge to working memory (AA) and the second task was not (FM). Here are the author’s conclusions: “Even after extensive practice, students with ADHD were unable to acquire the same level of cognitive skill as did non-ADHD controls.

Slower and more error-prone performance was evident from the beginning and was maintained through the duration of both the AA and FM tasks. However, consistent with study hypotheses, group differences in the pattern of skill acquisition were seen for the high (AA) but not low (FM) WM load task” (Huang-Pollock & Karalunas, 2010).

Specifically, students with ADHD were less able to ‘automatize’ the working memory dependent skill to the degree that their responses became increasingly quick and accurate (think of the difference between students who have memorized the multiplication tables who can immediately respond versus those who have to work out solutions more deliberately in their head or, worse yet, on paper). This was especially true for students with the inattentive subtype of ADHD. This study is the first to demonstrate that students with ADHD are especially prone to struggle in the acquisition of cognitive skills that place high demands on working memory.

As is seen in this study working memory deficits affect the level of learning that underlies skill acquisition when the application of skill taxes working memory. Consider the underlying levels below: Working Memory Training Acts on Underlying Levels • - Executive Function: Working memory – Planning, Attention, Task monitoring, organizing • - Influences: Rate of learning, Manipulating information, Remembering directions, concentration 69

• - Skill/Behavior: Reading comprehension, Math Skills, Language development, on-task behavior In our underlying levels above, one might consider the many areas of “influences” factors that affect skill acquisition that will be adversely impacted by poor working memory. The results of Huang-Pollock & Karalunas (2010) study suggest that working memory training should precede content driven interventions, academic skill acquisition programs, skills development targeted in counseling and professional skill development. In other words a focus upon skill building following working memory training would result in that person being better able to develop that skill. As such, it would make sense that to optimize working memory training effects one would add skill building in math, reading comprehension, writing, or whatever area is salient after finishing working memory training. Then the skill building would be expected to result in more effective learning. Unless you do the sequence this way your interventions to develop academic skills won't be as effective for students with working memory deficits or attention deficits. Simply put, "stuff won't stick". Similarly, a variety of counseling interventions like social skills, test anxiety and/or social anxiety would be better integrated after completing working memory training because these skills likely challenge working memory. As is common in counseling ADHD clients who have not strengthened their working memory when they are in a “live” situation they simply cannot recall the skill they practiced and planned to use when they were in the counseling session.

Dr. Charles Shinaver Cogmed Consultant Cogmed Working Memory TrainingTM

70

S ECTION 11

Rigor in Learning EXAMPLE: A look at rigor in the highest level corequisite reading course.

In any co-requisite reading course, the student will learn many thinking strategies that will help them learn in ways that ensure deeper learning, better and more useful memory of facts and ideas they will learn in an entry-level course. The course will organize these thinking strategies around what we now know about how humans learn. The organization of thinking strategies will be developed around the following: 1. Developing a deep foundation of factual knowledge.

2. Understanding facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework.

3. Organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application.

To make the learning strategies more meaningful, each strategy will be explained within the framework of how the brain learns in ways that make that learned more useful.

Reading instruction will focus on developing conceptual understanding of concepts in the entry-level course in which the learner will apply core-learning strategies for dealing with the content they will encounter in their reading assignments. The

reading course will help the learner learn thinking strategies that help the learner go beyond mere comprehension. Comprehension will no longer be the main goal, but rather developing competence in the study of sociology will be the goal.

The conceptual understanding approach to reading and learning places more emphasis on helping the learner reflect and think about their thinking as they read; thereby giving them more control over the learning process. Conceptual understanding here also refers to grasping the meanings of concepts presented in the assigned reading in sociology and systematically organizing those ideas so that they are more easily retrieved when needed later by the learner. Competence here means that the learner will be able to develop a deep foundation of factual knowledge, understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework, and organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application. This is the foundation of all transfer learning (application) and makes learning of future related concepts easier, as well making that learned applicable in new situations.

“A key finding in the learning and transfer literature is that organizing information into a conceptual framework allows for greater “transfer”; that is, it allows the student to apply what was learned in new situations and to learn related information more quickly…. Transfer is affected by the degree to which people learn with understanding rather than merely memorize sets of facts or follow a fixed set of procedures; the research also shows clearly that “usable knowledge” is not the same as a mere list of disconnected facts.”

71

Also transfer not only requires organizing information into a conceptual framework, but also understanding facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework. (Bransford, 2002) Remember, reading is a reconstruction and reorganization of meaning and sociology is an ongoing reconstruction and reorganization of our ideas of how the brain affects behavior - that is the definition of education and learning.

Introduction to the Student The student is taking a co-requisite reading course. That means that they are taking an entry-level college course such as psychology, geology, sociology, biology, anatomy and physiology, history, etc. along with a reading to learn skills course or some other form of reading skill support. Every time they leave their entry-level college class, they will have a reading assignment that they will work on in their reading class or support class.

It also means that they and their instructors have the goal of seeing that the student successfully completes both the reading and entry-level college course. Together the instructors will work on strategies for increasing the likelihood that when the student is reading to learn that they will learn more deeply. That is, they will learn in a way that increases the likelihood that what they learn in the entry-level college course will

transfer to new situations and make learning related information in the future easier.

Why a co-requisite model?

The goal of the co-requisite model is accelerating student progress and moving students to and through college level courses as soon as possible.

The student will come out of their entry-level college course each day with a reading assignment that has lots of facts and ideas. Their goal as a student who is reading to learn is not to learn a lot of facts or ideas (although they will), but to understand the facts and ideas in relation to one another and in the context of a conceptual framework.

If they have taken a reading class before, they will notice that there will be distinct differences in the reading instruction between what they have done before and what they will be doing in the co-requisite reading class. The reading class is not tutoring or a study hall; the student will be learning reading to learn skills that will enable them to develop competence in the subject matter of their co-requisite college course. the student also will not be learning reading skills in isolation from your entry-level college reading assignment. they will be learning reading skills relevant to their college course reading assignment and the focus of those skills will be on learning that will enable them to transfer what they are learning to new situations.

72

These reading skills will focus on learning the content of the entry-level course as conceptual understanding that is directly related to how the brain learns naturally. Think of conceptual understanding as new concepts (think terminology) for which the student is learning new meanings, and organizing into related patterns. For example, all new terminology, facts, and ideas are organized by how they are related to one another. It is understanding how they are related that is important.

In order to develop competence in an area of inquiry (make useful the content and skills in you entry-level college course) John Bransford’s research found that the learner needs to: • develop a deep foundation of factual information

pose of the the subject matter. For example,all ideas and facts in a sociology textbook are organized and meant to be understood around the idea that “sociology is about how groups interact and how individuals interact in groups.” Regardless of what you are reading in the sociology textbook it is related to how groups and individuals interact. The same is true for all entry-level college textbooks.

In the reading course they student will be constantly balancing understanding facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework and organizing new information being learned into a conceptual framework.

“A key finding in the learning and transfer literature is that

• understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework

organizing information into a conceptual framework allows

• organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application

what was learned in new situations and to learn related

Every reading to learn strategy you learn in the reading course will be organized around these three learner learning needs that enable the reader to develop competence in the subject matter in the entry-level college course. As learning specialist, we have been able to take the latest research on learning and develop exactly those mental activities we will need to be successful. By focusing on those skills you will be able to spend more time learning how to learn deeply rather than learning a lot of skills shallowly.

The facts and ideas in every textbook, in every chapter in a textbook, and in every section in a textbook are dependent on understanding those facts and ideas in the context of the pur-

for greater “transfer”; that is, it allows the student to apply information more quickly” (John Bransford).

The following is the most important information the student will need to know and learn in the reading course, which will be applied to reading to learn in the entry-level content course every day.

1. The information the student is reading to learn in the entrylevel college course textbook is never a piece of isolated information; everything the student reads about is always related to the overarching conceptual framework of the subject matter. For example, sociology is about group interac73

tion and how an individual interacts in a group (overarching conceptual framework). If the student is reading a chapter about culture in the sociology textbook, it is important to understand how culture is related to group interaction, especially as it pertains to rules of behavior. If in the chapter on culture the student will read about norms (rules of behavior); they will need to understand how the criteria for determining if interaction is is expected and if not are their consequences. Everything they learn in an entry-level college textbook is related and those relationships need to be understood in the context of a conceptual framework. Rule: understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework.

quire. New information requires re-exposure with elaboration of those ideas. Elaboration is about making connections with what the student already knows about the information being learned. For example, stopping and having an internal dialogue with themselves about what they already know about the information, or how it is like or different than what they already know, or how you might use the information. There will be many internal dialogue questions that the student will learn how to use in the reading course.

Rule: if it is important to learn, learn it before going on with your reading. The student will be learning the strategies for doing that more efficiently.

2. Any reading skill the student will be learning only becomes maximally efficient when it is used with other reading skills such as strategies for moving newly learned information to long-term memory, which must also incorporate strategies for organizing the information in ways that facilitate retrieval. The student will not be learning one skill, then another in isolation; all skills aid or reinforce all other skills.

Rule: reading requires a lot of mental interaction with the text and the students brain (the strategies (decisions) they use).

4. When the student knows how the brain learns and know what it takes to ensure that what is learned is not forgotten and how to increase the speed with which the brain processes information, and how to organize information in ways that facilitate retrieval and application, they will be able to think about their thinking as they learn while reading and understanding more deeply why they are learning the reading strategies they will be learning. Rule: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Peak mental performance (example, reading to learn) requires a combination of knowing your brain, and being able to observe your brain processing occurringâ&#x20AC;? (Rock, 2010).

3. If the student has identified new information as important to learn when reading, they will want to stop and apply strategies they will learn in the reading course for ensuring that deep learning is occurring. Learning to make a habit of stopping and reflecting as they read is a crucial habit to ac-

5. Depending on the subject, the ability to use or create visual images of the information being learned is very important.

For example, the harder the science, the more important it is to connect what is being learned to a visual image. In fact, some concepts in the hard sciences cannot be understood 74

without an accompanying visualization. Whether the entrylevel college course the student is taking is a hard science or not, visualization is a very powerful learning tool.

6. Learning new terminology (concepts) is not about memorizing definitions. That violates everything we know about how the brain learns and especially how the brain learns if the reader want to use the information later in new situations.

Here is where John Bransford’s research on developing competence in the subject matter you are learning in the entrylevel college course becomes invaluable. The goal is not about learning new terminology; it is about learning in which that which is learned transfers to new situations (problem-solving, decision-making, etc.). Instead of learning new vocabulary or terminology, the focus shifts to learning new concepts (how information being learned is useful and relates to everything else they are learning as they read in the entry-level college content course). Rule: never memorize; construct meaning by connecting what is being learning to what the reader already knows and the other related concepts in the text readings. For example, in sociology, a “norm” is a rule or guideline about how to behave in a given situation. It would be easy for the reader to memorize the definition of “norms”; however, if they do so, it will not be useful later as they read about other types of norms and related information and will be quickly forgotten. The brain stores meaning, but first must first make connections with what the reader already knows about rules about how to behave. If the reader has not stopped and reflected on what

they already know about rules about how to behave in given situations and connected it to examples, the information gets stored in isolation in the brain and quickly forgotten.

7. The Reader and Their Brain The learner can expect to learn in the reading course about how the brain learns and how every mental strategy they will learn reinforces how the brain learns naturally. This will serve two purposes. First, it provides a reason for using any given reading strategy and second, as the reader learns how the brain learns, they can begin to think about their thinking and they will begin selecting appropriate learning strategies based on how you learn.

There will be four areas of brain learning that the reader will need to understand: First, how the brain learns naturally: Dendrites, synapse, and neural networks grow only from what the learner already knows. This is why activating prior knowledge in the construction of meaning is so important (Smilkstein).

Second, the reader will learn how neural pathways are strengthened to increase the speed of transmission and reduce forgetting: “Every human skill is created by chains of nerve fibers carrying a tiny electrical impulse – basically a signal traveling through a circuit. Myelin’s vital role is to wrap 75

those nerve fibers in a fatty insulation the same way that rubber insulation wraps a copper wire, making the signal stronger and faster by preventing the electrical impulses from leaking out. When we fire our circuits in the right way our myelin responds by wrapping layers of insulation around the neural circuit, each new layer adding a bit more skill and speed. The thicker the myelin gets, the better it insulates, and the faster and more accurate our thoughts become” (Coyle, 2009). This is why re-exposure with elaboration to new information being learned is so important and why deliberate practice is important.

Third, how organizing newly learned information builds neural networks that facilitate retrieval and application: The brain contains many billions of very special kinds of cells - the nerve cells or neurons. These cells are organized into a very complicated intercommunicating network. Typically each neuron is physically connected to tens of thousands of others. Using these connections neurons can pass electrical signals between each other. The better organized these networks are the easier it is to retrieve related information which facilitates retrieval and application. The learner will learn how to organize the information they are learning to maximize retrieval, thus making new information more useful.

Fourth, is the concept of working memory and the role attention plays in manipulating and constructing meaning and stor-

ing those constructions in long-term memory. With this understanding we will be able to: • Apply re-exposure techniques for moving new information from working memory to long-term-memory.

• Apply elaboration techniques for moving new information from working memory to long-term-memory.

• Apply organizing techniques for moving new information from working memory to long-term-memory.

• Re-expose memory strategies in time intervals that facilitate moving new information from working memory to longterm-memory.

8. The reader will be doing a lot of writing to learn activities in the reading course that will focus on clarifying what they are learning. The writing to learn activities will balance the internal dialogue strategies they will be developing with what they write to learn. Think of it as an integrated internal and external dialogue. The writing to learn activities will also focus on organizing the ideas they are learning in the entry-level college course, which is crucial for later retrieval and usefulness.

9. The reader will also be learning habits of mind that takes advantage of the “use it of lose it” balancing act the brain is constantly performing for building new brain structures as you learn and tearing down those structures (forgetting) that are not used. Did the reader know that if they reexpose themself to what they are learning within 90 min76

utes of learning it that they are far more likely to remember what they have learned and also increase the likelihood that that will be able to use that information in the future?

The instructors will build on these nine areas of learning from day one throughout the semester. The learner will not be learning a strategy, then dropping it to learn another strategy and so on throughout the semester. They will instead be learning strategies much like building an orchestra with may instruments (learning strategies) to produce a sympathy of mental processes.

Your Co-Requisite Instructors The content the reading course will come from the entry-level college course; the reading to learn skills from the reading course. The entry-level course instructor and reading skills instructor work together to identify the aspects of the entrylevel course which might pose particular problems for you as a learner.

Co-Requisite From the Literature for the Instructor Only The writer has modified some note from the Dana Center below: The Dana Center notes that “if the goal of college readiness (learning the reading skills students need of college work) is for helping students to succeed in college-level courses, stu-

dents need access to— and experience in—college-level courses.

We strongly believe that early college (learning), whether it is developmental or college-level, should focus on preparing students for their programs of study, not on reteaching a full high school curriculum.

In terms of curriculum design, such a focus means that students should engage immediately with applications and contexts that historically have been delayed until a college-level course. In our new model, these applications and contexts are supported with instruction on developmental skills aligned to students’ majors and careers.

When it comes to preparing students for success in college, stakeholders broadly agree that faster is better and, as an extension, that students should be referred to the highest level course that can be responsibly defended (Bailey, Hughes, & Jaggars, 2012; Complete College America, 2011).

For many students, the emphasis on acceleration means they go directly into college-level courses that are bolstered with mandatory supports. An increasingly popular approach to achieving the goals of accelerating student progress and moving students to and through college-level courses as soon as possible is the co-requisite model of developmental education (Commander, Stratton, Callahan, & Smith, 1996; Boylan, 1999; Edgecombe, 2011; Complete College America, 2011).

77

Evaluations of such models indicate that co-requisite approaches are associated with higher grades and higher completion rates in introductory college-level courses, increased fallto-fall persistence in enrollment and higher total credit accumulationâ&#x20AC;? (Wilcox, et al., 1997; Jenkins et al., 2010; Tennessee Board of Regents, 2009). http://www.utdanacenter.org/mathways/downloads/higher-ed-issuebrief-1-june2012.pdf

College Reading Readiness

problems or apply the information, then the reader must understand the facts and ideas they are learning in the context of a conceptual framework. This requires knowing how to develop a conceptual framework for the subject matter in the course being studied.

Third, retrieval and application is dependent on organizing the knowledge being learned. The learner needs to have strategies for organizing what is being learned within the conceptual framework of the subject and or discipline.

College readiness is about success in entry-level or gateway courses that prepares The student for subsequent courses..

The goal of a college readiness reading course is to ensure that the learner has developed cognitive strategies and habits of mind that enable him or her to learn when reading in ways that develop competence in their gateway courses and in future courses in their program of study.

First, to develop competence in an area of inquiry, discipline or program of study, the reader needs to be able to develop a deep foundation of factual knowledge. Factual knowledge is not a memorized set of facts in a program of study, but rather sets of interrelated facts that are organized into a conceptual framework of knowledge - a neural network of interrelated information - not isolated facts.

Second, if the learner wants the information to be learned in ways that make the information learned transferrable to new situations where they can think, reason, make decisions, solve 78

C HAPTER 7

Skills Students Actually Need

The preceding begs the question, â&#x20AC;&#x153;What are we teaching in developmental education and is it in line with the goal of completion?â&#x20AC;?

These common sense questions are the best argument for aligning cognitives and affective skills with gateway courses in programs of study. Yes, the Core Common Standards are important and are the best source for cognitive standards for designing an instructional program. This does not mean that every standard that students have not learned should be taught in developmental courses or other support. What does the student need to succeed in their program of study?

S ECTION 1

Martin Golson, Austin Peay State University

Skills Students Actually Need

Golson believes this is a crucial difference. "Let's say we have a nursing student who has some deficiencies in intermediate algebra," Golson suggests. "Perhaps this student has real difficulties with imaginary numbers. But nurses never deal with imaginary numbers, either in their academic nursing program or in the field. So there is no need to remediate this. Why would we place that student in developmental math, when they could succeed as an excellent nurse, never having to work with imaginary numbers?"

Kentucky - College Readiness For reading, the destination is clear. To reach that destination of success in credit-bearing courses, reading skill preparation must focus, not on sets of isolated skills or every core common standard the learner did not fully develop, but rather on cognitive strategies and habits of mind that specifically prepare the student for success in credit-bearing courses at a level of understand and proficiency that prepares the student for subsequent courses.

A Shift in Mindset: What Actually Needs to Be Remediated?

Besides reconsidering criteria for various levels of placement, it may be time to take a fresh look at which cases actually require developmental placement at all. Austin Peay State University has done some remarkable work in aligning the degree of developmental support required with the academic and career goals of the student.

In the past, colleges and universities have looked at students entering with a deficiency and have focused on identifying what the student did not learn or perhaps forgot. Then they look backward and remediate that. What if we instead looked forward, and asked instead, "What does this student need in order to be successful?"

Golson cautions that this isn't about defining higher education as job training. It's about identifying specific academic and career goals with incoming students, and then focusing on providing the education needed to help them achieve those goals. It's about reconsidering decades-old placement polices and defining clearly when remediation or developmental support is actually neededâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and when it isn't, and for what reasons.

Building Rigor and Competence in Gateway Courses and Support: Keys to Competence and Rigor In order to get support for engaging gateway course faculty in accelerated approaches involving their courses, which is necessary to bring the approach to scale, the gateway instructor must believe that the support underprepared learners will be receiving will enable the learner to succeed. This is where the focus needs to shift from learning isolated skills to learning integrated skills for developing competence in an area of inquiry (gateway course). Again learning is key. The goal of learning can be shallow or deep. In order for the support to be deep, it has to be built around rigor - cognitive strategies and habits of mind that result in developing competence in the gateway courses. Competence is not developed by learning isolated facts and ideas for a test. Competence is about learning in which that learned can be easily retrieved and transferred to new situations (application).

80

Research documented by Bransford (2001) has shown that in order for learners to develop competence in an area of inquiry, the learner needs to: â&#x20AC;˘ Understand ideas and facts in the context of a conceptual framework â&#x20AC;˘ Organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application â&#x20AC;˘ Develop a deep foundation of factual knowledge.

In building support for a gateway course, support whether, a teamtaught course, a learning community, supplemental instruction, tutoring, or other forms of delivery, it must be built around helping the learner learn the content of the gateway course using cognitive strategies and habits of mind (mental processes) that ensure that learning is building competence in the area of inquiry. Every support activity should focus on ensuring that the learner is learning how to understand the facts and ideas in their gateway course in the context of a conceptual framework, and that mental processes are applied the help clarify and organize the information, as well apply mental strategies for moving the information to long-term memory in ways that facilitate retrieval and application.

81

S ECTION 2

Competence and Conceptual Understanding: Not Isolated Skills Teaching isolated skills, regardless of the subject, does not move learning to the prefrontal cortex where it can be useful - reasoning, makingdecisions, planning, and application. The following will refer to reading, which is a foundational skills upon which other foundational skills are built. What is true for reading is true for all the foundational skills.

A Quick History of Reading Instruction “Many reading instruction programs, among them computer-based reading programs emphasize learning isolated reading skills and then testing for those isolated reading skills and declaring success if the student can successfully use those isolated reading skills. For example, MyReadingLab, emphasizes learning isolated skills such as main idea, supporting detail, patterns of organization, inference, and purpose and tone. Many studies have found that the teaching of these isolated skills did little to foster transfer of learning. For examples, Complex processes appear to be more than the sum of heir parts, and skills do not seem to transfer automatically from one domain to another. Learning seems to take place best in the context of complex experiences and problem solving” (Starko. 2001); “Many critics have observed that instructional approaches to finding the main idea often involved sophisticated conventions that became ends in themselves and were too time consuming” (Carnegie, 2010).; and “For many years, reading comprehension instruction was based on a concept of reading as the application of a set of isolated skills such as finding main ideas, identifying cause and effect relationships, comparing and contrasting, and sequencing.” Durkin found that this type of instruction did little to help

students learn how or when to use the skills, and these skills were not shown to enable comprehension” (Keys to Literacy).

Why Isolated Skill Instruction is Antiquated?

“Thinking cannot be divorced from content; in fact, thinking is a way of learning content (Raths and others). In every course, and especially in content subjects, students should be taught to think logically, analyze and compare, question and evaluate. Skills taught in isolation do little more than prepare students for tests of isolated skills (Spache and Spache).

Norton Grubbs in From Black Box To Pandora’s Box: Evaluating Remedial/ Developmental Education states it this way, “By far the most common approach to developmental education within community colleges is the approach I have labeled “skills and drills.” This tends to focus on arithmetic procedures, on grammar, punctuation and vocabulary, on math “problems” of the most contrived sort, and passages from texts that have been simplified for low reading levels.

Computer programs in remedial classes invariably involve drills. Following a rigid progression through topics, students move to the next level only when they have passed a short “test” on one subject. Often, students work on these programs in large labs overseen by a “manager” who typically has neither the time nor the training for instruction: students who get stuck have to go back in the computer program to try to work out the problem. There is no teaching in the conventional sense of the term.

Conventional “skills and drills” approaches violate all the maxims for good teaching in adult education (Grubb and Kalman, 1994).

82

S ECTION 3

Teaching and Learmning Mark Taylor laid out in Teaching Generation NeXt concepts for a comprehensive, effective, practical, and accessible teaching and learning model grounded in increasing student activity, and engagement to improve relevant learning outcomes for the students.

Identify Class Goals “Identify and articulate class goals around the utility of content and the values and uses of these uses and skills to be learned. Students are more likely to learn content and applications if they see what they can do with the information and skills, why these uses matter to them and others, and how these applications can benefit them” (Mark Taylor).

Improve Student Understanding of Class Expectations “Faculty should not assume that students

These concepts provide an excellent framework for both co-requisite course instructors to use in developing the two courses. http://taylorprograms.org/drtaylorarticles.html Improve Student’s Future Orientation “Class content, the uses students have for that content, and the skills are expected to develop should relate to student’s goals” (Mark Taylor).

Since the content course in ta paired co-requisite courses is essential to the student’s program of study, it is easy to point out the relevance of cognitive strategies and habits of mind to the student’s goals. This is a huge advantage over isolated skill instruction. http://cms185redesign.pbworks.com/w/page/44227942/RDG%20185 %20Redesign%20Menu

understand college academic expectations in general, or for their class in particular, and take time early in the semester to make class expectations clear. Rewards (in the form of points) and consequences (in the form of penalties, lost points or learning opportunities) should be spelled out for both the mechanical expectations, such as preparation, attendance and participation, and for learning outcomes” (Mark Taylor).

Move Content Learning Out of Class “Too much time is spent in classes delivering content; time that can be better spent helping students actively identify the uses of content, learn skills, or identify why the learning matters to them. This model moves faculty from the traditional pedagogy of delivering content in class and expecting students to apply it out 83

of class, to moving the content out of class and facilitating the application of content under the guidance of Create Necessity for Preparing for and Attending Class “Scheduled class meetings are the central part of the educational process and the most significant learning opportunities for students. Faculty are not encouraged to offer points for attendance, but instead to award points for class preparation, which can only

be obtained by attendance. Make assignment expectations clear, and clarify the benefits of preparation (points, more effective learning) and costs of the lack of preparation (loss of points, inability to move into activity portion of the class of participate in group work), and they must be willing to clarify, but not to deliver, the content to greatly increase the likelihood that meaningful class participation becomes normative student behavior” (Mark Taylor).

another person. To help students learn a skill, let them actively practice it, with someone observing for accuracy. To help students come to care, value or see worth in a subject or skill, let them actively identify how it will benefit them in the future and actively articulate this belief to another person. “No passive students” should be the expectation during class” (Mark Taylor).

Improve Assessments and Accountability “As instruction moves from the traditional faculty delivery-ofcontent process to a student-construction-of-learning model, instructors need to move from a reliance on summative assessments of learning outcomes to assign grades to ongoing formative efforts to monitor and measure the efficacy of instruction and students’ movement toward learning outcomes. This movement from assessment of learning to assessment for learning is replacing traditional outcomes testing and leading to deeper, more lasting, and higher-level learning, and to students’ ability to make meaningful application of their learning. Formal graded assessments of students are moving from testing the traditional regurgitation of content to more meaningful summative assessments of deeper, more lasting, higher-level learning, and the ability of students to make meaningful application of their learning.”

(Mark Taylor).

Increase Student Learning Activity and Engagement “Higher-order and lasting learning will never be effectively reached by passive students who spend class time listening to faculty deliver content. In Mark Taylor’s model, class content is moved out of class to free class time for active learning to help students move to the higher learning process level of skills and values, behavioral applications and the affective level of caring.

To help students understand content, let them actively teach it to 84

S ECTION 4

Support Cannot Stop

The Goal is Completion Let’s return to what developmental education is all about.

Developmental education promotes the cognitive and affective growth of all post secondary learners, at ALL LEVELS of the LEARNING CONTINUUM. • Are we promoting cognitive and affective growth of all postsecondary learners, at all levels of the learning continuum?

• Have we lost sight of the goal under placement policy?

NADE DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION GOALS & DEFINITION Developmental Education is a field of practice and research within higher education with a theoretical foundation in developmental psychology and learning theory. It promotes the cognitive and affective growth of all post secondary learners, at all levels of the learning continuum. Developmental Education is sensitive and responsive to the individual differences and special needs among learners. Developmental education programs and services commonly address academic preparedness, diagnostic assessment and placement -affective barriers to learning and development of general and discipline-specific learning strategies.

1.

To preserve and make possible educational opportunity for each post secondary learner.

2.

To develop in each learner the skills and attitudes necessary for the attainment of academic career and life goals.

All students are underprepared at some point on the learning continuum and need support.

3.

To ensure proper placement by assessing each learner's level of preparedness for college course work.

Developmental education does not stop upon acquiring the skills to pass the gateway courses in a program of study. Just as gen-ed competencies exist to ensure that certain competencies are being delivered as the student progresses toward graduation, developmental cognitive and affective skills are needed at many points along the learning continuum. Remember,the goal is completion.

4.

To maintain academic standards by enabling learners to acquire competencies needed for success in mainstream college courses.

5.

To enhance the retention of students.

6. To promote the continued development and application of cognitive and affective learning theory.

85

C HAPTER 8

Intervention Models “Unlocking the Gate” identifies the most promising approaches for revising the structure, curriculum, or delivery of developmental education: strategies that work to improve students’ skills within a compressed time frame or that link remediation to relevant college-level work. These strategies tend to modify pedagogical approaches to fit the programs’ nontraditional structures, and they provide clear opportunities for students to remain on a pathway to reaching their college goals rather than becoming mired in years of remedial work.

S ECTION 1

Intervention Models

Programs that show the greatest benefits with relatively rigorous documentation either mainstream developmental students into collegelevel courses with additional supports, provide modularized or compressed courses to allow remedial students to more quickly complete their developmental work, or offer contextualized remedial education within occupational and vocational programs. These strategies should be prioritized by educators and policymakers and should continue to receive attention from researchers, as none of them have yet been evaluated using an experimental design.”

What are the Acceleration Models?

(Unlocking the Gate, 2011) http://www.mdrc.org/publications/601/full.pdf

Models for Accelerating Students’ Progress Through Developmental Education

Mainstreaming

“Several models exist for accelerating students’ progress through developmental education. With a focus on providing instruction in a shorter time frame, some colleges have developed fast- track courses that compress the developmental education curriculum into several weeks or a half semester, allowing students to pass through multiple levels in a single semester. Alternately, other models focus on offering self-paced instruction through modularized courses. This approach creates multiple mini-courses that focus on particular skill sets rather than offering the whole curriculum in one continuous course; it allows students to strengthen particular weaknesses that they may have in a subject area while bypassing instruction in their areas of strength. A third model relies on the assumption that students who are deemed developmentallevel are capable of the work in college-level courses, given extra assistance or a different curricular approach. This approach of mainstreaming students directly into college-level courses offers supplemental supports, such as tutoring or study skills courses, for the group of students who have greater academic needs. Each of these acceleration models and its accompanying research evidence is discussed below.

“The most promising evidence for mainstreaming developmental-level students into college-level courses comes from the Community College Research Center’s quasi-experimental evaluations of the Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) at Community College of Baltimore County.

When comparing students with similar skill levels and controlling for preexisting characteristics, it was found that students who participated in ALP completed introductory college-level courses, enrolled in and completed additional college English requirements, and attempted college courses at higher rates than non-ALP students.” (Unlocking the Gate) Technology-Aided Approaches to Instruction “Computer-aided instruction poses a number of new avenues for developmental education instruction. Many colleges have integrated technology into developmental courses that have traditional content and curriculum. Computer programs like MyMathLab, Plato, ALEKS, and Math Zone are used to supplement classroom instruction by means of learning assistance centers or individualized tutoring sessions. Similarly, many colleges are using technology to provide online courses, where all learning takes place remotely, via software. More recently, 87

practitioners have used technology to structure accelerated or modularized courses, which aim to help students progress more quickly through developmental education. In these reforms, software tutorial packages are used to help students focus on particular areas of weakness while allowing them to advance more quickly through other areas of strength. Technological packages have an additional advantage in that they are generally adaptive to diverse circumstances or can be preset to create an individualized program of instruction for each student.

While some efforts have been made to evaluate the use of technology in the classroom, little rigorous research exists documenting the effectiveness of these practices in improving developmental education studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; outcomes.â&#x20AC;? (Unlocking the Gate, 2011) http://www.mdrc.org/publications/601/full.pdf

88

S ECTION 2

Professional Development Adjunct or Part-time Faculty Often disconnected from • departmental decision-making and • the piloting of new programmatic strategies.

Developmental Education Instructors Whether they teach full or part time — tend to have limited training in instructing basic skills students.

Developmental and Content Instructors Developmental and content instructors tend to teach as if we have not learned that for what is being learned to transfer to new situations and make related learning deeper and easier to learn the learner needs to

The hardest thing the brain tries to do is unlearn what it has reexposed itself to until it has become automatic.

Developmental education advisors and academic coaches need professional development on how to develop programs that proactively and intrusively ensure that students have a program of study and have contact at every milestone along the way to completion.

Leadership At every level of leadership, it must be understood that significant completion success for their colleges is built on instruction and support of developmental students all the way to completion (certificates and degrees).

All Academic and Student Support Services All academic and student support services need to have an action plan for proactively and intrusively targeting their support within the completion framework for developmental students and especially targeting older returning students, minorities, single mothers and ESL students.

• Develop a deep foundation of factual knowledge • Understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework.

• Organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application Advisors and Academic Coaches

89

C HAPTER 9

Resources

The resources in this paper and the links on the following pages have been specifically selected to reflect the latest thinking about redesigning developmental education.

S ECTION 1

Resources Core Principles on Transforming Developmental Education http://www.completecollege.org/docs/Remediation_Joint_Statement -Embargo.pdf Suppose Model Whitepaper http://developmentalcompletion.pbworks.com/w/file/56564910/Sup pose%20Model%C2%A0%20White%20Paper.docx PRESENT DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION NOT WORKING

Read the testimony. <http://cl.s4.exct.net/?qs=fb524b1e1eeb7ec6a9986df4685d41b1f326b c2b07ecd125609a04b0ce39803d> Learn what your state can do. <http://cl.s4.exct.net/?qs=fb524b1e1eeb7ec6abf8c6559ac8fbc1dfc2fac a49bb31f2343be8d116af2fd8> PLACEMENT Study on College Placement Exams Energizes Debate about Their Effectiveness http://www.jff.org/sites/default/files/ATD_WhereToBegin_073112.p df Why Rethinking Developmental Education is a Priority Read full report

See Suppose Model of Developmental Education www.supposemodel.pbworks.com

Articles i this Issue:

Time is the Enemy

Reassessing the Costs and Benefits of Developmental Education

http://www.completecollege.org/docs/Time_Is_the_Enemy.pdf

Placing Students in Gateway Courses: A More Informed Approach

Remediation The Bridge to Nowhere http://www.completecollege.org/docs/CCA-Remediation-summary.pd f Testimony at Hearing by Stan Jones Watch the hearing. <http://cl.s4.exct.net/?qs=fb524b1e1eeb7ec6ddf6b102b7ea3630d6784 3285251daf48069e3547b260450>

91