Suppose Model Whitepaper

2012

Developmental education and completion cannot be separated. Support at every step along the road to completion (certificates and degrees) is

developmental education and we have to start making the mind shift.

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Suppose Model  Introduction“One of the greatest challenges that community colleges face in their efforts to increase graduation rates is improving the success of students in their developmental, or remedial, education programs — the courses that students without adequate academic preparation must take before they can enroll in courses for college credit. Enrolling over one-third of all postsecondary education students, community colleges have become a centerpiece of America’s efforts in recent years to improve the quality of its work- force and maintain its competitiveness in the global market. However, community colleges have often struggled to graduate their students, with just over three in ten community college students earning a degree or credential within six years of first enrolling.” (Unlocking the GateWhat We Know About Improving Developmental Education, Elizabeth Zachry-Rutschow Emily Schneider, June 2011) “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” (Remediation: The Bridge to Nowhere).  For a completion agenda to be successful, there will have to be major mind shifts:See Appendix M Developmental educators on the Kentucky Association for Developmental Education discussion listserv (KADEKY) have been reviewing the literature and research with the goal of establishing practices and procedures for improving the completion rates  (credentials and degrees) of developmental students.

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Table of Contents      Introduction  2     Senate Bill 1  3     Progress Measurement Metrics 5     Suppose Model 6     Action Steps for Changing Focus 7      Appendix A Placement Instruments 9     Appendix B Advising 11     Appendix C Committing to Programs of Study 15     Appendix D Moving from Sequences of Developmental Classes to Support 18     Appendix E Differentiated Math Pathways 19     Appendix F Co-requisite Support 31     Appendix G Redesign Curriculum 34     Appendix H Expand Functional Definition of Developmental Education 43     Appendix I Improve Faculty Support 45     Appendix J Models of Accelerated Learning  49     Appendix K Unlocking the Gate: Chapter 3  51     Appendix L What about part-timers?  63     Appendix M Completion Agendas Will Require Mind Shifts 66     Appendix N A Look at the Evidence 68 

Completion Related Discussion Topics on the Kentucky Association from Developmental Education discussion listserv (KADEKY)

        What We Were About This Summer 70

Embedding Conceptual Understanding and Differentiated Pathways 72Using the Math Emporium Model 73Contextualizing ESL Nursing Pathway 73Roadmap to Completion Not Just a Developmental Problem 74Placing Developmental Students in Programs of Study 75Mathways and Statway: Research and Hard Questions to Answer 78A Remediation Plan 79Success is Amongst Us 80Common Core Competencies – Text Complexity 82Rigor in Developmental Courses 84The Gaps and Possibilities 85

       Sinclair Community College MAP for Student Success 86       Road Map to Completion 89      Expanding Our Mindset about Developmental Education 90

Colorado Moves Ahead in Reforming Remediation to Increase Completion Rates 91

       Summer Bridge Programs 93        College Readiness Resources 95        MATH Interview with Bill Gates 95

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        Improve Remediation/Not Scrap It 96        Variation of the Emporium Model 97        Certificates: Gateway to Employment 99        A Conceptual Understanding Approach to Support 101        Working Memory, Brain Training and ADHD 105        Co-Requisite Remediation 107        Learning Often Shows Up Later 108        The Affective Domain 108        Statistics Pathway 111        Critical Support 112        Assigned and Intrusive Advising 116        Recapturing Non-Completers 118        More Structure in Picking a Major 120        Time - Choice - Structure 120        Changing the Way We Think - Sandy Shugart 127        Student Focus Groups Reveal Barriers 128        Clarifying the Co-Requisite Math Model 129        More on a Statistics Pathway 130      Accelerated Learning Models and Critical Thinking 133        QEPing Developmental Education Completion135      Metrics that are Barriers 135

Senate Bill 1 

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 Unified Strategy 2Provide targeted interventions for all students who are not college and career ready.  Unified Strategy 4Increase the college completion rates of students entering with one or more developmental or supplemental course needs. Goal 1Increase 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 2All 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. 

Progress Measurement MetricsCohort:  (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).The progression metrics are inadequate: need to include part-time students.See Appendix L

SUPPOSE MODEL

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(The Suppose Model is not an answer; it is a completion model for stimulating thinking about helping developmental students reach completion (certificates and degrees)). 1. Placement assessments based on multiple measures of student preparedness for student’s program of study; current standard placement tests are not predictiveSee Appendix A 2. Assigned developmental advisor and/or education coach to advise, track, and support to completionSee Appendix B 3. Encourage students to commit to programs of study as soon as possible; however, establish “default” programs for students not ready to commitSee Appendix CIn addition, track the certificate and degrees that at least pay off student loans.Appendix D 4. Eliminate sequences of developmental courses and provide support for entry-level coursesEither:• 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• compress courses to allow remedial students to more quickly complete their

developmental work, or

See Appendix E 5. Create statistics, quantitative, and algebra pathways; then place students in pathways most appropriate to prepare them for their chosen programs of study or careersSee Appendix F 6. Expand co-requisite supports for additional college-level courses, not just English and mathConsider 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

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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

See Appendix G 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 pathwaysSee Appendix H 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 continuumSee Appendix I 9.Improve faculty support for developmental and contextualized or co-requisite courses for the transitions aboveSee Appendix J 10. Understand Models for Accelerating Students’ Progress Through Developmental EducationSee Appendix K

Action Steps: What would it take to change the focus to “preparing students for their programs of study, rather than reteaching a full high school curriculum for developmental reading, writing, and math? First, abandon sequences of developmental courses. Too much time is misspent trying to a full-K-12 curriculum rather than the skills and knowledge that prepare students’ for their majors or careers. Second, 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 technology-supported 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 is linked to Sinclair’s Curriculum Management Tool (CMT) to ensure that academic advice is consistent across all advisors and is congruent with current

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academic requirements.Third, 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.) Third, determine relevant skills and knowledge for students’ major and careers (not the full range of skills of a high school curriculum). Fourth, Placement should place students into the gateway courses of the student’s major or career rather then sequences of courses. Gateway courses should be co-registered with co-requisite or other academic support specific to the course, major or career. Fifth, Education and career planning should be fast-tracked and for students who do not have a program of study (major or career pathway), establish a “default program. Sixth, place student in a career pathway co-requisite math.

APPENDIX A - Placement Instruments 

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 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

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http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/pdf/advocacy/arch/The-Completion-Arch-Development-Education-Placement-What-Research-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 college-level 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.

APPENDIX B - Advising

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 Student Focus Groups Reveal Barriers to Community College SuccessBy Caralee Adams on July 16, 2012 9:07 AM Getting through community college is a struggle for millions of students. Balancing work and school is harder than many expected. Many arrive on campus surprised to learn they aren't academically prepared. And, without a clear goal or needed guidance, more often than not, students don't make it to the finish line. To get at the heart of the college-completion challenge, researchers recently spoke directly with students—those currently enrolled in a community college, some who had completed a degree or certificate, and others who had dropped out. The resulting report, Student Voices on the Higher Education Pathway, is part of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Postsecondary Success Initiative, Completion by Design, in partnership with New York City-based Public Agenda and West Ed, a research and development agency. The hope is that effective and sustainable solutions can be identified by keeping students' voices and experiences at the center of reform plans, according to the report. The research that provided the information for it was conducted in March through 15 focus groups of 161 individuals ages 18-29. When asked about factors influencing their college decision, attitudes toward completion, experience with remedial classes, and institutional supports and barriers, five themes emerged: 

1. Students wanted more exposure to career possibilities so that they could make better-informed decisions about the goals they set out to achieve and the steps necessary for success.2. Most believed that the student success and developmental education courses intended to bring them up to speed were not offered in a way that helped them succeed.3. Participants believed that having clear goals, and being in programs with well-defined pathways, gave them a greater chance of persisting, completing, or transferring.4. Advisers, counselors, and faculty members who offer support and guidance that is accurate, accessible, and tailored to students' educational and career goals are in high demand and can be hard to come by.5. Although students know colleges offer a wide range of services, they report that finding the specific information or services is difficult.In addition to the report, a video brings the issue to life through the profiles of several community college students.

 Students talk of their aspirations to go to community college so they could have a career, not just a job. But once at school, reality hits, and many struggle to keep on track. Some mention being exhausted trying to work nearly full time and go to classes. Others talk about being guided in high school, but feeling they were on their

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own in college without adequate guidance for coursework and career goals. Students mention wanting a "road map" to know what to expect and have a focus for their efforts. Policymakers are realizing that listening to students may be part of the answer to improving educational attainment. Other initiatives have focused on high school student voicesand attitudes of students about paying for the cost of college.Later this summer, Public Agenda will be releasing a second report that will include a broader survey of student attitudes toward community college completion and success.http://www.publicagenda.org/pages/student-voices-higher-education-pathway 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. Advising & Coaching (contact and direction to completion) The Community College Survey of Student Engagement tells us that the “connection and direction” component is what students want.

 “What have we learned through the Community College Survey of Student

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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 Unlocking the GateWhat We Know About Improving Developmental Education, Elizabeth Zachry and Rutschow Emily Schneidehttp://www.postsecondaryresearch.org/i/a/document/18000_unlockingFull.pdf 

 Intensive advising, which reduces advisers’ caseloads, allowing them to meet more frequently with students and provide more personalized attention, is another often- recommended intervention, though it can be expensive to implement on a large scale. Student success courses, which teach students study skills and provide an introduction to college life, are also a popular strategy.Orientation (social interaction, not just disseminating information) The Importance of Faculty-Student Contact Outside the Classroom, Joe Cuseohttp://www.ulster.ac.uk/star/resources/faculty_student.pdf

 New-student orientation is a proactive support program, which has its most salutary effects on student retention when it effectively promotes students' social integration or interaction with other members of the college community. In what may be the most methodologically rigorous study of the impact of new-student orientation programs, Pascarella, Terenzini, and Wolfle (1986) controlled for a host of factors, such as students' college-entry test scores, secondary school grades, socioeconomic status, pre-college educational aspirations, and commitment to the college they were attending. While controlling for these potentially confounding variables, they found that orientation did not have a statistically insignificant direct effect on student persistence. However, orientation programs did have a statistically significant indirect effect on student persistence when they promoted first-year students' social integration and subsequent commitment to the institution, because the latter two variables did have positive, statistically significant effects on student persistence. In other words, orientation programs that had a positive effect on student retention were those that promoted students' social integration-through which the orientation's positive effect on retention was mediated. This research suggests that what matters most in new-student orientation is not information

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dissemination or orientation to offices and buildings, but social integration and interaction with people. As Tinto (1993) notes, "Orientation programs frequently fail to provide information in a form which leads new students to establish personal contacts. That is, they often fail to recognize the fact that students' ability and willingness to obtain much-needed information during the course of their academic careers depend upon their having established personal, non-threatening contacts with the persons who provide that information. The key to effective orientation programs, indeed to effective retention programs generally [is] that they go beyond the provision of information per se to the establishment of early contacts for new students" (p. 159). Ongoing Early AlertReading 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: • Attendance, Participation, and Homework (taking self-responsibility for

learning)• Academic Problems (learning problems, underprepardness)• NonAcademic Problems (daycare, transportation, financial aid, personal

problems, etc.)• Disruptive Behavior (is student behavior in a classroom or other learning

environment which disrupts the educational process.)•  Mental Stress (depression, alcohol and drug, suicide, etc.)

APPENDIX C - Committing to Programs of Study 

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 To Improve Completion Rates, Community Colleges Need to Help Students "Get with the Program" NEW YORK, NY (September 7, 2011) — 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. In a newly released study, CCRC tracked more than 62,000 entering students at Washington State community and technical colleges over seven years and found that only about half ever became a program “concentrator” by passing at least three college-level courses in a single field. Students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds were even less likely to enter a program. Overall, less than 30% of entering students completed a certificate or degree or transferred to a four-year institution within seven years. However, success rates were substantially higher—approaching 50%—for students who entered a concentration. An earlier 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%. These findings are significant in light of the low overall completion rates for community college students. Nationally, fewer than 36% of first time community college students earn a credential from a two- or four-year institution within six years. 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. The authors make several recommendations for how community college administrators can encourage program entry among their students. These include

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requiring all first-time college students to take a college success course in which they create an educational plan tied to career goals; offering contextualized remediation instruction that prepares students for particular programmatic pathways; and creating prescribed course sequences for each program, minimizing electives, to help students complete as quickly as possible. http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Publication.asp?uid=967 Provide Co-Requisite Courses Aligned with Programs of StudyMost 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 toolsto 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 soonas possible. Students should make the big choices of programs of study informed withan 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

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students to be considered “unclassified.” Upon enrollment, nudge them into first-year pathways — for example, health, business, liberal arts, or STEM. This ensuresa 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. 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. 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.http://www.completecollege.org/docs/CCA-Remediation-summary.pdf

APPENDIX D - Moving from Sequences of Developmental Classes to Support

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From the Center on Education and the Workforce come research on 171 college majors and earnings: “We’ve always been able to say how much a Bachelor’s degree is worth in general. Now, we show what each Bachelor’s degree major is worth.

The report finds that different undergraduate majors result in very different earnings.” (Anthony P. Carnevale - Jeff Strohl - Michelle Melton, May 24, 2011)

NEW REPORT ON THE ECONOMIC VALUE OF 171 COLLEGE MAJORS LINKS COLLEGE MAJORS TO EARNINGShttp://cew.georgetown.edu/whatsitworth/

Students’ choice of Majors is just as important as decision to get Bachelor’s Degree(Washington, D.C., May, 24, 2011) – On average, Bachelor’s degrees pay off. But a new study confirms that some undergraduate majors pay off a lot more than others. In fact, the difference in earnings potential between one major and another can be more than 300 percent.

Using Census data available for the first time, the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce is helping Americans connect the dots between college majors and career earnings. In the new report, What’s it Worth? The Economic Value of College Majors, this first-time research demonstrates just how critical the choice of major is to a student’s median earnings.

“The bottom line is that getting a degree matters, but what you take matters more,” said Anthony P. Carnevale, the Center’s director. The new report analyses 171 majors in 15 categories. It tracks earnings by majors and provides key break outs on questions of race/ethnicity and the gender differences in earnings.

The report finds that majors are highly segregated by race/ethnicity and gender, with few exceptions. White men are concentrated in the highest-earning majors, while women tend to be concentrated in the lowest-earning majors.

APPENDIX E - Differentiated Math Pathways 

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 Remediation Doesn’t WorkThe intentions were noble. It was hoped that remediation programs would be an academic bridge from poor high school preparation to college readiness — a grand idea inspired by our commitment to expand access to all who seek a college degree.Sadly, remediation has become instead higher education’s “Bridge to Nowhere.” This broken remedial bridge is travelled by some 1.7 million beginning students each year, most of whom will not reach their destination — graduation.1 It is estimated that states and students spent more than $3 billion on remedial courses last year with very little student success to show for it. While more students must be adequately prepared for college, this current remediation system is broken. The very structure of remediation is engineered for failure. To fix this, we must first commit ourselves to close every possible exit ramp. By doing so, we will eliminate all opportunities to lose students along the way, saving precious time and money. Remediation is a classic case of system failure: Dropout ExIt Ramp #1:Too many students start in remediation.More than 50 percent of students entering two-year colleges and nearly 20 percent of those entering four-year universities are placed in remedial classes.Frustrated about their placement into remediation, thousands who were accepted into college never show up for classes. With so many twists and turns, the road ahead doesn’t seem to lead to graduation.Can an “open access” college be truly open access if it denies so many access to its college-level courses? Dropout ExIt Ramp #2:Remediation doesn’t work.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.http://www.completecollege.org/docs/CCA-Remediation-summary.pdf  Time is the EnemyThe BIG Idea: Time is the enemy of college completion. These historic data have revealed a common thread — and an animating principle to guide our work to boost college graduation: The longer it takes, the more life gets in the way of success.

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 More students are working, and they are working more hours than ever before. Manycan afford to attend only part-time, extending the years until they graduate. 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. All of this adds up to more and more time.As the clock runs and the calendar turns, weall 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. Consider these findings: 

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.

 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.

 Poor students and students of color struggle the most to graduate. Even though more of these students than ever before are enrolling in college, too few end up with certificates or degrees. Given changing demographics, our country will simply not be economically competitive if these students don’t succeed.

 Students are taking too many credits and too much time to complete. Excessive course-taking is slowing down progress to certificates and degrees. And students are spending too much time in school.

 Remediation is broken, producing few students who ultimately graduate. Sadly, efforts intended to catch students up are most often leaving them behind.

 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.

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 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.

 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.

 The current remediation system is broken; too n many students start in remedial courses and neverearn a credential of any kind. Colleges need to: 

Divert students from traditional remedial n programs — they aren’t working.

 Mainstream as many students as possible into college-level courses. Provide co-requisite and embedded support for those needing extra help.

 Intensify instruction and minimize the time necessary to prepare students for entry into college-level courses.

 Eliminate the many exit points where students are lost by either not passing or not enrolling in courses.

 Provide alternative pathways to a career certificate or career-related credential for students with major academic weaknesses.

 Answer the fundamental question — is what’s being taught in developmental education what students really need? It’s time to revisit both the structure and goals of remedial math. Math should be a gateway, not a gatekeeper, to successful college and everyday life. Reading and writing should be integrated.

 

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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  REFERRAL, ENROLLMENT, AND COMPLETION IN DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION SEQUENCES IN COMMUNITY COLLEGES, Thomas Bailey Dong Wook Jeong Sung-Woo Cho, December 2008, CCRC Working Paper No. 15 AbstractAfter being assessed, many students entering community colleges are referred to one or more levels of developmental education. While the need to assist students with weak academic skills is well known, little research has examined student progression through multiple levels of developmental education and into entry-level college courses. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the patterns and determinants of student progression through sequences of developmental education starting from initial referral. We rely primarily on a micro-level longitudinal dataset that includes detailed information about student progression through developmental education. This dataset was collected as part of the national community college initiative Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count. The dataset has many advantages, but it is not nationally representative; therefore, we check our results against a national dataset— the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988. Our results indicate that only 3 to 4 out of 10 students who are referred to remediation actually complete the entire sequence to which they are referred. Most students exit in the beginning of their developmental sequence—almost half fail to complete the first course in their sequence. The results also show that more students exit their developmental sequences because they did not enroll in the first or a subsequent course than because they failed a course in which they were enrolled. We also show that men, older students, Black students, part-time students, and students in vocational programs are less likely to progress through their full remedial sequences. Finally, we provide weaker evidence that some institutional characteristics are related to a lower probability of completion of developmental education. ConclusionIn this article we have focused attention on the sequence of developmental courses. What does the concept of a sequence help us learn? First of all, a focus on the sequence makes immediately clear the daunting task confronting many of the nearly two thirds of all community college students who are referred to developmental education at least in one area. Students arriving with weak academic skills can face semesters of work before they can in effect start college—at least in relevant areas. This developmental “obstacle course” presents students with many opportunities to step out of their sequences, and students in

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large numbers take those opportunities. Between one third and two fifths of students referred to remediation complete their sequences. Among students referred to math remediation three or more levels below college-level—fully one fifth of all students in the more than 250,000 students in the Achieving the Dream sample—only 16 percent completed their math sequences within 3 years, and fewer than 10 percent of that group passed a college- level math course within that period.Moreover, colleges tend to lose their developmental students early in the sequence. About one half of all students in the sample referred to developmental education failed to finish the first course in their sequence. And failure to complete the first course to which they were referred marked the end of the college experience for many students (at least for the three-year period for which we tracked students). More than one third of all students who did not finish the first developmental course in their sequence never enrolled in a college course in a subsequent semester at their initial college within three years. For students assigned to remediation three or more levels below college-level in both math and reading, the share who never enrolled in another course rises to more than two fifths. Analysis of developmental sequences also makes clear that many students who exit their sequences do so even though they have passed all of the courses in which they enrolled. More students leave their sequences because they did not enroll either in their first or a subsequent remedial course than because they failed a course in which they were enrolled. This pattern extends into the first college-level course: among developmental completers in the sample, those who enrolled in a gatekeeper course had a good chance of passing it, but about 30 percent did not enroll in such a course within the three-year period of the study. Our analyses of the individual and institutional characteristics that are related to successful student progression through developmental education reinforce some conclusions that apply to community college student success in general. We found that men, Black students, occupational students, and students attending part time had a lower probability of progressing through their sequences than women, White students, academic students, and full-time students. Differentiating between the various transition points within developmental sequences reveals some interesting insights. First, Black students with very weak academic skills—those referred to remediation two or three or more levels below college-level—were particularly at risk of exiting their sequences. Likewise, for those students with very weak math skills, also having weak reading skills was particularly problematic for getting through their first developmental math course. Generally, older students had a lower probability of completing their sequences, but for math, the advantage for younger students only emerges for students referred to the highest- level remedial course. This may indicate that younger students at the higher end of the developmental range may simply need some review to catch up, while older students, who are further away from their high school math experience, may face deeper problems. 

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Some institutional factors show some relationship to progression at some points in the sequences, but individual characteristics have a stronger relationship to outcomes than do institutional characteristics. The dominance of individual characteristics is also revealed in analyses of community college graduation rates (Calcagno, Bailey, Jenkins, Kienzl, & Leinbach, 2007). Although this seems to suggest that colleges have little effect on developmental outcomes, the institutional variables available from IPEDS for this analysis do not include information on the types of programs and policies such as pedagogic approaches, counseling strategies, or innovative ways of organizing remediation that we would like to have been able to test. But this analysis of remedial sequences does suggest three broad implications for college practice. First, for one half of students referred to developmental education, colleges are not succeeding in getting those students through their developmental sequences and successfully through the first relevant college-level course. Given that, it is not surprising that evaluations find that “developmental education,” defined as either having been referred to or having enrolled in any developmental course, has little effect. Colleges are not holding on to students long enough for the remedial “treatment” to have an influence. Given these low completion rates, community colleges in general need to consider fundamental changes in their approaches to remediation—modest improvements will not solve much of the problem. Second, colleges lose their developmental students early in the sequences, in many cases, before they enroll in the first course. This suggests a need for a major effort to counsel and guide students perhaps even before their initial assessment. Many strategies are now being used to strengthen the early experience of community college students. These include “student success” courses or learning communities for first-year students. Contextualized developmental courses that quickly connect remedial instruction to a student’s occupational interests also seem promising. Alternatively, a college might offer students an opportunity to take appropriately designed occupational courses before subjecting them to remedial instruction. Yet many potential students may become discouraged or lost before they even get a chance to be influenced by first semester initiatives. Policies that reach back to students in high school, such as early warning testing to make clear to students the academic deficiencies that they have, dual enrollment programs to acclimate students to college, and intensive summer pre- college programs to solidify students’ commitment to college and to quickly push them past initial roadblocks, all seem like promising programs. Third, we have emphasized that more students fail to complete developmental sequences because they never enroll in their first or a subsequent course than because they drop out of or fail to pass a course in which they are enrolled. This insight suggests a wide variety of possible approaches. Certainly the types of initiatives suggested above in our discussion of the early and pre-college experience

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would be helpful here. In addition, perhaps colleges should combine two or three levels of instruction into one longer, more intensive course. At the very least, concerted efforts should be made to encourage students who complete one course in their sequence to go on to the next. This might involve abandoning the semester schedule to prevent gaps between courses, or registering and scheduling students for the next course in a sequence while they are still in the previous course. An additional approach might involve enrolling more upper-level developmental students directly into college-level courses and using the resources saved by having fewer developmental courses to provide extra help or tutoring or perhaps supplemental instruction in the college-level course. As it stands now, developmental education sequences must appear confusing, intimidating, and boring to many students entering community colleges. And so far, developmental education has at best shown limited success. But if the nation is to increase its college-educated workforce, it will have to do so by strengthening the skills of the millions of students in community college developmental programs. That progress can only be made if we understand, simplify, and improve the complex developmental sequences that confront so many students.http://www.jchea.org/summits/Math/2009docs/SupportingResearch/ReferralEnrollmentCompletionDevEd.pdf Unlocking the GateWhat We Know About Improving Developmental Education, Elizabeth Zachry Rutschow Emily Schneider, June 2011 Executive SummaryEnrolling over one-third of all postsecondary education students, community colleges have become a centerpiece of America’s efforts in recent years to improve the quality of its work- force and maintain its competitiveness in the global market. However, community colleges have often struggled to graduate their students, with just over three in ten community college students earning a degree or credential within six years of first enrolling.2Over half of these students are academically underprepared for college-level work, and improving the success of these developmental, or remedial, students is one of the greatest challenges that community colleges face in the efforts to increase overall graduation rates –– very few of these students end up completing their required sequence of developmental coursework needed to enroll in college-level courses, let alone graduating from college with a diploma or certificate.http://www.postsecondaryresearch.org/i/a/document/18000_unlockingFull.pdf  From New York TImesIS ALGEBRA NECESSARY? By ANDREW HACKERA TYPICAL American school day finds some six million high school students and two million college freshmen struggling with algebra. In both high school and college, all

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too many students are expected to fail. Why do we subject American students to this ordeal? I’ve found myself moving toward the strong view that we shouldn’t. My question extends beyond algebra and applies more broadly to the usual mathematics sequence, from geometry through calculus. State regents and legislators — and much of the public — take it as self-evident that every young person should be made to master polynomial functions and parametric equations. There are many defenses of algebra and the virtue of learning it. Most of them sound reasonable on first hearing; many of them I once accepted. But the more I examine them, the clearer it seems that they are largely or wholly wrong — unsupported by research or evidence, or based on wishful logic. (I’m not talking about quantitative skills, critical for informed citizenship and personal finance, but a very different ballgame.) This debate matters. Making mathematics mandatory prevents us from discovering and developing young talent. In the interest of maintaining rigor, we’re actually depleting our pool of brainpower. I say this as a writer and social scientist whose work relies heavily on the use of numbers. My aim is not to spare students from a difficult subject, but to call attention to the real problems we are causing by misdirecting precious resources. The toll mathematics takes begins early. To our nation’s shame, one in four ninth graders fail to finish high school. In South Carolina, 34 percent fell away in 2008-9, according to national data released last year; for Nevada, it was 45 percent. Most of the educators I’ve talked with cite algebra as the major academic reason. Shirley Bagwell, a longtime Tennessee teacher, warns that “to expect all students to master algebra will cause more students to drop out.” For those who stay in school, there are often “exit exams,” almost all of which contain an algebra component. In Oklahoma, 33 percent failed to pass last year, as did 35 percent in West Virginia. Algebra is an onerous stumbling block for all kinds of students: disadvantaged and affluent, black and white. In New Mexico, 43 percent of white students fell below “proficient,” along with 39 percent in Tennessee. Even well-endowed schools have otherwise talented students who are impeded by algebra, to say nothing of calculus and trigonometry. California’s two university systems, for instance, consider applications only from students who have taken three years of mathematics and in that way exclude many applicants who might excel in fields like art or history. Community college students face an equally prohibitive mathematics wall. A study of two-year schools found that fewer than a quarter of their entrants passed the algebra classes they were required to take. “There are students taking these courses three, four, five times,” says Barbara

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Bonham of Appalachian State University. While some ultimately pass, she adds, “many drop out.”Another dropout statistic should cause equal chagrin. Of all who embark on higher education, only 58 percent end up with bachelor’s degrees. The main impediment to graduation: freshman math. The City University of New York, where I have taught since 1971, found that 57 percent of its students didn’t pass its mandated algebra course. The depressing conclusion of a faculty report: “failing math at all levels affects retention more than any other academic factor.” A national sample of transcripts found mathematics had twice as many F’s and D’s compared as other subjects. Nor will just passing grades suffice. Many colleges seek to raise their status by setting a high mathematics bar. Hence, they look for 700 on the math section of the SAT, a height attained in 2009 by only 9 percent of men and 4 percent of women. And it’s not just Ivy League colleges that do this: at schools like Vanderbilt, Rice and Washington University in St. Louis, applicants had best be legacies or athletes if they have scored less than 700 on their math SATs. It’s true that students in Finland, South Korea and Canada score better on mathematics tests. But it’s their perseverance, not their classroom algebra, that fits them for demanding jobs. Nor is it clear that the math we learn in the classroom has any relation to the quantitative reasoning we need on the job. John P. Smith III, an educational psychologist at Michigan State University who has studied math education, has found that “mathematical reasoning in workplaces differs markedly from the algorithms taught in school.” Even in jobs that rely on so-called STEM credentials — science, technology, engineering, math — considerable training occurs after hiring, including the kinds of computations that will be required. Toyota, for example, recently chose to locate a plant in a remote Mississippi county, even though its schools are far from stellar. It works with a nearby community college, which has tailored classes in “machine tool mathematics.” That sort of collaboration has long undergirded German apprenticeship programs. I fully concur that high-tech knowledge is needed to sustain an advanced industrial economy. But we’re deluding ourselves if we believe the solution is largely academic. A skeptic might argue that, even if our current mathematics education discourages large numbers of students, math itself isn’t to blame. Isn’t this discipline a critical part of education, providing quantitative tools and honing conceptual abilities that are indispensable — especially in our high tech age? In fact, we hear it argued that we have a shortage of graduates with STEM credentials. Of course, people should learn basic numerical skills: decimals, ratios and estimating, sharpened by a good grounding in arithmetic. But a definitive analysis

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by the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce forecasts that in the decade ahead a mere 5 percent of entry-level workers will need to be proficient in algebra or above. And if there is a shortage of STEM graduates, an equally crucial issue is how many available positions there are for men and women with these skills. A January 2012 analysis from the Georgetown center found 7.5 percent unemployment for engineering graduates and 8.2 percent among computer scientists. Peter Braunfeld of the University of Illinois tells his students, “Our civilization would collapse without mathematics.” He’s absolutely right. Algebraic algorithms underpin animated movies, investment strategies and airline ticket prices. And we need people to understand how those things work and to advance our frontiers. Quantitative literacy clearly is useful in weighing all manner of public policies, from the Affordable Care Act, to the costs and benefits of environmental regulation, to the impact of climate change. Being able to detect and identify ideology at work behind the numbers is of obvious use. Ours is fast becoming a statistical age, which raises the bar for informed citizenship. What is needed is not textbook formulas but greater understanding of where various numbers come from, and what they actually convey. What of the claim that mathematics sharpens our minds and makes us more intellectually adept as individuals and a citizen body? It’s true that mathematics requires mental exertion. But there’s no evidence that being able to prove (x² + y²)² = (x² - y²)² + (2xy)² leads to more credible political opinions or social analysis. Many of those who struggled through a traditional math regimen feel that doing so annealed their character. This may or may not speak to the fact that institutions and occupations often install prerequisites just to look rigorous — hardly a rational justification for maintaining so many mathematics mandates. Certification programs for veterinary technicians require algebra, although none of the graduates I’ve met have ever used it in diagnosing or treating their patients. Medical schools like Harvard and Johns Hopkins demand calculus of all their applicants, even if it doesn’t figure in the clinical curriculum, let alone in subsequent practice. Mathematics is used as a hoop, a badge, a totem to impress outsiders and elevate a profession’s status. It’s not hard to understand why Caltech and M.I.T. want everyone to be proficient in mathematics. But it’s not easy to see why potential poets and philosophers face a lofty mathematics bar. Demanding algebra across the board actually skews a student body, not necessarily for the better. I WANT to end on a positive note. Mathematics, both pure and applied, is integral to our civilization, whether the realm is aesthetic or electronic. But for most adults, it is

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more feared or revered than understood. It’s clear that requiring algebra for everyone has not increased our appreciation of a calling someone once called “the poetry of the universe.” (How many college graduates remember what Fermat’s dilemma was all about?) Instead of investing so much of our academic energy in a subject that blocks further attainment for much of our population, I propose that we start thinking about alternatives. Thus mathematics teachers at every level could create exciting courses in what I call “citizen statistics.” This would not be a backdoor version of algebra, as in the Advanced Placement syllabus. Nor would it focus on equations used by scholars when they write for one another. Instead, it would familiarize students with the kinds of numbers that describe and delineate our personal and public lives. It could, for example, teach students how the Consumer Price Index is computed, what is included and how each item in the index is weighted — and include discussion about which items should be included and what weights they should be given. This need not involve dumbing down. Researching the reliability of numbers can be as demanding as geometry. More and more colleges are requiring courses in “quantitative reasoning.” In fact, we should be starting that in kindergarten. I hope that mathematics departments can also create courses in the history and philosophy of their discipline, as well as its applications in early cultures. Why not mathematics in art and music — even poetry — along with its role in assorted sciences? The aim would be to treat mathematics as a liberal art, making it as accessible and welcoming as sculpture or ballet. If we rethink how the discipline is conceived, word will get around and math enrollments are bound to rise. It can only help. Of the 1.7 million bachelor’s degrees awarded in 2010, only 15,396 — less than 1 percent — were in mathematics. I’ve observed a host of high school and college classes, from Michigan to Mississippi, and have been impressed by conscientious teaching and dutiful students. I’ll grant that with an outpouring of resources, we could reclaim many dropouts and help them get through quadratic equations. But that would misuse teaching talent and student effort. It would be far better to reduce, not expand, the mathematics we ask young people to imbibe. (That said, I do not advocate vocational tracks for students considered, almost always unfairly, as less studious.) Yes, young people should learn to read and write and do long division, whether they want to or not. But there is no reason to force them to grasp vectorial angles and discontinuous functions. Think of math as a huge boulder we make everyone pull, without assessing what all this pain achieves. So why require it, without alternatives or exceptions? Thus far I haven’t found a compelling answer. Andrew Hacker is an emeritus professor of political science at Queens College, City

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University of New York, and a co-author of “Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids — and What We Can Do About It

APPENDIX F - Co-requisite Support 

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 New Mathways Project touted in The Gilmer Mirrorhttp://www.gilmermirror.com/view/full_story/18580841/article-New-Mathways-Project-touted

  “The traditional developmental math sequence in most colleges is designed to prepare all students for Calculus. But there is increasing awareness that only students majoring in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics  (STEM) require Calculus. The vast majority of students would be better prepared for their careers in business, nursing, teaching, and other liberal arts degrees by taking courses that prepare them to use and interpret data, understand finances, and to understand and use the quantitative information. These students will have a choice of courses in Statistics or Quantitative Literacy. Students in STEM programs will be served by a redesigned course sequence to prepare the students that need Calculus.”

 “Faculty at community colleges do beautiful work to improve their local developmental education and broader mathematics programs, but it is unlikely that solutions to the problem of upward mobility through mathematics will come about by scaling these local innovations,” said Uri Treisman, Executive Director of the Dana Center.“We need systemic solutions to the problems of community college mathematics, and those need to build on the good insights of people working to improve their local programs.” Remediation for Remedial Math, Inside Higher Education May 9, 2012 - 3:00am, By Mitch Smith http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/05/09/texas-community-colleges-reinvent-developmental-math

 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. Texas Community Colleges Redo Remedial Math 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. 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 ight take classes in statistics or quantitative reasoning, subsets of math that could prove

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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.” Two Texas community colleges in El Paso and Houston have piloted Carnegie’s Statways. This fall, six or seven colleges will offer the statistics program and it’s expected to be at all 50 of the state’s community colleges by fall 2013. The quantitative reasoning program and a reimagined algebra-based remediation will be rolled out in subsequent years, first in small batches and then statewide. http://communitycollegespotlight.org/tags/mathways/ The New Mathways Project: Implementation Guide The traditional developmental math sequence in most colleges is designed to prepare all students for Calculus. But there is increasing awareness that only students majoring in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) require Calculus. The vast majority of students would be better prepared for their careers in business, nursing, teaching, and other liberal arts degrees by taking courses in that prepare them to use and interpret data, understand finances, and to understand and use the quantitative information. These students will have a choice of courses in Statistics or Quantitative Literacy. Students in STEM programs will be served by a redesigned course sequence to prepare the students that need Calculus.http://www.tacc.org/documents/NewMathwaysRelease.pdf  Here are some basic features of the New Mathways Project:• A Quantitative Literacy pathway (developmental math and credit-bearing

quantitative literacy course).• A Statistics pathway (developmental math and credit-bearing introductory

statistics course).• STEM pathway (developmental math and prep courses leading up to calculus I).• Student Success course (putting current research in to practice).

The Dana Center created this implementation guide to support institutions preparing for significant redesign of developmental and gateway college- level‐ mathematics programs based on the principles of the New Mathways Project as described below. It outlines general steps in approaching systemic reform. While the Dana Center prepared this guide with the needs of the New Mathways Project in mind, it can be applied to any major reform effort. The Dana Center offers this guide

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as a service to the field.The New Mathways Project (NMP) is the Dana Center’s vision for a systemic approach to improving student success and completion through implementation of processes, strategies, and structures built around three mathematics pathways and a supporting student success course.The Accelerated Pathways, which are designed for students who have completed Arithmetic or are placed at a Beginning Algebra level. The term accelerated refers to the fact that these pathways allow students to complete their college- credit courses‐ more quickly than the traditional sequences. The three pathways have a common first course—a quantitative- literacy-‐ based course that introduces and prepares‐ students for college- level math. Students take this course along with the mandatory‐ co- requisite student success course.‐As a part of the student success course, students learn about the three pathways in relation to different careers and programs of study. Students declare a major, create a completion plan, and register for courses with the support of their instructors and advisors. Students end their first semester not only prepared for their next math course but with an understanding of how that course fits with their overall academic and career goals.Upon completion of the first- semester course, students in the Quantitative Literacy‐ and Statistics Pathways move on to the specialized pathway course in which they earn transferable college credit. Students in the STEM Pathway enter into a two-‐course sequence that prepares them for Calculus. Students earn transferable college credit in the second STEM course.http://www.utdanacenter.org/mathways/downloads/new-mathways-implementation-2012april16.pdf 

APPENDIX G - Redesign Curriculum 

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 Accelerating the Academic Achievement of Students Referred to Developmental Education, Nikki Edgecombe, February 2011 http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Publication.asp?UID=867 AbstractAcceleration, 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

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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). Policymakers 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 EducationFor 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 content (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

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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.I will pull one example of curricular redesign – 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 ContextualizationMainstreaming 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 simultaneous 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

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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 OutcomesMainstreaming 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 non-ALP 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 high-performing 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 curriculum 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 lower-achieving students of color in the accelerated track. The new accelerated math curriculum was implemented at the

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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 Readiness Continuum: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 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).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-issue-brief-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,

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andthe 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.

 Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training 

I-Best, Bridge Programs, and Contextualized Curriculahttp://www.ncwe.org/resource/resmgr/workforce_dev_reports/how_ibest_works.pdf

 Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-BEST)is an innovative program and strategy developed bythe Washington (WA) State Board for Communityand Technical Colleges (SBCTC) in conjunction withthe 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 Opportunityhttp://kctcs.edu/News%20and%20Events/newsItem?id=%7B0CD6BA71-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

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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 co-requisite 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 StateUniversity 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 individual areas of weakness. As a result, twice as many remedial students are passing their initial college-level math courses. Texas: Texas State University-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.pdf CONTEXTUALIZATION and Co-Requisite Courses CONTEXTUALIZATION Breaking Through: Contextualization Toolkithttp://www.jff.org/sites/default/files/BT_toolkit_June7.pdf Breaking Through Practice Guidehttp://www.jff.org/sites/default/files/BT_Documentation_June7.pdf The Breaking Through Practice Guide - JFF, Spring 2010

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http://www.jff.org/publications/education/breaking-through-practice-guide/1059 I-Best, Bridge Programs, and Contextualized Curriculahttp://www.ncwe.org/?page=ibest All Learning is Learning: Contextual Approaches to Developmental Education – Speech by Dolores Perin, James Jacobs & Elaine DeLott Baker - 03/2008.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/2011/07/22/0091552111416227.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  Contextualized Teaching & Learning: A Faculty Primer - A Review of Literature and Faculty Practices with Implications for California Community College Practitioners - Spring 2009http://www.careerladdersproject.org/docs/CTL.pdf Contextual Learning in Adult Education, - Imel - 2000http://www.calpro-online.org/eric/docs/pab00021.pdf Teaching Math Contextuallyhttp://www.cord.org/uploadedfiles/Teaching_Math_Contextually.pdf Contextualization, by Perin, 2011http://occrl.illinois.edu/files/Projects/shifting_gears/Presentation/Perin-CCRC.pdf CO-REQUISITE COURSES  Transform Remediation: The Co-Requisite Course Modelhttp://www.completecollege.org/docs/CCA%20Co-Req%20Model%20-%20Transform%20Remediation%20for%20Chicago%20final(1).pdf Co-requisite Modelhttp://gettingpastgo.org/blog/2011/03/21/co-requisite-model/ Co-requisite Remediationhttp://www.completecollege.org/docs/CCA%20Policy%20Deck%20Remediation

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%20Final%209-21-11.pdf Enhanced Mathematics—A Co-requisite Approach to Developmental Mathematicshttp://www.aascu.org/programs/ie/SubmissionDetails.aspx?id=4195 Remediation: the Bridge to Nowherehttp://www.edpath.com/remedialeducation.html Transform Remediationhttp://www.completecollege.org/docs/CCA%20Essential%20Steps%20Remediation%20Sept%202011.pdf

 

APPENDIX H - Expand Functional Definition of Developmental Education 

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 See: 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-issue-brief-1-june2012.pdf KEY!!! “At the Core of the Conversation: 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.” (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 makeoverhttp://www.ted.com/talks/dan_meyer_math_curriculum_makeover.html Also see: Webinar: Introduction of the New Mathways Projecthttp://www.utdanacenter.org/mathways/webinar/index.php My Notes on Conceptual Understanding – Dan KestersonInstructional Focus: Conceptual Understanding  - refers to an “integrated and functional” grasp of ideas. Paraphrasing David Conley, developing rigor in a discipline content course would involve helping learners be aware that a given discipline content course consists of certain “big ideas” (theories and concepts) that are used in order to structure all of the detail that often overwhelms them and can help build mental scaffolds (conceptual frameworks) that lead to thinking like a scientist in the discipline content course. Short of this, learning becomes fragmented and isolated which interferes with transfer. “Contrary to popular belief learning basic facts is not a prerequisite for creative thinking and problem solving -- it's the other way around. Once you grasp the big concepts around a subject, good thinking

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will lead you to the important facts”. (John Bransford) A conceptual framework is a group of concepts that are broadly defined and systematically organized to provide a focus, a rationale, and a tool for integrating and interpretation of information. This provides the big picture for learning, making associations, and making interconnections between new information and prior knowledge, which is the foundation of constructing meaning. A reading instruction comparison:Research: “The comprehension of written texts is an extraordinarily complex process. Earlier research on reading comprehension focused on sets of discrete skills (i.e. getting the main idea, getting the facts, making inferences) or on the products of comprehension (i.e. what readers understood after reading). This research provided useful foundations for our current understandings, but did not address the more basic questions of what readers actively did while trying to get the main idea of a text or make inferences based upon the reading. The ability to comprehend written texts is not a static or fixed ability, but rather one that involves a dynamic relationship between the demands of texts and the prior knowledge and goals of readers. It is precisely because of these dynamic relationships that the teaching of reading in the academic disciplines is so crucial. This reality has important implications for both teaching and assessment” (Carnegie, 2010). This is not a new finding; however, reading course competencies, reading instruction, reading textbooks, and faculty reading education still predominately focus on discrete skills rather than the integrated mental process that readers need to be engaging in when trying to develop conceptual understanding when reading. The result is a tremendous amount of time is spent on misdirected reading instruction, which could have been spent on mental processes of constructing conceptual understanding. Why a Differentiated Math PathwayThere are students who want to advance through programs and degrees that will ask of them to be able to think with the math they are learning. That is where differentiated math pathways come in. http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309070368

APPEMDIX I - Improve Faculty Support 

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 Envisioning the Future of Developmental Education: Building on the Evidence – Dan Kesterson(The Goal is Completion: completion for developmental students is not just a developmental education problem to be solved; it is a System and colleges problem to be solved- developmental education is broader than placement policy; it is systemic with ramifications for every facet of our institutions.) We will not succeed by proceeding timidly with boutique changes. We must treat causes, not symptoms. (As always, different evidence-based options are valued.) Developmental education should turn to valuing the development of deep levels of conceptual understanding in our students aligned with majors and careers. It is conceptual understanding is the most important goal for reading, writing, and math students. This means abandoning many of our old curriculums and new initiatives or embedding them within the larger framework (differentiated reading, writing and math pathways aligned with the student’ major or career). The Big Shift in Developmental Education MathEarly college mathematics, whether it is developmental or college-level, 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) ReadingDevelopmental reading should focus on preparing students for their programs of study, not on reteaching a full K-12 curriculum. WritingDevelopmental writing should focus on writing to learn and communicating aligned with the students’ majors or careers, which immediately engage with applications and contexts of the major or career. – not waiting for ENG 101 or college-level course, but co-requisite support for both. Align Application and Contexts with College Level CoursesIn 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 CareersIn 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):

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 1. Get students to commit to programs of study ASAP. Using placement scores, high school transcripts, and predictive toolsto 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 soonas possible. Students should make the big choices of programs of study informed withan 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.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 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. (Remediation: The Bridge to Nowhere) Go for Depth Not BreathInstead of reteaching a full secondary school math and reading curriculum, students learn with understanding, focusing on relatively few skills and concepts but treating them in depth related and aligned with their majors and careers. Treating ideas in depth includes presenting each concept from multiple points of view and in progressively more sophisticated contexts. What are the skills and knowledge that students need to learn concepts in the majors and careers? Expanding the Concept of Developmental Education – Dan Kesterson I want expand the conversation on prior knowledge to include a very neglected area of developmental education. When we refer to developmental education, we typically refer to education under placement policy; however, that can result in neglect at all the transition stages of our college students toward graduation. Kentucky colleges, especially KCTCS and its colleges have a renewed and invested

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interest in retention, persistence, transfer, and graduation. If we are to succeed, we have to take a broader view of developmental education to include all students. Developmental education springs from developmental psychology and provides a framework for broadening our work to ward student success. Joe Cuseo’s definition, which parallels the National Association of Developmental Education (NADE) is meeting the needs of students through programs that are delivered in a timely, longitudinal sequence that meets student needs and educational challenges which emerge at different stages of the college experience.” That refers to all students, all the time where needs and educational challenges arise.http://www.nade.net/ Content CoursesWe have been discussing learning how to help students under placement policy use prior knowledge to construct meaning and make that meaning useful – can think, reason, and solve problems. However, there is another subpopulation that needs the same mental processes to succeed. That subpopulation is all the students in content courses, especially the entry-level courses. For this conversation, I will narrow down the subpopulation even further – the entry-level courses most taken by first-time freshmen. Sandy Shugart, president of Valencia Community College, which has the highest graduation rates in the nation, tells us that almost all first-time freshmen take five specific entry-level courses. At Jefferson, five entry-level courses most taken by first-time freshmen, other than ENG 101, are 110PY, 104HIS, 101SOC, 112BIO, and 181COM. What if we expanded our concept of developmental education as defined above and tapped each college’s five most taken entry-level courses by first-time freshmen and began developing programs around the academic affairs needs of students in a systematic way that included student services and support. Integrating Academic and Student AffairsThis is where we must begin to build integrated student services and support and professional development. This is where we have to start to build programs that are delivered in a timely, longitudinal sequence that meets student  (all student) needs and educational challenges which emerge at different stages of the college experience in very systematic ways. Isolated efforts will never enable us to reach our goals of retention, persistence transfer and graduation. Let me quote John Roueche, “If colleges are totally committed to being successful with at-risk students, they must be prepared to think holistically... stand-alone services or classes---no matter how successful in helping at-risk students---will not achieve a college's larger goal of retaining these students and helping them achieve their own goals of improved performance and academic success." (Roueche) Back to Prior KnowledgeColleges across the nation have tried reading across the curriculum and writing across the curriculum campaigns and most slowly fade away. Why, the concept is right on target. This is just an opinion, but for the most part these efforts focus on duplicating reading and writing classes in the entry-level course. What is need are the skills that the content course instructor needs when they need it and a deeper

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understanding that we are talking about developing Gen Ed competencies that not only result in a students having these competencies when they graduate, but having developed competencies to succeed on their way to graduation. Prior knowledge and strategies for helping the student use prior knowledge is foundation to all the Gen Ed competencies – reading to comprehend, writing, information literacy, critical thinking, etc. The content instructor has content to teach, but that content is not without the context of “organization that reflects the logic of the discipline represented or patterns that dominate the thinking in the field” (Caverly). That logic and those patterns are only understood in deep and meaningful ways when tied to the students’ prior knowledge. Most content instructors need help in moving beyond the content to the underlying thinking that enable students to make their learning useful. Let’s use the words of Bass and Eynon to reinforce this thought. “What are the “intermediate processes,” the steps in the learning process that are often invisible but critical to development. All too often in education, we are focused only on final products: the final exam, the grade, the perfect research paper, mastery of a subject. But how do we get students from here to there? What are the intermediate stages that help students develop the skills and habits of master learners in our disciplines? What kinds of scaffolding enable students to move forward, step by step? How do we, as educators, recognize and support the slow process of progressively deepening students’ abilities to think like historians and scholars?” (Randy Bass and Bret Eynon (2009), Capturing the Visible Evidence of Invisible Learning.) All instructors must become instructors of cognitive strategies and habits of mind at every level if we are to achieve our goals for retention, persistence, transfer, and graduation. Let me leave you with these findings by Bransford Transfer: People's abilities to transfer what they have learned depends upon a number of factors. Among them is:Knowledge that is taught in a variety of contexts is more likely to support flexible transfer than knowledge that is taught in a single context. Information can become "context-bound" when taught with context-specific examples. When material is taught in multiple contexts, people are more likely to extract the relevant features of the concepts and develop a more flexible representation of knowledge that can be used more generally. (Brandford, How People Learn)

APPENDIX J - Models of Accelerated Learning 

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 (The steps below for designing a contextualized learning program or course also apply to designing co-requisite courses.) THE BREAKING THROUGH PRACTICE GUIDE IS DESIGNED FOR PRACTITIONERS WHO WANT TOCONNECT ADULTS WHO HAVE LIMITED READING AND MATH SKILLS WITH POSTSECONDARY CREDENTIALS LEADING TO JOBS PAYING FAMILY-SUPPORTING WAGES. IT COMPILES PRACTICES DEVELOPED AND IMPLEMENTED BY COMMUNITY COLLEGES IN THE NATIONAL BREAKING THROUGH INITIATIVE.Breaking Through programs are more likely to have adult basic education/developmental education instructors learn the career content and use it to teach a contextualized basic skills course, as opposed to occupational/technical instructors infusing basics skills content into career and technical courses. In either model, Instructors can benefit from professional development. ABE/developmental education instructors are familiar with common skill-development challenges and specific basic skills-teaching strategies. These instructors may need professional development or professional experience to obtain the career knowledge necessary to develop authentic activities, use proper vocabulary, and demonstrate the application of course skills in the career areas.

Designing a Contextualized Learning Course or Program1) Decide the courses to contextualize and the contextualization content• Consider labor market demand and target population’s needs• Research other contextualized learning programs or courses2) Establish buy-in• Obtain administrators’ support• Develop a program advisory team• Develop a program management team• Engage employers• Reach out to technical, general education, and noncredit/workforce-development

faculty3) Determine costs and obtain funding (if necessary)• Ascertain figures for cost categories• Use state grant funds, if available• Seek other grants, if necessary4) Create institutional mechanisms to support the contextualized course or program• Establish a process for data and cost tracking• Develop a process for continuous course or program improvement5) Recruit and retain the “right” faculty• Seek out faculty with characteristics well suited for contextualized learning• Offer incentives for faculty to teach contextualized courses, and work to retain

faculty• Provide professional development, as needed6) Develop contextualized curricula that incorporate career skills and competencies• Support faculty learning from a variety of sources about the career field and skills

required in upper-level courses• Provide support for curriculum development, such as funding and instructional

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designers, where appropriatehttp://www.jff.org/sites/default/files/BT_toolkit_June7.pdfhttp://www.jff.org/sites/default/files/BT_Documentation_June7.pdf

APPENDIX K - Unlocking the Gate: Chapter 3 

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 Unlocking the Gate: What We Know About Improving Developmental Education, Elizabeth Zachry Rutschow and Emily Schneider http://www.mdrc.org/publications/601/full.pdf Chapter 3Accelerating Students’ Progress Through Developmental EducationOne of the key criticisms of developmental education is the lengthy amount of time that many students spend in remedial courses before reaching college-level work. As noted in Chapter 2, most community colleges provide multiple levels for each developmental education subject and require students to successfully complete each level before progressing to the next. Given that virtually all these courses are taught as semester-long classes, students who place at the lowest levels in a particular subject take multiple semesters –– even years –– to complete the course sequence in math, reading, or writing, in order to enroll in college-level courses. To make matters worse, most students do not receive standard college credits for the developmental education courses that they take, nor are these courses transferrable to four-year institutions. Yet students are required to pay for these courses, often using significant chunks of their limited financial aid packages to subsidize the costs.1Recent research has pointed out the difficulties that can be engendered by this long course sequence. For instance, in an analysis of data from Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count –– a large national initiative now encompassing over 10 percent of community colleges –– less than 30 percent of students who place into the lowest levels of developmental math and reading ever complete their developmental education coursework. Often, these students fail to enroll in the first developmental education course to which they were referred, or they do not reenroll in the subsequent level after successfully completing the first recommended course. Additionally, around 10 percent of students who are directed to the lowest level of developmental math successfully complete a college-level math course, while fewer than 30 percent who are directed to the highest level completed these courses.2 Such findings reveal the enormous hurdles facing students who place into developmental education courses, particularly those with multiple remedial needs. As a result, greater attention has been placed recently on helping students progress more quickly through the lengthy developmental education sequence. Most frequently, such pro- grams have focused on modifying the timing of these courses, with an effort to condense the amount of time needed to complete a particular level. These reframed courses are generally designed to serve students with variable levels of need, creating alternative options for the pace of instruction, depending on students’ skill levels in a particular area. For instance, some colleges offer compressed courses in which students may brush up on their skills, in preparation for direct entry into a college-level course. Other courses offer self-paced instruction, which allows individual students to determine the amount of time to spend on particular tasks or skills. In considering which option to recommend,

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colleges often refer to students’ placement test scores; higher-scoring students are placed into faster-paced review courses, while lower-scoring students are referred to slower-paced instructional models. Models for Accelerating Students’ Progress Through Developmental EducationSeveral 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 weak- nesses 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 developmental-level 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, and Table 3.1 summarizes the research on these strategies. Fast-Track CoursesAs noted above, fast-track courses offer classes in a compressed time frame, usually in over several weeks during the summer or in half a semester during the regular school year. Generally, two levels of a particular developmental education subject are offered together and run back to back within the same semester, allowing students to complete both courses within one semester. Examples of Fast-Track CoursesAt Mountain Empire Community College in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, Fast-Track Math provides two levels of developmental math as half-semester courses designed to articulate with each other, with a focus on review and fast-paced instruction. This allows students to complete Fast-track courses are often designed for developmental education students who are better prepared, and many schools –– including these two examples –– implement a screening process to ensure that this criterion is met. While most colleges restrict entry to accelerated courses and allow only those students with higher assessment scores to enroll, such practices are not always a requirement. For instance, Community College of Denver’s FastStart program mandates that students meet with a counselor to ensure that they understand the course structure and speed, but the college does not have a placement score requirement for entry into these courses.5In addition to compressed instruction, fast-track courses may modify their traditional requirements or pedagogy to better suit the revised structure. 

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Research Evidence Supporting Fast-Track CoursesLike most developmental education interventions, little rigorous research exists documenting the success of fast-track courses. However, the simple comparisons used in all available studies demonstrate promising trends. For example, fast-track courses at two Ivy Tech Community College campuses in Evansville and Fort Wayne, Indiana, showed increases in students’ course pass rates and fewer withdrawals from accelerated courses when compared with courses offered in the traditional semester-long format.8 Similarly, in internal evaluations employing simple comparisons between program and nonprogram students, Mountain Empire Community College found that Fast-Track Math students passed the math course and persisted at higher rates.9Exploratory evaluations at University of Maryland College Park found that nearly all the accelerated students moved onto the college-level course, in which they performed at comparable levels to students who went directly into the course. The accelerated program structure also allowed students to pass out of developmental requirements more quickly than students taking the traditional developmental-level class.10 Likewise, in two nonexperimental evaluations of Community College of Denver’s FastStart math program, students were more likely to pass developmental education math classes, gain more developmental education credits, pass college-level math courses, and stay enrolled in the college than students taking the semester-long courses.11 While these evaluations of FastStart used comparison groups, neither used more rigorous statistical methods to control for preexisting differences between the two groups of students, thereby limiting the reliability of this evidence. Building on these promising results, however, the Community College Research Center (CCRC) will be conducting a quasi- experimental analysis of this program’s success as part of its efforts to test a number of promising interventions in developmental education. Modularized CoursesAnother model for accelerating students’ progress through developmental education courses is to divide a traditional semester-long course into discrete learning units, or modules, that are designed to improve a particular competency or skill. This approach has become increasingly popular in the last decade, particularly in restructuring developmental math courses. Examples of Modularized CoursesA number of colleges participating in high-profile developmental education reform movements –– such as Achieving the Dream’s Developmental Education Initiative and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation’s Breaking Through –– have used modularized courses as a way to increase students’ progress.12 While modularized courses can be implemented a number of ways, they generally allow students to prove mastery of particular skills by taking a series of short, focused assessments. After students demonstrate competency, they can move on to more advanced modules. While some modularized courses are instructor-led, others implement a self-paced

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for- mat, allowing students to complete particular segments of courses at their own pace. In self- paced modularization programs, such tutorial software packages as MyMathLab, Plato, ALEKS, and Math Zone are often used to supplement in-class instruction or as the primary vehicle for teaching students new skills. These packages begin by identifying students’ skill deficits and then allow them to work independently on building these skills through increasingly challenging content, built around frequent assessments of students’ developing abilities.Math My Way at Foothill Community College in Los Altos Hills, California, and the SMART math program at Jackson State Community College in Tennessee provide two useful examples of modularized math courses. In both programs, the traditional math curriculum has been broken down into a series of modules, with frequent assessments by which students demonstrate their mastery of key concepts. Math My Way splits math students into groups by skill level; each group meets with an instructor for two hours a day, five days a week, to learn and master key concepts through self-paced drills and games (both computer- and paper- based).14 Jackson State’s SMART program is delivered through twelve online instructional modules with supplemental assistance from instructors in a math lab center, where students were required to work at least three hours each week. Students can pass quickly through modules by demonstrating competency in an online pretest at each level; if their skills fall below an 80 percent mastery level, they are required to complete a series of lessons and home- work assignments and then pass a proctored posttest. Students can complete the modules at their own pace, and it is possible to complete all three levels of the developmental math sequence in a single semester. Research Evidence Supporting Modularized CoursesEvaluations of these modularized courses reveal promising trends in students’ achievement, though the evidence is limited to simple comparisons between program and nonprogram students and, therefore, lacks the rigor needed to make causal inferences about these programs’ effectiveness. The evaluations show some promising gains in students’ pass rates of both developmental and college-level courses as well as gains in students’ GPAs and their persistence into subsequent semesters.16 For instance, internal evaluations of Foothill’s Math My Way program show that students who participated in it had a 20 percent higher pass rate in college- level math than nonparticipants, while Jackson State noted a 20 percentage point increase in students’ progress through the developmental sequence, which the college attributed to its new modularized course format. Mainstreaming into College-Level CoursesMainstreaming developmental education students into college-level courses is another approach to accelerating their progress that is being explored by a number of community colleges. While different versions of mainstreaming exist, common practices include offering a college-level course with a modified curriculum over a lengthier period of time (usually two semesters) or providing supplemental supports, such as tutoring or additional class periods, for developmental students who are placed into a traditional college-level class. Both approaches rely on the assumption that students who have remedial needs are, with extra assistance,

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capable of mastering college-level work. Examples of MainstreamingYearlong, college-level courses for developmental students have been more popular in four-year colleges, driven by a political interest in minimizing remedial courses at these institutions. Such courses provide the opportunity to earn college credit immediately, and they contextualize skill acquisition with the applications that these competencies have in a college- level course. Additionally, because these courses offer the standard college-level curricula, they align with other college-level courses, effectively bridging the gap that can sometimes occur between the competencies taught in developmental-level courses and those expected in college-level courses. Many courses also emphasize student-centered instructional strategies and rely on a wide range of assessment practices, such as portfolio-based grades. For example, the yearlong Integrated Reading and Writing course at San Francisco State — which replaces semester-long courses in developmental reading, developmental writing, and college composition — reflects a holistic approach to reading and writing, incorporating self-reflective writing and activities to support metacognitive development.18 Programs at Arizona State University and at City University of New York (CUNY) use similar activities to support active learning and analytic thinking.19At the community college level, mainstreaming has tended to focus on integrating developmental education students into a traditional semester-length, college-level course and on providing additional supports to enhance students’ success. For example, in the Accelerated Learning Project (ALP) at Community College of Baltimore County, a limited number of developmental-level students are placed into a college-level English composition course along with students who tested directly into that course. While the standard college-level curriculum is followed, the developmental-level students also enroll in an additional hour-long companion section, in which the same instructor provides extra assistance and guidance.20 A similar type of immersion program has been run in Aptos, California, through Cabrillo College’s Digital Bridge Academy (now the Academy for College Excellence), whereby developmental English students receive a two-week basic skills foundations course followed by enrollment in six integrated courses, including the college-level English course. The program also features supplemental supports for students, including study groups, counseling, and other services. Research Evidence Supporting MainstreamingThe 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. 

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Less rigorous studies have also shown promising trends. The yearlong college-level courses offered to remedial students at four-year colleges have shown promising increases in students’ persistence and course pass rates as well as improved comprehension skills. For instance, an internal evaluation of San Francisco State’s Integrated Reading and Writing program revealed increases in retention rates, English course pass rates, and the levels of reading comprehension and critical skills thinking for those who participated in the program. Additionally, these students were found to have similar achievement levels in other college- level courses as students who had no remedial needs.23 Similarly, nonexperimental internal evaluations of ALP found that students participating in the program passed college-level English course at just over 1.5 times the rate of students with similar academic needs who took the college’s traditional developmental education sequence.24 Finally, an evaluation of the Digital Bridge Academy demonstrated that participating students passed college-level English and persisted at higher rates than a comparison group. While these trends cannot be used to establish a causal link between these programs and students’ improved achievement, they do reveal that such mainstreaming programs may have an important influence on students’ out- comes and should be tested more rigorously to see whether these promising trends hold. Summary of Acceleration ModelsAcceleration strategies — fast-track courses, modularized courses, and mainstreaming — are ripe for more rigorous evaluation. These approaches show trends of relatively strong increases in students’ achievement, but only mainstreaming has been tested with a relatively rigorous research design. (See Table 3.1.) Because students who participate in acceleration programs may have differences in motivation or prior academic achievement, further research is needed to establish a causal link between such programs and any increases observed in student success rates and advancement into college-level work. As these practices are replicated and evaluated more thoroughly, close attention should be paid to the policy environment; resistance to modifying developmental courses in this way has been seen at both the practitioner and the state level, but flexible policies on course credits and prerequisites can also be central to easing implementation.26 The potential role of technology should also be considered closely by practitioners and researchers, as self-paced instruction seems to enable acceleration programs. Chapter 4 Contextualized InstructionThroughout the literature on best practices in developmental education, there is a strong conviction that developmental-level skills and knowledge are best learned when applied to content that is relevant to students outside their developmental course curriculum.1 In many ways, this is a commonsense recommendation, designed to head off the classic question “Why do I have to learn this?” — which can be applied equally to lessons on arithmetic, grammar, or basic essay structures. Importantly, the recommendation is grounded in educational psychology and theories of learning. Research on knowledge transfer has shown that students are better able to apply skills to new situations when they understand the underlying

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principles and procedures as well as the facts.2 Additionally, active learning theory suggests that learning is deepest when students personally engage with and interpret material, generating meaning based on their own experiences and knowledge.3Building on these theories, some practitioners have focused on developing instructional models that provide more contextualized learning experiences for students. Generally, contextualized instructional models focus on teaching basic skills in reading, writing, and math in conjunction with other course content, giving special attention to students’ own personal experiences or learning goals.4 Contextualized instruction for remedial students may be used to reach two different goals. First, basic skills instruction may rely on a particular course subject, such as nursing or computer technology, to ground students’ development of reading, writing, or math skills. In these cases, improvement of students’ basic skills, rather than knowledge of content from the field, remains the primary objective. Alternately, contextualized instruction may focus more concretely on developing students’ knowledge of an academic discipline or vocational field, with instruction in basic skills as a secondary objective toward better under- standing this course content.5Contextualized instructional models are thought to be particularly promising for helping academically underprepared students engage more quickly with their academic or vocational field of interest.6 Unlike traditional developmental reading, writing, and math courses –– which are offered as individualized courses disconnected from other course subjects –– contextualized approaches offer more integrated learning environments for developing students’ basic skills. By connecting with students’ professional interests and providing real-world contexts for the application of basic skills, contextualized learning programs are expected to help developmental students attain skills more quickly. Models for Contextualized Learning with Developmental Education StudentsWhile contextualized learning has been used in a number of disciplines to promote deeper learning experiences, contextualized approaches for developmental education students have tended to focus on improving basic skills within the context of particular academic or vocational disciplines. In vocational programs, contextualized learning offers students the opportunity to gain professional or technical skills while still enrolled in their precollegiate programs. Contextualized learning may also be used in particular academic subjects to promote students’ integration of course concepts with reading, writing, or math skills. Finally, learning communities, in which developmental courses are linked with other college-level courses, can provide integrated environments for students to engage with both academic course content and basic skills learning. Each of these contextualized instruction models and its accompanying research evidence is discussed below, and Table 4.1 summarizes the research on these strategies. Contextualized Learning in Vocational ProgramsA practice gaining much attention in the community college world is contextualized learning opportunities for basic skills students who are interested in vocational or

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technical fields, such as allied health or early childhood education.7 These programs may be geared either toward adult basic education students who have yet to earn a high school credential or toward developmental education students who are entering community college. In both cases, students have not yet developed the reading, writing, or math skills needed to earn the credential of interest, and they need additional preparation in these areas to master the course content. Therefore, occupational programs in these colleges have looked to develop integrated vocational and Examples of Contextualized Learning in Vocational ProgramsOne of the most promising contextualized learning models to date is Washington State’s Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-BEST) program, in which English as a Second Language (ESL) and adult basic education instructors work together with career- technical faculty to jointly design and teach occupational courses. In the I-BEST program, basic English instruction is tailored to the language and communication skills needed for students’ chosen occupation and are taught in the context of students’ workforce training classes. Such comprehensive supports as tutoring, advising, and mentoring are often key program components for assisting students. The primary goal of I-BEST is to ensure that students receive at least one year of college training that culminates in the award of a certificate or degree. Another promising program that emphasizes contextualized learning models is the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation’s Breaking Through initiative. Its pilot programs have been tested in a number of community colleges throughout the country, with many focusing on contextualized learning as a key gateway to college success. For instance, Central New Mexico Community College in Albuquerque has implemented the Construction Apprenticeship pro- gram, which offers for-credit contextualized courses in math and reading while integrating these skills into other college-level courses, such as carpentry. Similarly, Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, Ohio, has created a pre-state-tested Nursing Assistant program that allows individuals who have skills below the eighth-grade level to improve their academic abilities while learning about core concepts in health care and nursing.10 While many of these programs focus on students in adult basic education programs, several also target developmental education students who have already received a high school credential. Research Evidence Supporting Contextualized Learning in Vocational ProgramsThe most promising evidence supporting contextualized learning for students with re- medial needs comes from a recent evaluation of Washington State’s I-BEST program by the Community College Research Center (CCRC). Building on encouraging results from the state’s descriptive analysis, CCRC’s evaluation used statewide data to compare I-BEST students with other similarly skilled adult basic education students. Using a multivariate logistic regression analysis and controlling for students’ background characteristics, such as socioeconomic status and previous schooling, the analysis found positive effects across the board. Compared with

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nonparticipating students, those who were in the I-BEST program were significantly more likely to advance into credit-bearing courses, persist in college, earn credits that counted toward a credential, earn an occupational certificate, and make learning gains on basic skills tests. I-BEST students often showed large gains on many of these measures.11 Promising evidence also exists documenting the success of several Breaking Through programs. Internal evaluations at some of the participating colleges have shown positive outcomes overall for students who are in the programs, such as increased rates of college readiness and progress toward completing occupational certificates.12 The findings from this research should be approached with caution, however, as the statistical analyses employed either do not use a comparison group or fail to control for such factors as earlier differences in achievement levels between students who are in the program and those who are not. Learning CommunitiesLearning communities are another popular strategy employed by many community colleges to provide contextualized learning experiences for developmental-level students. While variations of this strategy are wide-ranging, the general principle behind learning communities is that students enroll in two or more courses together as a cohort. In the more developed versions of these programs, instructors of these linked courses collaborate to create an integrated curriculum that supports the development of multiple aspects of students’ learning. As such, the linked courses generally employ overlapping syllabi and have joint assignments and projects. Additionally, because students proceed through the courses with the same cohort of classmates, learning communities are expected to promote social cohesion and the integration of students within the college campus. Examples of Learning Communities for Developmental Education StudentsWhile learning communities are used with a number of different programs and courses at community colleges, those that involve academically underprepared students often link a developmental education course with a for-credit college-level course. At Queensborough Community College in Queens, New York, developmental math is linked with a variety of college-level courses, such as English, Sociology, and Business.14 Another popular strategy is to include a student success course, which generally emphasizes the development of study skills and college-going expectations, in order to provide additional advising and supports to students who are adapting to college life. Learning communities at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, New York, use this program model, linking a developmental English course, a content-area college-level course, and a one-credit student success course. Kingsborough’s program also includes additional supports, such as enhanced counseling and a voucher to purchase textbooks.Although most learning communities do not engender the type of workforce or experiential skills that are addressed in other contextualized learning settings, such as vocational programs, the deliberate links that are made between the courses can give students the opportunity to practice in their college-level classes the skills that they are learning in their developmental courses. For instance, linking a

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developmental reading course with an introductory psychology course allows students the opportunity to use the psychology textbook as a resource for their reading development. Similarly, linking developmental math with an entry-level biology course allows students to apply their developing math knowledge to science problems. Additionally, learning communities that include college-level courses afford developmental students the opportunity to gain credits toward credentials while they are still working to improve their basic skills. Finally, learning communities’ general promotion of active learning and student engagement is expected to enhance knowledge acquisition and encourage greater levels of commitment to the institution. Research Evidence Supporting Learning Communities for Developmental Education StudentsLearning communities are one of the few strategies for which more rigorous evidence is available. In general, the findings related to learning communities have been positive, though modest, with some studies showing more mixed results. Quasi-experimental studies on the effects of learning communities for both college-level and developmental students at over a dozen institutions have found a significant relationship between students’ participation in a learning community and their level of engagement with their classes, fellow students, and faculty. Additionally, students participating in learning communities were found to persist to the following year at significantly higher rates than comparison groups who did not participate, even when controlling for differences in students’ background characteristics. More recent experimental studies testing developmental-level learning communities reinforce many of these positive findings, though showing more modest impacts on students’ achievement and persistence in school. For instance, as noted above, Kingsborough developed a relatively comprehensive learning community model for developmental-level English students. This program resulted in improvements in educational outcomes, including the number of credits earned during the semester that students were enrolled in learning communities and students’ progression through developmental education. Additionally, students in the learning communities were significantly more likely to pass the standardized CUNY English assessment exams by the end of the second semester after the program, thereby qualifying them to pass out of developmental English and enroll in the college’s for-credit introductory English course.17 Even so, the program had few long-term effects on students’ achievement or persistence.Currently, the National Center for Postsecondary Research (NCPR) is building on this work to conduct experimental evaluations of six different models of learning communities, five of which are geared toward developmental students. Qualitative analyses of learning communities in these colleges have shown that program participation clearly influences students affectively, leading to high levels of engagement and a strong sense of belonging.18 Emerging results about academic outcomes are mixed. At Hillsborough Community College in Tampa Bay, Florida, learning communities linked a developmental reading course with a student success

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course but did not integrate course curricula or offer comprehensive supports at the level achieved by Kingsborough’s program. The Hillsborough program did not have a meaningful impact on students’ academic success within the full sample, but there were some modest positive impacts on educational outcomes among the last group of students, who joined the sample after the program increased its faculty collaboration and curricular integration.19 How- ever, learning communities for developmental math students at Queensborough Community College and at Houston Community College led to more positive results. Students attempted and passed the math course in the learning communities at significantly higher rates than students in comparison groups. After the program, learning communities students at both schools also progressed along the developmental course sequence more rapidly.20Taken together, these findings suggest that more mature versions of learning communities –– those that integrate training for faculty, institutional supports, and strong leadership –– may have a greater effect on students’ achievement. However, even the effects of these pro- grams have been relatively modest and tended to diminish over time, suggesting that learning communities will not dramatically increase students’ success in and progress through develop- mental education. Summary of Contextualized Learning ModelsBased on the available evidence, developmental education models that offer contextualized learning opportunities hold great promise for helping students build basic skills and advance into college-level courses and beyond. (See Table 4.1.) Vocational and occupational contextualized learning –– at least, as implemented in Washington State’s I-BEST program –– appears to offer the most encouraging results, as such programs quickly move basic skills students into college-level courses and help them graduate in a compressed amount of time with a certificate or degree. It should be noted, however, that many of the vocational contextualized learning programs worked with adult basic education and ESL students, rather than with those entering college and placing into developmental education programs. Yet, given the promising findings from I-BEST and Breaking Through, developmental education programs should consider how links with occupational courses might further improve students’ outcomes. Similarly, more rigorous research should be conducted to validate the promising results of programs based on this model. Learning communities also provide some heartening news about the potential of contextualized learning for improving student outcomes, although the effects of these programs on long-term outcomes are much more limited. While strong learning community models show some positive effects while students are participating in the programs, less well-developed programs showed fewer effects. Additionally, evidence of academic improvement tended to diminish over time, after the learning communities program ended. This evidence and the strong research models used to document these effects reveal that learning communities may be a less effective method for dramatically changing the overall success of developmental education students. Given this, researchers, policymakers, and practitioners should

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look toward other methods, which may hold more promise for improving these students’ achievement.

APPENDIX L - What about part-timers?

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 What about part-timers? (Recommendations at the end for you skimmers) 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.”http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2003/2003164.pdf Let’s talk about part-timers -  certificate and associate degrees. American Association of Community CollegesThe 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-timehttp://www.aacc.nche.edu/AboutCC/Trends/Pages/studentsatcommunitycolleges.aspx CollegeCompleteAmericaFor certificates that should take 1 year, full-time students take 3.3 years, and part-time students take 4.4 years.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_completion_and_the_co-requisite_model/ What Happens When Given Twice as Much Time1-year certificate with in 2 years: full-time 27.8%; part-time 12.2%2-year associate within 4 years; full-time 12.2 %; part-time 7.8%(Time is the Enemy, College complete America)http://www.completecollege.org/docs/Time_Is_the_Enemy.pdf KentuckyFor earning a 1-year certificate within 1.5 years: Full-time 42 %; Part-time 51.5%.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)Full-time students employed full time—21%Full-time students employed part time—59%Part-time students employed full time—40%Part-time students employed part time—47%http://www.aacc.nche.edu/AboutCC/Pages/fastfacts.aspx 

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Kentucky is Guilty of this OversightFrom 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 areable to attend only part-time. 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 haveany 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 MetricsProgress Measurement MetricsCohort:  (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.pdfWhat 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

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individual, unconnected courses.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

APPENDIX M  - Completion Agendas Will Require Mind Shifts

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 Completion Agendas Will Require Mind Shifts • From developmental education is working - to  developmental education is not

working in the context of completion.• 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.

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

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

• 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.

• 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.

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

• 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.

• 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 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.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-resituates 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 who need learning help along the continuum to completion.

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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 reading to learn, writing to learn, and using computation in their courses.

 JCTC Dan KestersonDevelopmental Education Coordinator

APPENDIX N – A Look at the Evidence

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Introduction to the CCRC Assessment of Evidence Serieshttp://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Publication.asp?uid=845 By: Thomas Bailey, Shanna Smith Jaggars & Davis Jenkins — February 2011. New York: Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University Policymakers and private foundations have set ambitious goals for improving the rate at which Americans earn college credentials in order for the U.S. to remain competitive with other major economies. Improving student graduation rates will be a particular challenge for community colleges, which disproportionately serve low-income, first-generation, and academically underprepared students. The goal of the CCRC Assessment of Evidence Series is to help community colleges identify concrete strategies that have the potential to improve student success on a scale needed to meet national goals for increased postsecondary attainment. Across the first year of a major grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and with supplemental funding from Lumina Foundation for Education, CCRC has gathered and synthesized a large body of research evidence on strategies that may improve the success of community college students. Working papers in the CCRC Assessment of Evidence Series use the research literature to draw conclusions and provide concrete evidence-based recommendations to practitioners, policymakers, and researchers in eight major topic areas, described below. •Developmental Assessment and Placement: Katherine Hughes and Judith Scott-Clayton argue that while there is growing support for mandatory testing and placement and state-wide standardization, empirical evidence suggests that current assessment approaches may not lead to better student outcomes. The authors discuss emerging directions for reform, including more diagnostic and holistic assessments. Working Paper | Brief•Developmental Acceleration: Nikki Edgecombe argues that strategies to accelerate student progress through developmental education, including course restructuring and mainstreaming, show promise. She also discusses implications of the finding that most acceleration models involve alterations to courses or curriculum but pay little attention to pedagogical practices. Working Paper | Brief Developmental Mathematics Pedagogy: After examining six types of pedagogical reforms in mathematics, Michelle Hodara concludes that the evidence offers the most support for two approaches—structured forms of student collaboration, and instruction that focuses on problem representation. Working Paper | Brief•Contextualization of Basic Skills Instruction: Dolores Perin finds that although the evidence is only suggestive at this time, contextualization is a promising direction for speeding up the progress of academically underprepared college

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students. Working Paper | Brief•Online Learning: Shanna Jaggars concludes that while online learning affords flexibility and convenience, online coursework creates challenges that contribute to low completion rates among community college students. She provides recommendations to improve online learning access and success rates. Working Paper | Brief•Non-Academic Support: Melinda Mechur Karp argues that effective non-academic services achieve results through four mechanisms: creating social relationships, clarifying aspirations and commitment, developing college know-how, and addressing conflicting demands of work, family, and college. She discusses theoretical and empirical support for each mechanism and implications for college practice. Working Paper | Brief•Institutional and Program Structure: Judith Scott-Clayton concludes that complex policies and structures of community colleges often confuse students and lead to decisions that may waste time and resources and reduce the chances of successful outcomes. She also highlights several promising approaches and suggests directions for future experimentation and research. Working Paper | Brief•Organizational Improvement: Davis Jenkins argues that in order to increase rates of student completion on a large scale, community colleges must make fundamental changes in the way they operate. Based on practices found to be effective among high-performance organizations, he concludes that colleges should adopt a continuous improvement process that includes the measurement of student learning and progression. Working Paper | Brief

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Completion Related Discussion Topics on the Kentucky Association from Developmental Education discussion listserv (KADEKY)

What Were We About This Summer

On the listserv this summer, much time has been devoted to “ how to bring about completion for developmental students.” Much of the conversation has centered around the Support Model recommendations, which took as it core many of the principles based on the research of Complete College America, Jobs for the Future, etc. and discussions on this listserv.  At a single glance, one can see that making significant changes in the completion rates for developmental students will not be as simple as  “connecting the dots.” That would be too one dimensional when finished; what is needed is a three dimensional (holistic – making related connections) approach. The last sentence in a Developmental Education Initiative blog titled “Burning Bridges” (the need for solid support for the execution of these new approaches), the writer asks us to not only think big, but to be sure and “draw on the experience throughout a college, and provide the resources—human, financial, and capital—to build a bridge to college completion that is long-lasting and gets individuals, institutions and our nation where we need to go.” We have been trying to educate ourselves as fast as we can (including drawing on the experience on this listserv), and as any effort of this kind, old practices, assumptions, and habits always temper our efforts, if not actually stand in the way. The Suppose Model is a model for bouncing ideas around and consolidating those ideas that look as if they will foster increased completion.  We together have been helping one another see that the big picture is completion and that it will not be achieved just by tweaking instruction alone, as valuable as that is, or any single facet of student experience. The structures are deep which we have established that actually are barriers to student completion and in many cases we just have not seen them because they are so familiar. This fall many faculty and staff will be returning to their institutions and will not have been part of this discussion. The discussion has just begun and the learning curve gained for gathering evidence, which has been steep for you and I, may hopefully be a little gentler for our colleagues. We have not provided as many answers as questions and in that process we are germinating ideas within a conceptual framework that is evolving. The Suppose Model, again, is not an answer, it is a stimulus for creative thinking about the problem of completion. I hope everyone has had a chance to read the testimony before the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training.

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 Watch the hearing.<http://cl.s4.exct.net/?qs=fb524b1e1eeb7ec6ddf6b102b7ea3630d67843285251daf48069e3547b260450>Read the testimony.<http://cl.s4.exct.net/?qs=fb524b1e1eeb7ec6a9986df4685d41b1f326bc2b07ecd125609a04b0ce39803d> I want to draw everyone’s’ attention again to the fact that increasing completion rates for developmental students is not the responsibility of developmental educators alone. If we are to be successful, a macro-approach has to be taken. We could make all the transformations that are going to be necessary to remove the barriers to completion at the developmental level and we would still make only minimal gains in developmental student completion. Keep in mind that 1 in 9 developmental students complete, but fewer than three in ten pursuing 2-year associate degrees at our community colleges graduate in three years. The fact is that the road to completion is broken for all our students. There is a tendency to look at the problem of completion for developmental students at a micro-level, as most of the conversation on this listserv clearly indicates. This is natural as we are the deliverers of instruction for these students and that is where we live.However, as the testimony by Stan Jones, President, Complete College America before the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training, clearly lays out, there are many levels of change that need to occur if today’s college students are to complete. That is why I am encouraging everyone to read the testimony. Read the testimony. On this listserv are subscribers at all levels of influence, except for maybe the legislature, which is going to have to play a significant role if we are to succeed.Each of these levels of influence are going to have to contribute to a macro-approach to the problem of completion. We can no longer act alone. At every level, the players have to begin adopting a macro-view of the broader problem. Each player trying to handle only their own level will fail to grasp the whole picture. We are fortunate that we have leadership that does grasp the big picture, but they need our help to fill in the picture. They are asking us “right now” to come together and think more comprehensively about how developmental education is delivered with the goal of completion in mind. Leadership has the big picture, but they don’t have the details. We have to stop just thinking at the micro-level and take a macro-approach to out efforts. It does not matter if we successfully pass our students if we are going to lose them in the long run because we have not taken time, choice, and structure into account.

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Embedding Conceptual Understanding and Differentiated Pathways Using the Math Emporium Model

At WKCTC we use the emporium model for our developmental math courses: I wanted to provide a few basic examples of things that are on our modules which require deep thinking. •• "Explain in your own words how you will recognize that rational expressions have

opposite denominators."•  • "Create your own example for subtracting rational expressions with like

denominators and work it here"•  • "Tell how to find the discriminant and what does it tell us about the number of

solutions of a quadratic equation."•  • We require them to work problems and explain the steps.•  • We require them to write definitions in their own words.•  • We require them to provide examples of items they have recently learned the

definition of.•  • All these things help us to see if they students it truly understanding the concepts.•  • Even the problems are set up to find common mistakes. For example: Simplify:  -3^2 and (-3)^2 are each asked to be sure that students understand the concept of the negative sign being included under the exponent if it is inside the parenthesis. All the things that seasoned teachers understand to be common mistakes and misconceptions, we try to be sure we have a way to determine if the student is truly understanding the concept or simply following steps and mimicking examples without a true understanding of the concepts. 

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How to Use the Emporium Model in Differentiated Pathways Using the Emporium Model is an ideal way to differentiate. Once we know the “objectives” that would be required we can prepare modules to cover those. Then it could be almost a café based system, where students moving toward selected pathways would be required to complete the modules needed for that path. I even see modules produced that would cover topics required within selected disciplines that students could work through in conjunction with courses while they are taking them. For example: Pharmacy Techs have math skills they need. We could work with the pharmacy tech program to create a module or a collection of modules to help students obtain and practice the necessary skills for that course. They could come into our lab and work on these as they are taking the course. Students would be working in their field but not be left behind due to insufficient math skills. Tina RagsdaleWKCTC Transition Math Coordinator

Co-Requisite and ESL

Many of our international students in developmental ESL are undecided. This is an "information gap" issue, not a "knowledge gap" issue with these students. They are unaware of the many programs of study and not clear about how one skill and area of expertise builds upon another; part of our job in ESL is to teach skill development (reading, writing, speaking, reflective listening, note-taking, etc) in a contextualized way that allows students to connect directly with a program of study. This semester we are offering a developmental class with an entirely healthcare-based curriculum, taught by an instructor who is qualified in nursing and ESL. Our goal is to have two kinds of students in the class: 1) the undecideds (that you mention) and the 2) one who have decided that an Allied Health or Nursing career is for them. This will do two things (among many): for the undecideds, they can get out early if healthcare is not for them; for the "decideds" they can get a jump on nursing/allied health care and ALSO learn skills in ESL. The ESL skills will be taught through the health curriculum.  The new class is a result of several months of prep work (with ESL and AH and NSG) and our vision is informed by the ideas that have been posted on this discussion--namely, students have a better chance to succeed if their skills are presented in a contextualized way, if we do not wait until developmental classes are over to do this, and if we merge and link a developmental class with a for-credit class or academic program plan or 2-year degree.  Marc CummingJCTC ESL Director

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Roadmap to Completion; Not Just a Developmental Education Problem From the College Board Advocacy  & Policy Center comes The College Completion Agenda.http://completionagenda.collegeboard.org/ What I want you to take notice of from the CBA*P Center is that increasing the completion rates of developmental students is about far more than we as developmental educators have control over. I have suggested that we align our student support (developmental education) beyond placement policy and realize that student support of our students extends to completion. I am now further suggesting that as developmental educators we need to be more conscious of the influences that will impact how we are funded (performance funding) and judged; therefore, KADE, which used to have a political wing perhaps needs a platform for keeping us informed at least on the 5-10 part action agenda of the CBA&P Center below. Actually, KCTCS leadership would be in a better position to have access to these issues. Even better a monthly update newsletter on any workgroups, committees or decisions affecting developmental education. (it is no secret that communication channels presently do not work at all. What must be done to improve our nation's educational system.(I will list parts 5-10) Part 5: Improve teacher quality and focus on recruitment and retention……that states, localities and the federal government step up to the crisis in teaching by providing market-competitive salaries, creating multiple pathways into teaching, and fixing the math and science crisis. Part 6: Clarify and simplify admission process……that public and private institutions of higher education continue to uphold the highest professional standards in admission and financial aid and collaborate to make the admission process more transparent and less complex. Part 7: Provide more need-based grant aid while simplifying the financial aid system and making it more transparent……that federal and state officials encourage increased access by providing more need-based grant aid, making the process of applying for financial assistance more transparent and predictable, and finding ways to inform families, as early as the middle school years, of aid amounts likely to be available to individual students. Part 8: Keep college affordable…… restraining growth in college costs and prices, using available aid and resources wisely, and insisting that state governments meet their obligations for funding higher education. 

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Part 9: Dramatically increase college completion rates…… that institutions of higher education set out to dramatically increase college completion rates by improving retention, easing transfer among institutions and implementing data-based strategies to identify retention and dropout challenges. Part 10: Provide postsecondary opportunities as an essential element of adult education programs…… a renewed commitment to adult education opportunities, one that supplements existing basic skills training with a new “honors GED,” and better coordination of federal and state efforts to provide adult education, veterans benefits, outreach programs and student aid. The Roadmap for educators and policymakers to help students reach college completion.The percentage of American adults with postsecondary credentials is not keeping pace with other industrialized nations. Improving postsecondary success for all our citizens, but most urgently for low-income and minority students, is critical to our nation's economic and social health. To help policymakers and educators achieve the goal of 55% by 2025, The College Board Advocacy & Policy Center has developed the College Completion Agenda — incorporating a progress report that will be updated annually and a companion state policy guide that was co-created with the National Conference of State Legislatures<http://www.ncsl.org/>. They combine comprehensive research from nationally recognized sources with best-practice policy examples, all aligned around 10 key recommendations. The agenda's purpose is to provide reliable, measurable information that tracks our collective progress, as well as policymaking strategies each state can use to help us reach our destination.

Placing Developmental Students in Programs of Study The weakest link in preparing for the future of remediation, in my opinion, is the absence of structures and procedures for early placement of students in programs of study, even is they are initially “default” programs. It is key for success. “Time is the Enemy” and “No Time to Waste” are appropriate slogans for this problem. Let me repost these related ideas from “Remediation: The Bridge to Nowhere” and “Time is the Enemy”: Remediation: The Bridge to Nowhere“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

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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 toolsto 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 soonas possible. Students should make the big choices of programs of study informed withan 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 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. 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. 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

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introductory courses necessary for success like entry-level anatomy, biology, physiology, physics, accounting, and drafting.” http://completecollege.org/docs/CCA-Remediation-final.pdf Time is the EnemyTime is the enemy of college completion. These historic data have revealed a common thread — and an animating principle to guide our work to boost college graduation: The longer it takes, the more life gets in the way of success. More students are working, and they are working more hours than ever before. Manycan afford to attend only part-time, extending the years until they graduate. 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. All of this adds up to more and more time.As the clock runs and the calendar turns, weall 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. There’s no time to waste.” and Colleges need to recognize that time is the enemy.With today’s student population, more timeand 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.http://completecollege.org/docs/Time_Is_the_Enemy_Summary.pdf Dan KestersonJCTC Developmental Education Director

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Mathways and Statway: Research and Hard Questions to Answer The New Mathways Project NMP embraces both Statway (what they have tried for the last year in Texas) and Quantway (implementation I think has been in Ohio and California???) There is a year or more of research and hard questions to answer before a college should try anything like this, another year to plan, and then more years to field-test, revise, offer it again, revise, etc. as you move toward a model that works with little revision.  Administration, Institutional Research, Math department (transitional and college-level) and student services all have to be able to work together in every conversation for the entire research, planning, testing and implementation cycle.   Are your advising and counseling centers anxious to learn about new opportunities for students and identify and recruit the right students for these classes?  Does your administration have connections with the local four-year colleges to which students are most likely to transfer?  Is your math department prepared to do it a different way?  Are the transitional and college-level math departments able to support the notion of common assignments, common assessments, and common exams for all sections?  Are there a few instructors who will be brave enough to field-test it the first time, get the approval of more instructors as you work toward a full implementation?  Can your IR department generate data that identify the population and profiles of students to be recruited for these classes?  A key to NMP implementation is to identify if you have a large enough group of students whose program of choice will accept quantitative reasoning or statistics as the transfer math class of choice.  Articulation with 4-year programs to accept Statway as a transferable math class for enough programs is fundamental or there is no point in all your work.  The Texas course descriptions indicate that the Statway course is "for students in business, nursing, allied health, or the social, physical or behavioral sciences" - at least in Texas they were able to get that articulation.    A suggestion is that to field test and eventually implement something new you want to be able to fill at least 3 sections (to offer it morning afternoon and evening and to get enough data). Does your college have enough students with those majors each year who COMPASS test into Basic Algebra to offer Statway?  Do you have 2 or 3 teachers (full-time or part-time) who have taught both developmental math and statistics?  Do you have instructors willing to do the professional development to be able to do this?   Each Texas Statway implementation either has a paired 1-credit learning skills class or a math for statistics class paired with a 3-credit math class for two semesters.   In 8-credits over two semesters the student is getting from Basic Algebra to Elementary (introductory) statistics.  At some colleges ini Kentucky, to get from Basic Algebra to Statistics it is  9 or 10-credits over 3 semesters.  At others it is 12 credits over 4 semesters.  If time is the enemy, then how do we convince students

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they can persist for two semesters?    Since this is a two-semester commitment from the student, anyone offering this would need to be able to answer          What are the options for students who do not successfully complete the first semester?           What are the options for students who do not enroll in the second semester?  Lots of research, lots of questions and answers, lots of collaboration both inside and outside of the college, lots of time and effort to make a change.   Can we afford to NOT do this?  Caroline Martinson’s Email Caroline isJCTC- DT - Math Division Chair

A Remediation Plan http://www.completecollege.org/docs/CCA%20Policy%20Deck%20Remediation%20Final%20(2)(1).pdf The evidence is strong that remediation as currently designed and delivered has little to no effect on college completion. Too many students start in remedial courses and never complete a credential of any kind. Strong policies and strategies should: • Divert students from traditional remedial programs. For students with few academic deficiencies: • Place directly in college-level coursework.•  • Provide co-requisite developmental education (including tutoring, self-paced

computer labs with required attendance, etc.)  For students clearly needing remediation: • Provide no more than one semester of remediation.•  • Utilize an intensive focus, and an accelerated timeframe. For students with significant academic deficiencies: • Provide alternate pathways to a career certificate or career-related credential.•  

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• Embed remediation and adult basic skills into that instruction.  • Clarify what constitutes readiness for success in the first year of college.   *  Recognize that current college placement assessments are not predictive and should be replaced by sharper diagnostic tools.  *  Establish early warning indicators (e.g., anchor assessments) for current high school students, signaling student readiness to begin college-level coursework.  *  Provide twelfth grade courses designed to prepare students for college- level math and English. • Establish a statewide approach to remedial education. • Limit remediation at 4-year universities to no more than one course. If a student

cannot do college-level work after one remedial course, then he/she should be referred into a “passport program” at a community college with the understanding that the student will be readmitted to the 4-year college after successful completion of the English and Math requirements.

• Align math requirements and student needs (e.g., only STEM students need a pre-Calculus curriculum, others are better served learning statistics and applied mathematics). Review all programs to determine the best math requirements for each program and align remediation accordingly.

• Identify courses in which students can enroll while simultaneously completing remediation requirements (i.e., don’t make students wait to start credit-bearing courses).

• All students taking the placement exam ought to receive a testing guide, practice test and time to brush up on their skills.

• Engage faculty with progression and completion metrics to reveal short- comings and inform design of reforms. 

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 with 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) We looked briefly at Trio programs; there are also other initiatives and programs that target subpopulations that are worth our exploration, such as the Ready-to-Work program and the Tennessee Higher Education Commission’s performance

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funding. READY-TO-WORKhttp://www.clasp.org/admin/site/publications/files/RTW.pdf Ready-to-Work has always been a favorite of mine 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 coordinators 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 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/

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Or contact Shauna King-SimmsDirector of Transitional ProgramsKentucky Community and Technical College System shauna.king-simms@kctcs.edu 859-256-3301

Common Core Competencies – Text Complexity When looking at the various forms of delivery of reading instruction, I am not sure that the concept of “text complexity” underlying the common core standards is understood or incorporated often enough. I am providing a few shorts from the literature to introduce or clarify the concept for those who have not had a chance to explore it. Reseouce: Text Complexity: Rigor in Reading, Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Diane Lapp, 2012 Other Sources of Information:The Crisis of Complexity:http://www.utdanacenter.org/udln/downloads/2010-nov-meeting/i3-text-complexity.pdf •  Complexity of texts students are expected to handle K-12 has eroded:•  Complexity of texts students are expected to handle K-12 has eroded:• High school textbooks have declined in all subject areas over several decades.• Average length of sentences in K-8 textbooks have declined from 20 to 14 words.• Vocabulary demands have declined, e.g., 8th grade textbooks equivalent to former

5th grade texts; 12th grade anthologies equal to former 7th grade.• Complexity of college and careers texts have remained steady or increased:• Lexile scores of college textbooks have not decreased in any block of time since

1962 and in fact have increased.• Vocabulary difficulty of newspapers has remained stable.• Word difficulty of scientific journals and magazines 1930–1990 has increased

since 1930. Result: Huge gap between end of high school and college reading demands equal to 350L (Lexile) or the Lexile difference between 4th grade and 8th grade NAEP texts! What’s Wrong with a Simplified Approach? • Simplified usually means limited, restricted, and thin in meaning.• Academic vocabulary can only be learned from complex texts––by noticing how it

works in texts, engaging with, thinking about, and discussing their more complex meanings with others.

• Mature language skills needed for success in school and life can only be gained by working with demanding materials.

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• No evidence that struggling readers—especially at middle and high school--catch up by gradually increasing the complexity of simpler texts. . .

• NEED to Increase % of Expository Text• Expository text is harder for students to comprehend than narrative text due to its

features.• Expository text makes up vast majority of the required reading in

college/workplace.• Yet students are asked to read very little of it in elementary and middle school (7

to 15 percent).• The little expository reading students are asked to do is too often superficial. PPT: Understanding Text Complexity<http://commoncore.lacoe.edu/resources/training_102111/VanAllen_text_complex_20111021.ppt The Text Complexity “Staircase” in the Common Core Standardshttp://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=aaplw&p=text+complexity:+rigor+in+ReadingThomasina Piercy, Pd.D.04/08/2011 Just as the Aorta carries blood from the heart, Common Core State Standard number 10 carries increasing levels of text complexity up from Grade 2 through Grade 12 and into College and Career Readiness. In many respects, text complexity is the hallmark of the CCSS as it reveals the depth of educators’ commitment to providing American students every opportunity to be prepared to meet future global challenges. Providing a specific Standard 10 presence in each grade level, including a place-holder in both Kindergarten and Grade 1 to allow foundations to be established, the Common Core’s text complexity standard provides a backward-mapped format to scaffold instruction. Notice the scaffolded expectations in the Staircase for Text Complexity within the following (Grades 11 – Career and College Readiness): GRADES 11-CCR: By the end of grade 12, read and comprehend literature (informational texts) at the high end of the grade 11-CCR text complexity band independently and proficiently. By the end of grade 11, read and comprehend literature (information texts) in the grades 11-CCR text complexity band proficiently, and with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.The combination of the increased text complexity and the depth of cognitive demand within the task, such as incorporating discipline-specific questions, generates higher levels of rigor. Although text complexity is not a new concept, it has been an expectation buried in the haystack of educational assumptions. Without the existence of specific standards and measurable outcomes, its significance became lost. The Common Core State

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Standards acknowledge that increasing text complexity expectations is not a simple task. Increasing a student’s capacity to understand complex text is an arduous goal. The path provided by the Common Core State Standards represents commitment to closing this gap, informing teachers, and guiding deep understanding with clear expectations Why Do We Care About Text Complexity?http://ohiorc.org/adlit/InPerspective/Issue/2012-04/Article/intro.aspxAt some point in the last year, you have probably heard the statistics and seen the graphs that show that our students are not reading at a level that will have them prepared to read college- and career-level texts. The need for choosing appropriately challenging grade-level texts comes from research showing that although college and workplace text difficulty has risen in recent decades, the level of difficulty in the textbooks, literature, and informational texts we use in our classrooms has steadily declined. When looking solely at Lexile scores (a quantitative measure of text difficulty based on a mathematical formula), research shows a discrepancy in high school texts anywhere from 100 to 300 Lexile levels below appropriate grade-level complexity (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, 2010). What does this mean for our students? It means, based on quantitative measures alone, we are currently graduating students who lack the skills to read and comprehend college- and workplace-level texts because what they are reading in high school is not challenging enough.We have to care about the complexity levels of texts we use because ultimately we want our students to be prepared for the difficulty of the texts they will read in college and their careers. But it isn't just the English teacher who should be concerned about complexity. The CCSS recognizes that teaching literacy is not solely the job of the English teacher, and it goes so far as to set literacy standards for other content areas as well. Though we typically discuss text complexity in terms of ELA, it is important to remember that it applies across the content areas. Dan KestersonJCTC Developmental Education Coordinator

Rigor in Developmental Courses Building Rigor and Competence in Gateway Courses and Support, White Paper Keys to Competence and RigorIn 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

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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).

 Research documented by Bransford (2001) has shown that in order for learners to develop competence in an area of inquiry, the learner needs to:

 • Understand ideas and facts in the context of a conceptual framework• Organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application• Develop a deep foundation of factual knowledge.

 In building support for a gateway course, support whether, a team-taught 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.

The Gaps and the Possibilities In our exploration of completion on this listserv, we are finding a number of areas that need major repair or changes and some minor but essential changes. We are also finding that our colleges are onto a number of interesting innovations, and we are finding that there are a number of promising models that we need to explore further. (Also see attached for better format.) Areas Needing Major Repair or Changes• 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• 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

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• Orientation (social interaction, not just disseminating information)• Ongoing Early Alert: AdvisorTrac, TutorTrac, Snapfisb• Ongoing Contact and Support: AdvisorTrac, TutorTrac, Snapfisb Interesting Innovations• Accelerated Learning Program (ALP)• Accelerating opportunity Kentucky Promising Models Accelerating Students’ Progress Through Developmental Education  • Models for Accelerating Students’ Progress Through Developmental Education • Fast-Track Courses • Modularized Courses • Mainstreaming into College-Level Courses

 Contextualized Instruction• Models for Contextualized Learning with Developmental Education Students

Contextualized Learning in Vocational Programs• Learning Communities

      Supplemental Supports to Advance Students’ Achievement• Models for Supplemental Supports with Developmental Education Students,• Tutoring and Supplemental Instruction• Advising• Student Success Courses Promising State Initiatives• Colorado• Texas• Baltimore Policies to Keep Our Eye On• Tracking all Developmental StudentsDan KestersonJCTC Developmental Education Coordinator 

Sinclair Community College MAP for Student Success

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 technology-supported 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

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stated goals. MAP software 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. Furthermore, MAP directly links with the college’s strategic priority of Quality and Innovation.The creative core of MAP is its ability to put into operational practice a counter to the well known precept that community college students do not do options. Research clearly demonstrates that students, when left to their own self-advising, will not make quality decisions that lead to efficient degree completion. They need expert advice to successfully work their way through prerequisites, course sequencing, and degree requirements. MAP leverages technology to put this advice continuously in front of students. In addition to the inherent strengths of the MAP application, the software leverages related assets of other college-based technology systems to assure that maximum information is available for advisors and students at the time of an advising session.Sinclair employs approximately 40 academic advisors to provide academic planning for a student population of more than 40,000 unique individuals during an academic year. The planning is offered in both a drop-in and appointment mode. Since there is no guarantee that an individual student will meet with the same academic advisor term-to-term, consistency of information across advisors is absolutely essential. MAP provides this consistency. The record keeping features of MAP assure that each advising session builds upon the work established in previous sessions; students develop a cumulative history of academic support as opposed to starting at the beginning at each advising session.In the words of the Director of Academic Advising, “the quality of the conversation has improved.“ MAP allows teaching to take place within an advising session. Student’s engage in an analysis of their specific course taking capabilities (e.g. time available for study, competing responsibilities, target completion date), to develop a plan that is unique to their circumstance. Ultimately, the software allows students to actively participate in the overarching degree completion process versus focusing solely on the immediate task of registering for this term’s courses. MAP was rolled out to all academic advisors in February 2011. Prior to this time, MAP had been used in a developmental mode with a limited set of advisors. Since full rollout, 30,063 total MAPs have been created; these MAPs connect with 20,038 individual students. Overall, MAP has brought communication in the advising process to a new and previously unattainable level. For students, MAP documents the advice they have received, makes this advice available at the point of registration, and warns when non-MAP course selections are made. For advisors, MAP documents communication, allows them to pick up where another advisor has left off, and gives them assurance that their advice is consistent with current academic programs and policy through linkage to Sinclair’s CMT, the official repository for programs requirements. Finally, MAP has put planning information in the hands of academic chairs that assists them in making informed scheduling decisions for future terms. Since MAP retains individual student plans, it is possible to aggregate these plans to determine the demand in the future, by term, for specific course offerings.

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 Another intangible benefit of MAP, as expressed by the Director of Academic Advising, is that each student‘s MAP gives him/her a sense of seeing the finish line as well as a sense that their decisions have a direct impact on their ability to cross that line. MAP translates an ambiguous goal of degree completion into a series of specific and concrete steps that result in the attainment of a degree or certificate. Students quickly learn that each step needs to be taken, and if one step is missed then a new staircase (MAP) needs to be built.MAP has been an essential component in Sinclair‘s conversion from quarters to semesters. When the semester conversion decision was first made, the Academic Advising office was limited in its ability to document adherence to the semester conversion pledge. This pledge stated to students that if they followed the offered advice on program completion, they would not need to invest any more time or money in completing their program by semesters than would have been the case if Sinclair had continued on a quarter calendar. To follow through on this commitment, records would need to be kept of what advice had been given to students. Prior to MAP, records were paper-based and depended upon the student’s copy for future reference. MAP replaced the paper with electronic records and introduced a feature that allowed for easy identification of the academic advice existing at the time the pledge was in effect. The Director of Academic Advising has identified the center’s ability to perform more intrusive advising as a further efficiency of MAP. Intrusive advising is defined in this context as forward-looking planning that extends beyond the specific needs of the current registration period. When practiced, students leave advising sessions with multi-term plans that place responsibility on the student for implementation. While this method of advising may involve more time at the first session, it has the dual benefit of reducing the number of future, term-specific, advising sessions (unless the student’s situation changes), and reinforces the need for a student to take responsibility for a longer planning horizon. MAP has been presented to Sinclair’s partner institutions in the Ohio Completion by Design cadre, to national staff of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to EDUCAUSE leadership, and to peer institutions of Sinclair’s Next Generation Learning Challenge grant. In every one of these instances, the question has been raised as to when the software will be made available for other institutions. Conservatively, at least ten institutions have expressed a strong willingness to adopt the software.While no policy decision has been made with respect to Sinclair making MAP software available to other institutions, it is reasonable to expect that it will follow the same open source path being used to disseminate Student Success Plan (SSP) software. A general open source dissemination framework should be in place by Summer 2012. For more information about Sinclair Community College’s MAP, contact Phyllis Salter, Academic Advising Director, at

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phyllis.salter@sinclair.edu<mailto:phyllis.salter@sinclair.edu> or 937.512.2800.http://www.league.org/blog/post.cfm/istream-sneak-peeks?utm_source=2012_07+League+Connections&utm_campaign=July+2012+League+Connections&utm_medium=email

Roadmap to Completion

From the College Board Advocacy  & Policy Center comes The College Completion Agenda.http://completionagenda.collegeboard.org/ What I want you to take notice of from the CBA*P Center is that increasing the completion rates of developmental students is about far more than we as developmental educators have control over. I have suggested that we align our student support (developmental education) beyond placement policy and realize that student support of our students extends to completion. I am now further suggesting that as developmental educators we need to be more conscious of the influences that will impact how we are funded (performance funding) and judged; therefore, KADE, which used to have a political wing perhaps needs a platform for keeping us informed at least on the 5-10 part action agenda of the CBA&P Center below. Actually, KCTCS leadership would be in a better position to have access to these issues. Even better a monthly update newsletter on any workgroups, committees or decisions affecting developmental education. (it is no secret that communication channels presently do not work at all. What must be done to improve our nation's educational system.(I will list parts 5-10) Part 5: Improve teacher quality and focus on recruitment and retention……that states, localities and the federal government step up to the crisis in teaching by providing market-competitive salaries, creating multiple pathways into teaching, and fixing the math and science crisis. Part 6: Clarify and simplify admission process……that public and private institutions of higher education continue to uphold the highest professional standards in admission and financial aid and collaborate to make the admission process more transparent and less complex. Part 7: Provide more need-based grant aid while simplifying the financial aid system and making it more transparent……that federal and state officials encourage increased access by providing more need-based grant aid, making the process of applying for financial assistance more transparent and predictable, and finding ways to inform families, as early as the middle school years, of aid amounts likely to be available to individual students. Part 8: Keep college affordable…

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… restraining growth in college costs and prices, using available aid and resources wisely, and insisting that state governments meet their obligations for funding higher education. Part 9: Dramatically increase college completion rates…… that institutions of higher education set out to dramatically increase college completion rates by improving retention, easing transfer among institutions and implementing data-based strategies to identify retention and dropout challenges. Part 10: Provide postsecondary opportunities as an essential element of adult education programs…… a renewed commitment to adult education opportunities, one that supplements existing basic skills training with a new “honors GED,” and better coordination of federal and state efforts to provide adult education, veterans benefits, outreach programs and student aid. The Roadmap for educators and policymakers to help students reach college completion.The percentage of American adults with postsecondary credentials is not keeping pace with other industrialized nations. Improving postsecondary success for all our citizens, but most urgently for low-income and minority students, is critical to our nation's economic and social health. To help policymakers and educators achieve the goal of 55% by 2025, The College Board Advocacy & Policy Center has developed the College Completion Agenda — incorporating a progress report that will be updated annually and a companion state policy guide that was co-created with the National Conference of State Legislatures<http://www.ncsl.org/>. They combine comprehensive research from nationally recognized sources with best-practice policy examples, all aligned around 10 key recommendations. The agenda's purpose is to provide reliable, measurable information that tracks our collective progress, as well as policymaking strategies each state can use to help us reach our destination.

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 educator 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. I want to reiterate that 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

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students will need once they exit our courses (Mindset: those academic and student support services are developmental education). 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, (and what I think is important) 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. I know from the discussions that the message has not completely sunk in; we are still trying to fix a problem where it will make little difference. We have to start asking ourselves at every turn, not whether our students will get through our courses, but will they have pathways that successfully override time (time is the enemy) all the way to completion. Dan KestersonJCTC Developmental Education Coordinator

Colorado Moves Ahead in Reforming Remediation to Increase Completion Rates

May 16, 2012 by Mary Fulton<http://www.boostingcollegecompletion.org/author/mfulton/> 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<http://www.leg.state.co.us/CLICS/CLICS2012A/csl.nsf/fsbillcont3/64C3361BBB1CA6C187257981007DBE2F?Open&file=1155_enr.pdf>, sponsored by Rep. Tom Massey, the chair of the House Education Committee, includes the following

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provisions related to remedial education:•  Multiple measures for remedial placement•  Differentiated math requirements•  Supplemental academic instruction.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 PlacementAccording to recent research<http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Publication.asp?UID=1026>, 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 college-level work and the most appropriate interventions to address their skill deficits. A recent GPG policy brief<http://www.ecs.org/clearinghouse/01/02/28/10228.pdf> 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 RequirementThe 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<http://www.utdanacenter.org/mathways/index.php>, <http://www.utdanacenter.org/mathways/>  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 non-STEM students based on a common set of competencies.

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 Supplemental Academic InstructionSupplemental 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<http://alp-deved.org/?%7Epadams/ALP/Site%20Folder/Fall%202010/faculty/toc%20faculty.html> 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<http://www.apsu.edu/academic-support-center/sla/about> eliminated the two remedial math courses and moved students directly into one of two credit-bearing math courses. In addition, Complete College America<http://www.completecollege.org/state_data/> is urging its 30 member states to adopt co-requisite models to help remedy some of problems with the current system of providing remediation. 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.

Summer Bridge Programs

Good and bad news for summer bridge programs. The new research from the National Center for Postsecondary education is in line with providing additional support for developmental students; however, (I’m stretching the outcomes) the research may have implications for continuing support for these students throughout their college careers. Completion pays for itself the college, the student, and the society); support is cheap in the long run. Study Results:New NCPR Report on Developmental Summer Bridge ProgramsBridging the Gap: An Impact Study of Eight Developmental Summer Bridge Programs in Texas

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 Elisabeth A. Barnett, Rachel Hare Bork, Alexander K. Mayer, Joshua Pretlow, Heather D. Wathington, and Madeline Joy Weiss, with Evan Weissman, Jedediah Teres, and Matthew Zeidenberg June 14, 2012 Developmental summer bridge programs are a popular strategy for increasing college readiness among recent high school graduates. Aimed at providing an alternative to traditional developmental education, these programs provide accelerated and focused learning opportunities in order to help students acquire the knowledge and skills needed for college success. The current study uses an experimental design to evaluate the outcomes of eight developmental summer bridge programs offered in Texas during the summer of 2009. At each college, students who consented to participate in the study were randomly assigned to either a program group that was eligible to participate in a developmental summer bridge program or a control group that was eligible to use any other services that the college provided. Based on a program model developed by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, the developmental summer bridge programs in this study included four common features: accelerated instruction in developmental math, reading, and/or writing; academic support; a “college knowledge” component; and the opportunity to earn a $400 stipend. After two years of follow-up, these are the main findings of this study:•  The programs had no effect on the average number of credits attempted or earned. Program group and control group students attempted the same number of credits (30.3). Students in the program group earned an average of 19.4 credits, and students in the control group earned an average of 19.9 credits; the difference in their outcomes is not statistically significant.•  The programs had an impact on first college-level course completion in math and writing that was evident in the year and a half following the program but no impact on first college-level course completion in reading during this same period. On average, students in the program group passed their first college-level math and writing courses at higher rates than students in the control group during this period. By the end of the two-year follow-up period, however, the differences between the two groups are no longer statistically significant.•  There is no evidence that the programs impacted persistence. During the two-year follow-up period, students in the program group enrolled in an average of 3.3 semesters, and students in the control group enrolled in an average of 3.4 semesters, a difference that is not statistically significant.Download the Full Report (PDF)<http://www.tc.columbia.edu/i/a/document/22731_NCPR_TexasDSB_FullReport.pdf> | Download the Executive Summary (PDF)

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<http://www.tc.columbia.edu/i/a/document/22730_NCPR_TexasDSB_ExecutiveSummary.pdf>

College Readiness Resources

There are some excellent resources on college readiness and student success and completion at the two links below.  These are presentations and information presented to the Council members at the April 20, 2012 and June 21, 2012 meetings.  Of special interest may be the Policy Objective papers and the presentations.http://www.cpe.ky.gov/about/cpe/meetings/2012/April+20+Meeting.htmhttp://www.cpe.ky.gov/about/cpe/meetings/2012/June+21+Council+Meeting.htm Dr. Sue CainCollege Readiness and Developmental Education Initiative CoordinatorCouncil on Postsecondary Education

Interview with Bill Gates

Below is a interview with Bill Gates. I have pulled a couple of quotes and posted the link to the whole interview. From A Conversation With Bill Gates About the Future of Higher Education Jeffrey R. Young6/25/2012 The Chronicle of Higher Education A.  “Take remedial math, which is an absolute disaster. What destroys more self-confidence 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. If we can take and bring the right technical things and people things to that, then that would make a huge difference.” (Bill Gates Interview, 2012) Q. What did you learn from K-12 that you're bringing to higher ed? A. In K-12 you learn a lot about the motivational aspects. Why should somebody learn algebra? It's so far away in terms of connecting that with a job or any life outcome. And how to make things interesting. K-12 has been more homogenized in terms of how it's done: what the standards are, what the personnel system looks like. One of the strengths of higher ed is the variety. But the variety has also meant that if somebody is doing something particularly well, it's hard to map that across a lot of different institutions. There aren't very many good metrics. At least in high schools we can talk about dropout rates. Completion rate was really opaque, and not talked about a lot. The quality-measure things are equally different. We don't have a gold standard like SAT scores or No Child Left Behind up at the collegiate level. And of course, kids are more dispersed in terms of what their career goals are at that point. So it's got some things that make it particularly challenging, but it has a lot in common, and I'd say it's equally important to get it right.

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

Improve Remediation/Not Scrap It

June 21, 2012Researchers Are Rallied to Help Improve Remedial Education, Not Scrap ItBy Jennifer Gonzálezhttp://chronicle.com/article/Researchers-Are-Rallied-to/132513/?cid=cc&utm_source=cc&utm_medium=en New YorkIn recent years, developmental education has been the focus of much research and scrutiny, especially given the Obama administration's mandate that community colleges graduate five million more students by 2020<http://chronicle.com/article/Community-College-Officials/65161/>and the number of students who need remedial courses<http://chronicle.com/article/Lessons-Learned-Using-Data-to/65055/%3C/p%3E%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%3Cp%3E> before they can tackle the course work required for a degree.On Thursday, the challenge of how to improve developmental education was the focus of a large gathering of scholars here where they shared the latest research on remedial education as part of the National Center for Postsecondary Research Conference at Columbia University.Martha J. Kanter, the U.S. under secretary of education and the conference's keynote speaker, demonstrated the urgency of the problem by laying out a string of grim college-pipeline statistics. Fourth-grade reading scores, which have been linked to future educational success, have been stagnant for the last 40 years, she said, and only 75 percent of high-school students earn a diploma. In some parts of the country, the proportion of high-school students who graduate is closer to 50 percent, she said.In addition, there are currently 93 million low-skilled adults in the United States. That's 45 percent of the nation's adult population Ms. Kanter said. Education research has an important role to play in improving that situation, she said."You are the brain trust," she said to the gathered scholars. "You are the people who can say, 'We are not going to do this to the next generation.'"With the increasing squeeze on state budgets, the cost of remedial education is becoming a political issue. Some states, such as Connecticut<http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/connecticut-legislature-approves-bill-limiting-remedial-coursework-to-1-semester/43154> and Tennessee, have passed laws eliminating or restricting remedial courses at public colleges.Rather than abolish remedial education, Ms. Kanter implored the scholars to continue their work to reform and improve it.She also said it was important for education researchers to showcase their work more broadly in the postsecondary arena. "Historically, that has been lacking," she said. "We need a lot of people to become spokespersons for what is happening in

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developmental education and why it matters."Improving remedial education is crucial, given the varying background of students who attend community colleges. Ms. Kanter said there is a disconnect in higher education because "we have such a tremendous amount of variation on the input side, but we want consistency on the output side.""It's a huge problem in this country," she said. That is why we need "your best ideas on how we can construct a continuous improvement model" that meets students where they are, but also helps them move along the college path."That is the challenge before us," she said.And it may be more daunting than she and others realize. Research discussed at the conference found that remedial intervention models, such as learning communities and summer bridge programs, have only a minimal effect on student outcomes.One bright spot in the research is the acceleration model, which includes fast-track courses, modularized instruction, and mainstreaming students into college-level classes with additional support. The research shows more students passing their courses and also bumps in college credits, transfer and graduation numbers.The topsy-turvy nature of the research results on various models shows how much more work needs to be done on how to improve remedial education. There is no one right model because when one works at one community college it may not work at another.But one thing is certain, she said: The change "won't happen in Washington, but it can happen on your campuses."

Variation of the Emporium Model

Norma Stall, shared this article with the LRNASST listserv and it is very interesting. The model has potential application, especially for those looking at variations of the emporium model whether reading writing or math.. It is a beautiful meeting place with what works and what perhaps is not working.  It has all kinds of crossover potential for contextualized and co-requisite models. To me it is the kind of thinking that  developmental educators are noted for when they have the evidence and facts. Article:Oklahoma colleges, universities address effectiveness of remediation coursesConcern 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

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students’ degrees, and their GPAs won’t reflect how they did. 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. RETHINKING COURSESSuch low-level classes, commonly called remediation or developmental courses, are generally geared toward students who aren’t ready for college-level work. But research has shown students who wind up in these classes are less likely than their peers ever to graduate. In a 2011 report, nonprofit Complete College America calls developmental courses “the Bermuda Triangle of higher education.” According to the report, about 35 percent of bachelor’s students who take these courses graduate with a degree within six years, compared with 56 percent of the overall student population. Higher education officials worry that trend could hamper the state’s ability to meet its college completion goals. Glen Johnson, chancellor of the Oklahoma Higher Education system, has called for an additional 20,400 degrees and certificates awarded in Oklahoma over the next 12 years. That concern is leading some schools, including OCCC’s math department, to rethink the way they handle developmental courses. Department director Tamara Carter said the department tried a number of different options that had been implemented in schools around the country. In the end, she said, the department kept the pieces of each plan that worked for OCCC. “It was a huge transition,” she said. The college’s old developmental math program closely resembled the traditional college model, Carter said — students mainly listened to lectures and took tests. 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, 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 DIVIDENDSAlthough the new model is only two years old, it already appears to be paying

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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-address-effectiveness-of-remediation-courses/article/3687467#ixzz1ypDHhXrd 

Certificates: Gateway to gainful employment

We have been talking about fleshing out a full compliment of contextualized and/or co-requisite courses or programs at all skills levels for underprepared students.Below is a fascinating collection of facts about certificates from Georgetown University, Center on Education and the Workforce.http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/CertificatesFullReportFINAL.pdf Interjected Example: Accelerating Opportunity KentuckyImproving outcomes for large numbers of low-skilled adult learners requires changes to both policy and practice, particularly to encourage the development of scalable program models. A critical component of Accelerating Opportunity is the implementation of evidence-based instructional and programmatic models that promote transition to and completion of credentialing programs in high-demand fields.These evidence-based models include, but are not limited to, the Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-BEST) model, “I-BEST-like” designs, and models developed through the Breaking Through initiative. Improving outcomes for large numbers of low-skilled adult learners requires changes to both policy and practice, particularly to encourage the development of scalable program models. A critical component of Accelerating Opportunity is the implementation of evidence-based instructional and programmatic models that promote transition to and completion of credentialing programs in high-demand fields.These evidence-based models include, but are not limited to, the Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-BEST) model, “I-BEST-like” designs, and models developed through the Breaking Through initiative. Postsecondary certificates are the fastest growing form of college credentials in the nation, with more than one million awarded annually. Summary of Findingshttp://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/CertificatesFullReportFINAL.pdf On average, certificate holders earn 20 percent more than high school graduates without any postsecondary education. However, the economic returns vary according to: the certificate’s field of study, whether the certificate holder works in

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field, and the certificate holder’s sex, race, and ethnicity. For example, 44 percent of certificate holders work in field. Certificate holders who work in field earn 37 percent more than those who work out of field. On average, a certificate holder who works in field earns nearly as much as the median Associate’s degree holder—only 4 percent less. On the other hand, the median certificate holder who works out of field earns only 1 percent more than a high school-educated worker. There are two lessons here. First, certificate attainment is most successful when certificate holders are able to work in field. Second, the extent to which institutions can promote in-field work via, for example, job placement programs, will affect their graduates’ success significantly in becoming gainfully employed. .  Among policymakers, practitioners, and other stakeholders, a growing consensus is emerging that certificates requiring less than one year of study have little economic value. This view is based on the intuition that more instruction leads to a variety and depth of general and occupational skills rewarded by the labor market and on the basis of independent studies usually conducted at the state level, such as Jepsen, Troske, and Coomes (2009), which analyzed certificate outcomes in Kentucky. In Part 2 of this report, evidence is presented that suggests this assumption is overstated. In short, the appearance of low earnings returns from short-term certificates is largely be- cause of the prevalence of healthcare certificates, which are highly concentrated among women and have relatively low earnings returns. After removing healthcare, the relationship between length of program and earnings largely evaporates. Sex and occupational-field variables seem to explain better the differences in earnings among certificate holders. While there are no data available on variation of earnings within fields based on program length, many of the fields predominantly consisting of short-term certificates (e.g., transportation and materials moving, police and protective services, and computer and information ser- vices) have average earnings. A certificate holder’s field (or program) of study can also influence earnings, especially if they work in an occupation related to their training.•   In computer and information services, men working in field earn $72,498 per year, which is more than 72 percent of men with an Associate’s degree and 54 percent of men with Bachelor’s degrees. Women with certificates in this field and working in a related occupation earn $56,664 annually, which is greater than 75 percent of women with an Associate’s degree and 64 percent of women with a Bachelor’s degree.•  In electronics, men earn $64,700, more than 65 percent of the men with Associate’s degrees and 48 percent of men with a Bachelor’s degree.• In business and office management, women earn $38,204, which is more than 54 percent of women with Associate’s degrees and 41 percent of women with Bachelor’s degrees.However, these high-earning cases depend on certificate holders working in their field of study: only 24 percent of men and 7 percent of women with certificates in information technology, for example, work in field. By contrast, 43 percent of men with an electronics certificate and 67 per- cent of women with a certificate in business and office management or in electronics work in field.

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Sex also has a large influence on the fields of study students enter, as well as their earnings after earning certificates. Of the 14 different certificate fields identified, 12 are extremely sex segregated, meaning that three out of four certificate holders are of the same sex. Compared to men, women earn certificates that bring them limited earnings returns: a certificate’s wage premium over a high school diploma is 27 percent for men and just 16 percent for women.3 By comparison, women with an Associate’s degree earn 48 percent more than women with just a high school diploma, while the median male Associate’s degree holder earns 43 percent more than his high school-educated counterpart. At the Bachelor’s degree level, women earn 86 percent more than high school-educated women, while men earn 91 percent more than high school-educated men.Men with certificates not only earn more than women with certificates, they also receive a larger wage premium from a certificate over a high school diploma. These differences show that certificates work well for men but give minimal labor market traction for women. Women seeking to use certificates for wage returns are typically better off pursuing at least a two-year degree. There are a few caveats, however. Women who work in field or enter high-earning certificate fields do well. And certificates may be a good option for women to gain credentials that allow them to adjust their hours or to go in and out of the labor force easily to accommodate their need to stay home because of family responsibilities.Some certificate holders earn as much as or even more than workers with college degrees. Among male certificate holders, 39 percent earn more than the median male with an Associate’s degree, and 24 percent earn more than the median male with a Bachelor’s degree. Among female certificate holders, the numbers are comparable: 34 percent earn more than female Associate’s degree holders, and 23 percent earn more than female Bachelor’s degree holders.

A Conceptual Understanding Approach to Support

Paul Ellis, thanks for the feedback. You state: “I would love to teach a reading or reading/writing course paired with a gateway course. My job would be to promote the three tasks bulleted in Dan's passage below. As an expert reader/writer/learner, I would guide the students' practice of these tasks” – providing the learner with practice with cognitive strategies and habit of mind that helps the learner: -Understand ideas and facts in the context of a conceptual framework-Organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and applicationDevelop a deep foundation of factual knowledge. Here is where I could use everyone’s help. I am only capable of thinking reading and a content course and have been working on the skills that most often need to be promoted within the three bulleted tasks you mention that ensure that the learner is acquiring the skills and habits of mind that build competence skills in a content course. At the following link are those skills and habits of mind.  I will also list the links at the end of this message.

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http://corequisite.pbworks.com/w/page/53956384/Professional%20Development What I need help with is a similar set of skills or practices that would fulfill writing requirements.The extent of my writing instruction knowledge has more to do with writing to learn where the goal is letting the learner write about content being learned to clarify and organize concepts. The goal I use in reading is ensuring that students develop the cognitive skills and habits of mind for dealing with comprehensive content textbooks as that will be their major stumbling block for passing content courses. Where I am weak is understanding just what abilities that the learner also needs to for ENG 101 within the instruction. An option is also adding ENG 101 to the mix and contextualizing the content. Any help form anyone would be appreciated. RationaleHere is what we know. Every semester that we add “points of exit” to a students schedule the less likely they are to complete (earn certificate or degree) even if they successfully complete the additional points of exit (developmental courses). We also know that if the student begins taking content courses they are interested in or are in their programs of study the more likely they will graduate. The goal is completion. The ultimate remediation plan would eliminate all prerequisite developmental instruction, place the student in a content course as you say Paul, “The learning of the course content in the "skill" course would be collaborative.“If I understand, your frame of reference is a center or lab setting. I am looking at a paired course, learning community or team teaching. The skills and habits of mind would be the same. Also see attached: “Building Rigor and Competence in a Gateway Course” READING SKILLS and HABITS OF MIND LINKS HOW THE BRAIN LEARNSGrowing New Dendrites -  6 ½ minutes  <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6_7_JFkuBY>Description: an illustrated explanation of how the growing of new dendrites is learning Remembering and Forgetting – 9 ½ minutes <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ON7_g_y0-1Y>Description: a continuation of the above video with an explanation of how to strengthen new dendrites and pruning. THE STAGE METAPHOR (Working Memory) The Stage Metaphor: Part 1 (8 ½ minutes) <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SMwwmAympY>

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(Explanation of The Stage Metaphor – what does the learner need to do between new information coming into the brain and growing and strengthening dendrites of new learning. These four videos construct the overarching goals (conceptual framework) of CMS 185. The Stage Metaphor: Part 2 (9 minutes) <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrv4Pv78fpc>(Continuation of explanation of The Stage Metaphor – what does the learner need to do between new information coming into the brain and growing and strengthening dendrites of new learning.) Thinking The Stage Strategies: Part 3 (7 ½ minutes) <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-bA8Opvr-8>(Examples of how The Stage Metaphor can be used to learn to think metacognitively to apply learning strategies) Thinking The Stage Strategies: Part 4 (8 minutes) <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vwtd8N3bD90>(Continuation of examples of how The Stage Metaphor can be used to learn to think metacognitively to apply learning strategies) THE BIG QUESTION The Big Questions <http://deepreading.pbworks.com/w/file/51972932/The%20Big%20Questions.docx>          Eating Disorder Example from Psychology <http://deepreading.pbworks.com/w/file/51973015/Eating%20Disorder%20Example.docx> DEVELOPING A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK               Developing a Conceptual Framework <http://corequisite.pbworks.com/w/file/54002494/DEVELOPING%20A%20CONCEPTUAL%20FRAMEWORK%20WITH%20WHICH%20to%20LEARN-1.docx> RULES OF CONSOLIDATION              Rules of Consolidation <http://corequisite.pbworks.com/w/file/54002506/Compare%20Rules%20of%20Consolidation-5.docx> METACOGNITION Metacognition<http://corequisite.pbworks.com/w/page/54002111/Metacognition> INTERNAL DIALOGUE

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          Internal Dialogue Snapshot <http://corequisite.pbworks.com/w/file/54001987/MT%20Internal%20Dialogue%20Snapshot-1.docx> CHARTS AND GRAPHS          Charts and Graphs <http://corequisite.pbworks.com/w/file/54002341/MT%20Charts%20Tables%20Graphs-2.pptx> TEXT CLUES              Text Clues <http://corequisite.pbworks.com/w/page/54002378/Text%20Clues%20PD> UNDERSTANDING CATEGORIZING AND CLASSIFYING              Categorizing and Classifying <http://corequisite.pbworks.com/w/file/54002471/Compare%20Psy%20Motivation-6.pptx> ELABORATIONS AND WRITING TO LEARN              Elaborations and Writing to Learn <http://corequisite.pbworks.com/w/file/54002533/Elaboration%20and%20Writing%20to%20Learn%20PD.docx> ORGANIZING AND MIND MAPPING              Organizing and MInd Mapping <http://corequisite.pbworks.com/w/file/54002573/Mind%20Mapping%20PD.docx VOCABULARY AND TERMINOLOGY              Vocabulary and Terminology <http://corequisite.pbworks.com/w/file/54002591/VocabularyTerminology-1.docx> HOW TO READ TO LEARN MATH THEXTBOOKS    How to Read to Learn a Math Textbook Part 1 (10 min.) <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_Zv0JBFpZw>     How to Read to Learn a Math Textbook Part 2 (10 min.) <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2r1xDMFKhis>     How to Read to Learn a Math Textbook Part 3 (10 min.) <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpDaZbGTcwA>     How to Read to Learn a Math Textbook Part 4 (8 ½ min.) <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9i823ZavSw> ADAPTIVE EXPERTISE

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    Building Adaptive Expertise Backwards <http://corequisite.pbworks.com/w/file/54026244/BuildingAdaptiveBackwards-15.docx> Thoughts on Adaptive Expertise <http://corequisite.pbworks.com/w/file/54026192/Adaptive%20Expertise%20Bransford-9.doc>Dan KestersonJCTC Developmental Education Coordinator

Brain Training and ADHD

This is the third educational email from Dr. Charles Shinaver, which I requested for us on the impact of weak working memory. Working memory deficits affect the level of learning that underlies skill acquisition when the application of skill taxes working memory. This can be remedied with Cogmed training, Consider the students in your classes who just don’t quite get it, yet in conversations with them, it is obvious that they are “smart”, often very smart. Their failure to build a deep foundation of knowledge impacts their lives at every level, yet we now know that working memory can be vastly improved, thus liberating potential.  I paid  $1,000 for my training. Cogmed has worked out a plan that would only cost our students $34 for the training. Please read the following; I truly believe it has the potential of transforming many lives. 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: 

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“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- 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 Cogmed Working Memory TrainingTM effects one would add skill building in math, reading comprehension, writing, or whatever area is salient after finishing Cogmed.  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 attentention 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 Cogmed 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

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“live” situation they simply cannot recall the skill they practiced and planned to use when they were in the counseling session. Dr. Charles ShinaverCogmed ConsultantCogmed Working Memory TrainingTMClinical Assessment, Pearson317-641-7794800-627-7271 ext 262355Charles.Shinaver@Pearson.com<mailto:Charles.Shinaver@Pearson.com>

Co-Requisite Remediation

Many of you are exploring the idea of co-requisite courses. The Co-Requisite Course ModelCo-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.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. Transform Remediation: The Co-Requisite Course Modelhttp://www.completecollege.org/docs/CCA%20Co-Req%20Model%20-%20Transform%20Remediation%20for%20Chicago%20final(1).pdf Co-requisite Modelhttp://gettingpastgo.org/blog/2011/03/21/co-requisite-model/ Co-requisite Remediationhttp://www.completecollege.org/docs/CCA%20Policy%20Deck%20Remediation%20Final%209-21-11.pdf Enhanced Mathematics—A Co-requisite Approach to Developmental Mathematicshttp://www.aascu.org/programs/ie/SubmissionDetails.aspx?id=4195 Remediation: the Bridge to Nowherehttp://www.edpath.com/remedialeducation.html Transform Remediationhttp://www.completecollege.org/docs/CCA%20Essential%20Steps%20Remediation%20Sept%202011.pdf

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 Also see: www.corequisite.pbworks.com<http://www.corequisite.pbworks.com/>

Learning Often Shows Up Later

Diane-Calhoun-French has pointed me to what she calls a fascinating article and I agree.The Benefits of Making It Harder to Learnhttp://chronicle.com/article/The-Benefits-of-Making-It/132056/ The research is in line with the idea that metacognition and the use of cognitive strategies increases when students are engaged. A quick excerpt:As the researchers pointed out in their article in the journal Cognition, both students and teachers may sometimes judge the success of a learning experience by the ease with which the learner processes or "encodes" the new information. But learning material easily, or fluently, may sometimes produce shallower levels of learning.By contrast, "making material harder to learn," the authors wrote, "can improve long-term learning and retention. More cognitive engagement leads to deeper processing, which facilitates encoding and subsequently better retrieval." In other words, when students encounter cognitive disfluency, and have to put in more work in processing the material, it may sink in more deeply.

The Effective Domain

We have been discussing developmental student completion and focusing on accelerating learning as time is the strongest barrier to success. Matt has a number of times brought up the topic the affective domain and its impact on developmental students who are placed in a sequence of delaying developmental courses. It seems to me that there are two areas of consideration of the affective domain that developmental educators need to keep in mind when planning a developmental program for students. First, as Matt often suggests is that of the negative affects of delaying beginning programs of study. Second, when moving toward accelerating learning the further the accelerating model moves away form contextualization , the less likely the students will “share a passion for the material, and become emotionally committed to the ideas, process and activities and see the work as connected to present and future goals” (Tom Ott). As we move from negatively impacting learning by moving developmental education away from prerequisites to co-requisites (immediately reducing the negative connotations of being unprepared) we have to keep in mind that students need to share a passion for the material, are emotionally committed to the ideas, process and activities and see the work as connected to present and future goals” (Tom Ott).

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 For example, the more modular and self-directed a modularization program becomes, the less opportunity for discourse, that is “ shaping cognitive and metacognitive processes by reflection or commenting on what one feels/thinks” (Tom Ott). “Metacognition and internal dialogue has to be taught (John Bransford). Just how important is discourse in the learning process? It is foundational to student motivation and perception. All learning is tied to emotions. In planning an accelerating program for developmental students, it is very important to build in opportunity for teacher to enter into dialogue with the learner. Passion and persistence key ingredients of skill building (Daniel Cole).Constructivist Theory: The emphasis is on the learner as an active "maker of meanings". The role of the teacher is to enter into a dialogue with the learner, trying to understand the meaning to that learner of the material to be learned, and to help her or him to refine their understanding until it corresponds with that of the teacher. For example, in the pure Emporium Model, the most important component is having assistance-on-demand when the learner is having difficulty. On-demand-assistants need a lot of professional development on how to interact with the student who is having difficulty and on how learning occurs, as well as the role of passion in learning. For instance, if the student is having difficulty with a math problem, the most immediate response if often to show the student how to work the problem – this is referred to as gliding – not the most effective learning/teaching approach:NOTE: American teachers, according to Coyle, tend to work like waiters. Whenever there was a struggle, they wanted to move past it, make sure the class is kept gliding along, But in the myelin model, you don’t learn by gliding. One can immediately see this gliding process with on-demand-assistance when the assistance believes that moving on as quickly as possible is the goal. Actually the goal is deep learning and struggle and repetition is important at the point of difficulty. Moving to avoid deep practice is counter productive.  Deep practice is a strange concept as it takes what we normally try to avoid – namely mistakes – and turns them into skills. Q: Why is targeted, mistake-focused practice so effective?A: Because the best way to build a good circuit is to fire it, attend to mistakes, then fire it again, over and over. Struggle is not an option: it is a biological requirement.NOTE: American teachers, according to Coyle, tend to work like waiters. Whenever there was a struggle, they wanted to move past it, make sure the class is kept gliding along, But in the myelin model, you don’t learn by gliding. (Coyle) Q: Why are passion and persistence key ingredients of skill building?A: Because wrapping myelin around a big circuit requires immense energy and time. If one does not love it, one will never work hard enough to be great. (Coyle) Myelin is “the key” to talking, reading, learning skill, being human. Most people are under the impression that the key to learning skills and being human resided in our brain’s neurons, that flickering web of interconnected nerve fibers and the famous

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synapses through which they link and communicate. New research, however informs us that while scientists still consider neurons and synapses to be vitally important, the traditional neuron-centric world-view is being fundamentally altered. The humble-looking insulation, it turns out, plays a key role in the way our brains function, particularly when it comes to acquiring skills. This change in thinking is built on three simple facts. (1) Every human movement, thought and feeling is a precisely timed electrical signal traveling through a chain of neurons –a circuit of nerve fibers. (2) Myelin is the insulation that wraps these nerve fibers and increases signal strength, speed, and accuracy. (3) The more we fire a particular circuit, the stronger, faster, and more fluent our thoughts become. On-demand assistance perhaps might consider letting the student explain what they are thinking as they work a problem they are having difficulty solving and enter into a dialogue with the purpose of bringing awareness of the student’s false assumptions to their attention and providing them with correct assumptions.  But there is not enough time or enough on-demand-assistance for deep learning; then either get the assistance or do not use a pure Emporium Model. Make having enough learning-trained on-demand-assistance the first priority when using any acceleration model. “As faculty, we naturally emphasize the cognitive domain in our teaching. After all, students think and learn with their brains (we hope!). Yet the affective domain can significantly enhance, inhibit or even prevent student learning. The affective domain includes factors such as student motivation, attitudes, perceptions and values. Teachers can increase their effectiveness by considering the affective domain in planning courses, delivering lectures and activities, and assessing student learning.” (The Effective Domain in the Classroom) http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/affective/index.html From The Use of the Affective, Cognitive, and Metacognitive in the Developmental Education Composition Classroom: A Course Portfolio by Tom Ott  http://faculty.ccp.edu/dept/viewpoints/f07v9n1/Ott.pdf“Attention to the affective, I believe, must be an equal partner with the cognitive and metacognitive in the development of student self awareness and maturation as a learner. The cognitive domain has always been privileged in the academic world and happily so, as allegiance to reason and disciplined thought seems a much better approach to addressing issues and problems than is burning people as sacrifice when the crops fail. Nevertheless, in higher education the emphasis on the cognitive, often to the exclusion and even the derision of the affective, seems to make teaching a matter of information transmission and learning a matter of passive reception rather than a dynamic engagement in the service of personal transformation. Fortunately, with the shift in paradigm from teaching to learning introduced by Robert Barr and John Tagg (1995) and the work of a number of researchers/scholars on the importance

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of the affective in education Bower (1992), Bransford, Brown & Cocking (1999), Gardner (1999), Goleman (2005) and Palmer (1998) , the affective may well be growing as an essential element in understanding the teaching/learning relationship. As noted by Lee Shulman (2004): “Authentic and enduring learning occurs when students share a passion for the material, are emotionally committed to the ideas, process and activities and see the work as connected to present and future goals” (p. 25). While Shulman was writing about teaching/learning in the liberal arts, the idea that students must be emotionally connected to the learning process seems applicable across disciplines. Further, it seems to follow that if we wish our students to be passionate about the work we put before them, we must help them locate the place in the academic enterprise where recognition of emotional response is not only appropriate but necessary. As noted by Paul R. Pintrich (2002) as well as Flavell (1979) if metacognition captures awareness of self, which certainly must include awareness of what one feels, then the affective must be part of that process and should be addressed explicitly in instruction (Pintrich, 223).” (Tom Ott) 

The Statistics Pathway

Etta, you are on the right track with your thinking about statistics.A quick look at Richland Community College will provide better insight.http://www.richlandcollege.edu/devmath/statway STATWAY™ (the Statistics Pathway) is structured especially to serve students planning to transfer and continue further studies in liberal arts, humanities, or social sciences OR for those wanting to obtain their Associate of Arts degree. It will get students "to-and-through" developmental mathematics and transferable college-level statistics in 2 semesters and there is no cost for textbooks and online courseware. STATWAY™ is focused on statistics, data analysis and quantitative reasoning. These mathematics skills are essential for a growing number of occupations and professions, and are those needed for making decisions under conditions of uncertainty, an inescapable condition of modern life. This is the mathematics that will help students understand the world around them and it is the mathematics they can use right now. STATWAY™ is designed as a required "one-year pathway" that culminates in college-level statistics. The year-long experience will concentrate on statistical content with requisite arithmetic and algebraic concepts taught and applied in the context of statistics. STATWAY™ is structured especially to serve students planning to transfer and continue further studies in liberal arts, humanities or social sciences. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Want to complete your DMAT and MATH requirements in ONLY 2 semesters?

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Richland College is offering a combined "two-semester" accelerated developmental mathematics and statistics course sequence. This statistics course is a transferable college credit course. The course satisfies the statistics mathematics requirements for humanities, liberal arts or social science majors. This course is not a good choice for students who want to be doctors, scientists, engineers, nurses, mathematicians, business majors or teachers. What is the accelerated developmental math and statistics course sequence? It is a required "two-semester" (fall 2012-spring 2013) course which will move developmental mathematics students "to-and-through" transferable college statistics in one year. At the end of the second semester students will have completed their college-level statistics requirement, MATH 2442. Who should consider this accelerated course? Designed for students planning to transfer to a four year institution and major in liberal arts, humanities or social sciences or plan on completing an Associate of Arts degree. Note: This is NOT for science, math, engineering, technology, business, allied health, or any major requiring a specific math course other than statistics. Dan KestersonJCTC Developmental Education Coordinator

Etta, you asked, “What are the critical “supports” from your perspective?” Before I begin, I am not laying out a hard-n-fast plan. The following is just a stimulus for thinking about how we might better support our students. I also am not endorsing any particular accelerated instruction model other than to say whatever the model, the college should be figuring out how to use it to support entry-level courses in programs of study. The program and the co-requite course should not act in isolation. Students must have the opportunity to succeed. They now have the opportunity to fail and in great numbers. Support is the key. If we are not going to provide the support from application to completion, just ignore the following. Actually the following is not so far from what you have been saying Etta. 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 AboutLet me start of with these finding 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

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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 is 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 programs of study. 2. Programs of Study – Here is Where We are Completely Missing the BoatPrograms of study represent subpopulations where we can target and support our developmental students, and being in a program of study can offer far more than that for as a developmental students we have subpopulations with subpopulations and the opportunity for greater support. Take Baltimore, which places eight developmental students in a gateway courses and offers immediate support and contextual remediation immediately following those classes. That sound expensive, not if the students are retained and are progressing toward completion. This can be done with any kind of accelerated model; one just ahs to understand that the model is in support of the gateway course.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 (we have talked about the three skill levels – in the PBWiki (everyone skips or ignores this most important idea http://corequisite.pbworks.com/w/page/53897544/Three%20Levels%20of%20Co-Requisite%20Models )with the accelerated remediation support.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. To Improve Completion Rates, Community Colleges Need to Help Students "Get with the Program" This is the part that is going to take serious consideration – we are failing miserably on this one.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

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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. Also Consider this From Remediation: The Bridge to Nowhere“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 toolsto 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 soonas possible. Students should make

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the big choices of programs of study informed withan 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 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.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.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.” http://completecollege.org/docs/CCA-Remediation-final.pdf 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 about advising. Presently colleges are taking the most meager of steps to address advising – mistake – a fatal flaw. Kingsborough Community CollegeAt Kingsborough Community College, students are required to consult with an adviser at least twice a month.“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.”A recent study showed that, from 2007-2009, the ratio of advisers to non-ASAP

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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.“An ongoing assigned advisor appears to be a key component in increasing persistence and graduation rates,” 4. Ongoing Early AlertReading 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:1.Attendance, Participation, and Homework (taking self-responsibility for learning)2.Academic Problems (learning problems, underprepardness)3.NonAcademic Problems (daycare, transportation, financial aid, personal problems, etc.)4.Disruptive Behavior (is student behavior in a classroom or other learning environment which disrupts the educational process.) Mental Stress (depression, alcohol and drug, suicide, etc.) 5. Immediate Academic SupportStudents 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 co-requisite support (course, lab, advising, etc., but and immediate response is essential. Have you ever heard an instructor say that they just don’t have time to teach and doo all that the college asks of them and their obligations at home; welcome to the student’s world. If anyone thinks providing students with support and help is misplaced empathy, think again. Dan KestersonJCTC Developmental Education Coordinator

Assigned and Intrusive Advising

The evidence is in - “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

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percent graduation rate agenda will come and go until we get serious about advising. Presently colleges are taking the most meager of steps to address advising – mistake – a fatal flawA.Kingsborough Community CollegeAt Kingsborough Community College, students are required to consult with an adviser at least twice a month.“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.”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.“An ongoing assigned advisor appears to be a key component in increasing persistence and graduation rates,”Intrusive Advising of Freshmenhttp://www.nacada.ksu.edu/Clearinghouse/AdvisingIssues/Intrusive-Freshmen.htmThe intrusive model of advising is action-orientated to involving and motivating students to seek help when needed. Utilizing the good qualities of prescriptive advising (expertise, awareness of student needs, structured programs) and of developmental advising (relationship to a student's total needs), intrusive advising is a direct response to identified academic crisis with a specific program of action. It is a process of identifying students at crisis points and giving them the message, "You have this problem; here is a help-service."The difficulty with most advising-student contacts is that they take place precisely at the most frantic time for both advisors and students - the registration period. By being intrusive at the beginning of a semester advisors can counsel students during a low advising work cycle rather than just at "advising time."There are some distinct advantages of an intrusive mode of advising. First, a direct contact is established with an advisor who deals candidly with the student's academic situation when the student has maximum motivation to accept assistance.Second, the student is intrusively placed in a position where he/she must do academic planning within the parameters of self-motivation. Even a "no" response is at least a conscious decision about the academic situation.Students Understand What They Need from Advising: Colleges are Not Following Through“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,

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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 2006Connection and DirectionIf we look at Valencia Community College in Florida – their students have the highest graduation rates in the nation, including transitional students. They have a “connection and direction” plan. Connection is about making and having a contact they can depend on through their path from entrance to graduation.  . Direction-about having a plan for getting to their goals or graduation.http://valenciacc.edu/lci/essays/Goal2Essay.htm“WHAT IF.........?␣Students had connections with faculty/staff who could talk to them about their career and educational plans?␣Students saw a clear progression towards their degree each semester?␣Students learned the process to develop and implement career and educational plans and could repeat it for themselves as needed?” (Romano)Sandy Shugart, president of Valencia Community College in Chapter 9, “It isn’t enough, though, that students make a connection to the college. They must also develop as early as possible, a clear sense of direction…. Learning is not a passive activity. It engages the learner and requires that the college create an engaging climate. The literature of student persistence and success is quite clear on the importance of making an early connection. (Tinto, 1997; Stahl, Simpson, and Hayes, 1992)These connections are important in every dimension: student to curriculum, student to staff, student to student, and student to faculty. In our large and often impersonal bureaucracies, many students float through without connection and are at high risk of attrition. Our evidence suggests that no time is more vital for this connection than the very first experiences of college.A learning college will make a commitment and provide solutions that make it possible for every student to have a meaningful plan-to-graduate on file as early as possible in their academic career, perhaps by the fifteenth credit hour. At Valencia the most powerful predictor of successful completion of a program is academic performance in the first semester.Systemic improvements and investments at the thirtieth or fortieth hour of the curriculum will have only very minor impact on the larger outcomes of graduation, placement, and transfer. Even modest improvements, however, early in the process could produce dramatic effects on these outcomes. Valencia and other colleges on the learning paradigm journey, therefore, are concentrating much of their effort on the front door, the first experiences of the college.” (Shugart)Unlocking the GateWhat We Know About Improving Developmental Education, Elizabeth Zachry and Rutschow Emily Schneidehttp://www.postsecondaryresearch.org/i/a/document/18000_unlockingFull.pdfIntensive advising, which reduces advisers’ caseloads, allowing them to meet more frequently with students and provide more personalized attention, is another often- recommended intervention, though it can be expensive to implement on a large scale. Student success courses, which teach students study skills and provide an introduction to college life, are also a popular strategy.

Recapturing Non-Completers

As I have pointed out, being underprepared is not just a Placement Policy problem;

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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.“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 continuum. (NADE)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 even when students are on schedule for completion.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 Project<http://www.adultcollegecompletion.org/sites/files/documents/ntnmStateCaseStudies.pdf> (Lumina Supported)http://www.adultcollegecompletion.org/sites/files/documents/ntnmStateCaseStudies.pdf 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” (Remediation: Bridge to Nowhere)http://www.completecollege.org/docs/CCA-Remediation-summary.pdf EXCERPTS fromAs 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 cost-effective policy and practice within the six states and many institutions involved.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.This population of students also provided a pragmatic way to address 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

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thought participating and succeeding in this project would be a piece of cake because they knew they were already “adult friendly.” 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.

Dan KestersonJCTC Developmental Education Coordinator

More Structure in Picking a Major

Here is an interesting direction advising is taking. Send you hate and love mail to someone else. College Degrees,Designed by the NumbersBy Marc Parr, from The Chronicle.See whole paper at http://chronicle.com/article/College-Degrees-Designed-by/132945/ EXCERPT from paper:“At Arizona State, which has more than 250 majors, the old system let students explore without much structure. A student could major in engineering to please his parents, only to pack his schedule with "Chinese Thought" and music, says Elizabeth D. Capaldi, the provost. No longer. Technology has redrawn the road map.Under Arizona State's eAdvisor system—in use since 2008-9 and based on a similar effort at the University of Florida—students must pick a major in their freshman year and follow a plan that lays out when to take key courses. (Students can still study broadly, by choosing from five "exploratory" majors, like "arts and humanities" or "science and engineering," and staying in them for 45 credits.) If they fail to sign up for a key course or do well enough, the computer cracks a whip, marking them "off-track." A student who wanders off-track for two semesters in a row may have to change majors.If that sounds harsh, there's a rationale: One way to ensure that students will reach the finish line is to quickly figure out if they've selected a suitable track. So the Arizona State system front-loads key courses. For example, to succeed in psychology, a student must perform well in statistics.Mr. Denley points to a spate of recent books by behavioral economists, all with a common theme: When presented with many options and little information, people find it difficult to make wise choices. The same goes for college students trying to construct a schedule, he says. They know they must take a social-science class, but they don't know the implications of taking political science versus psychology versus economics. They choose on the basis of course descriptions or to avoid having to wake up for an 8 a.m. class on Monday. Every year, students in Tennessee lose their state scholarships because they fall a hair short of the GPA cutoff, Mr. Denley says, a financial swing that "massively changes their likelihood of graduating."

Time – Choice – Structure

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This is a very good read; learn how Time, Choice and Structure are the essential optics through which all higher education reforms must be viewed in order to maximize the likelihood of graduating more of today’s students. (Nice synopsis that I think can help all of us engage (more informed) in the completion conversation.Discussions about affordability must include the high price of failure because college is more expensive for those who don't graduate.At a hearing today on college costs, Complete College America president Stan Jones called on  the US House Education Committee to:#1) Measure the progress and success of all students, and#2) Leverage every available federal higher education program to boost college completion.Watch the hearing.<http://cl.s4.exct.net/?qs=fb524b1e1eeb7ec6ddf6b102b7ea3630d67843285251daf48069e3547b260450>Read the testimony.<http://cl.s4.exct.net/?qs=fb524b1e1eeb7ec6a9986df4685d41b1f326bc2b07ecd125609a04b0ce39803d>Learn what your state can do.<http://cl.s4.exct.net/?qs=fb524b1e1eeb7ec6abf8c6559ac8fbc1dfc2faca49bb31f2343be8d116af2fd8>Full Testimony below:Testimony before the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce TrainingStan JonesPresident of Complete College AmericaJuly 18, 2012Time is Money...and the Enemy of College Completion: Transform American Higher EducationTo Boost Completion and Reduce CostsExecutive Summary• A new American majority of students is emerging on college campuses. These students must often delicately balance long hours at jobs they must have with the higher education they desire. Approximately 40% of all American college students today feel they can only manage to attend part-time. And just one-quarter of American college students attend full-time at residential colleges.• Even though this emerging majority has fundamentally different needs, American higher education in general has been slow to change, continuing to deliver courses and programs designed decades ago and best suited for full-time, residential students.• To achieve the substantial gains in college completion America must have to compete, we must reinvent American higher education. To do so, requires significant shared responsibility by all stakeholders, including government. More of the same will not do.• Historic data has proven that time is the enemy of college completion: the longer it takes to graduate, the less likely one is to do so. And more time on campus means more is spent on college, adding high costs as another cause for dropping out.• Time, choice and structure are the essential optics through which all higher education reforms must be viewed in order to maximize the likelihood of graduating more of today’s students.• Successful, large-scale programs and systems around the country have proven that by utilizing informed choice and structured delivery, students can successfully balance jobs and school – and are much more likely to graduate.• States, as the leading investors in higher education, have the power and authority to demand more from higher education – and they have a moral obligation to do so.• By utilizing the NGA/CCA Common College Completion Metrics, yawning gaps in current data collection will be filled and states will be empowered with new tools to hold higher education accountable and inform reform design.• Congress can seize key opportunities to encourage states, incent needed reforms, and signal its clear interest in more college

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graduates, not just enrollments.IntroductionMeasured on the first day of classes each fall, higher education in America appears to be a roaring success. In most communities, our campuses are bursting at the seams with eager students. More important, colleges have nearly erased racial gaps in enrollment: According to a 2003 US Department of Education report, 83% of whites pursue higher education in the first eight years after high school – and 80% of blacks and Hispanics do the same.We have clearly convinced almost all of our young people that for good jobs and a brighter future there is one irrefutable fact: high school isn’t high enough. Our colleges provide most of the open doors and essential ladders to the greater opportunities and higher achievement young people desire.There’s no disputing that a generation or more of sustained efforts – while unfinished – have yielded impressive gains in access. But, access without success is an empty promise – and a missed opportunity with severe economic consequences for students, states and our country.With so much at stake, how is America doing? Barely more than half of full-time students graduate with 4-year bachelor’s degrees in six years – and fewer than three in ten pursuing 2-year associate degrees at our community colleges graduate in three years! Sadly, part- time students graduate at even lower rates.To make matters worse, a closer look on graduation day reveals that those eventually receiving degrees look very different than the student body on the first day of class: the hopes raised by nearly equitable enrollments are crushed by long persistent gaps in achievement and completion.Given projections that two-thirds of all jobs in 2020 will require advanced training or education, we simply have no choice: We must get more of our students – from all walks of life – to graduation day.Many argue that it is the significant cost of higher education that is the greatest obstacle to student success. If we simply cut tuition and fees, they claim, our country can significantly boost college graduations.While it is true colleges must become more efficient and tuition more affordable, we will not regain our intellectual leadership in the world without new policies, legislation and strategies to reduce the time it takes students to complete degrees and certificates.Historic data has now proven that time is the enemy of college completion, not just tuition. Today’s college students are dramatically different than those of the past: most now commute to campus, balancing jobs, school and often family.Yet higher education has done little to adjust to the changing needs of this new majority. The result: students are spending longer than ever in college. The longer it takes, the more life gets in the way, and the less likely it is that one will ever graduate. More time on campus means more is spent on college, adding high costs as another driver of dropping out. Simply put: time is money.A New Reality for an Emerging Majority on Campus: Time is the EnemyWhy does America have such abysmal completion rates? Of the many reasons offered, one compelling fact stands above all others: Today, most students balance the jobs they must have with the higher education they desire.Today’s college student is a far cry from the American archetype of the 19 year-old college kid who lives on campus, attends full-time, doesn’t work, and gets most of his bills paid by Mom and Dad. In fact, only 25% of college students in our country today attend residential schools.What’s the new reality? According to a recent study by Public Agenda, nearly half of students at 4-year schools work more than 20 hours a week. At community colleges, 60% are at jobs more than 20 hours a week, and a quarter of

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these stressed out students are working more than 35 hours. Nearly 40% of all of our college kids attend part-time. Roughly a quarter of them have children of their own to support. And yet they still find a way to come to college to pursue better lives.With so much at stake, today’s students need to finish their studies as soon as possible to get on with life. They need clear pathways to quality degrees and career certificates in order to land the good jobs they desperately want. And they must have predictable schedules they can count on in order to balance jobs and school. Why is this so important? Because the more time college takes, the more life intrudes. And when more life intrudes, fewer students complete college.The Completion Cornerstones: Time, Choice and StructureFor years, adding time and more choices have been our answers. Semester long, multiple- level remediation courses, limitless periods of exploration before declaring a major, and midnight courses are all examples of well-intended efforts to try and meet student needs. When coupled with other policies like additional credit requirements or transfer rules that don’t readily recognize credits earned at multiple campuses, the result has been to lengthen the time to degree for many students—or hinder degree completion altogether.The numbers make it clear: When it comes to college graduation, time is the enemy. According to federally collected data in 2008, only 29% of full-time students at public 4- year institutions graduated on time. After the fifth year of pursuing a Bachelor’s degree, 19% more graduated.Now consider the sixth and eighth years after enrollment: Only 6% then 3% more students made it to graduation day, respectively. Giving students more time to graduate does not yield many more graduates. Why? Simply put, life gets in the way.Today’s students need less time on campus, fewer confusing choices and more structured schedules. Time, choice and structure are the key issues to address the needs of today’s students and the optics through which efforts to boost completion must be viewed.Directed Choice Yields More GraduatesMore time and uninformed choice work against college completion. To understand why, we must again consider the nature of today’s college students – and human nature, in general.Respected researcher and educator, James Rosenbaum, of Northwestern University, and his colleagues have found that students at 2-year colleges in America, which now make up nearly half of all college kids today, often lack the know-how to direct their own progress. Further, their work revealed that although students “are assumed to be capable of making informed choices, of knowing their abilities and preferences, of understanding the full range of college and career alternatives, and of weighing the costs and benefits associated with different college programs, our analyses show that many students have great difficulty with such choices.” The fact that on average one college guidance counselor is matched with 700 students in this country doesn’t help the situation.While public 2-year colleges design their programs and procedures based on faulty assumptions about the capability of their students to make informed choices, Rosenbaum found that their private counterparts often do not. According to him and his fellow researchers, many private 2-year colleges – with identical student bodies containing large numbers of low-income and minority students who did poorly in high school– shift academic planning responsibilities to themselves, “devising procedures to help students succeed even if they lack the traditional social prerequisites of college.” And it works: Rosenbaum found that the private 2-year

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schools in his study graduate significantly more students than their public peers.How do they do it? The private 2-year colleges in the study offered students “package deal” plans for accomplishing their specific academic and career goals in a clear length of time. Instead of charting their own paths by navigating daunting catalogs overflowing with choices, students make the “big choice” of a desired career or academic discipline and then the colleges make all of the “little choices” for them by utilizing structured programs that move students to degrees in the shortest time possible. (See Appendix A to review Rosenbaum’s findings.)Before assuming that only private colleges can accomplish this, consider the tremendous success of the past twenty years at the public Tennessee Technology Centers. Part of the Tennessee Board of Regents system, the statewide Technology Centers have been regularly accomplishing graduation rates of 75% or higher and job placement rates above 85%.Their approach shares many common elements with private schools: Students sign up for whole programs, not individual courses. They are clearly told how long the program will take to complete, the likelihood of success, and the total “all in” costs. There are plenty of “big choices,” but the “small choices” are directed, streamlined and packaged to cut down on confusion and the chance of mistake.So, this isn’t about public versus private 2-year schools. It’s about divining an uncharted course through a catalog of undirected choices on one’s own versus fully informed choices with clear expectations and benefits.Nor is it just about college students—it’s about what the abundance of choice does to the human brain. In one famous study, subjects became nearly paralyzed when presented with 24 choices of fruit jams. While 60% helped themselves to samples, only 3% could ever decide which jam to buy. By reducing the choices to just 6, researchers observed that nearly a third of the 40% who sampled the jams made a purchase. Whether choosing jams, bath soaps, investment plans, or college courses, directed choice can be a great benefit to consumers.As important as direction, the best choices are those most closely aligned with intentions: Students come to college in pursuit of better lives, higher-paying jobs and clearer paths to accomplish their goals. They simply seek the fastest, most affordable route to do so – and most don’t enjoy the luxuries of endless time and resources to get there.Add Structure to Achieve the Full Potential of ReformsBy choosing to think differently about choice, colleges can meet the needs of more of today’s students and share in the success that comes with more graduates. But, combining directed choice with new structures for academic delivery unleashes the full potential of reforms to boost college completions.To understand why, return again to what it’s all supposed to be about: students. It’s clear that too many students work too many hours. That’s unlikely to change unless college suddenly becomes a lot more affordable.So, let’s consider again the lives of young adults who try to keep it all going. At almost all colleges, courses are scheduled all over the weekly calendar. In a student-centered culture, would programs be designed that required an 8:00 a.m. class on Monday, a 2:00 p.m. class on Tuesday, 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, etc.? Of course not.Instead, what if programs were designed utilizing more structured scheduling? Students could attend classes every day, five days a week, from 8:00 a.m. to noon or from 1:00 until 5:00 p.m. Full-time attendance would now be possible for many more, dramatically shortening the time it takes to graduate. And finding time for jobs in such a predictable daily routine is no longer a

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challenge.When presented with this concept, students are incredulous. “That would be a dream come true,” they have told us. Here again, the dream is actually a tried-and-true reality.Not only do the hugely successful Tennessee Technology Centers help direct student choices, they also structure academic delivery in just this way. Three-quarters or more of their students earn career certificates in twelve to eighteen months going full-time, five days a week, from 8:00 until 2:00. Every year over 12,000 students move through the multiple Technology Center campuses and nearly all of them head straight into jobs.Structure also produces some added bonuses that should not be overlooked. Compressed class schedules create stronger linkages between faculty members – and cohort-like connections between students. Professors not only interact more often, they also tend to create team approaches to teaching the students they share. And students often move through programs as a group, strengthening their ties and support of one another.But, structured scheduling only works for vocational education and career certificate programs, right? Wrong. The City University of New York (CUNY) has a program (ASAP) for accelerated completion of associate degrees that is so successful the system will soon open an entire campus designed to utilize block scheduling, student cohorts, directed choice, embedded remediation and reinvented supports. Why make this kind of significant investment in the midst of a budget crisis? Because it works so well: ASAP students graduate on-time at more than twice the rate of their peers.Time, choice and structure: to significantly boost college completions, turn the broken dreams of dropouts into the bright futures of graduates, fully seize the opportunities for our country that overflowing campuses provide, and make America the world leader again in college attainment, we must keep our collective focus on these three touchstones. They are universal truths arrived at in the best way: by seeing the true nature of our college students today – and opening our minds to accept that to help them succeed – a success that America is counting on – we must reinvent American higher education.States Must Lead the WayThe stakes are high. That’s why we must recognize that higher education institutions themselves are not the only players. One key participant that has too long been on the sideline of higher education reform is state government.Given that our country has suffered these low graduation rates for a generation or more, it is clear that – in spite of our best intentions – doing more of the same will just get us more of the same. Higher education now must have the committed and shared partnership of all key stakeholders. America – now 12th in the world in college attainment and falling – does not have the luxury of time to wait. States must step forward and help lead the wayThere are many compelling reasons for governors, state legislatures and higher education system leaders to assume leadership on this agenda.• State AuthorityWhile state-appointed or elected citizen boards directly govern public institutions, ultimately states are responsible for all public colleges and universities. State goals and state leadership created college systems and expanded open access four-year institutions over the past 50 years; state leadership and support will be necessary to enhance and sustain their effectiveness in improving college completion in the 21st century.•                Majority InvestorBy a wide measure, state taxpayers provide the greatest funding for institutions, especially community colleges and open access four-year institutions. No other stakeholder is better

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positioned than state governments to ensure that public investments are wisely utilized to maximize opportunities for the future economic success of their states.••                Systemic, Scalable ChangeStates are the best positioned to ensure reform across systems and campuses by setting goals, establishing uniform measures, and monitoring progress. They can also serve as the most efficient clearinghouses of best practices, allowing for rapid scaling of successful reforms.••                AccountabilityWith so much at stake economically, states must hold themselves, students, and institutions accountable for success. States have leverage over both governance and the funding mechanisms needed to achieve higher levels of completion.•                TransparencyInstitutions have strong incentives to shape reporting to mask failure and avoid confronting problems. States are much more likely than individual institutions to share and publish data to drive reform.••                Economic DevelopmentHigher education attainment is inextricably linked to future economic success. State leadership will ensure stronger linkages between each state’s economic needs and higher education delivery.••                Mobility of StudentsToday’s students move across campuses and systems to attain credentials. Coherent state policy and integrated state strategies are essential for assuring ease of transfer and efficient completion of academic programs. 9|PageStates in Action: Complete College America’s Alliance of StatesWhen it comes to state leadership, there is great reason for optimism. Today, more than half of the states have joined Complete College America’s Alliance of States. To do so, Governors and their higher education leadership had to make four key commitments:1) Establish statewide and campus-level college completion goals,2) Adopt the NGA/Complete College America Common Completion Metrics in order to measure progress and hold institutions accountable for results (see Appendix B),3) Create comprehensive statewide and campus-level college completion plans, and4) Move significant legislation and policies to remove unnecessary obstacles and speed student success.As of this writing, 30 states have made these commitments and are now working as members of the Alliance of States to design and implement strategies that will significantly boost the number of their citizens with college degrees or other credentials of value.Essential Steps for StatesComplete College America recommends several significant policy levers that states can utilize to enhance the likelihood of student success and college completion, including shifting to performance funding, reducing time-to-degree, transforming remediation, restructuring academic delivery, and making career certificates count, among others. Please see Complete College America’s Essential Steps for States documents for more specifics on what states can do today (Appendix C).Actions Congress Can Take Now1) Restructure federal investments in higher education to reward states and institutions that implement new strategies and structures to significantly boost college completion, including measures to shorten time-to-degree. As an example, the Community College and Career Training Grants program should incent states with unified community college systems and/or community college consortia to restructure delivery to help working students. As shown above, proven models exist that can be replicated and scaled by states and consortia.2) Embed robust progress and completion metrics in all federal higher education policies and statutes. The NGA/CCA Common College Completion Metrics can serve as a strong starting point. These comprehensive metrics allow for

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accurate state-by- state and institutional comparisons and fill in yawning gaps in current data collection, enhancing opportunities for accountability and empowering all stakeholders with new tools to inform reform design.ConclusionCommitments like those made by our Alliance States give us great reason for optimism – and a clear path forward. With a little more help – and a lot of common sense – students, their families, taxpayers, and all Americans will share in the benefits of more individuals completing college.Complete College America applauds the President and Congress for efforts to make America first in the world again in college completion. And we stand ready to assist in efforts to reinvent higher education to meet the needs of the new emerging American majority of college students. Thank you for this opportunity to be of assistance in this vital effort.Contact InformationStan Jones, President, Complete College America(202) 349-4148 sjones@completecollege.org For more information on Complete College America: www.completecollege.org<http://www.completecollege.org>

Changing the Way We Think – Sandy Shugart

I have mentioned Sandy Shugart several times on this listserv. I have just run across a paper I had missed, but is important. “Within “A Societal Imperative: Changing the way we think about community colleges”, is a section on Sandy Shugart that is worth out time.http://www.highereducation.org/crosstalk/ct1209/voices1209-burdman.shtml Sanford “Sandy” Shugart, president of Valencia Community College in Florida, also exemplifies the new generation of student-success-minded 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 students.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 the American community college movement.”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. 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.”

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Student Focus Groups Reveal Barriers

Student Focus Groups Reveal Barriers to Community College SuccessBy Caralee Adams on July 16, 2012 9:07 AMhttp://www.publicagenda.org/pages/student-voices-higher-education-pathwayGetting through community college is a struggle for millions of students.Balancing work and school is harder than many expected. Many arrive on campus surprised to learn they aren't academically prepared. And, without a clear goal or needed guidance, more often than not, students don't make it to the finish line.To get at the heart of the college-completion challenge, researchers recently spoke directly with students—those currently enrolled in a community college, some who had completed a degree or certificate, and others who had dropped out. The resulting report, Student Voices on the Higher Education Pathway, is part of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Postsecondary Success Initiative, Completion by Design, in partnership with New York City-based Public Agenda and West Ed, a research and development agency.The hope is that effective and sustainable solutions can be identified by keeping students' voices and experiences at the center of reform plans, according to the report. The research that provided the information for it was conducted in March through 15 focus groups of 161 individuals ages 18-29. When asked about factors influencing their college decision, attitudes toward completion, experience with remedial classes, and institutional supports and barriers, five themes emerged:1. Students wanted more exposure to career possibilities so that they could make better-informed decisions about the goals they set out to achieve and the steps necessary for success.2. Most believed that the student success and developmental education courses intended to bring them up to speed were not offered in a way that helped them succeed.3. Participants believed that having clear goals, and being in programs with well-defined pathways, gave them a greater chance of persisting, completing, or transferring.4. Advisers, counselors, and faculty members who offer support and guidance that is accurate, accessible, and tailored to students' educational and career goals are in high demand and can be hard to come by.5. Although students know colleges offer a wide range of services, they report that finding the specific information or services is difficult.In addition to the report, a video brings the issue to life through the profiles of several community college students. (Click here to view.)Students talk of their aspirations to go to community college so they could have a career, not just a job. But once at school, reality hits, and many struggle to keep on track. Some mention being exhausted trying to work nearly full time and go to classes. Others talk about being guided in high school, but feeling they were on their own in college without adequate guidance for coursework and career goals. Students mention wanting a "road map" to know what to expect and have a focus for their efforts.Policymakers are realizing that listening to students may be part of the answer to improving educational attainment. Other initiatives have focused on high school student voicesand attitudes of students about paying for the cost of college.Later this summer, Public Agenda will be releasing a second report that will include a broader survey of student attitudes toward community college completion and success.Seehttp://www.publicagenda.org/pages/student-voices-higher-education-pathway

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Clarifying the Co-Requisite Math Model

“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-issue-brief-1-june2012.pdfKEY!!! “At the Core of the Conversation: 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.” (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 makeoverhttp://www.ted.com/talks/dan_meyer_math_curriculum_makeover.htmlAlso see: Webinar: Introduction of the New Mathways Projecthttp://www.utdanacenter.org/mathways/webinar/index.phpMy Notes on Conceptual Understanding:Instructional Focus: Conceptual Understanding  - refers to an “integrated and functional” grasp of ideas. Paraphrasing David Conley, developing rigor in a discipline content course would involve helping learners be aware that a given discipline content course consists of certain “big ideas” (theories and concepts) that are used in order to structure all of the detail that often overwhelms them and can help build mental scaffolds (conceptual frameworks) that lead to thinking like a scientist in the discipline content course. Short of this, learning becomes fragmented and isolated which interferes with transfer. “Contrary to popular belief learning basic facts is not a prerequisite for creative thinking and problem solving -- it's the other way around. Once you grasp the big concepts around a subject, good thinking will lead you to the important facts”. (John Bransford)A conceptual framework is a group of concepts that are broadly defined and systematically organized to provide a focus, a rationale, and a tool for integrating and interpretation of information. This provides the big picture for learning, making associations, and making interconnections between new information and prior knowledge, which is the foundation of constructing meaning.A reading instruction comparison:Research: “The comprehension of written texts is an extraordinarily complex process. Earlier research on reading comprehension focused on sets of discrete skills (i.e. getting the main idea, getting the facts, making inferences) or on the products of comprehension (i.e. what readers understood after reading). This research provided useful foundations for our current understandings, but did not address the more basic questions of what readers actively did while trying to get the main idea of a text or make inferences based upon the reading. The

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ability to comprehend written texts is not a static or fixed ability, but rather one that involves a dynamic relationship between the demands of texts and the prior knowledge and goals of readers. It is precisely because of these dynamic relationships that the teaching of reading in the academic disciplines is so crucial. This reality has important implications for both teaching and assessment” (Carnegie, 2010). This is not a new finding; however, reading course competencies, reading instruction, reading textbooks, and faculty reading education still predominately focus on discrete skills rather than the integrated mental process that readers need to be engaging in when trying to develop conceptual understanding when reading. The result is a tremendous amount of time is spent on misdirected reading instruction, which could have been spent on mental processes of constructing conceptual understanding.Why a Differentiated Math PathwayThere are students who want to advance through programs and degrees that will ask of them to be able to think with the math they are learning. That is where differentiated math pathways come in.

More on a Statistics Pathway

Check the following link to Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset: Which One Are You?http://michaelgr.com/2007/04/15/fixed-mindset-vs-growth-mindset-which-one-are-you/Key Term: open-access accelerated pre-Statistics courseAs part of her doctoral studies in Educational Leadership, Pamela Mery conducted an in-depth, mixed methods study of one college piloting an open-access accelerated pre-Statistics course in California (the program’s pseudonym: StatMode).“Overall, 86% of the StatMode cohort successfully completed the two-course sequence, earning a C or higher in transfer-level statistics. This sequence completion rate far exceeds national figures showing only 33% of community college students with developmental mathematics needs advance far enough to be eligible to even attempt college-level mathematics (Bailey, Jeong, & Cho, 2009; Roksa, Jenkins, Jaggars, Zeidenberg, & Cho, 2009). Students from a range of incoming mathematics levels and diverse ethnicities successfully completed the two-course sequence. For example, ten students entered at the lowest mathematics levels, i.e. eligible to enroll in arithmetic or pre-algebra, of whom 80% (n=8) completed both courses with a grade of C or higher. Due to the composition of the StatMode cohort (97% underrepresented students of color), nearly all successful students were Latino and African American.In addition to successfully completing transfer-level statistics, StatMode students performed comparably to or out-performed a better-prepared group of primarily white college students from four-year institutions on questions from a nationally-normed post-test, the Comprehensive Assessment of Outcomes for a first course in Statistics (CAOS).”Note to myself: I know this is bad form to post a whole dissertation summary, but the research says that few readers actually read attached papers, but there is much to learn in this summary about accelerated learning and differentiated pathways for math , so here goes bad form:Summary:The magnitude of the mathematics completion problem has sparked interest in fundamental, structural changes since traditional interventions (e.g., computer technology, supplemental instruction, tutoring) have failed to produce sizeable and

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consistent improvements. Moreover, few students (roughly 5% - 20%) who enroll in algebra need to or intend to eventually enroll in calculus (Dunbar, 2006; Herriott & Dunbar, 2009; McGowen, 2006). This has led some mathematics faculty to reconsider what mathematics content is necessary and how instruction might be restructured. Using acceleration to reduce sequence length is one proposed remedy (Asera, Navarro, Hern, Klein, & Snell, 2009). Another proposed remedy is increased contextualization that relates developmental subject matter to authentic, real-world situations (Grubb, 2001), thus facilitating meaning-centered instruction rather than exclusive focus on memorization and procedures (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000).Successful Acceleration through College-level StatisticsAcross California and nationally, several community colleges recently introduced shortened mathematics sequences focused on contextualized statistics content. This study focused on one community college's implementation of an open-entry, two-course sequence called StatMode (a pseudonym). The initial course introduced students to mathematical concepts foundational to learning statistics, preparing students for the second, transfer-level statistics course. Given the single class of 29 students with one instructor, a mixed methods study design was selected with emphasis on the qualitative analysis. In fact, the quantitative analysis was only necessary insofar as it showed whether such an approach is possible, i.e. whether it can be implemented effectively, not whether it is likely to be effective under typical conditions.Overall, 86% of the StatMode cohort successfully completed the two-course sequence, earning a C or higher in transfer-level statistics. This sequence completion rate far exceeds national figures showing only 33% of community college students with developmental mathematics needs advance far enough to be eligible to even attempt college-level mathematics (Bailey, Jeong, & Cho, 2009; Roksa, Jenkins, Jaggars, Zeidenberg, & Cho, 2009).Students from a range of incoming mathematics levels and diverse ethnicities successfully completed the two-course sequence. For example, ten students entered at the lowest mathematics levels, i.e. eligible to enroll in arithmetic or pre-algebra, of whom 80%(n = 8) completed both courses with a grade of C or higher. Due to the composition of the StatMode cohort (97% underrepresented students of color), nearly all successful students were Latino and African American. Gender, age group, and incoming mathematics eligibility level were not significantly related to course and sequence outcome variables.In addition to successfully completing transfer-level statistics, StatMode students performed comparably to or out-performed a better-prepared group of primarily white college students from four-year institutions on questions from a nationally-normed post-test, the Comprehensive Assessment of Outcomes for a first course in Statistics (CAOS).Students' Perspectives on StatModeThree key themes arose from the student interviews. The first theme pertains to initial mathematics attitudes and backgrounds. The second theme pertains to the adoption of growth mindset. The third and final theme relates to contextualized learning, statistics content, and student motivation. The concepts of fixed mindset and growth mindset were drawn from the work of Carol Dweck and introduced to the students early in the first semester.Students' initial mathematics attitudes and backgrounds were largely negative and characterized by fixed mindset. Ten of the eleven students interviewed described limited effective encouragement from prior instructors and other adults

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regarding their mathematics abilities. Many students described how they internalized difficulty with mathematics, particularly when compared to other subjects. One student stated: "I feel like in every other subject, I'm pretty good at it, and like math, I don't know why, it's hard to like, it's all those equations and it's confusing to me." Another stated: "When other people get it, I feel like there is something wrong with me."The second theme of growth mindset was raised spontaneously by nearly all interviewees. Many students spoke at length and with a distinct level of intensity about how explicit exposure to growth mindset concepts changed their approach to learning mathematics. Students reported consciously recognizing how negative thoughts precluded them from expending effort on mathematics problems and how they came to believe growth mindset was necessary for learning. One student was "freaked out" by this new understanding: "It opened my eyes to the fact that every time I said I'm not so good at math that boxed me in... in my little math worthlessness bubble." He contrasted math with other subjects where he had he always told himself, "Let's learn more, let's learn a little more." Similarly, another student characterized learning about growth mindset as "eerie because it rang true for me." She described shifting her mindset: "If you think okay, there's a possibility that I can do this, you kind of try to put more effort into it, and you tend to see that you can actually do it."Students indicated that growth mindset concepts were regularly referenced by the instructor, by other students, and internally as they self-regulated and continually readjusted their attitude toward math. One student described the instructor this way: "She's more into you learning than just handing you something, just like she cares, she cares if you pass math." Students emphasized how everyone was expected to participate in larger class discussions as well as in group work. Each student's effort and involvement was encouraged. Students frequently emphasized a "we" component, exemplified by this quote describing how class sessions began: "We come in. We discuss what we did for homework and if there are any questions to ask... we don't move on until everyone gets it. Until we get it, that's when we move on."The final theme examined the value of contextualization from students' perspectives. The researcher had proposed that statistics contextualization would figure prominently in students' motivation such that students would begin to view statistics as highly relevant and applicable either to their chosen fields or to their everyday lives. Instead, students were frank about and overwhelmingly pragmatic regarding their need to complete the mathematics sequence in order to transfer. Students were not necessarily convinced of the broad applicability of statistics, but they believed it to be a "real" and legitimately challenging subject. Students appeared to be excited by and motivated by the fact that they were already learning statistics in the pre-statistics class. Students also viewed StatMode as a valuable opportunity, consistent with detracking perspectives.Conclusions, Implications, and RecommendationsThis study has clear implications for educational equity insofar as the findings showed that it is possible for mathematics to be taught successfully to underprepared, underrepresented students through an accelerated, contextualized approach. Most community colleges enroll sizeable numbers of students not oriented toward calculus. In particular, the proportion of students electing to enroll in statistics to complete transfer requirements has been increasing, so student interest in statistics

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sequences is likely to be high. Other forms of mathematics contextualization could also be used if institutions determine sufficient student demand for the subject chosen and affirm the rigor of the transfer-level course. Tracking remains a concern since this accelerated approach does not prepare students sufficiently for STEM fields should they decide to change majors; however, overall, these adult students viewed StatMode as a realizable pathway rather than a foreclosure of opportunity.Affective components of the pedagogy employed by StatMode were palpable and important to students. The caring and helpful approach of the instructor, and the notion that not only they but all their peers were capable, seemed especially important. Use of growth mindset concepts appeared to effectively suggest to students that their mathematics abilities were previously underestimated while providing a concrete way for students to alter their sense of capacity. However, mindset is malleable and must be reinforced. In StatMode it was reinforced through verbalizations by the instructor, between peers, and through the pedagogical structure.The concept of growth mindset appeared to be particularly salient to mathematics. The statistics material may have allowed students to more readily adopt a growth mindset; since it was a new challenge, it could be viewed as a "fresh start." However, introducing students to the concept of growth mindset is simple, cost-free, and not time-consuming. Reinforcing growth mindset is, arguably, a relatively easy pedagogical change to make and to scale up.A final recommendation for practice is to inform students about pedagogical approaches being used in the classroom. This study benefited from students' ability to name and articulate growth mindset. As self-aware adult learners, students could likely provide insights into the relative effectiveness of other pedagogical approaches if they were sufficiently cognizant of them.

Accelerated Learning – Critical Thinking

I am going to assume in choosing an acceleration program for accelerating a student progress through developmental education that critical thinking (deep learning) is an important consideration beyond pass rates and persistence. Take another look at the accelerated learning models and their potential in Unlocking the Gate.http://www.mdrc.org/publications/601/execsum.pdf Programs that show the greatest benefits with relatively rigorous documentation either mainstream developmental students into college-level 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.Unlocking the Gate has narrowed down for us the promising acceleration models. 

Promising Acceleration Models

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Acceleration models have also shown promise for increasing students’ progress through developmental education. Several different models currently exist, including fast-track courses, which compress the developmental education course curriculum into several weeks or a half semester; self-paced, or modularized, courses, which break apart semester-long developmental education classes into smaller, competency-based units; and mainstreamed courses, in which developmental education students are placed directly into college-level courses, often with additional supports such as tutoring or study skills courses. (Unlockig the Gate)Technology-aided approaches. Many colleges use technology to revise curricula or instruction in developmental courses, relying on computer tutorials — such as MyMathLab, Plato, or ALEKS — or other methods to supplement classroom instruction, to provide online developmental education, or to structure accelerated or modularized courses. Little research has been conducted on these strategies despite their popularity, and the research that exists shows mixed results. (Unlocking the Gate)I am going to present a critical thinking strategy for deeper assessment of the promising acceleration model. I am going to take the two critical thinking models that have the most relevance to our search. Diane Halpren and Stephen Brookfield have presented the two best approaches to critical thinking, in my mind: First, Diane Halpren's definition – “Using the metcogniton skills to increase the probability of reaching a desired goal.” Does employing the the given acceleration model result in learners using cognitive strategies for (desired goal – deep learning) developing a deep foundation of factual knowledge that is understood in the context of a conceptual framework and organized in ways by the learner that facilitate retrieval? If it does, then it meets the first critical thinking criteria. Second, Stephen Brooksfield's definition: “Critical thinking involves students (teachers) being able to identify and research the assumptions that frame how they think and act. Only if assumptions are accurate and valid can we trust them as guides for thought and action. Studies of critical thinking show that two factors are crucial for critical thinking: see teachers model the process and experiencing it as a social learning process.” Does the given acceleration model include teachers modeling the process and do learners experience it as a social learning process? There are many factors to consider in selecting an acceleration model and the first one is learning – is it occuring and is it deep learning – critical thinking? Deep learning (critical thinking) is about more than acquiring content it is about being able to use content. As you review acceleration programs, consider the two functional criteria of developing critical thinking? 1. Are the learners learning metacognitive strategies for using the facts and procedures they are learning, which will enable them to increase the probability of reaching a desired outcome using those facts and procedures?

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 • Do the learners see teachers model the process and experience the process of

learning as a social learning process? If not then perhaps the model is not what you want or you need to learn how to build these two areas of critical thinking into the accelerated model. Dan KestersonDevelopmental Education Coordinator 

QEPing Developmental Student Completion

I have been giving a lot of thought to developmental student completion. It is very complex and just tweaking our developmental courses will not solve the problem; even redesigning our courses will not solve the problem – the problem exists all the way to completion for lots of reasons. All those reason have to be addressed.One of the goals QEP is to help institutions to learn how to address problems and once learned can be applied to other problems and conditions.I am convinced that the problem of completion will not be adequately addressed if we tackle one problem at a time as a system or institution. We will be twenty years down the road taking on one issue at a time (advising, education and career planning, differentiated math pathways,  intrusive support, contact, tracking, assessment, placement, co-requisite courses, program placement, etc.); however, the QEP processes (or similar processes) have tremendous potential for looking at the completion problem systematically and a little more comprehensively at both the System and institution levels as closer scrutiny begins in the fall. Dan KestersonJCTC Developmental Education Coordinator

Metrics That Are Barriers

Below I give examples of two, from among hundreds, of completion metrics that are typical and I think barriers to moving toward successful completion. These metrics focus on getting students through sequences of developmental courses. I believe that the metrics focus should be on student enrollment and completion of the initial college-level, or "gateway", courses (with support). Take a look at North Central State College (Achieving the Dream) and the Voluntary Framework Accountability (VFA) below. These metrics are counter to the current research that shows that placing students in sequences of developmental courses is a barrier to completion. The mindset created by these metrics foster attempting to find what is working within the narrow framework of sequences of developmental courses when sequences of developmental courses is the overriding barrier. We spend our time in a false sense of accomplishment when we find strategies for improving our success rates and completion of sequences of developmental courses

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when in fact, we may just be setting up barriers to completion. This is the great assumption that needs to be addressed. We need to shift to a set of developmental metrics that are in line with the research – completion of gateway courses with support in line with skill level need.  North Central State College - Achieving the DreamAchieving the Dream Cohort Metrics:Successful Completion of Developmental CourseworkThe first category of milestones involves the rate at which students successfully complete developmental instruction and advance to credit-bearing courses. Since students who struggle in developmental classes have little chance of graduating or transferring, this has been the main thrust of NC State's Achieving the Dream work. The key category metrics are cohort students referred to developmental math, writing or reading who:-Complete any developmental course with at least a C-Complete the entire developmental sequence**Students with minimal college-readiness may have to complete multiple courses in math and writing a course. Voluntary Framework of Accountability (VFA)The SPO shorter-term metrics assess how effectively colleges are moving students through developmental education sequences, given that most students who begin their studies at community colleges require developmental courses, which are essential to future educational success. Beyond developmental education, colleges need to be able to assess how well students persist in their education. The SPO shorter-term metrics therefore assess how effectively colleges help students reach key educational milestones. COMPLETE METRICS for VFA and NCSC Below:Voluntary Framework of Accountability (VFA)The Voluntary Framework of Accountability (VFA) is the first comprehensive national accountability system created by community colleges, for community colleges. Community college leaders—facilitated by the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC)—conceived, developed, and pilot-tested the VFA metrics.The Student Progress and Outcomes (SPO) measures evaluate the short-term progress and long-term outcomes of all students who begin their studies at a college in a given time period, disaggregated by age, gender, race/ethnicity, and financial aid status.The SPO shorter-term metrics assess how effectively colleges are moving students through developmental education sequences, given that most students who begin their studies at community colleges require developmental courses, which are essential to future educational success. Beyond developmental education, colleges need to be able to assess how well students persist in their education. The SPO shorter-term metrics therefore assess how effectively colleges help students reach key educational milestones.

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Finally, the SPO longer-term metrics identify the outcomes among all students in a given cohort six years after they started at the college. This timeframe recognizes that many community college students attend on a less than full-time basis, but is still timely enough to provide useful internal and external policy guidance. North Central State College - Achieving the DreamAchieving the Dream Cohort Metrics:Successful Completion of Developmental CourseworkThe first category of milestones involves the rate at which students successfully complete developmental instruction and advance to credit-bearing courses. Since students who struggle in developmental classes have little chance of graduating or transferring, this has been the main thrust of NC State's Achieving the Dream work. The key category metrics are cohort students referred to developmental math, writing or reading who:-Complete any developmental course with at least a C-Complete the entire developmental sequence**Students with minimal college-readiness may have to complete multiple courses in math and writing a course. Gateway Course CompletionThe next milestone category involves the rate at which students enroll in and complete the initial college-level, or "gateway", course in math and English. All NC State students must take the same gateway English course, and by 2012 all will have to take a college-level math course. Performance in these courses directly relates back to preparation at the developmental level.  It also reflects on the capabilities of students not placed into developmental. RetentionThere is strong correlation between students who complete developmental and gateway courses and those who persist in college. Cosnequently, entering fall cohort student persistence is tracked according to the following metrics:-Fall-to-winter persistence-Fall-to-fall persistence-Fall to any quarter within subsequent years Credit CompletionLikewise, there is strong correlation between students who complete a significant amount of credits attempted (eg, 26 quarter credits within a year) and credential completion. This category tracks the rate at which cohort students complete all the courses they take with a grade of C or better. Metrics include:-Average cumulative credits attempted-Cumulative credits completed Credential CompletionThe intermediate milestones are intended to result in improved completion of certificate, associate degrees or transfer within specified time frames. Metrics

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include:-Credential completion-Transfer rates

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