TRANSFORMING DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION Presentation Facilitated by Dr. Carolyn Sizemore Director of Developmental Education New River Community and Technical College August 15, 2014

 Philosophy of New River Community and Technical College’s Developmental Education Program. Over half of all New River students enter college needing additional learning assistance to be successful in college-level courses. To better ensure student success and college completion, New River Community and Technical College has adopted the West Virginia Scaling Innovation Project’s principles for acceleration using the Co-Requisite model for “just in time” remediation as part of the Complete College America national initiative.  Vision: To enable students to successfully complete their career goal pathways by providing accelerated developmental education courses. Mission: To promote student success through accelerated, contextualized courses redesigned to move students “further and faster” through their developmental courses into their college-level courses.

Title 135, Series 41, Developmental Education Competencies §135-Series Policy Students failing to demonstrate such mastery shall receive developmental instruction and/or the additional academic support services necessary to master the competencies required for success in their chosen program of study To reduce the time required to complete the certificate or associate degree requirements, students shall be required to complete only those developmental courses, course modules, co-curricular paired courses, or other remedial programs that address their specific deficiencies as identified through the administration of the approved diagnostic exam.

Timelines for Scaling Reforms a) Fall 2014, at least 25 percent of developmental education courses will be accelerated b) Spring 2015, at least 75 percent of developmental education courses will be accelerated c) Fall 2015, 100 percent of developmental education courses will be accelerated

Students take their developmental course concurrently with the credit-level course. Courses are taught as a co-requisite rather than as a pre-requisite. If selected for the ALP MATH Program, students may sign up for both MATH 099 and MATH 102 or MATH 104 the same semester. Selected ALP ENGLISH students may sign up for ENGL 099 and ENGL 101 the same semester. If students drop the developmental course, they are no longer eligible to remain enrolled in the paired college-level course.

ALP DEFINITION  The ALP model places students who would traditionally be placed into developmental English or math into a gateway college-level course alongside students who are deemed college ready. Those students are then required to take an additional supplemental course.

To be successful, ALP programs must enforce the following:  Cohort sizes in the developmental courses must be no more than 12 students.  Credit-level courses may have no more than 50 percent of students enrolled in developmental education.  The pedagogy in the developmental ALP is based on “backward design” from the college-level courses. To promote a single, joined approach that promotes student and teacher success, the textbooks will be the same for both courses in the co-requisite model. Students only purchase the materials for the credit-level course.

Credit-Level Comp Developmental ALP The developmental ALP class always starts with a discussion of any questions left over from comp. In some cases this discussion may completely supplant the planned activities.

WHAT CHALLENGES DO YOU ANTICIPATE FOR ALP IN ENGLISH AND MATHEMATICS?  Discussion:

ADDRESSING CHALLENGES DURING YEAR ONE  Establish a sense of urgency  Build support at all levels  Recruit students  Work with Advisors  Work with Registrar, Records and Registration  Faculty development  Work with Institutional Research for Data Collection and Reporting  Identify Faculty Cohorts  Curriculum redesign

ADDRESSING CHALLENGES DURING SCALING UP: YEAR TWO  Recruit more English and math instructors  Require all English and math instructors to meet credentials for college-level courses  Provide more hands-on faculty development  Find adequate classroom space with computers  Redefine organizational structure for developmental education  Continue advanced faculty development  Move from pilot programs to established programs  Develop a Comprehensive Assessment Plan  Urgent need for Curriculum Mapping

MATH AND ENGLISH DEPARTMENTS NEED TO WORK ON CURRICULUM MAPPING (FALL 2014)  STEP ONE: Identify STEM and NonSTEM programs  STEP TWO: Map math and English courses needed for §135-Series Policy.  STEP THREE: Redesign Course Content Outlines (based on programmatic needs) Examples: ALP MATH 099/MATH 102 ALP MATH 098/ MATH 104 ALP MATH 098/MATH 101 ALP ENGL 099/ENGL 103

BREAK INTO SMALL GROUPS AND DISCUSS THE MIS ADVISING SCENARIO TESTIMONIALS (from other WV Community and Technical Colleges)

A blended reading and writing course (ENGL 090) which may be paired with ENGL 101 as a co-requisite course teaches reading and writing as reciprocal processes. Studies have established that the more levels of developmental education courses a student must take, the less likely the student is to ever complete college. By integrating our current courses of Developmental Reading and Developmental Writing into one new course ENGL 090: Integrated Reading and Writing, New River aims to eliminate troublesome “exit points” for students to withdraw before completing their college-level courses.

Why Integrate Reading and Writing Courses?  Teach writing as a natural response to reading  Mirror college-level composition instruction  Teach practices used by expert readers and writers  Teach students to see the connections between the reading and writing (reciprocal) processes  Process-based rather than skill-based instruction

NEW SEQUENCE OF DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION COURSES ENGLISH 098 Developmental Reading (3 credit hours) ENGLISH 099 Developmental Writing (3 credit hours) ENGLISH 090 Integrated Reading and Writing (4 credit hours)

 Develop a lesson that includes both reading and writing components  Add higher order thinking components  Example: Students read multiple articles on similar topics and develop a paper, PowerPoint, YouTube video, etc., synthesizing the information How to Integrate a Lesson

 Develop lessons that make reading and writing dependent on each other  Intertwine reading and writing so closely that lessons lose meaning in the absence of either discipline  Expand the meaning of “text” beyond the printed word; include media, popular culture, social norms, current events, advertising, etc.  Maximize critical thinking through integration Practical Suggestions for Integrating Reading and Writing

Instant feedback on assignments Individualized instruction Computer and multi-modal literacy Effective and real-time communication Content variety Real-world documents Deliberate practice First exposure Using Technology in the Integrated Classroom: Benefits

WHAT CHALLENGES DO YOU ANTICIPATE FOR INTEGRATED READING AND WRITING?  Discussion:

 Limited selection of integrated textbooks  Creating an entirely new curriculum  Faculty asked to teach differently  Many faculty hired subject specific  Still more learning necessary for faculty  Training of adjunct faculty  Some resistance from students familiar with stand-alone courses Challenges Other Colleges Have Identified Since Implementation Of Integrated Reading and Writing

FAST TRACK PROGRAM  FAST TRACK PROGRAM: Students that place into one or more developmental education courses are eligible to participate in a FAST TRACK program to review reading, writing and math content through computer-based modular lessons available with MyFoundationsLab for placement test preparation. This 10-week preparation program enables students to test out of some English and math developmental education courses before their first semester and place into college-level courses sooner. Students are expected to study and practice customized assignments on 100 hours during a 10-week period before taking their exit tests. Students that work on their Labs on campus are provided learning assistance for greater success.

So…How are we doing? What are our first priorities?

Excellent Resource for Transformation of Developmental Education  Above you will note the link to the WV Dev Ed Initiative State-Wide Task Force. Please set up an account if you are a first-time user. Also, please look at the resources linked to this site. I hope that you will be as excited about this site as I am. West Virginia is helping to reform the quality of our Developmental Education programs throughout the state (and beyond lol ).

 Any questions or comments for us? Q & A

This program was funded by a grant awarded by the US Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration. The program was created by the grantee and does not necessarily reflect the official position of the US Department of Labor. The Department of Labor makes no guarantees warranties, or assurances of any kind, express or implied with respect to such information, including any information on linked sites and including, but not limited to, accuracy of the information or its completeness, timeliness, usefulness, adequacy, continued availability, or ownership.