Developmental Education Redesign in the Pathways Framework UHCC Student Success Council Meeting Nikki Edgecombe, Senior Research Associate Community College Research Center, Teachers College

Community College Research Center A leading independent authority on two-year colleges based at Teachers College, Columbia University. Founded in 1996, CCRC conducts research on the issues affecting community colleges and works with colleges and states to improve student success and institutional performance. Areas of research include: High school to college transitions Developmental education and adult basic education Student services and financial aid Online learning and instructional technology College completion and transfer College to career and workforce education

Knowledge Development Our approach Knowledge Development Evaluation Implementation Guiding Decision-makers Gates Foundation RFP Refining Gates Foundation IPAS strategy Knowledge-dissemination Strategic assistance Readiness for Adoption self-assessment Site reports and strategic advisement for case study sites Enhance Gates-funded technical assistance Workshops and webinars with AtD and other partners Knowledge Development IPAS as change management and transformative change Case studies of end-user adoption and institutional reform

Rationale

Early reforms showed positive but small effects … Accelerated Learning Program (Cho et al., 2013) “Compared with their non-ALP peers, ALP students were also 5.5 percentage points more likely to persist to the next year following ENGL052, and, on average, they completed 1.2 more college-level credits after ENGL052” (p. 11).

… that tend to fade over time. Learning Communities (Visher, et al., 2012) “Up to two semesters after the program ended, short- term impacts on credits earned in the subject targeted by the learning community were discerned in most of the demonstration colleges, but these faded after a semester or two. None of the learning community programs had an effect on reenrollment (or persistence) in college” (p. 77).

Predominant orientation toward reform leads to the adoption of minimally disruptive, small-scale approaches, which are oftentimes enacted in ways that undermine their potential benefits.

To significantly impact long-term outcomes, reforms must affect more than the beginning of students’ college careers and must sustain the intensity and duration of supports.

Vision

Developmental education as an on-ramp to programs of study College Bridge Students gain college know-how, academic preparedness, and motivation to begin a program of study Progress Monitoring, Feedback, and Support Completion + Career Advancement Further Education Career / College Assessment and Planning Students choose field of study, develop completion plan with support needs identified Foundation and Advanced Skills Mastery Students build foundational and advanced skills following a completion plan Students complete gateway courses and other program-of-study requirements while receiving target academic and nonacademic supports

On-ramp necessary but not sufficient GUIDED PATHWAYS Clear roadmaps to student goals Churning Intake redesigned as an on-ramp Early transfer Completion Students’ progress closely tracked Excess credits Time to degree Learning outcomes/assessments aligned across programs Skill building

Practice

Conventional wisdom: It is a problem with today’s students Students are simply, vastly unprepared for college Kids these days ….

Placement According to Exam Dominant systems of assessment and placement subject to severe misplacement Placement According to Exam Developmental College Level Student Ability  Over-placed (English – 5%) (Math – 6%) Under-placed (English – 29%) (Math – 18%) Additional information on this analysis is available at the following link: http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/publications/high-stakes-placement-exams-predict.html.

Long Beach CC transfer level English success rate by method of qualification That 73% Accuplacer + MM bar looks awfully good relative to that 75% the Hawaii CC system goal of having 75% of students placed one level below complete gatekeeper math and English in one term and the 70% of students placed two levels below complete the same.

Early outcomes at LBCC suggested viability of multiple measures Math English

Effects of placing at the lowest levels – even in reformed contexts – are profound

Models

Math Pathways Theory of Action Content of developmental mathematics courses is structured in an accelerated fashion and aligned to the mathematics requirements of varying degree programs to ensure students take the type and amount of mathematics they need Target population Typically students who are eligible to enroll (by placement or course completion) in beginning algebra Large-Scale/ Institutionalized Examples Carnegie Statway/Quantway; Dana Center Mathematics Pathways (formerly New Mathways Project) Evidence of Effectiveness SW/QW: Descriptive statistics analyses of the fall 2011, 2012 and 2013 cohorts found 49% of students enrolled in Statway successfully completed the year-long course compared to 15% of the students enrolled in the baseline comparison group; 56% of students enrolled in Quantway successfully completed the two-course sequence compared to 29% of students enrolled in the baseline comparison group (Sowers & Yamada, 2015)

Corequisite Theory of Action Simultaneously enroll in college course and supplementary remediation (e.g., companion course) to eliminate exit point and accelerate completion of gatekeeper course Target population Originally, students placed in upper-level developmental English; however, expanded to students with more significant math and English remedial needs Large-Scale/ Institutionalized Examples Community College of Baltimore County Accelerated Learning Program (ALP); TN, WV, GA, IN, VA Evidence of Effectiveness CCBC: Regression analysis of pooled cohorts tracked for up to 4 years found ALP students were 28.5 percentage pts more likely to complete gatekeeper English and 5.5 percentage pts more likely to persist to the next year following co-req English enrollment (Cho, Kopko, Jenkins & Jaggars, 2012) TN: Descriptive analyses of fall 2014 and spring 2015 pilots found 63.3% of students passed co-req Intro Statistics compared with 12.3% of students in old model and 66.9% of students passed co-req Freshman Comp compared to 30.9% of students in the old model (TBR, 2015)

Contextualization Theory of Action Create explicit connections between the teaching of basic skills reading, writing, or math and instruction in a discipline area in order to enhance the relevance of the content, deepen learning, and streamline developmental education coursework. Target population All students Large-Scale/ Institutionalized Examples Integrated Basic Education Skills Training (I-BEST) Evidence of Effectiveness A PSM analysis found I-BEST students earned 8 college credits and 8 CTE credits more than the matched group and were 36 percentage points more likely than the matched group to attain an award. The analysis showed no statistically significant difference in year-to-year persistence and on employment outcomes (Zeidenberg, Cho & Jenkins, 2011)

UHCC’s charge

Clarifying curricular pathways 70% students two or more levels below college ready will successfully complete their college level math and English courses within one year 75% students one level below college ready will successfully complete their college level math and English courses within one semester Multiple Measures Clarifying curricular pathways Math Pathways Helping students get on a path Corequisite Remediation Keeping students on a path Contextualized Learning Ensuring learning

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