 8 years teaching English at SMSU  7 ½ years mentoring high school CEP teachers  Professional awareness of disconnect in high school and college standards  Passion to improve student potential

 Provides a college or university faculty mentor who › Meets regularly with the teacher › Monitors assignments, assessments, and instructional effectiveness › Ensures that the course meets the learning outcomes and that students are held to college- level standards;  Provides each secondary instructor with opportunities to participate in appropriate campus-based faculty development activities. (MnSCU, System Procedures, Chapter 3, 2003)

To determine the level of perceived college readiness between high school students in a dual enrollment English course using inquiry based instruction to implement the pre-determined syllabus and those who were not.

 When ACT conducted the annual National Curriculum Survey (2007), the term was defined as the following: › Approximately a 75% chance of earning a grade of C or better, or approximately a 50% chance of earning a grade of B or better, in selected courses commonly taken by first- year college students (p. 1).

In most states today, a student can 1. complete all the courses required for high school graduation and college admissions, 2. pass all the required high school assessments 3. be admitted to a college or university – and still require remedial coursework to be ready for first-year college courses” (ACE, p. 8)

 20% of entering students who had received A’s in their last high school English course enrolled in the college’s remedial writing course  45% of entering students who had received B’s in their last high school English course enrolled in the college’s remedial writing course MSCTC data collected between January 2005 – January 2007 as reported in Carney and Crist

 The amount of student learning that occurs in a classroom is directly proportional to the quality and quantity of student involvement in the educational program (Cooper and Prescott 1989).  Yet research studies indicate that teachers typically dominate classroom conversation, consuming nearly 70% of classroom time.  Inquiry-based instructional approaches reverse this trend, placing students at the helm of the learning process and teachers in the role of learning facilitator, coach, and modeler.

 Activating Prior Knowledge  Defining Outcomes for which students will be held accountable  Providing Frameworks  Student teams brainstorm ideas fitting within broader inquiry or topic  Ask students questions to help refine their thinking  Empower students to coach and train one another  Provide a forum for student presentations  Incorporate ongoing, meaningful peer and teacher assessment  Reflect on what worked and what didn't, and try it again

 Is it personally relevant and socially significant?  Is the student truly interested in the question?  Is it researchable?  Is it big enough and small enough?

 Local Level › Improve College Readiness empirical data for SMSU › Improve College Readiness in SMSU CEP English students › Bring attention to the potential of SMSU’s CEP program to create alignments with local high schools  National Level › Add to the growing body of research searching for alignment solutions › See CEP as turn-key ready for individual cases of institutional College Readiness disconnect

 Self-perception of college readiness before course  High school administrator and teacher perception of student college readiness before course  Self-perception of college readiness after the coursework  High school administrator and teacher perception of student college readiness after course  College instructor perception of student college readiness after course  Difference in perception between those participating in inquiry-based collaborative communities

 Ever decreasing educational budgets with ever increasing pressure for students to perform  Rural population given equitable access to suburban rigorous curriculum  Young program nationally with little data collection standards  Potential to begin the transition to K-16 system  Opportunity for SMSU to lead nationally  High school students involved in CEP programs go on to obtain more post secondary education credits

 More data is needed, perhaps more structure  Potentially the future of education, perhaps in re-visioning where high school education ends and postsecondary education begins  CEP is naturally oriented to collaborations between college and high schools, professors and teachers, and finally students  CEP will be the beginning of P-16 in practice  CEP can solve real college readiness situations

 Population is all English dual enrollment program participants based out of SMSU in the Fall 2008 semester  Non-random Sample of 100 students who engaged in the creation of an inquiry-based instruction community

High School Administrator – Pre-survey High School Teacher – Pre and post-survey High School Student – Pre and post-survey College Instructor – Pre and post-survey for each individual school

 Surveys › Adapted from NACEP accreditation samples › Reformatted into electronic application and stored in a university data base › Dumped into Excel › Likert scale questions using 1 to 5 ratings › Post-surveys same as pre-surveys › Compared changes between the two

 cs/Programs/English/form229.cfm

 Sample and population teachers and instructors participated in workshop  24 participated in workshop discussion about college readiness using survey  12 of sample will participate in post- survey focus groups  13 of population will participate in post- survey focus groups

 Steps › Complete an online pre-survey › Ensure administrator and students do so › Attend the prep workshop › Create and present an online lesson › Participate in online inquiry-based instruction communities › Assist small groups of students in creation of presentation using inquiry based methods › Ask professors to complete a post-survey › Ensure administrator and students complete post- survey

 Invitation letter ed August 16 explaining steps  Pre-survey was complete within the first weeks of semester  High school teachers determined when online community would post discussions but done before December 1  Student peer editing will be done before November 15  Student presentations posted before November 25  Online post-survey to be completed by all by December 30  Focus group to be conducted December 15

 Returned data from online surveys stored in university data base  Analyzed using Excel and SPSS  College perception scores of schools were compared  Researcher reported means and standard deviations  t tests were performed and compared  D2L used for online communication and discussions were stored  Microsoft Word document used to record answers and analyze focus group commentary  Mixed method design assisted in ensuring validity

 How are your programs run?  How much is college readiness a concern for your CEP programs?  What is the ability level of your CEP program populations?  How do your CEP programs collect and analyze data so far?  What is the primary goal of your CEP program and what should it be?