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Introduction:
I
am increasingly impatient with people who ask
whether a student is “college material.”
We are not building a college with a student.
The question we ought to ask is whether the college
is…student material. It is the student
we are building, and it is the function of the
college to facilitate that process. We have
him as he is, rather than as we wish he were….
We are still calling for much more change in the
student than we are in the faculty….
Can we come up with the professional attitudes
[necessary to] put us in the business of tapping
pools of human talent not yet touched?…
The greatest challenge facing the community college
is to make good on the promise of the open door.
Edmund J. Gleazer, 1970
in
High Stakes, High Performance
As
I interviewed approximately 20 PVCC faculty
to learn their perceptions about under-prepared students,
I did not have to scratch far below the surface to uncover
their frustration with students’ lack of readiness
for college. This frustration, of course,
is not unique to PVCC. Roueche and Roueche, in
their 1993 study of developmental education, state,
“Students are leaving high school no better prepared
than they were in the mid-1960s. In fact, evidence
indicates that despite higher grade point averages,
these students’ skills and competencies are at
the lowest levels in American history. “
(p. 246). The problem is compounded by Robert
McCabe’s study (2000), which clearly delineates
the nation’s inability to meet its need for more
highly skilled workers from within the U.S.
At
PVCC, 44% of students test into developmental writing,
68% into developmental math, and 39% into developmental
reading. Because these percentages are increasing,
this concern has been identified as a Strategic
Issue. This report is an initial step in determining
how to address this issue.
Defining
“Underprepared”
Roueche
and Roueche recommend using the term “under-prepared.”
rather than “remedial.” They
state, and virtually all experts in the field
agree, that “remedial” is insulting and
implies that a remedy is needed to cure an illness.
(p. 17) Otte (in Lundell & Higbee, 2000) states
that although we have for the most part moved away from
the term remedial, we still think in terms of
treatments, primarily through isolated, time-bound courses
that carry a stigma. (p. 8) So using neutral language
is an important first step, but there is much work to
do beyond adjusting language to effectively address
the needs of under-prepared students.
Attempts
to generalize characteristics of under-prepared students
do not yield a tidy list. Hunter Boylan
(in Lundell & Higbee, 2000) states that under-prepared
students are much like other students. (p. 23)
Klein and colleagues (1998) underscore the difficulty
of definition, saying that they “do not display
a common profile” (p. 74) and add
that many factors may affect their performance in college.
“Underprepared students come from
all economic situations and geographic areas”—although
they are disproportionately poor. (Roueche and
Roueche, 1999, p. 18)
PVCC
Faculty Definitions of Underprepared Students:
Among
the 20 faculty interviewed, there was a wide range
of definitions, from considering only cognitive abilities
needed to succeed in their courses to recognizing
multiple factors as underlying causes of students’
under-preparedness. There was also disagreement:
one recommended including those with underdeveloped
social/emotional skills; another recommended
not including them. Higbee and Dwinell (1995),
in reviewing the literature in developmental education
publications, noted an increased interest in affective
variables among math, reading, and English faculty but
indicate that more research is needed to
ascertain whether “affect is a significant
factor in determining the academic success of
developmental freshmen.” Some PVCC
faculty said that special education, special needs students
should not be included, implying or directly stating
that students should have ability to learn. However,
determining whether one has the ability to learn is
very complex and includes many variables.
Following
is my recommendation for defining under-prepared
students, based on a synthesis of faculty responses
and opinions of experts in the field:
Underprepared
students are those who are not ready for college level
work because of:
General
knowledge:
Inadequate
background knowledge in specific areas, i.e., history
Skills necessary for college work:
Inability to read, write, compute at college level (in
English)
Inadequate computer skills and other technology competencies
Inadequate study skills, including
a.
time management
b. ability
to organize and categorize information
c. ability
to distinguish important from unimportant information
Inability
to think logically and critically
Lack
of common sense skills, navigational skills
Beliefs:
Unrealistic
expectations re: what is required in college (Newton,
2000)
Unwillingness
to take instructors’ advice re: how to improve
Inadequate motivation, lack of vision for future
Unrealistic
beliefs about their preparedness for college
Belief that learning is passive; someone else
is responsible for their learning
Having
said that, my recommendation is to focus on developing
strategies that are available to all students without
creating categories of students. This has long
been the practice in the Learning Support Center at
PVCC in helping tutors to address learning disabilities
among students. Jeanne Higbee states, “Is
there any student who would not benefit from courses,
programs, and services designed to enhance academic
achievement and promote the development of the individual
to his or her full potential? Why place any label on
the students we serve? …Must we ‘define’
our students?” Rather than labeling students,
which stigmatizes them, educators need to focus on “the
cognitive and affective growth of all postsecondary
learners, at all levels of the learning continuum.”
(Higbee, 2000, p. 41)
Faculty
Concerns:
In
my interviews with faculty, I asked about their concerns
about under-prepared students. Following is a list
of their concerns, in no particular order:
How
to maintain student success throughout a semester
How
to help students see their work more realistically
and be more honest with
themselves about what is interfering with their success
Three-hour
developmental courses are not sufficient to prepare
students for the next course.
How
do you separate disabilities from lack of preparation?
Our
dependence on Full-Time Student Enrollment creates
problems: students may take FTSE to other
institutions if PVCC requires them to address
their under-preparedness.
Underprepared
students must be identified.
It
is hard to get results with the lowest 20% of
students—attending to them hampers my
teaching.
More
of the same kind of instruction for failing students
does not work. (Taking a course three times
doesn’t make sense.)
Because
PVCC’s minority population is increasing, we
must not assume that is the reason for the increase
in under-prepared students.
How do we deal with learning disabilities?
CPD
150 is often used as a “catch-all” course
for under-prepared students. However, the competencies
for this course assume that students can write papers
at the college level.
In mentoring programs, it is difficult to get mentees
to commit.
Adjunct
faculty tend to give high grades because they have
no job security.
Students seem less prepared every year and have more
behavior problems.
In
Arizona, 80% of people work in the service sector.
Arizona exploits its human capital; therefore, it
is unwilling to support education.
Recommendations
The
overarching recommendation is to create a web-like structure,
with the Underprepared Student Initiative woven throughout
PVCC—in all academic divisions and service areas.
The complexity of such a structure calls for much employee
and organizational learning, including moving away from
the notion of who is “college material”
(a concept from a time when college was for the elite).
The literature is clear and consistent: Do not
create separate services for under-prepared students
. Not only is such a structure generally ineffective,
but it also assigns stigma and low status to these students.
Hunter Boylan, Director of the Center for Developmental
Education at Appalachian State University (in Stratton,
1998), states that to help under-prepared students achieve
their fullest potential, “…courses and support
services, remedial class and learning centers, assessment,
placement, and advising will all have to be integrated
with each other and into the total institutional endeavor.”
( p. 35) In addition, Roueche & Roueche (1999)
state that a “total program approach to the complex
needs of at-risk students—a systemic approach—has
the greatest potential for success” (p.
29) Further, this approach should be part of the institution’s
commitment to success for all students.
We
are fortunate at PVCC to be a part of the consortium
Learning Connections, since many experts call
for colleges to establish closer ties with elementary
and secondary schools. Otte (in Lundell
& Higbee, 2000) states, “We need to see each
student’s education as a continuum, not as a series
of discrete experiences. This is especially true
of the single most profound ‘disconnect’:
not between developmental instruction and the so-called
mainstream but between high school and college.”
(p. 8)
Assessment
is a critical component of the Underprepared Student
Initiative. McCabe (2000) recommends that “high
school assessment and college-placement programs should
be integrated into a seamless assessment system.
High schools, and high school students themselves, need
to know how the students are progressing in developing
college-entry skills.” (p. 51)
A seamless assessment system would help to address the
problem that the skills required for high school graduation
are generally not equivalent to those needed for college
success. Many students complete high school graduation
requirements early and may waste their senior year because
they do not realize that they are not prepared for college.
Again, because Learning Connections is in
place, these issues can be more easily addressed.
Policies:
Roueche
and Roueche (1993) recommend setting rigorous
standards for students, including:
Limit what courses students can take
Institute mandatory placement
Require orientation
Abolish late registration
Require working students to take fewer hours
Although
not all of these recommendations are feasible for PVCC,
creating a culture where some of these are emphasized
could be helpful for under-prepared students. Advisement
could play a strong role in encouraging students to
enroll in courses for which they are prepared.
And although mandatory placement is not Maricopa policy,
developing procedures that reduce students’ waiving
their recommended course placement is worth considering.
A strategy for addressing the problem of students’
waiving placement in developmental English courses is
to require those wishing to waive the placement to produce
a writing sample to be evaluated by a writing instructor.
This approach would help to deal with the reality that
objective placement tests in writing do not actually
evaluate students’ writing abilities. Participating
in Orientation could also be strongly encouraged for
entering students. Finally, the current policy
of allowing late registration could be examined since
students who register late begin their studies at a
disadvantage.
Other
recommendations from Roueche and Roueche that are more
focused on providing support for students include:
Provide more comprehensive financial aid programs
Establish
peer and faculty mentors and support groups
Require
literacy activities in all courses in all disciplines
Use
Supplemental Instruction and tutoring
Hire
faculty eager to teach under-prepared students
and skilled in doing so
In
general, increase support for under-prepared students;
they need it most.
Curricular
approaches:
As
a reading instructor, I found most surprising
the finding in the literature that developmental reading
courses are generally ineffective. Martha
Maxwell, the grande dame of developmental education
and learning assistance for decades, has stated, “Although
filled with the best of intentions, developmental reading
programs are not producing the necessary results. (in
Higbee & Dwinell, 1998) A long history of studies
has shown developmental reading courses to be ineffective;
in fact, some have demonstrated that under-prepared students
who took mainstream courses fared better than those
who took a reading course.” (p. 153)
I was stunned to read this because her research citations
were so extensive, and yet the teaching
of stand-alone developmental reading courses is virtually
universal in community colleges. Why are
we not exploring more effective ways of developing students’
reading skills?
Roueche
and Roueche (1993) comment on a possible contributing
factor, which extends beyond reading: ‘…
in basic skills courses, reading is often taught as
a process, and the content being read is not considered
important to that process; mathematics is taught as
abstract subject matter, and the subject is not linked
to any practical uses; history is presented as a series
of topics, and it is not related to potential solutions
for social and political problems; and so on.”
(p. 173) To remedy this, Sticht (in Roueche and
Roueche, 1993) recommends teaching basic skills in the
contexts of subject matter. Research in cognitive science
has demonstrated clearly that “both children and
adults have difficulty learning and applying new knowledge
and information processing skills when education and
training occur out of context. “ (p. 172) John
Gardner (in Roueche and Roueche, 1993) further explains
that cognitive science has taught us that all learning
involves both processes and knowledge, and “that
the teaching of process without a knowledge
base on which it can operate [is] futile.”( p.
171)
Although
I have long believed that skills and content should
be integrated, I was surprised in conducting my research
at the remarkable coherence among virtually all of the
researchers and practitioners in recommending integration
of the curriculum. Again, Martha Maxwell says
it well: The most successful model for students
with underdeveloped skills “involves a core of
intensive, interdepartmental courses that are team-taught
and include reading, writing, mathematics, and a mainstream
course, usually in social science.” (p.
163) She is making this statement in the
context of reading, but the point is easily generalizable.
The
First-Year Experience program, especially as it is being
implemented at PVCC as a freshman Learning Community,
is an exemplary vehicle for integrating not only curriculum,
but also co-curricular activities, counseling support,
mentoring, tutoring, and study skills. Maxwell
(in Lundell & Higbee, 2000) offers a possible reason
for the limited use of this kind of integration:
“Although studies for over 50 years have demonstrated
that comprehensive, well integrated programs that provide
counseling, tutoring, skills instruction, mentoring
and content courses are the most effective way to help
under-prepared students succeed in college, today they
are considered too expensive and are rarely offered.”
However, McCabe (2000) argues convincingly that programs
for under-prepared students are quite cost-effective,
especially when measured against the societal costs
of a population unable to meet the needs of employers
and the requirements of effective citizenship.
In addition, the significant increase in persistence
rates among students who enroll in First-Year Experience
and Learning Communities programs offsets the
cost of replacing students who leave because they are
unable to be successful.
Therefore,
First-Year Experience that incorporates all aspects
of students’ learning at PVCC holds great promise
because it is a truly systemic approach. The curriculum
is coordinated, and support services are connected.
Therefore, counselors, tutors, librarians, co-curricular
activities, etc. are attached to the grouping of courses,
not just available somewhere else on campus. In addition,
these programs can be “seamless,”
where the elements of orientation, study strategies,
and support services are included when students need
them. Robert McCabe, in No One to Waste,
states, “Successful remedial education is more
than courses; it is a program integrated into all college
services.” First-Year Experience does just
that.
Even
though First-Year Experience is a powerful pedagogy,
it will not be appropriate for all entering students,
either because they are part-time students or because
it does not meet some of their curricular needs.
Therefore, other approaches are also needed. Learning
Communities that link or integrate two or three courses
are also be very powerful vehicles for learning and
may be more feasible for part-time students.
Many Learning Communities connect a skills course
with one or two content courses.
Other
curricular approaches that are strongly supported in
the literature as effective for under-prepared students
are:
Supplemental Instruction
Summer
Bridge programs
Student
Success courses
Orientation
for new students
Peer
mentors
Embedding
stand-alone courses with First-Year Experience elements
Adjunct
courses (i.e., Learning Strategies for History paired
with American History)
The
above programs are referred to consistently and frequently
in the literature. There are extensive research
studies that confirm the validity of these programs.
Instructional
approaches:
The
above programs extend beyond one course. However,
there are also instructional approaches that are
used within individual courses that are effective .
These include:
Active learning
Cooperative
learning
Multiple
intelligences
Service
Learning
Web-based
learning
It
has become common practice to assign the use of instructional
software to bolster under-prepared students’ skills.
David Caverly (in Lundell & Higbee, 2000), in summarizing
a conversation with other developmental educators
about the use of technology, comments that students
need to develop more complex literacy skills today
than they did in the recent past. Preparing students
(including under-prepared students) to function effectively
in the Knowledge Age includes enabling them “to
critically gather information from a variety of sources;
organize, arrange, and integrate that information with
information others on their team provide to collaboratively
create consensus knowledge.” (p. 34) Much
computer software used with under-prepared students is
still based on Industrial Age assumptions and is inappropriate
because it focuses on developing simple, rather than
complex, knowledge in students. Caverly calls
for teaching students how to bridge the gap between
information and knowledge.
Employee
and Organizational Learning:
It
is common knowledge that few faculty (including those
teaching developmental courses) have training in working
with under-prepared students. PVCC is no exception.
Therefore, it is important to encourage more faculty
(both adjunct and full-time) to advance their own learning
about under-prepared students and then to teach them
how to embed First-Year Experience-enriched components
into their courses. In fact, it is important to
encourage all employees, not just faculty, to advance
their own learning about under-prepared students.
Employee
and Organizational Learning can support this work through
supporting presentations about under-prepared students.
Many topics that are related to under-prepared students
(such as First-Year Experience and web-based
learning) are offered regularly. Other related
topics for Employee and Organizational Learning sessions
might be:
Supplemental Instruction
Learning
theory
Collaborative
learning,
Evaluation
of Underprepared Student Initiative:
Roueche
and Roueche (1993) provide the following guidelines
for developing an evaluation plan:
Set high standards
Ask: What are acceptable levels of success (What does
PVCC want to achieve?)
Create clear descriptions of viable outcomes
Develop mechanisms for evaluating whether outcomes have
been achieved
Measure
success of under-prepared students in regular courses
following their developmental courses
Determine how to assess the effectiveness of developmental
courses
Share results with PVCC community and larger community
Other
recommendations for evaluating the Underprepared Student
Initiative:
Consider expanding the definition of student success
to “integrate both intellectual and social dimensions”
of student development (Lundell & Higbee, 2000,
p. 47)
Make assessment a part of a campus-wide effort (Lundell
& Higbee, 2000, p. 50)
Jumpstarting
the Underprepared Student Initiative:
Implement
in 2001-2002:
Determine
goals for Underprepared Student Initiative-2001-2002
Awareness
– Employee and Organizational Learning:
Required
reading for Focus Team this summer: Read High
Stakes, High Performance
Plan
session for Fall Learning Weeks—Use some information
from High Stakes, High Performance to increase
staff learning about under-prepared students
Hold brown bags or other informational activities
during the year about under-prepared students
Encourage interested, veteran faculty to become
involved in this initiative
(as well as newer faculty)
Encourage all faculty to embed their courses with
the strategies that students need in order to be
successful.
Raise
awareness of student under-preparedness through Learning
Connections. “A plan for improving student
performance, developed and implemented by colleges
in partnership with public schools, elementary through
high school, has the greatest potential for achieving
college readiness for first-time students; such
a plan will take time.” (Roueche
and Roueche, 1999, p. 48)
Policies/procedures
Tighten
procedures for students wishing to waive course
placement. Implement additional advisement,
perhaps with division chairs or designees, in order
to encourage students to enroll in the courses indicated
by their placement tests.
Curricular/support
approaches
Implement
Supplemental Instruction for high-attrition
courses
Encourage
more LC/FYE blocks. However, take care not
to create a perception that LCs are only for under-prepared
students.
Evaluation
Determine goals and objectives of UP Student Initiative
Determine appropriate methods of assessment.
Evaluate work at end of academic year and use as
a basis for determining goals for next year
Conclusion:
The
recommendations in this initial paper represent nothing
less than a culture change at PVCC. Many assumptions
about the way the institution works are challenged in
these recommendations, especially the assumptions about
an organizational structure composed of separate units
and courses as taught as separate entities. It
would be much easier to retain these assumptions about
separateness and relegate the issues surrounding under-prepared
students to specific units, i.e., developmental courses
and/or a special program for under-prepared students.
However, learning—student learning, employee learning,
and organizational learning-- will be much more powerful
if all members of the college community contribute to
the development of under-prepared students.
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