Acceleration News

VOLume 1 | SePtember 2 011

California Acceleration Project

Supporting Californias 112 Community Colleges to Redesign their English and Math Curricula and Increase Student Completion
http://3csn.org/developmental-sequences

Project Overview
Though intended to help students prepare for the demands of college, remedial course sequences in English and Math are too often the place where college dreams go to die. Large research studies have established that the more levels of remedial courses a student must take, the less likely the student is to ever complete college courses in English and Math. And without completing these gatekeeper courses, huge numbers of students never qualify for their longer-term educational goals. The California Acceleration Project stresses that we cant keep attributing this problem to students low skills or low motivation. Instead, we must examine the curricular sequences themselves. In their widely cited article and presentations across California, project leaders Katie Hern and Myra Snell make the case that high attrition rates are structurally guaranteed in multi-semester pre-collegiate sequences. California community colleges often require under-prepared students to enroll in up to 4 levels of developmental Math, English, and/or Reading (and sometimes additional levels of English as a Second Language). The intractable reality of this system is that the longer the sequence and the more exit points where students can fall away by not passing a course, or not enrolling in the next course the smaller the pool of students who will ever finish the path. Colleges across California are joining the movement to address this problem and help more students reach their goals. As of Fall 2011, more than 80 of the states 112 community colleges have participated in the California Acceleration Projects workshops, trainings, and consultations, and growing numbers of them are shortening and redesigning their developmental English and Math sequences.

The California Acceleration Project is an initiative of the California Community Colleges Success Network, with support from the Walter S. Johnson Foundation, LearningWorks, and the Community College Research Centers Scaling Innovation project

Shared Goal, Flexible Paths

models of Acceleration
The California Acceleration Project uses curricular redesign to increase the numbers of community college students who complete college-level gatekeeper courses in English and Math. We introduce faculty to a range of models for achieving this: Mainstreaming Students into College-Level Courses Open-Access Integrated Reading and Writing Courses Open-Access Pre-Statistics Courses Contextualized Instruction Embedded in Career-Technical Programs Mechanisms for Bypassing Remedial Levels Compression Models that Combine Levels of Existing Sequence

In addition to reducing sequence length and eliminating exit points, we encourage faculty to reconsider the content of the existing curriculum: Is what were teaching in developmental courses what students truly need to succeed at the college level?

Running a pilot course can involve unanticipated difficulties, but working in a community of practitioners experiencing similar challenges will help us articulate our own problems and work through them as they arise rather than simply after failures have occurred.
- Fullerton College English team, in their application to join the 2011 Community of Practice

Open-Access Integrated reading and Writing Course Chabot College

Students self-place into either a two-semester developmental sequence (8 units) or an accelerated onesemester course (4 units). The outcomes are dramatically different for the two paths. % of students completing college-level English Two-semester, 8-unit developmental sequence One-semester, 4-unit accelerated course 23% 45%

Cohort study tracking first-time takers in Fall 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007. Accelerated students followed for 2 years, non-accelerated for 2.5 years. N = 1822 accelerated students, 1730 non-accelerated.

Open-Access Pre-Statistics Course Los medanos College, Path2Stats

Students pursuing majors that do not rely on Algebra are eligible to bypass the traditional 4-semester math sequence and enroll in a new course designed to prepare them for Statistics. Completion of college Math has increased dramatically. Path2Stats: % of students successfully completing college-level Statistics 100% (3 of 3) 90% (18 of 20) 85% (22 of 26) 31% (11 of 35) 29% (93 of 320) 17% (49 of 292) 5% (8 of 155) Traditional sequence: % of students successfully completing college-level Math

Student placement in Math sequence Transfer-level Intermediate Algebra Elementary Algebra Pre-algebra or Arithmetic

Study compares students from the first two cohorts of Path2Stats (tracked for one year), with students from comparable starting placements in the traditional developmental sequence (tracked for three years).

Faculty Responses to Summer Institute in Accelerated Curricula and Pedagogy

June 2011

How helpful did you find this event in preparing you to teach your upcoming accelerated course? 94% Very Helpful

A Framework for Change

Curricular redesign
Shorter developmental pathways & increased student access to college courses The length of developmental sequences should be significantly reduced to eliminate the many exit points where students are lost by either not passing or not enrolling in courses in the sequence. Colleges should also experiment with broadening access to college-level courses and providing under-prepared students additional, simultaneous support to meet the demands of those courses. Backwards design and contextualization Rather than requiring all students to go through a single generic English, Reading, or Algebra-based curriculum, literacy and math instruction should be aligned with students educational pathways. For students pursuing career-technical credentials, this might involve contextualized literacy and quantitative skills embedded within their vocational program. Students pursuing majors that dont rely on Algebra might enroll directly in college Statistics, or take a targeted pre-Statistics course developed through backwards design to include only the mathematical skills, content, and habits of mind required in that course. Before enrolling in college composition, under-prepared students might take a practice English 1A, where they engage in the same kinds of reading, thinking, and writing required in the college-level course, but with more scaffolding and support provided. Just-in-time remediation as an alternative to front-loading Current models of developmental education often break down complex skills and ways of thinking into discrete sub-skills, then deliver these skills up-front to students in a linear, step-by-step curriculum. We argue instead for a model of immersing students in challenging, authentic literacy and quantitative tasks, and providing targeted reviews of foundational skills at the moment they are relevant to the higher order work at hand. members of the Community of Practice in Accelerated Curricula and Pedagogy gather in June 2011 to plan for the accelerated english and pre-Statistics courses they will teach in the coming year.

The most amazing teaching day EVER!!! I kept catching myself participating in the conversations as though I was one of the students (I wanted to raise my hand and share ideas they were triggering for me). Oh this is going to be a whole new way of teaching. I LOVE it!!!
- Cuyamaca College Math Instructor Terrie Nichols in the first week of teaching her pre-Statistics pilot

Overhaul of Current Placement Systems

Currently, placement score = destiny. The lower a students initial placement, the less likely that student is to complete college English or Math and become eligible for longer-term credentials. Policy discussions of establishing a floor for remediation could raise the stakes even higher, with low-scoring students losing access to a college education entirely. And yet, this system hinges upon standardized placement tests widely acknowledged to be flawed: Students typically take placement tests without preparation or awareness of the stakes. The tests measure only a set of de-contextualized sub-skills and fail to capture the broader cognitive and affective dimensions of college readiness. There are gross misalignments between what is tested and what is required for success in a given educational pathway. The tests lead us to under-estimate the capacity of low-scoring students, the folly of which is highlighted by these students performance in challenging accelerated classrooms.

Most broadly, placement tests are used to conclude in advance, and with flawed and limited information that certain students are incapable of meeting higher-level academic challenges. And on the basis of these tests, colleges deny students access to courses where they might demonstrate their capacity. Current placement systems also rely on the assumption that learning is best served by separating students into homogeneous skill-groupings, an assumption challenged by heterogeneous accelerated classrooms. Its time to stop tinkering with partial solutions like mandatory placement and pre-testing review courses and redesign not only assessment instruments but the curricula to which they are tied. Promising directions include using assessment not to track students into levels of remediation, but to identify students at greater risk and provide them simultaneous support to meet the challenges of accelerated developmental and college-level courses.

Faculty Development to Support transition to New models

The changes we advocate cannot be simply imposed by legislators or state-level policy groups. These changes represent a significant break from the status quo of most community colleges, and they will require classroom faculty to change not only what they teach but how they teach it. Faculty need support to make this transition. They need models of real-life accelerated classrooms lessons, assignments, samples of student work. They also need the support of peers teachers with whom they can share ideas, trouble-shoot issues, and reason through questions and concerns. And they need an institutional environment that encourages ongoing inquiry into student learning and completion in other words, faculty need the space to learn.

Highlights 2010 -11

momentum Grows
A widely read California newsletter published an article by project leaders: Exponential Attrition and the Promise of Acceleration in Developmental english and math (June/July 2010, Perspectives, RP Group). More than 80 California community colleges participated in broad outreach offered through 3CSN, the professional development arm of the statewide Basic Skills Initiative (8 regional workshops, 2 summer institutes, webinar, multiple conference presentations, phone/email consultations). Faculty from 19 colleges joined the 2011 Community of Practice in Acceleration, planning curricula and pedagogy for pilot courses in 2011-12. An additional 14 faculty teams participated in 3CSNs Basic Skills Leadership Institute 2011, focusing on launching accelerated pilots by 2012-13. A set of online resources was developed to support colleges in implementing acceleration, including Spotlight articles on acceleration at different California colleges, curricular and pedagogical materials, classroom videos, and links to key research articles: http://3csn.org/developmental-sequences Four major research projects were launched to document the implementation, impact, and scaling of acceleration across California: 1) The RP Group has developed a cohort-tracking tool for the state chancellors data system, through which colleges can access longitudinal pipeline data from their English, Reading, ESL, and Math sequences. 2) A survey of acceleration practices was administered to all 112 community colleges in Fall 11. 3) Researchers from UCLA and Claremont Graduate University will compile pipeline data from the colleges participating in the 2011 Community of Practice, comparing completion rates of accelerated pilots against the longer traditional sequence; they will also document qualitative changes to curricula and pedagogy. 4) The Community College Research Center is including the California Acceleration Project in its Scaling Innovation study, funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The project was featured in the New York times (June 2010), KQED public radios California report (May 2011), a literature review on acceleration by the Community College research Center (February 2011), several national conferences, and in publications by the nationwide educational reform efforts Getting Past Go and the Developmental education Initiative (August 2011).

I found the practical unit-building the most helpful, but a close second to that was the emotional and spiritual re-charge from listening and talking to those who are so committed to student success in a deep sense.
- Faculty Response to Summer Institute in Accelerated Curricula and Pedagogy

Acceleration Spreads Across California Community of Practice 2011

Accelerated English courses Butte College Chabot College Fullerton College Gavilan College Imperial Valley College LA Trade Tech College Pasadena City College San Diego Mesa College Santa Monica College Solano College Yuba College Accelerated Pre-Statistics courses Berkeley City College City College of San Francisco College of the Canyons Cuyamaca College Diablo Valley College Los Medanos College Moreno Valley College Riverside City College College of the Sequoias College of the Siskiyous Crafton Hills College Cuyamaca College Cypress College Fresno City College Glendale Community College Moorpark College Mt. San Jacinto College Palo Verde College Reedley College San Bernardino Valley College Victory Valley College West Los Angeles College

3CSN basic Skills Leadership Institute, 2011

I loved all of the nuts and bolts ideas for practices. I am so excited to teach this course and to spread the word!! I really liked the models of assignments and texts used in class. This has really helped my team expand our vision of what students can do.
- Faculty Responses to Summer Institute in Accelerated Curricula and Pedagogy

Goals
The California Acceleration Project aims to increase the numbers of community college students completing college-level gatekeeper courses in English and Math by: 1. Making the case for curricular reform through presentations, publications, and consultation with colleges

2. Training and coaching community college faculty on the logistical, political, curricular, and pedagogical complexities of implementing accelerated courses 3. Advancing research into accelerated practices and outcomes 4. Building compelling representations of accelerated curricula and pedagogy

The California Community Colleges Success Network, the professional development grant for the Basic Skills Initiative, is a statewide community of practice committed to increasing student success. Through 3CSNs completion initiative, colleges use inquiry and action to increase student completion of key educational milestones. The project is led by Deborah Harrington of the Los Angeles Community College District, Lynn Wright of Pasadena City College, and a group of faculty coordinators from across California, who support colleges to share and build upon existing knowledge while creating opportunities for transformation.

Project Leaders
Katie Hern, English Department, Chabot College, khern@chabotcollege.edu Myra Snell, Math Department, Los Medanos College, msnell@losmedanos.edu

Partners
3CSN The Walter S. Johnson Foundation LearningWorks The Community College Research Center Chabot College Los Medanos College The Research and Planning Group The Community College League of California