New Developmental Education White Paper Coming Soon

The TYCA (Two-Year College English Association)  conference brought to my attention a new Developmental Education white paper that is coming out soon. I will devote this blog to information about that document. Be watching for it in the TETYC or other NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) journals.

The first topic broached in this session was that the national completion agenda "rests on good intentions but flawed assumptions." Reform is imposed, under resourced, and hasty. Such institutional and disciplinary divisions often lead to disarray and difficulty.

A Case Study: Florida SB1720 is one such hastily drawn piece of legislation set into effect in 2013. This law imposes the following, according to the white paper:

• exempts recent high school graduates and others from being required to take developmental education courses and from mandatory placement testing
• forbids standard semester format for developmental courses
• impacts curriculum, advising, workload, departmental structures, college-level instruction. Colleges were forced to hire more advisers and left no funding to hire more faculty.

Other Program Responses to  Legislative Interventions

• Some California admissions departments have turned developmental students away.
• Placement has been impacted.
• Program design has been impacted:
• mainstreaming with accelerated learning
• module courses developed
• studio courses developed
• stretch courses developed
• compression of programs

Recommendations for Institutional Administration and Educators

1. Include developmental instructors in designing reform.
2. Initiate improvement to developmental education programs and course through research-based pilots.
3. Prioritize evidence from local assessments and research on student success. (What works in Kansas may not work in Arizona.)
4. Assess students' needs for developmental education and readiness for credit-bearing courses based on multiple pieces of evidence including student writing.
5. Eliminate multiple-choice exit tests.
6. Fund and develop strong developmental education departments.
7. Support professional development for developmental educators.
8. More ideas were offered, but I didn't capture them all. Please eagerly await the real completed report for full and accurate information.

Anyone interested in the NCTE's Policy Analysis Initiative can follow this Web site for further information.  Also, the CCCC (Conference on College Composition and Communication) has a statement on preparing teachers of college writing. They ask, "How do we teach full-time and adjunct faculty how to teach for our institution?" The CCCC recommend that colleges offer training to show all English faculty how our institution approaches writing.

As a college, English teachers here can read the list and see areas of strength and places for continued growth opportunity at Yavapai College. Personally, I feel we are doing better than many colleges, and am grateful for thse potential of hiring a Developmental Education administrator in the near future. Colleges need to ask, "What issues are most pressing here?"

One state represented at the conference, Texas, said they have Reverse Transfer Agreements in their state (RMAs). When I asked for clarification on what an RMA is, I was told that their college tracks down students who transfer to another institution before they graduate from the university. The college gives credit for classes taken at the university toward completing a community college degree. They transfer back, and in so doing, students earn associates degrees, and the community college gets credit for completion. Do we have a system like this in Arizona? If not, perhaps this is an idea that Arizona colleges can seek to get instituted into our system.

Intelligence and How to Get It

Here is one article I found in Facebook that I can't get out of my mind: There's one key difference between kids who excel at math and those who don't. The article states, "While American fourth and eighth grades score quite well in international math comparisons--beating countries like Germany, the UK and Sweden--our high-schoolers underperform those countries by a wide margin." The authors go on to say that "some influential voices in American education policy have suggested simply teaching less math--for example, Andrew Hacker has called for algebra to no longer be a requirement. The subtext, of course, is that large numbers of American kids are simply not born with the ability to solve for x. And how will that help America compete in a global marketplace?

Ever since teaching GED classes here at Yavapai College, I have been listening to students tell me, "I'm just not a math person." So why do I care? I teach English. Yet, the students who are good in math transfer this thinking into "I'm just not good at writing."

So what if you have trouble getting math concepts right away? Not all brains are created the same. We have multiple intelligences. Howard Gardener wrote books on the subject, and I even wrote a thesis on it. For anyone who really wants to dive into Gardener's theory, here is a list of his books: The Disciplined Mind (1999), Leading Minds (1995), Creating Minds and Multiple Intelligences (1993). For those of you who teach English or who wonder why I like to use collaborative learning, you can read my thesis.

But even if one student has more trouble than another in learning math or how to write, does that mean the student should shrug his or her shoulders and give up? Maybe in America, but certainly not in foreign countries. According to this article, students who have more trouble learning in other countries learn to work hard. What a concept! I remember my oldest daughter having such a struggle in college calculus. She told me that she was determined that no matter how many times she had to take Calculus II, she was going to pass the class. And she did. Eventually.

So how do we create a more dynamic educational system in our country, a system where people dive in when the going get tough? Where the challenged keep striving for excellence and intelligence in all we say and do? We as the adults need to change our language. We need to set the example. Don't say that we ourselves can't remember the times tables and dig out our cell phone calculator, for example. Don't tell our kids that mommy or daddy weren't good at writing papers in high school and then send the kids off to bed without at least trying to talk them through some basic ideas about a topic they are supposed to write about for homework.

That isn't to say we shouldn't also point them in the direction of a tutor, teacher, or friend who is good at the subject. But let us set the example of people who are willing to try, willing to strive for success, even when it is difficult.