ATD Meeting notes – February 16, 2011
Developmental Education was the topic of discussion today
Teresa’s three things she learned. 1) Change that is to scale will take time and results from these big
changes will take even longer – but the process – which is immediate – does have immediate effects. 2)
Start Small – Think Big! 3) Other colleges have made changes that have increased student success so we
can too!
Kim Granger – Math faculty at WW – presented for Lillian Seese an outline of accomplishments in a
Math Self Study that was done college wide with campus specific additions. Outlined course objectives
for math 030 and are now in the Curricunet process. Also discussed Math 140, but not entered in
Curricunet yet. Developmental Math journal article Math departments followed the NADE model for their self study, but will not apply for official
certification.
Brenda Russell added that – FP Math – is engaging in continuous improvement and looked at 020 and
its success rate. Found a real need for pre-algebra to be split into two courses: 080 and 081 for those
who tested at the bottom Mth 020 range. Retention has gone up in Mth 080 and Mth 020 and there is a
higher success rate in Mth 030.
Lori Hirst, English faculty - FP English faculty are working separately on the NADE self study at each
campus. Forest Park has completed Part 1 of 2, and on this first survey 25 out of approx 58 (FT and PT)
responded. A meeting was held to interpret results and of 9 participating, 5 were adjunct. A draft of the
interpretation results was distributed to the AtD team, outlining the positive and negative findings. Part
1 of the NADE survey and the subsequent discussion of results demonstrate that both full-time and
adjuncts want more communication, professional development, and assessment such as norming for
grading and possibly a pre/post test for movement from developmental to credit-earning classes. Part 2
is shortly to be posted on Student Voice, thanks to John Cosgrove. Interpretation and a report of the
results are hoped for in April. A segment from the documentary, Discounted Dreams, “Untrained
Remedial Teachers” was shown. Lori reported that of 49 sections at the developmental level at FP, 14%
of the faculty teaching developmental courses are full-time and three faculty members teach those eight
courses, leaving the bulk of the courses to be taught by adjuncts who, through no fault of their own,
may not be supported in teaching these important classes due to a lack in the three factors mentioned
above: communication, professional development, and assessment. The point was made that innovation
requires a solid base from which to work.
This Flo Valley’s material:
FV English faculty used the NADE process as a tool for improvement and focused on the teaching and
learning segment. FV identified the top three issues and are now in the process of gathering data to
determine if their actions have made a difference. They have developed a mission statement that
connects with college mission. Creep effect on class size has been recalibrated. The number of students
in 020 had no impact on student learning. Both large and small classes had the same success. There was
no significant increase in class size for Eng 030.
Sue Serns – Reading Faculty at FV. First certification for NADE to be submitted this summer completion
of first application. MC used the NADE survey. FP Reading, Denise Johnston – pre-post test for Read 030
students, Students in late start or second 8 week not as successful as full 16 week class. Also looking at
frequency of meeting times. Started as a Nade self study, too big, so focused on what Denise was doing
for her sabbatical. Tao will send the article.
John Cosgrove – Exemplary assessment work has been done in Developmental Ed. From a NADE
perspective, just using NADE to provides good structure for further study. Progress in lower level class
does not predict success in later classes in college level work. Within a year, student regresses after
getting out of developmental. Their needs for support are ongoing. Donna found similar results difficulty with application later on. If you aren’t attentive to your deficiencies, they tend to come back.
Larry McDoniel – early on the college decided to handle developmental within the disciplines (and not
as a separate developmental “department”). Concern about bias against the students if they were in the
“developmental dept”. Individual disciplines and campus-based culture can be barriers to addressing
developmental education on a district-wide program level. As is, very disjointed and not connected to
the whole college and holistic student experience. Big culture change needed.
Cindy Hess has worked in environments with both structural configurations. If our focus is not student
centered as opposed to faculty and discipline centered, it won’t work despite the architecture in place.
Teaching the whole student, not making assumptions about what the student comes to us with. We
need to think about using extreme teaching methods, pedagogy and andragogy .
Laura shared her concern about social challenges that our students face. Not all times in their lives are
the best for students to be in college.
We need to consider using non-cognitive assessments prior to student starting class - making sure
college is the right choice for them at this time. Hunter Boylan – LASSIE opens up discussion with
students. Student Strengths inventory is another assessment we could consider using
Do we require adjuncts or full time faculty to attend a how to teach dev ed students “boot camp” prior
to teaching? (No - we do not.) Adjuncts are offered a six part – two hours each – program they can sign
up for. This training is optional and occurs during the fall and spring semesters and is not focused on
dev. Ed. Full time faculty have a full week of training/orientation before the fall service week. Also not
focused on dev ed exclusively.
Developmental Ed council, last year met. Suspended the Gen Ed and Dev Ed council when we went to
ATD.
Nancy – it’s hard to find qualified training in developmental ed. She says we have the skills in our faculty
to do the training, but need the mechanism/system to get them trained.
John Cosgrove – Spoke about the Current Students in Developmental Ed – Handout. First page covers
students who enrolled in Dev ed who never attended college previously. Often get requests about data
around developmental students – that is too broad a category. May have tested into, but not enrolled in
dev ed. Is 140 included in the group we call dev ed students? Is ESL included in that group? There are so
many variations. Need operational definition of dev ed.
Donna Dare Donna - In summer 2010, the MCCA Presidents' and Chancellors' Council charged the MCCA
CAO group with developing a common standard for college readiness across the state. The ACT scores of
18 for reading, 18 for English and 23 for Math are the scores that were agreed upon by all 12 community
colleges in Missouri. STLCC presently uses combined score of 21 for reading and English. A taskforce has
been formed to adopt the ACT scores and then to align new placement scores with our classes. We will
switch to Compass instead of Accuplacer this fall as another step in supporting this transition. Compass
has direct crosswalk scores from ACT to Compass scores, and only two colleges (STLCC and East Central)
use placement tests other than Compass. Transitioning to Compass will support other assessment
processes related to student success. As part of the discussion about how this work relates to Achieving
the Dream, it was noted that placement scores are not enough to define developmental education
students. – Strategies around dev ed will continue to be developed as part of the work of Achieving the
Dream.
Strategy Institute – Update
Kelli Burns – attended evaluation sessions, need to discuss more about evaluation of our strategies and
choose evaluation strategies up front for process and outcomes evaluation at the start. Intermediate
assessment, outcomes, policy changes, budget changes, helps in showing progress. Logic modeling in
evaluation. Kay McClenney said students are paralyzed by the large number of options we need to be
more prescriptive. In order to reduce the need for remediation we need to partner with k12. Anytime
our focus is on just courses we’re sunk – focus on the package for the student – policies, procedures,
scheduling, financial aid, advising all support the initiative. Missing one class in the first four weeks of
the semester is BAD! It is an indicator of student success and retention. We need to build a safety net
for students. Chronicle article and response from ATD - institutional change does not produce
immediate results. We need to get the word out about the magnitude of institutional change of ATD and
the long term nature of this process. Process outcomes have to be addressed first before the long term
student outcomes will be impacted.
Cindy – Kay reminded us we can’t do everything at once. Must prioritize projects and focus on student
success, the world didn’t begin with ATD, it’s always been about student success…ATD just a process, a
means for focusing effort. Difference between low intensity strategies (strategies which touch a student
five or fewer hours) and high intensity strategies (strategies which touch a student more than five
hours.) Begin by applying low intensity strategies to ALL students, and high intensity strategies to fewer
students. Obviously the highest impact is what happens in the classroom. “If you don’t have the time
doesn’t spend a dime.”
President aha moment – be sure leadership is shared because Presidents don’t stay – make it widely
participative. Easy to get awash in the data and fail to resurface.
Juliet Scherer - had a handout. First ATD schools, 50% dealt with student support, 25% instructional
support and 25% classroom change. Most impact is gained from the classroom.
Rhonda Adams – negative apathetic comments from colleagues – how to gain support on the campuses
and to get them to be patient with the results. Let colleagues know this is a long term project. Change
our conversations, who is in the conversations and then we will make the change. Orientation and
advising, require orientation and courses. We are implementing a lot of the things that are being
discussed. Must stop registration, ethical to stop putting students in classes who are not ready.
Keith couldn’t make it, he will speak at next meeting.
Donna Dare - reminded the group that focusing on student success is long-term nature. Focusing
intentionally on and strategizing about student success is not about an initiative; it is what we as a
college always should be doing. She also reminded the group that there is much good work going on
across the country in community colleges that is about promoting student success and that we don’t
have to build everything from scratch. We need to create a culture where we learn from each other,
from best practices, and from other schools. Donna described being inspired by a student who spoke at
the strategy institute. The young man who had been incarcerated four years ago spoke about how the
community college experience had changed his life.
Andrea Nichols – AtD at FP has visitors coming from Lake Land Community College on Feb 28 at 1:30 in
the CTL to talk about developmental ed and a dev ed summit they are planning. FP faculty will also
participate in the session; Kathy Petroff and Denice Josten in Developmental Reading, and Lynda Fish in
Dev. Math will talk about innovations and research. Forest Park AtD is also developing a developmental
education "Jam" modeled after the LakeLand summit and the Gates Foundation "Jam."
Meeting March 2nd at FP.