PROBLEM-SOLVING COMMUNITY: CULTURES OF INQUIRY
The Case Study: What is inquiry and how does it enable student success?
In the Classroom: The Presenting Issue
During the middle of the Fall term at Summer Hills Community College, a
developmental writing instructor wonders why her students are dropping the class
at an increasing rate. She reviews a week-by-week census of the 30 students who
enrolled in the class and notices some obvious issues -- incomplete work, failed
mastery tests, patterns of absence, etc. But, now in Week 6, she recognizes that
other factors may be in play and she’d like to find out what they are.
The developmental writing instructor believes that her students’ lack of persistence,
(i.e. their inability to complete the coursework and successfully finish the course) is
not only a barrier to their successful completion of an educational plan but also a
failure of the institution. She has long held a personal curiosity regarding her
students’ performance and achievement. She learns that students with a “C” grade
or lower in the course are consistently unsuccessful in the next course in the
sequence. She would like to parlay her curiosity at her classroom level into curiosity
and dialogue at the program level. For example, while persistence rates suggest that
the department’s sequence of developmental courses does not lead to success in the
first transfer course, the department maintains that having only two developmental
courses, one a reading and one a writing, will still prepare the students to take
English 1A. These two developmental courses were created forty years ago and
could be reviewed within the contexts of data, the current student populations, and
new research on integrated reading and writing classes.
Her college culture sets the following context:
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She is part of the English department which has historically focused on the
transfer-level composition and literature classes.
The faculty members in her Division are primarily new hires because
seasoned faculty members are retiring at an ever-increasing rate, having
completed their 30 years.
Her Dean has just been given oversight over another large division as well as
the tutorial center so that the college can consolidate administrative salaries.
The college researcher has started preparing materials for the upcoming
Accreditation Site visit and though he is available for support, he has less
time than before.
The Chief Instructional Officer is an interim (formerly a division dean), the
fifth CIO in eight years.
She senses an interrelationship between her course-level curiosities and programlevel activities such as:
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Program review - conducted on a 3-year cycle
Program student learning outcomes - reviewed on a 3-year cycle just prior to
the program review
Curriculum development - reviewed every 6 years
Student success -which is measured annually
She would like to make a case for further discussion that can effect change.
GUIDING QUESTIONS:
1. Identify evidence of inquiry in the case study. Where are the opportunities to
advance inquiry and where are the challenges that could stifle the process?
For example, in which ways has the department and/or college managed
change to established programs? What have been successful revisions or
transitions to new ways of teaching and learning?
2. How, where and why could she begin the dialogue at the program level, and
where does this dialogue end? Is it appropriate for this instructor to take her
curiosities and dialogue another notch up to the institutional level? What
might her curiosity and dialogue look like from this level?
3. Who should be involved in the discussions and how should she make the best
use of their time?
4. What additional information or evidence would she need to collect? Who
should be involved and how should it be collected?
5. In what ways, if any, do these issues and questions echo those in your own
colleges?