Building Rigor and Competence in Gateway Courses for
Developmental Learners
White Paper- Dan kesterson
A shift in the reason most learners are coming to higher education has been
occurring over the last 100 years. Today the main goal is social economic stability.
Large numbers of underprepared students are showing up at higher education
doors hoping to better their economic futures. Higher education faculty with the
with the support of administration and mandates by the legislature have put
together sequences of developmental courses to help these learners have a better
chance of succeeding. The problem is it just does not work and the reasons it does
not work are not related to the learners’ abilities, The barriers seem to be time, not
getting into gateway courses quickly, and not getting support when they do get into
gateway courses. We have not caught up with what the research is telling us. (see
www.supposemodel.pbworks.com )
The longer the student stays in sequences of developmental courses the more likely
it is that they will not complete (receive credentials or degrees). Developmental
learners who complete gateway courses are more likely to succeed in their goals.
Now many efforts have begun to help accelerate these learners in their path to
completion through their gateway courses. Encouraging models suggest that these
students can succeed in gateway courses if they have content and literacy skill
support. This goal hinges on ensuring that learning is occurring; and therefore, the
foundation of any support regardless of the form of delivery hinges on learning.
Accelerated Approaches
Accelerating learning models are based on getting the learner in a gateway course in
their program of study during their first semester with support for learning. This
approach takes many forms and is meant to replace sending developmental learners
through sequences of developmental courses before taking a gateway course. This
paper suggests a foundation for looking at gateway course support – developing
competency in content learning
Keys to Competence and Rigor
In order to get support for engaging gateway course faculty in accelerated
approaches involving their courses, which is necessary to bring the approach to
scale, the gateway instructor must believe that the support underprepared learners
will be receiving will enable the learner to succeed. This is where the focus needs to
shift from learning isolated skills to learning integrated skills for developing
competence in an area of inquiry (gateway course). Again learning is key. The goal
of learning can be shallow or deep. In order for the support to be deep, it has to be
built around rigor - cognitive strategies and habits of mind that result in developing
competence in the gateway courses. Competence is not developed by learning
isolated facts and ideas for a test. Competence is about learning in which that
learned can be easily retrieved and transferred to new situations (application).
Research documented by Bransford (2001) has shown that in order for learners to
develop competence in an area of inquiry, the learner needs to:
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Understand ideas and facts in the context of a conceptual framework
Organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application
Develop a deep foundation of factual knowledge.
In building support for a gateway course, support whether, a team-taught course, a
learning community, supplemental instruction, tutoring, or other forms of delivery,
it must be built around helping the learner learn the content of the gateway course
using cognitive strategies and habits of mind (mental processes) that ensure that
learning is building competence in the area of inquiry. Every support activity should
focus on ensuring that the learner is learning how to understand the facts and ideas
in their gateway course in the context of a conceptual framework, and that mental
processes are applied the help clarify and organize the information, as well apply
mental strategies for moving the information to long-term memory in ways that
facilitate retrieval and application.
A Hypothetical Accelerated Model
In this hypothetical model, the learners’ academic program plan (APP) includes the
gateway course, sociology. The learner is developmental in reading and writing.
Eight seats are reserved in every introduction to sociology class. The student spay
for an additional three credits of developmental credit fro which they receive
instruction immediately after the sociology class. (the hypothetical model is using
sociology; however, any of the most taken courses by first time freshmen at
Jefferson (ENG 101, history 104 and 105, psychology 110, or sociology 10) could
substitute. The learner is placed in the sociology course paired with a combined
reading and writing course as support for the sociology course and as a relevant
means of improving reading and writing skills using the daily content of the
sociology course. The main goal of both courses is to provide deliberate practice
using cognitive strategies and habits of mind that result in developing competence
in the concepts in sociology. The combined reading and writing course does not
attempt to teach a series of isolated reading and writing skills, but focuses almost
exclusively on “reading and writing to learn” strategies and practice with the daily
content of the sociology course to develop competence, as well as communication
skills to enhance learning. This requires abandoning all the isolated skills practice
and old familiar skills instruction we have grown up with and adopting mental
processes that build competency in the content of sociology. Again, this means
providing the learner with practice with cognitive strategies and habit of mind that
helps the learner:
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Understand ideas and facts in the context of a conceptual framework
Organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application
Develop a deep foundation of factual knowledge.
Of course, it would be great if the learner were also in an academic success course
paired with the sociology and combined skills courses in which habits of mind (time
management, homework, etc.) were not only taught, but tracked and evaluated in
the sociology and combined courses. Content would be tied to application in the
learner’s immediate world – the gateway course. It would be even greater if the
academic success course taught the learners the processes of education and career
planning.
The sociology and combined reading/writing courses are not taught as separate
courses. The faculty in both courses must jointly develop integrated program
outcomes, jointly plan curriculum, and jointly assess student learning and skill
development. Learning how to develop competency in sociology is not just the role
of the combined reading and writing course instructors; it is the main role of the
sociology instructor also. It is uncommon for either the content instructor or the
skills instructor to have had professional development in applying the research on
developing competency in their professional development. Such an accelerated
approach must be built upon solid professional development in competency
learning. Whatever the learning outcomes of our former reading and writing
courses were, throw them out if they do not specifically promote immediate
application toward developing competency in the gateway course by helping the
learner understand ideas and facts in the context of a conceptual framework,
organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application, or Develop a
deep foundation of factual knowledge – go deep, not wide. In this model, the skills
instructor and learners do not have time for learning separate isolated skills.
Learning is hands-on and relevant to developing competency with the concepts
being learned in the gateway course in real time and the learner needs to be
learning how to use and practice reading and writing skills that promote that
competency.
All gateway courses have a conceptual framework. In sociology, everything revolves
around the interaction of groups or individuals. Therefore, all ideas and facts need
to be always understood in the context of group and individual interaction. When
culture is defined in sociology, the learner needs to understand how everything they
have ever learned – customs, knowledge, material objects, behavior – impacts the
interaction within groups or with individuals. When the learner learns about norms,
folkways and mores, they need to understand how guidelines for behavior is related
to behavior, which is part of culture and impacts how they interact with others. In
other works the learner needs to understand facts and ideas in the context of a
conceptual framework.
What are the mental processes that a learner needs to ensure that they understand
the facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework. The daily content of
the sociology class provides the learner the opportunity to develop the mental
processes for understand in the context of a conceptual framework.
What are the mental processes and habits of mind that ensure that new concepts
being learned are stored in long-term memory and are organized in ways that
facilitate retrieval and application? (see rules of consolidation below)
Combine Reading and Writing to Learn Competency Skills
Combine reading and writing instruction to help the learner develop competence in
sociology. What do “reading and writing to learn” have in common around learning?
They are both about clarifying and organizing concepts. In reading to learn, the most
powerful mental processes for moving new information from working memory to
long-term memory is re-exposure with elaboration. Elaboration refers to any
method of "thinking about new ideas and prior knowledge together" so the two
become more deeply interconnected. Learning takes place when the new
information becomes a part of the existing knowledge network. When elaborated
and richly integrated, the new knowledge becomes meaningful and useful.
While in reading to learn, reciting and other mental processes are forms of
elaboration, when combined with writing to learn, the elaboration process becomes
very powerful in sharpening the literacy skills (reading, writing, and speaking). In
the writing process, of clarifying and organizing the content being learned daily in
the sociology class, internal dialogue is fostered (metacognition) and the external
expression of that internal dialogue is writing to learn and in some cases, writing to
communicate (expressing the relationship between new concepts and the
overarching conceptual framework as teaching is one of the best ways to learn).
This model of competency-based combined reading and writing support can also
support math courses, especially the quantities literacy skills. SO many math
instructors and math students are so bogged down with procedural learning that
literacy skill such as reading, writing, and speaking math or dipping into conceptual
learning escapes them.
Why Writing to Communicate?
It can be used in the learning process when it is understood and used as an
intermediate stage in the acceleration process to help students develop skills and
habits of mind for developing competence in an area of inquiry. Within this model,
writing to communicate as a tool for producing final product is not the point. .
All too often in education, we are focused only on final products: the final exam, the
grade, the perfect research paper, mastery of a subject. But how do we get students
from here to there? What are the intermediate stages that help students develop the
skills and habits of master learners in our disciplines? What kinds of scaffolding enable
students to move forward, step-by-step? How do we, as educators, recognize and
support the slow process of progressively deepening students’ abilities to think like
historians and scholars? (Bass and Eynon, Capturing the Visible Evidence of Invisible
Learning, 2009).
Susan Headden wrote in her article, “In Learning-Focused Programs, Writing Skill Is
the Last word” for Lumina, “The ability to communicate effectively—as a desired
learning outcome of college, it is at the top of most educators' and employers' lists,
right up there with critical thinking and analytical reasoning. Many even see it as the
learning outcome that trumps all the rest. "Writing is not simply a way for students
to demonstrate what they know," says The National Commission on Writing in
America's Schools and Colleges. "It is a way to help them understand what they
know. At its best, writing is learning.
Note: It takes a lot of practice before these learning processes become automatic
and therefore useful. Note: there is a world of difference between writing to learn
and writing to communicate or writing to demonstrate knowledge.
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Writing to Learn: in order to explain the matter to oneself.
Writing to Communicate: in order to express the matter to others.
Impossible to explain the matter to others before the student has
explained it to herself.
Course assignments generally focus on writing to communicate,
rather than on writing to learn. This focus too often fails to consider
the intermediate stages of learning, as it is product oriented.
Writing to Learn (WTL)
“This pedagogical approach values writing as a method of learning. When students
write reactions to information received in class or in reading, they often
comprehend and retain the information better. Writing can also help students work
through confusing new ideas and apply what they learn to their own lives and
interests. Also, because students write more frequently, they become more
comfortable with writing and are able to maintain or even improve upon their
writing skills. WTL assignments are typically short and informal and can be
performed either in or out of class. Examples include writing and reading journals,
summaries, response papers, learning logs, problem analyses, and more.” (Purdue
Online Writing Lab)
Notes on Writing to Learn: Writing to learn is among the most important clarifying,
organizing and constructing new meaning strategies that man has created; however,
there are some boundaries within this model to help keep the focus from shifting
from learning to producing final products.. “Writing to learn emphasizes what is said
(new ideas and concepts) rather than how it is said (correct spelling, grammar, and
usage). Often, less structured and more informal writing to learn can take forms
such as journals, summaries, responses to oral or written questions, free writing,
and notes.” (Literacy Matters). Focus on meaning and developing competence, not
correct spelling, grammar, and usage in writing to learn strategies.
“All too often in education, we are focused only on final products: the final exam, the
grade, the perfect research paper, mastery of a subject. But how do we get students
from here to there? What are the intermediate stages that help students develop the
skills and habits of master learners in our disciplines? What kinds of scaffolding enable
students to move forward, step-by-step? How do we, as educators, recognize and
support the slow process of progressively deepening students’ abilities to think like
historians and scholars? (Bass and Eynon, Capturing the Visible Evidence of Invisible
Learning, 2009).
Notes on the Rules of Consolidation
Rules of Consolidation – Manipulating and moving new information from working
memory to long-term memory
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The First Rule: Deliberately re-expose yourself to the information if you want
to retrieve it later.
The Second Rule: Deliberately re-expose yourself to the information more
elaborately if you want the retrieval to be of higher quality.
The Third Rule: Deliberately re-expose yourself to the information more
elaborately, and in fixed intervals, if you want the retrieval to be the most
vivid it can be.
1. Re-exposure to information strengthens dendrites (learning) and helps
build thicker insulation of fat around the axon of a brain cell resulting in
faster processing and retrieval.
2. Re-exposure to information in which the learner elaborates about what
they are learning can be a very powerful cognitive exercise for clarifying,
organizing, and understanding new ideas in the context of a conceptual
framework. Elaborations are mental strategies for interconnecting new
information to prior knowledge.
3. Research has shown that there are time interval in which re-exposure
to information results in increased learning.
 Time Interval 1: while reading
 Time interval 2: as you complete a reading selection
 Time interval 3: always within 90 minutes of encountering new
information
 Time interval 4: within 24 hours
This is a white paper by Dan Kesterson, Jefferson Community and Technical College,
Louisville Kentucky.