News: What the Pledge Means – Inside Higher Ed

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The buzz lately is about how we can improve college completion rates and the focus is on developmental education.  When an average of 60% of students nationwide need to take and pass at least one developmental course, this makes sense.  It also means that we have to look at what we have done to address the needs of developmental learners, assess their effectiveness, and plan accordingly.

Lack of funding, doing more with less, means that we need to look at ways to address student needs beyond offering them the traditional 15-week classes that consume time and money for both the student and the college.  This  article talks about the need to modify the way that we teach developmental courses:

“as most states fund courses for a 16-week or semester-long model, those remedial courses or methods that do not fit such a model do not receive money. Collins argued that this derails “accelerated delivery” methods such as short refresher courses that only last a few sessions and cover only the specifics areas in which students are deficient, a strategy which, he noted, has achieved success in research. Many studies have found that students who take a long time to reach college credit courses are likely never to do so, while the refresher approach lets new students start in right away on college-level work.”

BCC is right on board with the idea of short-term refresher courses that address specific student deficiencies.  These “prep” courses , focusing on math skills, are taught in four three-hour sessions.  Students work with the instructor using   MyMathTest, a software program that allows them to focus on the “holes” they may have in certain areas of math. They then retake the accuplacer math placement test with the goal of raising their test scores.

So far, the results look very promising.Statistics from last summer’s workshops show:

• Of the 78 individuals who attended the MyMathTest workshops, 56, or 71.8%, retested (56/78).

• 37 of the 56 individuals who retested, or 66.1% of the group, advanced their math placements on Accuplacer by a total of 133 modules or credits (37/56).

• 20 individuals, or 54.1% of the group experiencing advanced scores, achieved at least a three-credit gain in placement allowing the option to skip at least one lecture class within the departmental math continuum, if applicable for the individual’s chosen program of study (20/37).

BCC will continue to offer the Math Prep Workshops this summer with the aim of helping students successfully get through,  pass, and move into college level math in a faster, and less expensive way.

If you are interested in learning more about BCC’s summer prep classes, Please contact our developmental math coordinator at  crind@berskshirecc.edu