This pfd is a comprehensive view of developmental education that came out of Community Colleges Bridges to Opportunity Project. It includes trends in DE. It’s more than you may want to read, but take a look at the chart that shows how much states spend on dev. ed. (p. 11)
Developmental_Education_TOOLKIT.pdf (application/pdf Object).
Today I had the pleasure of interviewing David Hebert wh0 started BCC last spring when he enrolled in Project Link. Project Link is a transitions program for students, like David, who have earned a GED.
David is now in his second semester and is enrolled full-time as a BCC student. Click on the link to hear about his experience and his advise to other students coming into college via Project Link or any other non-traditional path
We have three weeks left in our semester. Attendance in the college success course that I co- teach has fallen off. Students have a host of life issues that are an all too common occurrence in their lives; this is the time in the semester where those things rear their unruly heads. It’s a challenge for us, as instructors, to know how to address this problem. This is how we handled it today.
A core goal of our class involves teaching students how to stay on course despite their complicated lives. When we met today, we asked them to take a minute to reflect on the ways that they have gotten “off course”. To help guide their answer, we used the list of “success behaviors” that they had compiled and agreed upon at the beginning of the semester. This list became our class contract and included things like “Come to every class”, “Get homework done on time”, “Ask for help”. We asked them to concentrate on how they will get themselves back on course rather than focusing on the reasons why.
Students shared their answers with each other. They got honest with themselves and with the rest of the class. Several of them acknowledged that their attendance was poor, or that they weren’t getting assignments in on time. These aren’t surprising responses. What is surprising is that by not allowing them to focus on the excuses, they were able to come up with what they needed to do to get back on track. They focused on the “now what” not the “why not”.
Now they have a few short weeks to get themselves back on course. This doesn’t mean that it will happen for all of them, but as the saying goes “awareness is the first step” and, by the way, only one student missed class today.
This article may be of interest given my last post.
I just read an article in the May 2011 issue of Journal of Developmental Education It’s written by Barbara Bonham and Hunter Boylan, two major authorities in developmental education, and is entitled Developmental Mathematics: Challenges, Promising Practices, and Recent Initiatives (2011). They talked about the importance not only of the cognitive skills needed to do well in math, but the affective skills needed as well.
What is meant by affective skills? Essentially affective skills include how one thinks about math. Do I believe, for instance, that I will be successful in math? Many of our students believe the opposite. Likely, this belief has been learned through past experience. This negative perception influences a student’s motivation, persistence, success as well as the kind of tasks he/she chooses.
In educational psychology, this is known as self-efficacy or people’s beliefs about their capabilities to produce a certain outcome and to exercise influence over the events that affect their lives (Bandura, 1994).
In simple terms,positive self-efficacy is the belief that we have the ability to do well in in the tasks we perform and that we have an impact in our lives.
In thinking about math, in particular, many students don’t have feelings of positive self-efficacy. They doubt their ability to be successful and think that they really can’t do anything to change this. This belief is often learned through their past experiences with math including what they’ve heard from teachers, parents, media as well as their past failures in math.
So…what can be done to help students increase a student’s self-efficacy in math? How can we help students believe in their ability to “do math”? This is the million dollar question.
One thing that could and does help is to set up the learning environment such that students experience success as soon as possible. This might mean giving quizzes more frequently, allowing students to progress in a self-paced way, or by contextualizing math so that it makes more sense to students
Providing opportunities for success in math, no matter how it’s done, will likely increase a student’s motivation, persistence, grades, and overall attitude. In the end, changing the way a student thinks about math can really make a difference.
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy:The exercise of self-control, NY:W.H. Freeman and Company
I asked my work study assistant, Lisa, to write her thoughts about returning to school after a long break and, in particular, how she is doing in her math classes. I asked her to focus on math because it can be such a stumbling block for all students, especially those who have been away from it for a long time.
Her thoughts are below. She also talks about her attitude towards the label “non-traditional” as a description of students who are “older” than the traditional age student.
Thanks, Lisa!
I’ve been out of the school system for approximately 22 yrs. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to further my education; it was due to the fact that I was a single mother. Raising my son was my number one priority during those 22 years, and I didn’t want to “take away” from my son the benefits of having his mother there for him, when he needed me the most.
Upon re-entering the school environment, I found things to be a lot different than I remember them to be. To begin with, I was labeled as a “non-traditional” student, which I personally find to be another of society’s forms of “labeling.” With today’s society having to “label” individuals, I find it unnecessary and unneeded. With all the issues in society, “labeling” an individual, for whatever reason, not only adds to them, and also gives reason for the younger generations to feed into society’s negative concepts.
After my initial shock of being “labeled”, and after filling out the necessary forms and information to pay for my tuition and books, I did my placement assessment as required by the college. It was then that I learned that I had placed substantially low in my math placement test score. This was very surprising to me, as math was my best subject in high school. Not to mention that in the 22 years that I had held a job in a supervisory position, I had continually used math in my job requirements. So, per the requirements of the college, I enrolled in a self-paced math module, so that I could relearn the math that apparently I had forgotten over the years. Anxiously, I began attending the class where with some great assistance from my teacher, I refreshed my knowledge of the math that I haven’t been using throughout the years.
Thanks to the patience and guidance of the teacher, the math that I had forgotten so long ago, continuously came flooding back with great understanding. I still struggle with some math problems and concepts, but I am regaining the understanding of it. With the assistance of several supports here at the college including math tutoring, the TRIO program, and extra help from my teacher, I know that I’ll succeed and eventually have the full understanding of the required math for the college so that I may complete my degree. I would sincerely like to thank Peggy Williams for her outstanding assistance and extra help in the understanding of the concepts of math.
Sometimes it is hard for society, the community, and even the college to understand that the people who wait numerous years to continue their education aren’t lazy individuals. They’re people that have different priorities in life to deal with at the time- whether it is raising children, lack of money to pay for college or even health. Whatever the reasons may be, “non-traditional” students may need the extra assistance to regain any or all information, including math, which they may have forgotten or “lost” over those years. It doesn’t matter the age of an individual when entering college, what matters is the goals that they have set for themselves in order to be a productive member of society.
Compared to other nations,U.S. falls from 12th to 15th place in young adults who finish college (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2011. http://ourtimes.wordpress.com/2008/04/10/oecd-education-rankings/)
Lumina President Jamie Merisotis told business leaders at the Committee for Economic Development that employers must become active participants in creating policy change that will address the need for young adults to complete college.
Click the link below to hear his address.
http://www.luminafoundation.org/newsroom/2011-09-26-skilling_up.html
Are all students developmental? We’ve assigned the developmental label to those students who arrive at the college needing to take courses to help them be “college ready”. While I agree that the courses themselves are “developmental”, I believe that all students are developmental. All students come in to college at various stages of development regardless of their academic preparedness. Some students come in knowing what they want to do, while others haven’t a clue. Some students arrive with strong technological skills, while others have just learned to turn on a computer. You get the point.
As I blog about developmental education, I often feel constrained to focus only on those students who are in “pre-college” math and/or English when the reality is that all students are in various social/emotional and academic stages. The implication when we talk about developmental education as including only those students in remedial classes, is that all other students are fully developed, and we know this isn’t true.
I post this today because I want to expand my definition of “developmental” to include students who arrive here perhaps not needing pre-college classes, but who certainly need support to help them evolve as they pursue their education.
Take a look at the recent blog post from Developmental Math Revival (in the feeds section of this blog). Does anyone have good examples of contextualized math?