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.