Articles: Developmental Ed Debates and Solutions

For those of you with an interest in developmental education: below are a few pieces representing current solutions and lively debates. (Note the CCCOnline Math MOOC is featured in a governor’s newsletter; we ran a short piece on our Math MOOC here.)

“Wrong Answer on Remediation” by William G. Tierney and Julia C. Duncheon (11/8/13)
From Inside Higher Ed:
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2013/11/08/ending-remediation-wrong-answer-essay

“Faster Math Path” by Paul Fain (10/21/13):
From Inside Higher Ed, regarding California:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/10/21/california-community-colleges-cautious-experiment-accelerated-remediation

“Less Choice, More Mainstreaming” by Megan Rogers (10/2/13)
From Inside Higher Ed, regarding Colorado:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/10/02/remedial-reform-and-completion-key-latino-students-success-politician-argues

“Going to the Root of the Problem” by Paul Fain (9/13/13)
From Inside Higher Ed, regarding Tennessee:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/09/13/promising-remedial-math-reform-tennessee-expands

“Community College System Pilots Pre-Algebra MOOC”
From the Colorado Governor’s Office of Information Technology (8/13).

 

“Free Courses for a Big Problem” by Paul Fain (7/19/13)
From Inside Higher Ed, regarding MOOCs:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/07/19/two-year-colleges-go-open-source-seek-fix-remediation

“Remediation If You Want It” by Paul Fain (6/5/13)
From Inside Higher Ed, regarding Florida:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/06/05/florida-law-gives-students-and-colleges-flexibility-remediation

Math MOOC Live at CCCOnline

Exciting news for CCCOnline: we’re running a pilot session of a developmental Math MOOC this summer (through Aug. 9), and more than 100 students are participating! The goal of this MOOC is to help students improve their Math skills for free in a friendly environment, possibly to gain enough knowledge to test out of further remediation, but in any case to improve confidence before furthering their Math education in a formal classroom.

The Math MOOC will run again twice in fall, and we’ll report more about the project in the future! If you have questions or would like more information, please contact Math Associate Dean Erica Hastert at Erica.hastert@cccs.edu. 

As always, your comments are welcome in the CCCOnline Community.

Developmental Education: A Hot Topic

Below are several links (websites and recent articles) pertaining to developmental education and its role in post-secondary education. We invite you to share your thoughts with colleagues in the CCCOnline Community.

We’ll be out at the EDUCAUSE conference next week, but will be back here the week of Nov. 12!

Website of “Getting Past Go: A National Public Policy Initiative to Improve Developmental Studies in Postsecondary Education”:
http://gettingpastgo.org/

Website of the Complete College America organization:
http://completecollege.org/

“Broken but Useful” by Paul Fain (8/21/12)

From Inside Higher Ed:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/08/21/remediation-may-serve-useful-purposes-study-finds

Guest Commentary: “Community colleges focus on remedial education” by Nancy J. McCallin and Geri Anderson (CCCS) (7/28/12)
From the Denver Post:
http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_21176037/community-colleges-focus-remedial-education

“Researchers Are Rallied to Help Improve Remedial Education, Not Scrap It” by Jennifer González (6/21/12)
From The Chronicle:
http://chronicle.com/article/Researchers-Are-Rallied-to/132513/

“Overkill on Remediation?” by Paul Fain (6/19/12)
From Inside Higher Ed:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/06/19/complete-college-america-declares-war-remediation

“Myriad approaches to developmental ed” by Ellie Ashford (2/9/12)
From Community College Times:
http://www.communitycollegetimes.com/Pages/Academic-Programs/Colleges-improve-developmental-education.aspx