Today was the last full seminar day, and tonight will be the closing dinner and dance at the Broyhill Inn, a beautiful property owned by Appalachian State University. Tomorrow is the last class day, followed by check-out of the residence halls by noon.
The seminar, today, was on the role of state policy in improving outcomes in Developmental Education, and it was conducted by Michael Collins, of Jobs for the Future. Essentially, developmental education is presently getting unprecedented attention by the government and by private funding sources. It is really in the spotlight right now, and we really do not know how long that will last.
Among the current initiatives that are impacting Developmental Education are:
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| Wind Turbine on App State Campus |
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Lumina Foundation
Achieving the Dream
Developmental Education Initiative
Getting Past Go
Complete College America
Complete to Compete
StatWay
Completion by Design
Global Skills for College Completion
He spoke quite a bit about Achieving the Dream, a national initiative dedicated to helping college students succeed. It defines student success as earning degrees or, in the case of the community college, transferring to a four-year institution. Achieving the Dream focuses on student groups that have faced the most significant barriers to success, and it is very data driven.
He then initiated an excellent conversation on the challenges Developmental Educators face. The latest statistics show that less than 25% of students enrolled in one or more developmental education class will actually complete a degree within eight years of enrollment in college. He presented some other statistics that a number of Kelloggers disputed; from there, a discussion of various state policies took over. I brought up Florida's newly established common course competencies for two levels in Developmental Education. Another FL person brought up all that has been involved with PERT. The other two Kelloggers from FL, one from Polk State and one from Daytona State, are not particularly enamored with the PERT. That does seem to be a common theme. My contribution was that the State does seem to be listening to the the professionals in higher education (us), and the assessment was re-calibrated after a trial run. Also, the we do not yet have the diagnostic assessment pieces from McCann, so we don't know everything. There are quite a few recent pieces of literature that I cannot wait to look up when I get home, particularly those that show pertinent quantitative and qualitative data on the use of non-cognitive assessments in conjunction with placement tests to determine classes for developmental students.
The research Patrick Saxon has asked to to work on is heavy on the non-cognitive assessments. Based on the premise that we cannot overlook the affective domain in both placement and in measurement of student success, a lot of the literature backs up his hypothesis. He wants me to replicate some previous research I conducted, then a Barry University, during a semester at Edison. More on this later in the week.
The research Patrick Saxon has asked to to work on is heavy on the non-cognitive assessments. Based on the premise that we cannot overlook the affective domain in both placement and in measurement of student success, a lot of the literature backs up his hypothesis. He wants me to replicate some previous research I conducted, then a Barry University, during a semester at Edison. More on this later in the week.
Today's morning session concluded with the top five things Developmental Education faculty should know, and should follow, concerning the national scene and policy:
National Spotlight on Dev Ed
Data on loss and momentum points
Continuous Improvement networks
Diagnostic assessment capacity
Outcomes from latest quantitative research
All in all, it was an excellent and informative lecture.
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