Guttman Community College (GCC), a newly-established, urban community college, part of the City University of New York (CUNY), enrolls a largely traditional student body which is also predominantly minority. Students enter the college with an average high-school grade-point average of 75% (C average), and are required to enroll in three first-year…

Students who arrive on campuses unprepared for college-level work find that it costs them potentially extra time and money to complete developmental courses they would not have needed had they arrived fully prepared in all subjects. Institutions of higher education face their own costs and capacity challenges when trying to teach students the…

This chapter describes how the authors are using data and professional learning to mobilize change in developmental English and mathematics curricula and pedagogy across multiple community colleges in California.

This chapter describes a promising new approach to teaching developmental arithmetic and prealgebra, and presents research findings that demonstrate how a faculty support network helped instructors adopt new teaching strategies and gain confidence in teaching the reformed course.

This chapter tells a story of course reform, describing in a fresh and candid way the steps taken toward change and the results achieved. The authors emphasize that instructors need considerable support in order to teach differently, as well as underscore the need to consider scalability of reform even at the pilot stage.

Marla Kincaid (Adjunct Instructor, Austin Community College M.A., Developmental Education Department of Curriculum and Instruction Texas State University-San Marcos) interviewed the following leaders in the field of Developmental Education: (1) Dr. Olatunde Ogunyemi, Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at Grambling State…

For the past decade, MDRC has evaluated a number of interventions designed to improve the outcomes of community college students, including enhanced counseling, learning communities, and financial incentives. Encouragingly, many of these strategies have produced positive effects, affirming that changes in institutional practices and policies can…

Three community colleges--El Paso Community College, Bunker Hill Community College, and Patrick Henry Community College--incorporated technology into the curriculum to support student progress in mathematics through developmental education. Each college took its own path: El Paso developed a self-accelerated emporium-style computer lab, Patrick…

This brief summarizes efforts to reform developmental education at Zane State College and the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC). Focused on accelerating student success and progress, the two schools pursued distinctive approaches to reform that aligned with their institutional missions and student populations. Recognizing that the…

With the implementation of Response to Intervention (RTI) across many states, the school counseling profession must be proactive in establishing its critical role in this process. This article outlines the three essential and shared components between RTI and comprehensive, developmental school counseling programs. Each of these integral and…

In this article, Gwen Taylor describes the West Kentucky Community and Technical College (WKCTC) groundbreaking program, "Accelerating Opportunity" (AO), which targeted students who are deficient in math, reading, or writing. The program uses the Washington State Board for Community & Technical Colleges' (2013) Integrated Basic…

In November 2011, the author--Ivan Fuller, a professor of theatre and associate dean of the School of Fine and Performing Arts at Rider University--attended a joint symposium of the American Conference of Academic Deans and Phi Beta Kappa that was designed to wrestle with the question of why the humanities matter. At one session, participants…

High school seniors' success in making the transition to college hinges greatly on their ability to perform college-level research. Studies pointing out failure to provide this critical preparation abound (Head 2013; Head and Eisenberg 2010). Helping students make this leap is the topic of much research and discussion between members of the…

The transition from college to whatever lies ahead can be exciting and scary for students. How the transition experience unfolds for students will be the result of a combination of factors including individual circumstances, how the student responds to change and unknown expectations, and how well they are prepared and informed for their…

Over the past three years, the College Readiness Indicator Systems (CRIS) project has afforded New Visions for Public Schools an opportunity to reflect upon their college readiness systems and practices. Through their involvement in the project, they have been able to explore various strategies for ensuring that their students graduate from high…