A midwestern community college utilized a corequisite model to accelerate students' developmental education that allows adult learners to take developmental writing and English composition simultaneously. First-year composition instructors had no formal training at the college on andragogical methods and teaching strategies to foster successful…

Developmental courses in community colleges often leave students unprepared, demeaned, and uninspired. These gatekeeper courses need reform, especially in terms of curriculum and instruction. One framework -- Dr. Gholdy Muhammed's Historically Responsive Literacy (HRL) -- could be useful for developmental courses and students. HRL is a teaching…

For higher education institutions to produce graduates capable of contributing to society and the economy in a productive manner, educational emphasis is placed on the development of critical thinking. The above necessitates that higher education institutions are able to engage in responsive curriculum design and delivery for enhanced student…

The current trend in postsecondary literacy is to offer developmental reading and writing coursework in an integrated, (and in most cases) accelerated, format. This move toward integration and acceleration is definitely in line with the research literature; however, many of these new courses do not reflect the curricular and pedagogical reforms…

The purpose of this action research study was to determine the impact of project-based learning on the writing, communication and interpersonal skills of students in a college skills course. This course was required for students who were enrolled in at least one or more developmental courses. The purpose of this course was to equip the students…

This article explores how dialogue journals can lead to a transformative learning experience. Adult Latino students enrolled in a community college developmental reading class agree to speak truth to power through this critical writing process. Using Mezirow's (2002) transformational learning theory, Brookfield's (2000) concepts on teaching for…

Teaching students to think critically is one of the major goals of higher education. Many educators at the college level recognize this and expect students to demonstrate critical thinking early in their college experience, however for some students, a lack of preparation for these expectations poses an immediate and substantial challenge during…

Attrition for entry-level, non-traditional college students taking developmental reading courses is a concern for higher education institutions. Students need to complete basic developmental reading courses in order to progress in their vocational or collegiate studies. This phenomenological study followed a social constructivist approach to…

This qualitative study investigated co-requisite courses which pair a developmental course with a college-level course and offer insight into how co-requisite instructors adjusted their curriculum and pedagogy for English language learners. Specifically, it examined faculty experiences teaching a co-requisite course combining a critical thinking…

This paper describes a corequisite pairing of Integrated Reading and Writing (INRW) and Humanities (HUMA) 1301 taught at San Jacinto College North in Houston, Texas. The authors describe their planning process, which combined course learning outcomes with cognitive theory and best-practice resources for effective teaching. These complementary…

The internet is the defining technology for an entire generation. It requires the student to be able to critically evaluate information. It also requires the student to think critically about what information is contained in the information retrieved. How do we prepare developmental education students for these tasks? This article discusses the…

An audit was completed at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) based on the curriculum audit model developed by Armstrong, Stahl, and Kantner (2015). The audit examined text readiness and text expectations in UAF developmental reading courses and 100-level general-education and career-technical education courses, how well these text…

This project integrates cooperative learning strategy in teaching developmental mathematics courses. This study uses a quasi-experimental non-equivalent control design comparing student's outcomes with and without implementing cooperative learning in these courses. The results of the data analysis shows that there is an increase in student's…

In a study designed to analyze faculty and student perceptions of the value of digital writing in the first year composition classroom, 21 first-year college students and a nationwide sample of 50 college composition teachers participated in conceptualizing digital multimodal composition and defining the benchmarks for first-year college digital…

This sequential explanatory mixed-methods study determined whether the game of chess can be used as an educational tool to improve critical thinking skills of developmental mathematics students and improve mathematics achievement for these students. Five research questions were investigated. These questions were as follows: (a) Is there a…