A faculty development workshop, focused on incorporating universal learning strategies into developmental mathematics courses, was created and utilized in a developmental mathematics department at an open-enrollment, mid-western university to ascertain the best methods for dissemination of essential learning strategies to developmental math…

Each year, millions of students enroll in open-access two-year colleges with the hope of earning skills, training, and most importantly, a degree that will allow them to pursue their goals, including transferring to a four-year institution. Developmental, or remedial, education has been found to present multiple barriers to two-year student…

Analyses of literacy and numeracy levels worldwide by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development suggest that the U.S. population has one of the lowest numeracy levels among developed nations. Sixty-four percent of American adults are unable to use math and interpret math problems that most higher-level jobs require, and a full 30…

Many college students are required to take at least one developmental math course, but as many as half of them fail to complete their developmental math requirements and never matriculate into college-level courses. To address this issue, the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin created the Dana Center Mathematics Pathways…

Since 2009 almost 90% of the surveyed college freshmen have identified "getting a better job" as a major reason for attending college (Pryor et al). College educators can help students work towards this goal by producing mature, critical-thinking graduates who are well-prepared not only for life but also for a career. Many students,…

The purpose of this study was to find predictors of academic success, persistence, retention, and completion for students enrolled in community college developmental education mathematics courses utilizing an accelerated emporium model learning environment. Instructional practices have been shown to have a powerful impact on the desire and…

In an increasingly technological world, developing basic math skills is crucial. Headlines regularly be-moan the international ranking of American students on math proficiency, and students from low-income families do worse in math than their more affluent peers. The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that employment in occupations…

National studies reveal that 50 percent to 70 percent of community college students are required to take developmental, or remedial, math courses upon enrollment, and only 20 percent of developmental math students ever successfully complete a college-level math course. Taking up the challenge is the "New Mathways Project" (NMP),…

Rehabilitation counselors are increasingly called on to provide services to transition-aged youth. However, preparation and training efforts are not sufficient to ensure that counselors have the required knowledge and skills to adequately serve these students and young adults. The purpose of this study was to investigate how secondary…

The authors investigated the design and implementation of the capstone courses that are part of Virginia's College and Career Readiness Initiative. Based on a set of performance expectations for college readiness, two capstone courses--one in English and one in mathematics--were developed to help support high school juniors and seniors who intend…

The critical literature abounds with examples of possible educational uses of Web 2.0 technology in which students become active participants in the production of knowledge through blogging, social networking, creation of podcasts, and other forms of constructivist education. At the same time, teachers, whom the data indicate are somewhat…

The purpose of this case study was to describe the role of teacher knowledge in the instructional methods of a community college developmental literacy instructor and determine in what ways that knowledge may have impacted the perceptions of the student participants regarding their authority over their academic progress in the class. Therefore,…

Four elements contribute to a classroom's success or failure as a learning environment: student needs, instructor approach, course content, and institutional setting. This chapter discusses the challenge of aligning these elements in the developmental classroom.

This article reports research involving collaboration between a developmental studies department and a mathematics department in an effort to increase the academic success of developmental students who transition into college-level math. Three separate projects were conducted with former developmental math students currently enrolled in an…

This guide supports the central objective of ensuring that young people enjoy the best possible introduction to, and experience of, work-related learning through strong partnerships between schools and colleges. The process of self-evaluation using quality indicators has already had a significant and positive impact on the quality of provision in…