Many higher education institutions offer drop-in tutoring programs hosted by writing specialists to support struggling students while others may also/alternatively embed tutors directly into courses. In this quasi-experimental study, we compared survey results from 100 students in basic/developmental courses that featured embedded peer tutors with…

This chapter describes and reviews new approaches to revising developmental English, the effectiveness of these approaches, and a synthesis of lessons learned from them.

We pilot tested an identity-based relevance-writing intervention designed to support developmental community college students' (N = 54) educational commitment, value, and persistence. The intervention was embedded within regular journal assignments in two study skills courses with a third section serving as a comparison group. The intervention…

Peer-assisted learning (PAL) encompasses the active acquisition of knowledge and skills among students in similar social settings where teaching one another enables reciprocal learning. Same-year/ level PAL (SPAL) is applied in theoretical and clinical teaching across medical disciplines worldwide and is regarded as a teaching and learning…

Tutoring is an important form of academic support for developmental education students. A comparison study was conducted to investigate the benefits of tutoring on the final grades for developmental English students who participated in tutoring versus those students who did not. The final grades for three consecutive semesters were analyzed to…

Poor completion outcomes in community colleges' developmental education programs have spurred reforms in developmental education policies and practices in order to increase students' chances of success. In the case of developmental math, the focus of this article, such changes include revisions to testing and placement policies, amendments to the…

This study explores the use of participatory action research (PAR) as pedagogy with adults to create dialog about their educational experiences connected with learning mathematics. The dialog, largely centered on race and poverty and how those aspects factored into their learning, produced the opportunity for critical reflection. This dialog gave…

This study investigates the effect of word study instruction on the orthographic knowledge of college students enrolled in a developmental reading course. Results revealed significantly greater improvement in orthographic knowledge in students who received word study instruction when compared with those in a control group, suggesting that the word…

A state-wide educational policy change in Texas mandated that the exit levels of developmental reading and writing coursework in every public institution of higher education in the state be merged into one accelerated and integrated developmental reading and writing course. This project examined that curricular shift through the perspectives of…

In this study, action research was used over two years to refine the implementation of process-oriented guided inquiry learning for chemistry students in an academic development programme at a research-intensive South African university. Students' responses to guided inquiry were collected based on a three-pillar framework underpinned by cognitive…

Since high school students are failing to master writing proficiency, developmental writing programs at the college level have become increasingly necessary. This article explains the lack of readiness with which students are entering college and the workplace, examines the reasons students are having trouble writing, and describes elements of…

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…

Objective: This article examines the effectiveness of remediation for community college students who are identified as having the lowest skills in math. Method: We use transcript data from a state community college system and take advantage of a regression discontinuity design that compares statistically identical students who are assigned to the…

Only 25% to 38% of secondary education graduates in the United States are proficient readers or writers but many continue to postsecondary education, where they take developmental education courses designed to help them improve their basic academic skills. However, outcomes are poor for this population, and one problem may be that approaches to…

In 2005 the Lumina Foundation awarded the Alamo Community College District (ACCD), including Palo Alto College, a grant to explore institutional effectiveness with a primary focus on serving student groups that traditionally have faced significant barriers to success. As a result of the award, ACCD staffed an umbrella initiative called "Achieving…