Two-year colleges provide access and opportunity for students with various academic backgrounds to pursue a post-secondary education. While two-year colleges take pride in admitting any student with a high school diploma or equivalent, in recent years colleges have been under scrutiny for low completion and graduation rates. Particular attention…

How should colleges determine whether students are placed into developmental or college-level courses? Each year, colleges place millions of students into developmental math and English courses upon enrollment. To do so, colleges most often use a high-stakes placement test, which numerous research studies have shown to be highly inaccurate in…

The Math Remediation Task Force is comprised of faculty from two-year, four-year comprehensive, and four-year flagship higher education institutions throughout the state of New Mexico. Its members have varying levels of experience with designing/implementing multiple math remediation programs including traditional, co-requisite and acceleration…

Precollege courses, also known as "developmental" courses, help students prepare for introductory college courses, most often in math and English language arts (reading/writing). Most colleges use entrance exams, prior coursework, or other evaluations to determine whether students should start in a college level or precollege course for…

Developmental education, also termed remedial education, refers to curricula intended to improve the academic skills and knowledge of students who are underprepared for undergraduate coursework, particularly in the areas of mathematics, reading, and writing. Many practitioners and researchers agree that developmental education should be improved,…

A significant challenge in higher education is to narrow the educational attainment gap between academically prepared and unprepared students. To this end, developmental or remedial education is intended to improve the academic skills and knowledge of students who are unprepared for undergraduate coursework, particularly in the areas of…

The transition from high school to college can be more difficult for some students than others. States continue to report high numbers of students requiring remediation; Minnesota is not exempt from this trend. Examining Minnesota public high school graduates from the classes of 2007-2013 who enrolled in postsecondary education and those enrolled…

Describes the goals and status of developmental courses at Lewis and Clark Community College as they were when the college changed from a private to a public two-year college and relates present goals and status. Discusses growth in remedial enrollment, program expansion, and the importance of student evaluation and placement. (DD)

The transition from high school to college can be more difficult for some students than others. States continue to report high numbers of students requiring remediation; Minnesota is not exempt from this trend. Examining Minnesota public high school graduates from the Classes of 2007-2013 who enrolled in postsecondary education and those enrolled…

Ten community colleges in Texas sent participants to a faculty and administrators' conference, whose purpose was to discuss all points covering basic-studies programs and to see where consensus and differences of opinion existed among the people who actually operate those programs. This transcript of the conference covers the following topics: (1)…

This paper reviews and summarizes the literature on community college developmental mathematics programs in order to determine what the colleges are doing--in terms of placement, techniques, course content, and grading policies--to meet the needs of students lacking basic mathematical skills. Studies show that 10% to 50% of all community college…

The transition from high school to college can be more difficult for some students than others. States continue to report high numbers of students requiring remediation; Minnesota is not exempt from this trend. Examining Minnesota public high school graduates from the Classes of 2006-2012 who enrolled in postsecondary education and those enrolled…

Kirkwood Community College, with an enrollment of 4,200 full-time students, received Fund for the Improvement of Post Secondary Education (FIPSE) funds to address the problems of (1) the lock step nature of most of its occupational programs, (2) an attrition rate of approximately 15%, (3) once-a-year placement of graduates, (4) employer and…

To gather more accurate data on outcomes for remedial programs at McLennan Community College, in Texas, a study was conducted to track the progress up to spring 1994 of all 743 full-time, degree-seeking, first-time-in-college students who entered in fall 1991, including students not needing remediation and those not completing their remedial…

A review of recent major studies of two-year college developmental mathematics programs shows that there has been much experimentation in curricular offerings, course formats, and instructional approaches, including expanded content related to the students' major fields, and the use of short courses and mini-courses. However, while many…