Improving Teaching, Learning, Equity, and Success in Gateway Courses E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Serie: J-B HE Single Issue Higher Education
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 207

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

As long as there have been U. S. colleges and universities, there have been entry courses that pose difficulties for students courses that have served more as weeding-out rather than gearing-up experiences for undergraduates. This volume makes the case that the weed-out dynamic is no longer acceptable if it ever was. Contemporary postsecondary education is characterized by vastly expanded access for historically underserved populations of students, and this new level of access is coupled withincreased scrutiny of retention and graduation outcomes. Chapters in this volume define and explore issues in gateway courses and provide various examples of how to improve teaching, learning and outcomes in these foundational components of the undergraduateexperience. This is the 180th volume of the Jossey-Bass quarterly report series New Directions for Higher Education. Addressed to presidents, vice presidents, deans, and other higher education decision makers on all kinds of campuses, it provides timely information and authoritative advice about major issues and administrative problems confronting every institution.

Leseprobe

New Directions for Higher Education

Betsy O. Barefoot Jillian L. Kinzie CO-EDITORS

Improving Teaching, Learning, Equity, and Success in Gateway Courses

Andrew K. Koch EDITOR

Number 180 • Winter 2017

Jossey-Bass

Improving Teaching, Learning, Equity, and Success in Gateway Courses

Andrew K. Koch

New Directions for Higher Education, no. 180

Co‐editors: Betsy O. Barefoot and Jillian L. Kinzie

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CONTENTS

Editor's Notes

References

Part I. The Issue

1: It's About the Gateway Courses: Defining and Contextualizing the Issue

The Situation

Gateway Courses Defined

Why This Issue Matters

References

Part II. Data-Based Decisions and Actions

2: Guiding Early and Often: Using Curricular and Learning Analytics to Shape Teaching, Learning, and Student Success in Gateway Courses

Applying Learning Analytics to Gateway Courses

Putting the Action in Actionable Intelligence

Implications and Considerations

References

3: Putting the “Evidence” in Evidence-Based: Utilizing Institutional Research to Drive Gateway-Course Reform

A New Vision for Institutional Research

The Role of IR in Gateway-Course Reform

Institutional Context

Supporting the Life Cycle of Gateway-Course Reform

Evidence Guiding Us Toward Which Courses to Improve

Evidence Guiding Us Toward Effective Pedagogy

Evidence Guiding Students Toward Effective Behaviors

Evidence to Assess Our Progress

Conclusions and Recommendations

References

Part III. The Role of Academic Stakeholders

4: The Case for Intentionally Interwoven Peer Learning Supports in Gateway-Course Improvement Efforts

What Is Intentionally Interwoven Peer Learning Support?

Two Cases of Integrated Interventions

Successes and Challenges

Conclusion

References

5: Fostering Evidence-Informed Teaching in Crucial Classes: Faculty Development in Gateway Courses

Why Focus Faculty Development on Gateway Courses?

Three Cases of Gateway-Course Faculty Development

What We Have Learned About Faculty Development for Gateway Courses

Conclusion

References

6: Chief Academic Officers and Gateway Courses: Keys to Institutional Retention and Persistence Agendas

Gateway-Course Improvement Initiatives in Context

Identifying Allies and Leaders

Sharing Data

Identifying and Reviewing Gateway Courses of All Kinds

Deconstructing Silos

Outreach to Students

Honoring Those Who Teach While Supporting and Enriching Their Efforts

The Role of Disciplinary Organizations

CAO Roundup of Roles

References

7: Why Gateway-Course Improvement Should Matter to Academic Discipline Associations and What They Can Do to Address the Issues

The Disciplinary Element in Gateway Education

The AHA's Interests in History Teaching

The AHA's Tuning Project and Its Implications for Gateway Courses

What Is a Gateway Course in History?

Purposes of Beginning College History Courses Then and Now

Conclusion: Mobilizing Faculty Members’ Disciplinary Identities to Improve Learning in Gateway Courses

References

Part IV. Integrated Approaches and Systems

8: Intentionally Linking Gateway-Course Transformation Efforts with Guided Pathways

Gateways to Completion (G2C)

Guided Pathways

Blending G2C and Guided Pathways

Lessons Learned and Recommendations for Future Work

References

9: Maximizing Gateway-Course Improvement by Making the Whole Greater Than the Sum of the Parts

Connecting the Parts at Nevada State College

Moving Past the Sum of the Parts at LCC

Summary and Conclusions

References

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Index

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Guide

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Editor's Notes

Gateway courses—college credit–bearing and/or developmental education courses that enroll large numbers of students and have high rates of Ds, Fs, withdrawals, and incompletes (Koch & Rodier, 2016)—are a ubiquitous part of the undergraduate experience in the United States. As long as there have been U.S. colleges and universities, there have been entry courses that pose difficulties for students—courses that have served more as weeding-out rather than gearing-up experiences for undergraduates. Perhaps the gateway-course weed-out function was more appropriate in the days when a college or university credential was reserved for a privileged few, or even during the era when a high school credential was more than adequate preparation for work and life in a democratic republic. But we no longer live in those times.

I believe that the gateway-course weed-out dynamic is no longer acceptable—if it ever was. Contemporary postsecondary education is characterized by vastly expanded access for historically underserved populations of students, and this new level of access is coupled with increased scrutiny of retention and graduation outcomes. Many of those outcomes are less than desirable. Academic difficulties in gateway courses are particularly pronounced for underserved students who, along with their families, are being expected to bear an increasing portion of the financial burden of postsecondary education. As a result of these less-than-desirable course outcomes and the lower retention rates that correlate with them, policy makers are questioning the investment of public monies in postsecondary education, and students and their families question that value of the college experience itself.

Make no mistake: I am not arguing that a solution to the gateway-course problem is watering down course rigor and content, nor are the other chapter authors in this volume. We believe that those who teach gateway courses and the institutions that offer them must uphold academic standards. But we maintain that they must do so by incorporating the latest evidence-based teaching, learning, and support strategies and by making sure that what happens in the gateway classroom is not contributing to the creation of a permanent underclass. There are tremendous institutional-viability and social-justice implications at play here.

This volume can serve as a resource for those who seek ways to improve teaching and learning in courses that have historically high failure rates. As a result, the volume can also contribute to the improvement of gateway-course outcomes and completion rates—especially for America's most historically underserved and underprivileged populations that comprise an ever-increasing portion of the student body.

The volume is organized into four parts. In Part I, “The Issue,” I define the topic in greater detail in an introductory chapter and make the case for why transforming gateway courses truly matters for the national effort to help more students (especially those who are underserved within higher education) graduate from the colleges and universities where they are admitted (aka the completion agenda).

The second part, “Data-Based Decisions and Actions,” includes chapters that share ways that institutional research data and analytics can respectively and collectively be used to improve gateway courses. In Chapter 2, Matthew D. Pistilli and Gregory L. Heileman explore how the promise of analytics—defined as the systematic analysis of data or statistics—can be realized in gateway-course redesign efforts through a combination of good data science and the application of thoughtfully designed, faculty-inclusive processes. The chapter explores matters of institutional readiness for analytics and methods for engaging faculty in applying analytics in course and curriculum redesign.

Chapter 3 details how the institutional research office at North Dakota State University helped the institution identify courses ripe for change, encouraged faculty to employ successful teaching strategies, directed students toward successful learning behaviors, and then assessed the impact of changes made. Authors Emily Berg and Mark Hanson describe how they provided data sources, assessment tools, and research application strategies to advance gateway-course reform. They also offer suggestions on how and why other colleges and universities (and particularly their institutional research offices) should do the same.

Part III, “The Role of Academic Stakeholders,” includes chapters that address how academic support, faculty development, academic administration, and discipline associations are vital components of gateway-course improvement efforts. In Chapter 4, Johanna Dvorak and Kathryn Tucker share how and why learning support strategies must be intentionally linked to gateway-course success efforts so that participation in the strategies is not left to chance, putting the most at-risk students in danger. The authors provide successful examples from a regional comprehensive college and an urban research university as well as suggestions for application at other institutions.

Chapter 5 highlights faculty and faculty developers as key actors who can improve student learning and outcomes in gateway courses. Authors Susannah McGowan, Peter Felten, Joshua Caulkins, and Isis Artze-Vega draw on the authors’ varied institutional experiences and a large national initiative to outline common challenges, sustainable strategies, and threshold concepts in gateway educational development. They make the case that supporting faculty who teach gateway courses can be a powerful catalyst for transforming an institution's teaching culture.

In Chapter 6, Roberta S. Matthews and Scott Newman make the case that gateway-course transformation efforts should be a top priority for academic leaders because they support and enhance already existing or necessary retention and persistence efforts on campus. The authors provide examples of approaches that senior leaders on campuses of all kinds and sizes may use to engage their campus communities in gateway-course teaching and learning improvement efforts, and offer practical strategies for engaging faculty and staff in the implementation of proven approaches.

Chapter 7 explains why teaching and learning in general or survey courses matter to discipline associations. Authors Julia Brookins and Emily Swafford provide examples of what one such association—the American Historical Association—is doing to promote among its members both contributing to the scholarship of teaching and learning (Boyer, 1990) and its application in the classroom. The chapter also explores why all discipline associations should be concerned and take action to improve undergraduate teaching and learning in their respective discipline's gateway courses.

The last part of this volume, “Integrated Approaches and Systems,” includes two chapters that describe how institutions have combined various student success efforts with their gateway-course improvement strategies to increase the likelihood that the strategies are more successful and serve larger numbers of students.

Chapter 8, written by Martine Courant Rife and Christine Conner, provides a case study of how Lansing Community College in Michigan intentionally linked efforts to redesign high-risk courses with the campus's efforts to create Guided Pathways initiatives—specific programs of study supplemented by academic support programs (Bailey, Jaggars, & Jenkins, 2015). The chapter details how the intentional connection between these two initiatives, which are frequently disconnected at many higher education institutions, yielded better results for both efforts and a richer professional and teaching experience for faculty and staff. The chapter also offers considerations for other institutions looking to connect guided-pathways and course-redesign efforts.

In Chapter 9, I, along with my colleagues Richard J. Prystowsky, from Lansing Community College, and Tony Scinta, from Nevada State College, provide examples of how institutions can intentionally link various gateway-course improvement efforts to “make the whole greater than the sum of the parts.” Drawing both from lessons learned from the Gardner Institute's Gateways to Completion process and content from the previous chapters of this volume, we make the case that institutions need to purposefully examine all that they are doing, and could be doing, to improve gateway-course outcomes and, where supported by this examination process, rebundle the components into an intentionally interwoven and supportive system to better address the teaching and learning needs of twenty-first-century students.

I thank each of the outstanding chapter authors for their contributions to this volume. Their writing furnishes new and valuable perspectives on the theme of gateway-course improvement. They also meaningfully expand the body of scholarship on this emerging topic and, in the process, provide a rich resource for instructors who teach, staff who support, and administrators who oversee gateway courses and associated continuous quality improvement efforts. It is my sincere hope that you will find as much value in this publication as my colleagues and I derived from writing it.

Andrew K. KochEditor

References

Bailey, T. R., Jaggars, S., & Jenkins, P. D. (2015).

What we know about guided pathways

. New York, NY: Columbia University, Community College Research Center. Available from

http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/media/k2/attachments/What-We-Know-Guided-Pathways.pdf

Boyer, E. L. (1990).

Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate

. Lawrenceville, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Koch, A. K., & Rodier, R. (2016). Gateway courses defined. In A. K. Koch & R. R. Rodier (Eds.),

Gateways to Completion guidebook version 3.0

(p. 6). Brevard, NC: John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education.

Andrew K. Koch

is the president and chief operating officer of the nonprofit John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education, located in Brevard, North Carolina.

Part I. The Issue

This part defines the topic in greater detail in an introductory chapter that makes the case for why transforming gateway courses truly matters for the national effort to help more students succeed, especially those who are underserved within higher education.

1

This introductory chapter defines the phrase gateway courses, describes why these courses are one of the most compelling issues in the contemporary student success movement, and details what is at stake if the issues associated with these courses are left unaddressed.

It's About the Gateway Courses: Defining and Contextualizing the Issue

Andrew K. Koch

The Situation

In 1992, political strategist James Carville rallied Bill Clinton's campaign workers around the mantra “It's the economy, stupid.” Carville was not attempting to insult anyone's intelligence. Rather, he was making the simple yet profound political point that discussing issues other than the economy would waste resources and time, and probably result in Clinton's defeat. Originally posted on an office wall placard and intended only for the campaign staff, Carville's quip quickly became the de facto slogan for the entire campaign. It helped the Clinton team develop and maintain a focus that ultimately won the election. In years since, “It's the economy, stupid,” has become part of American political pundits’ vernacular—a mechanism for quickly pinpointing what matters most in an election (Galoozis, 2012).

Carville's mantra and its associated lessons also happen to form the perfect rhetorical concept for explaining why an increased focus on gateway courses—foundational college courses that are high-risk and high-enrollment—is necessary. This volume is intended to provide guidance for the faculty, staff, and administrators in the vanguard of gateway-course improvement who are taking steps to advance and bring to scale this new direction for higher education. I, along with the chapter authors featured in this volume, argue that in 2017, what matters most in the student success movement is our ability to develop and maintain a focus on gateway courses.

Many of us who have worked in and provided thought leadership for the student success movement in the United States over the past 40 years have not paid attention to gateway (or “killer”) courses in which students face the greatest risk of poor performance or outright failure. Instead, we have focused on other efforts such as learning communities, orientation programs, first-year seminars, and a whole host of other “high-impact practices” (Barefoot et al., 2005; Barefoot, Griffin, & Koch, 2012; Greenfield, Keup, & Gardner, 2013; Koch, 2001; Koch, Foote, Hinkle, Keup, & Pistilli, 2007; Kuh, 2008; Stein Koch, Griffin, & Barefoot, 2013; Upcraft & Gardner, 1989; Upcraft, Gardner, & Barefoot, 2005). To date, these high-impact practices have circumvented the experiences that undergraduates have in gateway courses—experiences that may, in fact, matter most to their success. And until recent years, there has been no concomitant effort to substantively transform the way gateway courses are designed and taught. As a result, failure rates in gateway courses have largely remained unchanged. The effect of these courses can be devastating, particularly for America's least advantaged, first-generation, and historically underrepresented students (Koch, 2017; Koch & Gardner, In Press).

Early student success leaders, however, should not be faulted for their lack of focus on foundational courses. They and their efforts were products of the space, place, and time in which they were operating. David Pace, the accomplished historian and scholar of teaching and learning, aptly described the environment in which student success pioneers were acting. Making his opening comments during a workshop at the 2017 American Historical Association annual meeting, Pace quipped, “In the 1970s and 1980s, the classroom was like the bathroom. You knew something important happened there, and you never talked about it!” (Pace, 2017). To date, student success thought leaders have generally focused their actions on activities other than undergraduate courses, including gateway courses, and have had little interaction with faculty.

But this is 2017. And we can now safely say that the sum total of the student success efforts created and initiated in the four-plus decades spanning the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have not managed to budge the retention and completion needle in any significant manner. For example, according to ACT, 68.3% of all students who started in a college of any type in fall 1999 returned to that college in fall 2000 (ACT, 2000). In 2015, 15 years later, the rate was 68.0% (ACT, 2015). The good news is that since the 1960s, legislation such as the Civil Rights Act and the Higher Education Acts greatly expanded access to postsecondary education. And contrary to what might have been logically predicted, increased access did not lead to decreases in retention and completion. But neither have there been widespread gains in these outcomes, even though there has been a large influx of state and federal resources to support student success programs.

Thanks to a new and growing body of scholarship on teaching and learning that has emerged over the past decade, we can now point to an array of evidence-based approaches and strategies that have the potential to move student success rates measurably beyond their persistently static level (ACT, 2000, 2015). And unlike most of the efforts that preceded them, these strategies are directly embedded in gateway-course classrooms of all kinds—online, blended, or face-to-face.

Gateway Courses Defined

This publication's chapter contributors and I are all drawing on a definition for gateway courses that is being used in the Gateways to Completion (G2C) project sponsored by the nonprofit John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education (Gardner Institute). Forty institutions, including 2- and 4-year, public and private, not-for-profit, and proprietary, enrolling nearly 700,000 undergraduates, have been involved in the G2C effort since it was launched in fall 2013. With significant input from a national advisory committee, Gardner Institute staff members crafted the following definition, which is applicable to diverse institutions.

Gateway courses are defined by Koch and Rodier (2014) as any courses that are:

Foundational

: These courses may be non-credit-bearing developmental education courses—which often serve as initial paths to the gateway courses—and/or college credit-bearing, generally lower-division courses.

High-risk

: Such courses are identified by the rates at which D, F, W (for any form of withdrawal on the transcript) and I (for incomplete) grades are earned across sections of the course(s). Note that there is no set threshold rate; what constitutes an acceptable rate should be discussed and defined in local institutional contexts. Also note that W and I grades are included in the mix. Some argue that W and I grades should not be included because these grades do not factor into the grade point average. However, W and I grades do very much have deleterious implications for students over time.