Presentation from Colorado Community College System's Bitsy Cohen and Tamara White for the Colorado Council on High School/College Relations Conference Dec. 2013
Measures of Dispersion and Variability: Range, QD, AD and SD
Developmental Education in Colorado presentation for Colorado Council on High School/College Relations Conference12/06/13
1. Developmental Education
In Colorado: A Redesign
Tamara White, CDHE
Bitsy Cohn, CCCS
Colorado Council on High School/College Relations Conference
December 6, 2013
3. “The more levels of developmental courses a student needs
to go through, the less likely that student is to ever
complete college English or math.”
Thomas Bailey (2009) CCRC Brief.
DE: The problem
4. ENG 030
REA 030
ENG 060
MAT 030
REA 060
ENG 090
REA 090
MAT 060
MAT 090
MAT 099
Traditional Colorado course pipeline
5. Why high attrition rates are a
structural problem
• For students who place two levels below a college course there are five “exit
points”
•
•
•
•
•
Do they pass the first course
Do they enroll in the next course?
Do they pass the second course?
Do they enroll in the college-level course?
Do they pass the college-level course?
• Students placing three levels down have 7 exit points.
6. Move students quickly and
effectively through their first college
level course.
The goal of the redesign
7. • Math – pathways at the developmental level
• Algebra
• Non-Algebra (statistics and math for liberal arts)
• Non-transfer (career math, clinical calculations)
• College Composition and Reading (formerly reading and English)
• Integrated disciplines
• Tiers of student support in classrooms
The new design
11. Policy Review Process
Phase I - Task Force Work
2011-2013
Phase II - Vetting
2013
Phase III – Revision
2013
Phase IV - Communication
2013 - 2014
• Task force development and meetings
• Develop recommendations
• Vetting with various constituents across
Colorado
• Task Force makes final policy
recommendations
• CCHE approves policy revisions
• Communication with K-12 and higher
education
• Assist with implementation
12. • HEAR Higher Education Admission Requirements
• Admissions Index
• Assessment score (ACT/SAT) AND
• Grade Point Average or class rank
Current College Admissions
13. • Academic performance indicators will include
assessment scores, GPA and rigor.
• Minimum admission standards
• Assessment
• Rigor
Admissions Policy Changes
14. • The transfer student admission standard applies to all degreeseeking undergraduate transfer applicants with 24 or more
college-level semester credit hours completed at the point of
application
• Guarantee admissions for AA and AS graduates with minimum
GPA
Admissions Policy Changes
15. Admissions Policy Next Steps
• Timeline for implementation
• Graduating students of 2016 : Use current and new policy standards
• Graduating students of 2018 and after: Use new policy standards
•
•
•
•
DAG and ADTR subcommittee
Admission Planning Assistant (web tool)
Training program
IHE implementation support
17. Remedial Policy Changes
State-approved Assessments and cut scores data
ACT English
18
ACT Mathematics
19
SAT English
430
SAT Mathematics
460
Compass English 63
Accuplacer, PARCC, SBAC - TBD
Compass Mathematics 79
18. • Purpose
• Bypass Remedial Education Policy
• Support students
• COF funding
• Co-requisite instruction with a college-level course
• Metro State University of Denver and more to come
Supplemental Academic Instruction
19. • Changes information counselors will need to guide students to college
• Opens the door for more students in both two and four year colleges
• Will affect the speed with which students are entering college level courses
• Test prep and the new assessment and SAI
• Some considerations for concurrent enrollment practices
• Advising is crucial
Career pathways
Program of study
• Affective/non-cognitive skill development
• Institutional flexibility – local decisions
What does this mean to High School Students?
24. CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION
This work by Colorado Community College System COETC Grant is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. The material was created with funds from the Trade Adjustment
Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) Grant awarded to the Colorado Online Energy Training Consortium (COETC).Based on a work at www.cccs.edu.Permissions beyond the
scope of this license may be available at www.cccs.edu.
Notas do Editor
Policy Review ProcessThe Colorado department of Higher Education determines college admission standards. The department also determines remedial education cut scores. By law, they have to review these policies every few years. But as we began to review these policies, we saw that it was bigger than just a statutory need. We saw that institutions were doing more than just looking at a student’s index and that we needed to find a way to help make the policy match what was happening in practice. With the remedial education policy, we needed to recalibrate the cut scores and make sure we were ensuring success for our students. We are about a year and a half into this policy review process. This diagram shows a four-phase process. Phase one, develop a task force to review the policy. Our task forces are made up of a representative from all of the public institutions of higher education, K-12, workforce, CTE and others. Just to remind you, I’m on the ___________ task force representing our institution. We’ve been meeting since May of 2012. There’ve seen several presentations and data reports. We’ve had a year and a half’s worth of conversations. Based on this information, we have created some considerations for policy revision recommendations. We shared those initial recommendations with several town hall meeting constituent groups, which was phase 2. We went around the state to get feedback on the initial recommendation. We got this feedback as a task force. The task force took this feedback into consideration and made final policy revision recommendations and it is these final recommendations that I am bringing to you today. The final policy decision will be made by the Colorado Commission on Higher Education later this year.
Current PolicyI’m going to go through both policies and then we will have the feedback session. So write down your thoughts as we are going through the policies so you don’t forget.Our state has statewide college admission standards. This policy deals with first-year and transfer student admission. Our current admission policy has two components for first-time admission standards. Index and HEAR – Higher Education Admission Requirements. Transfer standards are for students with 12 or more credits and meet a certain GPA requirement.
College Admission Standards Policy – Major recommendationHere’s what the task force is recommending it should be:First, let’s talk about the Index. Right now, it’s a snapshot in a student’s high school life. The index score does not distinguish between achievement in general high school courses and performance in more advanced work such as higher levels of math or Advanced Placement classes. It doesn’t tell colleges if students took increasingly rigorous courses. Colleges would like to use a system that would be a more flexible review of a student’s academic history, including the rigor of high school coursework. So instead of a school looking at a 111 index score, they would look at a transcript and see that the student took math all four years and each year, they took an increasingly rigorous courseload. This information is more valuable than a 111 score.This recommendation encourages colleges and universities to be more flexible in considering other means of demonstrating readiness beyond the completion of a particular set of courses. The task force is recommending that academic performance indicators include assessments, GPA and rigor of coursework. Due to concerns with the new state assessment, we are including the following language in the policy:* Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and Smarter Balanced instruments are currently being deployed and field-tested nationally, and by the Colorado Department of Education in an effort to implement and assess statewide college and career readiness standards for students. The research and validation studies will be available by school year 2016-2017, at which point Colorado institutions of higher education will begin to utilize the approved college readiness scores.Grade Point Average (GPA)In-state and out-of-state freshmen must demonstrate college readiness with their GPA. Institutions will accept the GPA on the high school transcript. All GPAs will be correlated to a 4.0 scale. Accountability and the WindowIt is not the purview of this task force to determine how institutions should be held accountable for who they admit and who they don’t admit. That is an important conversation and it will be had by others with the Commission.Rigor can be demonstrated in multiple ways, including the following:A. Completed high school core content courses - Strong preparation in English and mathematics is highly recommended for all college-bound students. Students should also complete significant core content coursework in natural sciences, social sciences, world languages and academic electives; B. Quantity and quality of high school core content courses completed;C. Successful completion of Advanced Placement exams, International Baccalaureate exams, honors courses or gtPathways concurrent enrollment courses (grade of "C-" or better);D. High school senior year course-work. Students are strongly encouraged to take the most rigorous courses available to them and consistent with their academic abilities. Additionally, students may be evaluated on the rigor of the courses selected compared to the rigor of courses available;E. Students are recommended to take high school courses relevant to their career path.
In accordance with Commission Academic Affairs Policy section I part L Statewide Transfer Policy, (gtPathways policy), “transfer student” means a student entering the reporting institution for the first time but known to have previously attended a postsecondary institution at the same level (e.g. undergraduate, graduate) after high school graduation (or passing an equivalency exam). The student may transfer with or without credit. This excludes students who completed remedial coursework and students who completed college-level coursework as a high school student through Concurrent Enrollment or as their homeschool curriculum.The admission standards policy also gives us transfer student admission standards. One of the most exciting recommendations is for Colorado community college graduates to be guaranteed admission to all four-year colleges, excluding Colorado School of Mines. This means that a student who graduates from Community College of Aurora, for example, would be guaranteed admittance to the University of Northern Colorado. The transfer student admission standard applies to all degree-seeking undergraduate transfer applicants with 24 or more college-level semester credit hours completed at the point of application. The transfer admission standards are based on cumulative Grade Point Average from all previous college-level coursework completed at regionally accredited institutions,number of transfer hours completed and high school record (for transfer students with fewer than 24 college-level semester credit hours completed at the point of application). Transfer students should complete gtPathways or equivalent courses in a range of academic subjects, especially college-level mathematics and English composition, before applying to transfer to another institution. Institutions may still use first-time admission standards to evaluate candidates. Beyond the framework for credit totals, minimum GPA and recommended course work, admission standards can vary at each college/university. Meeting the minimum credit total and GPA does not guarantee admission. Those are the recommendations for the college admission policy. Write down your comments and thoughts and any clarifying questions about the Admission Standards Policy. I’m going to go over the Remedial Education Policy and then we will do the feedback session altogether.
Current Remedial Education PolicyOur current remedial education policy is what colleges use to determine when students are ready for college. Additionally, the policy recognizes three assessments - ACT, SAT and Accuplacer - that colleges can use.
TAMARAState leaders examined how students fared in classes after the current cut scores were used to determine placement. The results of that review determine whether the cut scores are revised. Based on this Colorado specific data and anticipated content area expert analysis, English ACT cut subscores will remain 18 and mathematics ACT cut subscores will remain 19. State law no longer requires the Department of Higher Education to monitor matriculating students’ reading skills.Students scoring at or above the cut score are ready for a college-level course. Colleges may determine that the student may need co-requisite Supplemental Academic Instruction to ensure success. Students may not be required to take remedial coursework if they have been deemed college ready. Students scoring below the cut score may be allowed to enter college-level courses based on an institution’s secondary evaluation process.