Crowdsourcing the Placement Test Dilemma

On Monday, the Inside Higher Ed blog Confessions of a Community College Dean, was all about how you know a student needs remediation. Blogger Dean Dad gives a succinct overview of the often frustrating process: cutoff scores, preparing (or not preparing) students for a high-stakes test, and mandated tests that have little predictive value for a student’s performance. And then there’s “thousands of new students showing up in a compressed timeframe, ranging in age from fresh out of high school to retirement, and you need to place them all quickly.” He includes a few possible responses—using high school GPA and other diagnostics, embedded remediation, or the “let them fail” approach.

He then tosses the ball to his readers, requesting examples of efficient methods for placing a lot of students in the right place in a relative short time. While it’s often dangerous to read comments on blog posts, there are some interesting suggestions in the mix—from software solutions to diagnostic tests that are directly tied to instructional modules. We’ve covered some of these approaches that are happening in DEI colleges and states here on Accelerating Achievement:

• El Paso Community College’s Pre-testing Retesting Educational Preparation (PREP) program that gives students a chance to prepare for—and retake, if necessary—the placement test
• Florida’s new diagnostic tests that are tied to a more closely aligned high school and college curricula
• Guilford Technical Community College’s face-to-face and online COMPASS reviews that include video instruction and retest opportunities

What’s working on your campus? Obviously, there are a lot of inquiring minds that want to know!