Survey says: Contextualization works!

We’ve covered a lot of territory this week, from South Texas to South Africa. As promised, we’re going to cap off the week by digging into the latest research on contextualization.

This month, the Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Columbia University’s Teachers College released a brief titled “Facilitating Student Learning Through Contextualization.” In the brief, CCRC reviews existing literature for evidence on the effectiveness of contextualized basic skills instruction, While there is promising evidence that contextualization improves students’ basic skills mastery , the results are mixed on whether these practices improve content learning outcomes. The authors also site several studies that tie contextualization with positive influence on developmental education course completion and college-level credit accumulation.

CCRC identifies some practical applications for their findings, including “considerable effort…needed to implement contextualization because instructors need to learn from each other and collaborate across disciplines, a practice that is not common in college settings.” We heard about the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration yesterday from Stevan Schiefelbein, who told us about faculty collaboration between South Texas College’s departments of History, Sociology, Developmental Reading, Developmental Math, and Developmental English.

For more CCRC analysis of contextualization models, check out their report on I-BEST. Developed in Washington state, Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-BEST) integrates basic skills instruction with college-level occupational classes. Guess what? Faculty collaboration is vital for I-BEST, too. Has your college taken the contextualization challenge? What approcaches ease the path to collaboration? What gets in the way?

Guest Post: South Texas in Context

Today’s post comes from Stevan Schiefelbein, DEI project director at South Texas College in McAllen, Texas. Part of the South Texas strategy is to contextualize a significant portion of the developmental education curriculum. They are working with faculty groups to complete the task. Stevan describes the process and early results below.

One of the Developmental Education Initiative strategies at South Texas College (STC) is Intentional Content Integration. The goal during the first year of STC’s DEI grant was to integrate 20 percent of the developmental English and reading curricula; sociology was the subject area chosen by the faculty as the academic subject around which to contextualize the curriculum changes. During the second year of the grant, the goal was to integrate an additional 20 percent of the curricula; history was chosen as the academic subject of contextualization.

From June to August of 2009, eight instructors from the Developmental Reading, Developmental English, and Developmental Math Departments worked together to integrate math, writing, and reading into all three departments’ curricula.  Additionally, they designed a sociology-related project for each of the three levels of developmental reading and writing.

The Process
From January to July of 2010, some of the same instructors, along with some who were not previously involved, designed history-related projects for each of the three levels of developmental reading and writing. Starting in January 2011, instructors have been involved writing new developmental English sociology-related as well as history-related essay prompts, to be used starting fall 2011 semester. The developmental reading projects are also being redesigned.

Some of the requirements on the developmental English essay prompts include one-page summary response journals from a chapter out of the history and sociology textbooks as well as internet sources,  creating and administering surveys, creating graphs, and using APA style for citing references. When working with students on the developmental reading projects, instructors teach the logical format of one chapter from the history and sociology textbooks to strengthen textbook usage skills that maximize the amount of information students retain from reading what many college freshmen consider to be challenging reading assignments.

Collaboration among faculty members has proven to be one of the biggest strengths of the contextualization work, but also one of the greatest challenges. Collaborating with and receiving feedback from faculty members of the STC Sociology and History Departments has also been rewarding.

Outside Support
Two consultants have provided information on contextualization and integration. Dr. Dolores Perin, senior research associate with Columbia University’s Community College Research Center, visited STC in October 2009.  Dr. Emily Lardner, a DEI technical assistance provider and co-director of the Washington Center for Improving Undergraduate Education, visited STC in November 2010. Both consultants also observed some developmental education classrooms and discussed their reports on the curriculum writing efforts with faculty. 

Results
Pre- and post-surveys and focus groups have been used to assess changes in students’ levels of engagement and their growth in understanding of the nature of integration and contextualization of assignments in the different subject areas over the course of the semester. Statistically significant gains were seen in several measures of student engagement at the end of the first year. In addition, success rates (as measured by students who receive a grade of A, B, C, or P) in developmental English and developmental reading courses were compared to course success rates from previous semesters. The success rates from the first year are mixed. However, overall, faculty feel that the contextualized curriculum is very strong when compared to the previous curriculum, and that it teaches underprepared students how to write for academic classes.

You can learn more about the DEI Developmental English curriculum here; you can also check out the DEI Development Reading projects for history and sociology. 

Stevan Schiefelbein is Assistant Professor of Developmental English and DEI Project Director at South Texas College.

In Context

As we’ve discussed here before, coming up with an appropriate moniker for developmental education is challenging. At some institutions, these courses are deemed “transitional” or “foundational” since students are acquiring skills that will form the basis of the rest of the postsecondary study. This week, we’ll be looking at a particular approach to integrating those necessary skills and content instruction. That’s right, it’s Contextualization Week!

These Peeps are studying culinary arts and the art of mathematics. And we’re still smitten with the Washington Post's Peeps dioramas.

As defined in a recent CCRC brief on the topic, contextualization is “the teaching of basic skills in the context of disciplinary topic areas.” This week, we’ll have posts from South Africa and South Texas detailing how different institutions employ these strategies on their campuses and how they shape student experience and outcomes. We’ll also dig a little deeper into current research on effective design and implementation of contextualized curricula. Stay with us!