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.

Guest Post: Extended Programmes – A South African Initiative

Well, this is exciting! It’s Accelerating Achievement’s first international guest blogger. Today’s post comes from Dr. Chrissie Boughey of Rhodes University in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape province, South Africa. Dr. Boughey attended the 2011 Achieving the Dream Strategy Institute and after hearing some of her reflections on the event and, in particular, her perspective on colleges’ approaches to remediation and developmental education, we asked her to tell us—and you—more about the South African approach. The end of apartheid necessitated a different approach to higher education in South Africa and there are some striking similarities in the challenges we face in this country when it comes to serving underprepared students. The Extended Programme, described below, is an interesting approach to contextualizing and blending the entire remedial sequence into college-level study.

In South Africa, access to and success in higher education have long been critical issues because of the effects of apartheid on black students’ chances of gaining admittance to a university and succeeding once they are there. Early access initiatives tended to focus on stand-alone remedial courses in study skills, language, and numeracy. Analysis of the impact of this sort of work showed that students often felt marginalized and stigmatized and that learning did not often transfer to mainstream study.

In the early 2000s, thanks to “redress funding” from the South African Department of Education, “Extended Programmes with an Integrated Foundation Phase” began to be developed.  “Extended Programmes,” as they are now known, admit students who do not meet usual university entrance requirements to accredited programs of study leading to degree- or diploma-level qualifications. An Extended Programme prolongs the period of study needed for the completion of a qualification by up to one year. This additional year’s worth of instruction is used to provide learning opportunities that either lay a foundation for “mainstream” learning or support it in some way. Importantly, not all the additional instruction needs to be located in the first year of study since funding rules allow it to be provided throughout the curriculum.

In the years since the introduction of Extended Programmes, a number of different ways of providing the additional instruction have been identified. “Augmented” courses see students registered in normal courses but having the instructional time for those courses doubled with the additional instruction offered by specialists. A typical augmented course might thus offer eight classes per week instead of the four offered normally. “Extended” courses (not to be confused with Extended Programmes) offer a semester’s worth of learning over an entire year. This means that the pace of learning is slowed and more time is available for foundations to be built and for language and literacy to be developed in relation to authentic learning tasks. Funding for Extended Programmes allows a mix of different kinds of courses providing this additional instruction.

One of the advantages of Extended Programmes is that students begin earning credits towards a qualification immediately. The impact of this on motivation is enormous. In addition, the integration of developmental work with mainstream learning means that it can be authentic and support students as they engage with academic discourse communities.

While Extended Programmes benefit students enormously, the integration of support and development with mainstream teaching is challenging for faculty involved. At the core of these challenges is the need for academic teachers to adopt teaching approaches and assessment methods that are inclusive, rather than exclusive, of the diversity black working class students bring to learning.  Extended Programmes thus provide a rich site for research associated with the scholarship of teaching and with academic life in general.

Initially, only a small number of universities offered Extended Programmes. Now all public universities offer a number of these valuable learning opportunities to students who were previously excluded from or marginalized in South African higher education.

Dr. Chrissie Boughey is Dean of Teaching and Learning at Rhodes University.

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!

Linky, Linky

• Today in Inside Higher Ed, Mike Rose writes powerfully about the challenges of our existing developmental education system:

  “But now we are at a watershed moment when not only are individuals and programs trying to do something fresh with remediation, but national attention -- public and philanthropic -- is focused on the issue as well. To make significant changes, we’ll need to understand all the interlocking pieces of the remediation puzzle, something we’re not oriented to do, for our disciplinary and methodological training and public policy toolkit work against a comprehensive view of the problem.”

  Rose raises a familiar lament about disciplinary and methodological silos, drawing particular attention to the lack of interaction between intellectuals focused on remediation and those focused on basic writing.
  
• In the spirit of breaking down silos (check out last week’s post about efforts in Ohio to align dev ed with adult basic ed), we want to draw your attention to an article published this morning by The Hechinger Report about basic skills education. Sarah Butrymowicz lifts up these programs: “Across the U.S., thousands of workers stuck in low-paying jobs are trying to get a leg up through free basic-skills classes that train them in everything from elementary math to basic literacy.”
• The U.S. Department of Education is hosting a Community College Virtual Symposium on April 27 from 2:00-5:00 PM EDT. There will be presentations on policies and practices that support bridge programs for low-skill adults, alignment of secondary and postsecondary education, improved developmental education, and college-employer partnerships that promote curricular change. Register here to participate.