AB1725 Curses and Blessings: Pre-requisites and Basic Skills

Alignment

CurriculumCommittee

Cristela Solorio-Ruiz, Rio Hondo College, Student

Nabil Abu-Ghazaleh, Pierce College, CIO

Greg Burchett, Riverside City College

Chris Sullivan, San Diego Mesa

Jon Drinnon, Merritt College

Fall Session 2008, Los Angeles – Curriculum Committee

This Breakout has two important sections

• Information about basic skills alignment and coding

• Discussion about the pre-requisites

• We need your feedback on both topics

Fall Session 2008, Los Angeles – Curriculum Committee

Basic Skills Course Alignment and Leveling

• Why we did this

• What we did

• Guidelines

• What it will mean

Fall Session 2008, Los Angeles – Curriculum Committee

What is next?

• Resolution

• Vetting

• Another resolution

• Recode in Summer at Curriculum Institute

Fall Session 2008, Los Angeles – Curriculum Committee

Fall Session 2008, Los Angeles – Curriculum Committee

Resolutions

Resolutions 9.05 Spring 06 requested the senate to review policies, procedures, laws, and legislation related to pre-requisites, co-requisites, and advisories.

Resolution 4.04 Fall 06 charged the faculty to explore restricting students from enrolling in general education or major preparation courses until students establish competency at a locally determined level in composition and/or reading.

Fall Session 2008, Los Angeles – Curriculum Committee

Faculty Concerns

•Faculty are concerned about the current prerequisite validation process

•Faculty are concerned that students take and fail college level courses without addressing basic skills needs

•Other outside agencies are making suggestions and drafting law that will take this out of our hands.

•What potential changes would improve policies concerning prerequisites and provide policy makers with a direction forward focused on student success?

Administrative Concerns

• Pre-requisite re-validation, it is validation “lite”

• Change will happen! We can mediate it or watch it happen.

• A real change in the way we view basic skills remediation

• Wrap around educational institutions

• Mandatory assessment, nuanced assessment,

and possible use of the CSU assessmentFall Session 2008, Los Angeles – Curriculum Committee

Student Concerns

• Basic Skills Pre-requisites and her experience

• Student Assembly supported C-id work

• Pros and cons

Fall Session 2008, Los Angeles – Curriculum Committee

Other’s ConcernsLAO Recommendations

Fall Session 2008, Los Angeles – Curriculum Committee

• Most community college students lack sufficient reading, writing and math skills for college work.

• A large number do not overcome the deficiencies

• Statewide math and English test derived from k-12 math and English standards

• Require students to address basic skills course needs upon enrollment

Fall Session 2008, Los Angeles – Curriculum Committee

Other’s ConcernsIt Can Happen

by Nancy Shulock

Get students into the right classes, including remedial work

Change college fiscal flexibility – modify 50% law, fund based on student progress and success, etc

What are your concerns?

• Underprequisited around country particularly here in CA – Maldef suit

• Could advisories be accompanied by a rating about how likely you are to succeed? e.g. if you are reading level X your potential of succeeding is XX%

• Get data on nuanced assessment – learning is spiral, give them discrete basic skills needs

• Finding a placement test that we can use that is similar

• Have we had underprepared students for so long that we have decreased our standards in our present courses.

• Some students demonstrate the ability to succeed, but don’t due to stability versus basic skills needs

• Got to be done across the board rather than by individual faculty or courses

• Concerns about the validity of our assessment instruments

• We need to involve more discipline faculty in reading, English, etc

• Accountability – for us and for students

Fall Session 2008, Los Angeles – Curriculum Committee

• Even students that are passing some courses may have underlying basic skills, how are they getting through the courses? How do we really address these foundational needs?

• Student motivation, if a student has to do all the basic skills courses first they may not be motivated enough to get.

Fall Session 2008, Los Angeles – Curriculum Committee

Fall Session 2008, Los Angeles – Curriculum Committee

What are the barriers?

•Do financial aid requirements set up students for failure?

•Assessment scores and Basic skills coursework are not portable.

*This is a three way partnership with students, instruction and student services in order to achieve success.

What are possible solutions?

• Can a statewide group (e.g. RP ) establish a system wide level of significance and validation?  Do we need a resolution in the fall asking for this standard?

• The system funding structure is a problem.  Can there be incentives ($$$) to develop better student success?

• How can we capitalize on EOPS success and other successful models on a larger scale?

• How can we develop the eagerness in students to take assessment?  Make it more human?  If everyone must assess, then those who are deficient will see that everyone has been treated the same.

Fall Session 2008, Los Angeles – Curriculum Committee

Other possible solutions?

Fall Session 2008, Los Angeles – Curriculum Committee

Summary

Fall Session 2008, Los Angeles – Curriculum Committee