Is It Time to Reinvent the Remedial College Course?

Remedial college courses were designed to give opportunity to students, however, a recent report shows, for many, remedial classes can be an expensive sense of false hope.

Half of all undergrads and 70 percent of community college students will take a remedial class, according to the article “National Group Calls for Big Changes in Remedial Education.”Â Of those, the study found less than one in 10 students who took three or more semesters of remedial math completed the first-year college-level math course they need to take to graduate.

Not only does having to take multiple remedial classes — or repeating the same remedial course — cause a setback in the time it takes to graduate from college, it also takes a financial toll on the individual, the state taxpayer, and the federal taxpayer. While the demand for remedial education shows there is a great need, the effectiveness of developmental education in America is under question.

As the country recovers from the recession and the workforce demands more higher-skilled workers, it’s no surprise many adults are returning to school. However, many will require taking at least one remedial course to revive their rusty academic skills. In Florida:

85 percent of students who took a remedial course were 20-years-old and over in the 2010-11 school year.
Four in every five first-year, full-time students over 20-years-old had to take a remedial math course.
90 percent of students over age 35 had to take a remedial math course.

13th Grade: Older, Returning Students Strain Florida’s Community and State Colleges

Though remedial courses may not be the answer for all students, they have afforded many students a chance at earning a college degree when it would otherwise be out of their reach. The conversation requires us to examine not only where higher education is failing, but where the K-12 school system can improve to prepare their graduates with the skills to succeed in higher ed and land a job. Will a college and career emphasis in K-12 be enough to prepare more students for math in higher ed? Will the number of students failing remedial courses in reading, writing, and math ask us to reevaluate the basic skills a college graduate needs to earn a degree?

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Report Compares US School Districts with High-Achieving Countries

When we talk about improving student achievement in America, the conversation is usually about improving learning conditions for low-income students. While it’s valid that many low-income students do not receive the same education opportunities as their affluent peers, a new report by the Bush Institute finds that all American students are at risk when weighed against other developed countries.

The Bush Institute’s interactive map allows you to drill down to your state, county, and district to see your district’s scores and compare them to high-achieving countries. What’s unique about this interactive map is that it doesn’t just show that other countries have higher achievement rates, it adjusts your district’s reading and math score as if your district was “dropped into” one of the high achieving countries. For example, students in Denver Public Schools are in the 46th percentile in math and the 74th percentile in reading. However, if these students were dropped into Finland, they would be in the 32nd percentile in math and the 63rd percentile in reading.

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Higher Education Quality Struggles without Accountability

By 2020, 75 percent of jobs will require a college degree, up from 62% in 2009.^1ÂWithout any form of higher education, today’s workforce faces a dismal future in a world that increasingly demands high-skilled workers who are equipped with degrees and real-world work experience. But, even though the demand for educated workers is high, it doesn’t mean it makes it any easier for aspiring degree-holders to enter college, pay for college, or get a worthwhile education.

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Your College Degree Timing: Should you Detour from the Pipeline?

This year, student debt climbed higher than credit card debt in the U.S. Though the recession has encouraged more people to pursue higher education, it doesn’t mean that we have more graduates. The Obama administration, along with the Gates and the Lumina Foundation, reacted to the low college graduation rates by vowing to make America the number one country for college graduates, according to Jeff Selingo in his article “On Students’ Paths to College, Some Detours Are Desirable.”
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How Might Students Benefit from Teachers and Professors Who Are Leaders from the Business World?

The education paradigm must shift in order for 21st century learners to graduate, land jobs, and create jobsÂ in the future. Currently, we have many unemployed graduates who arenâ€™t being hired to fill many jobs which do exist, especially in the â€œstart-upâ€ economy.Â Â There is a disconnect between what the world of work requires and what students do in their sixteen plus years of learning. It is crucial to our economic success that students begin to connect what they are learning in class to what they might do in the short and the long term in the world of work.
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Practical Skills to Close the Job Gap: Risks that Bring Reward

The week before Thanksgiving, I attended the annual National Association of Gifted Children (NAGC) conference for teachers of gifted and talented students along with 4,000 others. One of the opening sessions featured Dr. Howard Gardner, Dr. Joseph Renzulli, and Dr. Robert Sternberg, all intelligence experts from varying points of view. Sternberg, in particular, addressed the disconnect between what we are teaching in school and the needs of the world of work, where graduates are falling short.
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Improved Literacy Skills Can Change Our Economic Future

Reading has been the sine qua non of culture and civilization for thousands of years. The spread of literacy from the upper echelons of society to the middle and lower classes is perhaps one of the most defining characteristics of modernism. According to the United Nations, the presence of illiteracy in the world today among less-developed nations has been connected to continuing cycles of poverty, poor health, and deprivation, and makes democracy in these nations difficult or nearly impossible to achieve ¹. So, the fact that reading scores for American high school graduates are the lowest they’ve been in 40 years should cause worry.
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Study: More U.S. Students Graduating from High School and College

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/11/05/record-shares-of-young-adults-have-finished-both-high-school-and-college/4/#section-3-high-school-completion-among-young-adults

More U.S. students are graduating from high school and college than ever before, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis. The increase in grads can be attributed in large to our changed economy. Since the 2007 recession, students have been drilled on the importance of having an education in order to land a job in a highly competitive job market. Adults have also returned to school to gain higher pay, change careers, or increase their level of education after a layoff.

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Success Wanted: Interpersonal Skills Required

What makes a person successful? Some attribute their success to hard work, while others attribute it to luck, mentors, brains, or social skills.

In a recent three-part series on NPR, people from all rungs of the economic ladder are interviewed on why they either are or are not financially “successful.” In the first installment, Bob Hatley, president and CEO of Paragon Commercial Bank, tells his tale of going from a childhood with limited means to a millionaire. Hatley says:Â “People who use their family as an excuse not to achieve, I have no patience with.”

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Day 2 at the Schools of the Future Conference: Learning through Real-World Simulation

Over the past two days at the 2012 Schools of the Future conference, I had the opportunity to meet a variety of amazing people whose ideas are already making impressions on learners today and are bound to create new opportunities for learners of the future.

One of the highlights of the conference was hearing John Hunter’s keynote speech. John is a public school teacher who took his background in religious and philosophical studies and applied it to the 4th-grade classroom. In his quest to engage 4th-grade students in a lesson to become change makers and critical thinkers, he created a plexiglass real-world simulation game that exercises students’ critical and creative thinking skills, compassion, and strategic thinking. The World Peace GameÂ is a complex game that stands at 4 feet x 4 feet x 4 feet, has hundreds of pieces, a 13-page crisis document, a classroom of 4th graders versed on Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, and much more.

The quote he shares in his bio illustrates his game’s philosophy: “Accepting the reality of violence, I seek to incorporate ways to explore harmony in various situations. This exploration would take form in the framework of a game â€“ something that students would enjoy. Within the game data space, they would be challenged, while enhancing collaborative and communication skills.”

With his game, students are in control of the lesson and the world’s outcomes.â€¨â€¨ After all, these students are the ones who we will hand the world to; ripe with environmental problems, warfare, ethnic tensions, and economic disparity. Though John has been using a version of this game in his classroom since the late ’70s, his philosophy that learning should be in the control of the student and the teacher should act as facilitator is the future of learning. Flipped classrooms are asking students to be in control of their learning at home and to bring questions to class; computer software can customize learning for an entire classroom of individual students with different needs while the teacher stands by; individuals are in control of advancing their learning around the world with MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses); and the list goes on.

It was a great experience to be among leaders who were driven by a similar mission as LifeBound. My bookÂ Critical and Creative Thinking for TeenagersÂ also addresses the need for students to solve the world’s biggest problems through real-world experiences, exploration, and learning about innovative trailblazers before them. Leadership for Teenagers: From Ancient Times to the 21st CenturyÂ asks students to create a vision, become an influencer, and take action to create change in their life, school, community, and one day, the world.

John’s bookÂ World Peace and Other 4th-Grade AchievementsÂ is due out in 2013.Â You can also find out more about watching the documentary of the same title via his website, worldpeacegame.org.

Watch John’s TED Talk,Â Teaching with the World Peace Game, which shares the journey he took to create the World Peace Game and clips of his students speaking passionately about their roles in this political simulation.

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