Building Rigor and Competence in Gateway Courses For

Building Rigor and Competence in Gateway Courses for

Developmental Learners

White Paper- Dan kesterson

A shift in the reason most learners are coming to higher education has been occurring over the last 100 years. Today the main goal is social economic stability.

Large numbers of underprepared students are showing up at higher education doors hoping to better their economic futures. Higher education faculty with the with the support of administration and mandates by the legislature have put together sequences of developmental courses to help these learners have a better chance of succeeding. The problem is it just does not work and the reasons it does not work are not related to the learners’ abilities, The barriers seem to be time, not getting into gateway courses quickly, and not getting support when they do get into gateway courses. We have not caught up with what the research is tellingus. (see )

The longer the student stays in sequences of developmental courses the more likely it is that they will not complete (receive credentials or degrees). Developmental learners who complete gateway courses are more likely to succeed in their goals. Now many efforts have begun to help accelerate these learners in their path to completion through their gateway courses. Encouraging models suggest that these students can succeed in gateway courses if they have content and literacy skill support. This goal hinges on ensuring that learning is occurring; and therefore, the foundation of any support regardless of the form of delivery hinges on learning.

Accelerated Approaches

Accelerating learning models are based on getting the learner in a gateway course in their program of study during their first semester with support for learning. This approach takes many forms and is meant to replace sending developmental learners through sequences of developmental courses before taking a gateway course. This paper suggests a foundation for looking at gateway course support – developing competency in content learning

Keys to Competence and Rigor

In order to get support for engaging gateway course faculty in accelerated approaches involving their courses, which is necessary to bring the approach to scale, the gateway instructor must believe that the support underprepared learners will be receivingwill enable the learner to succeed. This is where the focus needs to shift from learning isolated skills to learning integrated skills for developing competence in an area of inquiry (gateway course). Again learning is key. The goal of learning can be shallow or deep. In order for the support to be deep, it has to be built around rigor - cognitive strategies and habits of mind that result in developing competence in the gateway courses. Competence isnot developed by learning isolated facts and ideas for a test. Competence is about learning in which that learned can be easily retrieved and transferred to new situations (application).

Research documented by Bransford (2001) has shown that in order for learners to develop competence in an area of inquiry, the learner needs to:

• Understand ideas and factsinthe context of a conceptual framework
• Organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application
• Develop a deep foundation of factual knowledge.

In building support for a gateway course, support whether, a team-taught course, a learning community, supplemental instruction, tutoring, or other forms of delivery, it must be built around helping the learner learn the content of the gateway course using cognitive strategies and habits of mind (mental processes) that ensure that learning is building competence in the area of inquiry. Every support activity should focus on ensuring that the learner is learning how to understand the facts and ideas in their gateway course in the context of a conceptual framework, and that mental processes are applied the help clarify and organize the information, as well apply mental strategies for moving the information to long-term memory in ways that facilitate retrieval and application.

A Hypothetical Accelerated Model

In this hypothetical model, the learners’ academic program plan (APP) includes the gateway course, sociology. The learner is developmental in reading and writing. Eight seats are reserved in every introduction to sociology class. The student spay for an additional three credits of developmental credit fro which they receive instruction immediately after the sociology class. (the hypothetical model is using sociology; however, any of the most taken courses by first time freshmen at Jefferson (ENG 101, history 104 and 105, psychology 110, or sociology 10) could substitute. The learner is placed in the sociology course paired with a combined reading and writing course as support for the sociology course and as a relevant means of improving reading and writing skills using the daily content of the sociology course. The main goal of both courses is to provide deliberate practice using cognitive strategies and habits of mind that result in developing competence in the concepts in sociology. The combined reading and writing course does not attempt to teach a series of isolated reading and writing skills, but focuses almost exclusively on “reading and writing to learn” strategies and practice with the daily content of the sociology course to develop competence, as well as communication skills to enhance learning. This requires abandoning all the isolated skills practice and old familiar skills instruction we have grown up with and adopting mental processes that build competency in the content of sociology. Again, this means providing the learner with practice with cognitive strategies and habit of mind that helps the learner:

• Understand ideas and facts in the context of a conceptual framework
• Organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application
• Develop a deep foundation of factual knowledge.

Of course, it would be great if the learner were also in an academic success course paired with the sociology and combined skills courses in which habits of mind (time management, homework, etc.) were not only taught, but tracked and evaluated in the sociology and combined courses. Content would be tied to application in the learner’s immediate world – the gateway course. It would be even greater if the academic success course taught the learners the processes of education and career planning.

The sociology and combined reading/writing courses are not taught as separate courses. The faculty in both courses must jointly develop integrated program outcomes, jointly plan curriculum, and jointly assess student learning and skill development. Learning how to develop competency in sociology is not just the role of the combined reading and writing course instructors; it is the main role of the sociology instructor also. It is uncommon for either the contentinstructor or the skills instructor to have had professional development in applying the research on developing competency in their professional development. Such an accelerated approach must be built upon solid professional development in competency learning. Whatever the learning outcomes of our former reading and writing courses were, throw them out if they do not specifically promote immediate application toward developing competencyin the gateway course by helping the learner understand ideas and facts in the context of a conceptual framework, organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application, or Develop a deep foundation of factual knowledge – go deep, not wide. In this model, the skills instructor and learners do not have time for learning separate isolated skills. Learning is hands-on and relevant to developing competency with the concepts being learned in the gateway course in real time and the learner needs to be learning how to use and practice reading and writing skills that promote that competency.

All gateway courses have a conceptual framework. In sociology, everything revolves around the interaction of groups or individuals. Therefore, all ideas and facts need to be always understood in the context of group and individual interaction. When culture is defined in sociology, the learner needs to understand how everything they have ever learned – customs, knowledge, material objects, behavior – impacts the interaction within groups or with individuals. When the learner learns about norms, folkways and mores, they need to understand how guidelines for behavior is related to behavior, which is part of culture and impacts how they interact with others. In other works the learner needs to understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework.

What are the mental processes that a learner needs to ensure that they understand the facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework. The daily content of the sociology class provides the learner the opportunity to develop the mental processes for understand in the context of a conceptual framework.

What are the mental processes and habits of mind that ensure that new concepts being learned are stored in long-term memory and are organized in ways that facilitate retrieval and application? (see rules of consolidation below)

Combine Reading and Writing to Learn Competency Skills

Combine reading and writing instruction to help the learner develop competence in sociology. What do “reading and writing to learn” have in common around learning? They are both about clarifying and organizing concepts. In reading to learn, the most powerful mental processes for moving new information from working memory to long-term memory is re-exposure with elaboration. Elaboration refers to any method of "thinking about new ideas and prior knowledge together" so the two become more deeply interconnected.Learning takes place when the new information becomes a part of the existing knowledge network. When elaborated and richly integrated, the new knowledge becomes meaningful and useful.

While in reading to learn, reciting and other mental processes are forms of elaboration, when combined with writing to learn, the elaboration process becomes very powerful in sharpening the literacy skills (reading, writing, and speaking). In the writing process, of clarifying and organizing the content being learned daily in the sociology class, internal dialogue is fostered (metacognition) and the external expression of that internal dialogue is writing to learn and in some cases, writing to communicate (expressing the relationship between new concepts and the overarching conceptual framework as teaching is one of the best ways to learn).

This model of competency-based combined reading and writing support can also support math courses, especially the quantities literacy skills. SO many math instructors and math students are so bogged down with procedural learning that literacy skill such as reading, writing, and speaking math or dipping into conceptual learning escapes them.

Why Writing to Communicate?

It can be used in the learning process when it is understood and used as an intermediate stage in the acceleration process to help students develop skills and habits of mind for developing competence in an area of inquiry. Within this model, writing to communicate as a tool for producing final product is not the point. .

All too often in education, we are focused only on final products: the final exam, the grade, the perfect research paper, mastery of a subject. But how do we get students from here to there? What are the intermediate stages that help students develop the skills and habits of master learners in our disciplines? What kinds of scaffolding enable students to move forward, step-by-step? How do we, as educators, recognize and support the slow process of progressively deepening students’ abilities to think like historians and scholars? (Bass and Eynon, Capturing the Visible Evidence of Invisible Learning, 2009).

Susan Headden wrote in her article, “In Learning-Focused Programs, Writing Skill Is the Last word” for Lumina, “The ability to communicate effectively—as a desired learning outcome of college, it is at the top of most educators' and employers' lists, right up there with critical thinking and analytical reasoning. Many even see it as the learning outcome that trumps all the rest. "Writing is not simply a way for students to demonstrate what they know," says The National Commission on Writing in America's Schools and Colleges. "It is a way to help them understand what they know. At its best, writing is learning.

Note: It takes a lot of practice before these learning processes become automatic and therefore useful. Note: there is a world of difference between writing to learn and writing to communicate or writing to demonstrate knowledge.

• Writing to Learn: in order to explain the matter to oneself.
• Writing to Communicate: in order to express the matter to others.
• Impossible to explain the matter to others before the student has explained it to herself.
• Course assignments generally focus on writing to communicate, rather than on writing to learn. This focus too often fails to consider the intermediate stages of learning, as it is product oriented.

Writing to Learn (WTL)

“This pedagogical approach values writing as a method of learning. When students write reactions to information received in class or in reading, they often comprehend and retain the information better. Writing can also help students work through confusing new ideas and apply what they learn to their own lives and interests. Also, because students write more frequently, they become more comfortable with writing and are able to maintain or even improve upon their writing skills. WTL assignments are typically short and informal and can be performed either in or out of class. Examples include writing and reading journals, summaries, response papers, learning logs, problem analyses, and more.” (Purdue Online Writing Lab)

Notes on Writing to Learn: Writing to learn is among the most important clarifying, organizing and constructing new meaning strategies that man has created; however, there are some boundaries within this model to help keep the focus from shifting from learning to producing final products.. “Writing to learn emphasizes what is said (new ideas and concepts) rather than how it is said (correct spelling, grammar, and usage). Often, less structured and more informal writing to learn can take forms such as journals, summaries, responses to oral or written questions, free writing, and notes.” (Literacy Matters). Focus on meaning and developing competence, not correct spelling, grammar, and usage in writing to learn strategies.

“All too often in education, we are focused only on final products: the final exam, the grade, the perfect research paper, mastery of a subject. But how do we get students from here to there? What are the intermediate stages that help students develop the skills and habits of master learners in our disciplines? What kinds of scaffolding enable students to move forward, step-by-step? How do we, as educators, recognize and support the slow process of progressively deepening students’ abilities to think like historians and scholars? (Bass and Eynon, Capturing the Visible Evidence of Invisible Learning, 2009).

Notes on the Rules of Consolidation

Rules of Consolidation – Manipulating and moving new information from working memory to long-term memory

• The First Rule: Deliberately re-expose yourself to the information if you want to retrieve it later.
• The Second Rule: Deliberately re-expose yourself to the information more elaborately if you want the retrieval to be of higher quality.
• The Third Rule: Deliberately re-expose yourself to the information more elaborately, and in fixed intervals, if you want the retrieval to be the most vivid it can be.

1. Re-exposure to information strengthens dendrites (learning) and helps build thicker insulation of fat around the axon of a brain cell resulting in faster processing and retrieval.
2. Re-exposure to information in which the learner elaborates about what they are learning can be a very powerful cognitive exercise for clarifying, organizing, and understanding new ideas in the context of a conceptual framework. Elaborations are mental strategies for interconnecting new information to prior knowledge.
3. Research has shown that there are time interval in which re-exposureto information results in increased learning.

• Time Interval 1: while reading
• Time interval 2: as you complete a reading selection
• Time interval 3: always within 90 minutes of encountering new information
• Time interval 4: within 24 hours

This is a white paper by Dan Kesterson, Jefferson Community and Technical College, Louisville Kentucky.