San Diego Mesa College: History, Process, and Progress

1. San Diego Mesa College: History, Process, and Progress PegahMotaleb and Wendy Smith Accelerated Reading, Writing and Reasoning Enrollment and Success in Transfer English Students in the Accelerated course placed lower in both writing and reading courses: • 47% placed at 2 levels below in writing • Compared to just 18% of non-accelerated students • 28% placed at 2 levels below in reading • Compared to 9% of non-accelerated students • In other words, accelerated students placed lower but succeeded better. The accelerated cohort is not composed of high-assessing students (as some detractors suggest). Fall 2010 and Spring 2011 Cohorts Accelerated English Students – Two Levels Below Transfer in Writing • How we’re proceeding: • Reviewing assessment and placement • Redesigning curriculum pathways • Recruiting students • Getting faculty buy-in • Highlighting financial sustainability • Negotiating administrative logistics • Presenting actionable research (Edgecombe) Non-Accelerated English Students – Two Levels Below Transfer in Writing • Fall 2010: 2 of 3 colleges in the San Diego Community College District piloted Accelerated Basic Writing: • Open-access • one-semester • 4-unit course • Integrates reading and writing (based on Chabot College model) • Since 2010, San Diego Mesa has offered 34 courses. Cohorts were tracked for five semesters after their initial enrollment in the target basic skills English course. The data above shows four years of progress (still winning!) in offering an accelerated basic writing course that takes the place of up to four courses in the old pathway below 1A. Since we are only working with two starting cohorts, our sample size is only 57 students. Nevertheless, the small sample shows our accelerated course is more effective. Six exit points are eliminated for some of our most vulnerable students (those who scored low on Accuplacer), in both reading and writing. Works Cited Edgecombe, Nikki. "Accelerating the Academic Achievement of Students Referred to Developmental Education." Working Paper No. 30. CCRC Feb. 2011. Hays, Brianna. SD Mesa College Research Report. June 2014. Hern, Katie. Chabot Acceleration Report: 3CSN, 2011. • Throughout the sequence of developmental and transfer-level English courses, students develop increasing mastery in college-level academic literacy, specifically the ability to: • Independently read & understand complex academic texts • Critically respond to the ideas and information in those texts • Write essays integrating ideas and information from those texts (Hern). California Community Colleges’ Success NetworkCalifornia Acceleration Project