Learning Communities for Students in Developmental English: Impact Studies at Merced College and the Community College of Baltimore County

Facilitating Student Learning Through Contextualization

“…Furthermore, contextualization is an important component of learning communities involving developmental education and college English courses (Fallon, Lahar, & Susman, 2009;Tai & Rochford, 2007;Weiss et al, 2010) as well as workplace literacy (Mikulecky & Lloyd, 1997). Regardless of the term used, all of these applications center on the practice of systematically connecting basic skills instruction to a specific content that is meaningful and useful to students.…”

“…A search for contextualization in the form of academic integration at community colleges in several states also found low usage (Perin, 2001). Although learning communities connecting developmental and college-level content courses have been described (Weiss et al, 2010), it is not known whether these efforts last only when external funding is available or whether they are becoming regular practice. If contextualization is rare, it may be because it is expensive; Jenkins, Zeidenberg, and Kienzl (2009) reported that a program integrating adult basic education and collegecredit occupational courses in the state of Washington received 75% more funds per student than did traditional basic skills and vocational courses.…”

“…Contextualized basic skills instruction involves the teaching of reading, writing, or mathematics skills against a backdrop of specific subject matter such as philosophy (Snyder, 2002), statistical process control (Baker et al, 2009), allied health (Shore, Shore, & Boggs, 2004), business (Weiss et al, 2010), history (De La Paz, 2005, and science. The primary objective is to teach the academic skills rather than the subject matter, although there may be some implicit learning of the content as students are exposed systematically to material in the same discipline as they practice the basic skills over time.…”

“…As passing the disciplinary courses needed to earn a desired college credential is assumed to be of considerable interest to students, the specific content of these courses can create a context for the learning of reading, writing, and mathematics skills that are authentic and personally meaningful to them (Kalchik & Oertle, 2010). The alignment and integration of developmental and disciplinary courses has been associated with positive student outcomes (Levin, Cox, Cerven, & Haberler, 2010;Weiss, Visher, & Wathington, 2010) and connections between basic skills and disciplinary learning are highlighted in the national literacy standards for career and college readiness (National Governors' Association and Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010). well as by a hand search of the journals relevant to the purpose of the study, including Community College Review, Community College Journal of Research and Practice, and Journal of Developmental Education.…”

The Impact of a Classroom-Based Guidance Program on Student Performance in Community College Math Classes

“…For example, a number of studies have examined the impact of combining advising with financial incentives for improved academic outcomes and have found positive program impacts (Angrist, Lang, & Oreopoulos, 2009;Brock & Richburg-Hayes, 2006;Scrivener & Weiss, 2009). Another approach has been to put students into "Learning Communities," a group of students who stay together for blocks of classes, where one of these classes is a "college success" course aimed at delivering timely advice to students (Scrivener et al, 2008;Visher, Weiss, Weissman, Rudd, & Wathington, 2012;Weiss, Visher, & Wathington, 2010). Rigorous studies of the Learning Community model have found modest positive impacts on progress through developmental math courses, and these effects tended to fade over time (Visher et al, 2012).…”