Strengthening Developmental Education Reform: Evidence on Implementation Efforts

• In Event: Roundtable Session 30
  In Roundtable Session: Developmental Education and Community College Reform

Abstract

A host of recent innovations seek to alter the structure, curriculum, and/or instructional practice of developmental (remedial) education in effort to improve the continuously low student success rates in these courses. However, research indicates that most of these models result in modest and short-term gains. We suggest that vulnerabilities in the implementation process undermine the potential impacts of these innovations. Therefore, we need to better understand and address the stubborn obstacles to improvement in order to optimize these types of instructional innovations. Based on an instructional scan of developmental education reforms and qualitative fieldwork, this paper illustrates the dominant trends among instructional reforms in developmental education and proposes a concrete framework for reform implementation and broader organizational capacity.

Authors

• Maria S Cormier, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Susan Bickerstaff, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Nikki Edgecombe, Teachers College, Columbia University