At community colleges across the Midwest, institutions are using technology platforms and corequisite teaching to dramatically alter the narrative about remedial courses.
Traditionally, students who are not ready to enter a college level course are required to take a remedial, or developmental course in math, English, or both if needed. According to a 2018 study by the Lumina Foundation, about 50% of students at two-year institutions needed to take a remedial course. But students who take developmental classes are also less likely to graduate. For those earning a two-year associate’s degree, only 9.5% graduated in three years, 4.4 percentage points less than those who did not take remedial courses.
Fifteen years ago, the college-level course completion rate for those who took developmental classes at Ivy Tech Community Colleges was only 30%. Ivy Tech is one of the largest community college systems in the country, made up of 19 campuses across the state of Indiana.
In an effort to move the needle on student success, Ivy Tech partnered with Achieving the Dream and Complete College America. Developmental courses, called prerequisite courses, were turned into corequisite courses, meant to accompany the student as they took their college-level class. Tutoring was also provided. Within one year of the switch, the completion rate for college-level courses jumped 20 percentage points.
Dr. Kara MonroeFor the most part, according to Dr. Kara Monroe, provost and senior vice president for student success at Ivy Tech, students like the change.
“In prerequisite model, where students took course after course, there were all these places for students to exit. Now they don’t have that,” she said. “These classes are happening in one semester, an eight-week timeframe. They may be frustrated during term, but they then get through that.”
Students are carefully placed in these courses. If students are recent high school grads with a GPA of 2.6 or above, or if a student has a high enough SAT or ACT score, they may proceed directly into college level courses. A student is able to self-place themselves if they wish, or “they can do a knowledge assessment and find their placement and try to improve that placement," said Monroe.
