The Accelerated Learning Project (ALP) at the Community College of Baltimore County

 

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October 2009, Volume 12, Number 10

The Accelerated Learning Project (ALP) at the Community College of Baltimore County

by Peter Adams

When the English Department at the Community College of Baltimore County conducted several longitudinal studies, we discovered that only 27 percent of students enrolled in our higher-level developmental writing course passed ENG 101 within four years and that 73 percent either failed or dropped out of the writing sequence. Discovering such low success rates and such high attrition rates made us determined to find a more effective model for developmental writing.

We quickly became convinced that the approach known as mainstreaming was most likely to improve our results. One member of our faculty, Peter Adams, had been suggesting such an approach since 1993 when he proposed it in the Journal of Basic Writing. In January 2007, the department decided to pilot an enhanced version of mainstreaming that combines the best aspects of earlier programs with new features, adapted from acceleration models and learning communities, that seemed to promise stronger results.

The Accelerated Learning Program in Writing (ALP), our version of mainstreaming, has the following features:

• ALP students, even though assessed as developmental, enroll directly in designated sections of ENG 101.
• ENG 101 sections are limited to 20 students: 12 who place in ENG 101 and eight who are ALP students.
• ALP students also enroll in a linked ALP section.
• Enrollment in the ALP section is limited to the eight developmental students from the linked section of ENG 101.
• The goal of the ALP course is to provide whatever support is necessary to maximize the eight students' chances of passing ENG 101.
• The same instructor teaches the ENG 101 section and the paired ALP section.

We think this model is likely to produce even higher success rates than earlier versions of mainstreaming because of the following features:

• The ALP students take ENG 101 in a section with other students who are stronger writers and can serve as role models.
• The small size of the ALP sections (eight students) allows the kind of individual attention that increases success.
• The bonding of the ALP students with each other increases their motivation to succeed, their sense of a supporting community, and their attachment to the college.
• The students’ sense that the instructor is genuinely supportive and has the time to assist them provides increased confidence.
• Reducing the time it takes to complete the sequence of writing courses from two semesters to one makes it less likely that students will become demoralized and give up.

The results of the first year of the pilot were spectacular. We used the cohort of students who took the traditional developmental course one year earlier as a comparison group. That group consisted of 1,023 students; 604 (59 percent) of them passed the developmental writing course. However, only 383 (37 percent of the original cohort) took ENG 101, and 279 (27 percent of the original group) passed ENG 101.

Under the first year of the pilot, we offered nine sections of ALP and enrolled 74 students; 55 (74 percent) passed the developmental ALP course, and all 74 attempted ENG 101. These results are major benefits of the program: by collapsing what is usually a two-semester sequence into one semester and allowing the ALP students to take the developmental course (ALP) concurrently with ENG 101, there is no opportunity for students to drop out between courses. Of the 74 students, 42 (57 percent) passed ENG 101.

Although the number of students in the first ALP pilot was quite small, just 74, the results were fantastic. The success rate in ENG 101 was more than double the success rate for students taking the traditional developmental course, and the attrition rate was less than half.

In academic year 2008-09, we offered 20 sections of ALP, double the number of the first year. The extremely high success rates continued, as the following chart shows.

Chart 1: Success Rates Over Four Semesters of ALP

 

The data have made us aware of what we call the "pipeline effect." The longer the pipeline through which students must pass in order to be successful, the less likely they are to persevere and the more likely they are to drop out. We are especially concerned about the 221 students (22 percent of the original cohort) who passed the traditional developmental course but didn't attempt ENG 101. The ALP model, in which students take developmental writing and ENG 101 simultaneously, prevents leakage from the pipeline.

The ALP program produces a much higher success rate and a much lower attrition rate, but in order for it to be successful, it also must be financially affordable. At first glance, the small class size of eight in the ALP sections would seem to make the program extremely expensive. However, two factors make it slightly less expensive than traditional approaches. First, because the ALP sections are small—just eight students—and require only short writing assignments in addition to those in ENG 101, the faculty teaching them receive two rather than three credits of compensation. Second, because of the high rate of success, the cost per successful student is actually slightly lower for the ALP as compared to the traditional approach. Under the traditional approach, it costs .73 faculty credit hours to produce one student who passes ENG 101. Under ALP, it costs .70 faculty credit hours for each successful student.

In academic year 2009-2010, we are offering 40 sections of ALP, again doubling the number of students in the program, and in 2010-2011, we will offer 80 sections of ALP, for the first time accounting for more than half our developmental students. In addition, we have worked with four partner schools—El Paso Community College (Texas), Patrick Henry Community College (Virginia), Kingsborough Community College (New York), and Gateway Community College (Kentucky)—that are piloting ALP during 2009-2010.

Additional details about the program, including the calculation of the cost per successful student, can be found online at http://www.tinyurl.com/alp-ccbc, or email Peter Adams at padams2@ccbcmd.edu.

 

This post was provided by Peter Adams.

Posted by The League for Innovation in the Community College on 10/23/2009 at 4:24 PM | Categories: Learning Abstracts -