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The Transitional Initiative at Pellissippi

Revised June 2010 (Image byVEX3D.com)

There are no human problems that cannot be solved byhuman ingenuity. The best solutions are those which create abrighter and better future than if the problem had never arisen inthe first place. This is one such solution; a dynamic approachto the delivery of developmental studies that addresses critical

pressures in the field and, simultaneously, sets the stage for anew level, and a new kind, of student success.

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Overview

This document is intended to contextualize, articulate and promote the mission ofthe recently redesigned Transitional Studies Department (TSD) of Pellissippi CommunityCollege the Transitional Initiative at Pellissippi - both within the College and abroad.

In particular it is hoped to familiarize our own faculty with the research, strategiesand philosophy underpinning the TSD structure, curriculum and approach. (What are wereally doing? Why are we doing it this way? And how do we know that it works?) And, itis hoped, it will provide a starting point for the dialog and exchange of ideas that are at theheart of the next phase of the Initiative.

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Table of Contents

Page No.

Overview/Introduction 2

Table of Contents 3

Part One: Articulating ChangeThe Shape of the Problem 4How We Got Here 5Then It All Changed 7

That Was Then. This Is Now 8Meeting the Challenge 10Mapping the Challenge 12

A Brief History of Our (Transitional) Times 13Re-evaluating the Role of Remedial Studies 14Education to Manage Change 15Its Not You, Its Them 16

Why Success Does Not Always Succeed 17

Part Two: Designing the Change We Want

The Transitional Initiative Stage One,From Developmental to Transitional Studies 20Redesigning Delivery: An Integrated Department 21

A Curriculum for Transition 21Stage Two, Redesigning Ourselves 24

Intended Outcomes 26 Aims and Objectives of the Transitional Initiative 27

Future Directions: Stage Three? 28

Works Cited 29

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Part One: Articulating Change

Confronting the Problem

A national, debt-fuelled recession has undermined every states funding of public

and social programs and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Education

budgets, already stretched to their limits, will somehow have to stretch still further.

Concurrently, colleges and universities are experiencing significant yearly increases in

student matriculation. The highest demand is for community college places.

Developmental programs, in particular, are under pressure to accommodate a high

proportion of non-traditional students looking to better their prospects through higher

education and this trend will certainly continue.

Historically, community colleges have provided the only college accessavailable for students with low academic skills. As the number of students increases,those students needing basic skill development will increase as well. College boundpopulations with the least access to a high quality K-12 education that is, minorities are most likely to feel the effects of this reality(Roueche, Creative CommunityCollege 11).

The problem with which colleges are now wrestling, is how to square the circle of

increased demand, (for teachers, classrooms, resources, program improvements), and

decreasing budgets without sacrificing either the quality of the programs offered or the

availability of student places. Developmental programs, in particular, are already under

pressure to produce results in as little time, and with as little cost to the student, or grant

maker who pays for these non-credit courses, as possible. And the pressure can only

become greater. Success will require economic or operational contortions with a Houdini-

esque ability to overcome these constraints.

The Transitional Initiative at Pellissippi (TIP) is a redesign of previous

developmental studies programs but it is one that redefines both the practice and scope

of its predecessors. Its innovation lies in combining existing, tested and successful

educational strategies with the findings of its own, continuous, reflective practice to

produce a leading edge, integrated, holistic and highly responsive approach to the design

and delivery of developmental studies. This makes Pellissippi one of the few community

colleges, nationally, to implement the entire range of established best practices in

developmental education.

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In place only since 2008, it is already showing measurable successes. In 2009, for

example, the retention rates of developmental students exceeded those of non-

developmental students for the first time. This should be a matter of keen interest to

education boards, college administrators, department heads and faculty alike, since it may

well be that the long term success of any community college as a whole, as well as of the

wider community, will be dependent upon the success of its developmental studies

program. As startling as this claim may seem, it is the simple, and inescapable, outcome of

the demographic and economic shifts of the past half-century.

Colleges who place developmental education at the center of their missionexperience improved student retention Developmental education has societalbenefits as well. Spann (2000) suggested that remedial education is in everyones bestinterest. If just one in three developmental students taking at least one remedial

course were to graduate with a bachelors degree, they would reciprocally generateover $74 billion dollars in federal taxes as well as $13 billion in state and local taxes(Roueche, Creative Community College 11).

How We Got Here From a Certain Viewpoint.

"Our schools are ... factories in which the raw products (children) areto be shaped and fashioned.... And it is the business of the school to build itspupils according to the specifications laid down (Ellwood P. Cubberley).

Our model of compulsory, school-to-workplace education has been tailored to and by

the demands of the marketplace, and specifically the labor market, since the industrial

revolution. Until the third quarter of the twentieth century, that market required a large,

and largely unskilled labor force to service the manufacturing and industrial bases of the

United States. Thus, for most of the 20th Century, the western model of education and

employment was industrial and predominantly feudal.

Addressing the New York City School Teachers Association in 1909, U.S. President

Woodrow Wilson expressed succinctly what would become the continuing policy of

successive administrations:

We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very muchlarger class of necessity, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education, and fit themselves to

perform specific difficult manual tasks

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By political design, therefore, the largest - and economically essential - class of workers

was to be educated, generation after generation, for a lifetime of unskilled or semi-skilled

employment. Public schools would teach good citizenship, patriotism, basic numeracy and

literacy and the ability and willingness to accept spoon-fed information without

question, to memorize and follow instructions and to tolerate the high boredom levels

associated with repetitive, drill-and skill based tasks.

This picture of traditional public education, though unflattering, can be corroborated

by anyone who has experienced a public, grade school education. And familiar as it is, its

defining features are seldom identified for what they really are the prerequisites for

preparing an entire class of people to fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual

tasks.

It is a true feat of social engineering that, even today, so many educators and students

alike should view boredom, unconscious, mechanical repetition and the uncritical

acceptance of information and opinion, not simply as necessary evils but as an intrinsic

part of the reality of getting an education. Yet these are the very antithesis of what

education is about indeed of the definition of the word itself. What they do characterize,

however, are the necessary qualities for the unskilled or semi-skilled worker, for a life on

the factory floor, in the assembly line or at the coalface.

A minority of students, on the other hand, either through inherited privilege or

exceptional aptitude, would receive, (and presumably continues to receive), the liberal

education that the many had to forego. A liberal education is designed, as the Latin

educare, implies, to draw out qualities of critical thinking, self-expression, ingenuity and

initiative, to challenge as well as to inform. The class of those thus liberally educated

would be self-selecting by virtue of being able to pay, or to obtain funding, for the

privilege. And from this self selecting class, would be drawn those who were to meet the -

proportionately tiny - social requirements for the highly skilled, the intellectual, the

analytical and the expert, the managerial, the directorial and the gubernatorial of society.

In other words, the large, unskilled and minimally educated majority would provide

the labor base that drove the economy while the wealthier, better educated and relatively

tiny minority directed the social, spiritual and commercial life of the nation.

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This was the educational model that served the economic life of the nation as a whole

and served it well, or at least effectively, until the end of the 20th century. But it also,

consistently and unremittingly failed the many students who were too bright, too

individual or too intellectually idiosyncratic, (different from the norm), to learn by rote

and repeat without understanding, to retain large numbers of facts or blocks of

information and to absorb, uncritically, whatever material might be presented to them.

Then It All Changed

In 1956, the number of white collar jobs for the first time exceeded the number of

blue collar jobs in the United States (Naisbitt J. Megatrends). The end of a two hundred

year era had arrived; the Industrial Age, along with its economic and social models, wasdying. Though computer based technologies were still in their infancy, manufacturing and

heavy industries had begun disappearing to be replaced by soft or service industries.

The industrial age pyramid, with all of its hierarchical demands and endowments, had

begun to collapse.

At the time when the US Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, fully 90percent of all employment in this country was in agriculture. The great majority ofpeople lived and worked on farms At the end of World War II, the United States led

the world in its industrial manufacturing capabilities. In the years immediately afterthis war, manufacturing industries grew so that well over half of all jobs were in themanufacturing category. This is no longer the case At the current time, only about2% of the US workforce is directly engaged in agricultural jobs, and fewer than 16% ofthe workforce hold industrial manufacturing jobs (Moursund, David).

In the 1980s, computer technology finally happened - a technology that had been

dawning since the 60s, when it filled the popular imagination with robots and space cars

and an increase of leisure time in which workers would enjoy the reduced hours and

higher incomes of an automated work place. But instead of spreading the wealth and theleisure, automation merely increased the numbers of the unemployed amongst the

unskilled, laboring or blue collar classes and drove down wages.

A new labor market, however, was beginning to take emerge and this new market

evolved so rapidly that within two decades, the former, pyramid-shaped social model was

completely reshaped.

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That was then. This is now.

There have been dramatic changes in the structure of employment in many

countries in recent years. A key aspect of this has been the upskilling of the workforceas employers have shifted their demand requirements to employ more workerspossessing higher educational qualifications and with higher skill levels. A by nowlarge academic literature has documented the changing demand for skills in manycountries and has looked at the key factors underpinning the observed changesSome of this work uses evocative phrases like collapse in demand for the unskilled,the deteriorating position of low skill workers and rapidly rising wage gaps betweenthe skilled and unskilled, all of which are in line with the notion that very large shiftshave occurred

What is interesting, and by now well known, is that, despite their increasednumbers, the wages of more skilled workers have not fallen relative to the less skilled.In fact the opposite has occurred and wage gaps between graduates and non-graduatesrose in both countries (UK and USA) albeit at a faster rate in the US (Machin,Stephen).

In practical terms what this means is that the good old days, when a single wage from

one unskilled or semi skilled worker could comfortably support an entire family, have

been replaced by an era in which the traditional - the unskilled or semi skilled - worker

faces uncertain employment, low wages, hardship and possible poverty while the new,

upskilled worker requires a higher level, and indeed a different kind of education from

that provided by grade school.

Going from high school to the workplace today simply isnt a rewarding, long-term

option. As one Pellissippi student expressed it, In todays world, its either say hello to

college or else say, Welcome to MacDonalds .

For almost a century, the public education system has excelled at doing precisely what

it was designed for - educating workers for a specific role in the economy of the nation.

But, this role no longer meets the current, and pressing, national requirements. The

system, slow moving it is, cannot adapt quickly enough to the rapid and complete about

face of its political mandate. Indeed, the present, widely advertised, crisis in public

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school education1 is the result, not of any longstanding failure of our schools to do what

was required of them, but of a sudden and dramatic change in the social imperative.

The almost universal misapprehension that all our school children received, (or,

indeed, were ever supposed to receive), the benefits of a liberal education now fuels theoutrage, in some sectors, at the revelation that schools have long been churning out

graduates who could barely read and write, let alone provide the skilled workforce that

our new world demands. But until the social imperative changed into one that actually

required educational excellence, perhaps only educators recognized, or were truly

perturbed at, the gap between the promise and the reality, between the ideals of education

and the policy of social engineering.

The cry that schools have not been doing their jobs is both untrue and unfair. They

have done exactly what they were designed to do. What is true is that schools have not

been doing what we need them to donow - what we have been merely pretending that they

were supposed to do for the past one hundred years.

If we are unable to substantially close the existing skill gaps amongracial/ethnic groups and substantially boost the literacy levels of the populationas a whole, demographic forces will result in a U.S. population in 2030 with tensof millions of adults unable to meet the requirements of the new economy(Kirsch, Braun, Yamamoto & Sunu 24).

History, it seems, is not without a sense of irony, for the future of the nation now

depends on providing that very class once denied a liberal education with precisely the

kind of education it was required to forego. And in the dawning light of this new

paradigm, at least one naked emperor stands revealed. This is the absolute, mutual

incompatibility between the qualities essential for unskilled workers and those that

represent the ideals of a liberal education.

Habituation to boredom, drill and skill memorization, subordinated and uncriticalthoughtcannotcoexist with creative, reflective, critical, independent and original thinking.

Training in either will inhibit or destroy the other. Of course, in the manual labor

dependent, industrialized, manufacturing world, that incompatibility was an important

factor in the design of educational programs. After all, what employer wants a distracted

1Citingfiguresinsupportofthiscrisisisconsideredunnecessaryatthispointastherealreadyexistsalargeandwell-knownbodyofevidence.

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and day dreaming poet operating dangerous machinery, or a lunch-time philosopher who

can identify and describe social injustice organizing a union?

The incompatibility between education and habituation should be as obvious as that of

fire and water and yet, while we extol the ideals of liberal education, (apparently assumingthat our own ideals will sanctify the educational process), educational practice in grade

schools continues to drill and kill the capacity for real thought.

In post secondary education the need to articulate this incongruity is pressing, since it

speaks to a situation now faced in community college classes across the nation. The college

students today who fume with silent hostility, who demand in outrage that we simply tell

them which book and which page to go to, to learn the right answers, who want to be

shown step by step, the process that you, their teacher, use to arrive at the answer (your

the teachers - answer for there is not and never has been such a thing as their answer),

who want to know what to write so that they can write what you want, these students are

crippled thinkers. They have been crippled systematically, in the same way and for much

the same reason that farm birds have their wings clipped.

...the greatest danger to the survival of civilization today is not atomic warfare, not environmental pollution,not the population explosion, not the depletion of natural resources, and not any of the other contemporarycrises, but the underlying cause of them all--the accelerating obsolescence of man (sic)... The only hope nowseems to be a crash program to retool the present generation of adults with the competencies required tofunction adequately in a condition of perpetual change. This is the deep need--the awesome challenge--presented to the adult educator by modern society (Knowles, Androgogy Versus Pedagogy).

Meeting the Challenge Who Can and Why.

What all this means is that we face a remediation project of massive proportions. It is

no less than the task of instituting, nationally, real programs of education, whose

aspirations are truly those of scholarship and academic achievement, for the first time in

our own history. Where it must and will begin, is within post-secondary education because

it cannot begin anywhere else with speed and efficacy.

Public school systems are by nature, and probably by design, conservative, with a

small c. Without top down, government imposed program changes2, it can take more

than a decade before social or academic change is reflected in school policy or in the

curriculum.

2Andtheseoftenowemoretopoliticalposturingthantheneedsofeitherstudentsorteachers.

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It has been known, for instance, for schools to continue to teach abandoned scientific

or historical theories until the generation of teachers who learned those precepts during

their own college - or high school - days is replaced by a generation who learned, and so

teach, more current theory.

Moreover, any widespread recognition of the shape and impact of social change, will

always take time. History tells us that it is after the fact, when change is already reshaping

our world, (and very often when it is too late to take the appropriate action), that we

recognize what a shifting paradigm means for our lives and our social structures. We do

not anticipate change; we react to it and then only after we have recognized its

implications. The new landscape of employment in the USA is only now being widely and

definitively recognized and described. We are, as a nation, still in transition from the old

paradigms to the new.

In other words, in the face of a revolution in the 20th century labor market, (and thus a

fundamental alteration in the social and functional role of education), the conservatism

inherent in the public education system is compounded by an inevitable lag time between

significant social change and general recognition of that change. The inherently

conservative, massive public school system was not designed to change and adapt faster

than the general consciousness of the nation it serves. And it is not positioned to do what

our economic revolution requires produce a completely different kind of worker and do

it fast.

Colleges and universities, by comparison, operate at the other end of the spectrum.

They are up to date with current theory and practice because they are engaged with the

communities in whose fields they teach. Often radical in their thinking, and certainly more

inclined to be experimental in their practice, most have already embraced and become part

of the technological transformation of the workplace.

Community colleges in particular have been positioning themselves for decades to

meet the massive demand for re-education which, it could be reasonably foreseen by the

1970s, would follow the shift from manufacturing to service industry, from heavy industry

to technology based industry and from unskilled to skilled labor. By doing so they have

placed themselves in a pivotal position within a transitional society. They have shaped

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themselves to the role which grade schools once fulfilled, educating for the labor market

a new, skill hungry, initiative seeking and ingenuity greedy labor-market. 3

High school graduates have been realizing this in massive numbers, as have

workers in low paid or low prospect jobs without the competitive skills to seek promotionor better employment. And college enrollment figures reflect that fact; they are

skyrocketing.

Mapping the Challenge - Dimensions of the Learning Gap.

The realpolitik presently faced by community colleges, and particularly by their

departments of developmental studies, then, looks like this. Where public schools,

conservative with a small c, have continued to educate in the traditional manner, (drill

and skill), for the traditional model, (a labor pyramid with that large unskilled workforce

at its base), a high percentage of students still complete high school without the skills or

intellectual training necessary for either college or the professional job market.

Few of these students would have considered either thirty years ago. Many are

doing so today. When they arrive in our college classrooms they bring with them, born of

their public schoolroom experience, expectations about the process of learning and what

constitutes intellectual and academic proficiency that fall far short of the reality of college

level education.

The difficulties they will face in college are not only reflective of the different kinds

of intelligence, (learning styles), nor of the cultural diversity common in developmental

classrooms. Frequently, they reflect a history of failure or a habit of antipathy or resistance

to a system of education by which they have felt tyrannized. Whatever the causes, for very

many of these students the result is a deeply seated, academic deficit.

We are seeing them in ever increasing numbers: students who are often bright and

able but without the foundation skills required to undertake associate level courses, and

3There have always been those who rejected education as social. (See, Illich, Gatto et al.) One teacher told me, I stole arealeducation for my high school students. For them, asserting any relationship between marketplace and academiamay seem abhorrent, endorsing that same violation of true academic purpose and freedom that has characterizedAmericas public school programs. Self evidently, however, schools and colleges will obtain better funding and supportby demonstrating that theydo meet the needs of the economy. So it requires to be said that, while the needs of theeconomy coincide with the objectivesof a real education, we no longer need to steal that education. We need onlyexplain its benefits in terms that the business community can understand - and we owe it to our students to do so.

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unprepared even for a pre-university, pre-vocational, college curriculum.4 These are

developmental students. They begin at a massive disadvantage, sometimes as successful

test takers with a high GPA and a commensurate indignation at being labeled

developmental, but always with the expectation that we can and will prepare them for

success in obtaining either a university degree or professional, vocational training.

They present the community colleges with one of its greatest challenges - that of

transforming large numbers of unprepared, non-traditional, high school graduates into

college candidates with the appropriate skill-sets, including strategies for self motivated

learning and practice in critical and creative thinking. They must do this within the

confines of extremely limited budgets and time frames, and while the numbers of such

students continue to rise exponentially.

A Brief History of Our Transitional Times.

The National Association for Developmental Education (NADE) definition andgoals statement adopted in 1995 states that developmental education promotes thecognitive and affective growth of all postsecondary learners, at all levels of thelearning continuum Traditionally perceived as programs and services for students who are provisionally admitted to institutions of higher education or consideredacademically at risk, developmental education has emerged as a field that endeavors

to meet the diverse academic needs ofall students seeking to educate themselvesbeyond the high school level (Higbee Jeanne L. and Dwinell Patricia L. TheExpanding Role of Developmental Education). (Emphasis added.)

Remedial Studies once simply finessed the lacking components, for instance, in an

English students math skills or vice versa. As non traditional students began to enroll

in increasing numbers, it was felt that the term remedial studies carried unfortunate

connotations, connotations that there were deficiencies in the students themselves that

required to be remedied. Remedial studies gave way to developmental studies whichbrought with it a well supported curriculum for developing essential academic skills and

for closing the gap between the educational profile of many high school graduates,

4In terms of mindset, self-reliance, and creative and critical thinking skills, this picture is just as descriptive of

the non-developmental student as it is of the remedial student.

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returning adults, ethnic minorities and that which is required for a college, entry-level

student. But the emergence of developmental programs was, and to some extent remains,

controversial.

The stereotypical criticisms run something like this: Why should states pay forschool education programs and then pay again for colleges to provide the same

instruction? Instead of funding developmental programs, why not invest in improving the

schools? Arent these programs just another way for colleges to grab much needed

education funding away from schools? What do they teach anyway? Why arent they

sticking to the 3 Rs?

In reality, these are questions that the speed of change ought to have left behind.

They have become anachronisms as the map of the worlds knowledge, skills and skill

requirements has changed out of all recognition and at a speed that no one could have

predicted. But, though it has done all this in plain sight, the shape, scope and implications

of the change remain unrecognized by many, including some traditional educators. Thus

the old, familiar map of the known world continues to chart the proper course of what is

tried and true, trusted and good in education - through a terrain which no longer exists.

And the questions continue to be asked. However,

...Work in developmental education has matured intellectually to the point where

we must be overt in theorizing our enterprise so that our research and curriculumstudies can compete with each other for credibility in full view of the assumptions thatare their intellectual foundation;

...Attacks on developmental education are very easy to mount when the groundsfor discussion are subject to redefinition at the whim of every legislator or academic

vice-president who questions the value of our practice. That is, we need to know whywe do what we do, and we need to say these things aloud (Higbee and Dwinell, TheExpanding Role of Developmental Eucation).

Education to Manage Change

The idea of worldwide competition for jobs is not entirely new, but it has certainlygrown in the past few decades and is continuing to grow. This raises the issue of whatconstitutes a good education for today's students. This is a difficult question. A goodanswer might include ideas such as:

1. Education in people skills, preparing a person to interact comfortablywith and work with people from throughout the world. This includeslearning a second or third language and culture.

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2. Education in making effective use of Information and CommunicationTechnology tools and ideas to solve problems and carry out tasks. Often

this will include being a member of a teamperhaps with other teammembers disbursed throughout the world.

3. Education in learning to learn and in being an independent, intrinsicallymotivated, lifelong learner who deals effectively with change.

4. Education to understand and to contribute to efforts to solve long-term problems such as global warming and sustainability. (Moursund,David)

These learning outcomes may sound like airy ideals. They are not. They are the

sine qua non of the skilled professional demanded by the new global market and of the

citizen required by our global community.

We live in a world in which social and business transactions are international;

technology is the currency of social and economic interchange and we are as involved in

global events and relationships as we are in those that are local. The economicand social

requirement is for participants capable of innovative thinking and problem solving within

the new paradigms of our global village.

Re-evaluating the Role ofTransitional Studies.

Thus, it can argued that Transitional Studies stand at the cliff edge of the

U.S. economic disaster predicted if we cannot close the gap between the need for qualified

professionals and the number of those candidates available. It is also obvious that our

global village requires a new kind of citizen; the international and environmental

problems and challenges we face today, will require as much human ingenuity and

creativity as we can, collectively, summon up. Critical reflection, self awareness,

imagination, ingenuity, adaptability and self-reliance, these attributes - incompatible with

the designed outcome of our public education/social engineering system - demand to be

developed, and quickly.

Of course they ought, always, to have been at the foundation of education. Now

they must be developed in the teeth of twelve or thirteen years of grade school training in

the passive absorption and repetition of the predigested thought, and thought processes, of

others.

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Hence, the task faced by all developmental programs is much more than

remediating our students missing language and mathematical skills. The imperative is to

prepare them, not only for the next set of college courses, but for a place in the world

entirely different from the one for which they were educated... the place that no longer

exists.

It is not surprising that a heightened interest in the possibilities of success and the

consequences of failure with at-risk students is driving unprecedented investigation into the

way colleges embrace remedial education; it is surprising that it has taken so long to occur.

It is clear that if community colleges do not better address remedial education, this country

will suffer enormous consequences (Roueche and Roueche).

Its Not You, Its Them: Perceptions of Developmental and Transitional Students.

In the 1990s, a Japanese doctoral student, (now a professor of my acquaintance),

undertook to teach developmental math classes in an American community college. He

hoped and believed that he could do some good for the 60% of students who routinely

failed these courses. But at the end of his first teaching semester, he found that under his

tutelage even fewer than the expected 40% had passed.

Deeply distressed, he went to the Chair of the department and offered his apologiesas well as a promise to do better in the future. Dont worry about it, he was told.

Things will get better. In the meantime, this senior academic urged the young instructor

not to blame himself. The failure was not his. Its not you, said the Chair. Its them.

Remedial students face particular learning challenges5. One of those challenges,

and not the least important, may be a pre-existing self-fulfilling, (self-perpetuating),

prophecy (SFP) as to their intrinsic ability or lack of ability - to succeed academically.

Expectation, as we now know, is inextricably bound to outcome (Rosenthal R. and

Jabson L, inPygmalion in the Classroom). Developmental students usually arrive with their

own, pedominantly poor, SFPs already in place. But the real question here is, What are

our expectations of developmental students? And the answer is crucially important.

5Itisassumedthatreadersarefamiliarwiththedifferentprofilesoftheremedialstudentandtheyneednotbeiteratedhere.

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Perhaps, more explicitly we need to ask, What blueprints for success or failure do

our unconscious expectations embed in the teaching of developmental students? The

difficult truth contained in the anecdote about the young math instructor, is that the

unspoken story (or set of unexamined assumptions), within the educational world often

labels developmental students lazy, uncooperative, slow, stupid, or even un-teachable. It

has usually done so long before they arrive in college. And our developmental students are

well aware of it.

Here is another difficult truth; while any stereotype persists, the attempt to identify

it as such will be met with rejection, hostility, defensiveness and anger. Thus the

persistence of a stereotype, most easily viewed with hindsight, is notoriously difficult to

identify while that stereotype is still under siege.

It was, for example, extremely difficult and took several decades to bring an entire

educational establishment to the understanding that dyslexia has nothing whatever to do

with intelligence or the lack of it. The stereotype of the stupid, recalcitrant or lazy (in

reality dyslexic) student, which dismissed the potential and blighted the lives of so many,

is now very largely demolished. It may take a similar crusade to convince the same

establishment that resentment, disinterest, laziness and a complete absence of either the

self motivation or the critical faculty essential for students pursuing a higher education, are

more reflective of the failure of a nineteenth century, Germanic education system than of

widespread intellectual or moral defects in the students themselves.

Historically, of course, a few decades and the overthrow of one more stereotype

later, the memory of an old, blind prejudice stirs no more than a baffled shake of the head.

But we do not have a few decades and the siege has a very long way to go.

The TIP, both in theory and practice, assumes that the stereotype of the

developmental student isnotfact based. Put another way, the Initiative challenges the

traditional story about developmental students. It is predicated on the idea that students

who have previously failed academically may succeed where different and more

appropriate teaching methods and approaches are adopted. And it is meeting with

measurable success.

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Why Success Does Not Always Succeed.

The greater the success of this approach, the stronger the argument becomes that,

at least in part, the responsibility for student failure lies elsewhere than with the students.

And human nature being what it is, perhaps its too much to expect a universalendorsement of outcomes that speak to the unrecognized failures of our past.

It is not really surprising, therefore, that the markers of success recorded by the

Transitional Studies Department at Pellissippi, have appeared, at times, to be as

unwelcome as the andragogy it employs.

What is unwelcome is rarely investigated. And whether for this reason, or another,

while the architects of the T.I.P. have been identifying, applying and building on

discoveries about developmental teaching and learning, the evidence-based researchbehind their approach remains unknown to a high proportion of college faculty.

It is interesting to note that although this body of knowledge has been available, it has notbeen widely used by practitioners. The authors observations from statewide studies of remedialeducation in Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Texas suggest that fewer than halfof the faculty teaching remedial courses are trained to do so or use the literature of the field toguide their practice. Providing effective remediation is not a mysterious proposition. We knowhow to do it. We simply do not use what we know. (Boylan, What Works in Remediation).

In the meantime, the debate over appropriate methods of developmental teaching

is, in many respects, becoming redundant as success rates confirm some strategies and

discredit others. Yet it continues fiercely in the space between the results of the research

and knowledge of them. The classroom lecture as primary teaching mode, for instance, has

already proved ineffective for transitional students and while a weight of research exists to

showing whatdoes work for these vulnerable students.

Students in remedial courses have been lectured to in the past without much effect. If traditional teaching methods had worked for these students, they would not be taking

remedial courses. Consequently, Roueche and his colleagues argued for the use of a wide variety of teaching techniques featuring class discussions, group projects, and varioustypes of mediated learning.

Again, these early findings have also been validated through later research

Perhaps one reason why this finding has appeared consistently in the literature has todo with the learning styles of remedial students. The body of research suggesting thatremedial students learn in ways not accommodated by traditional instruction has beengrowing. Canfield (1976), for instance, found that students enrolled in community college

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remedial courses were much more likely to be either iconic (visual) or hands on learners than other students. Using a modified version of the Kolb Learning Styles Inventory,McCarthy (1982) found that weaker college students tended to be more visually orientedor more inclined to learn through direct experience than other learners. Lamire (1998)cited half a dozen studies of community college students indicating that a dominantlearning style among them was visual followed by what he referred to as haptic or learning

by doing. Apparently the use of a variety of instructional methods, particularly those usingvisual or hands on approaches to learning were more likely to appeal to the learning stylesof students typically enrolled in remedial courses.

Another early finding from the work of Roueche and his colleagues was thatremedial courses were most effective when they are based on sound cognitive theory(Roueche, 1973; Roueche & Wheeler, 1973; Roueche & Kirk, 1974). Citing the work ofBruner (1966) and a variety of other instructional theorists, Roueche (1973) argued thatremedial instruction should be systematic and clearly based on what we know about

how people learn (Boylan). (Emphasis added.)

Clearly, re-employing teaching tools that have already failed for developmental

students, (even with extra assistance to enable students to adapt to and benefit from

them), is an exercise in futility. And no college department, least of all TS, can afford the

luxury of continuing to use teaching models which have already and demonstrably, failed

their students. To do so is to refuse to recognize or be willing to heal the damage that

thirteen years of indoctrinary education may have done. It is to continue to insist that the

students fit themselves to the molds of others rather like the old schoolroom practice of

insisting that a left-handed student become right-handed. This would be not only morally

reprehensible, but also economically imprudent since our students are, in fact, clients.

Upon them the existence of our department, our college and every faculty job within it,

depends.

Thus within the TSD, the development of effective teaching labs and educational

communities with multiple modes of learning, is an ongoing process. Continuing this

development of successful models is imperative. Doing so effectively, however, will

require a department united in its commitment to the mission of the department and of the

T.I.P., and consistent in its application.

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Part Two: Designing the Change We Want.

The Transitional Initiative Stage One: From Developmental To Transitional Studies.

If colleges are totally committed to being successful with at-risk students, they must be preparedto think holistically. At-risk students come to college with such diverse needs that stand-aloneservices or classes no matter how successful in helping at-risk students will not achieve acolleges larger goal of retaining these students and helping them achieve their own goals ofimproved performance and academic success. A successful learning lab, a strong readingprogram, or an excellent mathematics program, if offered as a stand-alone instructional serviceor class, falls far short of the broader institutional commitment that colleges must make(Roueche and Roueche, High Stakes, High Performance.)

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1. Redesigning Delivery: An Integrated Department.Students participating in centralized remedial programs were found to be more likely to

pass their remedial courses and more likely to be retained for longer periods of time than students participating in decentralized programs. (Boylan, R., What Works inRemediation)

In 1999, a study commissioned by the American Association of Community

Colleges (Rouche) found that the success of developmental studies programs depended on

integration, the interconnection of all developmental courses within a complete and

holistic program. The method of delivery was not the crucial factor; that was the

interconnection - the coordination and communication that create a united and integrated

program out of the disparate developmental courses. This could be achieved most easily,

of course, through centralizing the developmental program, and all of the associatedcourses, within a single department.

2008 saw the creation of the Department of Transitional Studies at Pellissippi State

Community College in what can considered the first stage of the Transitional Initiative at

Pellissippi. The new Department replaced the previous, developmental studies programs

in which the various courses fell under the auspices of various and separate academic

departments. In the new department, developmental math, English reading, writing and

college success courses, operate together and there is ongoing investigation into methods

of increasing the degree of inter-relationship between the courses.

2. A Curriculum for Transition

The integration of developmental programs was accompanied by a redesign of

classrooms and curricula to reflect the mission implied in the title, Transitional Studies.

These are curricula designed for students transitioning from one mindset, outlook and set

of expectations to another, a program for the development of critical thinking, self-

expression, observation, reflection analysis et alia. In practical terms the Transitional

Studies Department has recognized a single, fundamental truth; remediation of math or

language skills alone, is the treatment of a symptom, not a cause. Unless we can teach our

studentshow to learn and how to embracetheir own learning process, they will struggle

with any academic or vocational course on which they embark.

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It can never again be a matter of simply teaching formula calculation to a poor

math student. Along with competency in quadratic equations, for example, the course

syllabus is designed to deliver the lesson that comprehension is the province of each

student, that the failure to comprehend is the responsibility of that student rather than of

the teacher and that the remedy for lack of comprehension lies in seeking out explanations

and resources wherever they may be, rather than in waiting for a teacher to ensure that

the student has understood the lesson. In other words, the syllabus and its delivery aim to

instill the foundation of independent thought, the realization that learning must be active,

something we do, instead of something done to or for us.

This shift in emphasis from content specific to process based outcomes has

necessitated a corresponding shift in the Traditional Studies Department syllabi which, in

turn, has altered the relationship between the TSD and other College Departments - most

notably those departments of which it was, until recently, a part and which its programs

once served exclusively.

Traditionally, developmental courses prepared students specifically to tackle the

college-level reading and writing assignments of ENGL1010, and MATH1010. They were

designed to teach to the syllabi of those courses. While the standard for TSD course

completion remains the preparedness of the student to enter college-level math and

English courses, the TSD syllabi and their delivery modes must now function as more

than adjuncts to the College entry level, 1010 courses.

They must be bridges for their students to the whole of academia, capable of

closing the gap between the fundamentally opposing demands of secondary and post

secondary education. (And welcome or not, the fact is that the greater the demand for

original, creative thinkers in our nation, the more TSD will be required to fulfill that

function forallpost secondary students, not just those with academic deficits.)

So it has become increasingly important to the success of the TSD curriculum toextend the horizontal, collective interface beyond the boundaries of TSD faculty, to the

faculty of the college as a whole. In this way we can better inform a curriculum designed

to prepare students for the range of intellectual challenges at college level. This approach

is all the more persuasive in light of the fact that students will encounter math, reading,

and writing assignments within the curricula of practically every department on campus.

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A TSD writing class, for example, while still teaching the English 1010 objectives,

might include assignments drawn from the Liberal Arts, Business, Psychology or Biology

departments. This ties the syllabus to the students next college steps and, potentially, to a

chosen career path both preparing the student for future coursesand providing an element

of personal relevance within the writing course. And personal relevance has been shown to

increase both student engagement, (with improved learning outcomes), and retention.

Thus the TSD curriculum, delivery methods and strategies reflect a careful

implementation of current best practice in developmental education. They are already

consciously and deliberately responding to the changed and changing requirements of our

students, their ambitions for themselves and the hope that they may offer to our world.

The next stage of the Initiative will involve the creation of a dynamic within TSD

capable of unifying the department, instilling a department-wide mode of reflective

practice and consistently identifying and building on the best of developmental teaching

theory and practice.

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The Transitional Initiative - Stage Two:

Redesigning Ourselves.

Watching a flock of dozens or even hundreds of birds can be amazingbecause the separate birds often move as if they possess a single mind. What'smore amazing, bird flocks often move harmoniously without any sort of leader orexternal cue, especially when they are traveling over short distances. Studying birdflocks may seem to be the exclusive domain of ornithologists. But physicists toohave become captivated by the remarkable ability of birds - and many other livingcreatures - to move flawlessly as an organized group Studying the incredible featof how hundreds of birds can move as a single unit, physicists have devised adetailed theory of the flocking process. Their theory can potentially be extendedto... any collection of independently moving animals, including humans, which rely oneach other's cues to move as a group. ( Birds Of A Feather: The Physics Of Flocks, from theAmerican Institute of Physics).

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Given the pace of change, the department must also construct itselfso as to be able

to adapt to rapid change, change in the student body and change in the demands that are

made of it. In practice this will mean the implementation of several strategies, each

informing the other. In stage two, it is proposed to combine the highly successful and now

widely adopted strategies of reflective teaching, action research and collaborative teaching

within a formal, departmental interface. The plan is to create a dynamic that gives the

entire department access to the sum of contributions that may be made by individual

faculty.

Two important principles underpin the creation of this departmental interface:

first, that collaborative learning is as powerfully effective within the teaching community

as it is in the classroom; second that human experience, insight and ingenuity will always

represent our most important and potentially transformative resource. It follows that our

own faculty, (including the large body of adjunct faculty), represents a huge and largely

untapped resource.

For example, the ability of the department as an entity to cross reference the sum of

its experience and to articulate and assess that experience as a body may inform the

experience and advance the practice of all involved as well as allowing senior faculty to

design, deliver or modify policy, content and strategy quickly and effectively.

The simple mechanism at the core of the model can be described as a feedback loop.

It is anticipated that this will be implemented through a number of networking structures

(including an online forum), and through practices such as co-teaching and mentoring as

well as real time faculty meetings. It entails shared observation, (difficulty, success, failure,

inspiration and even intuition), over the department, with verified feedback being

reflected in departmental policy i.e. responsive practice - which can then be refined

again by the observations of faculty.

The loop thus represents a dynamic and fluid, self-sustaining and generative

process. It is a system that is horizontal i.e. collective and collaborative - as well as

hierarchical, that is organic as well as structured. In a flock of birds, or a school of fish,

this type of modus operandi is called convergence, a process by which each member of a

group operates both individually and in consonance with the larger body.

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Intended Outcomes.

1. Rapid identification and implement exponential improvements in policy,method and practice across the transitional studies program.

2. Organic and responsive, rather than reactive strategies. It will ensure, forinstance, that marked changes in student demographics or educational

preparedness are identified quickly so that appropriate adjustments in policy or

practice can be designed and implemented before problems arise rather than as

a reaction to them. (This is what we mean by responsive policy rather than

reactive policy.)

3. A coherent and self-renewing resource. The collective abilities, experiences andcreativity of the entire department will be quickly and easily accessible to seniorstaff through a manageable, structured medium.

4. Collegiality As all faculty feedback will help to shape departmental program, itwill be easier for the entire department to understand and to feel involved in

departmental policies.

5. This will inevitably create a sense of unity and, it is hoped, a sense of beingstakeholders in the program with a direct impact on, (and responsibility for), its

success or failure. Thus it will help to increase the personal motivation of each

faculty member which, in turn, is liable to improve the success of the courses

overall.

6. We will see a departmental sense of collegiality in place of the isolation,described by one math teacher as the teaching bubble, experienced by many

faculty members. Individual faculty will be validated and supported by the

departmental community, encouraging a culture in which the exchange of

ideas, reflective practice and collaboration can flourish.

7. Because the loop will enable the exchange of useful strategies, it should lead tothe obsolescence of the almost universal, extremely wasteful need for each

instructor to have to reinvent the wheel as he or she deals with problems and

challenges in isolation and invents solutions that other faculty have previously

discovered and implemented.

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Aims and Objectives of the Transitional Initiative at Pellissippi.

To develop and provide teaching strategies that will transition students from thecondition of passive subjects of a process required for specific academic progression, to

active and engaged owners of their own, dynamic learning process;

To create dimensions of success greater than those measured by test and exam resultsalone such as: increased educational engagement, (including improved retention),increased reflection and critical awareness, self-empowerment, lifelong learning,confident, and original thinking, leadership, creativity, self motivation;

To implement the best of the proven and effective models current in developmentalteaching and, through the operational design of the T.I.P., develop others that will helpto establish best practice in transitional education;

To encourage faculty to become familiar with best practice in the field ofdevelopmental teaching and to implement effective models in their own classrooms;

To encourage faculty to assist in acquiring new and deeper insights into the process ofdevelopmental teaching and in developing tools and strategies in the field through theirown practice;

To unite faculty in a common sense of purpose, of participation and 'stake-holding' inthe Initiative;

To serve these goals by creating a departmental dynamic which:is inclusive, operating across the entire department;is self-informing and self-sustaining;is responsive rather than reactive;generates natural, rapid responses to the challenges of transitional studies andprovides continuous and reliable feedback on all processes and strategies;

To create a sense of community throughout the department by provision of:an online platform where every voice can be heard,a formal 'feedback' mechanism by which all faculty influence policyand a mechanism of 'real-time' support and activities;

To assist all college faculty, and the larger educational community, in meeting thechanging demands of a large and rapidly increasing student population as it makes thetransition from one set of learning expectations and outcomes, to another.

To share with that community the discoveries and strategies of this program that haveproven effective for the development of active learners and critical thinkers.

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Future Directions: Stage Three?

Recommendations: Examine the essential characteristics and components of other institutions

successful remedial courses and programs, not necessarily in the interest of adopting their strategies,

but perhaps of adapting them. No plans are as appealing to implement or as successful as those that

carry the made here stamp; however, there are no reasons good enough and no time to reinvent the

wheel...

Employ a more collaborative effort to learn from each other. There is no reason to hang, separately or

together. Over the past few years, researchers have identified colleges with successful remedial

programs or program components. We believe that there are other successes that will remain

unknown because college leaders and remediation professionals either do not disseminate

information or do not disseminate it widely and effectively, (Roueche, High Stakes).

Establishing formal ties with other pioneering developmental studies departments

in other community colleges, especially those similar to the TSD, can extend and amplify

many of the benefits of the TSD loop. We cannot afford the wastefulness of reinventing

the wheel or of denying other colleges the benefits of discoveries made in our own

department.

In the long term, an expanded relationship with public schools will be increasingly

important. The TSD will be in a unique position to use the feedback gained from our own

faculty to evaluate the primary academic deficits and strengths of recent high school

graduates. The next step will involve feeding this information, along with successful

teaching strategies, back to the high schools so as to foster a pedagogy for active learning

and thinking in our grade schools.

To meet the ever increasing needs for the next millennium, developmental educationmust expand by joining elementary and secondary education to improve teaching andlearning at all levels; by forming partnerships with business and industry; by ensuring

that no American be denied an opportunity for a college education because of financialaid; by increasing the number and diversity of Americans completing training andeducational programs; by insisting that students be responsible for their learning and beaccountable for the quality of their academic programs and the assessment of theirlearning; by improving the productivity, the cost effectiveness, and the accountability ofdevelopmental education; and by embracing whole- heartedly distance learning that will

provide opportunities for a quality and affordable higher education for all Americans (T.Clifford Bibb in, The Expanding Role of Developmental Education).

The ultimate success of this initiative, would be an education system in which it

was no longer necessary to transition high school graduates to college readiness. But that

goal is, at least for the present, a distant one.

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Works Cited

Boylan, Hunter R. & Saxon, Patrick D, What Works in Remediation: Lessons from

Thirty Years of Research. (1999) National Center for Developmental Education.Cubberley, Ellwood P. Public School Administration, (1922)

Gatto, John Taylor,Against SchoolSeptember 2003, Harpers Magazine, New York.

Higbee, Jeanne L. and Dwinell Patricia L. (Ed). The Expanding Role of

Developmental Education, 1990, Georgia, National Association for Developmental

Education

Illich Ivan, Deschooling Society, 1971, London: Calder & Boyers

Moursund, David Information Age. IAE-Pedia Jan. 2009. Dec. 2009

Kirsch, Braun, Yamamoto & Sunu, 2007, cited in The Creative Community College.p10

Knowles, Malcolm S., 1970 The Modern Practice of Adult Education: Andragogy VersusPedagogy, Houston, TX: Gulf

Knowles, Malcolm S. 1978.The Adult Learner: A Neglected Species. Houston, TX: Gulf

Machin, Stephen. The Changing Nature of Labour Demand in the New Economy andSkill Biased Technology Change. Jan. 2002 London School of Economics (Revised).

Naisbitt, J. Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives, 1982, NewYork: Warner Books.

Rosenthal, Robert & Jacobson, LenorePygmalion in the classroom (Expanded

Edition), 1992, New York: Irvington

Roueche, John E. and Roueche, Susanne D. High Stakes, High Performance: Making

Remedial Education Work, 1999, Washington DC: Community College Press

Roueche, John E. and Roueche, Susanne D. The Creative Community College: Leading

Change Through Innovation, 2008, Washington DC: American Association of

Community Colleges