Developmental Education Committee

Meeting Minutes: February 7, 2005

Present: John Arola, Rody Bowers-Hughes, Barb Cox, Ann DeArmond, Kathy Grosh, Tracey Hammell, Georgia Robillard, Kristin Rust, Paula Young

1. Testing, Advising, Registration, and Petitions -
   Joni will be starting testing for summer and fall at the end of February. Concerns were raised about the large number of students not preparing for the CPT, as well as many saying they did not understand the importance of the test. Joni does emphasis this at the start of the test. Other ideas to help students with the testing:
   • Put importance message on test website
   • make practice test easier to access
   • include in the letter of test confirmation
   • clearer message at test time
   • organize an assessment task force to support Joni's efforts - John, Paula, Georgia, and Ann volunteered
   The large number of petitions this semester were largely due to first week testing in the reading and writing courses. From this testing, faculty found students who were registered for the wrong classes based on their initial assessment testing. This seemed to be a result of both online registration, advisement, and a number of other factors. Suggestions:
   • listing developmental courses separately on the schedule - although it might alleviate some confusion for students, they also might not perceive themselves as part of the institution
   • generating class lists prior to the first week of classes and identifying and contacting students who have registered incorrectly
2. Counseling needs -
   The developmental faculty are seeing more and more students who could benefit from personal counseling. John had 190 missing in action forms sent to him Fall semester, and many faculty did their own follow-up with students. It is important to identify student needs and to help students get the services they need early on. The committee strongly recommends the need for more counseling services. In an effort to be more available to students, John will be posting hours in the Learning Center.
3. Learning Committees -
   Information from the fall semester will be given to Sue in Institutional Research. So far, the collaboration of faculty has been the most observable result. Recommendations:
   • release time for participating faculty
   • survey students at beginning and end of semester
   • continue pre and post testing
   • work with registration and advising to ensure true cohorts
4. Schedule 2004-2005 -
   Recommendations for the best way to deliver 5 credit Reading courses:
   • Reading/Study Strategies I - 5 days/week, except for Learning Community class, which should be 3 days/week, as attendance was very poor on the days they did not have the writing course.
   • Reading/Study Strategies II - students may perceive themselves as more part of a college community if class is 3 days /week rather than 5 days as they experienced in high school.
5. A+dvancer -
   Committee members were urged to give support for this initiative to their IE representative. This program is a pre-test aligned with the CPT and is a diagnostic tool that identifies specific strengths and weaknesses and provides individual lessons for students based on their results.
6. ESL -
   Paula reported there are 7 very needy ESL students utilizing the Learning Center. A report from the ESL task force indicates the biggest hindrance to offering ESL classes continues to be the lack of understanding the numbers of students who could benefit from such courses.
7. Mission and Goals -
   John and Paula have given feedback on the current mission statement. They will work with Ann to re-write and possibly see about inclusion in the new catalog.
8. Other -
   Ann will be meeting with the advisors on Feb. 24th to explain the new reading curriculum and to answer questions on advising strategies for developmental students.

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