Developmental Education Redesign

The Developmental Education Redesign component of the Title V grant focuses on developing and piloting accelerated and adaptive developmental curriculum to assist students in progressing to college-level work and graduation. To acheive this goal, the grant provides support to allow faculty to explore new instructional strategies to increase student course completions through workshops, conferences, research, and training. After training, faculty  will experiment with a variety of technology and teaching approaches in their course redesign to positively impact student learning.

Clovis Community College offers several developmental education classes in mathematics, English, and reading. Students who are enrolled in developmental courses are also enrolled in a Freshman Seminar (ACS 102) course, which was redesigned in the summer (2016). In each area of developmental education, faculty are instrumental in diligently planning a course redesign which will not only make the course more engaging, but will also keep students on a path of course completion and re-enrollment.

Developmental Math

The mathematics team of Donna Pharies and VK Bussen are collaborating in implementing changes within the Math 096 and Math 098 courses. The two instructors attended a Jensen Brain Based Teaching workshop over the summer to identify techniques in improving student learning and attitudes towards math. The instructors are exploring the options of:

• modifying the environment with music at the beginning of a math session,
• breaking the instructional cycle into 20 minute segments that include breaks or active moments, and
• peer tutoring among class members.

Still in the development stage, Pharies and Bussen are planning on moving the developmental classes to an online venue, where students have deadlines but also have the ability to move forward in the course. After completing Quality Matters training, the instructors will design the develomental courses to meet the CCC Course Review process.