Piloting Acceleration for the LowestScoring Students Michelle Gonzales

Piloting Acceleration for the Lowest-Scoring Students Michelle Gonzales, Karin Spirn, Catherine Eagan Conference on Acceleration in Developmental Education June 25, 2015

Overview ● Las Positas College piloted an accelerated pathway for our lowest-scoring students ● The students took the next-higher class, along with a support sidecar course. ● Students in this pathway doubled their rates of college English eligibility in half the time.

Las Positas College ● Livermore, CA ● Fast-growing, rural/suburban community ● Between San Francisco and Central Valley

Las Positas Students ● ● ● 8500 Students Recently named a Hispanic Serving Institution 42% White, 29% Latino, 16% Asian, 4. 5% Afr. Am. Relatively Affluent Community 38% Low-Income Students 66% place below transfer-level in English

LPC Basic Skills English ● Reading & writing integrated at all levels (no separate courses or faculty) ● Two placements for students who don’t qualify for college-level English: onesemester sequence (104) OR two-semester sequence (100 A, 104) ● Most developmental students (56% of all students) begin one level below ● Basic skills courses are 4 units, 6 hours a week, Pass/No Pass ● Highly collaborative faculty, teaching a shared curriculum that focuses on integrated reading and writing skills ● Support from instructional assistants who work closely with faculty and students. ● For 104: Holistically graded reading and writing finals ● For 104: Altman et. al. ’s Sentence Combining Workbook (4 th ed. )

English 100 A (2 Levels Below Transfer) ● Students score under 63 on both reading and writing on Accuplacer. ● Our data from before we added a cut score showed that these students did have lower pass rates than higher-scoring students. ● However, their pass rates were the same (about 60%) whether they took 100 A or 104. ● This suggests that they could be just as successful in the higherlevel course. ● We might help them better by giving them more support during a single semester, rather than over two semesters.

Outcomes for Different Starting Places Over the last decade, students who start one level below transfer have gone on to complete the first semester of college English (English 1 A) at much higher rates within three years. ● Starting at 2 Levels Below: 35 -48% ● Starting at 1 Level Below: 67 -68% Among those who do enroll in college English, students who started one level below pass the course (within three years) at rates equal to or higher than students from the longer path. ● Starting at 2 Levels Below: 81 -89% ● Starting at 1 Level Below: 87 -89%

Acceleration Through the Sequence

Pilot Overview ● Students placed two levels below (100 A) are allowed to register for one level below (104) ● They must also register for a 104 W skill-building workshop. ● This workshop provides students with extra help with reading, grammar, and writing and also devotes attention to affective issues that can interfere with success like lack of confidence, fear, study skills, and time management ● The 104 W skill-building workshop is taught by their 104 instructor ● Each workshop has 10 students ● The workshop can meet either directly before or after 104, twice per week

Support Lab (104 W) Assignments ● ● ● ● Schema building Reading activities Summarizing/paraphrasing practice Reviewing essay instructions Brainstorming essay topics, write essay outlines Reviewing essay structure, paragraph structure, how to write a thesis Reviewing graded quizzes Going over exercises in Sentence Combining Workbook ● ● ● Revise sentences in essay draft with attention to sentence combining Identify fragments and run-ons in writing; use sentence combining strategies to revise them Weekly progress reflections: challenges, successes, helpful assignments

Model Paraphrase and Summary Original Passage Many autistic children crave pressure stimulation even though they cannot Tolerate being touched. It is much easier for a person with autism to tolerate Touch if he or she initiates it. When touched unexpectedly, we usually withdraw, because our nervous system does not have time to process the sensation. One autistic woman told me that she enjoys touch, but she needs to initiate in order to feel it. Parents used to report that their autistic children loved to crawl under mattresses and wrap up in blankets or wedge themselves in tight places, long before anyone made sense of this strange behavior. (101 words) Paraphrase: captures the all information from the original in roughly the same number of words Even though many children with autism don’t like being touched, they still crave touch. Some can deal with being touched if they asked to be or expect it, if it’s their idea. Otherwise, unexpected touch will cause a startle reaction. This startle reaction happens because the nervous system is unprepared for the stimuli. One woman with autism told Grandin that she likes being touched, but it has to be her idea or she won’t even feel it. Long before sensory issues in children with autism were understood some children would crawl in tight spaces and under mattress or wrap up in blankets. (102 words) Summary: captures just the main ideas from the original passage and usually in fewer words Children with autism, like all people, need touched, but they don’t like being touched unexpectedly. Being touch unexpectedly will cause a startle reaction or in some cases panic. Panic from unexpected touch is a result of the nervous system being unprepared for the stimuli. Before sensitivity to touch in children with autism was understood, their parents reported them hiding in tight spaces as a way to get touch-like pressure. (69 words)

Paraphrasing and Summarizing Practice Paraphrase: to capture the exact ideas words of another in your own words, usually roughly the same amount of words. Summarize: to capture in writing just the main ideas of the words of another, usually resulting in a shorter passage. Paraphrasing and summarizing are ways to demonstrate that you understood what you read, and both take practice. It’s very easy to accidentally plagiarize when paraphrasing or summarizing. Plagiarism happens when you use too many of the author’s words (use of key words is acceptable) and/or when you copy the author’s sentence structure. This happens when students use the original sentence structure and simply substitute synonymous words into the original structure of the sentence. When summarizing, it is generally unacceptable to quote the text. When you feel the urge to quote the text, it can be an indication that you did not understand what you read well enough to put it in your own words. Write one summary and paraphrase the passage included below from Chapter 3, “The Squeeze Machine” from Thinking in Pictures by Temple Grandin. Paraphrasing: You will do your best paraphrasing if you read the passage several times carefully, look up any unfamiliar words, annotate, digest what you read the best that you can, and cover the original passage when you write your own so as not to copy. Many autistic children crave pressure stimulation even though they cannot Tolerate being touched. It is much easier for a person with autism to tolerate Touch if he or she initiates it. When touched unexpectedly, we usually withdraw, because our nervous system does not have time to process the sensation. One autistic woman told me that she enjoys touch, but she needs to initiate in order to feel it. Parents used to report that their autistic children loved to crawl under mattresses and wrap up in blankets or wedge themselves in tight places, long before anyone made sense of this strange behavior. (Grandin 58) Include your paraphrase below: Summarizing: You will do your best summarizing by rereading the passage and determining its main ideas and putting those main ideas into your own words. Include your summary below:

Writing & Annotating Summary with Students

Students Commenting on Coordination and Subordination in their own essays

Student Writing ● Most students in the accelerated pathway performed comparably on their essays to students who were in the regular 104 population. ● Some students struggled with incorporating ideas and quotations from the reading assignments.

Sample Student Writing -- Essay #1 This student is a generation 1. 5 and reported having had been diagnosed speech issues in elementary school. This paragraph holds together well, but it lacks development.

Essay #2 -- Same Student In this paragraph, the student gets better at developing her ideas, using more sophisticated sentences and sentence structure. The paragraph has been truncated, but it it goes on much in the same way, ending with a weak pcs.

Essay # 3 -- Same Student

Some students wrote strong essays at the beginning. This student had generation 1. 5 grammar issues but strong writing skills, and expressed disappointment with her low placement.

This student, who had a learning disability, wrote pretty well about a personal topic.

But struggled with later essays responding to texts. This was a common trend.

End of Semester Student Reflections, Fall 2014 Placement “At first I was upset when I got placed in 104/104 W for English. But now that I have gone through the course I’m really happy I was in it. . . I feel that 104 W has prepared me for my future English class. ” Confidence and Classroom Climate “English 104 W helped me with speaking up in front of my classmates. ” “Being able to talk and express my ideas in a safe environment was also very helpful. ” “What 104 W helped me with the most would have to be a place where I come after class and be more comfortable with asking questions and not be afraid to say what my writing problems are in front of a big class. ”

End of Semester Student Reflections, Fall 2014 Reading “Over the course of 104 and 104 W, I don’t feel as scared and insecure about trying to come up with a good thesis or conclusion when creating an essay. ” “Even though we did learn how to annotate in 104, I felt like the extra work for annotating in the 104 W class helped me a lot because we did sentence by sentence. ” “Now I can read an article and summarize it in my own words without a problem. ” Another help this class gave me was the confidence in my reading assignments, when we would look over the same reading in 104. ” “I know I have control over my reading after English 104/104 W made me understand how important annotating is. ”

End of Semester Student Reflections, Fall 2014 Writing “One of the areas in my writing that I didn’t have control over before was controlling my ideas and staying on topic. I feel now that I am able to see when I am getting off topic, and I am now able to fix that. Another area I improved on was in my reading. When I am reading now I know how to highlight and understand the material better. ” “At first I didn’t think using transition words would help or not, but the little things make a difference. My strengths that have improved this semester is sentence combining and applying them to my writing. ” “I feel like my essays writing skill are strong now, but not enough to finish college. English 104 W helped me a lot with the other class (English 104) with basically it

End of Semester Student Reflections, Fall 2014 Writing Continued “Over the past four months my writing was bad. I did not know how to write a proper essay. I feel like over the months my writing got better by learning things like PIE and doing outlines for the essay. ” “An area I did and still do not have full control over is my writing skills. It is difficult for me to get my ideas out on paper even to outline. ”

Follow-Up Questionnaire: What was helpful about 104 W? ● Going to 104 w helped a lot because the teacher went over examples and since there was a few of us there she could come around more. ● I belive I have learned a lot about writing essays, with correct grammar. ● all of them, the whole class in general. ● Preparation for the essays. Writing introductions in class. The writing tips with the pie. ● I believe that learning how to outline an essay was one of the more helpful way to help me start an essay. ● we reviewed everything that we did in 104 so it helped a lot.

If you didn’t pass, why not? ● My job got in a way and when i needed the help i couldn't stop by Ms. Spirns office to ask for the help i needed. ● I did not pass the class because i didn’t not put enough effort and time into it. I also missed a couple classes and that really hurt me.

If you are in 1 A, do you feel prepared? ● i am prepared because it is a lot similar to english 104. I understand a lot more then when i learned it the first time. ● yeah I feel like it helped me a lot specially with writing essays. ● I feel comfortable in English 1 A. For reading, I would take notes and mark on the margin of the book. We have written 3 essays so far in the semester, and I used a lot of the PIE structure in my essays. ● I believe i would have been ready for class 1 A i think my job in the way and i couldn't really show my potential.

Your greatest challenge in English 104? ● My greatest challenges were the tests and the sentence combining work book since i had to run to work i had questions and i couldn't really ask for the help. ● I think the greatest challenge I faced in 104 was reading Temple Grandin's book. It was sorta difficult for me to understand, but with breaking down paragraph to paragraph, it was easier for me. ● the amount of work ● writing essays. they are a weakness for me and I’ve always struggled with writing them ● I believe the greatest challenges I have experienced is not being able to write about a topic in my own words. ● Well in 104 I was having trouble understanding the workbook because some of the examples weren't clear. But w 104 was really helpful with that

Results Success=Passing

Results Fall 2013 (Pre-Pilot): ● 150 students enroll in 100 A (2 levels below transfer) ● 44 (29%) passed and were eligible for 1 A in two semesters Fall 2014 (First Pilot Semester) ● 30 students enroll in 104/104 W (one semester below transfer plus support class) ● 20 (67%) passed and were eligible for 1 A in one semester That’s double the success in half the time!

What We Learned About Students ● ● Students were excited about the opportunity to accelerate. Most students placed in 100 A were capable of 104 work with extra support. Some students seemed capable of 104 work even without extra support. Some students seemed to be misplaced because they had trouble with the assessment test for various reasons (generation 1. 5, didn’t realize the purpose of the test)

What We Learned About Students Cont’d ● Most students absorbed lessons on essay structure quickly. ● Reading was a major area of struggle. ● Many students lacked confidence or needed extra help understanding directions or expectations. ● Students reported that help in these areas (confidence, understanding directions) was the greatest benefit of 104 W. ● Most students who did not pass had learning disabilities or non-academic issues such as illnesses, commute difficulties or family problems.

What We’d Like to Improve ● ● Marketing and recruiting Better LD identification and support Clearer pathway for non-passing students Reduce reflection fatigue

Next Steps ● Broaden multiple measures for assessment ● Future of 100 A (2 -levels below): Should students have an option not to accelerate, or should all students accelerate? ● Should we try an acceleration model one level up (104/1 A)? ● Work with campus DSPS to better place and support students with LDs

Thank You! Elena Cole Catherine Eagan Katie Hern Rajinder Samra Michael Sato Meghan Swanson California Acceleration Project

Contact Michelle Gonzales mgonzales@laspositascollege. edu Karin Spirn kspirn@laspositascollege. edu