Transitioning Developmental Education students to college requires connections with the college faculty, administration and staff as well as a systematic approach within the program itself.

1. Transitions from stumbling blocks to stepping stones
Lucy Tribble MacDonald
lucy@lucyonline.com

2. Stumbling block here is the gap.
We need to develop a connection with the
college and connections with college
faculty, administrators, counselors and
staff.

3. Stepping Stone #1 - Be visible on
campus.
Example: Office area in different locations
Benefits:
• De facto consultant for that program
• Easy way to build relationships with
faculty
• Perceived a “real” faculty

4. How does the campus perceive you?
How do they refer to your program?
Is it still remedial reading?
“Perception is real
even when it is not reality.”
-- Edward de Bono

5. Is it still remedial reading?
Stepping Stone # 2: Speak Academic.
Get help with Stanislas Dehaene’s
– Reading in the brain:
The science and evolution of a human
invention
– Number Sense: How the mind creates
mathematics

6. Coordinate Services with your program
– Advising
– Counseling
– Distance Learning

7. Advising
Stepping Stone # 3
Coordinate and integrate advising
Example: Pre-tech program

8. Distance Learning
Stumbling Block:
We don’t recommend online classes for
those students.

9. Distance Learning
Stepping Stone:
Design online classes specifically for
development students.
http://www.lucyonline.com/mnade

10. Counseling
Stepping Stone:
Can you refer students to me?

11. Stepping Stones
within your
Program

12. Stumbling Block:
Which stepping stone is first?
Aha. The placement test will
tell us. Right?

13. Stepping Stone:
Schedule various levels at the
same time to allow for
adjustments of placement
without rescheduling.

14. Stumbling Block
“We do not ensure a
seamless transition.”
-- Hunter Boylan

15. Stepping Stones:
Exit level standards for one
level course are consistent
with the entry level for the
next level course.

16. Stumbling Block
“ We do not train adjunct
faculty teaching
developmental courses.”
-- Hunter Boylan

17. Stumbling Block
“... Only 35% of
developmental courses in
the community colleges are
taught by full time faculty.”
-- Hunter Boylan

18. Stepping stones:
• Develop online training courses
• Provide incentives for
participation
• Provide training manuals
• Provide mentors
-- Hunter Boylan

19. Stepping stones:
• Provide a formal plan for
training adjunct faculty in Math
• Ties together Developmental
Math and the Math department
-- Selina Vasquez Mireles

20. Stumbling Block:
Reading is the invisible
curriculum.

21. Stepping Stones:
Analogous to Thinking
Edward de Bono’s explanation of
thinking

22. Stepping Stones:
Our brain was not designed for
reading, but recycles some of its
circuits for this novel cultural activity.
--Dehaene

23. Contextual Reading
Reading Scenario
“I have a Master’s degree in
Reading, why can’t I read my
computer science textbook.”

24. Contextual Reading
McWhorter, Kathleen T.
Academic Reading.
Pearson.
Customized.

25. Contextual Reading
Academic Reading
• Social Sciences
• Business
• Humanities and the Arts
• Mathematics
• Natural Sciences
• Technical and Applied
Fields

26. Review the journey
Thank you
Lucy Tribble MacDonald