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tag: Developmental education

Blog Post
December 14, 2015

A Low-Cost Solution to Math Problems?

Summer bridge programs are a popular approach to helping students close gaps before they start their first year of college. These intensive, four to five week interventions aim to address multiple areas of academic need. Research suggests that summer bridge programs can help students start college on stronger footing, at least in the short term, although benefits fade by the end of two years without additional support. Because of their financial and time costs, summer programs are not a practical…
Research Report
December 14, 2015

Can Online Learning Improve College Math Readiness?

Randomized Trials Using Pearson’s MyFoundationsLab in Summer Bridge Programs

Far too many students in the United States start their postsecondary education without being able to demonstrate the skills and knowledge deemed necessary to succeed in college-level math. Colleges and universities have traditionally dealt with this problem by placing students in full-semester developmental courses for which they must pay full tuition but do not receive college credit. It has become clear, however, that this approach has serious drawbacks, as students who start out in remediation are far less likely to…
Blog Post
September 10, 2015

Developing a Strategic Focus in North Carolina’s Community Colleges

With 58 schools that enroll more than 800,000 students annually, the North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS) is the third largest system of higher education in the nation. The prospect of getting such a large and complex system to align on anything would strike many as unrealistic. Yet, NCCCS’ efforts to establish a strategic focus on access, excellence, and success has permeated the priorities of both the System Office and institutions throughout the state. NCCCS has achieved more than mission-alignment,…
Case Study
September 10, 2015

Reshaping System Culture at the North Carolina Community College System

With 58 schools that enroll more than 800,000 students annually, the North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS) is the third largest system of higher education in the nation.[1] In 2010, NCCCS embarked on SuccessNC, a strategic initiative focused on sharing best practices, developing performance-based student success metrics, and testing system-wide policies to improve student access and success across all NCCCS schools. The SuccessNC initiative states that its ultimate target is increasing “the percentage of students who transfer, complete…