Acceleration strategies help advance student academic, career goals.
Submitted By: Emma Diaz
San Bernardino Community College District
Type of Practice: Program Development / Curriculum / Classroom
Program Area(s): ABE / ASE, ESL / EL Civics / Citizenship, CTE / Workforce Prep / Pre-apprenticeship
Region: Inland Empire
Consortia Involved: San Bernardino Community College District Consortium
Program Overview
The Inland Adult Education Consortium (IAEC) piloted three student acceleration models during the 2016-17 program year: a cohort model, co-location of services and a noncredit boot camp.
The Challenge
Of particular challenge to the Inland Adult Education Consortium (IAEC) was the CAEP requirement that consortia develop “plans to employ approaches proven to accelerate a student’s progress toward his or her academic or career goals, such as contextualized basic skills and career technical education, and other joint programming strategies between adult education and career technical education.”
The Solution
To meet the challenge, IAEC approved funding for three nationally recognized acceleration strategies: a cohort model, co-location of services and a noncredit boot camp. The Inland Career Education Center implemented a cohort model for its GED preparation course. Students in the cohort advanced as a group through the academic preparation course of study. Cohorts provide greater academic and emotional support for students compared to individual study. In co-locating services, Redlands Adult School moved all programs to the local Regional Occupational Program facility to provide ease of access for students to both adult basic education, high school diploma and high school equivalency programs and career technical education (CTE) certification courses. Also, San Bernardino Valley College opened an intensive, six-week mathematics boot camp for students scoring at the 95th percentile, or higher, on the Accuplacer. The ALEKS adaptive instructional math program was used as the curriculum.
The Outcome
Each of the three pilot programs was so successful that the consortium will continue funding for them during the 2017-18 program year. A greater percentage of students in the cohort model passed GED tests than the prior year when the model was not in effect and all boot camp participants went on to enroll in credit-bearing college courses.
The Data
Specifically, 55 percent of cohort participants passed the GED Tests, compared to 36 percent in the prior year. Co-locating services at the Regional Occupational Program helped facilitate enrollment in CTE courses for 50 of the 432 students enrolled at Redlands Adult School, and the boot camp was a success in that 100 percent of the participants enrolled in credit-bearing college courses, helping the consortium to meet the CAEP goal of accelerating students’ progress toward their academic or career goals.