All About ALP: Co-requisite English Design and Its Benefits to Students

Recently, we have been providing training opportunities for all ENG faculty members regarding the co-requisite model we are implementing in the fall of 2018. 

This change is based upon the Accelerated Learning Program of Baltimore County, in which the Community College of Baltimore County determined to successfully move more students through the English pathway via a revolutionary new approach. Please visit their website for more information about the methodology and success of ALP programs in Baltimore County. You can also read more about the program at the Community College Research Center website.

Here at York Tech, we will implement ALP design for both ENG 101 and ENG 155. Here are a few key points about how ALP will change the way we currently offer the ENG sequence.

• ENG 032 will no longer be offered as a stand-alone course.
• RDG 100 will have very limited section offerings, primarily to target students who are required to take RDG 101. These students are majoring in Health Sciences, more specifically Nursing, Radiology, Dental Hygiene, and Medical Lab Tech. Of course, they only have to take these courses if they test into them on Accuplacer.
• ALP/co-req sections of ENG will be specially labeled in the system for identification by advisors. All ENG 101 ALP sections will be followed by the letter A. All ENG 155 ALP sections will be followed by the letter B. For example, ENG 101 may have ENG 101-003A that corresponds with ENG 032-003A. ENG 155 may have ENG 155-010B that corresponds with ENG 032-010B. 
• ALP sections of ENG 101 and 155 will be divided between students who placed directly into ENG 101 or 155 and students who placed into ENG 032. Only the students who placed into 032 will attend the co-requisite class. For a graphic representation of how this may look, please visit this ALP structure table.
• ENG 032 and RDG 100 will no longer be prerequisites for general education courses. Instead, students can take the ENG ALP course and register for other gen ed classes in the same semester.

The first level of developmental education for our department will remain the same.

• Students who test into RDG 031 or ENG 031 will continue to take those as stand-alone prerequisite courses.

Since this approach is very new to many teachers, here are a few common questions that people in the training sessions have had so far:

• What will grading look like? Grading for ENG 101 and 155 will remain the same. However, many of the assignments for the 032 co-requisite course will simply be completion or participation grades. Each module will include grades for prewriting/preliminary assignments and reflection. The co-requisite course will not have required tests or additional essays.
• What will we do in the co-requisite section? Activities and assignments should reflect the concepts and learning outcomes being taught in the curricular-level course. For example, if you were to consider Module 1 in ENG 101 where the focus is on the summary-critique essay, then in the co-req class you may do prewriting activities and critical reading activities or practice summary, textual support, or audience appeals. You may choose to have students write pieces of their summary-critique or compose lower-stakes pieces that will lead toward a better understanding of the summary-critique. Please remember that numerous activities and assignments for each course and module are located in the ENGFL Instructor Resources SharePoint, which is also linked into the D2L Course Shell for both ENG 101 and ENG 155.
• What if a student passes one course and not the other? If a student passes ENG 101/155 but not the co-requisite 032, then the student will be able to move forward to the next level. However, the student will keep that failing grade on his or her transcript. If the student passes the 032 but not the 101/155, the student will only take the stand-alone 101/155 in the following semester.

We realize that many questions will pop up over the semester as we implement this new model. Please feel free to reach out to anyone on the ENGFL leadership team with questions or concerns.

Thank you all for being a part of our team!

The Importance of Instructional Design

As educators, we are all familiar with the dreaded lesson plan documents that we feel obligated to complete so others can determine what we are doing in the classroom. However, lesson plans are not the true indication of how we assist students. Instructional design may be a more pressing matter for our attention than simple lesson planning. Your question now may be, "What is the difference between instructional design and lesson planning?"

Instructional design is a process initiated by teachers that targets deep and lasting learning and investigates the way students think, learn, and perform. Lesson plans, on the other hand, focus on the details of how a teacher will carry out a particular lesson in class on a particular day. Lesson plans are not synonymous with instructional design, as instructional design is focused on the student and his or her learning process, whereas the lesson plan is more of an agenda that explains how the teacher will carry out the teaching process. Instructional design has long-term goals versus short-term objectives. It may highlight overarching missions like synthesis, overall intellectual development, critical thinking, independence, interdependence, and academic discourse. Although lesson plans may have these goals in mind, they typically zero in on subsets of learning outcomes that may build toward these goals.

Learning outcomes are integral for both instructional design and lesson planning. Part of the instructional design process will be deciding on the measurable learning outcomes that each course and the modules or units within it will address, thus narrowing the scope of course content and differentiating between necessary content and optional content. Assessment methods, both formative and summative, should be based on learning outcomes that have been established for the course. In lesson planning, the learning outcomes will identify the specific tasks and skills that students are expected to perform on that particular day. For example, in instructional design, a teacher may determine that students should be able to compose a well-researched argument essay that addresses divergent viewpoints. In a lesson plan, the teacher may decide that on that particular day, the students should be able to identify rhetorical strategies in a provided essay through class discussion and individual evaluation.

Instructional design, unlike lesson planning, is also concerned with what the students will do when they are not in the class under the direct guidance of the instructor. It may consider flipped lessons, in which the students are responsible for independent assignments that they will then discuss or practice in class. It may take into account how the course will apply to other courses, the students' lives, or the students' prospective careers. It aims to make them better learners, not just better students. It targets overall growth rather than measurable growth using a particular assessment method. Furthermore, it will examine what the students want and expect from the course and from their educational experiences in general. Educators and students are collaborators on the experiences they share, but the students will eventually move on and expand upon those experiences beyond the classroom.

The ultimate question, then, is, "How does the student's experience in a course translate into future success?" This is the question that deep instructional design seeks to answer.

Using Frequent Assessments to Promote Student Success

At the beginning of this new semester, let us evaluate our use of assessments and grading.

Many educators argue that frequent, low-stakes assessment can be extremely beneficial to college-level students. Such assessments may include quizzes, activities, games, writing exercises, presentations, or any other method of determining what students have learned and what they need to learn. They can also address misconceptions and gaps between instructor and student perception of learning. For example, an instructor may believe that the class has understood a lesson or assignment, but a short assessment may prove otherwise. The frequency of the assessment should correlate to significant learning outcomes and provide students with feedback prior to high-stakes assessments, such as module tests, speeches, or exams.

Proponents of low-stakes assessment contend that students build confidence through both practice and instructor feedback, making them more successful long-term and more aware of expectations and success criteria. Low-stakes assessments are typically identified as formative assessments, intended to help students construct the necessary knowledge along the way. High-stakes assessments are usually regarded as summative, occurring at the close of an instructional unit or course to test what students have learned and retained. For more information on formative versus summative assessments, please click here.

One challenge of frequent assessment is the course syllabus/grade distribution. If you teach a course where the majority of the grade is devoted to several high-stakes assessments, which is typical in an ENG course, then you have very few percentage points left for such assessment methods. However, homework, online quizzes, prewriting, seminars, and drafts are often used as low-stakes, formative assessments in these courses.

Another challenge is the extra grading that comes along with frequent assessment. Some instructors opt to use completion grades (a 100 if the student did the assignment, for example) or online tools that automatically grade the work to avoid adding to an already heavy grading load. On the other hand, some instructors use the low-stakes assessments to build the students up to a larger assignment, therefore making final grading of the larger assignment an easier task.

If frequent, low-stakes assessment sounds like a viable option for your students, we encourage you to explore options that may work in your classes. If you already use such assessment methods, then please feel free to share ideas and results with colleagues and supervisors.