Thanks to Frank Cronin for a return appearance as guest blogger. Today, Frank’s topic is the Leg’s mandate concerning DevEd and paired sections, along with an LAHC initiative to improve the paired sections infrastructure.
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Let’s Lead the Way
The Texas Legislature in the 2017 session passed a bill requiring 75% of DEVED courses in higher education to be paired with college level courses by 2020. The INRW department in its current and earlier forms, DEVR and DEVW, has done these kinds of pairing since the early 2000s:
- Comp 4.0: Exit level DEVW with Composition One
- DEVR with various courses in Social and Behavioral Sciences
- The Write Way to Public Speaking: exit level DEVW with Public Speaking.
Our department has also had experience and success with learning communities:
- Academic Triangle One and Two: DEVR with DEVW and Study Skills
- Intersections: DEVW with MATD and Study Skills.
There are two options to the DEVED/college course paired offerings. One is a minimal connection between the two courses from no contact between the two faculty members to little contact between the two faculty members. The other is a more nuanced and cooperative collaboration that seeks to integrate the curricula of both courses. This is the model that we followed with the above mentioned paired courses and learning communities. And this model is the one that best benefits the students.
To realize the latter, ACC can address the following issues and or problems among others:
- Marketing of the paired course offerings with information about its benefits to students
- Better communication among deans, department chairs, and faculty
- Staffing priorities to allow the same two teachers to develop the paired course over many semesters
- Discussion about class size limits
- Discussion about possible adjustments to both curricula without diminishing the academic rigor of either
- Close work with advisors about the offerings
- Discussion about how to integrate ACC Learning Labs into the curricula.
Our dean, Matthew Daude-Laurents is interested in working with INRW and college level teachers to develop a structure for the best implementation of the courses in this initiative. This spring he plans meetings to discuss the above and other ideas, providing us an opportunity to lead the way at ACC and in the state of Texas.
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I hope a bit of comment from me will be tolerated. I am most interested in creating an infrastructure for the implementation of paired sections, primarily because I believe that supporting the professors engaged in these courses is the best way the division can contribute to student success. My goal is to make the implementation more seamless, so that professors can focus on levering their expertise to serve students.
I am organizing a town hall meeting in early April so I can hear directly from professors of paired sections about their experiences, and Frank and I are forming an ad hoc committee to help create this infrastructure. We will use the information we gain in the town hall meeting to design something that, at the very least, avoids the problems people have had.
My thanks to Frank and to those of you who have taught paired sections (whether they were mandated or not!). I hope you’ll join me in the effort to make this initiative work for students.
