For those who may not be familiar with HB 2223, let me start with a brief introduction.
There are many details in the bill, but we will be dealing with two key components. First, there’s a phased requirement to increase the percentage of developmental education courses that are co-requisite with college credit courses. There’s a good bit of evidence that students achieve proficiency in college reading and writing skills more quickly when the remediation is contextualized, so this provision is probably going in the right direction for student success.
The second major provision of the bill is likely have a more significant impact on programming. The bill mandates a reduction in the number of developmental credit hours eligible for state reimbursement from 27 to 18. This means that students will have fewer sections in which to achieve college proficiency, and fewer sections for students will most likely mean fewer sections taught.
THECB resources like this webinar and slides provide a good overview, examples of corequisite models, etc., so you may want to take advantage of such resources to learn more. Meanwhile, I am taking a proactive stance with regard to these provisions. I’ve met with Julie Wauchope and representatives of various functions in the college to identify potential challenges, and for the most part, we are in good shape.
First, we know how to approach the co-req model, since we had already started offering paired sections. This has provided a solid platform of experience with the challenges associated with co-req courses, and some very interesting and apparently effective course design models are emerging.
Second, this has also given us the opportunity to solve some of the technical problems associated with creating and listing the sections, as well as advising challenges (such as situations in which a student drops the developmental half of a pair but wishes to remain in the credit section). There are still difficulties, but in solving some of the big problems, we’re ahead of the curve.
While much of our current focus has been on meeting the co-req’ing requirement, we also need to think ahead about the impact of the reduction in reimbursable credit hours on the INRW department faculty. I’ve had some preliminary discussions about this challenge, and I will soon be engaging INRW professors in more discussion about our options, including transferring qualified faculty to other departments.
In all this, my approach is to be proactive and create a process that allows us to reflect on options and opportunities and develop a plan for maximizing student success, persistence, and completion. If you have ideas, please join in!
Thank you for this update and willingness to proactively explore a variety of options.