Abstract
Students who take remedial courses are often prevented from continuing their education because the classes do not count toward their degrees, so they lose financial aid. They also suffer from stigma and disengagement while taking classes that label them as underprepared for college-level work. To reduce such negative effects of developmental education while promoting retention, we redesigned our reading and writing courses. Elevating the rigor and better addressing the needs of our students as college-level readers and writers, our courses now earn college credit. In this article, we describe the rationale for the course restructuring, detail the steps we took to obtain credit, and discuss the challenges. Evidence suggests that these changes have positively influenced student effort and engagement while continuing to tackle student deficiencies.
Recommended Citation
Sachar, C. O., Cheese, M., & Roggenbuck, T. (2021). Upgrading to Credit-Bearing Courses: Redesigning Curriculum with Students First. Journal of Access, Retention, and Inclusion in Higher Education, 2(1). Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.wcupa.edu/jarihe/vol2/iss1/1