College readiness is defined primarily in terms of high school courses taken and grades received along with scores on national tests.
Operational Definition of College Readiness
The level of preparation a student needs in order to enroll and succeed in a credit-bearing general education course at a postsecondary institution that offers a baccalaureate degree or transfer to a baccalaureate program.
Difference between college and high school
1. College instructor pace courses more rapidly; emphasize key thinking skills; expect students make inferences, interpret results, analyze conflicting explanations of phenomena, support arguments with evidence, solve complex problems that have no obvious answer, reach conclusions, offer explanations, conduct research, engage in the give-and-take of ideas (National Research Council, 2002).
2. Students need to read more books (2/10), write multiple papers
3. Relationship between teacher and student
4. Cultural and social expectations about learning and performance.
Current means to determine college readiness
Course titles and grade point averages: few real measures of course quality (a set of criteria that specify the performances necessary to receive a high school diploma) exist currently.
Some tests (Act) are good measures of basic academic skills, but not necessarily of the knowledge and capabilities needed for college success.
Externally-referenced program such as Advanced Placement can be co-opted to serve the purpose of inflating the academic credentials of students without necessarily contributing to the students’ college readiness.
General Education. Defining what it takes to succeed in these entry-level courses is a key component in determining what it means to be college-ready. “College readiness standards” can send clearer messages (what will be expected of students in college) to high schools regarding course content and to state about their high school level standards and assessments.
Components in a comprehensive definition of CR
Facets of CR
1. Contextual skills and awareness
2. Academic behaviors
3. Key content
4. Key cognitive strategies
Key cognitive strategies (pp12-13)
1. Intellectual openness
2. Inquisitiveness
3. Analysis
4. Reasoning, argumentation, proof
5. Interpretation
6. Precision and accuracy
7. Problem solving
Academic knowledge and skills
Overarching academic skills
1. Writing
2. Research
Core Academic Subjects knowledge and Skills
l English
l Math
l Science
l Social Studies
l World Language
l The Arts
Academic Behaviors
l Self-monitoring: a form of metacognition, the ability to think about how one is thinking (p16), monitor actively, regulate, evaluate, and direct their own thinking.
l Study skills necessary for college success: time management, preparing for and taking examinations, using information resources, taking class notes, and communicating with teachers and advisors, ability to participate successfully in a study group and recognize the critical importance of study groups to success in specific subjects.
Contextual Skills and Awareness
l Interpersonal and social skills: the ability to collaborate and work in a team, understand the norms of the “academic” culture and how one interacts with professors and others, interact with people from different backgrounds and cultures, communicate informally, and demonstrate leadership skills in a variety of settings.
l College knowledge, understanding the process: college admissions including curricular, testing and application requirements; college options and choices; tuition costs and the financial aid system; placement requirements, testing and standards; the culture of college; the challenge level of college courses.
A Definition of College Readiness
Students who possess sufficient mastery of key cognitive strategies, key content knowledge, academic behaviors, and contextual knowledge would be defined as being college-ready. They should be able to demonstrate…(p18)
Possible Ways to Measure the Dimensions of this Definition
Key cognitive strategies measurement
Collections of evidence
l Proficiency-based Admission Standards System (PASS) for students applying to the Oregon University System
l Educational Policy Improvement Center is developing a system with will gauge the development of key cognitive strategies along five dimensions: reasoning; argumentation & proof; interpretation; precision & accuracy; problem solving; and research.
Key content knowledge measurement
End-of-course exam
Academic Behaviors Measurement
Survey and inventory where students list their methods, tools and strategies in areas; self assessment of competence; discussion between teachers and students.
A number of major tools will be designed to gauge student competence in these areas (e.g. study skills, time management, self management) with greater precision.
Contextual skills and awareness measurement
Questionnaires
What Schools and students Can Do to Foster College Readiness
Create a culture focused on intellectual development
The intellectual climate of the school is a central element in college readiness.
l Students interact with challenging academic content. School has an intellectually coherent program of study that is systematically designed to focus on “big ideas” (Wiggins and McTeague, 1998). School creates an intellectual and cognitive structure for the content, a structure that can span multiple courses and grade levels.
l Key key cognitive strategies develop over a sequentially progression throughout four years of high school.
l Academic programs should be structured to cause students to demonstrate progressively more control and responsibility for their learning (working independently) as they approach the college level.
Specify core knowledge and skills
To organize the instructional program, the school should adopt formal set of standards, which should be comprehensive to identify the big ideas and supporting knowledge, and infer the mastery of significant subordinate skills and knowledge necessary to achieve them.
Provide necessary supports to students
School should incorporate college readiness activities (e.g. college requirements, financial aid options) into the routines and requirements of the school.
Provide necessary supports to teachers
The necessary support ideally takes the form of professional development activities (e.g. seminars on recent developments in the academic field, debate and discussions of controversial ideas in the subject area, critiques of potential student assignments, and reviews of student writing and a consideration of strategies to improve writing) in which teachers learn to focus their curricula on key ideas and supporting concepts and to teach these through techniques, activities, and assignment that require students to development the key cognitive strategies necessary for college success.
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