 gratifying to see the success rate of students who otherwise would have failed," said Dr. Jacobs, vice president and associate provost. "It also was a much more engaging and exciting classroom environment."
At Carnegie Mellon, about 150 students in David Yaron's modern chemistry class work in a "virtual chemistry lab," part of an ongoing redesign that lets them experience the work that chemists do. Dr. Yaron said online lectures that students listen to before showing up enable him to skip a lot of talking and get right to working on their skills.
"Classes become more diagnostic," he said. "You're spending more time assessing how they did on the problems and working to strengthen areas where they need to be strengthened."
The changes aren't limited to four-year schools.
At Westmoreland County Community College, faculty and staff grew tired of watching first-year students with reading problems founder.
"It's difficult to expect a student to succeed if you tell him, 'You can't read at college level, but here's a history textbook. Go take this history course.'"
So this fall, an experimental course will be co-taught by a history instructor and a developmental reading instructor, whose reading assignments will tie in with history.
Similarly, a speech course is being paired with a class on college success. And instead of taking a three-credit developmental math class one semester, followed by a three-credit algebra course the next, some students can take a four-credit class that combines the two, cutting time and saving $200 in tuition costs.
The school, among community colleges receiving grants from a national student success initiative called Achieving the Dream, says the payoff may be in fewer dropouts.
"For every 100 students that we lose now," said staffer Randy Finfrock, "if we can save five of them this year, I'll take it."
Bill Schackner can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.org or 412-263-1977.