Andrew K. Koch - Improving Teaching, Learning, Equity, and Success in Gateway Courses: New Directions for Higher Education, Number 180

Improving Teaching, Learning, Equity, and Success in Gateway Courses

Andrew K. Koch

New Directions for Higher Education, no. 180

Coeditors: Betsy O. Barefoot and Jillian L. Kinzie

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Gateway coursescollege creditbearing and/or developmental education courses that enroll large numbers of students and have high rates of Ds, Fs, withdrawals, and incompletes (Koch & Rodier, 2016)are a ubiquitous part of the undergraduate experience in the United States. As long as there have been U.S. colleges and universities, there have been entry courses that pose difficulties for studentscourses that have served more as weeding-out rather than gearing-up experiences for undergraduates. Perhaps the gateway-course weed-out function was more appropriate in the days when a college or university credential was reserved for a privileged few, or even during the era when a high school credential was more than adequate preparation for work and life in a democratic republic. But we no longer live in those times.

I believe that the gateway-course weed-out dynamic is no longer acceptableif it ever was. Contemporary postsecondary education is characterized by vastly expanded access for historically underserved populations of students, and this new level of access is coupled with increased scrutiny of retention and graduation outcomes. Many of those outcomes are less than desirable. Academic difficulties in gateway courses are particularly pronounced for underserved students who, along with their families, are being expected to bear an increasing portion of the financial burden of postsecondary education. As a result of these less-than-desirable course outcomes and the lower retention rates that correlate with them, policy makers are questioning the investment of public monies in postsecondary education, and students and their families question that value of the college experience itself.

Make no mistake: I am not arguing that a solution to the gateway-course problem is watering down course rigor and content, nor are the other chapter authors in this volume. We believe that those who teach gateway courses and the institutions that offer them must uphold academic standards. But we maintain that they must do so by incorporating the latest evidence-based teaching, learning, and support strategies and by making sure that what happens in the gateway classroom is not contributing to the creation of a permanent underclass. There are tremendous institutional-viability and social-justice implications at play here.

This volume can serve as a resource for those who seek ways to improve teaching and learning in courses that have historically high failure rates. As a result, the volume can also contribute to the improvement of gateway-course outcomes and completion ratesespecially for America's most historically underserved and underprivileged populations that comprise an ever-increasing portion of the student body.