Can We Eliminate “Remediation?” Yes – with EdReady

The NROC ProjectI’m going to skip over the first 30 minutes of the morning keynote because it was an impromptu/unannounced business meeting for the Instructional Technology Council. Usually this is an announced meeting, but I think they made it a surprise to have a captive audience. Let’s just say, that didn’t work.Again, moving on…The biggest concern I have about this morning plenary is that it’s a “sponsored” presentation. The purpose of the session isn’t just to talk about what types of services EdReady by NROC provides, but also serves as a way to convince people to become members. Based on that alone, I don’t have very high expectations.Here is an introductory video of EdReady by NROC if you aren’t familiar with the concept.https://youtu.be/12Ef3IdghgAOne of the first slides presented is a graph showing the correlation between more prior knowledge and being more prepared for college. The presenter makes note that most institutions use tests to create a “cut score” – a score where anyone scoring below that “cut score” must take remedial courses. This score is usually arbitrary. I don’t have any disagreement with that notion.The next graph shown is a more realistic slide. Titled, “the problem with placement,” the slide shows that depending there is a correlation between a student’s amount of prior knowledge, and our confidence on where they fall on their level/readiness for college.https://twitter.com/evinsmj/status/834034233664483329https://twitter.com/SophiaKowalski/status/834034392230146049https://twitter.com/DeanJimBerg/status/834034802802229250The presenters showed a short overview video of what NROC does, their objectives. I think it looked pretty simplistic and makes me wonder how easy it is for students to fake their way through the remediation. Another concern from Karen Sorensen:https://twitter.com/ksorensun/status/834035285361094656I like the notion of a “personalized learning approach” to get students to increase their point on the graph against that “cut score.” What I’m kind of confused about is that this sounds like remediation outside of the classroom, rather than actually eliminating the remediation. https://twitter.com/DeanJimBerg/status/834035570519244801Instead of looking at EdReady as a way to eliminate remediation, it could be seen as a way of cutting down on cost. https://twitter.com/barrydahl/status/834037768141623296I hope that’s where they are coming from, because they certainly aren’t eliminating remediation – it’s just not happening in the classroom. One of the things that I may have missed, is when do the students go through EdReady? Are they doing it during the semester, before the semester starts? If it’s during the semester, then there is no difference than taking a remediation course – they might as well be taking a remediation course in college. Maybe I’m missing something with that.Overall, I feel like EdReady has a very niche market. If students are wanting to be engineers, architects, or other fields that require a strong math background. In these cases, EdReady could be useful to ensure students have the requisite knowledge before taking the more advanced courses. But what about people who want to go to trade schools, or into other professions where a strong math background isn’t necessary? Another important question is:https://twitter.com/DeanJimBerg/status/834041875275341824If students are taking the EdReady program during the semester, then that’s just 1 more thing they have to balance, during a time where they likely need to be more focused on the remediation. But like Jim indicated above, what does their course load look like while students are in EdReady? Are they able to take relevant classes? Are they in a “holding pattern” until the EdReady courses are completed? It’s really not clear. Like I said in the pervious paragraph:https://twitter.com/evinsmj/status/834041468268449792