Closing the Gap: Groundbreaking Project Aims to Improve Gateway Course Outcomes for Undergraduate Students in Michigan and California
The Gardner Institute, in partnership with Motivate Lab and Damour Systems, launched the second stage of this Kresge Foundation supported Course Redesign work with postsecondary institutions in urban ecosystems in June of 2021. Applying lessons learned about impact and scale and highly successful Kresge Foundation-funded Michigan Gateways to Completion (now called Course Redesign) project, this new phase focuses on addressing significant issues that have come to the forefront as a result of the global pandemic.
Reports of lower enrollment of students facing financial hardship and other challenges particularly at community colleges and at regional comprehensives, make addressing already problematic outcomes in gateway courses and the curriculum of which those courses are a part even more of an imperative. The resulting effort is designed to build on the success of the Michigan Gateways to Completion initiative by combining gateway course redesign and curricular analytics in order to better serve students enrolled in gateway courses at urban colleges and universities in Michigan and California.
Goals
• To improve student success—as measured by student learning, grades, retention, persistence, and completion rates—through the creation and implementation of gateway course redesign plans.
• To apply redesign plans to at least 50% of all sections of the courses that are being redesigned.
• To address poor outcomes in gateway courses—to ensure that students start, succeed in, and complete courses in degree pathways with high workplace value
Institutional Partners
Organizational Partners
Enhancing Equity: Redesigning Gateway Courses in Michigan & California
Key Insights
- Five institutions with a combined enrollment of nearly 80,000 students are participating from California and Michigan.
- The participating institutions have analyzed 49 separate curriculum maps and discovered specific areas of blockage in gateway courses and curriculum pathways on which to focus.
Next Steps
- Gardner Institute and Damour will continue to help institutions refine curricular analytics work based on evidence collected.
- Gardner Institute will continue supporting Course Redesign based on collected evidence.
Participating institutions will provide the Gardner Institute with annual updates of post-census data sets. - Gardner Institute will conduct analysis of lagging indicators to share with participants and other appropriate audiences.
Outcomes
colleges and universities and over 67,000 students served.
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students impacted at institutions
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separate curriculum maps created
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