Toward a Vision of Accelerated Curriculum & Pedagogy

The movement to reform remedial education is spurred by three important trends in the national research on community colleges: 1) studies showing that huge numbers of students drop out before making meaningful progress in college, and that the more layers of remedial coursework students must take, the lower their completion of college-level English and math; 2) studies questioning the accuracy of the standardized tests that sort students into different levels of remediation, and 3) studies showing significantly better outcomes among students enrolled in accelerated models of remediation.

While the research has clarified key problems in developmental education, and pointed toward promising directions for change, an important question is often missing from the conversation: What does instruction look like in an accelerated class? And how is it different from more traditional approaches to remediation? This monograph articulates a set of core principles and practices for teaching accelerated English and math. In particular, it describes how teachers can support students with widely varying backgrounds and skill levels to be successful in an accelerated environment.