Exponential Attrition and the Promise of Acceleration
Katie Hern and Myra Snell recently collaborated to create an article for the RP Group’s statewide newsletter Perspectives. The article argues that high rates of student attrition are structurally guaranteed in long developmental sequences and presents evidence from Chabot and Los Medanos colleges that one-semester, open-access courses are a promising way to increase student completion rates in college-level English and Math. The full article is linked above.
About Katie Hern
Katie Hern began teaching English in 1991 and has conducted several inquiries into student learning. These include a study of what she calls “the sustainability gap,” or why capable students earn passing grades on individual tests/papers and then withdraw or fail a class. Katie has served as coordinator of a learning community, co-coordinator of the Carnegie SPECC project, and co-chair of the college-wide basic skills committee. In her previous work at John F. Kennedy University, she was founding director of the Academic Support Center, project manager for a WASC Self-Study, and Dean of Academic Affairs. Katie has given presentations and workshops across California on faculty inquiry, learning communities, and integrated reading-writing instruction, and her work has been featured in Inside Higher Education and the National Teaching and Learning Forum. She is also co-author of the memoir Reunion: A Year in Letters Between a Birthmother and the Daughter She Couldn't Keep. Katie holds an EdD and MA in Educational Leadership from Mills College and a MA in American Culture Studies from Bowling Green State University.
