Community college journal of research and practice
Paginering:
Jaargang 17 (1993) nr. 1 pagina's 59-73
Jaar:
1993
Inhoud:
An inexpensive program, at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a public urban institution offering both associate's and bachelor's degrees, improves the retention of students for about three terms after their first semester. This program, called the Linkage Program, now in its fifth year, links small groups of entering freshmen with similar academic skills in three courses. Their instructors meet beforehand to coordinate some linked assignments and class materials. The program makes use of already existing faculty and courses and requires no more than a part-time coordinator with a secretary for its implementation. An initial experimental semester, Fall 1986, during which groups of entering freshmen were block-registered in all five of their courses, produced both positive and negative effects: More of these linked students continued at the college than did a control group of their peers, and those who stayed fared better academically. However, their classroom behavior as linked freshmen was so immature that the following year the number of linked courses was reduced to three. This arrangement still increased retention and academic performance, and it also reduced immature behavior. In addition, as an unexpected bonus, the Linkage Program highlighted for faculty outside the skills departments the need for content courses for freshmen needing skills remediation. Such freshmen had hitherto been hidden in introductory courses in departments outside of English, reading, and -math, and they invariably did poorly. In response to this increased awareness, the faculty at John Jay College are now devising a Prefreshman Program for such students.
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