NRCC History Book

71

students who need wraparound student services and academic support. (5) Professional development opportunities for faculty teaching developmental English will be provided. Beginning in Spring 2013, separate developmental courses in reading and writing were replaced with Preparing for College English I, II, and III, which covered both reading and writing. Starting in 2012, the VCCS adopted a systemwide developmental math curriculum, allowing students to focus only on math con cepts they had not mastered. Semester-long developmental math courses were replaced with nine remedial units. Units could be taken as one-credit classes or web-based lessons with variable credit hours allowing students to complete more than one unit per semester in a self-paced computer lab or classroom. The Virginia Placement Test for math (VPT) replaced the Computer-adaptive Placement Assessment and Support Services (COMPASS) test and was used to determine which math unit(s) students took. The goals of the math redesign were an improved pass rate for developmental math, a quicker tran sition into college-level courses, reduced cost of attending college, and increased retention and graduation rates. In 2018 all VCCS colleges adopted a concept-based, common nursing curriculum. Different from traditional content-based learning, which emphasized the ability to recall facts in isolation, concept-based learn ing concentrated on understanding central concepts, developing high-level thinking skills, and applying the knowledge to vari ous situations. Ahead of four-year institu tions, VCCS nursing programs were the first in Virginia to adopt a concept-based nursing curriculum. By the academic year 2018-19, all nursing courses were redesigned, and the

common nursing curriculum was taught in all VCCS colleges. Instrumentation and Control Automation Technology Changes . In the fall of 2014, Montie Fleshman, professor of instrumentation, led the redesign of all the instrumentation courses to require three parts—an in-person class meeting, an in-person lab section, and an online component. The new online component included assigned readings and Panopto recordings produced by the instructors for the students to view outside of class. A hybrid instructional approach had never been used in instrumentation since the program began with Billy Friend in the early 1960s at the New River Vocational Technical School. Offering the online component allowed more students to enter the program, especially working students with various time constraints. Early morning and late afternoon classes and lab sections were offered, and the number of students graduating from the program almost doubled. For example, the average number of graduates from AY 2010-11 to AY 2013 14 was approximately 18. For the remainder of the decade, the number of graduates increased almost 43 percent from 28 in AY 2014-15 to 40 in AY 2019-20. A record number of graduates occurred in AY 2016 17 when 47 students received their associate degree in Instrumentation and Control Automation Technology. Transfer Virginia . The Transfer Virginia initiative began in 2018 with legislation addressing transfer policies; the creation of a portal; common course learning outcomes; and collaboration among the Commonwealth’s two- and four-year colleges and universities, the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV), and the Aspen Institute College Excellence

Chapter 2