Case Study: Reading - Broward College


Digital Product in Use:

Connect® Reading


Course Name:

College Preparatory Reading II


Course Type:

Lecture + lab


Credit Hours:

Four


Textbook in Use:

Experience Reading, Book 2 by Liff, 1e


Instructor Name:

James A. Rogge


Enrollment:

150/year (instructor total)

4000/year (college total)


Case Study Term:

Fall 2010 and Spring 2011


“Connect Reading is more efficient because I integrate what I deliver in my lectures with the timed video lesson for each skill. I stop the video several times during a lesson and add my own ideas, saving time that I used to spend creating Powerpoint slides. Now I have time to show YouTube video examples. With my six class workload, this saves me 20 minutes per class for each lecture, or two hours per week.”

-Professor James A. Rogge

Digital Course Solution Improves Student Success and Instructor Efficiency


Professor Rogge wanted to provide a digital skill learning option for his developmental reading students while facilitating a visual learning skill approach and enhancing English as a Second Language reading skill acquisition. He chose Connect Reading in order to achieve his goals as well as motivate his students to read more efficiently. When comparing one year of results with Connect Reading to the prior year -- a total sample of 394 students -- he found that students using Connect experienced a 4% increase in pass rates for the Florida Reading Exit Exam and a 2% increase in pass rates for the course.

Institution Profile

Broward College (formerly Broward Community College) is a state college in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and part of the Florida College System. Broward offers nine bachelor’s degrees, 66 associate degrees and 58 certificate programs, and it serves 55,000 students annually.

Implementation

Course Description:

College Preparatory Reading II is designed to enhance reading, vocabulary, and study strategies. Students are encouraged to become more efficient readers through extensive use of computerized software focused on increasing vocabulary, comprehension, and reading skills.

Course Grade:

  • 30% of the final grade based on textbook class assignments
  • 20% of the final grade based on performance tests
  • 20% of the final grade based on exit exam
  • 20% of the final grade based on lab requirement
  • 10% of the final grade based on assignments within Connect Reading

Implementation of McGraw-Hill Connect

Professor Rogge uses Connect Reading to provide a cohesive structure to his course, an important goal since he typically teaches five or more sections each term. He accomplishes this by creating separate study units around the thirteen skills presented in Connect. He introduces each skill in class with the Connect video lesson and uses the accompanying highlighting activity as a class activity. He then assigns the Reading Quiz, Skill Quiz, and Practice Quiz as follow-up independent homework assignments after lecture. “Connect Reading gives me sufficient skill review, so I have cut back on my Reading lab written requirements,” he says.

Each week Professor Rogge also gives an assignment with 10-15 conceptual questions covering that week’s learned skill. He then reviews the answers in the next class meeting and asks students to relate the concepts to their own personal experiences. A follow-up Blackboard™ homework quiz in multiple choice format completes the chapter assignments.

In addition to using the automatically graded results as part of the student’s grade, Professor Rogge actively uses the information available to him in the Connect gradebook to give individualized feedback to students about their skill progress.

Results Achieved

Connect Reading increased Professor Rogge’s exit exam pass rate by 4% and fostered an overall upward shift in the exit exam grade distribution (see Figures 1 and 2). He found that his A/B range improved by 7% with Connect and students earning F’s decreased by 3%. In addition to improved student performance on the exit exam, he was pleased to note a 73% pass rate for the course, a 2% increase over the previous year.

Professor Rogge teaches five or more sections per semester. With this many repetitions of lecture material, there can be discrepancies in content coverage from class to class, but Professor Rogge finds that the Connect videos help him to deliver consistent information in all of his classes.

Connect Reading has also been an in-class time-saver for Professor Rogge, allowing him to get more instruction into class sessions than he could before. “I tend to stop the video several times during a lesson and add my own ideas. By doing this, I avoid the hassle of having to locate PowerPoint slides to use for each of the points I make.” He uses the 20 minutes he saves per class to focus on the electronic highlighter activity or to share YouTube videos on the skill he is teaching. He estimates that this saves him 2 hours per week of lecture time over the five or more sections he teaches concurrently. “Connect allows me to lecture with less worry that I might miss something important if I forget to cover a fact about a skill… the next Connect video will make up for my earlier oversight.”

The Connect electronic highlighter activity, a favorite with Professor Rogge’s students, has enhanced student engagement in all of his classes. “Students enjoy the technology and compete for the best score on this activity. Sometimes I compete with them. I do not grade this activity, which takes some pressure off them.”

Conclusion

Professor Rogge plans to continue using Connect Reading in all of his reading classes, and he recommends it to his colleagues not only as a way to improve student test scores, but also to give faculty a better way to teach reading and interact with their students. He happily reports that in a recent survey, over 90% of his students found Connect easy to navigate. This allows him to feel confident that Connect provides his students with an optimal learning experience outside of the classroom.