Enhanced Dual Enrollment System (EDES)
A comprehensive approach to high-quality dual enrollment and coordinated student supports, EDES is designed to ensure that students from traditionally underserved groups succeed in college. EDES was collaboratively developed with the Middle College National Consortium and builds on college-readiness lessons learned from the Early College High School Initiative and innovations developed by Dr. David Conley's Educational Policy Improvement Center (EPIC).
EDES focuses on increasing college readiness in English, mathematics and other subjects by integrating four elements:
Collaborative Relationships
Enhanced dual enrollment builds on existing secondary-postsecondary collaborations to provide dual enrollment, but typically requires a greater depth of partnership to provide a coherent academic program, coordinated student supports, and professional development. Both formal partnership and informal collaborations provide the necessary conditions for students from traditionally underserved groups to participate in a dual enrollment program that prepares them for success in college. The Woodrow Wilson Foundation helps partner high schools expand the pool of students who are ready to succeed in postsecondary education through strategies based on:
1. Clifford Adelman's research in the Toolbox Revisited that found the factor most predictive of students' future success in college—leading ultimately to graduation—is the rigor of the high school courses students take, and
2. David Conley's work about the necessary supports and nonacademic components that must be implemented in conjunction with academic rigor.
Academic Program
Selected dual enrollment courses
Not all dual enrollment courses are created equal. Some are much more likely to provide opportunities for students to acquire the knowledge and key cognitive strategies—like critical thinking, reasoning and analysis, and problem-solving—that research has shown to increase their chances of future college success. EDES focuses on those courses, and provides faculty a way to:
- gauge the extent to which current course offerings address key cognitive strategies and,
- strengthen course designs when they are in need of improvement.
EPIC's course review process is the first step in developing high quality dual enrollment courses that are designed to help students, especially lower-achieving students, do well in them. This course review guides the training and support provided by Woodrow Wilson and EPIC staff in dual enrollment curriculum development.
Student preparation, guided by diagnostic assessments
Early assessments guide students to make good academic choices during high school. EDES students complete EPIC's College-Readiness Performance Assessment System (C-PAS) each year to demonstrate and improve their learning of the key cognitive strategies they need to do well in college courses.
High school courses provide students their actual preparation for college learning, but only when they align with first-year college courses in each subject area. Through EDES training provided by Woodrow Wilson, high school faculty work with college faculty to align coursework and incorporate the skills and knowledge students need to be successful in the next course in a sequence. This alignment is guided by the same college knowledge, skills, and key cognitive strategies that are the foundation for C-PAS assessment and dual enrollment curriculum development.
Coordinated Student Supports
Students from groups traditionally underserved in college, especially lower- and middle-achieving students, need consistently high quality courses with built-in supports in order to be prepared for college-level expectations. Guided by Woodrow Wilson staff, high school and postsecondary partners work collaboratively to develop a strong support model that accounts for individual student needs, the dual enrollment courses available, and the strategies known to support students in college-level courses. This includes strategies used by early colleges to help underserved students succeed:
- Incorporating academic support assistance into college-level courses (stretching the course length, adding an extra lab session, supplemental instruction)
- College seminar (teaching academic skills like managing increased workload, independent learning, metacognitive skills)
- Bridge programs (2-week academic ramp-up workshops prior to enrollment in a college course)
- Academic resources (tutoring, writing support, peer study groups, test prep, guidance counseling)
Early College examples of the comprehensive approach to student support:
- CAL Prep's support resource guide
- STAR/Brooklyn College's transition plan
- East Palo Alto Academy High School's approach to self-efficacy
Professional Development
The enhanced dual enrollment system works for underserved students when faculty, administrators, and counselors have the tools and training they need to prepare students for college success and when an entire school promotes a college-going culture. Formalized processes ensure that enhanced dual enrollment courses are delivered in a manner consistent with postsecondary expectations. A series of professional development opportunities for secondary and postsecondary personnel typically focus on the following elements:
- introducing the EDES model of college readiness and success
- establishing secondary and postsecondary expectations for student performance
- aligning high school curriculum with first-year college courses
- integrating student support and instruction
- creating a school-wide college-going culture
- incorporating the knowledge and key cognitive strategies students need for college success into high school and dual enrollment curricula
- using student learning data for continuous improvement
Partners
If You’re Interested
For more information about the Enhanced Dual Enrollment System, please contact Rob Baird, Vice President for School-University Partnerships, at (609) 452-7007, ext. 122.