Book Review: Basic Skills Education in Community Colleges: Inside and Outside of Classrooms, by Grubb, W. N., & Gabriner, R.

Abstract

Grubb, W. N., & Gabriner, R. (2013). Basic Skills Education in Community Colleges: Inside and Outside of Classrooms. New York, NY: Routledge. 244 pp. $150.00 (hardback). ISBN 978-0-415-63474-8 $46.95 (paper). ISBN 978-0-415-63475-5 $46.95 (eBook). ISBN 978-0-203-09429-7.Basic Skills Education in Community Colleges: Inside and Outside of Classrooms by W. Norton Grubb with Robert Gabriner (2013) is a comprehensive, current, and creative examination of challenges students and educators face in bridging gap in skills common among entering college students. The authors' primary intent is to shed light on multitude of causes and effects of system most often referred to as developmental or remedial education in community colleges. While research reported in this book is specific to California system, both challenges and potential solutions can be generalized easily to community colleges in other parts of country.The authors are both education researchers from California universities. W. Norton Grubb is an Emeritus Professor and David Pierpont Gardner Chair in Higher Education at Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley. He has researched and written extensively on schooling and economics, secondary and higher education systems, and movement between systems. Robert Gabriner is Professor of Educational Leadership and Director of Educational Leadership Doctoral Program for Schools and Community Colleges at San Francisco State University. He has researched and written on success and systems leadership in higher education.The authors present a straightforward interpretation of problem of basic skills education referencing what they call the triangle of instruction. In this model, content/curriculum, student, and instructor anchor comers of a triangle mediated along sides by instructors' knowledge of content, knowledge of student, and their context inside framework of institution. Validating this model in practice allows authors to draw a set of related conclusions and recommendations for improving future education experiences for students struggling with college readiness.Basic Skills Education in Community Colleges utilizes active research at 20 California colleges, including observations in 169 classes and interviews with 323 educators. This research explores variety of needs of developmental students, quality of instruction, availability and quality of services like tutoring and counseling, alignment of course sequence, and instructional characteristics of institutions. Throughout, the triangle of instruction is applied as a framework for organizing findings and exploring contexts.The initial portion of book describes problem of basic skills education as authors see it from a classroom perspective. These issues include dominance of remedial pedagogy, innovations in Basic Skills Instruction, possibilities and limits of services, and a case study exploring problem of basic skills education in practice. The case study describes efforts one California community college undertook to address needs for help with basic skills. The school chose to implement changes to services branch of system by creating student success on each of their three campuses. These centers became focal point for several services designed to address most common needs. Services included peer tutoring (drop in and scheduled), ongoing and frequent faculty-led skill building workshops, structured learning groups on specific skill development, and directed learning activities led by peer tutors, supervised by faculty, and customized to fill specific gaps in skills needed for course progression. …