The Problem
When instruction lacks coherent alignment between standards, instruction, and responsive feedback, students are expected to perform at a level they have not been intentionally prepared to meet.
These outcomes point to a misalignment between prior learning experiences and the design of college-level instruction.
Our Solution
This institute is built on a different premise: If we change how instruction is designed, aligned, and delivered, more students will succeed—without lowering expectations.
By strengthening instructional coherence, embedding real-time feedback, and creating structured opportunities for intervention and reassessment, institutions can significantly increase first-time pass rates in gateway courses and improve long-term student outcomes.
What Participants Experience
This institute is designed for institutions committed to strengthening student success in gateway courses. Key focus areas include:
- aligning course objectives, instruction, and assessment to ensure coherence and rigor
- identifying critical points in the learning process where students need timely feedback and support
- strengthening the use of assessment data to inform instructional decisions
- designing opportunities for targeted intervention and continue learning
- establishing greater consistency across course sections through shared expectations and aligned practices
Participants will engage in guided planning to begin redesigning targeted courses in ways that better support student success while maintaining academic expectations.
Specific tools, templates, and implementation models are developed during the institute experience.
Who Should Attend
This institute is designed for:
- college faculty teaching freshmen-level courses
- A framework for designing gateway courses that are rigorous, coherent, and aligned from objective through assessment
- Techniques for identifying the critical points in a course where students most often disengage or fall behind, and a plan for responding before it is too late
- Stronger formative feedback practices that give students actionable information about their progress while there is still time to adjust
- Redesigned course materials with tighter alignment between what is taught, how it is assessed, and what support is available when students struggle
- Protocols for establishing consistency across course sections so that student outcomes are not determined by which section they were assigned
- A shared implementation plan that faculty teams can act on immediately when they return to campus
- college faculty teaching freshman-level gateway courses in English Composition, mathematics, or other high-stakes disciplines
- department chairs and academic deans responsible for course design, faculty development, and student success outcomes
- institutional leaders focused on retention, persistence, and degree completion
- faculty teams actively redesigning gateway courses or preparing to do so
- more students pass on the first attempt because instruction is aligned to what success actually requires
- repeated enrollment decreases, reducing the financial and motivational cost that derails degree completion
- student retention and persistence improve because early success in gateway courses builds the momentum that carries students forward
- instructional consistency across sections means student outcomes are determined by the quality of the course, not the luck of the schedule
- department chairs and academic deans
- institutional leaders focused on student success and retention
- faculty teams redesigning gateway courses
Higher Education Institute
13-16 Teaching and Learning
Two-Day Hosted InstituteThe Problem
The problem is rarely the students. It is the gap between how gateway courses are designed and what students actually need to succeed in them. When course objectives, instruction, and assessment are not coherently aligned, students are held to expectations they have not been intentionally prepared to meet. They arrive underprepared, encounter instruction that does not respond to where they are, and disengage before they have a real chance to succeed.
This is not about lowering expectations. It is about building the instructional conditions that make it possible for more students to meet them the first time.
Our Solution
This institute is built on a clear premise: if we change how instruction is designed, aligned, and delivered in gateway courses, more students will succeed without sacrificing academic rigor.
This is a two-day working experience for college faculty and institutional leadership teams. Day 1 establishes the framework: what coherent, rigorous course design looks like, how to align objectives and assessment so students know what is expected and why, and how to embed real-time feedback so that learning gaps surface during the course rather than after the final grade. Day 2 is where teams do the work. Faculty engage in guided redesign of targeted courses, building the alignment, feedback structures, and intervention opportunities their students need to persist and succeed. Participants leave with a concrete plan and redesigned materials, not just a new perspective on the problem.
What Participants Walk Away With
Who Should Attend
This institute is designed for institutions that are serious about improving gateway course outcomes and willing to examine how instruction itself contributes to the problem. It is most effective when faculty and institutional leaders attend together:
Impact
When gateway courses are designed with coherence, rigor, and real-time responsiveness:
Impact
When instructional systems are aligned, responsive, and grounded in data, more students succeed the first time. By redesigning how gateway courses are taught, institutions can:
- increase pass rates in freshmen-level courses
- reduce the need for repeated course enrollment
- improve student retention and persistence
- strengthen overall institutional outcomes
This work is not about lowering expectations but about creating the conditions for more students to meet them.